Gather Divine Coins and Gacha! - Chapter 169

 Raising the altitude of the floating sphere, she appeared above the forest, confirming the direction of the city.

Not exactly directionally challenged, but lost in the depths of the forest.

Moreover, during combat, with all the up and down movements, she quickly loses track of which direction she's facing.

"Floosh!"

She launched her magic at full force from behind the umbrella.

It served as a substitute signal flare.

Even in broad daylight, this should catch their attention.

Seems they noticed the magic; as she listened intently, she heard the shrill sound of a whistle.

The retrieval team should be arriving shortly.

◇

Forest One.

It's the forest closest to the town where I usually hunt and gather herbs.

Its name comes from being the closest to the town.

... I've known of its existence since my time at the orphanage, and I knew it was called that, but I didn't know it was the formal name.

Although it's directly connected to the vast forest, it's called that because One Mountain separates it.

By the way, the origin of One Mountain is the same.

The notable feature of this forest is its proximity to the town.

Occasionally, powerful monsters with territories on One Mountain come down, but basically, only weak monsters driven out from One Mountain are there, so it's often just passed through.

However, even though they're weak by the standards of the demon realm, they can still be quite strong, so the quality is poor.

The town still suffers from a shortage of herbs, but when herbs run short in other towns and adventurers can't make it, herbalists can go out to gather them themselves, but it's too dangerous here for anyone to do that.

Potion ingredients are perennial and can be harvested regardless of the season. However, in autumn and winter, when monsters become aggressive, adventurers tend to avoid going far and increase hunting in Forest One, so I can rely on that, but it's still too difficult to venture out during this time.

Recently, Aleck and Jighart, whom I had heard talking, came to offer their help... but it would be too wasteful to let people of their level do it.

So, herb gathering is still my responsibility.

As for the concern of dealing with monsters, it's up to the town's soldiers.

Adventurers and soldiers.

It's not that they clash, but there are various divisions of labor. Since I'm originally from the magistrate's side, it's become a matter of lending a hand.

This Lutol is destined to become the capital of the new territory.

However, as it is now, it's too small, so it's expanding. To the east, that is, toward the forest.

Why deliberately toward the dangerous side?

You might wonder, but apparently, the plan is to deal with that by placing the knights' training grounds between the town and the forest.

The magistrate's residence is being renovated to become the lord's residence, but unlike Zelkis', there's no space for a knights' training ground on the premises. Instead, adjacent to the town wall, they're building training grounds and soldier barracks outside to enhance defense.

Even now, training is conducted outside the west side of the town, so it's not much trouble to move it east.

"Hmm?"

Absent-mindedly, I heard a different, lower whistle this time.

I'm holding the same thing, but it's an imitation of the roar of a large demonic beast, which apparently deters weaker monsters.

While it might be just a psychological comfort in the demon realm, it seems to work here due to the smell of blood and corpses drifting around.

I blow into it as well.

"Oh, there it is! Over here!"

Whether they heard that sound or not, the soldiers who came to collect it raised their voices and approached.

There are five of them.

It's the smallest unit of this country's forces.

One magic shot results in one unit request.

So far, there have been no mistakes in the response, which is confirmed by the number of whistles.

"Good work. Counting on you again today?"

"A special reward is being offered, so don't worry about it."

I feel a bit apologetic, but they respond casually.

A special reward... it's the proceeds from selling monsters.

For them, if there's a request during training, they go out and, with the support of "Prayers," drag the monsters to town. It's a fairly lucrative job.

I'm the one who receives the sacred coins, and unlike in dungeons, I don't have to pay anything for what I get outside.

It all goes into my wallet.

I could pay them, but Ceriana herself told me to keep it.

Well, maybe it's like the reward for taking on herb gathering?

"All right. Loading is complete. Get it done!"

"Yes, sir."

With that, today's job is done!