“The First Magical Beast Sighting, Not the First Villager… Or is it even a magical beast? It’s just a slime.”
After walking a bit further, I spotted something familiar from fantasy worlds—a slime.
It was about the size of a balloon, a transparent monster. It had no eyes or nose, but a blue stone-like object was faintly visible in the center.
“According to my appraisal, slimes are weak to physical impact. Not compatible with water magic… Alright, let’s try hitting it with an axe.”
I slowly approached and swung my hatchet down on the slime, which was leisurely digesting some grass. True to its reputation as the weakest monster, it burst with a single blow.
All that remained was the small blue stone it had inside.
“So this is a magic stone. Wind attribute? I’d have thought water, since it’s a slime.”
According to the appraisal, this magic stone can be sold at the Adventurers’ Guild. It could also be used as a power source for magical tools, though I don’t have any of those.
“For now, let’s convert it into points. I’ll store it in my item box and exchange it.”
The purchase value displayed on the status board was 100 points. It seems a slime’s magic stone is worth the same as a hundred stalks of Hime Shiba grass.
“Is that a lot or not? If 1 point equals 1 yen and a bottle of tea is 100P, it feels… underwhelming?”
Well, pulling up a hundred stalks of grass is much more effort than hitting a slime with an axe. Plus, I earn experience points for leveling up.
“For now, let’s keep aiming for the forest while hunting slimes to earn points bit by bit.”
It seems the High Elf race has not only excellent eyesight but also keen hearing. I can sense far more presences than when I was human. As I walked, appraising things along the way, I encountered more slimes and a magical beast called a grass mouse.
The slimes hardly moved and didn’t attack, so they were easy to defeat. But the grass mouse—Glas Mouse—came at me swiftly.
“Ha!”
However, with my new High Elf dynamic vision, I easily countered it. I swung my hatchet and neatly severed its neck.
Thanks to the blessing of the Creator God, a protective barrier automatically activates, so I should be able to repel attacks. But I want to get used to fighting.
Not wanting to touch the beast’s corpse with my bare hands, I took gloves from my item box and picked it up by the tail, storing it away. Afterward, I realized I hadn’t disassembled it.
Not wanting to bother taking it back out, I tapped to convert it into points, and a prompt appeared on the status board: “Would you like to disassemble the material?”
“It can disassemble it too? That’s helpful.”
My grandfather on my mother’s side was a hunting enthusiast, so I’ve helped with disassembly a few times before. I can handle chickens, deer, rabbits, and boars, but I didn’t feel confident with magical beasts, so this is convenient. Even my experienced grandfather would’ve had trouble disassembling out here in the middle of a plain with no equipment.
“It automatically converted to materials. 10P for the skin, 40P for the meat, and 200P for the magic stone, for a total of 250P. More rewarding than slimes.”
As long as I avoid its sharp front teeth, the 20-centimeter Glas Mouse is a decent magical beast. I happily converted it into points.
“But, if it converted the meat, does that mean it’s edible…?”
I do like game meat. I’ve eaten rabbit before, and I love deer and boar. But I’ve never had rat meat. I remember an old hunting buddy of my grandfather’s bragging about eating nutria once. You sometimes see them by the river—large rodents that used to be raised for their soft fur.
He joked about hitting one by the river and bringing it home.
“He said it was wild-tasting but surprisingly good… Yeah, no, I couldn’t.”
Remembering the sight of the Glas Mouse, I shudder. If I had no other food and was starving, maybe I’d eat it out of desperation. But I still have enough provisions in my item box for four people for five days.
“Even if I ran out, I could get food from a summoning magic online store.”
If I struggle with nutria meat, there’s no way I’m eating rat meat. Though if it were a magical beast like a boar or deer and the meat was tasty, that’d be a different story.
“My cousin, a fantasy fan, once said monster meat dishes look delicious…”
Orcs are like pork, and boars are like boar meat, right? He said his dream was to eat dragon steak.
Dragon meat, huh? I wonder if it’s like chicken or more like reptile meat.
“Well, for now, I’ll stick to the camping food I brought.”
Until I actually try living in the Great Forest, I won’t know what I’ll need, so I want to save as many points as I can.
As I got closer to the forest, the magical beasts grew larger and stronger. Some slimes even started using water magic, and instead of Glas Mouse, Horn Rabbits appeared. These were rabbit monsters with twisted horns on their foreheads. They had fluffy fur but fierce eyes and an aggressive temperament.
Their attacks were straightforward charges, so I could easily counter them with my hatchet.
“The Horn Rabbit’s points aren’t bad either. 300P for the fur and meat each, 200P for the horn, and 400P for the magic stone—a total of 1200P!”
Getting my first four-digit points made me grin. Not bad. Maybe I’ll focus on rabbit hunting for a while.
“And this water-magic-using slime’s magic stone is worth 1000P? Higher than normal slimes. Water magic stones must be in high demand.”
With each magic stone worth 1000P, I’ll actively hunt these magic-using ones.
In this way, I continued hunting beasts, gathering herbs I appraised along the way, and steadily accumulating points as I walked across the plains. Eventually, before sunset, I decided to stop.
“Let’s camp here for tonight.”
I hadn’t even made it halfway to my destination, but setting up camp after dark would be troublesome. I took everything out of my item box for now.
