Third Outer World Story Series: Pumpkin Sorcerer - Chapter 37

Translator: MadHatter Editor: MadHatter

“Well, take care of yourself too, Rio.”

“Yes. All the best, Pumpkin-san.”

Following the light celebration at Rio’s house, Rio and Pumpkin, along with a few others, gathered in front of the east gate of Kunukihappy.

And on his back was a souvenir for Mizuki, on top of the writing materials he had purchased yesterday.

“Pumpkin-san’s magic. I will have it generalized someday.”

“When you come back, let’s take on a request together.”

“Make sure you drop by whenever you come to town.”

“Oh. I’ll be looking forward to seeing you next time I visit.”

And then, Plein, Crave, and Kozo all bid him adieu.

In all honesty, with the exception of Plein, there was no telling what would happen tomorrow. Pumpkin would like to run into him once more on his subsequent trip through the town, if at all possible, but it would be wise not to get his hopes up too high.

Nevertheless, Pumpkin will at least pray for their safety.

“Let’s start with the opening of the gates in the morning, shall we? Open the gate!”

At the sound of Gohei’s words, the massive gate that guarded Kunukihappy slowly opened.

Pumpkin then stepped out of the gate.

“Well, let’s meet again when the opportunity strikes!”

“Yes! Take care!”

“Hyulololoo!!”

After giving the last shout-out, Pumpkin took off at a brisk pace towards Lean Forest.

Now, I wonder what will happen to Rio, the town, and everyone else by the time we meet next… I’m looking forward to it.

?????

“That is all I have to report.”

“Uh-huh. Well done.”

On the afternoon of the day Pumpkin departed from Kunukihappy, the head of the Association, Kozo Anjin, and a team of adventurers was conversing in a room of the Adventurers’ Association of Kunukihappy.

The content of the conversation was about a request the adventurers had received.

The request was to investigate a flying pumpkin monster that had surfaced in Lean Forest and to eliminate it if it turned out to be a hostile entity.

“However, does this mean that the request has been deemed unsuccessful…?”

“No, whoever looks at this document will be convinced that it was a satisfactory job and that Pumpkin’s absence from the forest was merely an unfortunate coincidence of time. The request was a success.”

One of the adventures—a man who resembled a knight—asked Kozo whether the request was successful or a failure but Kozo responded by offering a smile followed by the assurance that there would be no problem, and the adventurers all looked relieved.

In reality, the information in the documents they had provided was adequate for anyone to conclude they had performed satisfactorily.

“We will take our leave now.”

“Mm-hmm. Please proceed to the counter to get your reward.”

Once the adventurers were out of the room, led by a man bearing the appearance of a knight, Kozo began to look over the documents they had left behind.

“It’s fortunate that they were the ones I sent, though. If I had sent the wrong individuals, it would have been devastating for the town.”

As he read through the documents, Kozo compared his own feelings about his encounter with Pumpkin to what the documents described.

According to the documents, the creature (hereinafter referred to as “Kou”) was first identified when it was mimicking a pumpkin in a field in Maunpir Village, located at the base of Lean Forest.

Since then, the creature has been frequently sighted in Lean Forest, and hunters have attempted to attack it by shooting at it with bows and other weapons, but to no avail.

After Kou was spotted in Lean Woods, the forest would periodically be home to the remains of magical beasts whose blood had been sucked out of them, which was probably the work of Kou.

Secondly, a wooden hut that had never existed before appeared in front of an egg-shaped boulder in Lean Forest, and leaves that might have belonged to Kou were found inside, suggesting that Kou had also built this hut in some way.

Furthermore, the mokkan written in characters commonly used by reincarnated people (the contents were transcribed in another document) was found inside the hut, indicating that Kou may possess a certain level of intelligence and knowledge, and could be a reincarnated person at the same time.

Consequently, we did not find Kou in Lean Forest. Moreover, due to the fact that Kou had never actively attacked anyone before, we did not touch anything inside the hut and informed the residents of Maunpir that they did not need to worry so much and that they would not face problems anytime soon before we returned to Kunukihappy.

“So this is the content of the mokkan.”

Kozo looked at the document that contained the transcription of the mokkan.

“Apparently, it’s in Japanese. Hmm… I don’t know the details, but from this summary, it seems to be more of a research document than a grimoire,” Kozo said after looking over the transcribed document.

As a matter of fact, Japanese was a linguistic system that the majority of reincarnated people in this country can grasp to some degree.

“But this is the first time I’ve seen this side of the language without any mixture of other languages.”

The mokkan that Pumpkin seemed to have written, however, did not contain the language of this world, in contrast to other reincarnated individuals.

In other words, Pumpkin, unlike other reincarnated people, was perfectly capable of handling the language system called Japanese.

This was a very rare circumstance, in light of the fact that reincarnated individuals were not born carrying all of their memories and experiences, but only a part of them.

Not to mention, the missing words and phrases would simply be filled in with their own knowledge for not presenting any particular difficulty in comprehending it, as the majority of reincarnated individuals would not be able to recollect their memories of their former incarnations until they had reached a certain age.

In any event, the most notable part of this situation was that, even if it was unclear to what extent Pumpkin fully recalled his prior lifetime, it was highly possible that he was of significant value as a reincarnated person.

“And also that magic power, that magic, and that technique of his?”

Kozo smiled bitterly as he was reminded of the numerous mishaps Pumpkin had caused over the past several days and his capricious behavior.

In view of all that has transpired so far in this, they would undoubtedly profit much if they could convince Pumpkin to join their side.

However, the problem here would be Pumpkin’s personality.

Even though it had only been a few days, Kozo had come to know Pumpkin well enough to know that he couldn’t be drawn in by any means—direct or otherwise—without Pumpkin’s consent.

“I suppose I should inform Count Kunuki and some of the surrounding people, but how should I tell them…?”

In the end, he came to the conclusion that everything would be well so long as Pumpkin made no move to bring any danger here.

Kozo then felt troubled as the images of the bare minimum of individuals to whom he should tell this story came back to him.