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Investigation day 1. First of all, we decided to split into three teams and search the surrounding area. Originally we would be spilt by party, but since our party only consisted of two people, it was decided that we would have a temporary party, borrowing one person each from “Grim” and “Fyne”.

「We’ll be sending out Gray. We originally wanted to have Jarvis join you as a tank, but he has some weird habits in coordination.」
「And from us~ would be Bia~ Lily can’t seem to use Probe Magecraft, after all~ Without it, it won’t be a proper investigation, see~」

As our temporary party members, it was decided that we’ll have Gray form “Grim” as our tank and Bia from “Fyne” as our investigator. With this, we have now three four-man parties.

「Sorry, Gray. We got you separated from Lysha.」
「You don’t need to worry about that. Besides, I owe you my life, so I’ll be protecting you with all my might.」
「Owe her your life?」

Bia reacts to Gray’s casual words. It was Gray’s own mistake that caused that situation, so he was a bit hesitant to speak about it, but Bia’s persistent inquiries ended up piquing Urania’s curiosity, and it seems like he had no other choice but to answer against two people.

Gray himself seems to think of it as his fault, but eighteen Goblins isn’t really something that any regular adventurer can deal with, and if you consider how they can’t run away since they were guarding someone, he did pretty great.

「Lily, you can use Healing Magecraft, too?」
「Well, more or less.」
「How many attributes can you even use…?」
「Umm… I can use the four basic attributes. For healing, I think I can heal up loss limb, but if it’s on diseases, I don’t really know how much I can heal.」

Bia has a really complex expression, seemingly shocked but somewhat convinced of what I said. I think back if I ever said anything bad, and I immediately remember that there’s barely any Mage that can use all the four attributes.

Still, they’ll probably find out that I can use the four attributes sooner or later. In the first place, “Freeze”, an Ice attribute Magic, is an application of the water attribute, “Burn” is just plainly fire attribute, “Wall” is earth attribute, and “Levitation” is wind attribute.

Even just the Magics I’ve already used are all from the four attributes. I still haven’t used “Levitation” in front of “Grim” and “Fyne” but it’s a pretty convenient Magic, so I probably won’t be able to keep it hidden.

In that case, rather than awkwardly trying to keep hiding things, giving them a certain amount of information would probably make it easier for me to act. At the very least, it’s definitely better than causing danger because of being secretive about it.

「Well, leaving it at that, first of all, about the investigation, what should we do?」
「Nn, since we have Bia, we should find places dense with Mana.」
「Yup. Still, there’s a high possibility of monsters being in Mana dense areas, so be careful, okay?」
「Understood. Urania, keep on the lookout for the scent of monsters. That way, we should be able to stay out of trouble.」
「Nn. Understood.」

Bia adds on to Urania’s suggestion. At the same time, we have Urania be on the search for monsters, bringing up the safety levels of the investigation. It seems like Bia’s Probe Magecraft can also detect a Monster’s exact position, but Mana detection and Monster detection has a need for different Spells to be constantly activated. Since we already have Urania to search for the Monsters’ location, it’s probably fine to concentrate on different roles.

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「Nn, there are seven Goblins.」
「That’s a lot. So is the increase in Mana really the problem?」
「Yeah, the increase in Mana in this area might be what’s causing the monsters to come down the mountain.」

With this, it’s the third time we’ve encountered a swarm of monsters. Every time Bia detects a place with dense Mana, there’s definitely monsters roaming around there. Fortunately, Urania’s nose picks up all of them, so we never get taken by surprise; on the contrary, we always get to ambush them.

「What do we do, leader?」
「Leader?…. Well, fine. We can’t really leave them be, right?」
「Nn. Generally, kill them on sight.」
「I’ll freeze them. In the meantime, Urania and Gray, please finish them off.」
「…… Is there even any meaning for me to be here?」

At the same time, I use “Freeze” Magic, freezing the Goblins on their tracks. Unlike the last time’s full power, I hold back and make it so that their swords can cut through the vitals. Up until now, Bia still hasn’t joined in the fight, so she’s starting to have an existential crisis, but it’s exactly because Bia is here that we could easily find the places thick in Mana.

「Hmm, though there’s a lot of them, just with that, they can’t do a thing, huh.」
「With Lily, I feel too strong.」
「That’s for sure.」
「At any rate, how many places are there left?」
「About four more, maybe? Frankly speaking, it’s strange.」

According to Bia, around the foot of the mountain, there seem to be about four more spots with a high density of Mana. So far, we’ve gone to about three spots, so it looks like there are seven of them in all.

In the first place, Mana by nature gathers in just one place. The bigger the pool gets the more powerful it gets. That’s why monsters don’t appear much near a Dungeon’s surroundings.

This sacred mountain is also no exemption; the mountain itself is a large pool of Mana. That’s why the surrounding Mana should be drawn to the mountain, but for some reason, that doesn’t happen and it ended up making small Mana pools around the base of the mountain.

「Okay! For now, let’s go to those spots and if there are monsters around, we’ll take them all down. We should be fine time-wise and I’d also like to make sure if the others are also in the same situation, too.」
「Yeah, I think that’s fine. Starting tomorrow, we might need to climb the mountain, too.」

Everyone nods in agreement. For now, we’ve decided to finish up the investigation of the other spots. Other than there being monsters everywhere, we didn’t really learn anything new, but since all the monsters were the weaker ones like Goblins and Growleus, the information from the Guild about them 『trying to run away from something』 may be true.

Currently, there still hasn’t been any real harm to the adventurers and caravans passing through the highway, but judging from the number of monsters so far, it may be just a matter of time. Anyhow, there’s definitely a need to settle this as soon as possible.