Table of Contents
Table of Contents Page
Copyrights and Credits
PART 10: Delivery to Okanke Village
Chapter 513: Guardian Deities?
Chapter 515: So We’re Going Together?
Chapter 518: The Cursed Bangle
Chapter 519: The King’s Elder Brother? Or Child?
Chapter 520: Relaxing in a Cave
Chapter 521: Yet Another Encounter?
Chapter 522: A Secret Village?
Chapter 523: Let’s Go to the Village
Chapter 524: The Hidden Village
Chapter 527: A Sense of Realness
Chapter 529: The Guild Master Candidates
Chapter 532: How Many People Are There?
Chapter 533: In Case the Worst Happens...
Chapter 534: Everyone Is a Dud
Chapter 535: The Guild Master Was a Tamer
Chapter 536: It All Feels So Normal
Chapter 537: Problem Discovered
Chapter 538: Not the Village Watch, Too!
Chapter 539: Most People Would Know Better
Chapter 540: An Unexpected Action
Chapter 541: Here? Or Not Here?
Chapter 543: The Summoning Circle and the Voice
Chapter 546: Cook All the Things!
Chapter 547: Early to Bed, Early to Rise?
Side: Zinal the Bystander, Part 1
Side: Zinal the Bystander, Part 2
Chapter 548: A Leisurely Trek to the Next Village
BONUS: Amiche and Luffie’s Everyday Life
Newsletter
Color Gallery
Ivy's Journey Thus Far
Characters
PART 10: Delivery to Okanke Village
Chapter 513: Guardian Deities?
Chapter 513:
Guardian Deities?
“CIEL, ARE YOU SURE we should go in here?”
The befuddled Zinal was pointing at a timeworn cave. Thick with moss, it hardly seemed like a place anybody would want to visit. But Ciel’s tail was wagging excitedly back and forth.
Mrrrow.
“So you’re serious…” Fische sighed defeatedly.
My father, meanwhile, walked past him like it was nothing. “Again, we’ll be safe. Haven’t you gotten used to traveling with an adandara by now?”
He had a point. This would be our fourth cave visit since Zinal and Fische had started traveling with us. And though there hadn’t been any problems before, the two balked at the sight of this cave for some reason.
“Wait, hold up, I sense an incredible lust to kill coming from in there!”
“Oh, right, that’s probably the dorya baring their fangs and waking suddenly from their sleep.”
Dorya were cave-dwelling monsters that had no eyes because they’d evolved in the darkness. The first time I saw them, their lack of eyes had terrified me. At a glance, they resembled field moles, but my father warned me about their short fur—it was so sharp that just brushing against it would cut you badly. Their claws were also tough and sharp so they could cut through the dense boulders inside caves. I had originally thought they were like moles, but a closer look revealed they had quite a terrifyingly gruesome appearance.
But Ciel loved dorya. When a dorya was spotted, it was immediately chased—not hunted, just chased. And Ciel had so much fun chasing the dorya that they seemed to like being chased in turn. The first time we saw it, my father was incredibly perplexed. But since Ciel and the dorya both looked like they were having a fun time playing, we let them go at it until they were satisfied.
Once the dorya learned that we weren’t their enemy, they gave us some rare magic stones from the cave walls. Dorya had short tails, which they waved if their fur was safe to touch. It was a little adorable, how their fur could lose its sharpness like that. (My father had mixed feelings when I told him that, though.)
“Well, that’s because you’re crazy enough to waltz into a cave full of dorya!” Zinal argued.
“What’re you babbling about? C’mon, or we’re leaving you behind.”
“Hey!” Firmly clutching his sword hilt, Zinal followed us into the cave.
“Mr. Zinal, you don’t need your sword,” I said.
Zinal gave me a strange look. “But aren’t dorya powerful?”
“They are, but all they want to do is play chase…”
“Huh?!” Zinal and Fische both gave me odd looks. “They just want to…play chase?”
“Oh, didn’t I tell you? I’m sorry,” I said. “Ciel likes to chase the dorya around the cave. We’ve tried to stop them, but they won’t, so now we just let them play as much as they want.”
Since I hadn’t told them about the dorya, I guess it was only natural that they’d be terrified. I thought I told them. Maybe my father forgot, too? Oops! Yeah, he’s got a guilty look on his face.
The pair were still staring dubiously at me.
Huh? I gave them an explanation, but now they’ve got the wrong idea!
“Um, I know it’s hard to believe, but I assure you, the dorya start to have fun halfway through and chase Ciel back, so don’t worry! I promise Ciel isn’t just bullying them!”
The pair fell into thought after my clarification. Zinal watched Ciel walk on ahead and peered deep into the cave. Then he shook his head.
“So you’re saying the dorya play, too?”
“That’s right. They seem to be compatible with adandaras, since they run and play for hours at a time.”
This only made Fische and Zinal more confused. I guess it was hard to believe, especially when there was dorya bloodlust shooting from the cave as we spoke.
“Ciel plays with that?” Zinal asked, pointing into the part of the cave where the bloodlust was coming from.
“That’s right.”
But they still didn’t seem to completely believe me.
“I think they’ve started,” my father said.
I watched the dorya running toward us, knowing full well they would never make it all the way.
Mrrrow!
Ciel pounced at the dorya, its tail puffed with excitement. This was always the point where the dorya would panic in bewilderment, since they had never been chased before; after that, they’d run away.
“Um, they’ve run away,” Fische said.
“Yes, they always do that at the beginning,” I replied.
“Aren’t they going to come to us?” Fische asked, pointing at the small herd of dorya. There were four in this cave.
“Oh, no, they never come to us,” I replied. “They only notice Ciel.”
“Oh! They’re no longer on the offensive.”
Maybe this cave’s dorya were unusually quick to calm. Most times, they needed to be chased around for a while for their malicious intent to disappear.
“The two in the back seem only slightly wary of Ciel,” Zinal said, eyeing the two retreating dorya. They kept turning their heads back toward Ciel as they ran.
“Same with the two in the front,” Zinal said. And he was right: All four dorya were more curious than wary.
“I guess this cave’s dorya are a lot less skittish,” my father remarked.
“Yeah, looks like it.”
Ciel slowed down a little, and one of the dorya got closer. One look at its soft fur, and I could tell the wave of rage had passed.
“Wow, you’re right. They’re actually playing… Whoa, yikes! I’m witnessing something crazy right now, aren’t I?” Zinal watched in awe as the five monsters began to play.
Fische nodded. “By the way, what are we supposed to do while Ciel plays?”
“We drink tea and explore the cave within a range where Ciel can keep an eye on us,” I replied.
“And what about the other cave monsters?” Zinal asked, nervously eyeing the cave walls.
“I don’t think any monster would brazenly charge at us in the middle of an adandara-dorya play session,” my father said. “The most they ever do is peer at us from the shadows.”
My father’s explanation seemed to strike a chord with Zinal as he watched the monsters play. Since there were four dorya this time, the playing was much more intense. Any monster who charged at us now would have to have a death wish.
“Why don’t we wait over there until they’re done?”
I looked where my father was pointing. It was the most spacious part of the cave; a perfect place to wait.
“We can still see Ciel from over there, too,” my father added.
He was right. We would be able to see Ciel no matter how much it ran around.
“Oh, Ciel? Don’t stray far, you hear?” my father called out.
Ciel stopped running to look at us. Mrrrow.
“Goff!”
Ooh, I’ve never heard a dorya talk before. Which one said that?
“Now the dorya are talking?!”
Judging by the shock in Fische’s voice, talking dorya must have been truly rare.
We laid out a mat in the spot my father found, then boiled some water and made tea.
“I guess we’re really taking a break, aren’t we?” Fische smiled.
“Well, it’s hard standing still for hours with nothing to do,” my father said.
Zinal and Fische sighed.
“You know, when you encounter dorya, you usually busy yourself either running or fighting them,” Zinal said.
My father nodded. “And I used to do that. They may not have eyes, but their perception of auras is keen enough that they can find you even if you hide.”
“That’s for sure,” Fische said. “They’re always pesky monsters to run into. That sharp fur of theirs repels a sword so easily, too. But caves with dorya always have the rarest magic stones, so ya just can’t help but wanna explore them anyway. You’ll always regret it, though.”
My father and Zinal laughed. It looked like they’d both had that experience.
“I know, why don’t we explore the cave after the dorya have settled down?” Zinal suggested. “We’ll probably find some rare magic stones.”
There was an eager twinkle in Zinal’s eyes, and Fische’s eyes were also filled with anticipation as he looked at my father for approval.
“Sometimes we just ask the dorya and they’ll bring us the stones,” my father said.
“What?!” they both gasped.
Yeah, I remember they brought us two SS-level magic stones one time. We put them away with our other high-level magic stones.
“Really?”
“Yeah. Once they understand we won’t mess up their cave, they usually bring us one or two magic stones,” my father confirmed. “It is fun looking for them yourself, though.”
Zinal looked thoughtfully at the dorya. “So they worry we’ll mess up their cave… I guess that’s why people thought for a while that cave-dwelling monsters were the guardian deities of their caves.”
“Guardian deities?” my father asked.
“That’s right. Humans are prone to mess up caves more than they should, so they thought the monsters were put there to curb that.”
When you considered how crazy everyone tended to get over all-you-can-take magic stones, it made sense. It reminded me of the serpents. Maybe our ancestors were right. Maybe they were all guardian deities.
Chapter 514: Books
Chapter 514:
Books
“THIS ALMOST FEELS LIKE we’re resting too much,” Zinal sighed as he ate a cookie off the table.
“Pu, puuu.” Sora sat on my lap and leaned to the side, giving Zinal a questioning look. Meanwhile, Sol was in Zinal’s lap looking sleepy…or asleep, I should say.
“Um, Zinal, your words don’t match your actions,” Fische said. “If you really don’t want to relax, maybe stop eating cookies.”
He had a point. For somebody dissatisfied with what we were doing, he sure was scarfing down cookies like there was no tomorrow.
Ah! He’s already going for another cookie! And he’s even petting Sol with his other hand…
“Do most people whip out a table and have a tea break in the middle of a cave?” Zinal argued.
It occurred to me then that we hadn’t actually had a leisurely break like this in a cave before Zinal and Fische joined our caravan.
“Sometimes people do—like we’re doing right now,” my father argued.
“Well, sure… I guess all the common sense I’ve gleaned over the years goes out the window when Ciel is involved—oh, right!” Zinal reached into his magic bag and pulled out some more sweets. “I forgot to take these out. These Hataha sweets were so good, I brought more for the road. Have you had them before, Ivy?”
The sweets Zinal set on the table in front of him were a purple-colored baked confectionary. Since I had neither seen nor eaten them before, I shook my head no.
“This is my first time seeing them.”
“A little shop tucked away in a corner off Main Street sells them,” Zinal said. “They’re made with a vegetable called mool.”
“Mool?!” My father shoved Zinal’s hand away before he could offer me a treat. “Don’t feed us anything made from that gross vegetable!”
It’s gross? I shot a worried look at Zinal, who laughed and shook his head.
“It’s easy to assume that, since it’s made with a very pungent vegetable, but trust me, these sweets aren’t disgusting at all.”
Zinal looked at Fische for support, and he nodded. My father gave them a skeptical look. Was the vegetable really that disgusting?
“Are you sure it’s good?” my father asked.
“Yeah. If you don’t believe us, watch us eat some.” With that, Zinal popped a mool cookie into his mouth. My father looked a bit shocked by it. I wasn’t sure why, but I was now very curious about mool. Just how pungent was it?
“Wow, you really ate it…” My father’s brows knit as he grabbed a cookie and stared at it…then he took a tiny bite. “It’s…not pungent.”
“Right?”
“It’s good.”
“Yeah, it’s good.” Zinal smirked smugly. “There’s a little settlement between Hataka and Hatahi Villages. That’s where they remove the disgusting flavor from mool, and they use it in everything. The baker selling these cookies is actually a descendant of the people from that settlement, so he knows how to get the pungent odor out of the mool.”
I took one of the cookies and tried it. It immediately crumbled and melted away in my mouth. Maybe that was the mool?
“What do you think?” Zinal asked me.
“It really melts in the mouth, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah, exactly. That’s what’s so great about them.”
They were indeed very good. And they weren’t too sweet, either, so I could easily imagine eating a lot of them in one sitting.
Mrrrow.
Everyone turned to look at Ciel, who had become a central bed for all the dorya to sleep around. Tired from playing, it was ready to take a break with us.
“Really, what a strange sight that is…” Zinal marveled.
Fische nodded. “A pile of adandara and dorya… Wait, huh?” Fische tilted his head in thought.
“What’s up?” Zinal asked.
“Nothing, I just thought I remembered a little factoid about adandaras and dorya… What was it again? Huh… Oh! Yes, it’s what you said earlier about guardian deities! Yeah, I was racking my brain earlier trying to make the connection, but that’s it!”
Fische gave another satisfied nod to himself, but Zinal and my father both looked confused. None of us had any idea what he was talking about. Even Zinal, Fische’s party-mate, was frowning at him dubiously.
“Fische. What are you talking about?” Zinal pestered his friend, who was a little overly excited about his recollection.
“Hm? Don’t you remember? Haven’t you read that book that says both adandaras and dorya are guardian deities of caves?”
Both adandaras and dorya are cave deities? Is there really a book that says that?
“A book…? Ohh, right, you mean the one we read when we were still in our teens!”
Fische happily nodded at Zinal.
“What book is it?” my father asked them.
I wanna know, too! If a book like that exists, I wanna read it!
“Next to the royal capital, in a bookshop in the Town of Kashime, there’s a book that looks different from the rest. They only had one copy and they let us read it, and that’s where we read about dorya and adandaras, right?” Fische asked Zinal.
A book that looks different from the rest?
“What does the book look like?” I asked.
“It’s this thick,” Zinal said, making a space of three centimeters between his hands. Seeing the gesture confused me. Every book I had seen in a bookstore so far was a thin stack of papers tied together with string. I seemed to remember books were thin because the pages were difficult to turn and easy to damage if you tied too many of them together.
“And it’s not tied together with string, but it’s still a very sturdy book,” Zinal added.
It’s not tied together with string? That might be like the book the fortune-teller gave me. Since I’d shown the book to my father, he was also hanging onto Zinal’s every word.
“Even the cover was a lot sturdier than the covers of books held together with string, wasn’t it?” Fische said. Zinal nodded.
Maybe it was just like the book the fortune-teller gave me. I had never seen another book like it in bookstores, so I had given up looking, but it turned out they did exist.
“Does that bookstore in Kashime have lots of books like this? Are they in the royal capital, too?” I asked.
Zinal and Fische shook their heads. “Nope, the only copy I’ve seen of a book like I’ve just described was the one in that bookshop in Kashime. Haven’t seen any like it in the capital, either.”
So it’s only in that one shop? Zinal’s explanation gave me pause.
“And the owner of that bookshop is stubborn and gets in petty disputes a lot,” Fische added. “Well, usually the pettiness comes from the noblemen and rich bastards who pick fights with him.”
Zinal smiled cynically at Fische’s description. “That’s right. We got acquainted with that bookshop on a gig for the adventurer guild. Some fools were harassing the bookshop owner at the time, so we helped arbitrate.”
The adventurer guild helped arbitrate a dispute? I didn’t know they did that, too.
“Since that bookshop carries all sorts of unusual books like the one we just talked about, some entitled jackasses kept pestering the owner to sell them. And they could have gracefully given up when he turned them down, but so many idiots tried to use their authority and money to get their way.”
Ah…I can picture that.
“I can imagine how the scorned noblemen behaved…” my father muttered.
Zinal grimaced and nodded. “I’m sure you can. But books are a bookshop’s assets, so it’s hard even for a nobleman to take them away without the owner’s permission. And a nobleman’s biggest shame is being caught and sued if they try something shady. That’s why they hire rogues and low-level adventurers to do their dirty work, and why the requests come flying in for guys like us to dispose of those destructive fools.”
Gee, a bookshop owner’s life sure sounds hectic.
“So after who knows how many requests came in and we got rid of the rogues, we told the bookshop owner that if he wouldn’t sell that book, he should at least make copies and sell those. People who wanted to read the book wouldn’t care if it looked different, and at the very least, he wouldn’t get so many people coming to pick fights over it.”
I supposed this strategy wouldn’t work for people who were lured by the book’s rareness, but people who only wanted to know what it said indeed wouldn’t care how it looked.
“Well, he turned us down right away, though.”
They got turned down?
“Apparently, only the book’s true owner can understand what it says.”
“The book’s true owner?” my father asked Zinal back.
“Yeah, true owner—those were the exact words. I thought it was strange and had to ask to hear it again myself.”
Their conversation raised my eyebrows. The words true owner… Why did they sound troubling to me?
“And just who is this true owner?” my father asked.
“Well…” Zinal took a heavy breath in and out. “He said, ‘The true owner isn’t here yet but will appear someday.’”
Will appear someday… That sounds like they don’t exist yet. How do they even know, then?
“What…the hell? That makes no sense.”
“Exactly, Druid. Baffled us, too. We tried asking for more information but got no answers.” Fische shrugged his shoulders.
“Yeah, but he did say something weird to us, remember?” Zinal said to Fische, who gave him a quizzical look in return. “Wait, were you not with me when he said it? Maybe it was Garrit. Anyway, he said, ‘These books will disappear when they are no longer needed. It’s best for them to disappear before their owner sees them.’”
“What?!” everyone else exclaimed.
Ah! My father and Fische seem to finally be feeling the same way. Too bad they had to agree over something so cryptic like this. Still, I really am curious about that bookstore.
I leaned against the cave wall and looked inside my magic bag, which held the book the fortune-teller had given me. Maybe I should show it to Zinal…
Chapter 515: So We’re Going Together?
Chapter 515:
So We’re Going Together?
“IF ONLY THE BOOK’S TRUE OWNER can understand its contents, then how do you guys know what it said?”
My father had a point—how did they know? They clearly said earlier that they read about adandaras and dorya being cave guardian deities in a book… Did they peep inside?
“Just to get this out of the way, we did not sneak a peek at the book’s pages,” Zinal said, looking at me and my father.
Huh? How did he know what we were thinking?
“The accusing look in your eyes gave you both away.”
That made us smile sheepishly.
“Sorry we doubted you, sir,” I said with a hearty laugh.
“Yeah, sorry,” my father echoed. “It just seemed like something you guys would do.”
Um, Dad, that wasn’t much of an apology.
“Druid, we would never… Well, yeah, we tried several times and failed.”
So they did try to look inside after all!
“I knew it…” my father muttered under his breath.
Zinal shrugged his shoulders. “But it was funny how quickly we got caught. That bookshop was a very strange place. Think the shopkeeper is still doing okay?”
Seeing the fond looks on Zinal’s and Fische’s faces, I was starting to want to meet the old man at the bookshop, too. I didn’t even have to read any of the books; I just wanted to go to that strange bookshop in Kashime.
“So, if you didn’t sneak a peek at the pages, how do you know what was written on them?” my father pressed.
“Well, after we helped him get rid of all those pests, he must’ve taken a liking to us. So he told us we could read just one of his books, and we did. Then again, he didn’t let us choose which one we read,” Zinal said as Fische nodded merrily beside him.
“Okay, that makes sense now. But wow. Adandaras and dorya are cave guardian deities, huh…”
Hearing the words from my father’s mouth filled me with questions again. No matter how many times I heard it said, the phrasing sounded so strange.
“Was there anything about serpents in that book?” my father asked.
I thought back to the giant serpents we found in caves. Serpents were the monsters I first thought of when I heard about a guardian deity of a cave. I looked at Fische and Zinal to see if I was right, but they shook their heads.
“Wait, not a word about them?” I asked in shock.
Fische gave me a strange look.
“Um, well…I was just sure the book would say something about serpents, that’s all…”
“I see. Serpents, huh? Well, the part of the book we read didn’t mention them. But y’know, that book…” Fische cut himself off and shot Zinal a look.
Maybe they aren’t supposed to tell anybody about what they read? They did say earlier that only the book’s true owner could know what was written. Oh, but then again, it was Zinal who brought up the topic in the first place! So it must be okay to talk about it.
“So that book…most of its pages were blank.”
Its pages were blank? As in, nothing was written on them? This…this is a book we’re talking about, right?
“What do you mean? I thought you said you read the book. Did you get tricked?” my father demanded.
“Yeah, that’s what we thought, and we sure let him have it.”
I couldn’t even imagine Zinal’s party being tricked. They were more the trickster types. Then again, they did say they were in their teens, so maybe they were more gullible back then.
Zinal explained, “When we yelled at the shopkeeper, he said, ‘Oh, so that’s all you could read? Guess you’re still too young.’ And then he laughed at us real hard.”
My father and I raised our eyebrows at each other. Neither of us really understood what the shopkeeper had said.
That was all they could read? Does that mean…there was somebody else who could read more? But the book’s pages were blank, weren’t they?
“Sorry, Zinal, but I’m not really following.”
Zinal and Fische smiled sheepishly back at my father. “We didn’t really get it, either. Anyway, we asked the bookshop owner what he meant, and he said, ‘You aren’t worthy, so you can’t read the words on the pages.’”
Can’t read the words on the pages… So does that mean there are words written on the pages, but Zinal and his friends couldn’t read them?
“Do you think that book is magic?” my father asked.
That would definitely explain the inability to read words, but Zinal and Fische shook their heads.
“We would have sensed magic energy from it if it were, but we felt nothing from that book.”
So it wasn’t magic…yet some people couldn’t read what was written on the pages… This is making even less sense.
“We asked the shop owner how the book was rigged, but he wouldn’t tell us, so it remains a mystery. I remember we were even more interested in the book than we’d been before we tried to read it. We kinda regretted looking at it.”
I could see why they felt that way, but it seemed like the book from the fortune-teller was a little different. I’d been able to read that book ever since I was little, so I doubted it had the power to make itself unreadable to certain people. And, besides, my father was able to read it, too.
“Well, all this talking has made me very interested in that bookshop. Druid, aren’t you and Ivy going to the capital?”
Wait, did we ever mention that?
“Actually, we’re headed to Kashime,” my father replied.
Zinal’s face lit up. I wonder why…
“Kashime? Are you sure?”
“Yes,” I replied.
“That’s the plan for now,” my father added.
Zinal nodded a few times to himself. Could it be…?
“Okay, let’s go together.”
Aha, I thought so.
“When’s the last time we saw that shop owner…five years ago? Or was it six?”
Zinal looked questioningly at Fische, who nodded and said, “Yeah, probably.”
“Okay, since we might be able to read more of the book this time, we’ll negotiate with the shop owner,” Zinal said.
“Negotiate?” I stared at Zinal, wondering what he would use to do that.
“That’s right, negotiate,” Zinal said. “He only let us read that book once. The next time we came to see him, he told us ‘no means no’ and turned us down on the spot.”
Fische smiled sheepishly. “We tried negotiating many times, but he always said, ‘You’re not ready yet. I’m sure nothing’s changed for you.’ But six years have passed since then, so…maybe he’s finally ready to let us read it?”
“Right? Don’t you wanna go see?” Zinal coaxed him.
Fische nodded. “Yeah. It might be a good idea.”
So it looked like Fische and Zinal would join us all the way to Kashime. But was it really okay for them to make this decision without Garrit?
“What about Garrit?” my father asked, sounding a little frustrated.
“Aw, he’ll be fine with it,” Zinal answered. “He had excitement coming out of his ears when he saw that book.”
My father sighed. He probably figured trying to stop them would be pointless.
So…we’re going to travel more with the gentlemen of Zephyr. It’s sure to be a lively trip. Still, I wonder what kind of book it is? I’m only a kid, but maybe I can read it? Either way, I’d love to talk to the shop owner. He sounds like quite a character.
“What’s this, Ivy? Do I detect curiosity?” my father asked.
“Uh-huh. I’m interested in the book, of course, but I’d also love to meet the shop owner.”
“Yeah, I’d like to meet him, too. Gotta shake the hand of the guy who gave Zinal a hard time.”
While Zinal sulked and the rest of us laughed, a shadow suddenly loomed over us.
Mrrrow.
“Oh, hi, Ciel. You done playing?”
We had gotten so caught up in our conversation that I forgot we were even in a cave.
Mrrrow.
Well, Ciel looks satisfied, so whatever. Wait, is that…?
“I see you’ve brought the dorya with you. Nice to meet you.”
Behind Ciel were two dorya who had apparently come to say hi. I remembered there’d been four in total, but the other two were nowhere to be seen. One of the dorya leaned in close, so I gave its head a little pat. Whoa! Hard as a rock! I had petted a dorya in the past, so I already knew how hard their heads were. My father had even suggested their heads might be made of rocks, but not even the serpents, who could smash cave rocks apart with their heads, had such hard heads. So every time I petted a dorya, I felt funny all over.
“Look at her, just petting it like it’s no big deal… Dorya are monsters, right?” Zinal asked Fische.
“Yeah. Very dangerous cave monsters, at that.”
I looked over at Fische and Zinal when I heard them murmuring something, but they just smiled sheepishly back at me.
“It’s because you’re touching the dorya like it’s a pet,” Zinal explained.
“Huh? But this dorya is very sweet. And cute, don’t you think?”
When you stared at them up close, they did have a certain charm. But for some reason, my answer to Zinal earned me a dropped jaw in response. Why was that?
Chapter 516: Phantoms of Yore
Chapter 516:
Phantoms of Yore
“WOW! IT REALLY is hard as a rock!”
For all his trepidation earlier…Zinal was now eagerly petting dorya heads left and right. Though he had frozen up awkwardly when the first dorya presented its head, one pat and he seemed to be hooked. He petted their heads over and over, reveling in their rock-hard texture.
“Don’t pet them too much, or they’ll get angry,” I warned him.
“Will they?” Zinal froze, mid-pat. He looked at the dorya and saw it was leaning away. “Urk! It’s tired of it?”
Zinal’s ego had taken a blow. I wouldn’t say the dorya was tired, more like annoyed.
“That guy doesn’t understand boundaries,” Fische said as he petted another dorya. He was using a gentler petting style, which the dorya seemed to like. I watched as the giant mole nuzzled against him…and boy, was it precious.
“I think they like you, Fische,” my father said.
This seemed to make Fische happy. It reminded me of how happy he’d been when he and Ciel had forged a bond. Maybe he had a knack for monster friendships.
“Oh, by the way, can I ask you two a question?” Fische asked me and my father.
“Sure, what?”
“Why are you going to Kashime?”
My father fell silent.
“The fortune-teller who saved my life wanted me to go to the town next to the capital, so I thought I would,” I explained.
Fische gave me a strange look. Well, of course he thought it was weird. I hadn’t given it much thought before, but thinking about it now, it was a rather odd request the fortune-teller had made. She didn’t say there was anything she wanted me to do when I was there, either; she just said that I should go. And she even said it was okay if I didn’t go.
“Well, if you’re talking towns neighboring the royal capital, there’s also Kashim and Kashis. So why Kashime?”
“Because my father told me about the Forest of Light in the town of Kashime…that made me want to check it out.”
“Huh? Wait, she told you just to go to a town near the capital but didn’t specify which one?” Zinal asked.
When I nodded in reply, Zinal and Fische both gave me peculiar looks. I guess it really was a strange quest. Why did that never occur to me before? Hmmm…
“But the Forest of Light, huh…”
I wasn’t sure why, but the way Fische said the words made it sound like he didn’t feel very good about it. Was there something unpleasant in the Forest of Light?
“That place… Well, it’s very strange.” Zinal seemed to feel the same way about it as Fische.
I looked at my father to find him staring harshly at Fische and Zinal.
“What’s wrong? Is the church involved somehow?” he asked them.
The two shook their heads. “No, the church in the Forest of Light isn’t connected with any of the other churches. We’ve looked into it plenty of times, and not even the clergy can set foot in the church in the Forest of Light. And it’s not like they haven’t tried!”
It’s a church, yet no clergy can enter… Who in the world built that church? And how did they make it so clergy couldn’t enter the forest?
“Pardon my asking, but is a summoning circle keeping them out of the church?” I inquired.
If it was a summoning circle, maybe we should stay away. If this journey had taught me one thing, it was that summoning circles were extremely dangerous, and I never wanted to approach one if I could avoid it.
“It’s a mystery,” Zinal answered. “The church and the royal family looked into it, but they came up with nothing.”
They came up with nothing?
“Wasn’t there anything left behind in the royal records?” my father asked. “Surely you boys looked into that.”
Zinal smiled innocently and shrugged. So they had read the royal records. Impressive.
“Sorry, but our search came up dry. Somebody did a little more digging for us, but the very beginning of the royal records start with ‘In the Forest of Light, there is a church.’ Who built it and for what reason—everything is a mystery.”
The church already existed before the royal family started keeping records? So does that mean the church was there before this kingdom was founded? Wait a minute… How was this kingdom founded?
“There are phantoms in the church in the Forest of Light,” Zinal said.
“Huh?!”
“What?”
My father and I both raised our eyebrows at him. Something told me we had just heard a very odd statement.
“I said, phantoms,” Zinal’s voice hit my ear again.
“Phantoms? So you mean monsters?” my father asked.
Zinal looked at him. “No, I don’t mean that. Now, I don’t want to scare you, but one of our buddies gathered a lot of intel about the church in the Forest of Light. And he found an ancient text that said, In the church in the Forest of Light, there lives an ancient phantom. Those who are summoned there are special. They must not be summoned… Run away.”
So there’s an ancient phantom and we should run away… Maybe we really shouldn’t go there after all?
“Well, I heard the texts say, The chosen one may enter just once and have any wish granted,”my father said.
