Someday Will I Be The Greatest Alchemist?

Chapter 258: Unknown Race

Verifying that there were indeed caves lining the bare surface of the mountains similar to what was seen on tv in my old world, we searched for a place to land the Ouranos.

「Park it right by the top of the trees.」

「Understood.」

Telling Laeva so, I jumped out of the Ouranos, then Kaede followed afterwards.

I used tree branches and Shield magic footholds to get down, and took out my handmade axe from the Item Box.

「Kaede, please watch the surroundings.」

「Gotcha Master!」

Kan! Kan! Kan!

The trees fell and disappeared without a sound. There was nothing much to it. The moment a tree was cut down, I simply stored it in the Item Box.

〈The 『Logging』 skill leveled up〉

〈The 『Axe Technique』 skill leveled up〉

「Oh, It’s been a while since I felt a skill level up.」

I was glad when I felt the rarely used Axe Technique and Logging skills leveled up.

We steadily logged trees to make enough space for the Ouranos to land.

「Master, monsters aren’t that strong over here. There aren’t a lot of them either.」

「Good work, Kaede.」

Since we’ve been in monster nests in the Demon Continent a lot recently, Kaede seems unsatisfied.

I sent Laeva a hand sign to land.

The Ouranos silently landed vertically. The landing gear was deployed and it touched down.

The ramp came down and Sophia and the girls alighted.

「I’ll be storing the Ouranos now, okay?」

Once I checked that everyone was out, I stowed the Ouranos into the Item Box. The efficiency of the Item Box was as nonsensical as ever.

「The mountain is over there, isn’t it?」

「Yeah, let’s be on the lookout.」

We began walking towards the swarm of caves at the bare surface of the mountain, with Kaede at the lead.

Trudging through the dense jungle for a while, the level path steadily grew more inclined. However, having levelled up, our physical abilities already became inhumane compared to our old selves, so it wasn’t too challenging.

After walking for a while from the spot the Ouranos landed, the space between the trees grew less dense, and it eventually became a terrain where only shrubbery grew.

「Something is coming.」

「Everyone, please prepare for battle.」

We sensed that some sort of presence was approaching. Sophia urged everyone to be vigilant.

「What business do you have in our territory?! Leave immediately!」

A voice from the sky was directed at us. Yes, from the sky.

「An Aligerous man! So they truly existed?」

Sophia exclaimed in surprise.

What appeared looked human at a glance. That was, if the tawny wings of a bird of prey didn’t grow from his backs. Yes, just as Sophia said, the one nocking his bow at us threateningly was a race known as the Aligerous Tribe[1]..

According to what I later learned from Sophia, there were entries of a winged tribe in the old records of the Elves.

I rushed to greet them, emphasizing that we were not enemies.

「I am Takumi Iruma. A Human artisan. We are not an enemy! We wondered if there were other continents or islands around the Demon Continent and went in search. We discovered this island and came to investigate the cluster of caves on the face of the mountain.」

「……I would like to ask one thing.」

When I talked, an Aligerous man asked with a mysterious expression.

「You all came to this island on a ship? You have a ship that crossed these waters?」

「It could be called a ship, but it’s a ship that flies in the sky. We also have a ship that sails in the ocean, but it’s faster to fly.」

「What?! Did you say a flying ship………」

Perhaps greatly shocked, the Aligerous man hovering in the sky unsteadily fell to the ground.

「……if you have a ship that can cross the ocean and even have a flying ship, is our island no longer safe?」

「Umm, I believe that, at this point in time, there aren’t any other ships that could cross the ocean this far aside from ours. As far as I know, there should be no other flying ship that exist apart from ours, so I believe it will be alright.」

When I said so, the Aligerous man’s aura changed.

「……then, if you weren’t hereー」

He flew up and readied his bow as soon as he said that.

「Well, I guess that’s how it would turn out, huh.」

「Living in a small island, it is likely that they have no way of inferring the strength of outsiders.」

「He doesn’t seem to be very smart, I see.」

Sophia and Maria’s evaluation were heartless. Well, this might have been inevitable, but the Aligerous man who rushed to attack us was spun with Kaede’s threads and dangled like a bagworm.

「……mugu, uu……」

A somewhat complicated situation passed.

「What to do here?」

「Let’s eatー!」

「Uguu! Guu! Guaa!」

When Kaede, who was beside me while I was stumped on how to deal with this situation, mischievously threatened the captured Aligerous man, he was ghastly pale as he writhed to escape, but Kaede’s threads couldn’t be escaped that way. More importantly, the Gourmand Kaede wouldn’t eat you.

Okay, really, what do we do?

***

Footnotes:

1. The tribe is literally translated to “Winged people”, but I chose to use “Aligerous” – which means to have wings.