Dual Cultivation

The Next Day

Maybe it’s because the tournament just ended, but I’m feeling a bit slow today. I need to ready myself before Elia’s group arrives, so I quickly made breakfast, and ate.

While I was eating my breakfast, a slime suddenly appeared in the room, teleporting over the table. It was a space slime, a slime that could use dimension magic. It spit out an envelope on the table, then it left just as quickly as it appeared.

Thank you for delivering it.

“It’s about yesterday’s incident…” [Ryouma]

After taking a look at the summary on the envelope, I found out that it was regarding my request to gather information about Matthew and the Tamer Guild. I broke the seal and read its contents. From that I found out that things have developed far more than I could imagine. My eyes glued themselves to the letter as I continued to eat.

…on the post script, it read, “The slime researchers are doing fine.” I didn’t really ask for this extra tidbit, but I’m grateful nonetheless.

While I was reading the letter, the gong – which I use as a replacement for a door bell – rang, indicating that Elia and the others were here.

“Already!?” [Ryouma]

Panicked, I gulped down the remaining bread and bacon egg with a glass of water, then I teleported outside, and invited Elia and the others inside. The girls were dressed lightly, just like on the day of our duel.

“Sorry for making you wait.” [Ryouma]

When I greeted them, the girls quickly realized that I wasn’t the same as usual.

“Ryouma-san, is something the matter?” [Elia]

“I’m fine, I’m fine. I just forgot the time because of a letter I was reading.” [Ryouma]

“Letter? Could it be about the tamer guild?” [Riera]

“Eh, how did you know?” [Ryouma]

Riera glanced at the others before speaking.

“Well, we saw you writing the letter yesterday, right? And besides, an incident like that would naturally cause a commotion.” [Riera]

“Ahh, well that’s true…” [Ryouma]

If the contents of the letter are true, then it’s not really strange for them to know. In any case, I should invite them inside, then I’ll ask them what’s going on in the town.

The contents of the letter could be split to two main parts. One, was in regards to the guards’ movement after arresting Matthew, and the other was in regards to Matthew’s punishment.

Apparently, after the guards arrested Matthew, they forcefully investigated the tamer guild. There were already a lot of problem regarding the tamer guild. One matter was obviously its unnecessarily rowdy members, and then there’s the issue of the aide who suddenly went missing. So when Matthew was caught, the guards used that as a pretext to investigate the entire guild.

As a result, they found out that Matthew was involved in a whole slew of other crimes, and that the shady aide was apparently connected with the dark guild. At that, the guards arrested the two people who, despite paper saying otherwise, were the current leaders of the guild.

Details surrounding the charges were not publicized, but the part about the guild working with the dark guild to make money off illegal goods was.

The illegal goods were confiscated from the members. As for the members who didn’t acquire said goods on their own volition, they were made to explain what happened and return the item to prove their innocence. Originally, these goods should’ve been handed over to the guards alongside a written report. But what happened instead was that Matthew and his cronies hid the goods, and then they gave them to the dark guild to make a profit.

Incidentally, the magic tool that Matthew used in the tournament was apparently something that he obtained after threatening a conjurer from outside to hand it over to the guild and pay up.

If it was someone from Gimuru, things might’ve gone differently, but with the conjurer being an outsider, he was afraid of Matthew’s title as a tamer guild branch guildmaster, so he just quickly left as soon as he handed over the magic tool along with the money.

Going back to the topic.

With all these added up, the odds Matthew would be given the death penalty was high. Having realized that he could no longer escape, he decided to confess and cooperate with the authorities to crack down on the criminals, and reduce his sentence. (Mainly in regards to his bosses and the people he knew to be doing something similar.) Even though Matthew was so brazenly refusing to give up this late in the game, I actually surprisingly found myself admiring him…

But with how big everything has become, with Matthew’s scandal and the tamer guild’s, it’s likely his request will simply be drowned out. Not to mention, even if he does get his sentence reduced, he’ll still be getting a life sentence. In the near future, he’ll be thrown into the capital gaols, never to see the light of day again.

With the winds blowing against the tamer guild growing fiercer than ever, the troubling ones have already ran away. It seems there’re also some people amongst the participants of the tournament who are involved. Finally, the letter ended with these words, “More and more of these sort of people will probably appear from now on.”

