Chapter 452 – Measures for the New District

“Hmm. Over there?”

The fire spirit under Auria’s command engulfed the upper body of a snowman that had been hiding behind glacial ice, attempting to ambush them, in flames and burned it away.

The ability to search a wide area is likely one of the strengths of a spirit user. Unlike familiars, they don’t have a Five Senses Link, but since they’re fully autonomous, they can divide roles even in chaotic battles and are less susceptible to surprise attacks from remnants.

Although Auria had been positioning spirits around the defensive perimeter to protect the rearguard, once the battle situation became advantageous, she had been using multiple spirits to check whether enemies were hiding behind objects and such.

After clearing out the remaining monsters—the snowmen—in that manner, nothing remained but the particular silence of a snow-covered area.

It’s probably one of the brighter sections within the labyrinth. The white, hazy glacial forest might be described as quite mystical and beautiful.

Now then. Once the monsters are defeated, it’s time to move on to looting, but since there are many monsters we’re encountering for the first time, it seems it’ll be somewhat time-consuming.

“Let’s start with the snowmen, I suppose.”

“When defeated, they turned into ordinary snow. Even though they were quite hard while moving,” Sheila said, poking a motionless snowman with her finger.

The defeated snowmen weren’t melting because the surroundings were cold, but… their forms had collapsed as if their bonds had loosened.

There might be ways to create regenerating golems and such, but in the case of these guys, it seems that once they take a certain amount of damage, they lose control of the spell formula that maintains the golem.

Since they’re probably monsters positioned as the grunt types in each section, it’s good that they don’t have high durability, as it means less trouble… but I wonder what can be looted from them.

“Theodore-kun, I found something.”

Irmhild picked up something from a snowman that had been melted by Flamia’s foxfire. It was something like a snow crystal.

“…What is it? It’s like a large snow crystal.”

I took it from Irmhild and examined it closely. It was probably about the size of a palm. The shape was perfectly described as a replica modeled after a snow crystal.

It felt cool and cold to the touch, and when viewed through the monocle, it contained magical power. When I held it and gently channeled a bit of magical power into it from my side, it released cold air from near the center of the crystal.

“…If we connect it to a magic stone and supply it with magical power, maybe we could use it to cool food or lower room temperature.”

“That seems quite handy,” Rosemary said, narrowing her eyes happily while hiding her mouth with her feather fan.

“Yeah. It’d save trouble, you could say.”

If we were to make the same thing with a magic tool, there would be a fair number of steps like engraving a spell formula.

We don’t know about its durability, but since we can prepare them in quantity, for example, we could freeze food for long-distance transport, attach it to an ice room to improve cooling efficiency… we can think of various uses.

Just to be sure, I tried extracting magic stones from the snowmen we collected the crystal plates from, but only very small ones were obtained. Magic stone extraction is also possible from the crystal plates themselves. From these, we can extract ones of a decent size… so this might be a part that functions as the core of the snow golem.

It might be interesting to try making a snow golem by incorporating this. In that case, it would be creating a permanent golem by properly embedding a magic stone, rather than a makeshift type using Create Golem… Well, regardless of the crystal plate’s uses, we’ve mostly decided on the general policy for looting from snow golems.

“Since we can collect magic stones elsewhere too, it’s probably better to take the crystal plates back as they are.”

“Understood.”

Ashley nodded and began breaking apart the snowmen using water magic. Auria, similarly to Ashley, manipulated water spirits and joined in the snowman-breaking work.

Some of the crystal plates were broken during the battle, so we’ll have magic stones extracted from those.

Pietro watched this looting work and nodded as if impressed, then immediately joined in collecting materials along with his clones.

“What shall we do about the yetis?”

“The fur… and magic stone extraction, I was thinking, but let’s decide after taking them back to the Guild. I’d like them to see the actual items too.”

“Understood. Then we’ll leave them as they are.”

“Mhm.”

I nodded at Grace’s words.

“What about that one?”

Seraphina asked while looking at the mammoth soldier.

Hmm. Magic stone extraction seems a bit wasteful.

“The tusks and fur… and then the meat, I suppose. We’ll probably transfer that one as is too.”

Regarding the fur, there are parts that aren’t burned, so there are usable sections. It should be fine to transfer it as is and take it back.

To be honest, I’m curious about the taste of mammoth meat. With that size, it would provide a considerable amount of food.

Marlene used Levitation on the mammoth soldier, and Ignis carried it. When we lined up the yetis and mammoth in front of Claudia, Claudia lightly tapped the ground with her Staff of Shadow Thorns, deployed a magic array, and transferred them outside the labyrinth as supplies.

