I feel like an idiot for having been worried about how Tir would react, honestly. I laugh helplessly, and shake my head. "You can try if you want. But I'm just gonna do my own thing." I run back outside to finish the barn chores. After which I wander into the forest to make my way slowly towards town, while slaughtering anything that gets in my way.
During my walk, I mostly encounter mandragoras and slimes. Though I did kill and convert a plant type monster that looked like a coconut with a mouth-like crack, as well. [44 units of Slime Material obtained] [30 units of Mandragora Material obtained] [Recipes unlocked; Anti-Paralysis Medicine 10 Mandragora Material, Paralysis Blowgun Darts 10 per 5 Mandragora Material, Paralysis Blowgun 50 Mandragora Material] [3 units of Crackerknut Material Obtained] [Recipe unlocked; Savory Coconut Soup 20 Crackerknut Material]
During that trip I notice a trend. Specifically, the amount of material gained is affected by both the size and strength of the monsters I use Monster Conversion on. I had only expected the size to matter. Oh well, maybe I'll test that out more later. I enter Vestal and head straight for Mera's house. She steps out the door when I'm almost a block away, carrying her family's garbage pail out to their garden's compost pile. She waves and goes about her business as I approach.
By the time I reach the house she's headed back in. "Gimme a minute Ara~" I wait for a bit, certainly more than a minute, but nothing to stress over. When she comes back out, Mera is wearing light leather armor over her day clothes and carrying a club. I quirk an eyebrow at that. "Well, you looked like you wanted to kill stuff, so I figured I'd bring my gear. Wish I had a proper weapon though."
"Oh. I may have a way to help with that." She gives me a questioning look. I think a moment, then wave for her to follow me and go to her back yard. "I've got, a lot to tell you from yesterday and this morning. But, the quick version should be fine." I lean back against a tree as I think.
I take a deep breath, then dive into it. "Turns out, I'm adopted. Mom and Dad found me in a boat washed up from the Ocean. This morning I climbed a Lighthouse, met a ghost woman thing, and gained a unique skill that can turn monsters into items and equipment. One of the recipes is a knife, so you could use that. Monster Conversion, Slime Resin Dagger." An odd looking long knife appears in my hand. The blade is about fifteen inches long and is a dark blue-green more opaque than normal slimes. I poke the blade and it seems pretty solid. Even if I squeeze it hard it only gives a little, and springs back into shape the moment I let go.
Mera watches me mess around with the dagger for a few seconds, then carefully places her right hand over mine and pulls it away from my hand with her other one. She sets the knife aside then reaches up to pet my hair lightly while muttering, "There, there." My face heats up and I whine slightly in objection. Before I can really act to stop her though, she pulls me in for a hug. "I'm a little surprised you didn't already realize you were adopted, but it sounds like you've been through a lot."
"Wh-huh? You knew that?" She squeezes me a bit tighter, then backs away, taking hold of a strand of my hair as she does. She holds the strand up for me to look at. "Yeah, hair. What of it?" She twiddles the strand while I think. "Blue hair? So what, you have green hair."
"Yes, but I'm a half-elf. There're lots of half elves around. Plenty of us have green hair. But have you ever seen another person with blue hair?" I stare ahead blankly for a few seconds, then tilt my head. Have I really not? "At the very least neither of your parents had anything close, right?"
She gives me a few seconds to think of that, then pulls me in for another hug while rubbing her cheek against mine again. "Still, I'm super happy that you came to tell me right away!" I sigh, but leave her to it until she's had enough. After a bit she lets go of me and retrieves both the knife and her club. "Oh, and thank you for the knife, it was going to take a while to save up for a metal one."
"Well, test it out first. I hope it'll at least be better than a wood club." She pauses to feel the edge slightly, nods, and takes the blade to the club, leaving a noticeable slash in the wood. "I guess that's one way to do it. Do you have enough to get a sheath for it? Oh." I take my bag off and dig her share of yesterday's quest reward out to hand over.
"Not a problem, leather doesn't cost too much. But is it okay to show this around?" I tilt my head. "Well, you made it with your skill, shouldn't you try to keep that secret?"
"Uuh? Maybe. I doubt it'd be a problem if some leatherworker sees it. If they ask too many questions just say it was made by boiling down a slime till it got hard then forging it. If that idea gets around maybe somebody else will figure it out? Of course, it might not work that way."
She looks a little skeptical about that, but after putting her club back in her house she leads the way to a leatherworker's shop. He doesn't actually question it as he measures the knife. It only takes him about twenty minutes to craft a sheath, and a belt that Mera can wear over her leather armor or even normal clothes.
He also offered to make me a set of leather armor, but I brushed him off. I prefer to move freely, and wouldn't much like a stranger to take my measurements. Though if I were to guess, this is probably where Mera got her armor. After Mera hands over a couple silver worth of copper coins for the sheath and belt we head for the Guild.
The Secretary doesn't try to call us over straight away, so I suppose that C-Rank adventurer already finished the goblin extermination quest. I lean over to Mera to whisper. "Let's aim for extermination quests, preferably for monsters I don't usually see in the woods around my house."