Zinal nodded. “Yeah, every text we’ve read on it says something like that. The text that says you should run away isn’t from the same kind of source. But when we looked into who wrote it, we found out they might have been in the church.”
Words from a member of the church. Surely they wrote those words based on personal experience… So does that mean there really is an ancient phantom in the church?
From the way my father had fallen deep into thought, he seemed to think we shouldn’t rule out the possibility.
“…give me.”
Huh? Wait a minute…
I glanced nervously around.
I’m sure I just heard a voice. Was it just my imagination? I think…the voice sounded familiar. Who was it again?
“What’s wrong, Ivy?”
I glanced in the direction of the voice to see my father giving me a strange look. Zinal and Fische were also raising their eyebrows over my behavior. From the way they were acting, I realized that only I could hear that voice.
Maybe it was all in my head? But…that voice, I could’ve sworn I’ve heard it…a very long time ago…
“Ivy, what’s going on?”
My father’s worried voice jolted me back to the present.
“I’m fine. I just…”
I can’t tell them I heard a voice… That’d make them worried. And apparently, there was no voice anyway. Oh, wait, maybe I remembered the voice instead of hearing it?
“I was just remembering something.”
“Remembering what?”
“Well, it was sort of only half a memory, so I didn’t quite understand it, but it got me a little lost in thought. I’m okay now.”
“Okay. Well, if there’s something on your mind, don’t hesitate to speak up.”
“Thanks.”
That voice… Hmm, I just can’t remember. It said “give me,” right? Give me what?
“…give me.”
“Huh? Forgive you for what, Ivy?” Fische asked.
My eyes darted from the ground up to him. Surprised by my sudden reaction, Fische scooted back a little. “What’s wrong?”
“Um, nothing. Sorry.”
Maybe the voice was saying “forgive me.” But who was asking me to forgive them? Something important…important? Oh! “Forgive me, this is all I’m able to do for you.” The fortune-teller said that. That’s right. Now I remember. That was what she said when I looked inside the magic bag. Maybe thinking of the fortune-teller brought her words back to the surface.
“Ivy?”
My father had concerned wrinkles in his brow. I was probably acting incredibly suspicious.
“I’m sorry, I was just thinking about the fortune-teller and suddenly remembered a lot of stuff.”
“Ohh, so that’s it.” My father smiled in relief.
Thank goodness I managed to remember. Otherwise, it would have been on my mind forever.
Chapter 517: The Legend
Chapter 517:
The Legend
“SO, I HAD A LITTLE QUESTION on my mind,” Zinal said.
Fische was pulling sweets out of the magic bag that had groceries in it. I was surprised he still had room in his stomach.
“What is it?” my father asked.
“Oh, not for you, Druid. For Ivy.”
“For me?”
What could it be?
“It’s how you talk about the fortune-teller. You call her Fortune-Teller, right? Usually people add the fortune-teller’s name after the title, or they call them Fortune-Tellers of Kashime—why do you call her simply the fortune-teller?”
Huh? The fortune-teller’s name? Well, her name was Ruba, if I recall correctly. Come to think of it, why don’t I call her by name? Huh? Wait, I did hear lots of people in the village calling her “Fortune-Teller Ruba.” So I must have called her that at first, right?
“I’m not sure why…” I mused.
I have a feeling the fortune-teller told me something. It was “My name…” Huh? What did she tell me? It was such a stressful time in my life that my memories are all mixed up.
“I’m sorry, I don’t remember,” I answered.
“Ah, that’s all right. It’s a nitpicky question anyway; I was just curious.”
When I met her in the village, my family called her Fortune-Teller Ruba, so I must have called her that, too. And when I met her in the forest…I would have been wary of her at first… Oh, I remember now. When I first met her in the forest, she was sitting next to me when I woke up. I remember being very startled by that. And her name… I think I couldn’t remember her name then… Yeah, I think I forgot it. Then the fortune-teller told me why she was with me and taught me how to survive in the forest… I think I didn’t remember her name all the way until the end. But the next time I saw her, I remember calling her by name. But if I recall correctly, the fortune-teller was… Wait a minute, what? I feel like something important happened, but I can’t remember?
“It’s not a big deal, so no need to rack your brain over it,” Fische assured me. “Some people don’t call fortune-tellers by their names.”
I was probably worrying everyone by getting so lost in thought. When I nodded at him in gratitude, he handed me a cookie from his magic bag. I took it and popped it in my mouth.
“Don’t eat too much or you’ll spoil your dinner,” my father said. I gave him a questioning look. “We’re probably going to spend the night in this cave,” he continued.
Huh? Is it already that late? You know, Ciel was probably playing for about two hours. We ate lunch here in the cave…and I think we walked about two hours, too…
“Yeah, I guess it’s time for us to start thinking about dinner,” I replied.
“I love being with you guys,” Zinal chuckled, popping another cookie into his mouth. “We get to take it easy when we’re in caves.”
“How do you usually spend your time in them?” I asked him.
Zinal thought for a moment, then smiled cynically. “Well, first we have to find out what kind of cave we’re dealing with, then find a spot where we can get some semblance of rest. The number of monsters comes heavily into play. If there’s monsters, we leave the area and keep an eye out. And if they seem hostile, we leave the cave right away. As a rule, we never sit down and eat in caves. And if you’re going to spend a lot of time in a cave, you need a party of at least five. With five people, you can sleep in shifts.”
It sounded like a big hassle.
“What are caves like for you, Ivy?” Zinal asked.
“Me? Well, Ciel guides us into the cave, then we explore it…take any magic stones we happen to find… We relax…eat dinner…and sleep.”
“And…this is just you and Druid, right?”
“Ha ha! Yes, it is.”
I didn’t realize how different our experiences were. I remembered hearing in passing once that I’d be killed by monsters in a flash if Ciel weren’t around.
“What do you want to do about dinner?” my father asked.
Dinner…I’m so full of cookies, I’m not really hungry.
“I’m not really hungry,” Zinal said. We all nodded in agreement.
Imagine, everyone in our party was filled up on sweets. Now that I thought about it, Zinal and Fische had kept pulling sweets out of their magic bag. I looked at the table and saw there were hardly any sweets left. We had eaten quite a lot without even realizing it.
“I think some fruit should do it,” my father said. Zinal pulled a bunch of fruits out of his magic bag in reply.
“Mr. Zinal, could you please get out the red fruit?”
“The red fruit—you mean chor?”
“Yes.”
“You like it?”
“Oh, yes. I can’t get its rich sweetness out of my mind.”
Chor fruit came from the chort trees that only grew near caves. It was a red fruit about the size of my father’s fist, and it had a soothing, rich sweetness.
“You know, I remember the chort trees by this cave had some ripe fruit on them,” Fische said.
I thought back to the chort trees nearby. And indeed, at least six of them were ripe. We’d picked all of them, of course.
“We were quite lucky, weren’t we?” I said.
Chort trees often dropped their fruit before they were ripe, so you rarely found any with ripe fruit. And when you did, you’d only find one or two at most. And yet the chort trees by this cave had six whole ripe fruits. It was quite a rare occurrence.
“I think I’ll have one, too,” Fische said, taking another chor out of his magic bag. “It’s been a while since I’ve had chor. And I heard about this when I was a kid, so it was a long time ago, but there’s a legend about this fruit.”
“A legend, you say?” I glanced at my father and saw that he was intrigued as well.
“I’m not surprised you haven’t heard it, Druid. It’s a legend from a village that doesn’t exist anymore. I only know about it because the village used to be near mine.”
A legend from just one dead village? That does sound intriguing.
“Long ago, when a man’s family was taken from him by an authority figure, he drew a summoning circle and brought the world near its end.”
Ah, so there’s a summoning circle in this legend. I’m not sure how I feel about that… Wait, isn’t this a legend about a piece of fruit? Why hasn’t he mentioned chor yet?
“The man poured all of his essence into the summoning circle to activate it…then he took his final breath. Feeling both relieved and worried over the impending end of the world, the man’s family and friends buried chor fruits in the dying earth and prayed.”
Zinal frowned skeptically at Fische. “Is this a story about the end times? But the world is still here.”
Yeah, it sure is.
“Besides, if the world ended, who would’ve been around to leave this legend behind?”
It did seem to be a very strange legend.
Fische shrugged his shoulders. “Beats me. I only heard this legend secondhand myself. The version I know might not be the exact way it’s told in the village it came from. I just happened to remember it when I saw the chor fruit after all these years.”
“Still, you don’t hear many legends involving summoning circles,” my father said.
Fische’s eyes widened with a start. “You know, you’re right.”
He hadn’t noticed it was unusual? Oops! Now Zinal is smiling mockingly at him.
“Authority figures have always been violent, haven’t they?” I remarked.
His family was torn apart by an authority figure… If that really happened, the man must have felt bitter about it. Was that why he meddled in summoning circles? Even so, destroying the world was a bit extreme. The legend probably got more and more outlandish as it was passed on again and again.
“The end of the world…there are all sorts of legends people left behind about that,” Zinal said.
My father and Fische nodded. Were there really that many legends about the end of the world? The thought made me feel sick to my stomach…
Chapter 518: The Cursed Bangle
Chapter 518:
The Cursed Bangle
“WHAT OTHER LEGENDS of end times are there?” I asked.
The idea of the world ending scared me, but I was morbidly curious.
“There was that one legend—what village was it from again? Hataru? You know, the one about the bangle.” Zinal shot Fische a glance.
Hataru Village? A bangle? That was the village whose church imprisoned Marya.
“You mean the cursed bangle?” Fische asked.
“That’s the one,” Zinal nodded.
“That’s from Hataka.”
Hataka Village? The church there also caused some problems, didn’t they? The church sure has been making a lot of trouble lately.
“Was it Hataka?” Zinal cocked his head to the side.
“It’s about the village girl who gets taken hostage, right?” Fische asked.
Taken hostage…I have a feeling this legend also involves authority figures abusing their power.
“That’s right,” Zinal replied.
“Then it’s definitely from Hataka,” Fische insisted.
Zinal nodded.
“But that legend has nothing to do with the end of the world.” Fische gave Zinal a bit of a frustrated look.
“Oh! You’re right,” Zinal admitted.
Even if it didn’t, I still wanted them to tell me.
“What’s the legend like? I’d love to hear it,” I said.
“Is that the legend about the girl with powerful magic energy who forged a cursed bangle?” my father asked.
Zinal and Fische nodded. “You’ve heard of it?”
“I don’t know the details, but I think I once heard somebody tell it in a tavern in the capital.”
“The capital, eh? That’s odd. Telling this legend is forbidden in the capital.”
It’s forbidden? That seems a bit imposing…
“Is it okay for you to tell us the legend?” I asked.
“Sure, sure, it’s fine,” Zinal said with a wave of his hand.
A smile spread across my lips. I knew that even in the royal capital, Zinal would probably tell someone the legend if they asked.
“This legend is quite long, so I’ll cover just the main points. Let’s see… So the lord of a village offered a girl from his village with powerful magic to the king. She had a husband and a child, but the lord of the village murdered her husband and separated her from her child, forbidding them from seeing each other again. And when the girl was in the depths of despair, the lord of the village commanded her to use her powers to serve the king. If she obeyed, she’d be reunited with her child someday.”
“That’s terrible,” I blurted out.
“Yeah, he was the scummiest man alive, so the girl obeyed the king only because she wanted to see her child again. Then one day, the king gave the girl a bangle on a whim. He did this to make her his conc… Er, uh…”
His conc?
Zinal looked very uncomfortable. I glanced at my father to see why and noticed the same look on his face.
Huh? What’s going on?
“Uhhh, how do I put this delicately… The king took a liking to the girl, so he viola—er, I mean, he forced her to—er, that’s not it, either… He wanted her love.”
Aha. Now I get it.
“Um, I think I get what you’re implying,” I said politely.
In other words, the king made a move on her, ignoring her feelings. Worst king ever.
“Ha ha! Okay, back to the legend. The girl loved her husband, so her relationship with the king wasn’t… Well, we’ll just zip through that part… The girl endured it all to protect her child. But one day, the girl learned the truth. Her child had already been sold to a noble family, and now the kid had died. The moment she heard the news, her powers ran wild. All the suffering she endured, the anguish in failing to protect her loved ones, the hatred toward those who stole everything from her… People tried to restrain her magic, but it still ran wild. The king and queen and their children immediately evacuated without being hurt. The ones who were harmed instead were the girl’s fellow prisoners, who were brought there because of their powers.”
So she hurt her comrades instead of the royal family? Wait, wasn’t this story about a cursed bangle?
“Her magic ran so wild that the castle was consumed in flames. But the flames vanished in an instant, and nobody knew why or how. The king declared it was a royal miracle. He spread the message to every town and village that he himself had swiftly suppressed the runaway magic meant to kill him. The royal castle was rebuilt quickly, and life returned to normal.
“Years later, the girl died. Then, when the king and queen made their grand appearance at a lively banquet, the king noticed the queen was wearing a bangle that contained a very pretty red stone. When the king asked the queen about the bangle, she gave him a funny look and insisted he had given it to her, but he remembered no such thing. When he tried to touch the bangle and get a better look at it, his hand burst into flames. The banquet fell into mayhem and the king howled in pain. He tried to put the fire out with water, but it kept burning. He tried magic, but there was no effect. Eventually, the king’s arm was cut off. The queen tried to remove her bangle…only to find that there was no bangle. They combed the castle but couldn’t find it, and whispers emerged that it was the girl’s curse.
“From that day onward, the king was a completely different man. Then one year later, when the king woke, the bangle he saw on his queen’s wrist that fateful day was lying on his bed. When he screamed, the knights rushed into his bedchamber and were ordered to dispose of it at once. But just then, the king’s son came into the room. And when one of the knights tried to leave the room with the bangle, the king’s son was engulfed in flames. The king had to watch in horror as his son screamed and struggled before his eyes. At a loss for what to do, the king and his knights could only watch him burn to death. Then the bangle disappeared again.”
“Wow…that’s a horrific tale,” I said.
I felt like the slow burn of the suffering was what made the whole story all the more terrifying.
“There’s more,” Zinal said. “After that, all the king’s descendants died year after year. First, it was the king’s daughter, and the year after that, his other son… The last one to die was the king himself, and that’s where this legend ends. It’s different in places, depending on who tells it, but the gist of it is mostly the same.”
So the king was the last to die. This story is filled with so much hate…it has to be real.
“Did they ever find the bangle?” I asked.
“Oh, they found it. When the king died, it was found in his bed. They say the bangle is locked away deep in the castle under heavy guard.”
So that means the bangle is still around. Scary. Wait, was it only the king? What about the lord of the land?
“Didn’t anything happen to the lord of the land?” I asked.
“Oh, the lord of the land got cursed, too,” Fische said.
Zinal nodded. “Now I’ll tell you a legend from Hataka Village. In one village, red rain fell from the sky. The villagers feared it and watched it from inside their houses. Then, a lone lady appeared before them. She slowly walked through the village, the red rain dyeing her white dress. The villagers called out to her, but she ignored them and just kept walking slowly. Then she stopped in front of a house and collapsed.
“When the red rains stopped and the villagers emerged from their houses, the lord of the land’s voice boomed through the village. Everyone hurried to his house to find the woman dyed in red rain lying dead there. When the lord of the land saw her, his face twisted with terror. A man who had lived in the village a long time screamed the woman’s name when he saw her. The lord of the land retreated into his house and yelled from indoors that the villagers had to take the woman away. The woman was buried by a man she knew.
“One year after her passing, the red rains came again. They stopped after a few hours, but the lord of the land was struck with a mysterious illness that very same day. The man investigated what had happened to the woman…and that was when he unearthed the lord of the land’s crime, and this is the part of the story where we find out what the lord and the king conspired to do to the girl.
“So, on the day the woman died, the man prayed to ease her sorrow and suffering. The villagers also offered prayers to send her soul to peace. After a few years, the red rains stopped coming, but the lord of the land continued to suffer from his illness…until he died on the very same day as the king. That’s how Hataka’s legend goes. The bangle doesn’t show up in it, but people think there’s a connection, so it’s included in the legend of the cursed bangle.”
It’s a scary story…but I think it’s comforting that the lord got his comeuppance, too. Is that wrong of me?
“That reminds me, doesn’t Hataka Village have a day of prayer?” Fische said.
“Wait, they still do?” I asked in surprise. When had they started that tradition? Since they called these stories “legends,” it must have happened quite a long time ago.
“Hearing your story reminded me, Zinal. Isn’t that the day people pray for her soul to rest in peace?” Fische asked.
Zinal shook his head. “Not sure. I do know the tradition is very important to the villagers.”
“Yeah, I remember that.”
So they observe her memory to this day. I hope that eased her anger a little?
“The royal family vehemently denies the stories, though,” Fische said.
“Huh? Why?” I asked.
“Because they’d have to acknowledge that every member of the royal line died.”
Oh, that’s right! Since we still have a monarchy today, they’d have to deny the stories. Maybe that’s why they forbid people from telling them. But if these stories are true, that means our current monarch isn’t even…
“Um, this made me think of a question,” I said.
“What’s up?”
I stared at Zinal. “Why did the king assemble powerful people like that woman? What was he trying to do with them?”
Chapter 519: The King’s Elder Brother? Or Child?
Chapter 519:
The King’s Elder Brother? Or Child?
“AS FAR AS THE PUBLIC IS CONCERNED, the royal family was trying to produce children who would have powerful magic abilities.”
Zinal’s answer made me scrunch up my face. That was the part they made public? It sounded pretty heinous to me.
“So, um, what’s the whole story?” I asked.
Zinal and Fische were both obviously disturbed.
“The royal family was using them…to operate a summoning circle.”
“What?!”
“A summoning circle?” My father stared at them both in bewilderment.
“That’s right. A summoning circle.” Zinal had a look of true disgust on his face. I hadn’t expected summoning circles to enter the conversation here as well. “We’re actually investigating whether it’s true or not. But according to one person’s findings, it’s true. The crown wanted to assemble the most powerful magic users in the land to operate a summoning circle under the royal castle.”
How horrible. But wait—
“But how does that make sense?” my father asked. “The strength level of a person’s magic doesn’t matter when it comes to summoning circles.”
I nodded in agreement. Before I understood the truth behind summoning circles, I’d found it hard to believe that somebody like me with very little magic could use them.
“Even less was known about summoning circles back then than there is now.”
That made sense. They didn’t know any better, so they brought the most powerful magic users together to operate the summoning circle so they wouldn’t mess it up.
“That reminds me, there was just one more story about that king. It’s from before he came to the throne.”
Before he came to the throne? So when he was the prince?
“Isn’t it about how his older brother, the crown prince, had the true claim to the throne?” Zinal asked.
Fische shook his head no.
“Really?” Zinal asked, craning his neck to jog his memory. Fische had corrected him earlier about the village name, too. Maybe Zinal just wasn’t as interested in history as Fische was.
“The king had an older brother? I never heard of that. I thought the eldest son always took the throne.”
Apparently, my father knew nothing about this, either.
“When the king took the throne, he burned all records of his older brother to hide his existence. That’s probably why.”
Fische’s explanation made me wonder…if the king burned all the records, then where did these stories even come from? It’s just one mystery after another. Do Fische and Zinal have the most incredible social network at their disposal? I shouldn’t ask… Yeah, I’d better not.
“So, what kind of story is it?” I asked.
If it was about the royal family, I wanted to hear it.
“It’s about the king’s older brother. He went to church and encountered an apparition there. Right?” Zinal asked Fische.
Huh? An apparition?
“No. Well, that’s partly right.”
Which part?
Fische seemed frustrated by Zinal’s oversimplified explanation.
“The long and short of it is, the crown prince was targeted by an assassin when he was out surveying. His bodyguards helped him escape, and he fled back to the castle…but the assassin intercepted him along the way. The prince’s bodyguards, heavily wounded from protecting him, ran off the road and into the forest. Then they arrived in a village not found on maps. There, they discovered a deserted church. They stepped inside it so they could rest their wounded bodies for just a little while, and they hid themselves in one of the rooms. The crown prince and his two surviving bodyguards were more heavily wounded than they thought, and they quickly came to terms with the reality that they would all die there in the church unless somebody came to rescue them soon. And as if to laugh in their faces, the church doors slammed shut. Realizing the assassin was there for him, the crown prince laughed in resignation. As the eerie laughter echoed through the empty church, the assassin faltered for a moment, but he charged through the church to accomplish his mission all the same. When he reached the door to a room, the laughter suddenly stopped. The assassin hesitated for a moment, then he listened inside the room. He heard faint voices, but he could not decipher what they were saying. He unsheathed his sword and kicked down the room’s door. Immediately after, the assassin was engulfed in red flames.”
He spontaneously combusted just by touching the door? Was it a summoning circle?
“Just before the assassin was engulfed in flames, a man appeared before the crown prince. When the crown prince saw him, he immediately recognized the man was not human because his body was transparent. The man asked the crown prince, ‘Do you want to live?’ and the crown prince laughed at the phantom in man’s clothing before him and answered, ‘Of course I want to live.’ The man smiled when he heard the response and said, ‘Then take my hand and I’ll save you.’ The crown prince grabbed the man’s hand without hesitation, and the next thing anyone knew, a bloodcurdling screech rang through the deserted church.”
Was that man a ghost? But the crown prince called him a phantom. Phantom? As in, a demon? Or a monster disguised as a human? Since he was transparent, that seems more like a ghost to me. So is this story about a ghost saving the crown prince?
Fische continued, “Once the screech subsided, the man healed the crown prince and his two bodyguards as well.”
If he healed their wounds…was he a ghost with the Light skill? Wow. I guess you can use that skill after you become a ghost.
“The crown prince tried to go straight back to the royal capital, but the man stopped him, saying, ‘You can no longer be king.’ He then said that since he saved the prince’s life, he must now do his bidding. The prince resisted, but the man said, ‘Then would you rather die right now?’ and rendered the prince speechless. He knew just how powerful this man was. The man vanished, taking the crown prince and his two bodyguards with him. Several years later, the crown prince’s younger brother was crowned king. Then about fifteen years later, this king died, and one month after that, the former crown prince’s son became king.”
What?! So not the former crown prince himself, but his son became king? What a twist.
“So that means the king’s bloodline was not interrupted, then,” my father said.
That was when I realized it. Of course, the bloodline was still connected. Now I felt silly for getting all worked up.
“Yeah, that’s what it means,” Fische agreed. “At first, some people raised doubts that he really was the former crown prince’s son, but the staff who had worked at the castle decades earlier confirmed it. After all, the boy looked exactly like the crown prince when he was young. Apparently, the resemblance was so uncanny that some of the servants were afraid of him.”
The resemblance was so strong people were afraid of him? Wait, then what happened to the former crown prince? If he went back to the castle, he would surely want to be king himself. So if his son was made king instead, that means…
“Um, did the former crown prince pass away?” I asked. “And what happened to his two bodyguards?”
“The former crown prince and his two bodyguards died in an epidemic, or so it says in the records.”
An epidemic… So I guess that means only the former crown prince’s son was at the castle.
“Did they reinstate the former crown prince in the royal records?” my father asked.
Fische shook his head no. But hadn’t he said that the record stated he died in an epidemic?
“Since the noblemen decided it wouldn’t be good if the royal succession drama went public, they claimed the boy was the son of the former king’s younger brother. That he had lived outside the castle because of the epidemic. That younger brother is the one who went into the records. The records also state that the younger brother and his two bodyguards died in an epidemic a little before the king died.”
Is it just me, or is the royal family way too creative with their records? First, they erased the older brother, then they added a younger one—oh, wait, maybe there actually was a younger brother!
“Did the king actually have a younger brother?” I asked.
Fische nodded. “He died because of the former king’s curse, but that was stricken from the record.”
Stricken from the record? Did Fische see the royal records at some point? I really want to know…but I shouldn’t stick my nose in too deep.
“Is anything in the royal records actually true?” my father asked.
Zinal and Fische smirked cynically. “From what I’ve seen, it’s about fifty-fifty.”
Horrible ratio! Only half-true… They shouldn’t call it a record. More like a fabrication.
“Mr. Fische, isn’t there any more information about the man who saved the former crown prince’s life?” I asked.
I really want to know if he’s a ghost or a phantom.
“Around the time the former crown prince’s son ascended the throne, eyewitness accounts of a phantom with a man’s appearance began to circulate in the castle.”
A phantom… Maybe there’s no word for ghost here? I’ll have to ask my father later. Well, that aside…does this mean the former crown prince haunted his son after he died? What was that mysterious man trying to do?
Chapter 520: Relaxing in a Cave
Chapter 520:
Relaxing in a Cave
“ISN’T ALL THAT STILL GOING ON?” my father asked. “I think I heard rumors like that in a tavern in the royal capital about five years ago.”
Fische nodded. “Yeah, there’s still about two or three eyewitness accounts a month.”
So that means…the man’s ghost still haunts the castle? And he’s spotted two or three times a month? Isn’t that a lot? What is he trying to do? If his goal was to keep the former crown prince from ascending the throne, then he succeeded. But if he’s still hanging around the castle, wouldn’t that mean his work still isn’t finished?
“It’s not like I think about this all the time,” Zinal said, “but now that we’re talking about it, I realize just how gloomy the royal family is. Curses and phantoms galore. And now the elder and younger brothers are trying to kill each other over who gets the throne.”
I had to agree. I never thought life in the royal castle was all sunshine and roses when they were fighting over succession, but I’d never considered they were cursed.
“Wait a minute, a lot of time has passed, hasn’t it? Shouldn’t we be getting ready to turn in?” my father asked.
I glanced around, and my gaze met with my creatures. Oh no! Their dinner!
“Sorry, guys, I forgot to take out your potions! I’ll get them right away.”
My father helped me take out the potions from our magic bag and line them up in rows, along with a row of magic items for Sol. And when they all started feeding at the same time, the cave was filled with an eerie echo.
Shuwaaa, shuwaaa, shuwaaa.
Scrunch, scrunch, shuwaaa, shuwaaa.
Those noises! If somebody suddenly heard them in a cave, they’d freak out. Boy, my kids sure are eating a lot today.
“If you sent those slimes to every town and village, the trash crisis would be solved overnight,” Zinal said.
“Well, Ivy’s also an important piece of that puzzle,” my father answered in a tone so serious that it made me smile sheepishly.
“Should we line up our mats around here? Check on your side to see if it’s okay,” Fische said, pointing to a flat part of the cave floor. Zinal stood on the opposing side and studied the ground.
“Looks good on my end.”
Since Zinal gave his permission, we started to line up our sleeping mats. We always looked for the flattest spaces to set our mats, since your body wouldn’t get a proper rest if you slept at an incline. Though if you ask me, just sleeping on a cave floor was a step up from sleeping in a tree.
“Don’t you need a tent?” Zinal asked.
“I don’t see why we would,” my father answered, glancing at the dozing dorya nearby. Ciel was also there, and with all of them there to guard us, the chances of monsters attacking us in the night were next to zero.
“I see your point,” Zinal said, following my father’s gaze and smiling at the dorya. If anybody attacked us in these conditions, that would be quite a feat…of stupidity, not bravery.
“I’m going to take a look around the cave,” my father said.
Ciel quickly stood up, and one of the dorya followed suit for some reason.
“I understand why Ciel is coming, but are you sure you want to join us?” my father asked.
The dorya started fidgeting. It was indescribably cute.
“Tee-hee! Okay, you can come with us. Thanks in advance, Ciel.”
Mrrrow.
Having gotten my father’s vote of confidence, Ciel happily wagged its tail.
“We’ll be back soon,” my father said.
“Okay. Be careful out there,” I waved goodbye to them.
“I don’t think I’ll need to be careful; I’ve got Ciel and the dorya with me.”
Well, true. But I want him to be careful anyway.
Zinal, Fische, and I washed the dishes and cleaned the area around our beds. After a while, my father came back.
“Hi.”
“Hi. Hey, Ivy, I found a river with hot water out there. Want to go check it out?”
“A river with hot water?”
“That’s right. Weren’t you saying you wanted to take a bath?”
I looked down. I had sponged myself off, but that really couldn’t compare to washing off in fresh mountain spring water. That was why I’d told the men a few days ago that I really wanted to have a bath and get nice and clean. I think I said it when they asked me what I wanted to do at that moment in casual conversation, but it was sweet that he remembered.
“Do you think I could go take a quick bath?” I asked.
Ciel crept over to me.
“Will you come with me?”
Mrrrow.
“Pu! Pu, puuu.”
“Te! Ryu, ryuuu.”
Huh? Sora and Flame are coming, too?
I looked at the two slimes, whose faces were filled with glee.
“We’re not going to play, okay? I’m just going to take a bath.”
Mrrrow.
“Pu! Pu, puuu.”
“Te! Ryu, ryuuu.”
“Pefu!”
“Goff!” said three voices at once.
They multiplied! Three dorya have risen to join us!
“Oh dear…we’d probably better just let them win,” Zinal said.
A sigh escaped my mouth.
Well…even if I can’t have a nice long relaxing dip, I can at least wash myself off, so it doesn’t matter.
“If you take too long coming back, I’m coming to get you,” my father warned. “Sora, make sure everybody doesn’t play too hard!”
The slimes leaned at an angle in reply. They didn’t seem too happy.
“Hey!”
My father scolded the slimes, but they merrily bounced up and down. I assumed that meant I had to brace myself. After I got my things for my bath, my father explained the river’s location to me in detail. Ciel must have known where it was, but he was right to make sure I didn’t over-rely on my creatures.
“I’ll be back soon,” I told the men.
“Be careful. And don’t you kids exhaust Ivy too much.”
Mrrrow.
“Pu! Pu, puuu.”
“Te! Ryu, ryuuu.”
