BXBX NOVEL Volume 4 2.4
Volume 4 Chapter 2.4
Translator: Reflet
Editor: Weasalopes
「So what were we even discussing?」
Dinnertime. Haruna confirmed as she lay out boiled edamame on the table. These were ones that she had reserved from Ortem when returning from Darl to Wulls Workshop, teaching the residents the correct way to eat it while she was at it. Of course, just as the name suggested, all it involved was sticking the edamame with the branches still attached into a pot and boiling them. By this point in time, no doubt, the elves were enjoying it with some cool ale.
Other than edamame, there were also sausages, cheese, and dry-cured ham on the table (a menu that practically screamed “this goes well with liquor!!!”), and around all of that filling in the fine details included things like pickled cabbage river fish and german omelettes.
As you may have gathered from Haruna being the one cooking, Hiroshi’s group had moved out of the inn and was now renting an apartment with a decent amount of space that the Adventurers’ Association had introduced them. Finance-wise, they could have still stayed at the inn, but either way, the minors had all agreed that the apartment was better for cooking without reserve.
「First, in regards to conquerin’ the mining dungeon, we decided on assemblin’ all the alchemists and teachin’ ‘em how to make aqua presses.」
「Aqua press, eh? Come to think of it, it wasn’t just maintaining breathing and vision underwater, you could also protect against poison gas, dust, and the like.」
「Well, ya gotta rememba there’s also a flaw to it where ya visual senses drop by about 10 percent.」
Tatsuya and Makoto nodded with slight grimaces at what Hiroshi had just pointed out. The item in question was one they had been very comfortable with back in the game. After all, there weren’t many pieces of equipment sitting around that had strong environment-resistant capabilities like what Hiroshi made, and yet there were plenty of dungeons and quests that you couldn’t progress through without first thinking of some sort of countermeasure. As a result, in exchange for this slight penalty, throwaway items like these with perfect environmental resistance for a certain amount of time were always in high demand, with practically every player relying on them for adventuring.
「Oh yeah, how long did that one last?」
「Minimum six hours guaranteed. After that, it depends on the ability, but at most twenty four hours. And if we try usin’ it in the poison gas region we just discovered, it’ll nullify it plenty, but with more severe poison gas, the aqua breath ain’t gonna completely nullify it.」
「So if we pick up worse readings further in, it’s a no-go.」
「Yup.」
Hiroshi conveyed the correct information to Makoto and Tatsuya. Even though they wouldn’t be the ones using the items, there would be less issues if they knew what was going on.
「So, about directions for makin’ the aqua breath, I kinda wanna ask Mio to do it.」
「……Why?」
「She already has to bar hop between Wulls ‘n Darl on separate errands. Tomorrow, the next day, and the day after that, she ain’t gonna be here.」
「I see. What for?」
「She’s gotta test out smelting furnaces in order to more easily refine magic steel. It don’t seem like that dungeon’s gonna go back to normal even if we complete it, so she figured it was best to act under that assumption.」
Everyone nodded as they listened to Hiroshi’s explanation. Were Crest Cave to remain a mine dungeon, the production of iron would fall, also bringing about excessive amounts of magic steel and mythril ore. This could very well result in a worldwide decline in iron products.
In such a situation, it was then best to take care of the excessive products and replace them with iron-made products. At least on paper that was how it should go, but things were never quite that simple…
「Hiroshi-kun, is it really ok to increase production of magic steel and all that?」
Haruna let out a worried voice about the prospect of increasing the production of these military-related products. Though she was far from aware of the international situation, even an amateur could guess what the impact would be.
「As a prerequisite, we gotta at least send part of it to Farlane ‘n Darl, as understood by the guild leader in this town.」
「Well, one has the smelting forge ingredients, and the other has the food supply.」
Hiroshi replied rather happily to Haruna, and Tatsuya nodded as he recalled the power relationship between the three kingdoms.
One actual problem was that even if all the military equipment became magic steel-made, Forre and Farlane clashing would only lead to a draw with injuries on both sides. Besides, in order to launch a widescale attack on Farlane, Forre would have to have much better food production capabilities. Logistics would crash, Forre would lose, and Farlane would end up losing power to sell its food to a country. No one would profit from this.
Also, in the case of Forre picking a fight with Darl, first it would need to gain total control of Midas Federation. Midas Federation declared that the queen of Darl was too annoying to deal with and therefore they refused to merge, also ignoring a portion of the country composed of war hawks. Even if Forre tried to approach Darl from their direction, invading this country in the prospect of an all-out war with Darl would risk back-stabbing which they could not afford.
Then again, before any of that, as there wasn’t even a single country of the great western three kingdoms that had grown as a result of foreign campaigns, Forre didn’t even comprehend the idea of trying to enlarge their land by waging war after war. Farlane had simply become a country as the surrounding cities drew near in light of its heroic deeds, while Darl found it difficult to even take on monsters without being safe in their country’s environment. When it came down to Forre, they generally had no interest in anything besides mines and liquor, only becoming a big country in the middle of their pursuit of mine development and iron transportation routes.
Even if that were not the case, Forre constantly had its hands tied with monster extermination and abruptly appearing dungeons, so even if they had the energy to go all the way out on expeditions, no, precisely because they were a big kingdom, they did not have the energy to spare.
「In the first place, even with magic steel equipment, the only thing changin’ is that less normies get hurt when fightin’ monsters.」
「Right. The wars in this world generally depend on the grade of the monster rather than the grade of the equipment.」
Makoto agreed with Hiroshi’s comment. Saying this would make them sound a bit bad, but no matter how many normal soldiers put on magic steel-reinforced armor, Julius, Douga, or someone of Rayna’s caliber could easily sweep them with their special moves. All three of them could only lower their power to about three times the power of regular people (where it was originally ten times their strength), so it would still be overkill either way.
It was the same with regular attacks. The average person could equip as much magic steel weapons as they pleased, but all that would amount to would be slightly superior to the average iron weapons that Hiroshi brought out to the market. With comparatively high attack skills in intermediate class, the soldiers probably could score a little damage on Julius and Rayna, but all it would do to Douga would be a slight scratch to him. But even before that, Julius and Rayna wouldn’t have normal equipment on them for war, so there wouldn’t be any sort of advantage for regular soldiers even with strengthened armor.