Editing Skill Tree Goddess:Volume1 Chapter3 (section)

===Part 2===

After trying out a number of options, Gilbezos only had more questions.

He returned to Temple City Aeropremise with his head tilted in confusion, but something seemed off about the city.

It was like there was fog out, or like the air had gotten thick and wet. He also couldn’t see anyone out in the city of 700 thousand. Not a single one.

The area down the main street was flashing violently.

An unpleasant air was slowly approaching. Like space itself carried deadly force.

…What was that? Lightning? No!!

“Sky Territories float in the air, so they will at times plow right into a thick thundercloud.”

“Ahhhh!?”

…He didn’t have time to listen to the goddess’s explanation.

A nearby house’s door opened and a large middle-aged woman shouted out to him.

“Quick, in here. What are you doing out on a day like this!? Just get inside!”

Gilbezos and Seliphenia rushed into the open door.

As soon as the woman pushed with her small back to shut the thick wooden door covered in waterproof paint, an ear-splitting boom came from the other side. And a crackling. Apparently a thick blast of lightning had hit the door.

The lightning was flying horizontally outside the tightly shut window. Not the way Gilbezos normally thought of lightning. It was like being inside a massive vortex. The light was flashing every which way on the main street and orange sparks exploded out as the metal streetlights were broken down from their base. What would have happened to Gilbezos and Seliphenia if they hadn’t escaped inside this building?

“I’m glad I was there to help. You two need to stay in here until this dies down.”

“Th-thanks…”

“It used to be that the Saint’s lightning purification ritual would protect us all from the lightning storms.”

Apparently the sky had its own unique issues. Gilbezos had been given a deadly crash course in that. Were the high elves all right in that red sugar maple forest?

They ended up waiting inside for about an hour. The woman brought them hot milk and chocolate chip cookies while they did. Mm, and she was a good cook. Those were some excellent cookies. He had heard that the way butter mixed or hardened or something at high altitudes made for a unique result.

Either the thundercloud had moved away or the Sky Territory had moved on because the danger eventually faded.

The boy thanked the woman and then nervously returned to the main street. He had expected a scorched smell, but instead everything was damp? Almost like a sprayer had been used all over the city.

“So what are you going to do now, boy?”

“What else is there to do but head to the guild and find a job?”

“But don’t you need to buy some items to prepare for that job?”

“…”

Right. Shirayuri Ferslona and her Necessities Emporium were not on this Sky Territory. She had been left behind on the surface. That meant he would have to get recovery items and such from the stores here.

A large city would have, for example, weapons shops all over the place and telling the good ones from the bad ones wouldn’t be easy. For now, Gilbezos’s priority was restocking the recovery items he had used during the forest battle, so he checked a drugstore right on the main street – since it had to do good business to afford such a pricey location.

“Wow…” he exclaimed on reflex.

…That was supposed to be a Cure Herb? But the leaves were so dry and the roots were thinner than a pen. And it was more expensive than it was on the surface? Wow…

The other options also turned this shopping trip into a reminder of just how blessed he was to have that introverted shut-in’s store. He made a mental note to give the 10 year old a head pat when he got back to the surface.

…Only one of the consumable items actually looked fresh and healthy.

It was something he had never seen on the surface.

“Saint’s Jewel? What’s that?”

It looked like a crystal ball about five centemetora across…but no. Maybe it was more like hard candy? Based on the illustration on the hand-written ad on the shelf, you apparently squeezed the orb in your fist and then pressed it into your other fist. Something like squeezing a lemon maybe?

The old woman running the shop mumbled a response.

“You need to thank the Saint for this. After all, this item will heal your HP and your MP. The adventurers I’ve heard say it heals about half of both right away.”

…That sounded amazing. Cure Herbs (the ordinary variety, not the ones sold here that looked like dried and shriveled carrots) would heal a set amount of 250 HP. Items that healed a percentage like this one were especially valuable once your HP was in the thousands or tens of thousands.

But this healed not just HP but 50% of your MP too? Then even if it was a consumable, it had to be a pretty rare item. With something like this on the market, Queen Size’s inns might be in trouble. But if they were that convenient, why weren’t they found all across the kingdom?

“Don’t be silly. We need to appreciate even this single scrap of the Saint’s blessing. I’m sure she has her reasons for only providing so much. It would be wrong to continue asking for more.”

…So could it not be mass produced, or did it go bad so fast it generally had to be consumed locally?

Whatever the case, they were cheap, so it would have been foolish not to buy some Saint’s Jewels. When he tried to buy them all, the old woman berated him and said it was 10 per customer.

“Damn. I should’ve had the goddess buy another ten for me.”

“Oh, really? Personally, I think you should put more work into not getting hurt in the first place so you don’t need the healing items.”

With his detours complete, it was finally time to head to the guild.

He didn’t want to insult the people who lived on this Sky Territory, but since he had to leave eventually, he wanted to secure the money needed to use one of the ad cranes connecting the surface to the sky. Which meant earning enough for an aristocrat’s entertainment.

“They have developed items that let humans use monster-exclusive skills and there are three in existence. If you got one of hem, you could use a flight skill to reach the surface.”

“I’m not entrusting my hopes to that. If there’s only three of them, they’re bound to be expensive.”

With his goal, the jobs he could choose from were limited. There was only one that would work.

“You have got to be kidding me.”



Slay Yuileen, the SS-rank Uroboros-form dragon.