“Pefu!”
“Goff!” said all the dorya together.
At least they were quick to reply.
Ciel took the lead and escorted us deeper into the cave. I was carrying a bright torch, and I could constantly hear the voices of my slimes around me, so I wasn’t at all scared. But if I had to walk this path alone, it would probably have been tough.
“Is it this way?”
Mrrrow.
When I came to a fork in the road, I remembered my father’s directions and took the right-hand path. After walking for a while, I started to hear trickling noises.
“This sound… It would fill me with dread if I didn’t know there was a river up ahead.”
“Pu! Pu, puuu.”
Sora hopped right up next to me, seemingly worried.
“Don’t worry, Sora. I’m fine. I’ve got all of you to protect me.”
The creatures all jumped for joy in reply. And for some reason, Ciel had shapeshifted into a slime and was bouncing playfully with them. When had Ciel shapeshifted? Lately, it had been happening so quickly that by the time I noticed, Ciel had already changed back to normal.
“Dorya friends, don’t push yourselves too hard, okay? You probably can’t jump as high as my slimes.”
For some reason, the dorya were trying their hardest to jump just like Sora, so I had to gently put a stop to that.
“Ooh, the air’s gotten warmer.”
Even though it was summer, the inside of the cave was chilly. Just when I was starting to sense a change in temperature, the river came into view.
“Found it!”
The river was much bigger than I’d thought it would be. When I got closer, I could feel the warm steam rising from it. I gently put a hand in the stream and felt its warmth seep into my skin.
“It’s so warm. Ooh, I’m excited.”
“Pu! Pu, puuu.”
Mrrrow.
“Te! Ryu, ryuuu.”
“Pefu!”
“Goff!”
Even though everyone answered me so vigorously, worry welled up inside of me.
“Don’t go too crazy, okay? Rivers can carry you away if you aren’t careful.”
Everybody replied with another prompt yell as if to say they understood. Now I was really worried, but I decided I just had to trust them.
“Well, let’s get in.”
No sooner had I said that than all my creatures dove into the river. I watched them as I undressed, and when I heard a loud splash, I saw the dorya had joined them in the river.
“Sora, make sure nobody goes adrift,” I called out to Sora, who had made that mistake in the past.
“Pu! Pu, puuu.”
I guess they’ll be okay this time.
I undressed, doused my head and body with hot water, and then submerged myself in the river.
“Ahhh, that’s the stuff.”
I found myself a good boulder to sit on and stretch my legs.
“Baths really just can’t be beat, can they?”
“Pefu!”
I looked toward the voice to see Sol’s face peeping out of the river.
“Got caught in the tide… No, wait, doesn’t look that way.”
A closer look revealed that Sol’s tentacles were furiously paddling under the water. So it wasn’t caught in the tide but swimming and frolicking instead.
“Tentacles sure are useful, aren’t they?”
“Pefu!”
Chapter 521: Yet Another Encounter?
Chapter 521:
Yet Another Encounter?
“CIEL, I REALLY DON’T THINK we can go this way.”
Mrrrow?
This was the sixth day after we said goodbye to the dorya. Ciel had guided us through the forest for a while, until we all came to a halt. Standing before us was a steep cliff that towered overhead. Ciel was looking up at it…and I was terrified by the prospect that the adandara wanted us to scale it. I tried imagining it, and it just didn’t seem possible. No matter how hard we tried, I just knew we’d get exhausted before we reached the top.
“Ciel, sorry, but are you lost?” my father asked.
Ciel’s tail angrily hit the ground, stirring up a cloud of dirt.
“Hack! Hack! Sorry, but there’s just no way we can scale this cliff.”
Mew!
Ciel indignantly yipped back and looked up at the cliff again.
Ciel has been obsessed with the top of that cliff ever since we got to it… Is something up there?
“Maybe there’s something up at the top?” Zinal suggested, staring up at the top of the cliff.
Then, with a little grunt, Zinal changed his mood on a dime. My father and Fische both grabbed their sword hilts. I was a little nervous about the way they were all acting, but a cautious glance at the top of the cliff revealed that there was indeed something up there. After a while, whatever it was rose its body high on the clifftop.
Wait, that shadow…and that magic energy…
“Ah!”
The giant creature pitched forward from the cliff.
“What the—?!”
The moment they saw it, Fische and Zinal unsheathed their swords. However, my father’s fear instantly vanished.
“It’s Snakey!”
Fische and Zinal both grunted in surprise, but I ignored them and waved at my old friend. And the Snakeys on the clifftop waved their bodies left and right in sync with my hand.
Whoa, it brought friends!
“It’s more than just one. How many are up there?” my father marveled.
From my view at ground level, it looked like there were four serpents…and one smaller one?
“So we meet again,” my father said. I clapped my hands and smiled back.
Hearing a loud sigh beside us, I looked to see Zinal had sheathed his sword again. I made a face, shocked that he had even drawn it to begin with, and he smiled sheepishly back. “I didn’t realize it was the serpents.”
Apparently, he couldn’t tell it was them from their silhouettes alone, and I had to admit it was difficult to tell from the distance. But since they had a shadow and magic energy I knew well, I could easily identify the serpents even from the ground.
“Well, um, I’ve felt their magic energy before, so I recognized them,” I explained.
“Their magic, eh? Ah…are these the serpents that gave us a ride?”
Perhaps finally sensing their magic energy, Zinal happily waved to the serpents on the clifftop, who waved more wildly in reply. Fische was also merrily waving.
“I guess we’re supposed to go up there, then,” I said.
Since we couldn’t scale the cliff, we would probably take a detour.
“Wait, I think they’re coming down,” my father said.
I quickly looked up to see the serpents pitching downward.
“Don’t tell me they’re all just going to slither down? Will they be okay?” I worried.
I didn’t think their giant bodies could take such a steep fall.
“They seem to think it’s safe, so it probably is,” my father said.
I nodded in agreement, but my heart beat more wildly with worry. The serpents were wobbling right and left as they pitched forward and looked very unstable. The sight was anything but reassuring. As I stared intently at them, a serpent completely launched itself off the clifftop. I squeezed my eyes shut in terror.
“Wow…they’re just slithering straight down.”
When I heard Zinal’s voice, I cautiously pried an eye open. “Oh!”
Then I saw the row of serpents slithering straight down from the clifftop. Their little bodies grew bigger and bigger the closer they got.
“They won’t crash into us, right?” Fische murmured, worriedly side-eyeing the serpents.
They were indeed zooming down the cliff at an alarming speed. We stumbled a few feet backward and watched as the row of serpents flew one by one into the treetops.
“Whoa!” Zinal yelped in my ear.
My eyes darted toward the trees as I heard one rustling…than another from them. After a while, the serpents emerged from between the trees. I sighed in relief at the sight and ran over to them.
“Hey, guys, are you okay?”
The seven serpents craned their long necks at me. Maybe they hadn’t understood.
“That’s probably how they normally travel,” my father said.
I thought back to the way they’d looked when they came down from the cliff. They hadn’t looked at all worried; if anything, they’d looked bored.
“Okay. Well, it sure gave me a heart attack watching them.”
“I can understand that,” my father sympathized. “Zinal? Fische?”
I looked over at the pair, whose butts had both hit the ground.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
Zinal had a gleeful smile on his face, which confused me.
“Nothing… It’s just, first I was stunned because I thought we have to climb up a cliff, then the monsters freaked me out, and then just when I figured out they were serpents and caught my breath, they freaked me out again by coming down so quickly… Kee-hee! Ah ha ha ha!”
He had a point. We had experienced quite the emotional journey.
“Yeah, I haven’t been this frazzled in a while,” Fische said.
My father nodded in agreement.
Frazzled? Aw man, I was so distracted by the serpents, I totally missed it! Fische and Zinal being frazzled must’ve really been a sight to behold!
“Oh, Miss Ivy, why, pray tell, do you look so upset?” Zinal asked politely.
I nervously shook my head, “Upset? Me? Nope. I’m not… Hee hee!”
A suppressed chuckle filled Zinal’s face.
Come on, he could at least have the decency to let me see him frazzled. He’s seen me frazzled plenty of times.
Fische sighed. “Boy, there really never is a dull moment with you guys.”
My father smiled. “I feel like I’m looking at my past self.”
That confused me. I didn’t think I’d ever seen my father frazzled before. When had that happened?
“Teryuuu.”
“Ooh! You think so, too, Flame? Well, yes, you really did help me out a lot back then,” my father said.
“Teryu, teryuuu.”
I frowned thoughtfully at their conversation. Seriously, what were they talking about? I had no idea.
I felt a shadow looming over me and looked up to see a serpent’s face. I reached up and tickled its nose, and its eyes narrowed happily to little slits. The serpents seemed to really like having their noses touched, because they always looked so cozy when I did. Meanwhile, Zinal and Fische stared blankly at us.
“I know I said this before, but they really do seem taken with you.”
Zinal stood up and walked over to us, and the serpent stretched its face toward him. Zinal reached out and petted its nose. When the other serpents saw this, they all quickly slithered over to Fische.
“Whoa, easy! One at a time, please!”
And with that, the herd of serpents started massaging Zinal and Fische with their slithers.
“Huh, I’ve never seen them do that,” my father remarked.
Neither had I. They usually were so polite and waited their turn. What had come over them?
“Maybe it’s because they took their swords out?” I asked.
The serpents reacted a little. My father and I saw this, but Zinal and Fische were too busy being played with to notice.
My father chuckled. “Well, they’ll probably work it out of their system if we leave them be.”
I giggled, “Sure thing. Thanks, Ciel.”
When I thanked the adandara for alerting us to the serpents, I got a happy tail-wag in reply.
Still, I’m surprised how often our paths seem to cross… Maybe the serpents are also traveling to the royal capital.
Chapter 522: A Secret Village?
Chapter 522:
A Secret Village?
“EEP!”
I didn’t care how safe it was supposed to be—I was still scared! In the blissful reverie of our reunion with the serpents, I never would’ve imagined we would be scaling the cliff with them later.
“Amazing… Even if I let go, my body doesn’t move.”
I could hear my father saying something, but I was too scared to understand the words. I risked a soft glance to my right and saw that my father had completely released his hands from his Snakey’s back. And the longer I stared, the less scared I started to feel. I released my iron grip on my own Snakey. Since I was being held on by magic, I could never fall off, but it still seemed so reckless to me that a part of me would never stop feeling scared.
“I know it’s safe, but looking down sure is terrifying.”
I noticed Zinal, who was riding on my left, glancing over his shoulder. Against my will, I felt my own neck jerking to do the same thing. And since we were basically climbing at a ninety-degree angle, all I could see was the ground. I only got a glimpse of it, yet I was starting to see stars. I quickly returned my eyes to the front, and I sensed the magic energy from my serpent burst a little stronger. I looked at the serpent curiously and got a concerned look back. Snakey had probably noticed I was scared.
“Thanks. I’m okay now.”
My father looked at me. “Something happen?”
Deciding that hiding it would only make him worry more, I explained, “I looked over my shoulder and sort of almost fainted.”
He stared critically at my face. “You do look a little pale, but hang in there. We’re almost up.”
“Okay.”
It took us just under a minute to scale the cliff, and we reached the top before I knew it.
“Thanks,” I told my Snakey as I slid off its back.
My father immediately came over to me. “You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.” I started walking away to look for a place to sit down, and I wobbled a little.
“Hey, take it easy.” My father swooped me into his arms and sat me on a nearby boulder. “Your face is all pale.”
I pressed both hands to my cheeks. I was no longer seeing black spots, but I felt chilly all over.
“Drink!”
I took the cup of water from my dad and glugged it down. I must have been really nervous, because my throat was bone-dry.
“Thanks.”
“Need more?”
“I’m okay.”
Now that my worries were over, I could feel my muscles give out in relief. The worry in my father’s eyes softened a little at the sight.
A gentle shadow prompted me to look up, and there was Snakey, staring at me. It was the one who had given me a ride.
“I’m okay now. Thanks for the ride.”
I had tried not to look down, but I couldn’t help myself and risked my health because of it. I felt really bad about it, since the serpents had been so kind to give us all a ride up the cliff. Snakey softly leaned in close to me. I petted its nose, and its eyes happily closed.
Oh good. I think I’ve made any worries about me go away.
“That sure was quick,” Zinal remarked.
I nodded. We had scaled that cliff insanely fast.
“It sure was…” Fische wobbled over to me and flopped onto the ground.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Yeah…I guess looking down while we were climbing so fast was a dumb idea.”
It sure was. It might have been okay if we’d been climbing more slowly, but seeing the ground grow distant so quickly was such a new and terrifying experience. I met Fische’s gaze, and we exchanged sheepish grins.
Thank goodness I’m not the only one. Dad and Zinal both seem totally fine.
“What’s wrong with you, Fische? Pathetic.”
Fische growled at Zinal. “How can you be so calm?”
“It was a thrilling little ride.”
Fische scowled in reply. He thought it had been a little too thrilling.
“Think you can stand up?” my father asked.
“Yeah, I’m good.” I got off my boulder and stretched my back. I no longer felt dizzy or cold, so I was probably okay. “What a spectacular view, huh?”
I felt a rustling in my shoulder bag, so I let out my creatures. I’d forgotten that I had stowed them in there during the climb just in case the worst happened.
“Sorry, guys. You can come out now.”
My creatures flew out of the bag and excitedly took in their surroundings. This was probably the best view any of us had ever seen during our travels.
“Gyah.”
“Ooh, haven’t heard you say anything in a while,” my father said, looking at Toron. The tree monster was in a basket hanging off Zinal’s shoulder, and only its little face was peeking out.
“I never get tired of your funny little voice,” Zinal said.
“Gyaaaah!” Toron’s leaves rustled indignantly.
“Good morning, Toron. You’ve been asleep for three whole days, haven’t you?” I remarked.
Lately, Toron had taken to sleeping for a few days at a time. When it first started happening, we were worried enough that we woke the little tree monster up, but Toron would always fall right back asleep, so we decided to keep an eye on the little tyke instead.
“Gyah!” Toron jiggled happily in reply. The little tree seemed perfectly fine.
“Want something to eat?”
I had tried feeding Toron purple potions while it slept, but the little tree just collapsed into the potion without drinking it up, so now I only fed it during waking hours.
“Gyah.”
“Here you go.”
My father handed me the purple potion right after Toron’s reply, and then I took the basket from Zinal. Toron must have been very hungry, judging by the way its leaves shook as I gently poured the purple potion on them, little by little. The purple potion was eagerly drunk up.
“Toron sure has an appetite. I guess there’s nothing wrong, then?” my father asked.
“Yeah, I think everything’s fine.”
I gave Toron purple potion until its little trunk quivered. A quivering trunk was a sign that it was sated.
“Looks like you’re full,” I remarked.
“Gyah!” Toron bowed inside the basket. Fische and Zinal were eyeing the tree curiously. This happened a lot now whenever Toron moved, so it was funny to watch.
“They’re watching again?” my father asked with a tired sigh.
“Hey, we can’t help it; this is uncharted territory to us. It’s a tree monster, you know? And you’re its mother.”
I’m Toron’s mother? Is that what I am?
I put the purple potion back in my bag and looked around. I could see a big mountain in the distance, as well as a river and a lake.
“Wait a minute…I see a village.”
“A village?”
My father tilted his head curiously and followed my gaze. It was quite small in the distance, but we did see some buildings that looked like houses, with an especially large structure in the middle.
“Zinal…do you remember there being a village around here?”
“No, Druid—without Garrit, we have no idea where we are. I still can’t believe there’d be a village in a place like this…” Zinal looked toward it. “You know, it does look like a village. But from this far away, we can’t tell if anybody lives there.”
Since the village was quite far from our spot on the clifftop, the most we could see were houses.
“How strange… There’re no roads leading to that village,” Zinal said.
I looked at the village’s outskirts and, sure enough, there wasn’t a road in sight.
“Is it a secret village, then? Or maybe it was abandoned a long time ago?” Fische asked.
Zinal tilted his head thoughtfully. “Even if it was deserted long ago, there would still be traces of roads.”
My father nodded. “That’s right. Since the houses still have their shape, any roads that led to this village would also still be around.”
As far as I could see, there were no traces of any roads. So did this mean we were dealing with a secret village? I’d heard that sometimes criminals built secret villages off the map to harbor fugitive nobles or crime organizations.
“Want to check it out?” Zinal asked.
My father looked wary, and I didn’t blame him. A village full of criminals was a risky possibility.
“Druid, look around you. Who are you more scared of, a bunch of criminals, or us?”
Look around us? I moved my gaze away from the village and looked at my immediate surroundings. I could see my slimes happily playing. Toron was sucking some grass dry nearby—was it having a snack? And a bit farther away from them, Ciel and the serpents were watching over us. Wait a minute… Now there were ten serpents.
“No matter how many criminals are in that village, they’d bolt at the sight of us like scared rabbits—that’s just how powerful our party is.”
My father and Fische both chuckled heartily at Zinal’s words.
Chapter 523: Let’s Go to the Village
Chapter 523:
Let’s Go to the Village
“OKAY, LET’S GO!”
With Zinal on serpent-back at the helm, we climbed down the cliff we had just gone up. Since the climb down was a gentle slope all the way, I didn’t feel a bit of the terror I’d experienced on the way up. So I got to enjoy the scenery from my Snakey’s back as I sat peacefully, and that definitely suited me more.
“You know, these guys really seem to be in a caravan following you, Ivy,” Fische said.
They’re following me?
I gave Fische a curious look. “You know, I do seem to meet up with them a lot.”
The serpent I was riding on swayed left and right in reply. I couldn’t quite understand what it was trying to say, but the joyful movements made me think Snakey was happy to be reunited with me.
“We’re quite deep into the forest right now, so it’s too bad I don’t sense any sign of human life,” Zinal said.
“Why is that bad?” I asked.
Zinal looked over his shoulder at me and smiled innocently. “If somebody saw our caravan from far away, they’d start some rumor that the new breed of serpent multiplied, wouldn’t they?”
The new breed of serpent multiplied?
I looked at my father and Zinal…
Oh! Yeah, the first time we rode on Snakey-back, there was a rumor about a new breed of serpent.
“You’re right. They would start rumors about that.”
“Right? Hey, why not take a detour and find some people so they can start rumors about us?”
“Don’t be stupid,” Fische sighed.
Zinal pouted sheepishly back. He really was a fun guy.
Once we’d gone down from the cliff and into the thick of the forest, I sensed monsters in the distance. Ciel had already noticed them and was sending out extra magic energy as a precaution. After a while, the monsters moved even further away from us.
“That’s our Ciel. Perfect guardian,” Zinal said.
I nodded and looked at Ciel, whose tail was swishing in satisfaction.
“Okay, we’re coming up on the trees surrounding the village,” my father said.
The serpents slowed down, and I looked between the trees for any sign of a road. We thought we might have a better chance of finding something up close.
“Don’t see anything,” Zinal said.
Fische slid off his serpent’s back and looked up at one of the trees. “Yeah, it’s definitely a secret village.”
Zinal nodded. “Let’s take a look around the outskirts. If there really are criminals in there, we’ll be in danger. Then again, that’s highly unlikely.”
I nodded. If the village really were filled with criminals, they would be on high alert in response to us, which would mean we would have sensed their auras or their magic by now.
“Do you think somebody could still be in the village, though?” I asked.
We looked for signs of a road and signs of human tracks and could find none. And living in the village without ever leaving it would be rather impossible. That meant if anybody were around, they would have left clear traces. And since we couldn’t find any, it seemed unlikely that there was anybody in the village at all.
“You’re right, Ivy. There’s just no sign of human life,” my father said.
Zinal and Fische nodded. “I guess this village is long deserted. Well, we’ll go inside and have a look after we check the perimeter.”
We walked through the trees surrounding the village with Ciel in the lead and the serpents tagging along. After we walked for a while, I felt like I was slipping through something. The others must have felt it, too, because they stopped and looked around.
“We all felt that, right?” Zinal asked.
Fische’s hand drifted to his sword, and my father was already holding his.
Mrrrow.
As I stood on guard, I heard Ciel’s voice. I looked over to see the adandara acting normal.
“Looks like everything’s fine,” my father said.
Fische and Zinal relaxed a little. Ciel looked at the men before starting to walk again, and the slimes also seemed to be behaving normally as they followed it.
“You okay?” my father asked me.
I nodded and followed the other men. After a while, the village gate came into view.
“That gate seems awfully high for a village cut off from the rest of the world…” Zinal pressed his hands to it and looked up. Indeed, the gate was very tall for a village in the middle of nowhere. The walls surrounding the village were also quite high.
“Think there’s dangerous monsters in this forest?”
We hadn’t met any monsters on the way, and the magic energy I had sensed didn’t feel that strong. Could that caliber of monster manage to scale walls like this?
“Anyway, we can’t get in this way. We’d have a hell of a time just ripping off all these vines.” Fische gripped a couple of the vines that were thickly tangled around the gate and walls.
“Gyah!”
Toron jumped down from the basket hanging off Zinal’s shoulder—rather, Toron tried to jump down.
“Gyahhh.”
“Hold on, buddy,” Zinal said. “The basket snagged your roots—wait, your legs?—well, whatever. Anyway, hold still. I’ll untangle you.”
I clamped a hand over my mouth. Toron’s feet never seemed to move like they were supposed to, but I felt bad laughing about it.
“Ah!”
Toron met my gaze.
“…Gyah!”
“I’m so sorry, Toron, but you’re just so cute.”
Toron let out a sulking cry and stole a glance at me. But its little roots were still stuck, so it got twisted even more. I clenched my jaw tighter, willing myself not to laugh, but my lips started prying themselves apart.
“Okay! Got you free. Wow, Toron, your legs sure are flexible. Ouch! Hey! Don’t punch me with your leaves!”
Toron’s leaves batted against Zinal’s hand. It seemed like it was lashing out even harder than it typically did. Could it be…Toron was even more embarrassed than usual?
“Does somebody have an ego?” I whispered.
Toron must have heard my little jab. The tiny tree came to a halt—then promptly jumped from Zinal’s arms down to the ground, marched right up to the gate, and stuck its roots in the ground.
“What is Toron doing?” Zinal asked.
I shook my head. “Toron did that when it sucked the karyo field dry. The field withered to death in an instant, so I wouldn’t be surprised if these vines—ack!”
“Ah. Yeah, they’re dying all right,” Fische said, staring at the rapidly dying vines in awe.
“Wow…”
It was fascinating to watch the vines wither up on each side of Toron, who was starting to quiver slightly. I anxiously looked at its little face, worried that the feat was hurting the little tree, but from the look on Toron’s face, I was wrong. It appeared to be in a happy trance.
“Maybe we can open the gate now,” Zinal said.
I looked at the gate just in time to see the dead vines fall away from it.
“Gyah!”
Satisfied, Toron’s roots lifted from the ground…almost! The little tree’s branches were flapping erratically as it tried to free itself. I didn’t want to laugh, but I was dangerously close to it. I gently lifted Toron out of the ground.
“Ooh, Toron, did your roots grow again?” I asked.
Toron’s gaze lowered and stared at the longer roots. It didn’t look too happy about it, and I sympathized, since Toron already had a hard time dealing with its roots.
“Well, you’ll figure it out eventually, buddy.”
I wasn’t sure why that earned me Toron’s biggest eye roll ever.
Chapter 524: The Hidden Village
Chapter 524:
The Hidden Village
WE OPENED THE GATE to find our suspicions confirmed: There were no signs of human life. The thick wall of vines keeping the gate shut should have made that obvious, but I couldn’t stop myself from feeling a little disappointed.
“Don’t you think there was maybe an awful lot of people here for a secret village?” Zinal asked.
I followed his gaze and saw the rows of houses along either side of the path from the gate. There were twenty-four houses on the right-hand side and twenty-six on the left.
“My best guess is over a hundred people lived here—do you think?” I asked.
Judging by the size of the houses, they seemed too big for just one person. There were married couples and children—that was about the size they seemed to me. Then again, we’d have to look inside the houses to know for sure.
Zinal answered, “We can’t tell from size alone, but yeah, there may have been over a hundred people living here. But if that’s the case, this village is incredibly unusual.”
“Unusual, how?” I asked.
“Well, because it’s a secret village. Anyway, let’s look in the back of the village.”
Zinal’s answer left me with more questions, but I followed him anyway. Was it unusual for this village to contain a lot of people because it was off the map?
“Oh, look! There’re some houses over there, too,” I said.
We located seven smaller houses between some of the other ones.
“There sure are. Yeah, there’s too many houses for this to be a secret village,” Zinal said.
“Do you think a village this size could have stayed hidden?” Fische asked.
I gave them both an intrigued look. The large population seemed to be a point of curiosity, but why was that?
“How many people usually live in a secret village?” I asked.
Fische thought for a moment, then said, “About ten, if it’s a smaller one. Even the bigger villages only have about fifty people. Once you reach a hundred, it’s hard to stay hidden, so most people wouldn’t even consider it.”
Oh, so that’s why! The more people you have in one place, the more food they’ll need. And if it’s too hard to grow everything you need in the village, you’ll need to buy goods from the outside. And then, you wouldn’t be able to stay hidden anymore. Wait—
I looked up and around in a circle until I found the cliff we’d been standing on a little while earlier.
“Why do you think we see way more houses down here than we did from up there?” my father asked.
I nodded in agreement. “Yeah, I don’t remember seeing this many.” When we were standing on the cliff, we could only see about half this number of houses.
“It’s probably illusion magic,” Zinal said.
I looked at him. Illusion magic? Illusion?!
“Remember how we felt like we passed through something on the way here?” Zinal asked me.
“Yes. It seemed like we were passing through an invisible wall.”
Zinal tousled my hair. I looked up at him in surprise and saw the mirthful smile on his face. “Attagirl. You always have a firm grasp of your surroundings.”
Er, it was so obvious, I think anyone would have noticed that…
“Lots of people wouldn’t have spotted it,” he assured me.
Whoa, really? But it felt so jarring.
“That was the boundary line of the illusion magic,” Zinal explained. “I’ll bet this village used to be perfectly hidden by the illusion spell, but the magic degraded over time and the village started to come back into view.”
Fische and my father nodded in agreement, but the looks on their faces were quite grim. It sounded very difficult to hide an entire village, especially one like this. It wasn’t exactly small.
“Can illusion magic be used by anyone?” I asked.
The men shook their heads.
“They probably used a magic item,” Zinal answered. “But I’ve never encountered a magic item that could cast such a wide-ranging illusion spell before.”
“That must be the church.”
I followed my father’s gaze to the biggest building in the village. The closer we got to it, the stranger I felt.
Come to think of it, the last time I went to a church, I was…five years old? I’ve only passed by them since.
The church was probably built sturdier than the other buildings, because it was in the best shape. Still, time had taken its toll on the building. The windows were broken, and the right side of the double doors was about to fall off its hinges.
“What’s that?”
I wasn’t sure what it was…but I felt like something was off. I stared hard at the church doors. Something was…missing?
“It’s missing the flower art,” my father remarked.
“Ah! That’s right, the flowers!”
Now I realized what was missing. All church doors had the same flower art on them, and the ones before my eyes had none.
“Wow, you’re right. That’s strange,” Zinal said.
Fische nodded in agreement.
I gave them a curious look. “Is there some symbolism behind the flowers?”
“Have you heard the story Genesis of the Church?” Zinal asked me. I shook my head. “I see. It goes like this: Long ago, a town was pummeled by a storm. The storm destroyed all the food, and many people starved to death. A nobleman who lived in that town used his own money to buy food and supplies from other villages and distributed them to the townsfolk. Many lives were lost, but many others survived thanks to the man’s heroics. The man was deeply revered, but one year after the big storm, he died of illness. Saddened by his death, the townsfolk buried him on a hill overlooking their town. The day after his burial, white flowers bloomed wildly around his grave, and the wind carried their petals all the way to the town. Believing the man was keeping their town safe, the townsfolk erected a building near his grave to honor him and to pray for everlasting peace in their town. That is the story we call Genesis of the Church.”
I’d never heard that story before.
“So the flowers on the church doors are the white flowers from the man’s grave,” I said.
“Yes, and they’re painted on the doors and walls inside the churches, too,” Zinal said.
I recalled a church I’d once seen in the distance. And even from that distance, I remembered the flowers, but I’d been too far away to figure out what kind of flowers they were.
Wait a minute—if I couldn’t remember the flowers, why would I think something was missing? But I did think about them, didn’t I? Yeah…on every church door, there’s flower art…but I’ve never seen any of it, have I? No, I haven’t. How could I, when I’ve been avoiding churches all my life? What’s going on? Are they memories from my past life? I feel like it’s something else…
“Want to go inside?” Zinal asked.
“Huh?!” I looked up with a start to see the door was open.
“Is this building gonna hold?” Fische asked, eyeing the walls worriedly.
“It should be fine. It’s sturdily built,” Zinal said, hitting the door with his hand. It did indeed look quite sturdy, considering it had been constructed who knows how long ago.
“What’s the plan?” Fische asked.
“Well…just satisfying our curiosity,” Zinal said.
Fische shrugged his shoulders. My father also looked eager to explore: His hand was already on the door, and he was peering inside.
“Pu! Pu, puuu.”
While the three men stood talking by the door, Sora cried out and slipped right by them. Look who’s the most eager of all.
“Whoa—Sora? We got passed by.”
“Te! Ryu, ryuuu.”
“Pefu!”
Flame and Sol followed Sora into the church, while the rest of us watched in a daze.
“Ha ha, they beat us to it all right,” Zinal chuckled merrily as he stepped into the church with Fische following close behind.
