42 — 5 (2)

Since the national treasury had returned to surplus, the minimum condition to clear the quest had been satisfied.

All that remained was to hand the Forest Wurm over to the mages dispatched from the Mage Tower at a reasonable price.

The pigeon Louis had sent finally arrived at the Mage Tower. The Western Region, which always got stuck with the Tower’s most miscellaneous tasks. The lowest-floor reception.

He was sick and tired of today’s mountain of work.

‘Low-grade materials overflow, yet the high-grade ones we actually need are always short…’

Just as he was feeling despair at the fact that most of these documents were useless for his promotion, an apprentice mage—barely sixteen—came sprinting toward him with his robe flapping.

“I’ve told you again and again: a mage must always walk with dignity!”

“It’s here!!”

“…….What is?”

“Here.”

He hurriedly tore open Louis’s letter stamped with a red seal of authentication and scanned the scrawled contents inside.

‘Forest Wurm. And a juvenile, at that.’

At last, a smile appeared on his lips. A Forest Wurm was far more valuable at this point than Louis realized, but Louis did not yet know its exact use.

“Starting today, you contact the vassal lords. We finally have research funds. Haha.”

The Mage Tower was intricately subdivided. Aside from each branch paying a kind of tax upward, everyone had to fend for themselves—survive and raise research money.

Geurok was a scholar researching Generation/Regeneration-type magic and had produced a respectable result.

It was… an anti-wrinkle remedy.

After a secret art handed down through three generations, the nearly finished product in Geurok’s hands had just one problem… obtaining materials for research was not easy.

The only monster that showed real promise among the Wurm-type monsters was the Forest Wurm.

However, Forest Wurms did not inhabit fixed regions; they lived deep within the Monster Mountain Range, and capturing the main body required mobilizing an army—an extremely troublesome monster.

‘With this specimen, the chance of completion is high.’

This was why Geurok could rope in the vassal lords: they had to purchase this item with their pooled funds, and for Geurok—who also had to retain research money—buying it as cheaply as possible was absolutely crucial.

He felt confident. The usual market price for a Forest Wurm, by Geurok’s standards, was set surprisingly low…

‘The Duchy of Eron, huh—quite a distance.’

Getting to the Duchy of Eron required a harsher journey than expected. Most important to Geurok was time.

To bring the Wurm back within a limited window, he had no choice but to rent a highly modified horse.

Louis clung to Boromir as much as he could, ready to accept the muscle pain he would feel tomorrow.

Today marked the seventh day—the week Louis had predicted would be enough to fill the experience needed to reach Swordsmanship 3.

Unlike this time, where he would hit Swordsmanship 3 in just a week, the road to Swordsmanship 4 still required a daunting amount of experience.

Louis had unlocked the Experience Bonus trait not because he couldn’t possibly reach Swordsmanship 3, but because he couldn’t do it within the time limit. He had already accumulated quite a lot of experience so far… The problem was that only by devoting an entire day to sword training could he barely meet the deadline, and Louis currently had more than three areas to oversee. Thus, for time efficiency, he unlocked the Experience Bonus trait.

And at last… his experience filled to the brim.

‘Huaa… one down, for now.’

Louis opened his information window to check his Swordsmanship stat. The stat had risen to 3. As expected, however, there remained a sheer cliff of experience to reach 4.

“……….Boromir.”

“Yes.”

“Let’s remove evening sessions from now on.”

Watching Louis’s rapid progress, Boromir felt a flicker of puzzlement, but he understood immediately. Louis was the one steering the city.

“…….Understood. Even so, Young Master, it’s an unbelievable achievement. Unlike when you started, all your postures are stable now, and to state the result—you could probably face three ordinary soldiers at once.”

What Boromir referred to was the minimum benchmark for a swordsman. Swordsmanship 3 was precisely the threshold that distinguished amateurs—ordinary soldiers—from the cusp of the professional tier.

Hector, who had been working with five soldiers dogging his heels, soon began to like them very much.

In particular, because he had promised to teach only one of them, he grew fond of Rik, the representative learning the basics.

Rik was the only one among the five soldiers with Construction Talent 5, and his talent was… no, it was considerable.

Watching Rik soak up knowledge as if born for the craft, Hector began to feel dissatisfied with his own apprentices.

‘I should make him an offer later.’

Guild membership. A guild was the common association of all craftsmen residing in a country. The biggest reason they formed guilds was to monopolize their techniques and preserve their value.

Given the rather cutthroat internal structures, even for the good-natured Hector, gaining entry was not easy.

‘Anyway, I hope my friends arrive soon.’

It wasn’t a building that required a grandiose process, so apart from practical considerations, the production time wasn’t that long. What mattered most to Hector was a sense of balance and the harmony of the motifs to be carved.

If the structure he had drawn in his mind from the blueprints took shape…

‘It will surely become a trend.’

He never dreamed that the building he was constructing had come from another world.

The only thing he recognized was the fresh shock crafted by a remarkably gifted noble—nothing more.

A few months passed. When the Library Wonder’s white skeleton shone skyward, Geurok of the Resonation School arrived in Proia.

‘A small city.’

A guard at the gate asked him,

“Who goes there?”

“I’m Geurok, dispatched from the Mage Tower. Inform the Consul at once that I have arrived to negotiate a deal.”

“Ah, Master Geurok. Welcome to Proia. The Consul has given prior notice. This way, please.”

Though very tired, Geurok deemed it proper to present himself to Louis immediately upon arrival.

More than anything, he was dying to set eyes on the Forest Wurm as soon as possible.

‘So, it’s in an ice state. A man with sense.’

What let him trust this long journey was precisely the measure Louis had taken as soon as he obtained the Forest Wurm.

A Forest Wurm’s peculiar regenerative power continued even after death, so decomposition progressed extremely slowly even after its life ended. In that condition, storing it frozen meant a few months were negligible.

The biggest reason Forest Wurms were rare as materials was the difficulty of transport from other countries. Usually, out of ignorance, they were left unattended and rotted within a fortnight.

‘Let’s hope the negotiation goes well…’

Office. Louis, too, had just received the report. The moment he heard from a soldier that the man was on his way here, he began thinking about the negotiation.

A deal over the Forest Wurm was also extremely important for Louis.

Whether he could break the core of the quest at once would be decided here.

‘First of all, it’s crucial I don’t show that I need money…’

If he let slip that he was desperate for funds, the other party would catch on immediately and propose a price bordering on coercion—of course.

Even if he refused, time would pass and, in the end, he’d have no choice but to sell because he needed money—that was reality.

“Consul. He is coming.”

Footsteps, accompanied by a soldier in the corridor, drew closer and closer.

“……….”

Then the door opened, and in walked two guiding soldiers and a middle-aged mage wearing a shabby robe.