Even faced with the cute, squishy exterior of a slime, Alex did not lower his guard as he brought his sword down.
Aiming for the core faintly visible inside the slime's body.
With the mana detection of Two Hundred, the lich from another world, he knew exactly where the core was.
SPLURT—
The slime before him split cleanly in two and melted away.
[F-grade dungeon, all right!]
There had been good reason for the young lord and the week-old knight to think lightly of the south gate dungeon.
FWIP! FWIP!
Just then the remaining three slimes revealed themselves and spat acid.
Alex dodged quickly as the acid came at him from different directions.
'I have to watch carefully.'
'Hero Leo' had never even thought about dodging attacks; one smooth sweep of his blade and they all died. But Alex, in his first real battle, could not do that.
In his mind he had already wiped out every slime, but his body would not follow.
So he had to read the slimes' movements properly.
'Habits.'
Knights and mercenaries had them.
Stepping out with the right foot first on a thrust, or pulling the shoulder back before throwing a punch.
Grasp such things well and you could find the opening to attack, and the same applied to monsters.
'Intelligent monsters would be complicated, but slimes are simple.'
To Alex's eyes, which had trained his 'eye for observation' if nothing else in the 'future', the slimes' movements were plain to see.
Ordinarily they only wobbled up and down, but before spitting acid they went still for an instant, as though gathering it. And the acid was only ever fired in a straight line.
'Now!'
Alex struck the leftmost slime as it paused to spit.
The slime was cut in two with a single stroke.
[Oh! One hit!]
Two Hundred marveled.
[You worked out the pattern?]
"Pattern?"
[Yeah. Pattern.]
[Habits, you could call it.]
[When something moves in more or less the same way, you read that and attack.]
Alex nodded and, without stopping, dealt with the two remaining slimes as well. It was clean work, hard to believe this was his first day.
[Oh, you're good!]
[Pattern analysis really is the key when you're playing a game.]
[Ah. I want to play a game.]
[No games here, so I'll have to settle for living through you!]
Alex was about to move on, listening to Two Hundred's excited voice, when he turned back toward the slimes.
[What is it?]
"I have to take the fluid and the magic stones."
[Ah!]
Alex quickly crouched, scooped the fading slimes' fluid into the leather pouch, and picked up a lowest-grade magic stone that had dropped.
"I have to buy Leo something good."
The nephew-doting fool smiled with satisfaction.
***
Having filled one leather pouch with slime fluid and collected two lowest-grade magic stones, Alex left the dungeon and ate the lunch he had brought.
[Magic stones really don't drop much.]
"It's a lowest-grade dungeon. Oh, right, let's go to the Mushrut dungeon too."
[Why there?]
"I want to take some paralysis powder. If I give a little to Leo, he could use it in an emergency."
[Oh.]
[That's a good idea.]
Listening to Two Hundred's admiration, Alex went into the Mushrut dungeon.
Mushruts were as easy a monster as slimes, so as long as he watched for the paralysis powder, which could come flying at any moment from any direction, they were simple to kill.
"Uh, ah, s-save me...."
Though anyone caught by the powder collapsed on the spot and became nourishment for the Mushruts.
Alex cut down the brightly colored mushrooms, the Mushruts, that had settled on top of a novice mercenary lying paralyzed on the ground.
[This is a monster I've never seen before. It looks just like a poisonous mushroom.]
[Better not eat it.]
"They're surprisingly edible, apparently."
[! You've eaten one?]
"No. I saw Leo and his friends eating them in the future."
Inside dungeons, where resupply was difficult, they had helped the Hero's party hold out quite a bit.
[Oh!]
[Then let's try them sometime too!]
Now that he had a sense of taste, ordinary food was not enough for Two Hundred; he was ready to eat monsters.
Just then the novice mercenary who had lost consciousness to the Mushruts came to.
"Th-thank you."
"Don't mention it."
Leaving the thoroughly drained novice mercenary behind, Alex harvested paralysis powder from the dead Mushruts.
[You know, I get the feeling that mixing slime fluid with this paralysis powder would make a decent poison?]
"Poison?"
Alex asked back with a slightly surprised expression.
"You can make poison?"
At that, Two Hundred, the lich from another world, explained excitedly.
[Of course!]
[I know all sorts of other things besides that. I know how to make potions, too.]
"That's good news."
Potions.
For Alex, who had trouble visiting temples, it was welcome. There were potions made by mages, but they were expensive.
"Let's make some sometime."
[Sure!]
Having obtained Mushrut paralysis powder and three lowest-grade magic stones, Alex came out of the dungeon.
"That was easier than I expected."
After a few real fights, striking a moving target had become familiar. He felt he was starting to understand how to actually use the swordsmanship he had only learned in theory, in practice, and by watching.
[It's a lowest-grade dungeon.]
[It'll get hard again once you meet lower-grade monsters.]
Alex agreed with Two Hundred.
"I'll have to train hard. Swordsmanship and magic both."
Alex rode Max back to the lord's castle.
Of course, on the way back he did not forget to confirm the location of the lower-middle-grade dungeon that would appear in the 'future'.
"Wilbur, here you are."
"Right."
After delivering the leather pouch of slime fluid to the mercenary guild, Alex headed for the inn.
"Uncle!"
Leo, who had been playing in the inn's backyard with Sophia and the friends he had newly made, broke into a wide smile at the sight of Alex returning with Max.
From the flush in his cheeks, he must have been playing very happily.
"Leo, did you have fun?"
"Yeah! Did your trip to the dungeon go well, Uncle?"