“What do you want to do, Ivy?” my father asked. “If you’re scared, do you want me to wait outside with you?”
Okay, if I want to wait outside, my father will wait with me. But…I’m kind of curious, too.
“No, I’ll join you. I want to see what’s in there.”
I walked through the door Zinal opened to find the inside of the church was fairly well-kept. However, instead of flower art on the walls, there was a giant painting hanging directly opposite the front doors.
“That’s strange. Why is this church like this?” Zinal craned his neck as he inspected a chair.
“What’s wrong?” my father asked, eyeing the chair Zinal was touching.
“This chair… It’s still good.”
“Huh? But that’s…” My father examined the chair more closely. Then he frowned. “Since the houses are so run-down, it’s kind of creepy that these chairs are in such good shape.”
“The church doors did show the wear of time a little, but the walls are weirdly spotless.” There was a slight grimness in Fische’s eyes. “Isn’t this church a little too clean? Nothing’s broken, either. It’s like time stopped.”
Fische looked around the church in disgust, and my father’s sharp gaze followed suit.
“There also isn’t any dust.” I ran my finger along the chair, but no white powder came off.
“You’re right. I’ve never heard of a magic item that stops time, though,” Zinal said.
The other men nodded.
“Pu! Pu, puuu.”
“Sora?”
I followed Sora’s voice to find the slime seated in front of the painting we’d seen when we first walked inside. I joined Sora and found Sol and Flame were also looking up at it.
“That’s a big painting, huh?”
Chapter 525: A Diary?
Chapter 525:
A Diary?
WE STOOD IN FRONT of the painting, the most eye-catching item in the room. Framed decoratively in wood, it was very big and very impressive.
“It’s impossibly huge,” my father remarked.
The painting’s size distracted us from its contents. I found myself walking over to its right side and stretching my arms wide. I made a note of where my left hand hit and moved over, spreading my arms again so my right hand touched the spot. The painting was about three Ivys wide—or maybe a little bigger.
“What are you doing?” My father was staring dubiously at me.
“Ahh!”
Well, this is awkward.
“I was just thinking, gee, what a big painting.”
“And you were measuring it with your arms?”
Looks like he caught me. I’ll just laugh it off.
My father crinkled into a soft chuckle and patted my head. Why did he think it was so funny? Looking at the smile on his face made my cheeks burn, so I slowly looked away.
“Pu! Pu, puuu.”
Hey, don’t sneak a look at my face from the ground, Sora.
“Adorable.”
I looked up to see Zinal had the same soft smile as my father. I quickly averted my eyes. That smile seemed to make me uncomfortable for some reason, and my cheeks were on fire.
Okay, let’s change the subject!
“What do you suppose it’s a painting of?”
Fische patted my head. “Yeah, I’ve never seen this image before.” He approached the painting and gently ran his finger along the canvas. “And there isn’t any dust on this, either.”
So he was checking how clean it was. Yeah, it really is in perfect condition.
I took the entire painting in. In the center were people wearing black armor fighting others with red armor. They held swords and shields, and some were using bows and arrows. Behind the black and red fighters were people holding spears defensively. Maybe they were next up to fight when the people in the front died? Standing behind the spears were people dressed in robes, and there were more spear-holders behind them for some reason. Dark shadows also loomed in the right and left edges of the painting. These shadows seemed to be human silhouettes, but those black silhouettes perplexed me a little. As a whole, the painting was made with incredible detail. At a closer look, you could even make out the expressions of the fighters, and yet the right and left edges of the painting were the only areas covered in dark shadows. Only that part of the painting held an incomprehensible ghastliness. I widened my focus and looked at the entire painting as a whole again.
“So, this is a war painting, right?” I asked.
Zinal gave a perplexed look. “I think so. But I’ve never seen black and red armor before. The royal knights dress in silver armor, and all the knights outside the royal capital dress in green.”
I remembered that the knight Lord Foronda summoned was wearing silver armor. He must have been a royal knight, then. Wait, didn’t he come awful quick for somebody who got summoned from the royal capital?
“There’s no telling when this painting was even made…” my father said.
Zinal nodded in agreement, and Fische looked equally perplexed. Even in the eyes of those well-versed in history, this was a painting of unknown knights fighting in an unknown war. Why was it hanging in a church? What a mystery.
“Wait a minute…”
As I got a closer look at the painting, something felt odd about it. The people holding spears, both the group behind the front line of fighters and the line behind the robed people, were wearing masks. And the positions of their spears seemed off. It looked like they were about to stab the people in front of them.
“Is this…a threat?” The words spilled out of my mouth as I stared at the painting, but for some reason, they felt truer when I said them.
“A threat? What do you mean?” My father came closer and looked at the spear-holders.
“Look at the people in masks. It looks like they’re threatening the ones in front of them.”
“You’re right…it does look like that,” my father said.
Fische and Zinal nodded at the painting.
“So, like, they’re forcing the knights to fight?” I could hear the disgust in Zinal’s voice. Stealing a careful glance at him, I found him glaring at the painting.
“The real question is, what even is this church?” Fische asked, looking around the room.
I followed his gaze. The room showed no ravages of time, yet there were no flowers in sight. Instead, there was a giant painting depicting a battle Zinal and Fische had never heard of. I looked up at the huge painting again. There were no flowers, but the wooden cross you’ll find in every church was hanging on the wall. Without that, nobody would even know this place was a church.
That reminds me, I’ve seen this cross in my past life, too. I saw it…in a church. So it’s the same in my past life. How strange.
“Looks like there’s another room over here.”
I looked where Fische was…and a section of wall was opened like a door next to him.
“A secret room?” Zinal headed to Fische’s side.
“Looks like it,” he replied. “I felt a breeze, so I tapped the wall and it opened.”
I peered inside the room from between Zinal and Fische. It did indeed look like a proper room, and it had a desk with something on top of it.
“There’s something inside,” I remarked. “A stack of papers?”
Zinal and Fische entered the room. They approached the desk and took the papers off it.
“…It’s a diary.”
Maybe whoever worked at this church wrote it.
“Let’s see, it says… Today marks the start of my fourth year in hiding. At last, my voice reached the ones in the church beyond.” Zinal made a face. “Beyond what?”
Yeah, what do they mean by “beyond”? There are churches in every village and town, but they’re all the same church, so they’d never call any of the churches “beyond.” And what did they mean by “my voice reached”?
“If we gather enough summoning circle operators, we will surely succeed. We’re so lucky they survived.”
“Summoning circle operators”? I thought to myself. And what do they mean by “survived”? Survived what?
“What…does it mean?” Fische asked flatly.
Zinal shook his head. “I don’t know. But again with the summoning circles? Do you think that’s why time stopped in this village and we couldn’t see it very well? A summoning circle?”
“That’s definitely possible,” Fische said.
My father nodded. “There’s still so much about summoning circles we don’t know. Maybe they can hide villages or stop time.”
My father put his hand on my shoulder. He was probably worried about me since I’d been targeted by a summoning circle before. I lightly patted his hand to show him I was okay.
I’m okay now. My father, Zinal, and Fische are with me.
A summoning circle operator in a church “beyond”… From the way the diary was written, there were probably summoning circle operators in this church, too. And these operators had come together and were trying to accomplish something. If they figured out how to operate the summoning circles properly, could they be used without sacrificing any lives?
“I am an operator myself, but this summoning circle greatly shaved off my life span. I can only use the circle a few more times before it kills me. I truly am relieved that we made it on time.”
So even people who knew how to use summoning circles still lost their lives to them. What were they so desperate to accomplish that they were willing to shorten their life spans for it?
“The operators captured in the church beyond probably number ten. If we combine our numbers with their ten, we probably still won’t have enough. I know it can’t be helped, but I can’t stop hating myself for my own feebleness. I hate that I have to sacrifice the lives of those who gave their all to help us escape. But I cannot let this world fall into those bastards’ hands… Agh!”
I looked over when Zinal suddenly cried out…and the papers were crumbling to dust.
“Damn it!” Zinal quickly put the stack of papers back on the desk. “It’s no use. I can’t read them anymore.”
I walked over to Zinal’s side and looked at the top of the desk. On it was a dusty substance one could no longer call paper.
“It doesn’t even look like paper.”
“Yeah, it suddenly fell apart. It might’ve had a time-stopping spell on it.” Zinal slowly swept the fragments of paper to the side.
“But there could still be some readable papers beneath it,” Fische reminded him.
Are there? I kind of think it’s hopeless.
“Oh! I think I can barely make this out?”
From beneath the fragments of paper, a piece of paper with barely legible letters emerged. But it looked like the slightest movement would destroy it as well.
“Let’s see, it says… If only there were no summoning circles…if only there were no… I can’t read the rest of that part. Okay, after that is… We must prepare ourselves. And the next part I can read is… This world will be destroyed. This doesn’t make sense.”
I felt like whoever wrote this diary hated summoning circles, even though they could operate them.
And what’s this about the world ending? What a creepy diary.
Chapter 526: Long Ago?
Chapter 526:
Long Ago?
“WELL, THAT WAS QUITE the disturbing diary.” My father eyed what was left of the paper disgustedly.
Fische shrugged his shoulders. “Sure was. But it doesn’t add up.”
Zinal nodded at Fische. “Yeah…when was it even written?” He looked around the room. “This room is awfully bare.”
I looked round the room. Aside from the desk opposite the door and the shelves next to it, there was nothing else in the space.
“Everything on that shelf is destroyed,” Zinal lamented, fingering the fragments of paper left on the shelves. But the moment he touched the dust-like paper, it vanished into thin air.
“It disappeared?” Zinal blurted out in confusion.
Fische frantically grabbed his arm. “Are you hurt?”
“Huh? Uh, no, I’m fine.”
Fische sighed in relief. “Don’t go around touching things.”
“Sorry, but I didn’t think it would disappear.” Zinal looked back at the spot where the paper fragments had been.
“That was a fair assumption. Why did it disappear?” Fische ran a finger along the shelf and shook his head. “Not a trace left behind.”
“I don’t like this room,” my father interjected, a sour look on his face.
The room definitely was disturbing. Something was off about the passage of time in this church. When we looked from the outside, some of the windows were broken, and so was the door. Yet when we stepped inside, the chairs were still in such good condition they could be sat on. And that giant painting, with its vibrant, unfaded colors, looked as though it had been finished recently, but the diary in this room had crumbled away. We still weren’t entirely sure about the desk and shelves, but they looked only slightly damaged, and a little repair work would make them usable again. Everything shared the same space, yet time seemed to pass differently in each area.
“Let’s get out of this village,” Zinal said. My father nodded in agreement.
After we left the room, I took another long look at the painting.
“Ivy…what’s wrong? Something on your mind?” my father asked.
I nodded. I was thinking back to what the diary said. The church “beyond” and the summoning circle operators…
“Do you think the people in robes are summoning circle operators?” I asked.
The men joined me in at the painting and stared at the robed people who were under threat. A closer look revealed what looked like chains under the folds in their robes. It was drawn in detail but too small to make out entirely. Still, that was what it appeared to be.
“Do you think the shadowed figures on the right and left-hand sides of the painting were the ‘bastards’ the diary talked about?” I asked.
If only there were no summoning circles… Did the diary writer mean that their life span wouldn’t be so short that way? We must prepare… But whoever wrote the diary seemed happier about “making it on time” than they were upset about their life span shortening. So I got the sense they were already “prepared.” Then whatever they were “preparing” for…it had to be something more important than their own life.
“If the battle in this painting actually happened, there has to be some record of it,” Fische said. “But there is no such record, so why would they put a painting like this in such a prominent spot in a church? This is the most important area of the church, so it makes much more sense to assume that the battle in this painting really happened. Then again, there’s no record.”
Fische was absolutely right. There was no record of it, but the painting’s placement in the church made it safe to assume that it depicted something very important. A war erased from history. If the crown erased it from the records because it was an inconvenient truth, some of the survivors surely left something behind. And if they had, Zinal and his men would have found it. This just didn’t make sense.
I looked around the church. My father was sitting in a chair. It really was sturdy enough to hold a person. I let my gaze wander along the line of light to the window it was coming from, which was broken. The passage of time in this church was inconsistent. The passage of time? That’s right. What if this village was founded much earlier than we’d thought? I looked at the painting again. No records were left behind, and records were maintained by the kingdom, so it would have to have happened even longer ago…
“What if this battle happened before the kingdom was founded?” I suggested.
Zinal and Fische yelped in surprise. I looked at them. “If this happened before our kingdom was founded, it wouldn’t be in the records, would it?”
Oh, except the people who were around would have left something behind. There weren’t any legends… Maybe all of humanity almost went extinct? That would explain why no one inherited the summoning circles today. The words “If only there were no summoning circles” tickled my brain.
“What if the summoning circles were erased…by the operators?”
I sensed hatred for summoning circles in that diary.
“Now that’s a crazy theory,” Zinal said.
His words sent a shiver down my spine.
“Ack, I’m sorry! Did I scare you?” he asked apologetically.
I smiled and shook my head. “No, uh, I think I was just obsessing a little too much over this.”
“Before this kingdom was founded… I didn’t even think of that,” Zinal murmured.
“But that theory makes everything fall into place,” Fische said, looking at me. I nodded in agreement, and he patted my shoulder. When I gave him a curious look, he explained, “That’s not the sort of thought a normal person would have. Don’t say things like that around anybody but us.”
Ah, now I see.
“Got it.”
“But wow, before this kingdom was founded… It just might be possible. Ivy, what made you think the summoning circles were destroyed by their operators?”
Fische looked meaningfully at me, and I returned his stare. It was just a random thought that popped into my head. Was that okay? Well, I guess I’ll tell him anyway.
“Because nobody inherited the summoning circles.”
“Ah, I see.” Zinal nodded.
“We can see from the diary that whoever wrote it was a summoning circle operator who detested the circles,” I said. “Also, we know that summoning circle operators were assembling and trying to accomplish something…and that they would need to be prepared.”
That was all the information we had, so we couldn’t be entirely sure of anything.
“And since they wrote, ‘If only there were no…’ it makes me think maybe they were trying to erase summoning circles from this world. Just a little idea I had.”
“You’re right. The diary did make it seem like they hated summoning circles,” Zinal said.
I looked at the robed figures in the painting again. “Do you think the robed people in this painting are summoning circle operators? It looks like they’re under threat, and they’re in shackles.”
“Ah, you mean this,” Zinal said, touching part of the painting. It was the bits of silver that could be seen between the robe folds. “They were forced to fight since they could use summoning circles, and the more they used the summoning circles, the closer they came to death. I certainly don’t blame them for hating summoning circles.”
The real mystery was why they’d become summoning circle operators. If they would be forced to fight wars, they shouldn’t have become operators to begin with, and yet they had.
Clunk.
“What was that noise?”
We suddenly heard something fall. Zinal hurried out of the church, and we ran after him. I nervously looked for my creatures and saw they were following behind us.
“Sora, Flame, Sol, hurry.”
Ciel would be okay, and Fische was carrying Toron’s basket. No problems.
“It’s falling apart…”
I followed Fische’s gaze to see that one of the houses had completely crumbled to the ground.
“This place is dangerous. We should leave,” Fische said.
Zinal swooped Sol off the ground, my father picked up Flame and Sora, and we all ran for the gate.
“Ivy!”
“I’m okay. I’m right behind you!”
As we ran all the way to the gate, we heard sounds of destruction behind us. We slipped through the gate and ran into the forest. Once we had gotten far enough away, we stopped and turned around…to see that the gate had fallen as well.
“That escalated quickly,” my father said.
Zinal sighed heavily. “Maybe us coming into the village messed things up.”
“Pu! Pu, puuu.” Sora was struggling in my father’s arms.
“Dad, I think you’re holding Sora too tight.”
“Huh? Oh, sorry.”
My father loosened his grip. Sora bounced to the ground and looked back at the spot where the village had been.
“Sora?”
“Puuu?”
Was Sora perplexed by the sudden destruction of the village?
Chapter 527: A Sense of Realness
Chapter 527:
A Sense of Realness
SORA STARED UP AT ME as I petted its head. Sensing my slime was asking for something, I gently held it in my arms. What could it be?
“Sora, is something wrong?”
“Pu! Pu, puuu.”
Sora sounded upset. What could be the trouble?
“Did you not get enough playtime?”
“Pu! Pu, puuu.”
“Te! Ryu, ryuuu.”
Flame, too? Well, that’s fair. All we did in that village was look at houses and snoop around the church. There weren’t any places for the creatures to have a good play session.
“That’s right, Sora, you guys love exploring, don’t you? And we didn’t give you enough time to do that. I’m sorry.”
As I petted their heads, they both wailed in disappointment. A sheepish grin filled my face.
“By the way, what happened to the serpents?” Zinal asked.
I quickly looked around.
“Over there,” my father said.
I looked where he was pointing to see the serpents gathered in the distance. Noticing that we’d seen them, they started to slither toward us.
“Sorry we took so long,” Zinal said.
One of the serpents nuzzled its face against Zinal’s belly, but it used so much force that Zinal floated into the air a little.
“Agh! Know your own strength, buddy!”
Zinal frantically grabbed onto the serpent. I giggled at the sight, and I heard Fische and my father laughing with me. The serpent seemed to get a real kick out of that, because Zinal now sat on its face, which was waving back and forth.
“Pu! Puuu!”
“Sora, wait! Not a game!”
Sora tried to jump onto Zinal, but it biffed the landing.
“Bu!”
Sora epically splatted onto Zinal’s face.
“That looks like fun.”
“Druid, I don’t need your weird commentary! Stop them!”
My father shrugged his shoulders and walked up to the serpent, stopping the reckless playing.
“How come they listen to you, Druid?”
“I dunno.” With a curious tilt of his head, my father lifted Sora off Zinal’s cranium.
“Ugh, that was exhausting.”
The serpent who’d played with Zinal was staring at him questioningly.
“I think your friend wants to play some more,” Fische said.
Zinal looked perplexed. When Fische pointed to the serpent next to him, Zinal sighed.
“Well, I’m not playing with you—I don’t even consider that playing.”
I guessed Zinal was being a plaything rather than a playmate.
“I think that serpent really likes you, Zinal,” my father said. Fische nodded. (And I secretly agreed.)
“I don’t think we’ve seen this Snakey before,” I said.
“Whoa, you can tell them apart?” Fische looked at me in surprise.
“Oh, um, no… I can’t exactly tell them apart by sight. I just get a sense which Snakeys I’ve met before and which ones I haven’t. Some of them I can tell we’ve met many times before, but not all of them.”
“That’s already an incredible thing to do,” Fische said, looking at me in awe. I felt a little self-conscious.
“Whoa!”
Hearing Zinal yelp, I turned my head just in time to see that the serpent that had been playing with him earlier had now tumbled him onto the ground. This Snakey was probably young and didn’t understand restraint very well.
“Wow, strong, capable Zinal is really in peril. Best entertainment ever.” Fische eagerly watched Zinal tumble. With a perplexed look on his face, he got up and petted the face of his Snakey friend, who looked very pleased about that.
“So, what’s our next order of business?” Zinal asked my father and Fische while he petted Snakey. It was just about time to look for a place to camp for the night.
“Right, why don’t we find a camping spot around here?” my father suggested.
The serpents started moving.
“Guess they know a place. Let’s follow them,” Fische said.
Everyone nodded and followed the caravan of serpents. After slithering for quite a while, the serpents glanced behind and stopped.
“Yeah, this looks like a good place to pitch some tents,” my father said.
Zinal looked around. “Sure does. And with the serpents and Ciel here, we could probably sleep safely even without one.”
“You’ve gotten used to Ivy’s ways,” Fische teased.
Zinal smiled sheepishly. At first, he’d been adamant about pitching tents while traveling in groups.
“Well, I had no choice but to get used to it,” Zinal chuckled, pulling a tent out of his magic bag.
“I know, why don’t we whip out the big tent tonight? It should fit here.”
“What do you think, Ivy?” my father asked me.
I nodded. Big tents generally weren’t used during long treks because it was hard to find big flat spaces to pitch them in the middle of a forest. But the little clearing the serpents took us to was big and flat enough to pitch a large tent.
“Works for me,” I said.
So Zinal produced a different tent from his magic bag and handed it to Fische. I decided to take care of everything else while the men pitched the tent.
“I’ll go get some kindling,” I called out to the men.
My creatures bounded over to me.
Mrrrow.
“Huh? Oh, you’re gonna tag along?”
Mrrrow.
I followed Ciel’s lead into the trees, and any sticks I could comfortably wrap my hands around went into my magic bag as I walked. We would need a fire for cooking dinner as well as sleeping, so we would probably require a lot. I needed to steer clear of the wet sticks.
Mrrrow.
“Pu! Pu, puuu.”
I looked up at the sound of their cries to see a tree in the distance bearing big blue fruit. Ciel was sitting next to it.
“This what you wanted to show me?”
Mrrrow.
Blue fruit?
“Do these taste good?”
Mrrrow.
They must taste good, then. I decided to take some back for the group. The tree trunk had places to stick my feet, so I could climb up to where the fruit was.
“Pu! Pu, puuu.”
I looked over to Sora and saw that the slime had jumped toward the blue fruit tree.
“Ooh! That’s my Sora!”
Then Flame followed suit and jumped at the tree. Sol sat under it, looking up. It didn’t seem like the little slime could climb the tree like Sora and Flame could. I gave Sol’s head a pat and set my magic bag of kindling down next to it.
“I know I had another one…”
I pulled a smaller magic bag out of the bigger one’s pouch and stuck it in my pocket.
Okay. It’s climbing time.
I grabbed the branches and lifted my body upward. Looking at my feet, I searched for footholds. When I’d planted my feet, I looked up for fruit I could reach.
“You know, I don’t find myself climbing trees much anymore…”
Treetops had been a way of life when I traveled alone, but now I only climbed them when I was picking fruit or nuts. It had been so long that I was starting to enjoy myself. I planted my feet on the branches, reached up, and kept on doing it until I’d climbed all the way up to the blue fruit.
“Phew…I think I’m a better climber than I used to be.”
I looked at my hands. Then I remembered I’d grown a lot now that I had plenty to eat. My hands had also gotten much bigger. The only difference was that I needed more strength to pull up my own body weight now.
“Puuu?” Sora gave me a curious look.
“Sora, I’m growing, aren’t I?”
“Pu! Pu, puuu.”
It suddenly all felt so real to me. I reached up, picked the blue fruit, and stashed it in my little magic bag.
“Good thing there’s enough for everybody.”
And what a vibrant blue fruit it was. Since Ciel brought me here, it would have to be delicious. But it didn’t smell sweet to me, so I wasn’t sure.
Chapter 528: Where To?
Chapter 528:
Where To?
WE RODE THROUGH THE FOREST on Snakey-back. We went much faster than human walking speed… About ten times as fast? I wasn’t sure, but we were definitely traveling fast.
“Zinal, I just thought of something.” My father shot Zinal a mysterious gaze.
“What’s up?”
I glanced at my father, and the look in his eye piqued my interest.
“Did we tell the serpents where exactly we were going?”
I tilted my head. Well, of course we told them. I mean, there they were, moving at top speed without hesitation.
“…Nope.”
“Huh?!” Fische and I gasped in unison.
I mean, if we hadn’t told them, where were they taking us?
I looked at the Snakey I was riding, and it glanced back at me questioningly. It felt like we’d slowed down a little.
“Snakeys…did you forget to ask us?” I asked.
I felt a little bump under my butt to let me know they’d gotten my message.
“Let’s stop for now,” Fische said, trying not to laugh.
The serpents slowly rolled to a halt.
“So…where exactly were we going?” Zinal asked.
A deep crease formed between Fische’s brows. “Okanke Village, you dolt! We’ve got something to deliver!”
Right, right, I totally forgot that we were headed to Okanke Village. And it was for a job, too.
“Ahhh, right, we were. Sorry.” Zinal scratched the back of his neck as he apologized to Fische. I felt a little ashamed of myself, too.
“By the way, where were the serpents taking us?” Fische asked.
Zinal and my father both seemed perplexed. Then they all looked at me, and I quickly had to shake my head to show I didn’t know. I’d neither told nor asked the serpents anything.
“But they were traveling like they knew where they were going, right?” my father asked.
Everyone nodded in agreement. We looked at the serpents, and they answered with an expression that seemed to say, “What’s the plan?”
“Can you take us to Okanke Village?” Zinal asked the Snakey he was on, giving its head a pat.
The Snakeys all nodded eagerly and slithered back the way we came. Seriously, where had they been taking us before?
“We’re backtracking,” my father remarked.
“Yeah…we definitely are,” Zinal nodded.
“Were we headed to Okanny Village?” my father asked. His Snakey turned around and shook its head side to side, meaning we weren’t.
“Then was it Okanko Village? No. Okanno Village? Not that, either. The only places left are the towns bordering the royal capital.”
The moment my father said “royal capital,” the serpents’ bodies shook.
“Whoa!” The sudden movement jostled me out of my comfortable seated position.
“Ivy!” My father sounded scared.
I reached a hand up. “I’m okay. Just got shook around a little.”
The serpent magic kept us from falling off, but I’d yelled way too loud and scared everybody. I felt silly. It had just been a little shaking…
“Don’t get too relaxed up there, okay?” my father said.
I smiled sheepishly. He was on to me.
“Yes, sir. I’ll be more careful.”
My father chuckled lightly, and the other men followed his lead.
“Wait a minute, Fische—have you ever seen those flowers and that boulder?”
I looked where Zinal was pointing. There was a big boulder leaning against a tree with white and yellow flowers.
“Oh, I’ve heard of this! That’s the landmark you see on the way to Okanke Village. Once you get to it, you’re about thirty minutes away, which is like a couple of minutes for us.”
We zipped past the tree with the white and yellow flowers before Fische even finished his sentence.
“I’ve never seen a tree with two different colors of flower blooming on it before,” I said, looking over my shoulder at the flowers.
“Want a closer look?” Zinal asked. The serpents suddenly slowed down.
“No, I just thought it was odd. It’s okay, Snakey, we can keep going.”
The serpents picked up their speed again.
“Those flowers only bloom around Okanke Village,” Fische told us.
Oh, okay. Does that mean we’ll see them again?
“And if you’re wondering why they bloom in two different colors…it’s just the way they are.”
Just the way they are?
“That’s what we say when we don’t know something,” my father explained. In other words, it was a mystery.
“If you try to grow that kind of tree in another climate, the flowers only bloom in white,” Fische said. I gave him a shocked look, and he nodded back. “Somebody took the soil from this region and tried planting the tree somewhere else, and the flowers were still only white.”
“How weird.”
I looked over my shoulder again, but the tree was already out of sight.
“Ivy, look. There’s more over there,” Zinal said.
I looked where he was pointing, and indeed there was a tree with white and yellow flowers. I looked around and saw similar trees here and there. And each one had both white and yellow blossoms on it. They bloomed readily in this region, but nowhere else. Truly, what a mystery.
“Looks like this is the end of the line.”
The serpents stopped, so we got off. I walked over to my Snakey’s head and gave its nose a pat.
“Thanks. So hey, where were you guys trying to take us earlier?”
When my father asked them all the places they might have been taking us, they said he was wrong. But when he mentioned the towns bordering the royal capital, they responded in a way that struck me as odd. It was a slightly different reaction. That’s what was odd about it.
The serpent stared intently at me, then shifted its gaze elsewhere. As I watched it closely, my father joined my side.
“What’s up?”
“I was asking the Snakey where they were taking us earlier.”
My father joined me in looking at the serpent. Its gaze returned to me, along with a little nod that told me I was right. They were trying to take us somewhere.
“Could they take us there after we finish our job in Okanke Village? It won’t take long…will it?” I asked.
We’re supposed to deliver a magic item to somebody who will end up complaining about it—that much we knew. Then the merchant guild will appraise the magic item… Wasn’t that it? How long will that take? Do we have to stay in the village while we wait? If not, the serpents could take us wherever they wanted. Wait a minute, they don’t need me there when they deliver the magic item, do they? Then couldn’t we split up here and still be fine?
“Is it okay if I go there on my own?” I asked.
“Not on your own, Ivy, I’m coming with you,” my father answered. “But if we tell Zinal and Fische we’re leaving them here, they’ll probably be vehemently against it.”
I could definitely imagine them putting up a stink about it. “Dad, are you sure you don’t need to do the job?” As much as I appreciated his company, I’d feel bad depriving him of work.
“The job is technically Zinal and Fische’s. We’re more like their helpers, so we can consider our job done when we arrive at the village.”
Okay. In that case, it shouldn’t matter if Dad and I go off with the serpents. So…now how do we convince them?
“We get it. We’re curious about it, too, so we’ll come with you.”
I wasn’t expecting Zinal to give me such a critical stare. Well, I didn’t blame him for being curious. Any place the serpents wanted to take us was sure to be exciting.
“But if we’re gonna finish the job quick, we’ll need your help, Druid,” Zinal said.
My father sighed. I gave him a curious look; he shrugged his shoulders and said, “There aren’t any one-armed adventurers out there. If I deliver the magic item, the ornery client will let me have it. I’m the perfect bait.”
Now that made sense. I assumed Zinal and Fische would do their part after that.
“The more we stand out, the more successful our job will be,” Zinal said. “The adventurer guild bastards will have to bite their tongues.”
Wait a minute—wasn’t this job request from the merchant guild?
Chapter 529: The Guild Master Candidates
Chapter 529:
The Guild Master Candidates
I WENT OVER my recent memories.
There’s no mistaking it. Their job was from the merchant guild, and Zinal said it was “to transport evidence to stop this one requester from ever requesting gigs again.” So why did they just mention the adventurer guild?
“Could the adventurer guild possibly be in on it?” my father asked.
