A day and half's worth of time has passed since the fight with the Hobgoblin, which has been simply referred to by the young elves as the "Goblin Raid." Everyone was finally able to set their fears behind them now that they were finally free from captivity. I was happy to have helped them. After a while, the elves found their strength finally coming back to them. The magic users started to cast a spell on the Hobgoblin meat to preserve it. I don't know how long it will last but at least we'll have some food to munch on while we find a way to leave the prison.
Speaking of that, some of the elves with combat experience actually went out of the camp to scout the area. When they came back, they said that they found the vines and roots became more plentiful the more they moved north of the camp.
I thought of two possibilities from that: The plant life outside of the prison had indeed grown into the prison, and the more we saw more roots, then the entrance would be near. The other possibility was that there could be some plant monster that wanted to infest the prison, slowly growing so that it may grow to an incredibly large size.
With what happened earlier in mind, I hope it's the former.
Because Alyssia killed the Hobgoblin, I wasn't able to get the EXP from it. I've also been a little preoccupied with helping everyone get back on their feet, so I haven't gotten any stronger leveling wise.
But my skills have gotten better. In particular, my Craftsman skill.
Craftsman C+ LVL 5 : Acquired after creating a weapon or armor piece. At LVL 5, the item's rank will vary between rank D- and C+. The likelihood of the item breaking while crafting is 60%.
↳ Sub Skills:
Break Down E LVL 2: The User is capable of breaking down crafted items into the base materials used to create the item. The success rate is 20%.
Break Down was something I only just noticed. Like Sword Proficiency, my Craftsman skill has sub skills. I can now break down any item I've made into the materials I used to make it. I wondered if I was able to break down the sword the Hobgoblin used, but it failed because I was not the person who made it.
The sub skills have levels, much like their parent skills, as well. It made me wonder if all skills can have sub skills.
In order two kill two birds with one stone, I chose to use some monster parts and craft them into necklaces like I did before, and I used Break Down to disassemble the item back into the materials. I could level up my Craftsman skill a little bit more while leveling up the sub skill right after.
I had the elves use the large tent so that they could continue to regain their strength. The children actually recovered faster while the older elves took longer.
After a bit of experimenting, I noticed that I passively recover HP and MP. The difference is that I can't recover HP when in a fight, but my MP recovers both inside and outside of battle. My health recovers by one point every minute, and the same goes for my magic.
Right after the Hobgoblin fight, I noticed that my MP dropped a little bit, by about thirty points. This was because my sub skills for Sword Proficiency use MP to use. Heavy Slash uses twenty points while Quick Slash uses ten.
Alyssia helped me out with my archery. Despite me giving her the bow while everyone ate the Hobgoblin meat, she still offered me the chance to use it whenever I wanted. I was able to improve a little bit with her help, but the skill itself didn't level up. It was probably due to me not using the bow to kill monsters. My Sword Proficiency didn't level up either since I wasn't killing anything.
No one really needed to help me out with my swordsmanship since I usually used it with Fighting Instinct to help me out.
All of this was to prepare for departure. The prison was still dangerous, and no one besides Alyssia and I had weapons. Unless we found weapons for the others to use, it was only us that could protect them.
The ones with a more keen eye noticed that the thick roots pulsate from time to time; although, it was very slight, so you'd really have to stare at them with all your might to catch it. When touching them, they were soft and making an impression on the surface was very easy. Even the tiniest bit of pressure applied would cause a divot.
However, the imprint wouldn't last long as it took just a few seconds before the roots ended up smoothing itself out.
"Soma! We got a problem!" A young elf walked into the tent while calling for me. I was sitting in a chair by the desk that was once used as a trophy stand. I used the flat surface to lay out some crafting materials.
I found these in a secret room behind the tent. It was a large hole in the wall covered by a large board.
Like any good RPG world, there's bound to be hidden treasure somewhere in a camp.
I was happy to see a good sized pile of gold pieces. There were other coins in the mix such as copper and silver. Because I knew my way around these kinds of things, I assumed that a hundred copper would amount to a single silver, and a hundred silver pieces were equivalent to a single gold piece. Just to be sure, I asked the elder of the elves if my way of thinking was correct.
He assumed that I was simply a fool who did not know a thing about the outside world. He didn't know that I reincarnated into this world, since I was unsure of how common it was here. I knew that, somewhere down the line, I'd have to tell a few people about my situation.