At Leo's question, Sophia and the other children ran over as well and gazed up at Alex with shining eyes.
Children this age adored things like mercenaries and knights. And on top of that, Leo's uncle was a mage, something they had never seen before!
"It went well. Look at this. This is a lowest-grade magic stone."
Alex took the lowest-grade magic stones from his pouch and showed them.
At the pale blue stones glittering in the sunlight like shards of glass, Leo and the children let out a Whoa! of wonder. It was their first time seeing a magic stone as well.
"Can I touch it?"
"Of course you can."
At Alex's permission, Leo and the children carefully reached out and touched the lowest-grade magic stones.
"They're so pretty!"
"They really are!"
Once the children had looked their fill,
Alex put the stones back in his pouch and said to Leo,
"All right, let's get ready to go to the viscount's house."
"Okay!"
Alex and Leo washed thoroughly in the inn's bathhouse.
Then Alex taught Leo the basics of noble greetings and table manners.
"Hmm. Like this?"
"That's right. Well done, Leo."
"Phew, even eating is hard for nobles!"
At Leo's lament, Matthew and Sophia, watching from the side, nodded again and again.
"This is the simple version. Learning it properly is much harder."
"Uwaah...."
[Wow... harder than this?]
At the appalled exclamations, Alex laughed.
Alex had reacted the same way in the 'future' when 'Hero Leo' was learning noble etiquette.
He had wondered what use fussing over manners could be in a world on the brink of ruin, and yet here was the day he would use it.
The face of a certain stiff-necked person who had said, 'That is all the more reason you must observe them,' surfaced for a moment and faded.
"If it's hard, shall I teach you next time, Leo? I don't think they'll mind much at the viscount's house."
If they had cared about noble etiquette, they would not have invited commoners in the first place.
Well, he did not know what they thought privately.
"If they say anything, Uncle will flip the table over."
Leo giggled at Alex's words. He must have thought it was a joke.
[Leo, your uncle might actually do it.]
Two Hundred said, but it did not reach him.
"No. I want to learn."
Leo said, his laughter fading a little, his sky-blue eyes curving round.
"You know how to do it, Uncle."
At the sight of his spirited six-year-old nephew, who wanted to copy everything his uncle did, Alex laughed.
And while Leo was learning simple table manners,
"Good day, Master Alex."
Norton, butler of House Kaldis, arrived.
"We meet again, Master Alex!"
And with him was Loren, the week-old knight — no, two days had passed, so the nine-day knight now.
"Whoaaa! A knight!"
"Wow!"
The adults laughed at the children's frank reaction, and Loren scratched his cheek in embarrassment.
"I came along when I heard we were fetching you. Thank you truly for your help the other day."
Loren bowed, then looked at Leo and said,
"Is this your nephew?"
"Yes. His name is Leo."
"Hello!"
"I am called Loren, Master Leo."
Hearing polite speech from an adult must have felt strange, because Leo rolled his round eyes about. Alex smiled and patted his head.
"Please board the carriage."
At Butler Norton's words, Alex lifted Leo into the carriage first.
"Sophia! Grandpa! Big Brother Matthew! We're off!"
"Have fun, Leo! Tell me all about it when you get back!"
"Okay!"
Leo waved hard through the carriage window. Sophia shouted back, her face flushed. The adults laughed.
Soon the carriage carrying Alex and Leo set off for the viscount's house. With a mounted knight riding alongside, it drew attention.
[They're certainly treating their benefactor properly.]
Leo, riding in a carriage for the first time, looked around the interior with a fascinated expression. It was no ordinary carriage but a noble house's, and the fittings inside were quite elegant.
"Whoa!"
[My first carriage ride!]
[Oh. The ride is bad!]
Two Hundred said so, and enjoyed himself all the same.
As for Alex, he had ridden even an imperial carriage in the 'future', so there was nothing to surprise him.
"Uncle, look over there!"
Having examined the inside of the carriage to his heart's content, Leo looked out the window.
At the end of the road stood a two-story manor, larger and finer than the other buildings. It was the manor of House Kaldis, surrounded by a solid wall.
"Whoaaa!"
[Ooh!!]
The soldiers guarding the great gate checked the carriage's crest and opened it. The carriage passed through a well-kept garden and stopped before the manor's front door.
"We have arrived."
Butler Norton, who had been in the driver's seat, opened the carriage door. Alex stepped down first and took Leo's hand so he could climb down easily.
"Uncle! The house is huge! And the windows are huge! And it has two floors!"
[So this is the manor a viscount lives in!]
It was a viscount's manor, small as noble manors went, but for Leo, seeing one for the first time, it was more than grand enough to marvel at.
"This way."
Butler Norton led the way, and the front door opened. And to their surprise, Ethan Kaldis, the young lord, was standing there.
[Oh!]
[I didn't expect him to come out and meet us.]
No indeed.
Alex had thought they would see him at the dinner table; he had not expected Ethan Kaldis to be waiting.
"Welcome, Master Alex."
"I hope you have been well, my lord. You may speak plainly with me."
"Haha. Shall we, then? And you must call me Ethan, Alex. Ah, this must be your nephew."
Ethan Kaldis shook Alex's hand, then smiled and met Leo's eyes. Leo greeted him boldly.
"Hello! I'm Leo!"
"Hello, Leo. I am Ethan Kaldis. And this is my younger brother, Arden."
From behind Ethan Kaldis, a boy who looked about eight peeked out.
[So this is the younger brother who became the heir after the young lord died.]