“Ever since we took this gig, something about it has felt off the whole time,” Zinal said. “We thought about it a lot and finally remembered. The guild master of Okanke Village—the place we’re about to go—is gone.”
There’s no guild master?
“He’s gone?”
Wait, what’s that weird look on my father’s face? Did he not know?
“That’s right,” Fische said. “Either somebody’s hiding him or he got killed in a cave collapse. Anyway, they haven’t picked a successor yet. Last I heard, people were fighting over who would take over the job. So that made us think that just maybe the guild master candidates were somehow part of this job. Worst-case scenario, there’s a mole in the adventurer guild.”
The guild master candidates… But how would a frenzy over a magic item getting broken help in nominating a guild master? Is it about the money?
“This is purely a theory—I have no evidence to back it up—but I suspect the guild master candidates are trying to get the support of the adventurer who keeps getting stuck with the botched jobs from the nobleman.”
“Trying to get him on their side, you say?” I asked.
“That’s right. The adventurer being used by the nobleman isn’t very well-liked, and people don’t want his bad karma to rub off on them. If his little problem can be resolved before it’s brought to light, wouldn’t he feel indebted to whoever helped make that happen?”
Zinal was right. Adventurers had a weakness for aristocrats, and this was true even of the highest-level ones. If a nobleman targeted one of your fellow adventurers, you’d distance yourself from him. Nobody wanted to stick their neck out. So if somebody gave a helping hand in his hour of need…and resolved his problem, too…
“I think he would feel terribly indebted,” I agreed.
When you thought about it logically, it definitely didn’t add up, but you probably wouldn’t notice if you were in a desperate state.
“The adventurer who thought he was saved would support the one who saved him becoming guild master, and the support of an adventurer means a lot. It would bring our aspiring guild master one step closer to his goal.”
Now that makes sense. But to be honest, the scheme Zinal just described sounds a little…
“That’s a real sneaky way of doing things,” my father said.
My thoughts exactly. It really makes us feel like nobodies… If someone like that became guild master, that would bring all kinds of trouble.
“Ha ha! You said it.”
“But didn’t this gig request come from the merchant guild?” my father asked. “I don’t think the adventurer guild would speak out much about it.”
My father was right. The adventurer and merchant guilds collaborated sometimes, but they hated speaking out of turn. Worst-case scenario, I’d heard that sometimes big brawls erupted between employees from both guilds.
“That’s why we didn’t notice at first, but now we think they may be in cahoots. The guild master of the merchant guild got switched out two years ago, and I hear he’s a little problematic.”
My father rolled his eyes. So I guess moderately problematic people do sometimes rise to the top.
“Is Okanke Village shorthanded?” I asked.
Fische shrugged his shoulders. “Not shorthanded; it’s more like there’s too many people who are easily bribed. Okanke Village has a history of that.”
So basically, the merchant guild master was bought and paid for. But was it really okay for somebody so problematic to be in a leadership position? When you considered all the bad things that might happen to a village, it only filled me with worry.
“I feel sorry for the people in Okanke Village,” I said.
Zinal nodded. “Yeah, when somebody with a weakness for money leads a village, it’s the villagers who suffer.”
Zinal’s eyes narrowed to sharp slits, and I felt my spine straighten in response. Had something happened to him? He looked angry…very angry. As I stared at him, I noticed him take a shallow breath in and out.
“We’ll go ahead to Okanke Village and do a quick and dirty survey, so you all should wait here with the serpents.”
It was a relief to see that his quiet angry tension had faded.
“Got it. We’ll be on standby,” I said.
Oops! Except we can’t be if the serpents are in a hurry.
“Excuse me, Snakey, but are you in a hurry?”
The serpent shook its head no.
“Oh, good. We’re all going to wait here for a little while, okay?”
Zinal looked happy at Snakey’s reply. I also detected a vague merriness in Fische’s eyes, so I really was happy we didn’t have to rush.
“Are you going to go to the village right now?” my father asked.
“Yeah, the faster the better. We can catch the rumors right away, but it’ll probably take some time to get intel from both guilds.” Zinal patted the nose of the Snakey he’d rode all this way, and it happily butted its nose back. This time, it showed some restraint, so Zinal wasn’t blasted away. Happy about this, Snakey thwapped its tail against the ground. Then the ground shook.
“Agh!”
“Whoa!”
“Eek!”
Zinal’s, Fische’s, and my frantic cries echoed through the forest. I felt myself falling and squeezed my eyes shut…then I felt an embrace. I opened my eyes to find that my dad was holding me and Snakey was holding him up.
Wow. They did all that in just one second?
I was so impressed, I gave both Snakey and my father a round of applause.
“Thanks, Dad and Snakey.”
My father looked at me in relief, and Snakey gently leaned in and bobbed its head softly up and down.
“Thanks, Serpent. You saved us from a tumble.” He petted Snakey’s nose, which was well received.
“Ouch!”
I looked in the direction of the voice to see Zinal and Fische both on their butts.
“These guys are strong. They literally started an earthquake,” Fische said as he shot a glance at the serpent’s tail and pulled himself off the ground. The serpent who’d caused the earthquake was shrouded in an air of discomfort.
Zinal laughed and gave its nose a pat. “Don’t worry about it, buddy. We’re okay.”
Snakey softly nuzzled its face against Zinal’s midsection, which seemed to be its way of saying sorry.
So cute.
“Okay, we’ll make no progress if we just stay here forever! Let’s go,” Fische said, pulling a map out of his gear. “That way, I think?” Fische pointed in a direction.
The serpents shook their heads side to side in unison. Fische made a face, then pointed the opposite way. The serpents bobbed their heads up and down.
Oh, good. Now nobody’s gonna get lost.
“That’s funny…”
“What’s wrong?”
Fische was staring at his map, flipping it upside-down and right side up. Zinal leaned in and stared.
“From where this boulder and tree are, I thought it was left.”
“Yeah, I can see that. Wait a minute—isn’t there also a boulder and tree on the map here?”
As the two studied the map and compared it to the scenery, something about them seemed off.
“Something wrong?” my father asked.
“That landmark we passed earlier…it’s on both sides of the village road. It’s supposed to be on just one side.”
So there were two landmarks? Zinal’s explanation left me with more questions.
“Maybe you’ve got a bad map?” my father suggested. “Either that or they added a new marker since it was drawn.”
Fische shook his head at my father. “Whatever is going on, this map is too risky to use. Well, that’s upsetting. I bought it because they said it was the newest edition.”
Nobody relied entirely on maps when they traveled, but they were among our most important tools.
“Want us to look into the problem with your map while you two do your survey of the village?” my father suggested. “Ivy, you okay with that?”
“Sure.”
Our findings would help traveling adventurers, after all.
“Thanks, you two. We appreciate it.”
Chapter 530: Dinky?
Chapter 530:
Dinky?
SO WE’RE IN OKANKE VILLAGE NOW, but…somethingfeels off.
“Hey, Dad,” I murmured quietly to him. “The whole village feels…gloomy, doesn’t it?”
He nodded slightly in reply. We’d temporarily parted ways with the serpents to visit Okanke Village, and the looks on the villagers’ faces were just too gloomy for words. We were walking on Main Street, but we didn’t hear a single cheerful voice.
“I don’t want to stay here very long,” my father said.
I nodded and looked ahead. Zinal’s expression had gotten very grim as he walked in front of us, and his usual light and carefree banter was gone.
“It’s completely different from the last time we were here,” Fische sighed, looking around. He seemed disappointed. Maybe the problems here were greater than both of them had imagined.
“Yeah, let’s change our plans and stay at that lodge over there.”
“Sure, that’s probably for the best.”
Their conversation raised questions. Which lodge had they originally planned on staying at? I didn’t remember them talking about lodging. As I stared quizzically at them, Fische turned around.
“Druid, Ivy, we’re going to stay at a lodge run by somebody we know. That okay with you?”
I nodded. Any lodge Zinal and Fische recommended was fine with me.
“Yeah, we don’t mind,” my father answered. “Is it Asuro? I think I remember this village had one of those.”
Asuro? Wait, wasn’t that the name of the place we stayed at in Hataha Village?
Fische and Zinal gasped in perfect harmony. Finding that strange, I scrutinized them both, and their expressions made it clear that they were both genuinely shocked. But what about? Was there some significance behind an inn called “Asuro”? I remembered it was a good inn…they let me use the kitchen whenever I wanted, and their bath was also wonderful.
“Am I wrong?” my father asked.
About what?
I looked at him, but he didn’t seem any different to me. Meanwhile, Zinal and Fische looked a bit perplexed. Was I imagining things? Those two were always difficult to read.
“You knew about Asuro?” Zinal finally asked.
“Well, not too much,” my father replied. “I just always sensed something was special about it. When we stayed at the Asuro in Hataha Village, the things I heard while I was there seemed to confirm my suspicions.”
Zinal looked a bit angry to hear that, and Fische also had a menacing look in his eye.
“Guys, cool down. You’re scaring Ivy,” my father snapped.
And with that, their menacing auras vanished.
“Sorry. Um, we’ll talk later,” Zinal said.
I nodded in understanding. But what was there to talk about? Something they wanted kept secret, I assumed.
“Um, you don’t really need to talk to us if you don’t want to,” I reassured them. I didn’t think we would lose anything by not knowing.
“Hmm, no, going off everything that’s happened to you so far, Ivy, I think you should know.”
Everything that’s happened to me? Everything that’s happened… Does he mean how I always seem to get caught up in annoying problems? I can’t seem to avoid it, though.
“I swear, none of it’s been my fault,” I insisted.
I just happened to always be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“It may not be your fault, Ivy, but you can’t deny you’ll be going through a lot in the coming years, can you?”
Well, I…would rather not think about that, honestly. But looking back on everything that’s happened to me, I’m starting to feel like I’m bound by some invisible force.
“That’s why I think you should be in the know,” Zinal said. “It just isn’t something we can discuss around prying ears, so let’s go to the lodge.”
If Zinal says I should know, then I’d better pay close attention. I’m sure it will come in handy the next time I get caught up in something.
“Understood.”
My father looked satisfied, which made me wonder if he had coaxed Zinal and Fische toward that decision. When our eyes met, he shrugged his shoulders and smiled sheepishly—yeah, he definitely coaxed them. My father probably also thought I’d better know. But why hadn’t he just told me, then?
“There it is.”
I looked up to see an old building in the distance.
“The innkeeper there is a bit quirky, but his veggie rolls are delicious.”
Veggie rolls? If I remember right, that’s meat wrapped in vegetables and grilled with a marinade. That does sound good.
We entered the inn and found four adventurers there. Everyone looked stern as they spoke with an elderly man whose white hair and beard were very eye-catching.
“Whitey over there is the innkeeper.”
Zinal’s phrasing made me giggle a little. Calling him “Whitey” was a little too uncouth. What’s more, the innkeeper looked calm and peaceful while the adventurers talking to him appeared stern and grim. He seemed out of place in every way possible.
“Hey.” One of the adventurers nudged his companion at the sight of us, and I suddenly felt uncomfortable.
“We’re done here,” the innkeeper told the adventurers. “Just trust me when I say I don’t know anything.”
One of the adventurers jumped to his feet. “Stop lying to us!”
He angrily grabbed the innkeeper’s collar. The other adventurers eyed us warily as they tried to calm their angry companion, who shot a death glare in our direction for some reason. He was incredibly rude.
“Think we can wrap things up before you scare my guests away?” the innkeeper asked the adventurers as he beckoned to us.
The adventurers all swore under their breaths. Now only one of them was calm and the other three were mad.
“We’ll be back later,” one of them said.
“No matter how many times you ask me, my answer will always be the same: I know nothing.”
The adventurers glared at the innkeeper as they left, then made things even worse by glaring at us, too.
That’s strange…they were staring daggers at me, yet I didn’t feel even a little bit scared. Why is that? I shake with fear whenever my father glares, even though it’s never directed at me. I’ve been scared by Fische and Zinal’s stares as well. And of all the people I know, the one who scared me the most is…Bolorda, I think? No, Seizerk was also really scary. And come to think of it, Sifar’s, Rattloore’s, and Velivera’s smiles were scary, too. But looking back on those adventurers just now… Yeah, not at all scary. They looked more like animals of prey trying to act intimidating… Ohh, now I know the word to describe them.
“They’re dinky! That’s why their death glares didn’t scare me. Oh, how interesting.”
All the men stared blankly at me.
Huh?
“Pff! Ha ha ha ha!” Zinal clutched his belly and burst out laughing.
Uh-oh…did I just say that out loud?
My hands jumped to my mouth, but the damage was already done.
“That’s our Ivy. Your judgment was right on the money.” Fische was nodding merrily, and so was my father. The innkeeper was looking down, so I couldn’t see his expression, but his shoulders were shaking.
“So, um, we want to stay the night,” I told the innkeeper, desperate to change the mood.
The innkeeper took a deep breath in and out and looked at me. “Hello there. Sorry you guys came in at an awkward moment,” he said, smiling peacefully.
I gave him a scrutinizing look. He seemed friendly, but there was something odd about his smile. He gave the impression that the look on his face clashed with his true nature.
This smile…it reminds me of somebody I know…who is it? Oh, now I know! He’s just like Master!
“Ivy, be careful. This guy’s got a rotten personality,” Zinal said.
I knew it! Hey, I don’t think Master has a rotten personality…
The innkeeper eyed Zinal in shock. Then his gaze quickly filled with mirth. “Funny, you don’t usually act like yourself around me. Does this mean these people are safe to unmask around?”
Yikes! Now his smile changed into something that, for the life of me, I can’t grasp. So is this closer to his true self?
“That’s right, though we still haven’t told them yet,” Zinal said.
The innkeeper nodded, then set two keys onto the counter. “The usual room and the one next to it. Zinal and Fische, you boys come down later. I need to talk to you.”
Zinal and Fische nodded at the innkeeper, took their key, and headed for the staircase. As I followed them, I turned back to look at the innkeeper, who waved at me.
I think this innkeeper is going to be very entertaining.
Chapter 531: Katakana!
Chapter 531:
Katakana!
AS WE WALKED UP THE STAIRS, Zinal said, “Ivy, the wayyou perceive things scares me sometimes.”
I gave him a funny look. “What do you mean?”
“When you saw how quickly that innkeeper changed his tune, didn’t you find him interesting?”
That was Zinal for you. Sharp as ever.
“Yeah, I thought he seemed entertaining and wanted to talk to him,” I chuckled awkwardly.
Zinal rolled his eyes. “He’s not a bad egg, but he’s just…sketchy, y’know? And you call that entertaining…”
My father sighed in agreement. “Don’t you dare introduce people like that to Ivy.”
“But, Dad, doesn’t the innkeeper seem like your master?”
My father’s expression soured.
“Come on, don’t make that face.”
“But my master… You know, the innkeeper does also seem like he loves to make fools out of people.”
Make fools of people… Yeah, the adventurers tried to intimidate him, but he wouldn’t play ball. I didn’t notice at the time because the adventurers’ bad attitudes distracted me, but looking back now, it seemed like the innkeeper was baiting them. He baited them, then made fun of them…
“You know, now I’m incredibly interested in the sorts of friends you’ve had, Ivy…” Fische said.
I thought back to all the people I’ve met. “They’re all very good people, and very broadminded. They listened to everything I said with open hearts.”
They were all willing to lend a child an ear, so I knew I could trust them. Looking back now, I really met so many good people… Wait a minute.
“Oh! Dad…we forgot about the faaxes!”
“Agh!”
We’d sent everyone faaxes, then never followed through. Everyone might be worried. Could we check the faaxes here? In this village…that might be filled with problems?
“Let’s send the faaxes at the next village.” My father also seemed to be rubbed the wrong way by this place.
“Okay. Let’s make sure we don’t forget.”
“That’s right, I remember you asked about summoning circles in the last batch of faaxes,” Zinal said.
We nodded. I remembered telling him and Fische about the people we sent our faaxes to.
“Yes, sir,” I replied.
“There was Captain Oght and Vice-Captain Velivera in Ratome Village, the Sword of Flames and Lightning Royals…who else… I was a bit distracted at the time, but looking back now, you sure sent a lot of faaxes. And all of them were to people with a few big quirks.”
I gave Zinal a funny look. “Well, you’re probably the quirkiest of them all, Mr. Zinal.”
Comparing everyone I’d met, Zinal was likely the most complicated to deal with, especially considering how he masked his true nature. That was on a whole other level.
“Awww, Ivy, what do you mean by that?”
“Yup. You’re the hardest egg to crack. And your personality is warped. Well, actually, that’s probably a facade, so I can’t quite place it. Hmmm…yes, you really are the quirkiest of them all. But you’re only quirky out of kindness.”
He hid everything to protect the feelings of others. It was just difficult to thank him for it when he treated me that way. Personally, though, I wanted to know what was under the mask.
“Ivy…?”
Zinal’s slightly different tone of voice lifted my gaze from the floor. For some reason, Zinal had an indescribable expression on his face. Meanwhile, my father and Fische were smiling at me, trying not to laugh.
Agh! Did I say something bad? But I don’t think what I said was wrong. Then again, I probably could’ve worded it more carefully.
“Um…Mr. Zinal?”
When I called his name, he quickly reached out and tousled my hair. I looked up at him, but he avoided my gaze for some reason.
“Huh?”
“Our rooms are over there.” Zinal released my head, pointed down to the room at the end of the hall, and started to shuffle away. He didn’t seem angry…but what was it?
“Don’t worry about him. Let’s go,” Fische said.
I nodded, and we headed to our rooms.
Zinal glanced at my father as he unlocked his door. “After we talk to the innkeeper, we’re gonna go scouting. You two just stay here and relax the rest of the day.”
“Sure you don’t need my help?”
My father was quite good at picking up rumors and also at telling the difference between the useful and useless ones. He said it all came down to experience.
“Nah, you two shouldn’t leave the inn for the rest of the day. We need to find out just how far that rumor about Marya traveling with a father and child spread.”
Right, there was a rumor about a father and child protecting Marya. I do wonder if that rumor mutated at all.
“Got it. And thanks,” my father said.
We entered our room and found it much bigger and more comfortable than we’d expected.
“There’s a bath on the first floor,” my father said. “It’s closed for cleaning between ten in the morning and noon, but you can use it any other time. I’m going to switch on the magic item now, so nobody can hear us in here.”
“Thanks. So they do have a bath. I’ll have to take a nice long dip later.”
“Good idea. I’m tired from all that traveling.”
We shouldn’t have been tired, since we’d gone on serpent-back for the final leg of the journey. Right, maybe I should ask my father now what’s special about this inn? Zinal said he would tell me, though… Guess I’ll ask him later. There might be some big reason.
We gave the room a cursory examination, then decided it was safe to let the creatures out of their bag. My father opened the lid of Toron’s basket.
“Pu! Pu, puuu.”
“Teryuuu?”
Mrrrow.
“…Pefu!”
The slimes flew out of their bag and immediately explored the room.
“Ivy, did you lock the door?”
“Oops! I forgot.”
I doubted anyone would come into our room without knocking, but you couldn’t be too careful.
“Wow, apparently, they can cook you whatever you want for dinner as long as you ask for it by lunchtime. And if they can’t manage that day, they’ll cook it the next day.”
My father happily read over a piece of paper while I leaned in from the side and looked. It listed the names of the dishes they offered, along with simple descriptions.
Borscht, stroganoff? Shchi? Borscht sounds familiar… Where do I know it from? And what’s stroganoff? How strange. I feel like I’m just barely missing it…
“I’ve never heard of these dishes,” my father remarked. “I kind of want to try them. Should we order some?”
“Sure.”
Oh, all the names of these dishes are written in katakana! Wait a minute…
I looked at the menu again. Everything was written in katakana, an alphabet I’d used in my past life.
…What does this mean?
“Wait a minute—faax!”
“Faax?” My father was puzzled. “Ivy?”
That’s right! Why didn’t I wonder about it the moment I first saw it? The first time I saw a faax, I thought it was written in katakana! But that makes no sense. Oudegeuz—this world—has its own alphabet. So why is “faax” written in hiragana? And now there’s this menu, which is written in katakana. I’ve seen all sorts of things and foods here with the same names they had in my past life, but not in the same alphabet.
Wait a minute—no, looking back, I think some of the food carts used hiragana. It all seemed so normal to me that I never gave it a second thought.
“Um…Ivy? What about faaxes?”
“Dad…my brain is mush.”
“Sounds like it. What’s wrong?”
When I saw the bewildered look on my father’s face, I calmed myself down a little. “The script we use to write the word faax—is that in the Oudegeuz alphabet?”
“The script? Ohh, right, it is written in weird letters. Yeah, that’s Oudegeuz’s new alphabet. And come to think of it, I’ve been seeing a lot more of those funny-looking angular letters pop up.”
“So, the letters we use to write the word faax and the ones on these menu items…they both belong to alphabets from my past life.”
“What?! So that means there’s definitely more people besides you with past lives.”
It would mean that, yes. Plus, hiragana has been around here for a while, and now there’s more katakana popping up. Could it really mean I’m not the only person here with a past life in another world?
Chapter 532: How Many People Are There?
Chapter 532:
How Many People Are There?
“HEY, DAD. The hiragana script in faax…do you know when people here started using it?”
My father thought about it, and my heart raced while I waited for his answer. Other people in this world might have come from the same world as me. What sort of people were they?
“About two hundred years ago,” he finally answered.
Two hundred years ago. So somebody like me lived here that long ago. Incredible.
“I just think lettering similar to faax has been around a bit longer.”
“Really?”
“Somebody who handled some damage from a big flood we had here about three hundred years ago wrote about it. And they spelled the words flood damage in a script that wasn’t from Oudegeuz. But that script hasn’t been seen anywhere else, so it never caught on. I think most people don’t even know about it.”
Hiragana was in a text from three hundred years ago? So maybe whoever popularized the spelling of “faax” was someone else. Come to think of it, he said katakana caught on much faster. So does that mean there’s at least three others besides me?
“The way I see it…maybe there’s actually a lot of people here with past lives,” my father said.
I nodded in agreement. When you considered the timeline of the new alphabets being added, different people being involved was the natural conclusion to make. The only issue was that you couldn’t be sure, since names for things spread in different ways.
“Y’know…this is kind of exciting. Wanna look into these alphabets a bit more?”
I caught myself immediately nodding in agreement. I mean, if there were others in this world with past lives like me, I wanted to know what they had done. But I was also concerned about this village’s situation.
“Let’s ask Zinal and Fische about it when they get back,” my father suggested. “They’re scouting this village anyway, so they might already be looking into the writing system.”
Looking into the writing system? But would they really feel the need to do that?
“Sometimes people use mysterious alphabets for evil.”
For evil?
“Oh, you mean like a communications cipher?”
My father nodded. “They’ve probably already checked out the strange alphabets. Then again, we won’t know for sure until we ask.”
Well, now I have to ask! But they’re busy trying to figure out what’s wrong with this village, and I don’t want to get in their way.
“Zinal and Fische are very busy, aren’t they?”
My father thought about my question. “They’re busy, but they’re always eager to take on another job if it sounds fun.”
I immediately pictured Zinal’s eyes brimming with mirthful excitement. But wouldn’t it be too much to ask now?
“Maybe we should see how they’re doing before we ask?” I suggested. We needed to figure out what was wrong with this village first anyway.
“That’s fair. We have to consider the worst-case scenario here.”
What worst-case scenario would that be?
“You noticed how strange the villagers here were acting, right?” he asked.
He’s right. They seemed more than just gloomy…they seemed anxious about something. Like they were obsessively watching their surroundings…
“When there’s a power struggle, the worst thing that can happen is innocent bystanders dying in the crossfire.”
I nodded in agreement.
“Let’s hope it’s not happening here, but it definitely does occur. And if it is happening here, we’ll need to figure out how deep the problem runs before we can find a way to solve it.”
How deep it runs?
“Take this village—there’s a power struggle within the adventurer guild. Let’s say somebody got caught up in it and died. Then the village watchmen would come together. And if they resolved that crime, that would mean the power struggle only ran as deep as the adventurer guild. Only the people behind that one crime would need to be punished. But ask yourself this: What if the village watchmen didn’t mobilize?”
If they didn’t mobilize…
“Then the village watch is also part of the power struggle?”
“Exactly. Sometimes relations between the village watch and the adventurer guild take a bad turn when each side tries to prop up a guild master who will benefit them. The problem runs much deeper in that case, because it no longer affects just one area. Then, if the merchant guild gets mixed up in it, you have the worst-case scenario. That would mean nothing in this village is working the way it should.”
“Wouldn’t that mean…the people in power can do whatever they want?”
“Correct, and nobody’s around to stop them. From the way these villagers are acting, there’s no telling how far the rot has spread.”
Uh-oh. Looks like we’ve come to another crazy village. Why does this always seem to happen wherever we go…?
“What’s up? You look grim.”
My hand shot to my cheeks in surprise.
“Ivy?”
“I was just thinking…problems seem to show up wherever I go.”
I’d had that thought many times before. It felt like an unseen force was guiding me. Zinal had decided where we were going this time, and even though we’d known in advance that this place was a little problematic, none of us had imagined it would be this bad. Was it me? Did I have something to do with it?
“I can’t argue with that,” my father said, resting a big hand on top of my head. Then he gently rubbed my hair.
“You think so, too?”
“Yeah. I only know everything that happened to you before we met through hearsay, but I do think your life has been way too eventful.”
That’s for sure. It almost feels like I’m doing something wrong, even though I haven’t done anything…
“This isn’t your fault, Ivy, okay? Don’t get it twisted.”
I looked up at my father with a start.
“I would tell you not to obsess over it…but I’m sure you’d do that anyway.”
Of course I’d obsess over it. If I get mixed up in a problem, my father gets mixed up right with me. I could even put my creatures in danger as well.
“Believe me, I’m enjoying myself.”
“Huh?”
“Even with our troubles, I really have fun traveling with you, Ivy.”
Really?
“And your monsters are having fun, too, right?”
“Pu! Pu, puuu.”
“Te! Ryu, ryuuu.”
Mrrrow.
“Gyah!”
“Pefu!”
My creatures answered one after another, and I couldn’t help but be surprised. How long had they been listening in? They’d been bouncing off the walls until a little while ago.
“Thanks, guys.” I felt a little better. “When do you think Zinal and Fische will be back?” This village was so troubling that I was worried.
“Knowing them, I don’t think they’ll take long.”
A smile filled my face. I could tell that my father’s trust in them had risen quite a bit somewhere along the way.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing. Yeah, they’ll probably be back before we know it.”
They were master interrogators, after all. Ordinary people wouldn’t stand a chance.
“Now, Ivy, what should we order for dinner?”
My father showed me the menu. Borscht, stroganoff, shchi… I read the names again and I still had a feeling I’d heard of them. Especially the first one, borscht. I was seeing the color red for some reason.
“Can you read them?” my father asked me curiously.
“Huh? Weren’t you reading them earlier?”
“No, I can’t read this. The descriptions under them give me a general sense of what they are, though.”
“Oh, I didn’t know. Okay, well, from the top down, it’s borscht, stroganoff, and shchi.”
“Shchi? Are you sure that’s not supposed to be stew?”
“No, it’s ‘shchi’… Maybe it’s a misprint?”
The description says it’s a tangy soup with a cabbage base. Tangy, huh? Then it has to be something different from stew.
“What should we order?” my father asked.
I’m not sure. Okay, so borscht is soup made from a red vegetable and filled with meat. Oh, so that’s why I was seeing red earlier! Past Me knows what this soup is, but maybe she wasn’t super familiar? Okay, and stroganoff is a meat dish.
“Stroganoff sounds the best to me.”
Since my father loved meat, that didn’t come as a surprise.
“I’ll try the borscht,” I said.
Red soup tickled my curiosity. It looked bright red in my mind, but was it really?
“Okay, I’ll place an order. I’m also gonna go take a bath. What about you?”
A bath! It’s been ages since I’ve had a nice, long dip!
“I’ll take a bath, too. Yaaay, bath!”
We got our bath things and left the room. We checked the time first, but it was still a little early for our creatures to have their meal.
“We’ll feed you guys after our baths, okay?” I said.
“Pu! Pu, puuu.”
“Te! Ryu, ryuuu.”
“Gyah!”
“Pefu!”
We tightly locked the door and walked down to the first floor, where we saw Zinal and Fische.
“Oh, taking a bath?” my father asked.
“Mr. Zinal, haven’t you gone out yet?” I asked.
“Nope, we already finished.”
Huh? Already? Wait. Is it just me, or do they both look…very, very angry…?
“We’ll talk later,” Zinal said. “Also, we don’t need our cargo anymore.”
Yup, Zinal is quite angry. His voice is so gentle, but it’s so cold I can feel my blood icing over!
Chapter 533: In Case the Worst Happens...
Chapter 533:
In Case the Worst Happens...
WE CAME TO Zinal and Fische’s room to talk…and I was starting to regret it. I had just gotten nice and warm in my bath, but one look at Zinal and my feet felt like ice. I knew it was in my mind, but still.
“Zinal, don’t blow your top.”
“Ha ha! Oh, please, I’m super calm.”
I watched Fische and Zinal talk from behind a hot cup of tea. It seemed too risky for me to put a word in. Yeah, I’m staying out of it.
“I’ll tell them for you,” Fische said with a resigned sigh at Zinal. Then he addressed me and my father. “First, I’ll explain about our gig. So, the job requester turned out to be a criminal, meaning the requestee managed to put that problem to bed easily.”
The job requester was a criminal? Um…he was a nobleman, right? Does this mean they’ve already found the evidence to put him away?
“What was his crime?” my father asked.
