By the Grace of the Gods

In the morning, I woke up to the chilly air and stepped outside to find a world covered in silver snow――

"Wait, this isn’t the time to sound like the beginning of some classic novel."

This is my home, located a few hours north of Gimul Town, near an abandoned mine.

Naturally, there’s no one else here but me.

So, there’s no one to clear the snow piled up outside.

From what I could see, today’s snowfall was about 5 to 6 centimeters.

It’s not a heavy snowfall like when I once visited Hokkaido on a business trip, but it’s enough to make walking difficult.

“I need to get ready quickly or I’ll be late for my appointment… Since I’ve got the chance, I might as well try using that thing.”

Though not necessarily for this kind of situation, I thought I might be able to use what I had prepared and quickly got ready to head out.

Thirty minutes later――

"Whew, it’s a success for now..."

I had fallen down in the forest near the North Gate of Gimul Town.

“It’s limited to places I’ve been to before, but with this, long-distance teleport can be used easily. I need to be careful immediately after teleporting, but the snow itself doesn’t cause any problem with the teleportation.”

What I tried this time was one of the ways to utilize Stone Slimes and Weed Slimes that I’ve been increasing for various reasons. In a way, it’s like the combination of sand slimes and sand magic from the other day—a mix of slime and magic.

…Though, specifically, all I did was leave a Stone Slime and some stones for its food in the forest for a while.

First, for spatial magic teleportation, there is the beginner-level “Teleport” and the intermediate “Warp”. I couldn’t use them before, but there’s also the advanced-level magic called “Gate”.

However, Mr. Sebas, a master of spatial magic, once said these are essentially the same magic. The only difference is the teleportation distance and the mana consumption, but fundamentally they can be used the same way.

Under Mr. Sebas’s guidance, I, who could only use Teleport, managed to learn Warp.

Naturally, I then wondered if I could also learn the advanced Gate magic.

However, teleporting to places not visible to the naked eye turned out to be far more difficult than I imagined.

Previously, the range I could teleport with Teleport was only a few meters to a few dozen meters. With Warp, I could teleport up to the limit of my sight. Maybe I was unconsciously relying too much on my vision, but I couldn’t teleport to unseen places.

I thought I could just pour more mana into Teleport and teleport in the specified direction, but I judged that too risky and stopped. I wouldn’t want to end up like in old games where I’m “inside a rock,” and at worst, it could be fatal.

So, I came up with the method I used this time: teleporting “to the slime placed in advance.”

Thanks to the contract effect with my familiar, we can communicate to some extent even if we are apart. And even if communication is impossible, I can sense direction and distance, so I figured I could rely on that sense to teleport.

The image is somewhat like a function in games that lets you instantly move to a specific location on the map.

Anyway, thanks to this, I could teleport all the way close to the town, significantly reducing my commute time.

I can think of further applications in the future, so it was a productive morning.

With that satisfaction, I headed toward the North Gate.

Because teleportation saved me time, I changed my plans slightly and stopped by the laundry service.

Along the way, as I saw people shoveling snow here and there, the employees were already gathered in front of my shop well before business hours.

“Good morning!”

When I called out as I approached, they all responded in unison.

Right after that,

“Shop manager, why are you here so early in the morning?” asked Mr. Calm, surprised.

I explained the reason I was there.

“It’s the first snowfall, so I came to check on things. We had already discussed how to handle snow beforehand, so I thought I could leave it to you, but since I had time before the original schedule, I wanted to check on relevant places.”