“Treasure chest discovered.”

Sheila, who was scouting ahead, found a treasure chest in a grove of trees by the side of the road. Location-wise, it’s further along the road where we were attacked by the yetis earlier.

…Hmm. So that’s why there were such large numbers gathered in force?

During looting, Auria had released wind spirits to survey the surrounding terrain, and it seems the passageway is structured so that it circles around the treasure chest. I thought there might be something, so I had her check, and sure enough.

If it were a small party, by accepting the risk and hiding behind the glacial ice while heading for the treasure chest, they might be able to collect the contents without being discovered by the snowmen and yetis.

“There’s a geyser in the shadow of that glacial ice over there. Be careful.”

“Mhm.”

So the geyser is in a location where it’s hard to see. Quite nasty. Though for Irmhild, it’s easily discovered.

If someone carelessly approaches, the geyser erupts. If that happens, they’ll be discovered by monsters, and if they fail or take too long dealing with the lurking worms, that would also increase the risk of discovery.

“The worms, I’ll handle,” Grace said, placing a hand near her chest and stepping forward.

“Mhm. Thanks. If hot water erupts, defend.”

“Yes. Then—”

Grace wrapped her axe in fighting spirit and, without further discussion, threw it at the worm disguised as a rock. With a shattering sound, the worm’s body was severed. Its stone body reared up for a moment but immediately lost strength and crumbled. It was over in an instant.

A hot water pool formed, but the geyser didn’t erupt. So the high pressure must be the worm’s doing.

And then… I could feel Corulis’s expectant gaze.

“That one’s for Corulis.”

When I gave permission, Corulis nodded happily, bobbing its head up and down.

Hmm. So that settles the worm’s use. Other uses would probably only be magic stone extraction, but we’re not particularly struggling for magic stones anyway.

Sheila immediately went to examine the treasure chest.

“Traps… I don’t think there are any.”

It seems the only trap is the nearby geyser, and the chest itself doesn’t appear to be trapped. I don’t see any special magical power on the chest either, so there probably aren’t any magical traps. When she started unlocking it, the lid opened easily.

Then Sheila pulled out something like a necklace with a green gem attached from inside the box.

“This.”

“Mhm. Thank you.”

…I can feel magical power. Judging from the wavelength, it seems to be a healing-related magic tool…

Whether we can make use of it depends on its performance, but judging from the strength of the magical power I feel and that heavy security, I don’t think it’s something with poor performance. Regarding this, we’ll need to take it back and examine it in more detail.

Now then… Are there any other mechanisms or noteworthy matters? Let’s continue exploring at least until we reach the stone monument.

And—we safely returned from the stone monument to the labyrinth entrance.

Being indoors, it feels considerably warmer than the glacial forest. I let out a small breath.

As expected, the group led by the yeti seemed to be part of the trap, and monsters attacking in other passages were sporadic. There were many snow golems hiding behind glacial ice and such.

When snow golems aren’t moving, they must be detected by means other than sound, but since they’re made of the same material as the section itself, Sheila and Lavigne can’t detect them with their sense of smell, and there’s no temperature difference, so temperature detection seems difficult for Irmhild too.

However, Corulis, who can sniff out magical power, seems able to detect them, and Auria’s spirit-based detection worked well too. Having Corulis along when heading to the glacial forest would probably make things easier.

“We’ve returned now.”

“Welcome back, Your Excellency the Ambassador.”

Soldiers and Guild staff were stationed in front of the entrance, and when we greeted our return, they expressed their joy at our comeback. Princess Stephania and Princess Adriana should be receiving real-time reports at the Adventurer Guild.

“That place… would be difficult to explore without preparation. The danger level isn’t as high as the Blazing Fortress, but… I’m not fond of the branching point being the magic light water vein either,” Auria commented about the glacial forest as we ascended the spiral staircase.

“Yeah. If you get wet with water along the way, exploration would be tough when you charge in immediately.”

“Hmm… It would be necessary to either change clothes before charging in or dry them.”

A bag with waterproof treatment, or perhaps a magic tool for drying clothes. If there were a party member who could dry clothes with water magic, there probably wouldn’t be any worry about that.

Anyway, first we’ll go to the Adventurer Guild to report on the new section and countermeasures, then dispose of the spoils and such, I suppose.

Including what we just discussed, we’ll have them provide sufficient warnings to the adventurers. A new section being created will likely become a topic of conversation, but if it’s widely known that the difficulty is high, they’ll probably be cautious about charging in. At minimum, a Red Transfer Stone would be essential, I imagine.