Fische sighed in exasperation. “Hiding and harboring a murderer.”
Hiding and harboring a murderer…
“They also confirmed both guilds were involved in this crime.”
My father shook his head. “I get it.”
They confirmed all that so quickly. I’m impressed. Also, this is the “worst-case scenario” my father was talking about, isn’t it?
Zinal was now even angrier—perhaps from Fische’s story—which made a chill run down my spine.
Is that bloodlust?
I stole a glance at Zinal, then immediately looked away.
Terrifying. Utterly terrifying.
“Hold it in, Zinal! You’re letting your guard down too much around them!” Fische rebuked him.
“Huh? Oops, sorry. Guess I got too relaxed.”
Aha…so his mask was slipping. I’m kind of flattered he’s letting us in. Well, flattered, but I can’t bring myself to feel too thrilled about it.
“Yes, I’d appreciate it if you could keep your bloodlust in check,” my father spoke up. “Ivy looks like she’s about to faint.”
Zinal nervously looked at me. I had no idea what sort of face I was making, but all the anger left his face the moment he saw me.
“Sorry… You okay?” he asked.
“Um, yes. I’m fine.”
I took a deep breath in and out to calm myself. “I’m impressed that you managed to get all that information so quickly.”
How had they investigated it all? It was quite the mystery.
“Uhh, we’re not as amazing as you think…” Zinal shook his head.
That confused me. My father, meanwhile, seemed calm, as if the news was no surprise to him. Did he know something I didn’t?
“I’ll just explain it to you. First, about this inn…” Zinal looked me grimly in the eye.
I sat up straight. “Yes, sir?”
“This inn—Asuro—it’s used as a refuge.”
A refuge?
“Like, say, if a nobleman forces himself upon y—er, forget I said that. Um, let’s say you saw a crime and now your life is in danger. This place will hide you from bad people. It’s also protected kids with rare skills and their parents when they got targeted.”
I nodded in understanding. His first example had made things clear enough.
“Have you ever seen Asuro inns in other villages and towns?” he asked me.
“I have.”
The inn we stayed at with Marya was named Asuro, and I did remember seeing other inns called that in other places.
“We could get our answers in such a short time because we got the intel from some people hiding here at Asuro right now. All we had to do was confirm with them whether the info we already had was true or not.”
“Oh, that makes sense.”
Asuro inns were all over the kingdom, and they kept people safe. Were they run by a rather big organization, then?
“We work for one of the people who manages Asuro inns from deep in the shadows. That’s how we were able to get so much intel so easily and so quickly—like the royal inspection team.”
“Hey!” Fische barked nervously.
I agreed that Zinal hadn’t needed to tell us the last part. My father seemed to notice this, too, because he was acting a little cautious.
“I know, I know, but Ivy and Druid are both smart. We should just tell them everything now. Besides, they keep getting caught up in trouble without knowing why. They need to have more options and have Asuro as a safe place in case something happens.”
My father and I smiled cynically. We were the first to acknowledge that we kept getting caught up in trouble, but this time, it really was Zinal’s fault. We stared hard at him, and he averted his eyes a little when he caught me glaring.
“Yeah, this time, it’s all my fault,” Zinal admitted. “I thought we’d finish the job easily. When I heard the nobleman’s name, I knew he was an idiot. And this village wasn’t mixed up with the worst organization of all time, so I let my guard down.”
Poor nobleman just got called an idiot. And what’s this “worst organization of all time”?
“…Do you mean the church?”
The worst organization I knew of was the church. Especially now that we knew they were involved with summoning circles, they were even more dangerous.
“That’s right. Them.”
I had heard that the church and royal family were at war, but now I knew there was another organization at war with the church. I hadn’t even heard rumors about that.
“But what I have to say doesn’t leave this room,” Zinal said.
My father sighed. He was eyeing Zinal in frustration, which confused me. He didn’t sound at all surprised by anything Zinal had just said.
“Dad, you knew about this?”
Fische and Zinal looked at my father.
“I heard some whispers of it a while ago. I heard there was a secret organization going after the church, but the rumor disappeared very quickly. Since its life span was so short, I just assumed it was made up. Then many years later, when I started getting more jobs under the table, I had a realization: That secret organization actually exists. But I didn’t want to get involved, so I avoided them all this time.”
Fische stared at my father in a daze. “Druid, just what kind of life have you been leading all this time? Typical under-the-table jobs wouldn’t put you anywhere near us.”
The phrase “typical under-the-table jobs” sounded a bit odd to me. What would atypical under-the-table jobs be like…? I looked at my father, who stared awkwardly back at me and then slowly looked away.
“Well, you know…I’ve been through some stuff.”
My father’s answer made Zinal and Fische both tilt their heads in confusion.
“It’s all in the past now, so I don’t care,” I said.
He had said he would be more careful from now on. My father looked relieved by my words. Meanwhile, Zinal and Fische smiled sheepishly.
“I see. So Ivy yelled at you,” Zinal smirked at my father.
He frowned. “I didn’t notice when I first met you both, Zinal. I just sensed something was off by the intel you’d get and how quickly you’d get it. Then when I saw how wary you were of the church, I remembered the secret organization I’d heard about. I just had no intentions of sticking my nose in your business.”
Zinal and Fische nodded. “We get it. And we have no intention of getting either of you involved in our business, either, so don’t worry.”
I heard a faint sigh of relief from my father. Apparently, that was what he had been worried about.
“But, Druid, you must’ve done some pretty sketchy jobs in the past,” Zinal said. “And more than just once or twice, I’m guessing.”
My father shrugged. “It’s in the past—I’ve forgotten everything completely.”
Fische burst into laughter. I suppose that was his way of saying No, you definitely remember everything.
“Well, now you’ve got Ivy to take care of, so I guess you won’t do anything crazy anymore,” Zinal said.
“Of course I won’t,” my father answered right away.
Still, I was a little curious. I said I didn’t care about my father’s past, but I couldn’t help but wonder what in the world atypical under-the-table work was like…
Chapter 534: Everyone Is a Dud
Chapter 534:
Everyone Is a Dud
“NOW, ENOUGH ABOUT ME; let’s talk about this village. You said both guilds were involved. How bad is it?”
Zinal and Fische gave my father tired looks in reply.
“Uhhh, okay, so we told you they’re fighting over who the next guild master will be, right?” Zinal asked.
We nodded. That much we already knew.
“So there’s three people vying for the position, and all three of them severely lack the leadership skills to bring people together.”
My father froze up and gave Zinal a dubious look. Zinal took his gaze head-on and nodded.
“Oh dear…it just keeps getting worse.”
It sure does. They all lack leadership skills? Isn’t that kind of a fatal disqualifier for somebody to lead a group of people? I’d heard a leader needed the power to mobilize people. They had to bring people of different opinions together and guide them in one united direction. That was an essential quality of someone at the top.
“Because of that, the adventurers can’t narrow it down to one person.”
Of course they can’t. No matter who they pick, they’d be a dud.
“So all three of them panicked and acted out in uniquely stupid ways. They threw money at everyone, tried exploiting weaknesses and blackmailing people, that sort of thing.”
My father smiled cynically at Zinal. “Well, that’s every cliché in the book.”
“You said it. When I first heard what they did, I got a headache from how stupid it all was.”
Well, of course he did. A guild master was someone who had your life in his hands in an emergency, so you could never choose him because he paid or blackmailed you. Of course, some people might be swayed that way, but not everyone.
“The adventurer guild should have acted the moment they learned the truth, but they were paid off. And the merchant guild turned a blind eye—or rather, they probably kept quiet because they figured they’d get paid too if they did.”
I knew people had a weakness for money, but that just seemed too weak. If they stopped and thought a minute about the future, they ought to know their actions would come back to bite them later.
“The former guild master made a lot of strict reforms along those lines, but it’s hard to purge rot from your organization once it’s taken root.”
I guess the former guild master couldn’t have accomplished that on his own. Wait a minute, didn’t that guild master die when a cave collapsed? Was that really an accident…?
“Whoa. Are you implying what I think you’re implying?” My father’s expression grew very stern.
Zinal nodded. “The old guild master was murdered by his former assistant. A nobleman happened to witness the murder and is being kept quiet with money. And here’s the cherry on top: The higher-ups at both guilds know everything. They know, yet they covered up his murder as an accident. Both guilds are full of corrupt cowards.”
“Puuu.”
“Teryuuu.”
Sora and Flame both cried out in disgust. They both looked very angry. And even though Ciel and Sol hadn’t said anything, they looked the exact same way.
“What’s come over them?” my father asked.
I did feel like they had been acting a little different ever since we started this conversation.
“Do you think they might know?” Fische asked, looking at my creatures in shock.
“Know what, sir?” I asked.
“The guild master who got killed was a tamer.”
“What?! He was a tamer?”
I was shocked to hear the word.
“That’s right. He was more famous as a tamer than as an adventurer.”
You don’t say. So he was a tamer. Then that’s why my creatures are angry… When did they find out the former guild master was a tamer?
“Ivy, what’s wrong?”
“Uh, nothing.”
Being with my creatures sometimes led to some strange experiences. Sora finding a good sleeping spot for the first time was one such experience.
“So what do we do now?” my father asked.
Zinal smirked devilishly. “What else? We punish them. And not just the ones who committed the crime but the bastards who turned a blind eye.”
I knew that was certainly a good thing, but wouldn’t that be a lot of people? If everyone involved got punished…I worried about whether this village would still exist at all.
“Can you manage that?” my father asked.
“Yeah, our friend will get here in a few days.”
Zinal’s and Fische’s “friend”? I guess everything will be okay, then.
“Are you guys gonna do anything?” my father asked.
Zinal and Fische shook their heads. “Nope. We’re gonna leave this village before our friend gets here.”
“Whoa, really?” I asked.
Aren’t they at least going to touch base with their friend first?
“If people find out we’re friends with this guy, things’ll get really annoying.”
Huh. So even though they’re friends, people can’t know about it.
“It sounds like a real challenge,” I said.
Fische smiled sheepishly. “He’s an investigator for the prince right now, so he wants to avoid being seen with us at all costs.”
Now that made sense. That would explain why they had to leave this village before their friend arrived.
“Is it okay if the prince’s investigators come here?” my father asked, which confused me a little.
“Working as the prince’s investigator is his under-the-table work. He’s being sent here from the adventurer guild in the royal capital to handle the problems in this village, so it’s okay. That’s under-the-table work for you.”
So, he works for the royal capital investigators under the table, and he’s being sent here for under-the-table work. But he’s friends with Zinal and Fische and…ugh, this is too complicated.
“Under the table, huh… Don’t worry, I didn’t hear anything,” my father said.
Zinal nodded. “Sorry. Guess I overshared.”
I’ll pretend I didn’t hear anything, too. Let’s just say Zinal and Fische are in a very complicated line of work.
“Oh, right. There was that father-child rumor we were worried about,” Zinal said.
My father looked at him.
That’s right. There was that rumor that a father and child were taking Marya with them. What happened to that rumor?
“So now the rumor goes, ‘The father and child were not with the criminal.’”
The criminal? Are they talking about Marya?
“Huh? So they changed it to criminal?”
“They changed it”? My father’s phrasing turned in my head.
“Yeah, we put the wheels in motion to change all references of woman or girl to criminal, and I think it worked. Now she won’t draw attention simply by being a woman.”
I see. So they did that to keep Marya from drawing attention. Rumors really can be bent to your will, can’t they? I’m impressed.
“And we got word from Garrit. He said everything’s proceeding smoothly, so we don’t need to worry. Also, he said they went to the town of Oll after dropping off the bride, but they decided to get raided by bandits along the way.”
Huh?! What is he talking about? Bandits?
“Wait, didn’t Druid or Fische tell you?” Zinal asked, looking back and forth between my gaping mouth and my father. I shook my head no; I had no idea what he was talking about.
“Why would I tell her? You said you were going to tell her, Zinal,” Fische argued back. My father nodded.
“Ohhh… Did I say that?”
“What are you talking about?” I asked. “What’s this about bandits?”
Did they make poor Marya get attacked?
“Don’t worry, they weren’t attacked for real,” Zinal said.
I nodded.
“We decided we’d better kill Marya off. The bounty hunters wouldn’t stop coming for her as long as she might still be alive, so we decided to kill her…er, that is, we’re going to supply a body, too. Then, we’re going to have Monz give her a new identity. It won’t completely erase all her worries, but we can at least make them quite a bit smaller.”
Now everything made sense.
“Oh, so that’s why you called her by her real name—Marya—when she was leaving town!”
I remember thinking it was strange for them to use her real name, though I hadn’t thought of it until after she’d already left.
“Yeah, if there was no evidence that she’d left the village, there would be doubts when she was attacked by bandits later. There was also a rumor floating around of a high-level adventurer rescuing Marya, so we ‘accidentally’ called Marya by her real name on purpose, to ward off that rumor. And I’m glad everything worked out according to plan.”
“But are you sure there won’t be any more bounty hunters?” I asked.
I could easily imagine bounty hunters coming after Marya the moment word got out that she had skipped town. And since they were traveling by horse-drawn carriage, they were moving rather slowly.
“A party of lady adventurers left town a little before Garrit,” Zinal explained. “We left a few more tricks behind as well, so I think we fooled the bounty hunters to an extent. We also planted a new rumor, so we bought them some time.”
This was a relief to hear. But it made me think, they had looked into rumors to learn more about this village, yet they had made up some rumors of their own. How could they tell the difference?
“Hey, Dad, how do you tell the difference between a real rumor and a fake one?”
“…Instinct, I guess.”
“Yeah, it’s instinct,” Zinal agreed. I looked at Fische, who was also nodding.
“Instinct. Interesting…”
Chapter 535: The Guild Master Was a Tamer
Chapter 535:
The Guild Master Was a Tamer
“SO, TOMORROW, we’re going to start a rumor in this village,” Zinal said. Fische nodded.
“What kind of rumor?” my father asked.
“A rumor that the guild master was murdered. We’ll say his body is hidden somewhere in this village, and that’ll prove it.”
So they were going to spread the truth as a rumor. But why? The only reason I could think of was to shake up those in the know.
“The guild master’s assistant and associates will probably sweat geysers when they hear that,” my father agreed, and Zinal nodded. “But why spread that kind of rumor?”
“The guild master’s seal is nowhere to be found,” Zinal explained. “We want to search his office to look for it, so we’re going to do a little burglary.”
I didn’t know there was a guild master’s seal… Wait a minute, did he just say “burglary”?
“What?!”
From the way my father gasped just now, he must also be shocked by their burglary plans.
“The seal is gone?”
Huh? That’s the news that shocked him? Hmm. Maybe the seal is actually quite important.
“Yeah, it disappeared when the guild master died,” Zinal explained.
Did the guild master hide it? But why would he…unless he knew people were trying to kill him? That would be a good reason.
“But it wouldn’t just disappear,” my father argued. “It can never leave the guild master’s office.”
That was confusing. The seal couldn’t leave the guild master’s office? Was it under some sort of spell? If it was, then nobody besides the guild master could hide it.
“You’re quite right, of course…” Zinal tilted his head thoughtfully.
The mystery perplexed me, too, but more importantly, what even was a guild master’s seal?
“Um, what’s the guild master’s seal?” I finally asked.
“It’s a stamp that can only be passed down from one guild master to another, and you can’t use it until you’ve been approved as guild master. Without that stamp, you can’t make a single request adventurers will feel comfortable with.”
Zinal’s explanation made it very clear just how important the guild master’s seal was. But what did he mean by “requests adventurers will feel comfortable with”? Was there such a thing as requests they weren’t comfortable with?
“Any request with the guild master’s seal is guaranteed to have gone through the adventurer guild. Without it, adventurers will usually turn down job requests. That seal also ensures adventurers will still get paid, even if something happens to the original job requester.”
Okay, so the seal was like a form of financial insurance. Since it pledged the adventurer guild’s protection, that explained why adventurers would be comfortable with a job.
“Wait a minute—then what’s happening to the job requests right now?” I asked.
Were there any?
“Oh, they’re still coming in. They take half the payment up front and the rest after the job is done.”
I guess when you can’t guarantee payment, that’s the obvious compromise.
“That’s one way of handling job requests, but it’s not ideal,” Zinal said. “This payment method is only used when the adventurer guild doesn’t have the adventurer’s trust.”
I nodded in understanding. If they were trusted, they could always pay once the job was complete.
“But I really do wonder where that seal went…” Fische looked at my father and Zinal, but they both shook their heads. They were just as clueless as he was.
“If we knew that, our task would be much easier,” Zinal said.
Fische smiled. “Sure, but it really is strange that the seal just disappeared from the office.”
The guild master’s seal supposedly couldn’t leave the office, yet it wasn’t there. That would have to mean it was removed. But what sort of conditions would let that happen? The seal disappeared after the guild master died… I guess that might mean it disappeared when there was no guild master.
“Why can’t the guild master’s seal leave the office?” I asked.
That was the first mystery. Maybe it was magic, but what sort of spell would prevent it from leaving a room?
“Whenever a new adventurer guild is formed, the first thing they build is the guild master’s office. The whole room is enchanted with magic, and one of the enchantments is a spell that keeps the guild master’s seal from leaving the room. One of the guild master’s duties is to imbue the office with magic energy once per day to sustain ownership. There’re more to it than that, but only the guild master knows everything.”
My father’s explanation made sense. But after I thought for a moment, another question came to me.
“What happens when the guild master stops imbuing the room with magic energy?”
“If that happens, it’s rigged to alert the adventurer guild in the royal capital of an anomaly. That’s because a guild master would never neglect the daily magic-imbuing unless something was wrong. If the guild master dies suddenly, somebody else imbues the office with magic, but if anyone other than the guild master does that, the royal capital is alerted automatically.”
Now that made sense. So someone couldn’t exactly cut the magic energy supply and remove the seal that way. But as long as the spell on the guild master’s seal wasn’t canceled, the seal couldn’t be removed from the office. Unless there was some way of cutting off the magic energy flow just to the guild master’s seal and nothing else? Was that even possible?
“Is there a way of cutting off the magic energy flow just to the guild master’s seal?” I asked.
Zinal looked surprised. “I guess there is a way…but only one person is able to do that. The guild master’s seal is used every day, you see.”
Only one person could do it—the former guild master. It was becoming increasingly clear that he was the one who had hidden it.
“Do you think that the guild master knew his life was in danger?” I asked. “And that he also knew he couldn’t trust anybody in his circle?”
Everyone in the guild master’s circle was bought and paid for. If he knew his life was in danger, and he had nobody to turn to…
“That’s definitely possible,” Fische said. “But whenever the guild master can’t handle something alone, he can always contact the adventurer guild in the royal capital for backup.”
Zinal nodded.
“And what if he can’t ask for backup?” my father asked.
Zinal and Fische fell into thought. If the guild master wanted to call for backup but couldn’t…what kind of situation had pushed him into such a desperate predicament?
Oh, that’s right…he was a tamer.
“Where is the guild master’s tamed monster?” I asked.
“Er—when the tamer dies, the covenant bonding him to his monsters disappears, so I assume it wandered off somewhere.”
Is that really what happened, though?
“Don’t you think he was famous as a tamer because he had a good relationship with his monster?” I suggested.
“Could be,” Fische said. “His monster always came with him whenever he went to deal with problems, and they were always in sync… You know, yeah, now that I think about it, they did have a great relationship. They were always together, and I saw them chatting happily now and then.”
Zinal nodded in agreement.
“If they had a great relationship, then they must’ve been very angry if the guild master was murdered,” I said.
Mrrrow!
Everyone’s gaze shot toward Ciel, whose tail was standing straight on end.
“Are you trying to say you’re angry?” I asked.
Mrrrow.
So I was right. My creatures do know about this village’s guild master. How did they know?
“Maybe his monster got taken hostage?” my father suggested.
The monster, hostage?
“You know, I remember hearing the guild master accepted the position because his tamed monster was getting on in years. People said he should just tame some younger monsters, but he said something like ‘No, I will never have family like this one again.’ And people thought that was a strange thing to say, since they didn’t think the monster-tamer relationship was all that important in those days.”
Zinal looked at me meaningfully. I stared quizzically back.
“But now, everyone understands just how important the monster-tamer relationship is, which just proves the guild master was a true tamer at heart.”
Fische nodded in agreement.
“As much as I want to know what happened, talking about it here does limit us. Anyway, we’ll check first to see if the guild master’s seal really is gone from the office. So we’ll spread the rumor as planned, right?” Zinal asked Fische.
“I already tipped off the innkeeper, so it’s probably spreading as we speak,” Fische said.
So the rumor is already spreading? Dang, that’s fast.
“We’ll be heading to the dump to pick up all the things we need,” my father said. “We’re almost out of potions for everyone.”
My mind jumped to the contents of our magic bags, and indeed, we were low on essentials.
“Got it,” Zinal said. “If the bad guys go on the move today, it won’t be until this afternoon, so you should go to the dump in the morning.”
My father looked at me, and I nodded back. Since we didn’t know when we would have to leave this village, we had to be ready to go at a moment’s notice. Our problem was getting more and more complicated, and that worried me.
Chapter 536: It All Feels So Normal
Chapter 536:
It All Feels So Normal
AS WE GATHERED POTIONS at the dump, I glanced at the Snakey in the distance.
“I know we’re an odd sight, but nothing feels out of place to me,” I remarked.
This was our first time being at a dump with a serpent, but oddly enough, it felt very normal to us.
“You’re right. Funny how that is.” My father smiled at the sight of the serpent.
When we first set out on our way to the dump, a serpent appeared in our path. We were a bit surprised, but I recognized the magic energy, so I let the serpent come with us…and it just felt so normal. Too normal. After staring hard for a while, the serpent happily approached us.
“Sorry, buddy, but I can’t play with you today. We have to collect potions for the slimes.”
Snakey nodded in understanding and smiled softly as I petted its nose. The familiar adorableness put a smile on my face.
“Okay, let’s fill these magic bags,” my father said.
“Okay.”
We quickly loaded potions, swords, and magic items into our empty magic bags. I kept focused and worked hard for a while, until my back started to hurt.
“Mmmng,” I moaned, stretching my back. I looked around to see my father doing the same thing in the distance. When our eyes met, we laughed. I looked for Sora and found the slime happily eating a sword a few yards away.
“And where’s Flame?” I asked myself.
I turned my eyes toward the shuwaaa sounds and saw Flame and Sol together. Flame was eating potions, and Sol was devouring a giant magic item.
“Everyone’s got a hearty appetite today, I see.”
Sol and Flame jiggled in reply. Feeling a shadow over my face, I looked beside me to see Snakey with a magic item in its mouth. It gently set it at my feet.
“Oh, did you pick this up for me? Thank you.”
I stashed the item in my magic bag. Seeing me do this, the serpent brought me another item. After we repeated this many times, I went ahead and asked Snakey to gather magic items while I focused on potions.
“With your help, our magic bags are filling up fast. Thank you,” my father told the serpent, who answered with a happy wave of its long body.
“Okay, did everyone get enough to eat?” my father asked.
Sora and Flame jiggled in reply as they digested their potions.
“Pefu!”
Sol was already full and enjoying a nap. When we all left the dump, we found Ciel and Toron lounging at the root of a tree nearby.
“Sorry we took so long. You okay?” my father asked.
Mrrrow.
“Gyah!”
“We’d better get moving,” he said. “It’s almost noon, and our enemies might make a move soon.”
“Right. Hey, Toron…you okay, buddy?”
Lately, Toron liked to lie down horizontally when it was resting. It was adorable, but a hard position to get out of. Since Toron didn’t have hands that could move deftly, the little tree always looked like it was struggling when it got up.
Mrrrow.
Ciel’s keen nose gave Toron some support to help it stand. Gotta hand it to Ciel.
“Thanks, Ciel. Good job, Toron.”
“Gyah!”
My father smiled at the very self-satisfied Toron. “Let’s head out. What do you want to do about the serpent?”
Right after my father asked that question, Snakey looked into the forest. I did the same, but all I could see was a bunch of trees.
“What’s up?” I asked. The serpent just kept staring into the forest in reply. What’s going on? Is Snakey trying to tell us something? “Is there something out there?” I asked.
Snakey swayed in reply, which meant there probably was something out there. Was it at the place the serpents tried to take us to before we came to this village? They’d said they weren’t in a hurry, but maybe they wanted to take us there right now. Then again, Zinal and Fische wanted to go there, too.
“Serpent, we’ll bring Zinal and Fische out here with us tomorrow. Is that okay, or will that be too late?”
The serpent pondered my father’s question…then looked at him and nodded.
“Got it. Sit tight. We’ll be back tomorrow.”
Satisfied by my father’s reply, Snakey slipped out of sight. As I watched the vanishing figure, I sensed another aura in the distance. An unfamiliar one.
“Hey, Dad, somebody’s coming this way.”
“Okay. Ciel, turn into a sli—ah, already done it.”
Ciel had already turned into a slime and was at our feet.
“Ciel’s gotten really fast at that. Doesn’t make a sound, either,” my father remarked.
“Yeah, the shapeshifting happens before I get a chance to watch.” I looked in awe at Ciel, who seemed to be leaning a little.
“Ciel looks proud,” my father remarked.
Mrrrow.
My father laughed. “Cute. Okay, everyone, get in the bag. Is the aura still coming our way?”
The aura was approaching us fast.
“Yeah. It’s getting close.”
Everyone hopped into their bag. My father put Toron in its basket and covered it with a thin bag so nobody could see inside. “That should do it. See you tomorrow, Serpent.” He waved at the serpent in the distance, who was still barely visible.
“See you tomorrow,” I said as I waved.
Snakey’s mouth opened, and its tongue slithered out.
“Did that mean See you tomorrow?” I asked.
“Not sure. But if we weren’t on good terms with that serpent, the move would’ve looked anything but friendly.”
I smiled. A big serpent sticking its tongue out was indeed a menacing sight.
We parted ways with Snakey and headed back to the village. After we’d walked for a while, a group of people heading from the village to the dump came into view. There were five in total.
“Should we duck into the forest?” I asked.
“Nah, we can stay on the road. If we avoid those people, it’ll only raise suspicion, and they might not be our enemies anyway.”
He had a point. When we crossed paths, we nodded politely, then I stole a discreet look at them. Four of them were dressed as adventurers, and one was wearing a village watch uniform. After we had put plenty of distance between them and us, I looked over my shoulder at them.
“They seemed nervous about something,” my father said.
I nodded in agreement. The expressions I’d seen on their faces were panic and fear.
“The village watchman looked particularly worried,” I said.
“Sure did.”
The four adventurers had looked nervous, too, but the village watchman had an unhealthy complexion.
“Well, first order of business, we meet up with Zinal and Fische,” my father said.
“Yeah.”
When my father and I got back to the village, we saw adventurers running about in a frenzy. We both gave them a curious look.
“What’s going on?” my father asked the gatekeeper, who appeared a little perplexed. That brought a suspicious frown to my father’s face.
“Er, just a little fire at the adventurer guild,” the gatekeeper nervously answered my stern father.
A fire? Zinal had said all they were going to do was start a rumor. Did this mean something else had happened?
“Is everything okay?” my father pressed.
“Yes, everything’s fine. Only part of the first floor burned, and it was put out right away.”
That was a relief to hear.
“But why are the adventurers so nervous?” my father asked.
The gatekeeper smiled uncomfortably. “Well…the guild master was apparently murdered, and the adventurers are looking for the adventurer guild associates who let it happen.”
Aha. Well, they’re getting what they deserve.
My father also shrugged carelessly at the news.
Chapter 537:
Problem Discovered
WE RETURNED TO THE INN to find the innkeeper with a perplexed look on his face. We said hello, and he directed us upstairs with a smile. I gave him a curious look as my father nodded beside me.
“Ivy, let’s go. Zinal and Fische are back.”
So the innkeeper was telling us about Zinal and Fische, then. Did he want us to go upstairs to their room?
“The innkeeper had a strange look on his face, didn’t he?” I remarked.
On the way back to the inn, we’d managed to confirm that the rumor of the guild master’s assassination had traveled far. It was obvious because the whole village was in a frenzy. We were also a little worried about the fire at the adventurer guild, but you could say the rumor was a success. And yet, the innkeeper looked worried. Had something else happened?
We returned to our room and stashed our magic bags there, then headed to Zinal and Fische’s room.
Knock, knock.
“Zinal, it’s Druid.”
No sooner did he speak than the door opened and Fische popped his head out. He was smiling, which came as a relief to me. That meant their operation had been a success.
Once we were inside, Zinal activated the magic item to keep our voices from leaking outside the room.
“It sounds like your little plan succeeded,” my father said. “All the village can talk about is the guild master’s murder.”
Zinal smirked devilishly in reply. He seemed happy about his results.
“By the way, who started the fire?” my father asked.
Fische sighed. “Oh, that. Yeah, Zinal did it…”
Zinal started the fire?
“There was somewhere else besides the office I wanted to check, so I did, but then somebody came in. So I tried to hide myself with smoke, but I messed up and accidentally started a fire instead. Ha ha ha ha!”
Oh, so he “accidentally” started a fire…
One look at Zinal’s face, and the words “on purpose” popped into my mind.
“I smell bull,” my father said.
Zinal shrugged his shoulders. Fische looked at him and gave a heavy sigh.
Yeah, I think we can definitely say Zinal started the fire on purpose.
“So what happened?” my father asked the pair, eyeing Zinal.
Zinal smiled angelically. “Those fools used those young adventurers like pawns.” Though there was a sweet smile on his face, his eyes were deathly cold. He was sincerely enraged.
“They’re flipping out now, since they don’t know how this all happened. The adventurers won’t help them out either because of the rumor. Hoo boy, it’s been a while since I’ve done such a good job.”
