“But will they join if it means having to leave their other party members behind? I’m sure they have a six-person party usually, right?”
“I don’t think that will be a problem. I can’t imagine they will turn down the opportunity to participate in something as enticing as a raid boss battle to unlock the next zone. In fact, I’m sure even one of them would be willing to join alone. If we’re successful, it will go a long way in helping their party progress the game from here on out.”
“I see no problem, then.”
I could leave the duty of assembling members to Kokuten while I moved on to a task that was within my capabilities.
Once we split up with Kokuten, we made our way back to the Beast Hybrid Village to gather more information that would help us in the raid boss fight.
“Eine, don’t drop that. Be veeery careful.”
“Tra-la...”
“Yeah! Just like that!”
“Tra-la!”
My monsters and I had found ourselves in the hermitage of an old woman who was an apothecary. I had learned about this place while gathering information around the village yesterday before logging out.
When I said I wanted to talk to her about the raid boss, she asked me to tidy up her storage room, which we were all currently in the middle of cleaning.
I entrusted Eine to take care of the out-of-reach spots, but the sight of her moving vases and other fragile things around put me on edge. She was stronger than she looked, so I knew she’d be fine, but still. It wasn’t good for my heart to watch such a small girl lifting a vase that was nearly as big as she was.
“Hum?”
“Oh, are you done washing that? Then could you refill the cistern with water?”
“Mm!”
“...!”
“You two are finished sorting the medicinal herbs? That was fast. Good job.”
“Mm-mm!”
“...♪”
Thanks to my monsters’ hard work, we got the room sparkling clean in no time. The old woman was super pleased with our work and happily told me information regarding the raid boss.
“The beast that’s taken up residence deep in the cave has got a real keen sense of smell. Smoke screens, illusions, and being stealthy won’t work on it.”
“So basically, we can’t hide from it?”
“That’s exactly right. The beast had no problem spotting one of our stealthiest hunters. You’ll be needing someone else to distract it really well for something like that to work.”
Apparently, the lion had such a good sense of smell that it could pinpoint someone’s location from the slightest whiff of their scent. It would be hard to pull off a surprise attack, then. But maybe there was a way to use the lion’s sense of smell to our advantage?
The old woman still had more to share. “You’ve done such a good job cleaning up my storage room. I feel like you deserve more information as thanks. Let me tell you one more thing.”
“What is it?”
“I’ll tell you the recipe for a special poison I developed. I can’t say for certain it’ll be effective on that lion, but I’ve heard it works wonders on similar types of monsters.”
“Wow, thank you!”
“Don’t mention it, dear. Here, take this with you.”
The old woman handed me the recipe for the special poison and one completed poison. This was great.
After I left the old woman, Akari and I walked around the village a bit more and obtained more pieces of important information.
“It’s strong against fire, and weak against wind.”
“And there was what the apothecary lady told us about poison...”
“She said that she’s not sure it’ll work, but it supposedly works against raid bosses.”
Combined with what we found out today, our attempt to gather information had turned out to be very fruitful. We now knew the raid boss’s elemental weakness, its behavior patterns, and its means of attack. And we had been given a new poison recipe.
“Okay, I’ll make a summary of all the information we’ve found out,” Akari said.
“And I’ll try making that poison.”
“Aww yeah, that does sound fun. But organizing all this information takes priority. I’ll trust you with the poison.”
And with that, I returned home and got right to work in my workshop.
“It’s time...for poison cooking!”
“Hum?”
“I’m going to cook a seafood dish that contains a deadly poison that might just work against the raid boss!”
“Hum...”
We had learned that the lion liked cooked fish, and the apothecary had given me her recipe for poison. Combine those two pieces of information together, and the most logical conclusion was that we should feed poisoned food to the boss.
“Reflet, I know to a fish-lover like you, this looks like I’m wasting food. But this is all part of our preparations to face up against the raid boss.”
“Hum...!”
“This is the least I can do. Otherwise I’ll just be dragging everyone else down.”
What I had to do wasn’t difficult in and of itself. All I had to do was cook a meal and put poison in it. First, as a test, I decided to use food I had already made and add the poison the old woman had given me.
“I’ll use...this!”
“Humm!”
I took out one of Reflet’s favorite meals, acqua pazza. Not the low-quality acqua pazza I had made when Reflet had first joined our team, but a high-quality version that I had made using more or less the same recipe as its real-life counterpart.
“Hum...”
“Hey, don’t start drooling! I’m about to put poison in this!”
“Hum!”
“Don’t grab onto me! It’s fine, I still have some in my inventory! And I have enough ingredients to make more!”
I had plenty of ocean fish in my inventory, and we grew the olives, herbs, and vegetables ourselves on the farm. As I explained as much, Reflet finally released her hold on me.
“Since this poison is a powder, I guess I can just sprinkle it on top?”
I dusted the acqua pazza with the white powder, and the name of the dish immediately changed to Acqua Pazza (Poisoned).
“Looks like it worked... Huh?”
“Hum?”
I didn’t know if it would be effective, but I immediately noticed a problem.
“It kind of smells.”
“Hum!”
The acqua pazza now had a peculiar poisonous smell. The raid boss was supposed to have a good sense of smell, which meant this dish was a bust.
“Maybe I’m not supposed to sprinkle it on top, but add it while I’m cooking...”
The process for making the poison wasn’t very difficult, but it required fairly valuable ingredients, so it wasn’t the sort of poison I could make on a regular basis. Though all of the ingredients were ones I could gather from my farm.
“I’ll have to use some of the Flarestarter Plants and Swimming Plants. And I just started mass-growing those.”
The recipe the old woman had given me was for a poison called Magic Poison. It was a poison that affected the target’s magic rather than their physical state, which meant normal poison resistances wouldn’t protect against it.
This was scary stuff. If I considered the possibility that enemies might use this against me too, then it seemed that I had better start stocking up on antidotes.
The final step of the recipe was to mix in the glowing moss that grew on the cave ceiling above the village, which would turn the poison into a special magic poison that was effective against raid bosses.
“I guess I have no choice but to trial-and-error this.”
“Hum...”
“Come on, don’t look at the acqua pazza so forlornly. It’s poisoned. You can’t eat it.”
“Hum.”
Did she actually get what I was saying?
“All right, let’s make as much as we can!”
“Humm...”