(Walson)

We have dedicated two days to preparing for the trip, and today is the day that we have planned to head out.

But to be completely honest, it was really because we had to wait two days before Grace’s day off.

We can’t just leave our work behind and go on an adventure, you know? Have to be responsible and all.

Our objective is to find out why the land is weakening – and hopefully solve the issue if I can. I am not trying to be boastful and say that we can single handedly solve the problem, but I am just saying that it would be great if we save everyone’s time by investigating and resolving the issue both at once.

We have no idea what is causing this, but it has been causing ALL the farmland near the area to go barren in a blink of an eye.

Assuming that this was truly caused by the lack of mana in the land, then this could be categorized as a “disaster”. Like how earthquakes and tsunamis are counted as disasters, the mana of the land suddenly disappearing is also considered to be disastrous.

Although I originally thought that the issue was similar to how the nutrients in the soil were out of balance (which would cause infertility), the problem is really much more serious than that.

Slowly, everything will decay until there is nothing but a barren desert. If things get to that point, then it’s truly hopeless and irreversible.

Speaking of which, this world does not often experience troubles like this. Since even if there was a drought and no rain would fall, people could still hire [Mages] to cast water magic, and water the crops that way.

It was obvious that it wasn’t just a bad harvest in hindsight. Bad harvest, for everyone, everywhere nearby, and several months consecutively? Infertility wouldn’t be like this, unless someone intentionally salted the fields. But a salted field is very obvious to notice, and to salt every single field at once would be impossible to not be ratted out by someone.

No casualties have been reported. The price for food stuff has drastically increased. It should be just a matter of time before someone – and eventually everyone – finally starves to death.

Famine.

How scary…

The capital of our kingdom shouldn’t be aware of the news yet, but messengers have been dispatched. They would probably send some help later on.

Hiring adventurers is probably just a stop-gap. Because if an average adventurer could solve such a large issue on their own, then they would be heroes and not adventurers.

______________________

Grace, Melon and I are walking along the marshy bog. We were wearing shoes with long traction cleats to avoid slipping.

“So much mud…” Grace was already starting to spam teleportation, not willing to touch the ground for too long.

Hey girl, don’t be so lazy! If you only teleport and not exercise, you’re gonna grow fat.

“Master, be careful.” Melon was surveying the surroundings with a frown on her face.

She was wary for a reason, and I am aware of that reason.

We have already been surrounded.

But honestly, we really have no intention to avoid combat. In fact, we are mighty curious to what we would encounter around this region.

Ominous ‘clack clack’ sounds were coming from every direction.

[Rotten Zombie Swordsman_LV31_HP:365/365_Status: Curse of the Wither (I)_Title: None]

[Rotten Zombie Swordsman_LV32_HP:380/380_Status: Curse of the Wither (I)_Title: None]

[Rotten Zombie Archer_LV33_HP:402/402_Status: Curse of the Wither (I)_Title: None]

[Rotten Zombie Mage_LV30_HP:355/355_Status: Curse of the Wither (I)_Title: None]

[Rotten Zombie Berserker_LV36_HP:721/721_Status: Curse of the Wither (I), Berserk (III)_Title: None]

Five of these zombies are walking towards us in an almost orderly fashion. All of them are wearing tattered equipment.

The biggest one of all has a gigantic rusty axe, and full body armor which almost half of it has rusted over.

The heck? Their level is pretty damn high!

At first, I thought we would eliminate all undead that we encounter – since we really need more bonemeal.

But their average level exceeds 30, plus they have a mage AND a berserker.

Could this be a team of adventurers that died here a long time ago? In terms of strength, that berserker in particular stands out.

Oh, I think I should explain the differences between zombies and skeletons.

Skeleton monsters appear naturally in environments with high mana density, while Zombies require corpses and have to be altered post-mortem.

And… that “Curse of the Wither”… What is that status? I’ve never seen it before.

It reminds me of a monster that a player could encounter in the Nether of  Minecraft.

The Wither Skeleton.

They are a type of skeletal monster that has pitch black coloring, fire immunity, and causes the negative status effect “Wither” to be applied to whomever it attacks.

The “Wither” status is similar to poison in that it would continuously chip down your health over time.

But this sort of monster should only appear in the Nether, and so far I have never seen anything like it in this world.

Also, the Zombies do not seem like they are losing any health.

