In the end, those two weeks passed in the blink of an eye, so the gang got together again, and everyone looked fine. Lily's belly was big at that point in time, but she still had to train the new recruits for another month. However, walking for two weeks wasn't an option for her, so they got some carriages and wagons. Billy also used one of those to hide his magic cart. He also used some cloth to hide it inside...
"I am trying to focus on increasing the speed of our group, but maybe I should make one with the design of an F1 one car that would be pretty awesome," Billy thought while smiling.
Maybe making one vehicle reach that kind of speed on terrains that had no pavement was out of the option. There was even the fact about the fuel consumption. Still, Billy wanted one, even if it was unreasonable. A motorcycle would also be pretty cool…
"Well, let's go with baby steps," Billy said.
"Go with what?" Kate asked. "You are thinking of something weird again."
Billy wanted to say something dirt about how he would mess with her tonight, but he would get scolded. In any case, at that point in time, the recruits had been trained so well that they didn't frown when they saw their instructors in the carriages while they had to walk. They were that much thankful for the strength they obtained.
"Have you guys heard anything new recently?" Billy asked when they began the journey back home.
"Nothing aside from that group that you met and some immigrants being captured before they cross the borders," Alexander replied.
The others nodded, so it seemed that nothing new had happened. Still, considering how things have played so far, Billy thought that it was about time for something major to happen. He didn't want it, though. Since Lily would give birth in two months. Usually, their actions together would annoy Billy, but when Lily was patting her belly, and Alexander was looking at her with a large smile on his face, he didn't feel anything aside from happiness. Alexander was his oldest friend, and Billy thought of him as a brother, so it was only natural.
Billy kept doing his usual things on the way back, but since he wasn't getting the mana from killing the monsters, he was slowing down at his usual pace. Billy knew that even he worked hard to build a tunnel to the nearest dungeon town, it would take months for him to arrive at it. Using the Edish fruits wouldn't be enough… he had to learn alchemy in that world and then create a concentrated version of that juice. He already had too many trees, and he couldn't eat all of the fruits by himself.
During those two weeks, Billy thought of many ways to do that, but all of them seemed too difficult. After a while, he decided to check which parts of the fruits made him recover more mana, and in the end, he confirmed that eating the peel didn't help him much, even though it was a bit sweeter than the rest of the fruit.
"You sure like them… since it is the first thing you do is eat as soon as you return," Kate said.
Putting such comments aside, Billy decided to take all of the juice of the fruits, and then he also learned that drinking that small portion made him recover all the mana that the fruit could offer. Now instead of eating one hundred grams of fruit, Billy just had to drink twenty-five milliliters of juice.
"I wonder why I didn't try this before… Still, I need to improve this even further!" Billy said in excitement.
Although Bully wanted to spend the rest of the day trying new things, he soon had to stop because Valentin told him that a messenger sent by Jean had arrived and told him that he had invited him and his friends to dinner. Billy had a hard time controlling his urge to sigh. He was going to pay him a visit the next day and give his report, but a formal dinner was too much of a pain. Regardless, what was done was done, and Billy couldn't complain. At least he will have another chance to see his wives in dresses…
When Billy and his friends arrived at the mansion, they got surprised when they saw other guests at the dinner table. Gilles and some other of his friends were there as well, and Gilles looked bored out of his mind.
"Thank you for coming in on such short notice," Jean said. "You are already acquainted, so you all don't need to be so formal."
To get that out of the way, Billy and his friends started by giving their report about how they improved the defenses on the eastern side of the state. Gilles and his friends looked quite surprised when they heard that those walls had been built by the use of magic alone. They had heard the rumors, but it was hard to believe even after seeing them.
"It seems the trip has been a success, and also your new students also managed to reach a decent level when it comes to magic and martial arts," Jean said. "Thank you for your hard work. As you can see, Gilles, they are kids that are from another state and are helping us. This state was saved many times by them, and it was actually this group that saved Rosalie from assassins."
"So I have heard," Gilles said.
"We owe them a debt that can't be paid that easily, and that is why I want you to do a work similar to theirs," Jean said. "You don't have to teach them your secret techniques, but I believe that some martial training in the art of hand-to-hand combat would help our people to protect their lives when the time comes."
"I will have to refuse," Gilles said.
