Volume 5 Chapter 7.2

Translator: Reflet
Editor: Weasalopes

「So I gotta give a lecture one week from now.」

That evening, once they had finished dinner, everyone gathered in the Japanese-style room in a circle. There was an awkward silence because of what Hiroshi had just told them.

「……Well, this was the right timing to cut to the plan, so it’s perfect, but wow……」

「……Once again, they’re coming for our throats without even trying to hide it……」

Haruna and Tatsuya made an exclamation much like Hiroshi had when he discussed this with the headmaster. Honestly, by this point, they would not be crushed by a trivial plot of that caliber, but they still had to deal with the situation delicately without humiliating the opposition too thoroughly, or else Azuma Workshop could very well be seen as the party in the wrong. That would p be troublesome.

「Wait, wasn’t your birthday a week from now？」

「Ah, yer right. I forgot.」

「I mean yeah, that’s not exactly the priority right now, but are you ok with that?」

「Well, let’s just say I’m lookin’ forward to a real nifty birthday present after I finish up here.」

Haruna and Mio sighed at Hiroshi’s response. They had solved Makoto’s timing issue by setting a week later as the celebration, and to that extent had been able to follow up with an advance celebration at an expensive shop and then the date of the actual party, shifted forward a bit. However, now that the preparation for the lecture was underway, the advance celebration was looking to be difficult, and there was a possibility that even if they further postponed the party, the events after the lecture would just get busier, so that was also something to be wary of.

Something like a birthday party should only really be delayed to the near weekend. Unless you were going to your frequent restaurant and getting a birthday course, you didn’t generally wait two or three weeks.

「At any rate, I’ll be unable to do anything for a bit cuz of preparin’ documents for the lecture.」

「Alright. Then we’ll leave the party arrangements for when we better understand the situation, and until then I guess I’d better get to organizing and analyzing the documents. I’m leaving the divine beasts untouched, but things are already hectic with so many customers, and the forbidden section of the library seems better to go at it in a party, not by myself.」

「Yeah, sorry for havin’ ya deal with all this……」

「Don’t worry about it man. I was supposed to investigate the library by myself originally, plus this was good timing for organizing all the documents that’ve been piling up.」

Tatsuya had to deal with a steady but plain task, and he also had to organize many details that couldn’t be reported on until that was finished, so he had barely reported anything, but his investigation was also proceeding smoothly.

「But I don’t have any documents directly linked with the archives, ok? Don’t expect too much out of that. I’m just using these documents as an estimate.」

「Perfectly fine.」

Makoto strongly assented to Tatsuya’s remark. This was a strange way of phrasing it, but searching for information relating to the Visitors from the Unknown Continent was only one part of their quest to find a way to get back home. So there was never any real need to search so thoroughly for such documents in the library.

「And I’ll have all my lectures end right when Hiroshi begins his. Perfect timing, eh?」

「Oh yeah, that’s right. How’ve things been going on that end？」

「As you might expect, before and after learning creates quite the disparity with magic swords and elemental swords and their effectivity. I didn’t think it was worth the trouble initially so I ignored it, but you’d be surprised how drastic the effects are from getting Magic Mastery.」

「Yeah. Well, waiting won’t affect stamina consumption, and magic sword/elemental sword don’t consume much in the first place, so unless you’re someone like me who has to land consecutive hits, there won’t be much of a difference if you took the class or not. Plus the growth with magic sword and elemental sword is slow and the initial supplementary power at novice level is low.」

Haruna commented on Makoto’s confirmation.

Just as Haruna had pointed out, unless you were someone who specialized in close combat with magic mastery, then this skill had limited usefulness. In order to acquire it, you had to either make an intermediate level npc your apprentice, study at Rufeus like Makoto, or raise your proficiency in each category of elemental magic to max. This wasn’t as hard as Making Mastery but was still quite the feat.

So hardcore close combat masters like Makoto generally didn’t feel the need to acquire this skill. You needed supplemental magic in order to gather magic, and making disciples or learning at Rufeus simply took too long, plus you had to overcome the rather oppressive paper test after studying up a storm. Close combat masters who hated studying truly didn’t like this.

「But it seems like the effects are coming out despite the experiment not even being over. Is that okay?」

「Well, I also find that unlike with the game, when I manufacture in a new field and become good at it, the field I tackled before also feels a lot easier.」

「If even you feel that way, then I’m sure that’s the case, Haruna.」

Makoto looked convinced by Haruna’s report. In fact, Haruna had realized all this when her forging skills were improving, so the results would likely be more evident after you levelled up all your crafting skills.

「Seems like the boat’s complete, plus Haruna-san’s already got that Making Mastery down perfectly.」

「Oh yeah？」

「If the boat were also made of that, it should float normally in water, so it’s gotta already be way past Proficiency 50, right Mio？」

「Mhm.」

Hiroshi and Mio gave their stamp of approval to Haruna, who made a slightly mixed expression at said stamp of approval.

「What’s up with you mate？ Ya look dissatisfied.」

「Not really dissatisfied. I just felt like it was anticlimactic once I finally reached that level.」

「Welp, it do be that way with Mastery skills.」

Hiroshi chided Haruna, but he did of course understand her discontent. Making Mastery made you work hard in order to get results that were bland. The effects were in many ways tremendous and pertinent, hence why Haruna put her everything into learning it, but this was crafting that we’re talking about- raising a crafting skill that’s already on the plain side isn’t going to feel like that much of an accomplishment.

Besides, the mastery arts, beginning with basic attacks, were only skills that showed just how good your fundamentals are. While they affected a wide range, their effects only amounted to raising your level. Because of this barebones approach, although you certainly couldn’t look down on it, there were many people who simply didn’t put any effort into raising these skills.

In this case, Haruna was disappointed because she couldn’t even check her status. She just didn’t feel a sense of accomplishment.