By the next day, I had finished retrieving the village legacy and Kormi had completed the liberation of the souls he’d been binding. Having achieved almost all my objectives for coming to the Sea of Trees, I found myself with a lot of time to kill until the elusive Leader Rhinos finally showed its face.
Glen-san seemed quite pleased with how my goblins had handled the butchering yesterday, as he headed back out to hunt with renewed enthusiasm this morning. I considered tagging along, but I couldn't stray too far from the mansion in case the Leader Rhinos appeared while we were away.
After spending the morning agonizing over how to spend my time, I eventually decided to clear away the ruins surrounding the mansion and level the ground.
"I’ll ask one more time: are you really okay with this?" I asked.
"It’s fine!" Kormi chirped.
The village surrounding the mansion had served as a stage for Kormi to recreate the past and comfort the souls of the former residents he’d taken in. Now that those undead were gone, however, the ruins were nothing but a useless eyesore.
Kormi himself had pointed out that even if he did nothing, there was a non-zero chance that more undead might naturally manifest if the site were left as it was. He wanted me to clean it up thoroughly to avoid any lingering attachments or loose ends. Since Kormi was the one with the deepest connection to the place, I took him at his word and set to work without hesitation.
I had performed house demolitions before and had a general procedure in mind, but since the environment here was different, I decided to test my methods on a small section first.
"First, the surface—clearing away the rubble and the weeds."
I summoned the Sand Slimes from my Dimension Home, used Earth Magic to turn a patch of ground into sand, and then activated my Slime Magic. Just as I had done when demolishing the dilapidated orphans' home back in Gimul, I used a Sand Vortex to grind away a corner of the village. Most of the stone, mud walls, timber, and weeds were obliterated in one go.
"Next, processing the sand and removing any leftovers."
Working in coordination with the Soil Slimes, I used magic to bury the remaining sand and pulverized debris. During this stage, I dug up any buried iron fences or deep-seated roots and fed them to the Huge Bush Slimes for disposal. In no time at all, the area looked like a completely vacant lot.
I took care to refill the soil without damaging the roots of the nearby Heat-Radiating Trees so they wouldn't accidentally topple toward the mansion, but even with that extra caution, the work was remarkably efficient. Finally, I had the Huge Bush Slimes cover the ground, erasing every trace of man-made structures.
"That was so fast!"
"This is only the beginning," I told the impressed house fairy. "I’m going to keep going like this until it's all done."
Kormi, who had been watching from inside the mansion's fence, let out a cry of admiration. Given his small stature, he looked like a toddler with sparkling eyes watching heavy construction equipment at work.
Most of the building materials were natural stone and wood anyway, so they would eventually return to the earth in this environment. Since the process worked without a hitch, I decided to continue clearing away the rest of the buildings.
As I worked my way clockwise around the mansion's perimeter, Glen-san returned around noon.
"Good work, Ryoma. How’s it going on your end?"
"No sign of the Leader Rhinos yet, but I'm making progress here. How was the forest?"
"I didn't see the rhino either, but the hunting was great. There are heaps of monsters out there that you never see in the shallower areas. I brought back a decent haul, so I’m counting on you for the butchering again. Same deal as yesterday: you keep the meat and organs, and you can take the Hotel Rafflesia petals too."
"The meat and organs are fine, but are you sure about the petals?" I asked.
"Yeah. If I were on my own, I wouldn't even look at those things. I don't usually deal in dyes, so I wouldn't know where to sell 'em. I reckon if I just asked around, plenty of folks would jump at the chance to buy, but negotiating prices and finding buyers sounds like a royal pain.
I’d rather just clear out as much pack space as I can now while I've got someone to do the butchering. That way I can hunt to my heart's content before we head back. It's simpler for me."
I suppose that made sense. I wasn't losing anything on the deal, and if he was satisfied, then I was happy to oblige.
"Then it’s a deal."
"Great. More importantly, I’m hungry. What's for lunch?"
"I'm on it."
As I began preparing our meal, something struck me as odd.
"What's with the face?" Glen-san asked.
"Well... could you try a piece of this meat?"
"Meat? It's the usual snake meat, isn't it? Wait... what is this? Is it from something else?"
"No, it's from the same Immortal Snake. I've stored it properly, and Appraisal says it hasn't spoiled, but the taste is clearly worse than the previous batch, isn't it?"
"It's not that it tastes bad," Glen-san mused, chewing thoughtfully. "It's just that the stuff we had yesterday was too good. This is decent enough for what it is, but it pales in comparison to the first batch."
The meat was noticeably tougher and drier. Since it hadn't gone bad, I suspected it had something to do with the Immortal Snake’s regeneration ability.
The meat we'd eaten until yesterday had come from the sections separated from the snake while it was still largely uninjured. Once that ran out, I’d started on the parts that had regenerated afterward. The snake likely consumed its own stored energy and nutrients to regrow its body, which in turn affected the flavor.
"So, if you want the good stuff, you have to kill it in one blow without causing extra wounds?"
"I think as long as you can take the head off cleanly, it'll be fine," I replied. "The meat we had yesterday was obtained that way. I've never hunted an Immortal Snake before, so this is just a guess, but I suspect you need to decapitate it in a single strike.
Considering that any extra injuries degrade the flavor, it might be nearly impossible for a normal adventurer to ever taste meat of that quality."
"Well, normal guys probably couldn't kill that snake in the first place," Glen-san laughed. "And they certainly wouldn't be crazy enough to come this deep into the forest."