The source of this information was none other than Crais-san who entered the guards, so its definitely reliable. Of course, he didn’t tell me everything, but that’s only expected.

Save for the informer being Crais-san – to protect him – I divulged the contents to Elia and the others. When I did, they all simultaneously took a deep breath.

“Ojousama, may I borrow a rimel bird? While I do believe that the guards must’ve already sent a messenger, I’d still like to send a report to the duke just to be safe.” [Sebasu]

“I understand, I’ll prepare it now.” [Elia]

As Elia began her preparations, Sebasu-san took out a small golden envelope along with a set of writing tools, then he started writing his report.

Putting those two aside, I asked the remaining four girls.

“By the way, what happened to the town? You mentioned there’s been a commotion…” [Ryouma]

“There’s a group that’s transporting a lot of magical beasts from the second town, right?” [Miyabi]

“The road’s congested thanks to them, and the guards by the north gate even had to help.” [Michelle]

“Rumors of the tamer guild have also become the talk of the town, so you can hear people talking about it everywhere.” [Kanan]

“Even now some of the guards are still interrogating the people of the tamer guild.” [Riera]

It’ll probably take a while before things can calm down… As for me, people know me, so I think I’ll be fine, but… Well, whatever happens, happens.

Besides, it’s not my fault, and there’s nothing I can do about what’s already done. As I was thinking that, Sebasu-san and Elia finished sending the letter. Now then, I should start the training.

We started off with some light running. This was nothing new for the girls, they did this sort of exercise regularly too. The goal here is just to warm up the body. After that, I split the girls into two groups. Kanan and Riera for swordsmanship, while Elia, Miyabi, and Michelle, for magic training.

First, I took the sword team and Sebasu-san to the bamboo thickets in front of the house. There, I took out the heal slime, the big space slime, a mimic slime that’s mimicked my image, and three iron slimes, totaling to six slimes all in all.

“Alright, let’s start the training. First, take these.” [Ryouma]

I handed an iron slime that’s transformed into the shape of a sword to Riera, and another two of those to Kanan.

“The first part of your training is ‘Bamboo Cutting’.” As the name implies, the both of you will be cutting the bamboos here. It might seem simple, but cutting one cleanly isn’t easy. And also—” [Ryouma]

With a flick of ‘Exchange’, I took out my katana, and slashed it at a nearby bamboo diagonally up to the right. The bamboo was immediately cut, but with its support gone, the upper part of the bamboo inclined, falling toward me. Twisting my body to the left, I dodged. Then as I took a half step back, I cut the falling bamboo’s tip to smoothen it. Without breaking my momentum, I followed up with another swing, and I lopped off the other end of the now standing bamboo.

Leaving the edges sharp is dangerous, so it’s best to cut them off.

“Well, as you can see, sometimes bamboos would fall like that. And they can likened to an attack you’d need to defend or dodge.

There’s a heal slime on standby so you don’t have to worry about wounds. Also, the iron slime swords can recover itself, so there’s no need to worry about the swords wearing out, and you can dedicate all of your focus to cutting bamboos.

Oh, and the mimic slime and the big space slime are just here to gather the cut bamboo. You don’t have to worry about them.” [Ryouma]

I’m having the slimes gather bamboo, so I can make some charcoal later. But I also gave them instructions to defend the girls in case a magical beast comes out.

“I don’t think you’ll be able to cut them at first, but I’m sure you’ll eventually be able to as you get used to it and get stronger.” [Ryouma]

The two girls were full of resolve as they nodded. Then they distanced themselves from each other a bit, and then they started cutting at the bamboos. Kanan’s attack only managed to peel the bamboo, but Riera’s was at least able to dig halfway in.

Anyways, this training area is right in front of the house, so I can still see them from a distance.

“Sorry for the wait.” [Ryouma]

“Ryouma-han, will Kanan and Riera be fine?” [Miyabi]

“They’ll be continuing that for a while. Let’s start your training while they’re doing that… Ah, but before we start, I’ll have to explain something real quick.” [Ryouma]

The main goals of the magic team’s training is to improve their ability to sense magic and their ability to manipulate it. In order to achieve that, I’ll be teaching them a new magic and a personally created magic of mine.

After that, I asked them their respective specialized attributes and the magic they wished to learn. Elia’s specialties were fire and ice. She could use neutral magic although she doesn’t specialize on it. Her issue is on control.

