Ch.178Elemental Eradication Operation: Preparation Phase

The day after Will’s group departed for the Chestnut Sanctuary, on May 7th.

A large wooden signboard was erected in front of “Elven Market,” a specialty shop located at the Westpoint Trading Post.

The sign contained content that seemed completely out of place for a specialty shop, stating that they would purchase certain materials at three times the market price.

“Ding-a-ling~”

“Welcome! What are you looking for?”

“Um… I didn’t come to buy anything, but I saw the sign outside. Is what’s written there true?”

“Ah, you’re here about the urgent material purchase! We’re buying up to 50 items at three times the market price, first come, first served.”

“Well, that’s fortunate. I have 15 of them, and I’ll sell them all.”

The man who visited the Elven Market took out baseball-sized objects wrapped tightly in cloth from his backpack and stacked them on the counter one by one.

He had purchased them while working as a transporter between Moon Lake and the Grand Workshop of Paracelsus, thinking they might be worth something, but when he actually tried to sell them, they had become dead stock with no demand anywhere.

“Yes, I’ve confirmed 15 pieces of pyroxite ore. We’ll weigh them and calculate the purchase amount. Would you mind browsing the store while you wait?”

“Sure thing.”

Just after two female clerks divided the items into baskets and went inside to weigh them, the door of the general store opened, and a boyish-looking woman entered.

“Ding-a-ling~”

“Any clerks here? I heard you’re buying pyroxite ore at triple the market price—”

Despite pyroxite ore not being commonly mined in this area, it took less than half a day to collect all 50 pieces they were targeting.

Afterward, there were a few incidents where transporters and peddlers who heard the rumors came too late and were disappointed to hear that the special purchase had ended, but since it’s not particularly important, I’ll skip those details.

~ ~ ~ Chestnut Sanctuary, Orpheus’s House ~ ~ ~

“I didn’t expect all 50 pieces to be collected in just one day.”

“I told you. Quite a few people carry them around.”

Mina smiled as if she had expected this all along and began carefully examining each of the 50 pyroxite pieces piled in the front yard of Orpheus’s house.

“Hmm. The size and shape are just average, but they meet the minimum quality requirements. Seems like there are some decent pyroxite veins in the central region.”

“Is this all we need for the operation?”

“That’s right. I made all the other components last night, so it should be complete in about two hours, give or take.”

“Then we can finally eliminate that corrupted Water Elemental.”

The main plan for eliminating the Water Elemental occupying the lake was to use a large amount of pyroxite to boil and evaporate all the water in the lake, then concentrate our attacks on the Elemental once it reveals itself after losing its home ground.

However, no matter how necessary it was to eliminate the Elemental, we couldn’t just throw dangerous pyroxite into a forest lake in large quantities.

The Water Elemental would certainly notice our attempt to remove the surrounding water and try to throw the pyroxite out of the lake. If that happened, the burning pyroxite could fall into the forest and cause a massive fire.

To avoid the worst-case scenario of turning the Chestnut Sanctuary into a Roasted Chestnut Sanctuary, Mina planned to process the pyroxite into magical tools that could be strictly controlled.

“I’ll start the finishing work on the heating device. Will, could you check if the other preparations are proceeding without any problems?”

“Got it. See you later.”

Leaving Mina to her work, I headed to the square of the Chestnut Sanctuary where the others were gathered.

There, Jessica, Seti, and Phyllis, along with about 20 Guardians, were inspecting a large net spread out on the square’s floor and loading it onto carts.

“Welcome, Will. How’s Mina doing?”

“She says there’s no problem with the pyroxite quality. It should be complete in about two hours at most. Is everything going smoothly here?”

“Yes. The net has been made according to Mina’s specifications, and I somehow managed to complete the area magic that will block the toxic gas.”

While we were urgently purchasing pyroxite through the Elven Market, we also engaged in combat with the lake’s Elemental twice and collected additional information by taking samples of the lake water.

As a result, we discovered that boiling and evaporating the lake water would likely release toxic gas. To solve this problem, Jessica managed to create wide-area protective magic despite not having access to professional editing facilities.

“I never knew Elementals were such troublesome opponents that we’d need this much preparation for just one.”

“Elementals are opponents you generally don’t want to face. They have physical resistance, attacks barely work unless they’re of the opposite attribute, and they can move almost instantaneously through environments of their own element.”

“So they’re difficult to catch, regardless of their ferocity or combat ability.”

