#10 - Even a Plant-Type Monster Gets the Better of the Pathetic Phantom Thief
When the morning lectures let out and lunchtime arrived, I munched down the cheapest sandwich I could find and set to work drafting my expedition plan.
It was only a first-year's expedition proposal, after all, and the trip itself offered plenty of material of genuine interest to the Literature Department, so writing the thing up posed little difficulty.
With the plan finished, and before it was time for my Magic Department lecture, I headed off to see Professor Tiur Musset, the professor I worked under at the library.
Since the rules only required approval from any one professor of the Literature Department, I intended to get this done quickly.
Honestly, Professor Tiur Musset was not particularly well disposed toward me. Even though I hadn't tried to read the forbidden books on purpose, all he'd ever told me was that 'anyone wishing to read books concerning dead languages must first obtain his permission.'
Even so, wanting to wrap things up as fast as possible, I submitted my plan to Professor Tiur Musset.
— Rustle... rustle...
Professor Tiur Musset paged through my expedition plan with meticulous care, then glanced up at me once before speaking.
"You were the very first to submit an expedition plan, Sheria. Are you aware of that?"
"Yes, I'm aware...!"
"I see. Then you also know how hastily you threw it together. Family name or no, you would easily rank among the top ten of this year's freshmen. And a student of that caliber wrote nothing better than this flimsy little plan?"
"Ugh... I'm sorry..."
"...Any other professor would never have approved this."
— Thud!
Professor Tiur Musset brought his stamp down hard and handed the plan back to me.
The stamp read Approved — in other words, I was free to go on my expedition.
"First your work hours shrank when you joined the Magic Department, and now you're skipping out on two full days of library duty, tomorrow and the day after, all for an expedition. Just what part of you resembles a library scholarship student...?"
"I'm sorry..."
"Well, never mind. It's not as though the library's work is light, you know. Just tell yourself you're leaving behind nothing but the easy chores anyone can muddle through."
Professor Tiur Musset waved his hand in a shooing motion.
It probably meant, 'The lecture starts soon, so hurry along.'
I bowed my head in thanks and slipped out of the library as if fleeing.
...Perhaps Professor Tiur Musset wasn't entirely hostile toward me after all.
Frankly, I'd say he was far preferable to a professor like Gerhardt Lobel, who toyed with me right out in the open.
In any case, with the expedition approved, all that remained was to attend my Magic Department lecture and then head straight to the hideout.
I would finish every last preparation there, and then make for the place where the Eye of the Northern Shallows lay — the Caranse River.
Before that, naturally, came the Magic Department lecture.
It was my first Magic Department lecture, so I was terribly nervous, and worried besides — but there was one genuinely fortunate thing.
"Sheria~"
"Unnie...!"
Line, who sat in the same classroom, was in the Magic Department, after all.
"Want to take the lecture together?"
"Thank you."
Thanks to Line's thoughtfulness, I figured I'd at least be able to keep up with the class... or so I thought.
"Starting today, we move into full-scale practical training. Sheria, who is double-majoring into the Magic Department, will be joining the practicals immediately as well — see to it that you're aware."
Suddenly, practical training.
"Ah... haha... you've got this...? Sheria..."
"Yes, unnie..."
Worse still, the practicals were individual exercises, so there was no way for us to help each other.
And so, in the middle of practicing the basics of handling my mana...
"That's the extent of your output?"
Professor Draiden Jacob, the instructor in charge of this lecture on Fundamentals of Mana Output, looked me over once.
"Yes..."
"...I truly cannot fathom how you were admitted. What magic do you know?"
"I can... do, these..."
— Fwoosh! — Sparkle! — Shaaah... — Pop! Pop!
The spells I could manage — conjuring a simple flame, producing a glow, stirring up a light breeze, or making a sound ring out somewhere else.
The moment I had demonstrated nothing but such low-risk, feeble-output magic, Professor Draiden Jacob remarked with utter indifference:
"Many talents, but no ability. Output: Sub-standard. Ha — has this academy's level sunk to the very bottom?"
"..."
There wasn't a shred of malice or hostility in it. He was simply listing facts, exactly as they were. That was all.