Which must mean that “Wither” and “Curse of the Wither” are two different things? Is it a coincidence?

Should we retreat?

… No, it doesn’t look like that’s an option. They are already starting to fight us.

I took out a wall of stone that I had assembled in advance, using it to block a dark sphere that was sent by the Zombie Mage. They are too slow.

The Zombie Mage continues to chant… Uhm… do Zombies have the vocal cords to chant spells? Anyway, it’s not stopping, and it has successfully casted a spell already so questioning it now wouldn’t matter.

“Hey, girls! Don’t use fire! We won’t have bones to make [Bonemeal] otherwise.”

“●●○● ￣, Shadow Hammer!” Grace did not bother to give me a response and showed me she understood with her actions instead.

I inspired Grace to create this spell. I originally brainstormed with her about new attacks and told her that having a black hammer to deal blunt damage wouldn’t be amiss.

She has successfully deciphered the ancient alphabet and created a new spell of her own. What a genius.

The spell can deal massive damage, but because of that fact that she still doesn’t have high efficiency for that particular spell, she cannot cast it in quick succession.

The Zombie Mage from earlier seems to be dumbfounded and was immediately crushed to bits by the hammer.

By the way, spells in this world are made up of the elemental energies of Fire, Water, Earth, Air, plus Light and Dark.

The first four are ‘bound’ to certain forms, like fire. You can’t expect a fireball to not be burning and still call it a fire spell.

But Light and Dark are not bound by forms. You can change its shape however you want – as long as you know the words to reshape them. Grace’s Shadow Hammer is a good example of how malleable spells are so long as you know what you’re doing.

Light magic is not often used offensively, and is more focused on healing or supporting.

But Light magic has the special effect of cleansing, and is excellent when used against undead. But that way the undead would all evaporate. In this case, we WANT the bones, so Light magic is out of the question.

The Zombie Archer shot an arrow at Grace, but she disappeared in a flurry of flower petals.

Using teleportation to avoid attacks is only one of the many applications of it.

The moment that Grace disappeared, another shadow hammer slammed into the Archer from top to bottom, once again crushing it to bits.

How amazing! Grace is LV27, but she can handle LV30 monsters with such ease.

It seems like I was being too much of a worrywart when the thought of ‘retreat’ came into my mind. We can take on these guys no problem.

The enemy only had two ranged attackers, and both were handled by Grace. So now I switched my attention to Melon.

… I guess I know why Grace didn’t immediately fire spells at the other Zombies now.

Melon is having a close-ranged combat against the berserker and the two swordsmen.

No, wait. The swordsmen can’t even touch her, that means they are not really part of the combat.

One of the swordsmen listlessly threw out an attack, Melon would misdirect it by pushing it away. The end result was that the blade ended up cutting the other Zombie swordsman. An arm fell off.

Then Melon swiftly ended the first Zombie who dared to attack her with a vicious elbow blow to the head.

At the same time, she did a roundhouse kick that scattered the Zombie missing an arm into pieces.

She’s only LV26, but her power is irrefutable. She kills these monsters in one hit.

The last one remaining, the Zombie Berserker made some clicking sounds, and lifted its axe to make an intimidating overhead strike.

“Watch -” I was still in the process of pronouncing ‘out’ when Melon defeated the berserker.

She closed the distance in the blink of an eye, and the Zombie Berserker was missing a knee.

She did not falter and continued her assault by landing an uppercut while the Zombie Berserker was tilting to one side due to losing its balance.

The uppercut went right through the skull, obliterating it in one hit.

Her actions were smooth, and not a single move was wasted.

“…” I stared at Melon speechlessly.

WOOOOOOOOW! Kung Fu master!

Her level hasn’t risen too much since the time we went honey hunting six months ago. But she has undoubtedly become stronger.

How the hell did she get this strong? All I ever did was make ten iron dummies for you to practice. Did that really make that much of a difference?

I GOT to look at her stats again with the [Stone Tablet of Identification] once we get back.

Technically, all three of us are having a hard time trying to increase our level. Since normally it’s not possible to go on expeditions frequently. Plus we were all busy.

… But man, Melon’s growth is phenomenal.

“Master, all the shattered bones have been gathered.” Melon came towards me, casual and unbothered, not a single hair out of place, as if nothing had happened.

Grace was examining the tattered remains of the equipment that the Zombies once wore.

“Ah, okay. Let’s go.” Then, we all moved on.