Since Nelim accepted to join she takes us all the way to her home. Surprisingly it was inside this park. It does explain why she likes this place.
The place we arrived at was a small group of wooden houses within the woods. Walking around were Nymphs, Naiads, Dryads, Treant and Fairies.
All nature based races. Dryad and Treant are regarded as the same race which was named the Ent. The cover most of the tree types no matter what the species of tree they originated from.
When we arrived a few people looked towards us but seeing us with Nelim just made them curious. Most nature based races don't particularly like those who use technology due to the destruction it brings to the environment, or at least it used to.
"Isn't this a village?" Mirella asked.
"It's more of an offshoot district of Kosak. We provide most of the herbal spices sold in town as well as keep the forest lush as it is." Nelim said.
"Heh~~!" Mirella replied while looking around.
Her eyes, obviously, stopped at a weapons shop. Mostly window shopping but it wasn't like i didn't understand what she was after, lower prices.
It was more than obvious that weapons sold in towns like this are much rarer than those sold in the town's tower since we can't go over the third floor without a big enough party and a healer.
"OHH~~~!! They have living oakwood boken (wooden sword) only 50k credits!" Mirella said as she stared through the window at a barrel of branches.
"Ah! Those have 3 phase growths and do blunt damage until it is fully grown. The really good ones are in the back, those are made by monster Treants wood branches." Nelim says.
Mirella's eye shined hearing those words.
"What type of treant and how good are they?!" She asked desperately.
"They are ironwood Treant Branches, once they have been cleared of excess wood and taken the basic shape they show between 8-12 growth phases and like those..." she points at the barrel in the shop. "...at phase 3 they gain an edge and start to shine like iron." She says.
Mirella was practically drooling now. It was understandable, a good weapon gives equally good results and these living wood weapons always grow with their user so they are quite coveted.
Suddenly the ringing from the door chimes of the shop rang as a young looking Naiad comes out.
"Ara? Nelim, why are you here at this time, didn't you go to work and who might be these two young ladies and the...demon." the Naiad asks pausing as she stares at Queror.
"I'm Leah Binoli, this is Mirella Cannes and the lesser demon is my enslaved monster Queror, we are adventurers and we invited Nelim to our crew." I said with Nelim nodding.
"Ah! So you came to get your things huh?" She asked which gained a nod from Nelim in return.
"But what about your job at the adventurers association? Wasn't it going well?" She asked.
"Um...well the thing is...the he...d..re...e. (the head cook fired me)" she said in an really quiet voice.
Still even with that we suddenly felt the air turn tense.
"Fired...how exactly!" The shopkeeper suddenly said.
Though i wanted to speak if i did the only thing that would come out is "WHY IS ALL OF THE PREVIOUS GENERATION SO POWERFUL!!"
"I...suggested to the head cook changing...one type of spice for another since it would bring out the taste better...but he insulted me...and punched me through the kitchen wall where he was stopped." She said just loud enough for us to hear.
A sudden chill ran down our spines as the entire village turned towards us as killing intent started to rise from all the adults.
"Hoh~~! That lizard had the guts to do that huh?!" The suddenly deeper and very intimidating tone from the shop keeper felt like blades of as cold as absolute zero passing just over our skin barely touching but enough for us to feel the cold.
"P-please d-don't do anything!" Nelim suddenly shouted. "I-i was warned about him, and i was careless!"
Everyone looked at her a moment before a few sighed.
"That lizard is lucky you are so kind hearted. That said, EVERYONE, ANYTHING BOUGHT BY THAT LIZARD IS DOUBLE THE PRICE NO QUESTIONS ASKED!" The shopkeeper said.
Without so much as questioning it everyone agreed and movement in the village began again.
"We should go get my stuff. Before it gets out of hand." Nelim said while tugging on my shirt.
I nodded and we say goodbye to the shop keeper and head to the east side of the village and enter a small house.
Inside was a one room, one living room and kitchen apartment with few things inside.
The closet had several types of clothes from, diving suit, to clothes used by farmers or gardeners and then casual clothes followed by cook clothes.