"Huh? . . Oh, will you have more options that way? And, if it's extermination we won't have to bring much back, just like a horn or fang as proof. I getcha." We run up to the quest board and start looking around. There isn't much order to the placement of quest slips, so it's a little random to find things on it. Mera finds something we could take before I do. "Imps?"
"It'd be annoying if they keep flying around, but. . ." I look around to make sure no one is close enough to hear. "But if we hunt some mandragoras first we might be able to do it. We can check if there's anything better first." She quirks an eyebrow at that. "I'll explain later."
After a bit more searching, I find a hunting quest for lesser treants that looks like it's been around a while. The part they're after is the leaves, so I could still convert the bulk of the treants. "This is pretty good." Mera walks next to me to look over my shoulder. "Lotta people have trouble finding treants, but I should be able to. They, sometimes show up around my house, but Dad usually hunts them down pretty quick."
Looking over the quest sheet properly, the location is a forest an hour south of Vestal, and the reward is four silver coins for ten leaves. Treants tend to have a few large leaves each instead of as many normal leaves as a similarly sized tree. "Okay. But is a knife a good choice to use against a tree?"
"I think so? Better than a club. Just stab them in the face?" She snorts slightly in response. But nods afterwards, so I grab the quest and take it to the counter. The receptionist gives me a skeptical look, but doesn't object. After that, we set out to the south, a direction I rarely head out of town in.
There is an actual road this way, and this direction sees more traffic, so we don't encounter many monsters on the trip. But I do use the opportunity to tell Mera everything about my unique skill, including all of the recipes. While doing that I find that stating 'Recipes' on its own brings up the full list. [6 units of Slime Material Obtained] [1 unit of Fire Scorpion Material Obtained] [Recipes unlocked; Fire Venom Vial 10 Fire Scorpion Material, Fire Venom Stiletto 80 Fire Scorpion Material]
After a while we break away from the road to head for the forest. Once we enter the forest I keep my focus up and try to get a feel for every tree we pass by. It doesn't take us long to find a lesser treant disguised as a shrub. Once I get close to attack it, it springs up revealing a small vaguely humanoid figure of wood with three large leaves on its head. Despite only being a little over half my size, I feel like it's stronger than Mera, but not quite as strong as me.
I lunge in to grab one of its hands and twist it behind its back. It flails around so I grab the other arm and hold it up for Mera to finish off. Which she does by stabbing her new knife into one of the eye socket like hollows in the creature's face. After which she cuts the leaves off. "Starting with a small one? Well, should still be worthwhile. Monster Conversion." [3 units of Treant Material Obtained] [5 types of material revealed, Item Description function unlocked] [Recipes unlocked; Treantwood Arrows 20 Per 5 Treant Material, Fallen-Holy Leaf 50 Treant Material, Treantwood Bow 200 Treant Material, Hesvunt Seed 500 Treant Material] [Recipe updated; Slime Resin Buckler 50 Slime material and 10 any tree monster material] "That's weird. Lesser Treants just give Treant material. Plus I only got three units. Not much for as big as it was and as strong as it seemed."
"Could be that the leaves are the most useful part for your skill. Plus if it equates all Treants, then lesser ones wouldn't be as valuable. Well guesswork aside, what recipes did you get?"
"Treantwood bow and arrows, two hundred and five for twenty respectively, fallen holy leaf for fifty, and uh hezvunt, no hesvunt seeds? For five hundred each. Dunno what that is or why it costs so much. You'd think treants would give treant seeds, right?"
"It's probably pretty good if it costs a lot, right?" She seems a little unsure of that guess. "Can you tell what that and the Fallen holy leaf do?"
"No, er. It said something about item descriptions. A reward for getting five different types of material. Lemme see if I can figure it out." I bring up the Treant recipes and focus on the entries. [Hesvunt Seed: A seed that will grow into a Hesvunt tree.] I ignore that since it doesn't explain anything. [Fallen-Holy Leaf: A corrupted leaf from the holy tree, retains the power to bring a person back from the edge of death, but applies a curse when used.] I repeat the description of the leaf to Mera. "I guess, a Hesvunt Tree is a holy tree then?"
Mera gasps. "Reviving the recently deceased is a high level Priest skill! If you can make items that do the same thing, that'd be pretty great. Getting cursed by it probably isn't so good, but still. . . You should try to save up for the Seed. If people could get proper Holy Leaves from it, they'd. . . Probably overharvest and kill the plant. Huh."
"Might explain why we've never heard of it." I snicker and shake my head. "I do kinda want to get the Bow and some arrows to give Dad a gift though. Need kind of a lot of treant material for it. You okay with hunting lesser treants for the next few days?" She chews her lip a moment, then sighs.
"Yeah, I don't mind. Let's at least get enough leaves to turn in the quest today though." I nod and get moving, keeping my guard up. It doesn't take us long to find another lesser treant. This one is tall and lean, and looks more like a bundle of long branches loosely attached to each other instead of the almost humanoid figure of the first one. It feels like it could lash out at any moment once I notice it, so it's probably fast, but not extra strong.
