Third Outer World Story Series: Pumpkin Sorcerer - Chapter 18

Translator: MadHatter Editor: MadHatter

Time sure passes swiftly… ah yeah. Didn’t I mention something like this before?

Since the conception of the [Resonance Spell] and the initiation of Pumpkin’s research, several weeks have passed.

By the time he had finished his research on [Resonance Spell?Sleep Cloud], all the trees that had previously begun to fall off their leaves had completely fallen, and the air had started to get colder, albeit at a gradual pace.

Well, there is no problem so far.

As a pumpkin, he appeared to be at the peak of ripeness, yet rotting seemed to be deemed damage that could be easily prevented by infusing his body magic power.

So there is no problem with this aspect too.

“Fuu. That should do it for now.”

On the roof of the base, Pumpkin used a vine to scoop up the snow and drop it towards the ground.

The accumulation of snow on top of the base was the primary issue.

“I’m not content to just shovel the snow off the ground.”

However, even after removing the snow in this way, snow has been falling in an ongoing manner, causing the snow to slowly start accumulating on top of the roof again.

Ah, yeah. If I had properly sloped the roof, I wouldn’t have to work so hard.

But I mentioned this before in explaining the location of the base. The base is shaped like a “box”.

Yes, that’s right. Rather than saying it looks like a box, it really is box-shaped, and there is a ridiculous amount of snow on the roof. If I hadn’t taken action, my base would have been crushed by the weight of the snow.

Pumpkin removed the snow as a result, and at the same time, he built a roof out of the proper lumber on the base, allowing the snow to fall to some extent under the weight itself.

“Even so, I didn’t expect this much snow to fall.”

In the same manner as when he erected the base, he swept off the newly piled snow and attached the roof.

And in front of him, a blanket of snow had fallen, covering the forest’s trees and the ground.

From its looks, 20 to 30 centimeters of snow will probably fall in just one day.

“In any event, if it’s going to fall this much, the fact that I’m also shielded from the cold by magic self-enhancement is really a lifesaver… Ugh, how cold.”

From among the various leaves, he chose one and repressed the magic force it held.

By suppressing the magic power of the leaf, the strengthening of the leaf will be weakened, and the frigid outside air that froze his body to the core will be directly transmitted to the leaf. If his whole body were to be subjected to this cold, he would surely freeze to death.

It was a fortunate thing that he was able to prevent damage from the cold by strengthening his body with magic power. Even though there was a method to mitigate the transmission of cold by wearing a bear or boar fur, it would have been a drop in the bucket before this extreme temperature and his pumpkin-shaped physique, which produced practically no heat on its own.

Whatever the case may be, it felt strange to use the rather fiery idiom “a drop in the bucket” to describe himself who experienced such chill, even if the meaning of the word itself was not objectionable.

Whatever it was, the term itself was incongruous.

“Phew. Somehow the construction was completed.”

And so, he continued to work while the snow continued to fall, and managed to erect the roof.

Since it was hastily built, it was a bit shabby, but that was to be expected.

After the snow had subsided, it would be replaced with a more solid one.

“Well then, I guess this is the next step.”

He bundled the vines together to create six hands.

Thanks to some growth and extension of the vines, he can now form up to six hands.

And since you may be wondering if I can handle all six hands, let’s head off to the conclusion.

“Zap, zap.”

There’s no problem.

Pumpkin dexterously used four of his hands to dig into the ground next to the base, while using his remaining two hands to remove the soil.

How could he easily manipulate six hands, which was impossible in his former life?

Truth be told, there wasn’t really a reason. Apart from the two main ones, he handled vines that resembled hands, but he did not treat them as hands; rather, he merely recognized them as vines and maneuvered them. Over the past six months, he has become accustomed to controlling these vines.

So the result is a six-hand digging operation. Well, it’s really very effortless.

“Humph-hmm.”

Furthermore, the ground may be soft at the surface, but it will harden as soon as a certain degree of digging has been done.

So, after digging to some depths, it became necessary to gather and strengthen a significant amount of magic power in his hands, which was surprisingly ideal for training.

For this reason, it took several days to dig a hole.

————

“Here is a pillar… and over here is a pile of boulders… and here is a bunch of straw.”

After digging a hole a little more than 2m deep and widening horizontally at the bottom, he moved on to the next operation.

It was tough digging up to this point, with underground water overflowing and stray boars landing down during the process.

Well, I should just put all that aside and talk specifically about the next operation.

1. Put a simple roof over the hole to prevent snow from getting into the hole.

2. Erect appropriate pillars, pile up boulders or put up wooden planks to prevent the hole from collapsing.

3. Cover the bottom of the hole with straws.

4. Throw an appropriate amount of snow into the hole.

And now, let me tell you what I am building.

What I am building. That is…

It’s an ice house!

What? You’re wondering if I need an icehouse in my lifestyle? From a sustenance standpoint, I don’t need it, but from a material standpoint, I do require it.

Because, one of the facts that became clear as part of the [Resonance Spell] experiment the other day was that if the catalyst decomposed, the magic would not be able to be activated no matter what the current him did to make it happen.

As for the reason behind this, it would seem that the catalyst’s properties radically altered as it decomposed, necessitating the use of magic power with attributes that Pumpkin lacked now.

Moreover, a decomposed catalyst will likely initiate a different magic than the original catalyst owing to the characteristics of [Resonance Spell], but it will probably be several years before he can verify this.

He consequently made the decision to wrap up his day’s activities’ after placing the things in the ice house that might cause problems if they decomposed.