“Exactly. And even if you manage to defeat them, Elemental magic stones contain so little stored magical power that they’re practically worthless.”

“Worst prey ever. We’ve already spent all the reward money buying pyroxite.”

“If Mina can’t recover the principal, we’re in trouble…”

The urgent purchase of pyroxite cost about 4,000 gold, which our party and the Chestnut Sanctuary agreed to split equally.

It was an excessive expenditure compared to the scale of the request, which would only yield alcohol, marron glacé, and a small additional compensation. However, we invested boldly because Mina said, “We can recover the principal when we reach Moon Lake.”

Of course, we can only recover the 2,000 gold we spent, and the Chestnut Sanctuary will have to cover their own losses.

Fortunately, the Chestnut Sanctuary had accumulated some cash through trade with pioneers and agreed to share the cost, judging that getting their specialty industry back to normal operation as soon as possible was more important.

While it feels a bit like we forced them to share the pain… let’s hope this mission ends successfully so they can enjoy some peace until their sacred tree reaches the end of its natural lifespan.

On the afternoon of our third day at the Chestnut Sanctuary.

Having completed all preparations, we headed toward the lake occupied by the Elemental, accompanied by 20 Guardians.

At the rear of our procession was Ancestor pulling a cart instead of a carriage, loaded with 50 artifacts created by Mina and a large net.

“Jessica, are you nervous?”

“I can’t help it. So many people will be relying on my protective magic, but I wasn’t completely satisfied with its performance verification.”

“It’ll be fine! We tested it by boiling samples of the lake water. It should work even at a larger scale!”

“I really hope so…”

Jessica was uncharacteristically tense and fidgety.

She seemed worried about whether her newly created protective magic would perform as intended.

“It’s okay, Jessica. None of the magic you’ve created has ever failed, right? Being too tense might actually cause mistakes, so let’s relax.”

“…Alright. Compared to the Minotaur incident, this isn’t such a big deal. Whew, whew…”

As I comforted Jessica while she took deep breaths, we arrived at our destination near the lake.

Just a little further and the murky green surface would come into view, and the Elemental, noticing the presence of intruders, would attack by manipulating the lake water.

Jessica took another deep breath and began the final briefing before the operation.

“Everyone, we’re about to begin the final operation to eliminate the corrupted Elemental.”

The 20 Guardians who followed us were under their captain’s command, but Jessica had the authority to oversee the entire operation.

The Guardian captain, with a scar near one eye, stood at attention listening to Jessica’s briefing, naturally leading his subordinates to follow Jessica’s operational directives.

With the attention of the Guardians and our four companions—a total of 24 people—Jessica calmly delivered the detailed overview of the operation.

“First, to eliminate the Elemental’s ‘home ground,’ we need to silence the enemy. As I’ve explained before, the method involves depleting its magical power through combat, particularly by increasing the frequency of tentacle use and damage, which has proven effective as I informed you this morning.”

One of the mysteries about monsters—the irregularity of combat duration—had been roughly figured out through yesterday’s reconnaissance.

The corrupted Water Elemental always controls water in the form of one slime-like body and multiple tentacles.

The slime form serves as both eyes to detect enemies on land and a cannon to shoot slime, while the tentacles perform the lethal attack of binding enemies within range and dragging them into the contaminated lake.

We discovered that the more frequently these tentacle attacks are used, and the more often the tentacles are damaged and reconstructed, the shorter the Elemental’s active time becomes.

This was something the Guardians, who had been maintaining distance combat after quickly recognizing the danger of tentacle attacks, had overlooked.

“The Guardians will be the main force in this preliminary battle. Will, Seti, and Phyllis from our side will also participate, but they’ll focus on moving in ways that don’t interfere with the Guardians’ coordination. I need to conserve magical power for the protective magic in the next phase, so I can’t participate in the preliminary battle or care for the wounded with healing magic.”

“Don’t worry about that. The Guardian unit has five healing magic users.”

“Thank you. Once the Elemental is silenced, immediately set up the net and magical tools we brought on the cart, and wait within the range of the protective magic to shield yourselves from toxic steam. After the Elemental reveals itself, everyone will concentrate their attacks together. Any questions?”

After confirming that no one raised their hand to ask questions, Jessica declared the commencement of the Elemental elimination operation.

“Then I hereby initiate Phase 1 of the Water Elemental subjugation operation. Everyone to your positions!”

“To positions!”

It was the moment when the final battle against the corrupted Elemental threatening the Chestnut Sanctuary began.