Miyabi’s are fire and poison. She doesn’t have anything she’s particularly bad at, but she also doesn’t have anything she’s good at. That’s a problem in and of itself.

Michelle’s mostly earth and poison. But because she has All Attribute Affinity, she also wishes to study other attributes. Since that’s the case, we’ll work on fire today. I also have a magic we can use for training that’ll also be useful in day to day life.

Having made my mind, I had the three girls wait for a bit while I took out three slimes and a large barrel from inside the mine. I filled the barrel with water. And then using earth magic, I created 3 containers about the size of a small pot, and distributed them to the three girls.

“What’s this for?” [Michelle]

As Michelle asked with eyes overflowing with curiosity, I explained their training.

“What I’ll be teaching to you three today is the fire magic, ‘Heat’, a magic for the purpose of heating things. You will be using this to boil water. And these three slimes will judge the temperature of your water.” [Ryouma]

I took each of the three slimes and placed them before the containers. These small slimes are known as the hotty slime. They’re flame slimes – slimes that can use fire magic – that evolved after being submerged in water for an extended period. Now, they can use both fire and water magic.

Hotty slimes generally prefer water about the temperature of a hot bath. Most of time, they could be seen floating on water they’ve heated to a level they like. Or if not, then that’s probably because they’ve assimilated with the water and can’t be seen. They look similar to normal slimes, but they’re smaller and are a bit more watery.

During winter, I can put them inside the futons to warm them up. But back when they’d just evolved, they kept spurting hot water while I was sleeping, so the futon would be super wet by the time I woke up, making it really cold.. If it weren’t for my resistance to cold I would’ve probably shriveled up and died.

But that’s not really relevant right now…

“This ‘Heat’ is relatively easy to use. Just imagine your fire attribute magic power mixing with water, heating it up, as your magic power flows into the wand” [Ryouma]

The fire-attribute magic power is concerned with heat and not with fire, so there’s relatively more fire-attribute in the magic power in the air during summer time or in hot places. In the same vein, the reason why the temperature of water can go up is because fire-attribute magic power is actually being added to it. But if you put too much magic power in, the temperature will be too hot, and if too little, then the water will remain cool.

“Which is why you’ll need to control the amount of magic power you release in order to keep the temperature within the hotty slimes’ preference. In this way, you’ll get used to controlling your magic power.” [Ryouma]

After finishing the explanations, I drew water from the barrel, and filled up the containers. With the hotty slimes beside the containers, the preparations were complete. Once the temperature meets the requirements of the hotty slimes, they’ll enter the container themselves.

For a container this small, it won’t even take the magic power required to cast a single elementary spell. The three girls were shocked when they heard that, but magic power being efficient heaters was never a joke. After I demonstrated how to do it, Elia and the others began their training.

“Not enough?” [Miyabi]

“It’s hard to hold back…” [Michelle]

“Ah… I put too much in again…” [Elia]

The three girls quickly learned how to cast ‘Heat’, but the control after that was difficult. The hotty slimes are hard to please, so no one’s succeeded yet, but the one doing the best was currently Michelle, then Miyabi, and then at the last, was Elia.

Elia even boiled the water once out of the five times she tried. The magic power required is just too small, so she’s having a hard time… And then there’s also the fact that the container’s about as big as a stockpot, so she really has to manage the amount of magic power put in. As various aspects of their abilities were being challenged, the training continued.

TL Note:For those who’ve voted for KmF, please note that I will be working on the series with Sylvie, and will be translating it according to release date. (AKA author’s post order). It’s the way the author intended it to be read so that’s the way we’ll roll.

For more details please take a look at the lastest chapter: CLICK HERE

For Sylvie’s site – the translator I will be working with – you can check it here: CLICK HERE TO CHECK OUT SYLVIE’S WEBSITE

Finally, please take note – in case you guys think that the next untranslated chapter is still ways off – that a “new” chapter will be released in the next release this Sunday. (I won’t set a schedule for now as I’m still fixing my schedule IRL.)

Also, V4 STATUS END & Characters which list Ryouma’s current skill and the characters introduced in V4 has been translated. It’s the chapter before this one. I’m mentioning it here because I translated it after I posted this one, after I posted this one, so you might’ve missed it. Yes, it’s the post before this one.