We agreed on that and laughed it off. He said he’d still eat the regenerated meat, but he asked me to hunt a fresh one if I spotted it so he could have one last taste of the high-quality stuff before we left. I also wanted to bring some back as souvenirs for my staff and the Ducal House, so I resolved to take the lead if we encountered another snake.
Preparation Day 2
As I continued my demolition work the following morning, I stumbled upon an area that looked like an old garden or field. It was overgrown and swallowed by the forest, leaving only the faintest remnants of a farm... but among the weeds, I spotted grape-like clusters of fruit growing from vines wrapped around rotted support pillars.
A hunch hit me, and I headed back to the mansion.
"Kormi!"
"What’s up?"
"I found a field over there. It might be faster if you just read the image from my mind."
"...That’s definitely a pepper field!" Kormi confirmed.
Just as I thought—it was pepper. It would be a waste to bulldoze the area without harvesting the wild crop first.
"If you want pepper, do you want to grow more?" Kormi suggested.
"Do you know how?"
"Of course. That field was abandoned ages ago, but people used to grow it there. There’s a smaller garden in the courtyard, too. Not just pepper, but other spices."
It turned out that some of the former villagers had never forgotten the fortune they’d built through spice cultivation. Even after Kormi had turned them into earthbound spirits, they had continued tending their crops in a corner of the mansion.
By reading their memories and thoughts to create the illusions they desired, Kormi had naturally absorbed the techniques for cultivating pepper and various other spices native to the Sea of Trees. He even offered to show me, via illusions, exactly how to take cuttings from the pepper trees.
"I’ll go teach your goblins while they're free!"
Eager to interact with the new residents, Kormi vanished as soon as we finished talking. I couldn't help but marvel at how convenient his abilities were.
Kormi was essentially a "self-managing house." He held the knowledge of the past, could communicate with other monster species through mind-reading and hallucinations, and could transmit information using illusions. It was like having a living version of the augmented reality technology from my old world.
He was just a lonely, straightforward kid at heart, but I was reminded yet again why the gods considered him a threat. He simply hadn't known how to use his power; in the right hands, his utility was limitless.
"Ryoma!"
"Whoa! You scared me. What's wrong?"
Kormi, whom I thought had gone to find the goblins, suddenly reappeared. Technically, since the house was his body, he was always "here," but he’d popped back into my immediate vicinity.
"About the farming. I forgot to ask—do you want to grow Hotel Rafflesia too?"
"...Wait, you can grow those? Were the villagers growing them?"
"As long as the flower part isn't damaged, it's easy. You just put it next to something it can climb. The only problem is that people can't live near it... and harvesting it is kind of a suicide mission."
"I’d call those 'major' problems, Kormi."
"The villagers who stayed until the very end were still trying, though. They kept saying they'd strike it rich and finally live a decent life!"
"That sounds like a classic recipe for disaster..."
I wondered if the colony Glen-san had mentioned was actually the site of their failed farm. They must have been truly desperate to try something so reckless. To me, it sounded like someone betting their last cent on a lottery ticket.
"Hotel Rafflesia sells for a lot, but it’s not worth losing the mansion over," I said.
"I can use illusions to make the Gluttony Flies ignore you, you know?"
"Even so, I’d rather not have those things so close. I'm not hurting for money, so let’s pass on that. If I really need them, I’ll just harvest them from the colony. Oh, and I assume the petals Glen-san gave me are already in storage?"
"Yep, everything's in the warehouse."
"Thanks."
There was no rush on the demolition, so I decided to check on the materials we’d collected. I wanted to see if any of my slimes would react to the unique forest harvest.
As I investigated the warehouse, I found exactly what I was looking for.
"Oh...! As expected of forest materials. It looks like these will lead to plant-based evolutions."
My Weed Slimes were reacting strongly to the Heat-Radiating Tree branches, the seeds found in monster stomachs, and even the Hotel Rafflesia petals.
Regarding the plant-type slimes that turned into trees, I remembered Lobelia-san mentioning something called a Tree Slime. I wondered if this was it. I wouldn't know until I tried the evolution myself.
I also had a mountain of Raptor meat. I recalled Koken-san mentioning an acquaintance who had gone bankrupt trying to evolve a slime by feeding it nothing but monster meat. I, however, could supply my own meat for free. It was worth a shot.
"This is going to be interesting. I should go gather some more—"
"Ryoma! Hurry, butcher these ones next!"
"Glen-san? What’s the rush—uugh!?"
Glen-san came charging into the warehouse while I was still planning. He had two giant green snake heads tucked under his arms, their bodies coiled multiple times around his torso, squeezing him with incredible force.
"You found more Immortal Snakes!?"
"Just past the village! There were even bigger ones out there too! I’ll keep 'em coming, so finish these off and get 'em ready!"
"On it! Kormi!"
"I’m here!"
Kormi must have already anticipated the situation. He appeared instantly, and the two snakes slid limply off Glen-san's body, falling into a deep, magical slumber on the floor.
"That makes it a lot easier to kill them cleanly," I noted.
"I'm leaving 'em to you, then!"
The fact that he found more so quickly meant we were probably right on the edge of an Immortal Snake habitat. It was dangerous, certainly, but as a base for gathering rare materials, this place was unbeatable. As I prepared to finish off the giant snakes, I started mapping out a much more ambitious collection plan for the afternoon.