I gesture for Mera to hold back, then walk close to it waiting for it to move. Once it lashes out I dodge backwards, just failing to completely evade its long branch fingers, a couple of which scratch my cheek. But I grab hold of the hand as it passes and yank the almost ten foot monster down to the ground and break the branch before stomping on its trunk. While I'm doing that Mera runs in, once it seems subdued enough she stabs what amounts to the back of its head, based on the placement of its face.
It keeps squirming around, so she puts her weight into it to stab the knife deeper, and finally it stops. I rub my cheek with the back of my hand. Mera grabs the hand and pulls it away to look at my lightly bleeding wound. "Tss. That looks like it hurts. Can you make a healing potion for it?"
"Eh, this isn't bad. I wouldn't mind an excuse to try a Slime Jelly Cup though." She harvests the set of five leaves from the treants head as I summon the jelly. I peel the film off the top and stare at it. "Mmmaaybe I should start keeping a spoon in my bag?" I turn the cup to the side causing the congealed mass to tilt over, retaining the shape of the cup even halfway out of it. Then I take a cautious bite. The texture is weird, but it has a heavy complex sweetness with a faint salty undertone. I can even feel the scratch close up. "Oooh neat. Little weird though. Would you like one?"
"I dunno~" She leans in seemingly taking a close look at the jelly, but then she takes a bite of it from right at the edge where I had bitten from. "Mmm!"
"Wha?! Hey!!" My cheeks burn as I toss the rest in my mouth and pout at her. She seems inclined to just giggle in response though. I rub my face a bit, then lean in to pinch her. "What happened to not wanting to eat sweets too often?"
Her face flushes in response. "One bite is fine!" She leans in to tickle my ribs, causing me to laugh a moment before I grapple her and pin her arms to her sides. "Okaaay! I give. Let's just get back to hunting! One more should be enough for the quest right? But we have time for a few still." I let go and straighten out my shirt before we continue the quest. Nothing else noteworthy happens, but I do manage to get up to forty five Treant material thanks to converting some with their leaves intact.
I figured she'd be the love interest, but I had a moment of doubt when the snotty priestess showed up, lol.
The Leaf seems like a Revivify from 5e DnD, so that's no problem. Phoenix Down is actually way weirder, lol. Just how many Phoenixes are running around in the Final Fantasy world!?
Maybe it's a cliché, but a table for all the Material lists might be in order. Especially if you plan to phase out the lists like in the other comment.
(It shows up so often, but somehow Slime Jell(o)y always catches me off guard, lol. I just assumed it was Fruit Juice.
Now I sleep again though...)
Virn? Yeah, I think I was intending her to be interested in Tir, but I have another character I intend to introduce eventually that it occurred to me would be a more interesting option. As for Aradain and Mera, kinda thinking of doing a Poly thing eventually. But it'll be a little while before anybody else gets seriously involved in that. And I guess doing a Mats table could be worthwhile, though I kinda just want to be vague about everything. Easier that way? Though it would at least help me keep track of things I've already confirmed.
Is she gonna become an actual hunter with bow and daggers and fur clothing and the like? I think that could be cool. I just hope she doesn't become another generic protagonist who uses a katana flings every type of magic around easily and generally masters everything she touches no effort.
for the rules I think you should lay off explaining them and leave them vague unless you have to elaborate so there's less of a chance of contradictions or it not being consistent like the specific numbers per treant now you have established what a base lesser treant is worth you can be Vague with future ones like "only dropped a small amount." Or the different things cashed can craft with monster conversion because I bet you'll come up with something later and be like "Ah! But I already said all the things she could craft with that."
Are you sure about revival I feel it takes a lot of the stakes away when you know death isn't the end so maybe make the rules a bit harsher then or something like it can only be performed by high level church members is expensive and you have to have the body near perfect condition no rotting and stuff.
Oh and I don't think you explained how they looked very in detail like her and her family so yeah.
Anyway this is just advice cause I like the premise you don't have to consider any of this cause it's your story after all.
Edit: I think you could make the Mc the isekai character I mean like recalling memories and sh*t throughout the story explains a lot about coming from sea and not being the same as everyone else and would give her a little advantage and fufill the tag.
I don't actually intend for her class to be hunter, that's her Dad's route. But she won't be touching magic at all either. She'll mostly be melee, and katanas would work as a melee weapon, so she could use em if she wanted. But not my current intent.
I plan to not be too specific about how much of what materials she has. Like, there'll be little time skips during which she could collect a fair bit to just cover whatever I intend to make. And she will be able to gain more recipes under some circumstances. Should touch on that before long. I think. I'll likely also have times where she hunted new types of monsters off screen.
As for the revival side of things, I like the rules I already set. And, while it hasn't been expressly stated, there are worse possibilities than death.
Seems like you mean I didn't describe the Priests? Yeah, I dunno, I just imagined them as pretty basic priests.
Aradain as an isekai character, it is already kind of that way. I don't intend for her to have a previous life. But she could have been transmigrated as an infant. She came from the Ocean of Chaos after all. Anything can come outta those waters. Even things from alternate realities. So she could be from another world because of that.
@Chaos_Sinner777 Ok just pls no katana I’ll cry