Moving on, the elder told me that that was indeed the case. He also told me about Platinum, which was obviously higher than gold. Surprisingly, one needed more than just a hundred gold to get one Platinum. One needed at least a thousand gold.
I took my time counting the pieces.
Two hundred and thirty-seven gold, twenty-eight silver, and fifty-four copper. I didn't expect much with how small the other two piles, and I was decently happy with the amount of gold.
Aside from the money, I found a few materials lying around. It consisted of a few fur pelts, some horns and fangs, along with some ore. The voice told me that I picked up some iron and silver ore.
I had no way of smelting it, so I left it off to the side.
I considered two things: I could use the fangs and horns to make accessory pieces for certain types of monsters like my Goblin Necklace and make the fur pelts into some warm clothes since I did not know if it was winter outside.
I had asked the elder what season they were in prior to being captured. When he told me that it was winter by that time and that it was already a few months since they were imprisoned, I decided to simply put the pelts aside as well. Once we leave, there would be no need for them. It was probably either the end of spring or the beginning of summer by now. The pelts could be sold for a decent price and the money could be used to buy proper clothing for the winter months.
Anyway, my train of thought was derailed when the young elf approached me.
I got up from my chair. "What's the problem, Dain?" I asked him.
Tears welled up in his eyes as he was about to speak. "Alyssia got hurt trying to show the rest of us some cool moves with her bow. It was my fault, honestly. I thought it was really cool seeing her fire more than two arrows. . ."
Just then, Alyssia walked in and sat down on the bed in the corner. She was all scuffed up with some blood trailing down her leg from her knee.
"Damn it. I told you I'm fine, Dain." She said, clearly trying to hide her pain, but it was very clear to me that she was having trouble. She was having trouble just talking five feet to get on the bed.
"C'mon. Let me get you a sheet to wrap it up in." I said, grabbing a sheet from my bag. We had no bandages, to this was all we could use. I even used some of the water still left in the barrel to wash a bit of the blood off before wrapping the sheet around her knee. "T-Thanks. I could have gotten it myself, though." She said with her head turned away to hide her obvious embarrassment.
"Just lie down for a bit." I told her as I got back into the chair.
"I just wanted to show the kids what I could do. They were having so much fun and I got distracted." She explained to me the situation. Apparently, she looked at the kids for just a split second while she was in the air, and she missed her target: a piece of wood on top of another piece of wood. That caused her to fall and scrape her knee pretty badly on the stone bricks.
"Well, it shouldn't take long for you to get better. The elves with healing magic still aren't one hundred percent, so you'll just have to deal with good 'ol natural healing."
"But what if-"
"Nope. Until you can walk without limping, you're staying in here."
"I'm not your kid, Soma."
"Doesn't change the fact that I don't want people overworking themselves while in pain."
We'd argue back and forth for a while. Alyssia wanted to go back out to hang out with the kids, but I said they could play together in the tent with her, she just couldn't leave the tent itself.
It wasn't just her, but a few elves came back with some injury earlier, either by tripping or narrowly avoiding an attack from a monster. Naturally, the assailant followed them back to the camp, and Alyssia killed the monster.
They were in the tent as well, recovering from their wounds with me next to them.
Even though I was an outsider to them, they accepted the treatment and allowed themselves to relax. I explained to them that we'd all be leaving in about four days. Once I was done making necklaces for everyone to wear, I wanted to help the scouts press further in the prison so we could be a little closer to anything resembling an exit. I then wanted to take the next few days ripping apart the tent to make pouches for everyone. This was so everyone could pick up materials from monsters, and they could sell them to get some money for everyone to use. I would not be taking any monster drops since I already had quite the assortment.
Everything from then on would be theirs. My task after leaving the prison would be to provide for the elves. If that meant going back to their village to rebuild it, then I'd take that opportunity.
After getting them a place to live, it would be time for Alyssia and I to start preparing for an adventure.
"So. . . are you still up for our little adventure in the future?" I asked Alyssia.
"Uh, yeah? Of course, you dummy. Remember, I wanna see all the great places in the world, and you're gonna help me out." She responded, her eyes staring at the ceiling, her lips curling up into a big, bright smile. In her head, she was imagining all the things that they'd be able to see. "It'll be fun." She added.
"Oh, I'm sure. You got that look that's screaming that at me."