We set out from Otto City and continued our journey, stopping at villages off the main road.
We wandered through the peaceful countryside, remote but wealthy villages, poor villages, human-only villages, non-human-only villages, violent villages, and so on, working kind of like handymen.
As adventurers, we killed monsters, sold the potions I made myself, and brought salt and iron products I created with [Creation Magic], pretending to be merchants.
In exchange, when bartering, I received rare crops and spice seeds that were grown in each village.
“When I find a place where we belong one day, I’d like to raise them.”
With these thoughts in mind, I collected various things and put them in my magic bag.
Then, in order to get the money that I can’t get from just bartering, we would occasionally stop by the adventurer’s guild in a largish town and bring in monsters that we defeated during our journey, as well as medicinal herbs that we harvested and bartered for from the villages.
“Ah, this request looks good. Let’s accept this one as well.
“Yes~nanodesu!”
Whenever we stopped by a town, we regularly accepted requests.
As we did not need to rush in this journey, we accepted requests I felt like taking as a wandering adventurer, left the magic gems for Tet to absorb, disposed of them by selling them off, then quickly left the town, moving from village to village.
Thus, it has been a year since I decided to go to the dungeon city from Otto City.
We took too many detours, and by the time we reached the dungeon city from the remote region of the Istchea Kingdom, I had become a C-rank adventurer.
Originally, there was a C-rank promotion exam, but as the guild master in Darryl had told me, I was recognized as having C-rank ability and was exempted from the exam, thus we were able to be promoted smoothly.
However—
“Haa… life doesn’t go the way you want it, doesn’t it?”
“Majo-sama? Your happiness will escape when you sigh, you know? Would you like to eat a skewer?”
“Tet, thanks. I’ll have one.”
Since then, I’ve been eating the [Seed of Magic] for a year now, and my mana pool has increased to 15,000.
Along with that, one negative effect has come with it.
“I polished up [Mana Control] and the problem was resolved, but it took a year, didn’t it?”
“Tet was happy to travel together with Majo-sama.”
“Thanks, Tet.”
There was a reason for the one-year detour: to keep people from getting caught up in a mana meltdown.
However, it was not all bad.
I was able to control a court magician class mana in my body, and my control ability increased, so the directionality of my mana and the power and accuracy of my magic increased.
“We did not find the [Empty Wilderness] which was our temporary destination during our journey.”
During our one-year detour, I was unable to obtain any information regarding the Empty Wilderness.
In addition to that, the villages and forests that we stopped by during our detour did not have any comfortable places where Tet and I could live for a long time.
“We couldn’t find a suitable place for us to live at all.”
“Is that so? There were a lot of delicious things.”
Tet recalled, drooling all over, a place called Makyo as she said that. 1 There were many strong monsters and the quality of the magic gems was high.
It’s a good place for the new race Earthnoid, who absorb magical gems to strengthen their own core.
“Also, we couldn’t come upon a clue to the Empty Wilderness in the small villages and towns.”
“Tet wants to go to the dungeon as soon as possible! I want a bunch of delicious magic gems.”
“Sure. If we’re in the dungeon city—the former capital, it’s likely there’ll be a library, and I can rely on the information in the dungeon city.”
For the past year, we’ve been living a life that requires almost no money, so we could save money.
The only money I use is for food and lodging to avoid being suspected in town, and for books to gather information.
In villages, if you hunted down an edible monster and offered it to them, they would let you stay in an empty house, and if we camped out, I could cook with the ingredients that I create with my [Creation Magic] and rest in a tent with barrier magic put up around it, thus, it was surprisingly comfortable.
Because of this, Tet and I both have 30 large gold coins each stored in our guild cards.
“Well then, what should we do? Wanna try settling down in the dungeon city for the time being and do some adventurer activities?”
“+1~nanodesu!”
“Well then, let’s go.”
I take out a simple map from my magic bag.
I also got the general locations of the towns from traveling adventurers and guild staff and drew the map based on my imagination, but I still managed to complete a map that covers the major cities in the northern part of the kingdom.
“Hmm. The dungeon city is located in the former capital Apanemis.”
The former capital Apanemis was the royal capital of the Istchea Kingdom long ago.
The reason for the change of royal capital is said to be that a dungeon broke out in Apanemis, and relocated the functioning capital to a different city that was the most prosperous at the time for the royal family’s safety.
Nowadays, the remaining old capital has developed dungeon-centered industries and there are many adventurers.
“All right, let’s go to the dungeon city!”
“Well then, we have to plan our life over there.”
Tet and I had a casual exchange, like two girls traveling together, and we were approaching the dungeon city—our destination from a year ago.