But the words had carried across the entire classroom, and I — already looked down on as a commoner — would soon be treated by these Magic Department students as 'trash that was fair game to torment.'
Even knowing that, I had no choice but to attend. The double major in the Magic Department had been forced upon me, and this lecture was one that Magic Department majors were required to take.
Really, I wanted to run away. From this lecture.
While entertaining such thoughts and squeezing out every last drop of mana, classes ended before I knew it; back in my dorm room, I gathered the expedition paperwork and some simple luggage and rose from my seat.
"Unnie, I have to go on an expedition tomorrow and the day after."
"An expedition?"
"Literature Department students have to go on an expedition that matches the topic we've each chosen."
"Where are you going?"
"The Caranse River — do you know it? A small river you reach by heading straight north from the capital, past the kingdom's borders."
"All the way out there... Doesn't it take half a day just to get there?"
"Even so, I have to go."
There might come a time when I'd have to travel much farther still, but I decided to keep that to myself.
"I'll be off, then."
"All right, stay safe out there, Sheria. Oh — and be careful of monsters."
"Don't worry."
Yes, don't you worry.
I have a plan of my own, after all.
Anyway... yes. Just as Line had said, the Caranse River I was heading for lay within the Caranse Forest. And that forest was home to monsters.
According to my research, the monsters of the Caranse Forest were, at worst, animals and plants strengthened by mana.
The most dangerous of them all were the goblins that clustered together deep in the woods.
An adult man could dispatch a goblin in single combat without much trouble, and an adult woman could put one down relatively easily as long as she had a weapon — a goblin's raw strength was hardly more than a child's.
But I had no weapon. At best I carried a single magic wand, and even that was merely a magical tool, not a weapon.
Yes — I was a thoroughly pathetic individual who would struggle to win even one-on-one against goblins that were only 'dangerous in groups.'
"Which is exactly why I prepared this."
What I had made was a monster-repelling powder, blended from the ground-up leaves of plants that monsters despised.
This powder would surely prove a great help in driving off the forest's more dangerous denizens — the beast-type monsters and the goblins.
"Well then, shall we be off?"
Carrying the tools I had newly prepared at the hideout, and packing my outfit along with the most important item of all — the silver plate — I rode a wagon out of the capital.
Fortunately, the expedition permit I'd received from the academy let me pass through the inspections without a hitch, and since I'd essentially hitched a ride on the wagon, the fare was no great burden either.
We departed at nine in the morning; past three o'clock came and went, and it was around four when...
"Hey, academy miss! Time to get off!"
"Okay~"
"Keep going that way and you'll come to a ruined village — the forest behind it is Caranse Forest. And if you head the opposite direction instead, you'll reach the village where our caravan is based. Go to the caravan and ask whether you can hitch a ride on a wagon, and they'll help you out gladly."
"Thank you so much!"
Thanks to the coachman's guidance, I now knew both where the river lay and where I could find help on the way back.
With every preparation complete, I walked down the road just as the coachman had directed, until I arrived at the ruined village.
The village was in utter ruin; nothing remained but the traces of vagrants. Even those traces looked to be quite old.
Well, in a place where all foot traffic had ceased, even the homeless would have no one left to beg from. They must have moved on to another village quickly enough.
Checking the flow of the river that ran through the village, I turned my eyes upstream — and there, a vast forest began to come into view.
So that's it. The place I have to go.
I waited for night to fall. Only once the moon had risen could I seal the relic.
When enough time had passed and night finally came, I changed into my phantom thief outfit for the first time in about a week and gathered up my things.
The reason for donning the phantom thief outfit was, of course, a matter of resolve.
Master, too, had always worn his phantom thief attire whenever he sealed a relic in the old days — so perhaps, in a way, this was my own way of following in his footsteps.
"Phew... well then, shall we go?"
Yes — right up until that moment, I truly believed I could handle whatever came.
How dangerous could it possibly be, I figured, compared to that noble's mansion I had slipped into to steal from?
And yet...
"Huaaaaahhhn♡"
...Never did I imagine that, of all things, I would end up done in by a plant-type monster.