Four full suitcases and all went into the storage ring easily. We took all of her pots and pans as well as cooking utensils, all made of living wood.
"Is most of the stuff made of living wood?" Mirella asked as she holds a plate and examines the flawless piece.
"Yes, they are easy for us to make, if i can get a garden i will soon be able to make them and if i can get a farmland room in the ship and can make a small park like this one to relax in as well as a small cottage for me." She said cheerfully.
Well ship cores can sustain a room like that though it would be at the sacrifice of an entire floor i think.
"Oh and i do plan to get ironwood treants, they look like bulls but they can only grow in proximity to some form of nature spirit or a high mana concentration area." She says and Mirella nearly hugs her.
I am interested in seeing if we can't get guns from those. Living wood is a magical ingredients and can be crafted into shape obviously it takes good crafters to do that but it's a natural thing for the Ent and nature spirits.
"Hey why did the entire village look like they were about to raid the city to kill the lizard?" Mirella asked.
"It's because our race has a low birth rate, well every race here but fairies. Still, we normally live in small tightly knit groups and villages and everyone knows each other and see each other as family so...it tends to get ugly when one of us is hurt. I doubt the head cook won't get hurt the next time he comes here." She says.
I pat her head to comfort her having to remember that retarded lizard.
We store the furniture, which is very little since this is a one person apartment and she had few things, and head out.
There were already people gathering.
Many of them congratulated her on joining a crew. A few gave some presents while a few gave advice.
Presents were books on race skills she should train, a data cube with a stored encyclopedia of many of the known plants the villagers have seen or publicly published ones. Most of them had information about them showing effects.
Other books were for techniques for breeding fish, one was for domestic animals and strangely one for information on selective breeding for the weakest form of all this planet's dungeon monsters.
Having a basic understanding helps and a manual helps even more.
I actually check out the book and turn to imps. I looked through it and found out characteristics of what an imp looks like when it has a longer life span. The book had made it nice and clear it was about cloned monsters which meant the person who gave it to us overheard.
An imp's lifespan directly affects his overall stats. A cloned imp, which is actually a race name until they reach the natural lifespan, with one week of life will have a weak red almost pink coloration. If it has two or three days it is nearly albino.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
To make minions on a ship you should do one trail cloning of all the collected samples. Those who can't survive three days are trashed because they wouldn't last long enough to give birth. Anything above three days is kept saved.
Then to begin breeding you make two males with the longest lifespan and eight females of any size and as soon as they are one day old you have them breed. It takes one day to adulthood and one day to give birth.
That is the main reason imps with less than three days of life are useless.
Once that is done the offspring is normally stronger than the original. There would be two groups normally. One from each parent.
The way to go is kill off the weakest males and leave two males again from each male parent and split the large group into four families. Then clone 10 females that you know have long life spans and add them to the mix.
Each group you put into a separate room and breed them. It is pretty much that. Kill off the weakest male and females, breed the strongest while switching up the four clans to keep genetic problems from appearing, rinse and repeat.
Since we have the scanner we can also speed up the breeding since we can determine the lifespan quickly and with machinery in the biolab we can have an even more accurate test.
I look away from the book and back at the others. Nelim was still taking as more people arrive.
The pile of gifts had grown a bit. I frowned when i saw a few domestic animals though. One was a pure yellow chicken named a Cockatrice. Its was once a monster that had many monster features like scales and was as big as humans. Now it lost the monster part due to breeding. It was now a large chicken one meter tall and has very tender meat and large eggs. There were a few of them.
Next to them was a crystal glowing filled with mana. It would probably be to house the chickens.
Another creature that was on the side were two lightly glowing trees. One was a light brown colored sprout with bright green leaves and the other one had a dark brown trunk and orange but not withered leaves.
The color seems to be natural to the tree sprout. If my guess was right then those two were the trees that living wood is extracted from.
Besides them there was quite a collection of books piling up, all recipe books for recipes developed on other planets. Serious how much are they going to give her.
As soon as i saw a large beast being drawn over i touched her shoulder making everyone look at me.
