Re:Monster Vol.1 (Day 1 - Day 60)

Day 37

Two minions who were still Goblins yesterday ranked up to Hobgoblins.

While thinking "It's the second day in a row, huh?", I gave them a congratulatory gift.

The morning training ended without a hitch, and I ate the lunch the sisters prepared for me, Gobue, who should have been in the mines, came to me flustered.

She was embracing something small and brown with a bright red jewel on its forehead, sharp cuts could be seen all over its body. It was covered in blood, just like me some time ago. I could tell from its erratic breathing that it would most likely die any moment.

I'm calling it "Carbuncle" for the time being, since Gobue told me to help it with one of my Recovery Skills, I treated it with [Heal].

It would have been beyond saving if I was ten minutes late, I felt relieved when I was somehow in time as I've managed to heal the injury.

However even healing doesn't return lost blood. Carbuncle fell asleep after I forcefully made it drink a potion Alchemist made, a "Hematopoietic Potion" (Prototype) made from blending various herbs that helped with blood formation. Luckily for Carbuncle I was sated after the meal so I didn't feel like eating it. Besides, Gobue asked me to help it so that's what I did.
[T/N: Hematopoietic means blood producing.]

A few minutes later, the 30-cm tall Carbuncle opened its eyes and explained its situation.

It thanked us.

"Thank you very much", it said.

According to the story it told us when I asked why it was covered in injuries, the Carbuncle's name was Returner, and the reason it was covered in wounds was because it was attacked by some human adventurers.

The red gem, splendidly mounted on its forehead, looked like a super high-class item, if sold, it would probably be worth a hundred million gold coins—I think one gold coin is ten yen—, that seemed to be the adventurers' objective.

When I thought Returner had it hard, this time it went down on its knees and requested/begged us to do something about the humans.

This is what I put together after hearing the story:

~ It seems that "Returner" is an artificial Carbuncle created a long time ago by the legendary magician Velvet who was well-known throughout the continent. It is the manager of [Velvet's Hidden Treasury] — A structure recognized in this world as a dungeon — that Gobue and the others broke through when they were digging for Spirit Stones.

~ Though its superficial wounds that I healed seemed to have stabilized, but the fact was that its "core"—though Returner was a non-living artificial Carbuncle without a set lifespan it seems that it would die if the core was broken — was deeply damaged when the humans attacked. The healing seemed to prolong the time until it disappears.

~ Within the innermost part of the Treasury, there lay [Legendary] Class gems and elixirs that topped the list of magic items that Velvet had painstakingly collected over his lifetime. If the treasure chamber was savagely broken into by those greed-stricken nitwits and its treasures were taken away, there was no way Returner could tolerate all that.

~ Returner wanted to solve this problem by its own, but its fighting strength was lacking and because its core was damaged, its time was limited.

In the dungeon were magical creatures: the "Skeleton Soldier", the tougher "Skeleton Warrior" and the advanced level skeleton, "Greater Skeleton", and against the party composition of the adventurers they were worse than useless.

That's why it came to us who seemed slightly strong, to drive the adventurers out and on top of that, to bury the other entrances.

If we could help eliminate the problem, it is willing to hand over the contents of the treasure chamber to us as thanks. Velvet hated humans, so it might as well hand over the treasure to us.