Dinner

Limn scooped up the grey sludge and some of the contaminated dirt and stored it in a few glass bottles. Limn looked thoughtfully at the grey sludge in the glass bottles before putting it all away in the toolbox and heading back to the cottage.

Azra and Lo followed Limn back to the cottage. Limn paid some heed to the difference in physical abilities this time, but he still arrived back at his house before the other two. When Azra and Lo also reached the cottage, they stepped into the house only to find that a large hole had opened up in the floor in the living room.

Azra and Lo looked at each other before heading down to where Limn was making a bunch of noise.

The stairs didn't reach very deep, and Azra could see the two-sectioned room as soon as his head was below the floor.

An alchemy workshop occupied slightly less than half the room with its various tool and containers. An arrangement of alchemical ingredients filled the other half. Herbs, grasses, insect legs, beast eyes, and items Azra couldn't identify filled the shelves with their special storage items. The ingredients probably needed to be perfectly stored and preserved in order to make the best alchemical ingredient, and using spatial storage items could affect the ingredients' longevity.

Together, the two sections made a room almost as large as the entire cottage above.

Limn had put the expelled Rage Powder on an empty spot on one of the shelves, after which he had gathered the ingredients needed to make a few tranquilizers. Although he wanted to investigate and experiment with the expelled Rage Powder, Limn knew it could take ages until he made progress, so he decided to make tranquilizers first and ask Azra and Lo to gather the Rage Powder they got from the beasts.

However, it had been a while since Limn last made sedatives or tranquilizers, and he would need to scrape off some rust on his old bones before he could make something strong enough to put a medium level beast affected by Rage Powder to sleep.

Limn started working on the sedatives after sending Azra and Lo on their way.

Azra and Lo prepared other things Lo might need to bring back the beasts from the forest until it was time to eat dinner at Mahenny's house.

Azra and Lo met up with Mirabelle and Melly on the way, and Nem arrived a short while after they did.

Mahenny's farm was on the outskirts of the village. But with the size of the village, almost every house was on the outskirts. However, since Mahenny's farm took up more space than most other villagers' houses, he practically lived outside the village.

Despite living apart from the other villagers, Mahenny wasn't lonely. Although the beasts were affected by the Rage Powder and turned into mindless berserk beasts, ordinary animals were mostly fine. Most animals had still died due to the enraged beasts, but those who served gathered at Mahenny's farm, and based on the friendliness the mortal animals shared with Mahenny, Azra guessed it was due to Mahenny's inclination.

Azra didn't know if it was a coincidence or simply the result of his actions. But the connection he made with Mahenny opened up the possibility of asking Mahenny to help in handling all the beasts Lo brought back from the forest.

Azra and Lo hoped that the beasts Lo found would be beasts from the village who had fled into the forest after getting affected by the Rage Powder. However, they couldn't ignore the reality in which most of the beasts in the forest were actual wild beasts who didn't have any previous experience with humans. If Mahenny was willing to help them in their plan, getting the beasts to help the village with farming and defending against other beasts would become a lot easier.

Mahenny happily accepted Azra and Lo's request. Mahenny didn't go into detail about what his inclination was, but Mahenny said something about it being the thing he might need to reach the fourth level. Since Mahenny saw hope about breaking through to the next level despite his age, Azra and Lo understood why he was willing to undergo the burdensome task of taming the previously enraged wild beasts.

The dinner stretched deep into the night, but Lo was still up and about before dawn broke. Lo used a few storage rings to carry the equipment he and Azra gathered the day before. And after visiting the still-awake Limn, he stuffed the glass bottles filled with sedatives in their own storage ring.

Since he had everything he needed, Lo didn't waste any more time as he and Erlo dove into the forest.

Azra woke up shortly after dawn, tired after the hectic yesterday and the late dinner, but he still got up and dressed in his old robes before sharing breakfast with Mirabelle and Melly. After breakfast, Azra played a little with Melly as he killed time until it was time for him to visit Gus. Azra made sure to play with Melly and her dolls in the open, where the other villagers could see how Azra got even the shy Melly to open up to him in a matter of days.

After he made sure that enough villagers had seen him and that it was about time for him to meet with Gus, Azra politely excused himself from Melly's game.

Gus' voice greeted Azra as soon as he stepped into the shop.

"Hey, perfect timing!"

Gus barely looked up before continuing to fiddle with the cloth draped over a mannequin in the same place Azra got his measurements taken the previous day.

Azra greeted Gus while walking over to the center of the shop, inspecting the initial design of the clothes at the same time.

The primary fitting that Gus wanted Azra to do didn't take long. Azra changed into the new, unfinished robes, and Gus measured and adjusted the robes around his shoulders, waist, and arms.

Gus got back to making the robes, and Azra ended up with nothing to do, so he visited Nem. On the way to Nem's house, Azra wondered if he should offer his whaling services to the villagers but decided to hold off on putting that idea to practice.

It took most of Azra's mana to purify the Rage Powder from a single beast, and until he built up a greater number of followers that could supply him with a stream of faith and mana, he would have to limit how much magic he used.

Since Azra wasn't wearing her missing and presumed dead son's clothes, Nem had an easier time interacting with Azra and invited him for tea. Azra took the opportunity to alleviate some of Nem's age-related pains using his divine power as a way to thank her for her help.

If Azra had said he was going to repay her, she would have refused, so Azra did it when he got close enough. Nem noticed what he was doing, but neither of them said anything about it and just continued drinking tea in silence.

However, Azra didn't only alleviate some of Nem's pains and aches. He also experimented a little with the new way to use divine power that he discovered while patting Erlo's head the other day.