My father glanced at Fische. I joined him, wanting an explanation of Zinal’s ramblings.
“We found about a dozen contracts in the safe in the guild master’s office. All the contracts benefited the adventurer guild, and they were signed by young, inexperienced adventurers. The contracts bound the poor adventurers to impossible and pointless jobs they couldn’t refuse. There were thirty-four people bound under the contracts, but about seven of them were void—probably because the contract signers died. We’re looking into that right now.”
They’re looking into it? Was that why the innkeeper seemed so worried?
“I see. Have you already had a chance to speak with the adventurers under contract?” my father asked.
Zinal nodded. “We offered them protection and got their testimonies. Young adventurers still have a lot to learn about the world, and this was used against them to force them into the contracts. After signing, they were made to take on pointless or impossible jobs that paid very little, and some were even forced to commit crimes.”
My father sighed deeply at the news. “Well, that’s just plain evil. What did the contracts say?”
“That they can’t tell third parties about the contracts or refuse job requests, and if they breached the contracts, they would be forced into slavery alongside criminals. Y’know, they were so extreme I was almost impressed.”
Those contracts sound horrible. But why would anyone sign them?
“When they signed the contracts, they were shown different terms and conditions,” Fische explained, handing my father a piece of paper.
“Ah…so they tampered with the contracts. Yeah, young adventurers don’t know how to tell the difference between a legitimate contract and a sketchy one,” my father said to Zinal and Fische with a nod.
“What horrible people,” I muttered.
Just hearing about them made me fume with anger. Now I could understand why Zinal had “accidentally” set fire to the guild. My father reached over and gave my head a consoling pat.
Knock, knock.
“Zinal, Fische, the investigation’s done. Come downstairs.”
When we heard the innkeeper’s voice through the door, Zinal switched the magic item off.
“Got it. We’ll be right down.”
When the aura disappeared from the door, Zinal looked at us. “Anything unusual happen at the dump?”
“No, everything was fine, but a serpent met up with us,” my father replied.
Zinal raised an eyebrow. “Why? Wait, did you go where the serpents wanted to take us?” He suddenly looked upset.
My father smiled. “No, we didn’t go there. But the serpent wanted to take us, so we promised we’d bring you guys back with us tomorrow. You already have a lot on your plate, though.”
“It’s okay. The innkeeper is taking care of this village for us,” Zinal said.
Fische seemed a little worried about that, and I gave him a curious look. “Will he be okay?”
“Yeah. We were a bit slow to notice, but there’s nothing wrong with acting after the discovery. If we butt in too much now that things’ve gotten like this, that would be disrespectful to the locals. They’ve got enough hands anyway.”
Why would it be disrespectful? Would the reputation of the good villagers get worse if Zinal and Fische got too involved in their affairs?
“Yeah, fair point.” Fische seemed to agree.
Zinal noticed the skeptical look on my face and smiled. “This innkeeper and the shopkeepers of this village are supposed to protect victims and prevent further harm as much as they can whenever any problems arise here.”
So they were heavily valued.
“We protected the victims by bringing the contracts out, and we got their testimonies, too. And we spread the rumor and mobilized the adventurers, so there shouldn’t be any more victims. If we keep butting in now, that might throw suspicion among the group of good people here. You know, they might think there’s a traitor among them. So we had to know it was time for us to bow out.”
Time for them to bow out… If I were in their shoes, I would definitely wind up meddling too much because I was worried for everyone.
“It sounds like a very tough balance,” I said.
Zinal shot me an appreciative smile, then looked at my father. “We’re free tomorrow.”
“Okay. We’ll all go see the serpents then,” my father replied.
“Good. So, we’ll just hear what the innkeeper wants to say, then if there’s anything else he wants us to do, we’ll finish it up today.”
Zinal looked happy about my father’s proposal. There was a twinkle in Fische’s eye, too.
“We’ll go back to our room,” my father said. “Let us know tomorrow how everything went today.”
“Will do.”
After Zinal and Fische walked downstairs, we headed back to our own room.
“I guess there were more bad eggs here than we thought,” my father remarked.
“Yeah. I’m a little surprised.”
I let the creatures out of their bag and got some tea ready. Then I took some sweet snacks out of my magic bag and put them on the table. I was still a little mad, so I was craving something sweet to soothe myself.
“Both guilds are taught that it’s their job to nurture young adventurers and help them thrive,” my father said.
To nurture them?
I poured the tea into a cup and handed it to my father, who was sitting across from me. Then I poured myself a cup of tea and took a sip. Its warmth seemed to calm me a little.
“They’re our future, so they’re very important,” my father explained. “That means we need to pass on as much knowledge and skills as we can so it can all live on in as many people as possible. That’s the job of higher and mid-level adventurers.”
That all made sense. Without young adventurers, the village wouldn’t have the next generation of protectors.
“That’s why what this village’s guilds have been doing has been particularly nefarious. I wouldn’t be surprised if every single person involved is tried and convicted.”
“Every single person involved?”
After I’d heard all the news, a thought occurred to me: The higher-ups in the adventurer guild would do anything to hide their wrongdoing. Blackmail, threats, anything. And anyone who worked for the adventurer guild was also technically involved. Would those people be convicted, too?
“Well, not literally every single one of them. The ones with extenuating circumstances will probably be safe.”
My father seemed to have read my mind.
“The guilds have a magic item that makes communication possible right away if there’s a problem. The first step is to check and see if that magic item is set up for anybody to use. If it isn’t, they can’t call for help.”
That made sense.
“There will also be questioning and gathering of testimonies, so the innocent will be safe.”
I nodded at my father. It was reassuring that the victims would be protected from punishment.
Chapter 538: Not the Village Watch, Too!
Chapter 538:
Not the Village Watch, Too!
ASURO’S INNKEEPER SENT US OFF with a wave, but he still looked exhausted to me. Meanwhile, Zinal was beside me with a smile on his face, excited for the day ahead. Fische looked a little tired but also in high spirits.
“You guys…” My father looked from one to the other and sighed. I started to feel bad for the innkeeper. I got the sinking feeling Zinal had shoved a bunch of responsibilities on him so they would be free to go out with us today.
“For the last time, it’s all good. It’s not a big deal.”
I didn’t exactly know what was “not a big deal,” but one look at the innkeeper told me it was not “all good.” Was it really okay for us to take them off on a field trip?
“It’s okay, we promise. They’ve been through much worse—it’s not a big deal.” Fische gently patted my head.
…Well, I guess this is okay, then?
“Ivy, why do you feel uneasy when I say something, but you seem okay with it when Fische says the exact same thing?”
“Maybe it’s based on my learned experience?” I answered honestly.
My father burst out laughing. Zinal didn’t look entirely satisfied by my answer, but looking back on everything that had happened, I think I was in the right.
Wait a minute… Maybe I could have phrased that more tactfully. It seems like I’ve internalized Zinal as somebody I can be casual with. Funny, since he’s much older than me.
I looked up at him as he walked beside me with his lips pursed out in a pout. It made me feel less inclined to worry about hurting his feelings.
“Huh? What’s up?”
“Nothing.”
I feel like I’m falling under Zinal’s spell. You know, the way he just sneaks in and makes you feel relaxed around him…and yet I don’t really mind. What a strange person.
When we passed through the village gate, the gatekeeper gave Zinal and Fische a funny look. And I was sure they noticed, but neither of them reacted. I assumed that meant we should just ignore it. After we’d walked for a while, my father turned to Zinal and Fische.
“Was he an enemy?”
Zinal made a sour face. “Looks like we’ve got some fools on our side, too. There’s been a leak, probably from the bottom.”
So I take it this means some information was leaked from one of the lowest-ranking members of Zinal’s team… Is everything going to be okay?
“What’s the plan? Is the enemy going to make a move?” Fische asked, looking over his shoulder.
Zinal thought for a moment. “Y’know, no time like the present. Let’s go fishing.”
Fishing?
“Think he’ll take the bait?”
Oh, metaphorical fishing. Still, with the obviously antagonistic way he was acting back there, would he even bother trying something?
“But the gatekeeper knows we’re on to him. Do you really think he’d try something?” I asked.
The three smiled sheepishly. Why?
“You noticed the way the gatekeeper was acting, didn’t you, Ivy?” my father said.
I was confused. Of course I’d noticed. Who wouldn’t?
“The poor gatekeeper was trying his hardest not to let his emotions show, though,” my father said with a smirk.
That was suspicious. Was he really trying not to show his emotions? The guy whose eyes bulged when he saw Zinal, and who pulled back a little when we walked past him and unnaturally looked away so we’d think he didn’t care? Him? Mr. Heart-on-Sleeve?
“Well, Ivy is very perceptive,” my father told them.
Am I? Huh? I sense a presence following us from not too far away.
I looked up at my father and he nodded back. That was my father for you. He couldn’t read auras, but he still noticed. I think he deserved the label of “perceptive” more than I did.
“What’s the plan? We can’t meet up with the serpents if we’re being followed,” my father said.
Zinal looked a bit flustered. “Let’s split into two groups. They’ll probably… Sorry.” Zinal cut himself off midsentence.
Two groups? If we do that, whichever group I’m in is definitely the one getting attacked. I mean, look at me.
“Ivy, you can say no to the plan,” my father reminded me.
“It’s okay. Let’s just get this over with so we can meet up with the serpents.”
The serpents wanted to tell us something, and I can’t stop wondering what.
“Sorry about that, Ivy. Who are we dealing with, amateurs? Or are they acting incompetent on purpose?”
Fische frowned thoughtfully. It was a fair question. There were six of these people following us at a distance, and since they hadn’t masked their auras, they were very easy to read. Did people ever leave their auras on full blast when chasing someone? Of course not.
Which means the group of six is a decoy and somebody else is tailing us? High-level adventurers have faint auras, so they’re difficult to pick up on. But you can still read them if they move, since their auras move with them. And I’ve been scanning the area just in case of that possibility…but I sense nobody. So either this person is really good at masking their aura, or they’re using a magic item.
“Think they’re using an aura-masking item?” I asked.
“There are magic items like that, but they require a lot of magic energy to operate,” Fische explained. “Not to mention they’re expensive, so I doubt anyone would use it on small fry like us.”
“Anyway, let’s split into two groups,” Zinal said.
I nodded, just as we happened to reach a fork in the road that led to the dump one way and a cave the other. My father and I headed for the dump while Zinal and Fische made it look like they were taking the cave route. I was a little nervous to see who our pursuers would follow.
“Is it just me…or are our friends slowing down?” I asked.
“…It isn’t just you,” my father answered.
Right where we parted ways with Zinal and Fische, I sensed hesitation in the six auras. My father and I craned our necks in confusion. Something was off.
“Are these people really our enemies?” I asked.
“Well…somebody else could be using them,” my father suggested.
So they’re pawns. Yeah, that could be.
“Ivy, are there still no other auras around us?”
“Yeah.”
“Let’s have Ciel go on ahead of us.”
I opened the lid of the bag Ciel was in. Ciel jumped out immediately, went back to adandara form, and disappeared in the treetops.
“That’s our Ciel… Lightning fast,” my father marveled.
“Yeah. It’s a bit shocking.”
Ciel’s movements were just so pristine we couldn’t help but stare at the treetops in wonder.
“We shouldn’t be doing this,” my father said, quickly returning his focus to the dump.
I suddenly realized it was stupid of us to let ourselves be distracted by Ciel’s gracefulness and stare at the treetops. We were basically signaling to our pursuers that something was up there.
“They’re heading our way,” my father announced.
“They sure are.”
Finally, the six auras began closing in. It happened right after we stopped staring at Ciel, which came as a relief. We slowly made our way to the dump.
“They’re being extremely cautious,” my father remarked.
“I know. If they really wanted to be careful, they should have just masked their auras.”
Their actions confused me to no end. They were just too odd. And why were there six of them? I searched for auras when we passed through the gate earlier, and there were six. Surely not all six of the people who’d been there when we passed through the gate decided to chase us? Obviously not. Gatekeepers were like a fortress protecting the villagers from the dangers of the forest. Why would everybody leave the gate? They wouldn’t…would they?
“Freeze.”
Oh, thank goodness. They finally caught up. If they’d taken any longer, we’d already be at the dump.
“Turn around.”
Wait, are all of them in the same spot? We could totally just run away.
We turned around to see six people, all with nervous expressions. Their swords were drawn and pointed at us, yet I wasn’t at all scared. They were clearly scared, not out for blood.
I was right. Something’s off.
“Just who do you expect to hurt with that weak-ass stance?” my father asked.
They trembled.
Huh? They’re all…young. In their teens, still? Everyone knows that gatekeepers need a certain base level of experience… Is that not the norm here?
My father, probably realizing the same thing, looked at them in confusion.
Something’s off. From what I can tell, these aren’t bad people. Could it be…they’re acting under duress? Come to think of it, young adventurers were bound by those contracts, weren’t they?
“Are you, by any chance, bound under contract?” I asked.
Tears filled their eyes. So the corruption had spread from the adventurer guild to the village watch. My father sighed and raised his arm. Then I sensed Zinal’s aura approaching us in the distance. When he showed himself, the six watchmen’s faces tensed in fear.
“Ahh, it’s okay, guys. I know what they did to you.”
Chapter 539: Most People Would Know Better
Chapter 539:
Most People Would Know Better
I WAS WORRIED AT FIRST when I couldn’t detect Fische’s aura, and indeed he wasn’t there. I searched a bit further, but he didn’t seem to be in range.
“If you’re looking for Fische, he went to call for backup,” Zinal said, giving my shoulder a pat. He had probably noticed my worry.
“Who’s coming? Somebody we can trust?” my father asked.
Zinal nodded. “Don’t worry. We’re pretty sure we know who the traitor is.” Zinal’s gaze was a bit downcast. I guess finding out somebody you trusted was a traitor would hurt real bad.
“He’ll pay dearly…that numbskull.”
Or maybe it wouldn’t hurt real bad.
The aura wafting from Zinal was so fierce I shrank away a little, and the gatekeepers also cowered in fear.
“Stop it. Your bloodlust is getting all over the place,” my father snapped.
Zinal smiled sweetly in reply, but the gatekeepers almost burst into tears at the sight of his teeth. (And this was still one of his less terrifying smiles!)
“Okay, what kind of contract did you boys make?” Zinal asked.
The gatekeepers collectively flinched, and Zinal shook his head at the sight.
“Can’t talk about it?”
The gatekeepers nodded ever so slightly.
“I get it. Go back to the gate, boys.”
One of the gatekeepers opened his mouth to say something, but no words came out. His gaze wandered until it landed on me, and I tilted my head in confusion.
“Were you commanded to take Ivy hostage?” my father asked.
The gatekeepers nodded.
So they were under somebody’s command. And since they were bound by a contract, they had no choice but to obey.
“What should we do about them?” Zinal’s brows furrowed. My father looked just as grim.
Crack, crack, crack!
“What’s that?”
My father jumped to his feet and unsheathed his sword. The sound of trees crashing to the ground echoed all around us, and with it, the magic energy of a serpent filled the air.
Crack, crack, crack!
“Eep!” the gatekeepers yelped meekly. One of them was so scared his back had given out. I couldn’t help but stare in awe. The serpent’s magic energy wasn’t that powerful and there was no malicious intent in it, so I couldn’t imagine why anyone’s back would give out. Were these boys even gatekeepers?
“S-serpent?!”
“Why? Wh-what’s it doing here…”
“Eep!”
The gatekeepers were thoroughly bewildered, and they looked like they might drop everything and flee. We couldn’t allow that. In their frazzled state, they might run straight into the thick of the forest—and then they might really be killed by monsters.
“Don’t move!” Zinal’s angry voice rang out.
The flustered gatekeepers froze like stone.
Wow, behold the power of Zinal’s bloodthirsty yell! Even I shivered a little.
Feeling a looming shadow, I looked up to see Snakey looking down at us. When our eyes met, it slithered into the forest as if nothing had happened. The loud rumbling of the earth echoed through the forest for miles.
“Guess it didn’t notice us,” Zinal said.
Huh?
“Looks like it,” my father agreed.
Uh, no, our eyes met briefly. Didn’t you see that? Our eyes met clearly.
“Well, that worked out.” Zinal turned to the gatekeepers. “Tell your master a serpent showed up and you lost Ivy. Since there’s serpent tracks here, they’ll believe you.”
I looked at the area where the serpent had slithered. The trees were toppled and there were deep trenches in the earth, which seemed odd to me. Usually serpents didn’t leave tracks like that… Oh! Was Snakey helping us out? Making it so the gatekeepers could go back without raising suspicion? But how did Snakey even know about the predicament we were in?
“Thank you so much.” One of the gatekeepers bowed to us, and the other five nervously followed suit. They looked so inexperienced and lost that I couldn’t help but voice my curiosity.
“Excuse me, how many years have you been in the village watch?” I asked.
I couldn’t shake the impression that these gatekeepers were quite young. And since gatekeepers needed a base level of experience, my impression couldn’t have been right.
“I’ve been in the watch eight months. Everyone else, six months.”
“What?!”
Eight and six months? They were promoted to gatekeeper that fast? I guess my impression wasn’t off after all.
“I see. Thank you for answering my question,” I told them.
My father and Zinal looked incredibly sour. As we watched the gatekeepers go on their way, my father gave a loud sigh.
“That serpent did us a huge favor,” Zinal said.
“Sure did,” my father agreed.
I caught myself agreeing, too. That serpent really did have perfect timing.
“Oh, look, Ciel is coming back!” I said.
I could sense Ciel’s aura approaching us from the thick of the forest. After a while, the adandara was back.
Mrrrow.
“Hi, Ciel.”
Mee-yowww!
What’s that? I feel like Ciel sounds smug…huh?
“Wait, did you ask the serpent to help us, Ciel?” my father asked.
Mew!
Based on the way Ciel’s tail playfully swished around, my father was probably right.
“Thanks, Ciel. We’ll have to thank Snakey later, too.”
Mrrrow.
It really was exquisite. Ciel had come up with that plan after only hearing part of our conversation.
Oh, Fische was supposed to bring us backup, too. Will it be okay for my father and I to just stay here?
“Mr. Zinal, is Mr. Fische still bringing someone to help?” I asked.
I assumed this person was safe if they were Zinal’s friend, but I was still curious.
“It’s the innkeeper’s daughter. She’s definitely on our side, no doubt about it.”
So it’s his daughter. I don’t think I saw her at the inn.
I started to sense Fische’s aura approaching from the direction of the village, together with an unfamiliar aura. Was that the innkeeper’s daughter Zinal mentioned?
“Anyway, that was a really rotten thing they did,” my father said.
Zinal answered him with a sour look. What was my father talking about? The gatekeepers almost taking me hostage?
Come to think of it, my father is with me right now. And Zinal and Fische are with me today, too. So why did they even try to kidnap me?
I looked at my father. He was holding a sword, and it was clear with one look at his thick build that he was a strong fighter. On top of that, Zinal and Fische were both high-level adventurers. Why would anybody target me on a day when three powerful men were with me? I would definitely pick a different day.
“Do you think they really were trying to kidnap me?” I asked.
No matter how you sliced it, today was not the day to get me. If anybody tried, they would be the ones in trouble.
“Whoever it was probably wanted us to kill those six boys,” my father said.
This shocked me. They wanted us to kill them?
“Yeah, those boys were living sacrifices to put us at a disadvantageous position,” Zinal said.
My father nodded.
A disadvantageous position… So they were trying to make murderers out of my father, Zinal, and Fische? Both guilds had already teamed up with the village watch to conspire together. If the three organizations claimed their motive to kill the watchmen was something different, they could frame my father, Zinal, and Fische for murder. Either that, or they could use it as a threat to bargain for something else… How horrible.
“Can’t the gatekeepers be rescued?” I asked my father.
He patted my head. “Zinal, they’ll be okay, right?”
Zinal nodded without hesitation. “They really are fools. Now that they’ve shown us their cards, we know exactly just how far the rot has spread. All we need is evidence at this point, and now we have a good idea of where to find it.”
Zinal is just trying to right wrongs… It only looks like he’s up to no good because of his smile, right?
Unlike the last time, Zinal’s smile was free of restraint, and he looked like he might snap into a mad rage any second. And my father wasn’t showing any signs of stopping him.
“Huh? Ah, he’s here. Ivy and Druid, you could hide if you want. What’s the plan?”
I’m not sure. She’s someone Zinal and Fische trust, but I am a little concerned.
“We’ll hide. We don’t want to get any more involved than we already are,” my father said.
Zinal nodded. “Okay. We’ll rendezvous later. Where should we meet?”
“The dump.”
“Got it. See ya later.”
As Zinal ran off toward the village, we set out for the dump.
“Hey, Dad?”
“Hm?”
“Those six boys…you could’ve defeated them without killing them, right?”
My father chuckled sheepishly. “Yeah, no sweat.”
So Zinal and Fische definitely could’ve done it, too. The gap in ability between fledgling watchmen and top-level adventurers was just way too wide. They could have easily putthe boys out of action without killing them. All it took was a little thinking and anyone could have realized that…
Was whoever came up with this plan an idiot or what?
Chapter 540: An Unexpected Action
Chapter 540:
An Unexpected Action
AS WE GOT CLOSER TO THE DUMP, the serpent’s giant body came into view between the trees. I thought it had moved far away, but it had apparently stayed close.
“Which side is its head on?” I pondered.
My father looked at the body. “If the scales had a front and back side, we could tell…but they don’t.” He shook his head. “Anyway, let’s go to the dump. If it’s tails, we can just give it a little tap to signal we’re here.”
I nodded in agreement and headed toward the dump.
“I hope we get heads,” he said.
“Me, too.”
When we got to the dump, a serpent face turned to peer at us from between the trees.
“Oh, good. Looks like we got heads,” I said.
“That is good news…but why’s it acting like that?”
I looked at the serpent. Just when our gazes were about to meet, the Snakey darted behind the tree. My slimes, who had popped out of their bag, also looked puzzled.
“Snakey, is something wrong?” I asked.
Snakey slowly showed its face. It looked a bit worried. Had I ever seen a Snakey look like that before?
After a thoughtful pause, my father said, “Maybe the serpent is anxious because of how it acted earlier?”
How it acted earlier… Oh, the way our eyes met, but it slithered right by without acknowledging us? But Snakey did that for our benefit, so there’s nothing to worry about.
But Snakey’s face twitched, which seemed to mean my father’s theory was correct. Then the Snakey face darted behind a tree again.
“I guess…the serpent thinks it’s hiding?” my father suggested.
I ran my eyes over the span of the serpent’s body. It was big enough that you could see all of it through the trees, but its face somehow managed to stay hidden.
“Adorable,” I said with a smile.
Snakey flinched a little. My father and I had a good chuckle over that.
“Snakey, thanks for helping us out back there. You saved the day.”
Snakey peeked out from behind the tree. I quietly walked up to it and gently petted its nose. As Snakey stared intently at me, I thanked it again.
“Krr-krr-krr-krr!”
When I heard the strange sound next to me, I looked at Snakey.
“Krr-krr-krr-krr!”
Oh, now I remember! That’s how Snakeys purr when they’re happy. I remember hearing it once before. It was when we returned the lost little black orb to Snakey. Yeah, I’m sure that was it.
“Haven’t heard that sound in a while,” my father remarked as he walked up to Snakey and gave its nose a little pat.
“Yeah, we don’t hear it that often.”
You know, we didn’t even hear the sound when we were traveling with the Snakey caravan. I wonder what conditions cause them to make it?
“Pu! Pu, puuu.”
“Te! Ryu, ryuuu.”
I turned to look at Sora and Flame, who were enjoying their meal at the dump. When did they start eating? They…did have breakfast, right?
“They’ve always got a huge appetite when we take them to the dump.” My father sounded a little tired.
Pong!
Gasping at the magic stone-reviving noise, my father and I nervously looked at Flame. When our eyes met, it quickly looked away.
“Looks like Flame got a little too excited and made the stone by accident,” I remarked.
Flame stared hard at the magic stone on the ground…then casually tossed it into the pieces of trash.
“No, you can’t do that, Flame. That magic stone’s color was very unique…”
I dove into the trash and picked up the magic stone Flame had dropped. It was transparent with no impurities—that I had seen before. But the stone I held in my hand now was a mixture of green and black.
“Wow, what an incredible combination of colors…”
Green magic stones amplified wind magic, and black ones purified summoning circles. Wind and purification.
“I have heard that some wind magic users also have the power to heal,” my father said.
The power to heal? But black is for purification.
“It’s kind of a rare phenomenon, though. Then again, black magic stones have nothing to do with it.”
I puzzled over my father’s words.
Hmmm…purification purges people of unnecessary substances and calms them. You could say it’s like healing…is that what he meant? Maybe I’m wrong.
“But why did Flame restore that magic stone right now?” My father stared hard at Flame, who jiggled and went back to eating potions. Though the slime had seemed upset by making that potion, it apparently no longer cared. What a cheeky little scamp.
What my father said still makes no sense. Why did he emphasize the word “now”?
“Hey, Dad, what did you mean by that?”
“Flame creates the magic stones we need with exquisite timing, so I was just thinking Ciel might need that stone soon.”
That’s right…Flame did do that. Ciel could only come into villages with us because of the magic stone Flame made. Without it, we would have left Ciel outdoors during the coldest winter ever.
I looked at Flame. The slime no longer seemed interested in the magic stone. Wait a minute, I think I know what you just did…!
“Flame, stop. You’ve eaten too much.”
Flame had just eaten thirty-two potions. That was way too much.
“Um, Ivy…Sora had ten swords and thirty potions.”
“Sora!”
“Pu! Puuu?”
“Te-ryuuu?”
Oh, you two are acting all innocent, but you know you’ve been bad. You’ve overeaten so badly before that you couldn’t move.
“Maybe some other time, okay?” I picked up the two slimes and left the dump. My father followed, carrying Sol.
“You know, Sol hasn’t been overindulging so much anymore,” he remarked.
He was right. When we started traveling together, Sol had scarfed down magic items like there was no tomorrow, but the slime had calmed down lately.
“Pu! Pu!”
“Teryu!”
Sora and Flame chirped indignantly in reply. They were probably trying to deny that they had overindulged, but I thought eating a large pile of potions and swords in a short period of time fit that category. Then again, the only negative effects overindulging seemed to have on them was making their slime bodies too heavy for them to move.
“You both eat big breakfasts, too,” I scolded the slimes.
Whenever there was a dump nearby, we always let them eat bigger meals, because they sometimes had no choice but to eat less when we were on the road.
“Puuu!” Sora whined.
My father smiled. Sora was far too greedy.
Oh, I recognize this aura!
“Zinal is on his way,” my father observed, picking up on their presence, too. “I guess the other person with him is Fische?”
“Yeah, feels like Fische.”
After a while, they came into view. Fische had a hard-to-read look of fatigue on his face. Had they run into some trouble?
“Something happen to you guys?” my father asked.
“The sheer stupidity of our enemy wore us out,” Fische sighed.
What happened to them? And in such a short time, too…
“Somebody tried to stop us from coming back to the village. And when we went out into the forest, people said all sorts of crap about us.” Zinal shrugged his shoulders.
Somebody tried to stop them from coming back to the village? Why?
“They probably thought we were gonna bring backup with us.”
That makes sense.
“The village watch platoon captain was at the village gate, and he was very, uh… Ugh.”
Fische sighed his lungs out. He really was exhausted.
The platoon captain of the village watch, eh? Wait, he was at the gate? Oh no…was he waiting there for the gatekeepers to die? No, that’s just way too evil…
“And nothing even happened, yet he had twenty watchmen with him.”
“You’re right to be annoyed. Nothing had happened yet back then.”
My father looked just as exasperated. And why wouldn’t he be? The watchmen had acted like they were expecting trouble to go down. To think that a platoon captain would take the initiative to do something foolish.
I tilted my head and frowned. “Are these people even stupider than we thought?”
Chapter 541: Here? Or Not Here?
Chapter 541:
Here? Or Not Here?
THE THREE MEN laughed.
“Well said, Ivy. When I saw the platoon captain at the gate, I was almost in awe.”
From the look on Fische’s face, he was clearly amazed at the captain’s stupidity, but that was understandable. Most people in his position would know better than to do something like that before things went public. What he did was as good as waving a flag and yelling, “Hello! Where are my dead gatekeepers I’m going to frame you for murdering?”
“When there’s no voice of reason in the room, your actions just get dumber and dumber,” Zinal said.
Fische nodded. “This is what happens when you surround yourself with yes-men. Well, feeble people bring things like this on themselves.”
Feeble, huh? Yeah, that is the impression I get from these people. I feel sorry for the poor villagers who have people of that caliber in every top position.
“Well, it’s only a matter of time before they’ll get overbearing. Our buddy has already taken off for the next village over.”
By “our buddy,” he must mean their secret friend in Okanke Village. Wait, no, their public friend… I guess I can just say “their friend.”
“That was quick,” my father remarked.
Zinal smiled. “Well, we told our friend the village was in imminent peril, so I’m sure that got the ball rolling quickly.”
They sure seem to have a lot of trust in this friend of theirs. How odd.
Poke.
“Oh!”
I felt a push on my back and turned around to see Snakey staring at me. Then I remembered that they were supposed to show us something today.
“Sorry, buddy. Can you still take us to that thing you wanted us to see?” I asked.
Snakey nodded, then lowered its head. That was the signal for me to hop on its back, but I wasn’t sure how far away this place was.
“Is the place you’re going to take us far away?” I asked.
Snakey shook its downturned head no, meaning it wasn’t that far.
“We can just walk, then. Let’s go.”