"Something wrong?" Nelim asked.
"Um, that big thing, it wouldn't be a present as well right?" Everyone looked back and then to js again.
"Yes why?" One of the treants asked.
I facepalmed, seems they forgot to hear to word "new" when i said i invites Nelim to the crew.
"We don't have space for such a monster on our ship. We will have to buy proper pens and everything for those she already accepted." I said.
"You have a core so it should be big enough." An elder said.
"My ship only has four floors if included the captains floor on top." I say.
Everyone was quiet and staring dumbfounded.
"What? Did you guys think i was the captain of a super large space cruiser?" I asked a bit irritated.
They all nodded which made me sigh.
"I just bought the ship a few weeks ago, haven't even begun to buy the space travel equipment yet. We have only expanded the ship once as well. The mana crystal you gave her can work to make the pens and stuff but it would take up the remaining space of our ship until we expand it again." I say.
The one guiding the beast sulked since his present was denied.
That said he persisted and gave us a few eggs stored in cryogenic boxes to keep them safe and from hatching until we have space.
Nelim realized how bad it got said sorry to them all. In the end they each still gave her small presents like an accessory if they couldn't give a monster.
Looking at the pile i frown but couldn't do anything.
It actually irritated me by how much they overreacted to Nelim joining a crew. The image of Mirella also appeared during the same thing.
Why are humans the only heartless ones, even with the dormitory friends i made in Rokita it wasn't even near this scale.
It kind of irritated and hurt to see them treated so well by family and receiving the words "please come visit" and "be safe".
Words i never received and from people i really wanted to care about but they never showed me the love i needed for me to return to them.
The books in the pile i already planned on putting in Queror's study until we build a properly place for them.
Finally getting out of there once the stuff was stored, we return to Tony with me irritated and sulking.
"Is something wrong Leah, you seem strangely irritated?" Mirella asked.
"No, its nothing, just remembered we had to return and hear the annoying voice of that stupid core." I said lying about my jealousy towards their good fortune.
The look at each other worried and we moved on.
On the way i registered Nelim as my crew mate and an option for a position appeared next to all the names. My was by default "Captain", Mirella and Nelim were empty though. I put Mirella as Chief of Staff and Nelim as Cook.
When we arrived "he" was already waiting while floating around with a bored expression.
"Yo, finally back, good job on the new crew but aren't you focusing on girls too much? You lesbian or something Captain Bitch?" Tony said bored.
"Its easier to set up a crew of women then sweaty stupid men." I replied in an equally bored tone.
"Wonder how long you can survive without a man once in space. Well, i’m sure Queror wouldn't mind, if trained properly you can make an incubus out of him to relieve yourselves. Though i doubt you would ever bed a norm..." he was cut off when i threw something at him disrupting the hologram.
He reformed on the ground near us.
"So this is the new crew mate huh? What does she actually bring besides being a cook?" He asked.
We tell him about her skill set. Then i tell him to open a map of the ship and the purchase screen.
I found the animal pen and greenhouse rooms. They were both 10k at the minimum and when both were placed on the floor above and expanded to the max to fit both equally each cost 25k each.
I removed the mana crystals Nelim's family handed over to set these up and tossed it down.
"Get those two buildings, there is the MP, get building." I said and walked off.
He looked my way then at the crystals the turned into particles of light.
"What got her panties in a bunch." He asked the girls both of which shrugged.
By the time we all reached the second floor the sound of lots of noise was coming from the walls. Soon the walls turned into reinforced glass that could handle heavy blows and inside were pens for animals on one side and a greenhouse on the other.
We drop off the animals into respective pens which were automatically filled with water from a tap and we dropped many sacks of seeds of different types in the greenhouse.
We proceeded to Nelim's room which was the one next to Mirella’s and dropped of the furniture and clothes followed by the cooking tools in the kitchen. The books were left for Queror the organised with orders of not damaging them.
He used [Telekinesis] to safely lift the books.
For the rest of the day we talked and toured the ship showing her everything and ended at the biolab where she went in to study the DNA strands and see each imp being made.