‘You are too calm. It’s not good. Lowering your guard, it leads to injury.’
Fi thought of the hunter’s words as he started walking.
“Hey, Guto. Where are you?”
While he was calling him, Fi did have an idea of where the wolf had gone. The reason he was raising his voice was because he had been told that it would help make other animals avoid him.
Eventually, he saw a clearing of grass and short trees. It was a natural orchard. The results of birds and critters storing various seeds.
There were hard gooseberries, unripe blueberries, and silverberries, which were very soft and not suited for picking. He ignored them all and went over to the wild strawberries. There, the wolf was lying down with a bored expression.
“Hey, you. Weren’t we told to go together?”
Guto’s ears twitched, but he otherwise did not even turn his head.
“Damn it. I’m going to fill up the basket now, so stay still.”
He reached up to the high branches and picked the berries.
Dragon claws were surprisingly dexterous. Picking something small and fragile was still easy for him.
“Now that I think about it, I’ve become very used to this body now.”
He muttered and then chuckled at himself.
To think that he had once been here as a human Hero. Someone meant to kill monsters and the Demon King who led them.
However, he had been defeated once, and returned to his old life.
But now, he had the form of a dragon and was picking berries in the forest.
“How the hell did this even happen, eh?”
From morning until night, he spent the days gathering food and crafting items. Simple meals in the mountains, and sleeping in rough huts.
It was the exact opposite of the special treatment he had received as a Hero.
That being said, his dragon body was quite tough. He had never been sick. He only wished the kobold would allow him to sleep a little longer in the mornings.
“…That should do it. Let’s go to the next… Hey! That’s too fast! I told you to not go ahead!?”
Their first meeting had been terrible, and so Guto’s attitude towards him was always like this.
It seemed like he would obey Sheto’s orders, but he ran around freely when with the dragon.
“Alright then…”
He picked up the smartphone and tapped one of the icons.
A map was displayed on the screen, and he saw the white wolf icon moving away from the blue dragon icon.
“So it’s the mountain grapes… Damn it!”
At least the wolf meant to help him. He grumbled as he continued to walk.
Just then, ‘Incoming Call’ appeared on the screen.
“Yes. Hello.”
‘Mmm. Connected again. So, are you still alive?’
The voice on the other end was quite amused.
It was the dragon who had sent him here.
“I wouldn’t be able to answer the phone if I was dead! Also, don’t you have work to do?”
‘It’s fine. There’s no problem.’
“A short while ago, your little dragons were complaining to me. They say you aren’t working because all your attention is on me.”
‘Speaking of which, how do you like the app that I made?’
He said, changing the subject as if it was nothing. The dragon god was one of the most powerful in the heavens.
“Yeah, it’s useful. Right now, I’m using it to track that damned wolf.”
‘It seems like you are also using the Dragon Cyclopedia a lot. Good, good.’
“Look here. I’m grateful for the support and all, but why is everything so game-like?”
All the features on the smartphone were sent as updates.
The Dragon Cyclopedia site registered what he saw, heard and experienced, and compiled them so that they could be searched for later.
The smartphone was able to track his position with precision, and automatically create a map based on the area he walked through. That app was called Tadaataka-kun.
And then there was the Status Checker which allowed you to check the status of registered friends.
All of these were made by the dragon, and used ‘game-like’ systems.
‘It cannot be helped. Sending a single map means sending perfect information. And the judge would not allow that. However, if you are doing the mapping yourself, then it can be done free of cost.’
“…It is helpful, but… You know, it’s because you make stuff like this that they get mad at you.”
‘I did acquire these programming skills to do something in half-measures. Besides, it is a much better use of my time than making mods for western games.’
“Both are just a hobby for you!”
The dragon god really was an otaku. Fi couldn’t help but laugh.
‘By the way, I’m almost finished with a new app, so you can look forward to that… Ah, no…this is…I was checking up on him… I have a responsibility, since I sent him… N-no! All of my hard work… I’m sorry! Don’t do that!’
He suddenly hung up.
The call time on the display said 10 minutes. Fi sighed.
“Really, that old man is hopeless.”
They returned after the basket was full. Sheto was sharpening arrowheads.
“Welcome back. I have lunch.”
“Ah.”
There was a mass of something wrapped with leaves near the stove. When he looked inside, there was steamed potato and wild bird. The kobold took down the basket from Guto and checked the contents while Fi ate.
The meat had only a mild taste of salt for seasoning, but it was fatty and soft. As he ate hungrily, Sheto laughed.
“You got alot. Must have been hard.”
“…I had a good guide. So it wasn’t really…”
In spite of the sarcasm, the wolf yawned without interest and then went off somewhere. After placing everything near the stove, Sheto went back to work.
Both legs glowed blue, and then he added defense power to the anvil he was leaning on. And then he laid the metal piece against it and sharpened it.
Neither anvil nor arrowhead were ordinary metal. It was mithril, which reacted to magic, allowing you to change its characteristics freely.
“You really are good. Ushing enchantments with your feet.”
“Can make things strong, with touch. So, why not feet too? That’s what I thought.”
Said the hunter casually. He finished the piece he was working on and reached for another.
Sheto had started to carve pieces of the mithril golem remains shortly after setting up camp here.
‘This. Broken thing. Can it be used?’
‘Used? For what?’
‘Carve, shape and turn to arrowheads.’
‘I’ll have to look it up. But, are you good with metal?’
‘I can do it.’
‘…Huh?’
While it was often called ‘mithril silver,’ it was actually quite different. It was only called that because the forging with magic energy changed its characteristics, which resulted in a silvery sheen.
Golems used two types of it. One that was flexible and was used for moving parts and magic circuits, and a hard type that was used for armor and weapons.
Once mithril had the spell cast on it, it could not be transformed again unless that power was removed.
Such information was acquired through the Dragon Cyclopedia, and then Sheto went about this working of using the hard silver from the golem armor.
At first, it had been very difficult. But then he came up with the method raising the anvil’s strength through enchantments, which allowed him to make mithril arrowheads which were light and durable.