Zinal looked alarmed by my announcement. Oh, did you want to ride on Snakey’s back? But we’re too close to the village for that to be safe. We don’t want villagers seeing us.
“Oh! Right, we’re actually very close to Okanke Village, aren’t we?” Zinal said, though he was clearly let down.
“Zinal…” Fische sighed tiredly.
I smiled. The disappointment in Zinal’s eyes was obvious. He really wanted to ride on Snakey.
Snakey took the lead, followed by my slimes and myself, with my father, Fische, and Zinal bringing up the rear. After a while, I realized we were walking toward the giant cliff. Apparently, that was the place they wanted to show us.
“That’s huge,” Zinal said.
“Sure is,” Fische nodded as he found our spot on the map.
“Think there’s a cave?” I asked.
“Probably,” my father answered as we looked for the mouth of one. Since it was a giant cliff, we assumed there would probably be several caves, but we couldn’t find a single one.
“Not finding anything,” my father remarked.
“Really? But this cliff is so big…” Fische looked up from his map and scanned the cliff area. “Yeah, you’re right. There’s nothing. Not even a sign of a cave.”
So I guess that means cave entrances always have signs that they’re there. I wonder what that looks like? I’d kind of like to see it.
“I think it’s that way,” Zinal said.
I looked over to see the serpent slithering alongside the cliff. Where was it going? I looked up at the cliff, searching for a cave mouth as we walked.
But wow…this cliff really is enormous. We’ve been walking a long time, and I still don’t even see the edge of it. I don’t see any mouths of caves, either.
“When we came to this cliff, I mistakenly thought it would have caves inside,” I sighed.
Had Snakey just brought us to a cliff without a cave?
“No, most cliffs do have caves, no matter how big or small,” Zinal assured me. “So it’s very unusual for a cliff this size not to have one…”
I sensed a little confusion in Zinal’s voice, so I assumed that meant this cliff was quite the rarity. After all, even the cliff the serpents climbed up at a right angle had had a cave inside.
“Is this the place?”
My father looked around where Snakey stopped. We had assumed it was escorting us to a cave, since we were traveling around the perimeter, but we were wrong. No matter how hard we examined the cliff, we found no cave entrance. A glance at the forest opposite it was even more baffling—we couldn’t see the serpent’s reason for bringing us through such an unremarkable forest. My father seemed just as baffled as me; when our eyes met, he quietly shook his head.
“So, um…what is this place?” Zinal asked.
Snakey’s head tilted, which made me a little nervous. Why the look of confusion, when Snakey was the one who brought us here?
“Pu! Pu, puuu.”
I looked over to see Sora staring intently at the cliff.
“What is it?”
Sensing something was off, I headed over to Sora and followed the slime’s gaze. It was looking at a boulder not unlike the others around it. I reached out and touched the rock, and its coldness seeped through my skin. It was unmistakably a rock, both in sight and in touch.
“Pu, puuu.”
Mrrrow.
Ciel sniffed the spot on the rock where I touched it, then scratched it lightly with its front paws.
“Ciel, you’ll dull your claws,” I said.
The rock must have been tough, because Ciel hardly made a scratch on it. Still, there seemed to be something there. I touched it again, tracing a wider circle… Nothing. Feeling a shadow loom overhead, I looked up to see Snakey peering down at me.
“Is this the place?” I asked.
Snakey and my creatures tilted their heads at me.
Uhhh, I’m wrong again? Come on, guys, I’m not a mind reader.
“It doesn’t usually feel this anticlimactic…”
I nodded at my father in agreement. Zinal and Fische touched the spot that the monsters had reacted to.
“But there’s nothing here, right?” Zinal asked.
Fische nodded. Everyone agreed there was nothing there, but the way the monsters were reacting told us there was something significant about this spot. Yet, whenever we asked them, they would just look at us funny.
…Yeah, I’ve got nothing. This makes no sense.
“What do we do now?” my father asked.
The others fell into thought. This was the spot the serpents wanted to show us. And when we asked them if this was the right place, they gave us funny looks…but this was definitely the spot. Yet there was nothing here.
“……”
Huh?
Did I just hear a voice?
I looked around, but nothing was any different. Was I just imagining things?
“……, ……”
No, I definitely heard something. But what was it?
“What’s up?” My father eyed me with concern while my eyes darted to and fro.
“I thought I heard something…”
Zinal and Fische looked at me, then took a bewildered look around. Their reactions felt a little strange to me.
“Wait, can’t you guys hear it? A voice clearly said—”
“please…”
It was quiet, but I definitely heard it this time. Somebody was nearby.
“Ivy?”
“I heard a voice say please. Somebody’s near us.”
I touched the rock again, but nothing changed. Was it coming from the forest, then?
“Please…hear…”
Please hear…what? Is somebody trying to give us a message?
“Please…hear?” I said out loud.
“Is that what you heard?” my father asked.
I nodded.
“We’ll check the forest. Stay here.”
Zinal and Fische disappeared into the trees. We were quite deep in the forest, and the magic energy here was thick. If it was a monster, it must have been a very powerful one. I knew Fische and Zinal were strong fighters, but I was a little worried.
“Think they’ll be okay?” I asked. “I sense a really powerful monster nearby…”
I couldn’t see it, but I could sense its aura, and it was very aware of us.
“They’ll be fine. They’re both really strong fighters,” my father assured me.
Mrrrow.
Almost immediately after I heard Ciel’s voice, the creature was bounding into the trees.
“Oh! Think Ciel’s going with them?”
“Looks like it. And with Ciel protecting them, I know they’ll be safe.”
“Yeah.”
That definitely did put my mind at ease. I sensed the powerful magic energy rushing into the distance at an impressive speed. Wait a minute…
“I don’t think Ciel went to Zinal and Fische… It’s chasing the monster instead?”
Behind the swiftly rushing magic energy was a faint magic aura. That was Ciel’s magic. Once the monster got a certain distance from us, I sensed Ciel changing targets and chasing after it.
My father smiled. “Yeah, I think you’re right. I can feel a disturbance in the forest.”
Just then, the trees of the forest shook violently, and I could hear roaring voices coming from all directions.
“Please…hear…”
Oh, there it is again! Please, hear… Is it “please hear my message”? Is this voice calling somebody?
Chapter 542: Where Are You?
Chapter 542:
Where Are You?
“DAD…THE VOICE sounds like it’s hurt.”
“Huh?”
I tugged on the hem of my father’s shirt. The first time the voice sounded clear to me, I realized it was in pain. I needed to find whoever it was as fast as I could. But why was I the only one who could hear it?
“Ivy, stay calm.”
“I know.”
In times like this, it’s important to stay calm…
“Some…hear…ish…rue.”
This is bad. The voice sounds like it’s hurting even more than before.
“Ivy…”
My clenched fist felt a big warm hand wrap around it, and I looked up at the pair of downturned eyes to meet my father’s gaze.
“Take slow breaths. Don’t worry, Ivy…I know you can find it.”
Slow breaths…slow breaths…
“Teryu.”
I looked at Flame to see everyone was staring at me worriedly. My behavior must have been making them nervous. I needed to calm down.
“Some…his…ish…true.”
Don’t worry, Ivy. You’ll find the voice.
“They’re back.”
I followed my father’s gaze to see Zinal and Fische running out of the forest.
“Nobody’s in the forest,” Zinal announced.
My father looked at me. “Do you still hear the voice?”
“Yeah. It’s saying ‘Some…please hear…his…true.’ That’s all I can make out.”
Nobody could tell what the voice was saying from that.
“Somebody, please hear…his… Something like that?” my father asked.
Zinal and Fische nodded.
“That’s what I got from it. But who’s the guy it’s talking about? And his…what? I wish we had a little more to go off of.”
Fische shook his head. If only I could hear a little more of the voice, then maybe we’d know what it was saying.
“I’ll look to see if there’s somewhere I can hear the voice better,” I said.
I slowly moved alongside the cliff. I had to go slowly, since the voice wasn’t always talking on a constant loop.
“Some…lease…rue.”
Wait, now it’s farther away?
I stopped and strained my ears.
“…lease…”
Yeah, it’s harder to hear now. Which means the last place was the best spot to hear it? But I didn’t even go that far away…
My mind swimming with doubts, I returned to the former spot and strained my ears.
“body…me…ish…ue.”
Yeah, this is the spot.
“Ivy…what’s going on?” my father asked me worriedly after watching me without talking for a minute. He was probably concerned that I had said I was going to look for the voice and wound up back where I was.
“This is the best place to hear the voice,” I explained.
The men looked around. I also scanned the area, thinking maybe I’d missed something, but there was nothing to see. What did any of this mean? I could definitely hear a voice, but nothing else.
“As far as I can see, there’s nothing here,” Zinal said.
“Yeah,” Fische agreed, his gaze shifting to the cliff.
“Which means the only thing left to check is the inside of the cliff,” Zinal said, reaching out and knocking on the rock.
“Right. But…how do we even look inside? If we just search blindly, it’ll take way too much time.”
I think so, too. This cliff is huge.
“We won’t have a very wide range to search,” my father said. “If we go more than a couple meters away, she can’t hear the voice anymore, so this little area is all we need to search.”
I nodded. He was right—just a few steps in one direction, and I couldn’t hear the voice anymore.
“I guess you’re right, there,” Zinal nodded, setting his magic bag down on the ground. I gave him a questioning look. “I have a magic item that helps see inside cliffs. I think it’s in here somewhere…where did I put it?” Zinal pulled out many different magic items and craned his neck.
“I keep telling you to organize your bag—that’s why you can never find what you need when you need it,” Fische admonished him. “But anyway…what’re you even doing? If you remember what kind of magic item it is, shouldn’t it come out right away?”
Oh, they must be using a magic bag with a Link function! That function sure comes in handy. If you picture the item you need in your mind, your hand reaches right for it. Of course, that only works if you know which magic bag you put the item in…
“Can you remember what kind of magic item it was?” Zinal asked. Fische craned his neck. You had to remember perfectly what the item was or else the function didn’t work.
“I remember it was a four-cornered box—that’s all,” Zinal said.
I looked around his feet, where there were quite a few four-cornered boxes. Maybe one of them was the magic item he was looking for.
“What?! But isn’t it a round board?” Fische asked.
…A round board?
“Huh?! A round board?” Bewildered, Zinal repeated the words. Apparently, they were remembering different shapes. I decided to check the boxes first. Seemingly having the same idea, my father was reaching for a box near Zinal’s feet.
“Let’s just start looking,” Fische said.
“Yeah, now that you said it’s a round board, I’m beginning to think it’s not a box after all,” Zinal conceded.
“Me, too.”
As we laughed at Zinal and Fische’s conversation, I took a step away from the cliff wall to help. Then a gust of wind blew, enveloping me in a blue light.
“What?!” I froze in shock, and then a force yanked me backward.
Mrrrow!
“Puuu!”
“Ivy!”
I saw my father’s terrified face and a silhouette charging at me—that was Ciel. Boy, what a fast runner.
Bonk.
I hacked and wheezed as the sharp impact knocked the wind out of my lungs.
“What…was…that…?!”
I turned around, trying to see the cliff, but there was a heavily wounded serpent lying there.
“What?!”
I had no idea what had happened. When I tried to come over and help, I felt a sudden tug from behind…
Did the serpent get hurt…from protecting me?
“Ivy…you okay?” my father asked.
I nodded in a daze. My back only hurt a little, so I’d be fine. But Snakey…
“Pu! Pu, puuu.”
No sooner did I hear Sora’s voice than the slime had enveloped Snakey.
That’s right. Sora’s here.
“Thank goodness.” My muscles gave out in relief.
“Whoa there. Sit, don’t fall.”
My father held me under my arms and helped me sit up. I watched as Sora healed the serpent. I couldn’t see its wounds through the foam, but I was sure everything would be all right.
What happened? Did somebody hurt Snakey? And what yanked me backward?
“A trap?” Zinal asked.
I looked at him, and he stared grimly back at me. I looked at the cliff wall but saw nothing.
“What happened?” I asked.
“A summoning circle showed up on the cliff.”
When Fische said the words summoning circle, my breath caught in my throat. My father gave my back a few soothing pats.
“Why a summoning circle…?” I mumbled.
Who was that trap for? But Snakey brought me here and got hurt protecting me… Does that mean it didn’t know about the trap, either?
“Pefu! Pefu! Pefu!”
“Sol, what’s wrong?” Zinal asked, a strange catch in his voice.
I looked over at them. Sora had just left Snakey, which gave me a better look at it. The wounds were gone and Snakey was stretched upward and back to normal. What a relief.
“Thanks, Sora.”
Sora jiggled happily in reply. It really was a relief. Sensing a gaze on me, I looked up to see Snakey looking down at me worriedly. I slowly reached up and Snakey lowered its head, so I gave its nose a little pat.
“Thanks for saving me.”
“Agh!” Zinal yelped.
I looked at him and saw a blue summoning circle glowing on the cliff. The serpent moved protectively in front of me and my father.
“Pehhh-fu!”
Sol expanded itself to cover the summoning circle.
“That’s right…Sol can neutralize summoning circles,” my father remarked.
Yeah, Sol can do that. So many things had happened back then that I’d completely forgotten. The summoning circle was absorbed into Sol’s body before our very eyes…until its blue light disappeared.
Chapter 543: The Summoning Circle and the Voice
Chapter 543:
The Summoning Circle and the Voice
THANKS TO SOL, the summoning circle had completely vanished.
“Did that summoning circle look familiar to you?” my father asked.
Zinal and Fische tilted their heads thoughtfully.
“It wasn’t exactly the same…but I did see something like it once,” Zinal said.
“I know what you’re talking about,” Fische replied, staring at the spot where the summoning circle had been. I wasn’t sure why, but he seemed hesitant about what to do.
“What is it?” my father asked.
Fische looked at me.
“What’s wrong?” I softly touched Snakey next to me, feeling a little worried.
“Just a hunch…but I think that summoning circle was supposed to trap somebody and steal their magic energy.”
Zinal’s words made me stop breathing. Stealing somebody’s magic energy meant killing them. Why? Who would do such a thing?
“Are you saying something might be trapped behind this rock?” my father asked.
Zinal and Fische nodded unhesitatingly. “Except…while this summoning circle was similar, one part of it was different.”
I wanted to believe Zinal was right.
“Okay…guess we’ll break the rock. We have to check it,” my father said.
Zinal shook his head. “If it’s the summoning circle we were just talking about, there’s no need to smash the rock; just touching it ought to disintegrate it.” Then he touched the rock with the summoning circle engraved on it. A part of me hoped it wouldn’t disintegrate.
Crumble, crumble, crumble…clank.
As the rock disintegrated before my very eyes to reveal an empty space behind it, I clenched my fists. Zinal’s and Fische’s shoulders slumped in disappointment.
“I wish I was wrong,” Zinal said. “Ivy, you should probably wait right where you are.”
I hesitated for a moment, but I shook my head. I wanted to know what was happening. Whatever it was might still be alive—though, from the way the men were acting, I could tell the chances of that were very slim.
“Yeah, I get it,” Fische said with a sigh. “But we’re going in first, okay?”
I nodded. The men took the lead and went inside the hole in the cliff, which was spacious. Even Snakey could fit comfortably. We slowly walked inside by the light of a magic item.
“Oh!” Zinal stopped in his tracks. Since he didn’t say anything more, I just looked where he was looking.
Deep into the cavern, there was a bright-white monster lying atop a summoning circle. It looked like a sharmy, but it was about twice as big and only had two arms. It was emaciated and bony, and even from a distance, I could tell it had already taken its last breath.
“Is that a kamice? But its fur color…” Zinal’s voice was quiet and filled with confusion.
Kamice? Is that a type of monster?
Zinal took another step closer to the monster. Immediately after that, the summoning circle shot out a faint light.
“Please hear me…wi…come true.”
As I braced myself, I heard the voice. It was clearer than before.
“The voice…”
This time, the grown-ups could hear it, too. My father examined the cavern.
“Dad…I think the voice is coming from this monster.”
I didn’t know why, but somehow I knew. The monster in the summoning circle was no longer alive, so it didn’t seem possible. But I just knew.
“Somebody please…his…ish…come true.”
“Somebody please hear me. Please make his wish come true,” Zinal deciphered the message. “This is probably the guild master’s tamed kamice. The fur was a completely different color the last time I saw it, but I think that’s probably what we’re looking at.”
Fische nodded in agreement.
“This summoning circle is completely different from the last one,” my father said.
Zinal’s and Fische’s auras distorted a little. That had never happened before, so I shot them a surprised look.
“This summoning circle… I’m sure this monster cast it.”
“What?!”
I looked at the deceased monster, whose expression was severely twisted in pain. It was so tragic I had to look away.
This monster sacrificed its life for this…
Zinal and Fische looked anguished. What was their connection to this summoning circle?
“A hostage,” my father said. “This kamice was like family to the guild master, so it made the perfect hostage.”
My chest tightened with pain. The thought of any of my creatures getting taken hostage hurt so bad. The guild master must have been thwarted with worry. Was he lured to the cave under the promise of seeing his friend again? I might have been wrong. I hoped I was wrong. But…
“Those bastards!” Zinal kicked the ground.
“Let’s destroy this summoning circle,” my father said.
“Don’t!” Zinal yelled. His voice sent shivers through me. “This circle really is bad news. If you make a wrong move, you could suffer even in death.”
“What?!” we gasped.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to shout,” Zinal sighed quietly.
“No, it’s okay,” I assured him.
“This summoning circle is connected to everything in this kamice. Every time the circle is activated, the kamice hurts all over.”
Zinal sadly looked at the kamice splayed on the ground. That explained why the poor creature’s face was so twisted in pain.
“What does it mean to ‘suffer even in death’?” my father asked.
Zinal’s gaze shifted from the kamice back to us. “If you try to erase the summoning circle, the victim will scream and struggle, even though it’s dead. It’ll writhe in agony until the circle disappears. The suffering doesn’t end, even in death.”
My father and I both fell soberly silent. I’d never even considered such a thing.
“To be honest, we don’t know for sure if the victim actually is in pain, but I’ll never forget that voice as long as I live.”
“But, Zinal, we can’t just leave it…” Fische sighed.
“Is there a way?” my father asked.
“If we devour the entire kamice, the summoning circle will disappear, but that takes quite some time. Meanwhile, its voice will keep echoing around us and impacting its surroundings. Some monsters go berserk when they fall under the influence of a voice like that. And I’m sure this monster is still suffering, too…”
So it was the voice again. The voice still echoed through this cavern periodically, and it was seeping outside into the forest, making the other monsters go mad.
“So, um, do you think that’s why the Snakeys brought us here? Because they heard the voice?”
The men nodded.
“Probably so. But maybe they couldn’t pinpoint the exact spot because it was hidden behind a summoning circle carved into the rock?”
So it was that summoning circle. Seriously. Who put such a thing there?
“Do you think our monsters knew the guild master was a tamer because of the voice?” my father asked.
This time, Zinal and Fische didn’t look too sure. They both had the same quizzical stare on their faces.
“That, we don’t know. The voice they heard didn’t give out that information. But as fellow tamed monsters, maybe they could’ve picked up on something.”
“Gyagh! Grah!”
Suddenly hearing an anguished cry, we looked at the kamice. Its white fur was shaking, and its face was twisted even more painfully. Why?
“I thought so…” A pained look filled Zinal’s face. Was this what he meant when he said the monster was surely still in pain? So it didn’t happen only when the summoning circle was erased.
“Yeah…it really looks like it’s suffering,” my father said.
I had no words. I just stared at the kamice. Wasn’t there anything we could do?
This is just too cruel.
“Teryuu…”
“Teryuu…”
Huh? Flame?
I looked toward the voice to find Flame at my feet. It bounced up and down and then jumped into the magic bag hanging on my shoulder.
“Teryu-teryu-teryuuu.”
The little slime was staring hard at me, trying to tell me something. Wondering what it was, I looked in my magic bag. It had to be something…
“The magic stone!”
The black and green magic stone. My father had said that Flame “creates the magic stones we need with exquisite timing,” and from the way Flame was reacting now, it was clear. I took the magic stone Flame regenerated out of the magic bag, and Flame looked satisfied to see it.
“What’s that?” Zinal asked, peering at the stone in my hand.
“A magic stone that Flame regenerated,” I explained.
Zinal and Fische stared at Flame, who tilted a little away from them in response.
“So…how do we use it?” I asked.
I knew it would be useful, but how? I looked at Flame and met its expectant gaze.
…Well, let’s touch the magic stone to the summoning circle for a start.
I rolled the magic stone at the summoning circle. The moment it touched the line, the area echoed with sparking noises.
“Huh?!”
Somebody yanked my arm, threw me against his chest, and covered my ears.
Uh-oh. Did I mess up?
Chapter 544: Ring
Chapter 544:
Ring
OH NO. IF I FAILED, that means…
My arms and legs were shaking in fear.
What do I do now?
“It’s okay, Ivy. Take a look.”
When the gentle voice reached my ears, I shook all over.
“It’s all right. Come on, look up.”
The gentle voice made my shaking calm down just a little. I cautiously looked up and saw Zinal smiling kindly down at me.
“Oh!”
I noticed he was gently rubbing my head, and then I realized his hands were no longer covering my ears.
“Thanks, Ivy.”
Why was Zinal thanking me? His gaze left me, and I followed it to see the summoning circle glowing white. I stiffened up for a moment, but a gentle pat on my back relaxed me. The circle was embraced in a gentle glow.
I mustered up my courage and looked at the kamice’s face. And as it lay in the glowing light of the summoning circle, it now looked unbelievably peaceful.
“That little angel is okay now,” Zinal said.
Thank goodness. The thought of it suffering even in death was just too sad. It had already lost the family it loved.
“It’s beautiful,” my father said.
I nodded at him and just stared at the light. After a while, the glow melted into the air and disappeared.
“Oh! The kamice…”
The kamice’s body turned to droplets of light in the glow and vanished into the air.
“I think it’s completely free from the summoning circle,” Fische said.
So it’s free now.
“Huh?!”
For a moment, I couldn’t process what I’d just seen. Surely my eyes were playing tricks. I mean, the kamice was long dead…
“Did you just see that…?” my father asked in a daze as the four of us stared at the spot where the kamice had once lain.
So that means the grown-ups saw it, too. Which means…my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me?
“It was dead, right?” Fische asked.
Zinal nodded. “Yeah, no mistaking it.”
“But didn’t it open its eyes and look at us right before it disappeared?”
It was just as Fische described it. Right before the kamice disappeared, it had opened its eyes and looked at us…or so it seemed. But it was too vivid to write it off as imagination, especially since I wasn’t the only one.
We all stared in silence, remembering the kamice just before it vanished.
“It’s just a vague sense I got…but I think the kamice was really happy,” I said.
You would usually be terrified if a monster’s eyes shot open as it died, but we weren’t. We were terribly surprised, but not at all terrified.
“You’re right. It did look happy,” my father said.
As I nodded, my vision blurred a little. I wiped the blur away and smiled at the men.
“I’m so happy for it.”
All three of them smiled back at me.
“And now the real question, Zinal…” My father’s tone was suddenly serious.
“What is it?”
I looked at him worriedly, wondering what it could be. For some reason, my father was glaring at Zinal.
“How much longer are you gonna hug Ivy like that?”
Huh? Oh, right, Zinal’s been holding me up all this time…huh? He’s hugging me?
“Hold up. There’s nothing weird about me hugging her,” Zinal argued.
Nope. It’s weird. I looked at my father, who was smiling so hard at Zinal that I could almost hear it.
“The danger is completely, perfectly gone now. So get your hands off her…”
With a loud sigh, Zinal let go of me. “Druid—is it just me, or did you almost add a threat to the end of that sentence?”
Now that he mentioned it, there was a strange hostility in the way he spoke. I looked at my father, who shrugged his shoulders innocently.
“Not really.”
…Yeah, I don’t buy that.
And neither did Zinal, from the frustrated look he was giving my father. “You know, for a guy who’s usually good at hiding his feelings, you sure let them rampage when they want to.”
I almost laughed listening to the two. They had become very close friends when I wasn’t looking.
“Wait a minute…” I looked at the spot where the kamice had been and noticed something on the ground in its place. I approached it to find something shaped like a box. I picked it up and found it was a stamp.
“What’s a stamp doing in here?”
I looked around and found another stamp on the ground. I picked it up to discover it was a ring. It looked like it would be too big for me even if I put it on my thumb, so it must have belonged to a man.
“What’s up?” Fische’s eyes landed on the objects in my hand. “That’s it!”
I looked at him in shock.
“Can I see the box-shaped one?” he asked.
“It’s not mine, you know. I found it on the ground.” I handed Fische the boxlike stamp. As he looked it over, Zinal and my father turned their attention to him.
“Found something?” Zinal asked.
“This is the guild master’s seal!”
With a tired look in his eye, Zinal eyed the thing in Fische’s hand.
The guild master’s seal… We’d assumed he had hidden it somewhere.
“Is it genuine?” Zinal asked.
Fische examined it further. “Looks real to me. I sense a faint but unique magic energy coming from it.”
A unique magic energy? I didn’t sense it at all.
“No doubt about it—that kamice was his tamed monster. Hearing its voice all but confirmed it, though.”
Okay, so the kamice had the guild master’s seal. Did the guild master ask his monster to keep it safe? And is that why the kamice was sealed up inside this cliff?
“That did cross my mind earlier. Don’t you think the kamice was powerful enough to escape this cliff?” my father asked.
I gave him a curious look.
“Yeah, I think you’re right.” Zinal walked over to the wall and pressed his hand on one of the rocks. “Uh-huh, this is just a normal rock. So the kamice couldn’t have come out from the one that had the summoning circle, but any other rock could have been smashed through. Like over there.”
I looked where Zinal was pointing to find a tiny hole in the wall with light shining through it.
“Judging by the light, these rocks aren’t all that thick. The kamice could have easily broken free through that area.”
Then why didn’t the kamice run away? Because…it didn’t feel the need to? But why? Maybe because somebody whom it trusted shut it inside here. But maybe the kamice wasn’t actually shut in here. What else could it be…? Was the guild master protecting the kamice? No, no, that summoning circle was meant to lock somebody up and steal their magic energy—oh, no! Wait, that’s wrong. Zinal and Fische said the summoning circle was like that other one…
“Maybe the guild master didn’t trap the kamice in here…” I murmured.
We had discovered this hiding place because the summoning circle glowed. Without that, we wouldn’t have found it. Though there was no telling why the summoning circle even glowed in the first place…
“Ivy?”
“This is just a theory…but maybe the guild master made that summoning circle to protect the kamice,” I said.
My father fell into thought. “Yeah, that’s possible. It’d explain why the kamice didn’t run away. Maybe it was waiting for somebody to find it.”
Waiting for somebody… But the guild master died. When a tamer dies, the bond with their monster is severed, so the kamice must’ve known what happened. What did it think about that? I looked at the guild master’s seal in Zinal’s hand, then at the ring on my thumb.
“What’s that?” my father asked.
“I found it near the guild master’s seal,” I explained, handing him the ring.
“This is a man’s ring,” he remarked. “Oh, did you see this part?” He pointed to the inside of the ring. I shook my head. I had promptly slid it onto my thumb once I found it, so I hadn’t noticed.
“I think this is the guild master’s ring,” my father said. “See? It’s engraved with Rulu and Ruzzy.”
I took the ring back from my father and examined the inside of it. It was indeed engraved with the words Rulu and Ruzzy.
“Are those names?” I asked.
“Yeah, Okanke’s guild master was named Rulberth, Rulu for short.”
That must’ve meant the kamice’s name was Ruzzy. If the guild master had the name engraved on his ring, they were definitely very close.
“Ruzzy… That’s a nice name,” Fische said.
I nodded.
“We can’t know for sure, but maybe Ruzzy didn’t want to leave this place,” Zinal said. He was staring at the guild master’s seal. “Ruzzy may have been able to leave but didn’t. That might be because this place was…where Ruzzy and the guild master spent their final moments together. Maybe Ruzzy knew nobody would come back but waited all the same. This is all just conjecture, of course.”
I clenched my fists to keep the anger from boiling out of me.
“Ivy…why the grim face?” my father patted my head.
“I’m just a little peeved. I’m sure the guild master wanted to spend his last moments with Ruzzy.”
Zinal had said that the reason Rulberth became the guild master was because his tamed monster had been getting on in years.
“And I’m sure Ruzzy wanted to spend its final moments with the guild master, too…”
But somebody got in their way, and that makes me infuriated. If it were me…
I looked at my slimes. They had turned into a blur.
I sniffled hard as my father held me tight.
I hate this… It’s just not fair.
Chapter 545: Which Was It?
Chapter 545:
Which Was It?
“FEEL BETTER NOW?” my father asked, handing me a wet cloth.
“Yeah.”
I had cried like a baby.
“Here you go.” Fische handed me a cup of water.
“Thanks.”
It had been so long since I cried that my eyes felt heavy. I pressed the wet cloth to my eyes and drank the water. My throat must have been quite parched, because I gulped it all down in one breath.
Hmm…this all took me by surprise, too. I cried my eyes out, not just in front of my father but in front of Zinal and Fische as well. I guess I feel more comfortable around them than I realized. It all feels so surreal.
“Found anything?”
Hearing Fische’s voice, I removed the cloth from my eyes. Zinal had come back from inspecting the area. He said he wanted to find anything the guild master might have left behind if he’d been here.
“Found his magic bag.”
Fische and Zinal proceeded to rummage through the bag. There were potions, several changes of clothes, magic stones, and some dried meat.
“Oh! This looks like…”
I looked at what Zinal had just retrieved. It was a stack of papers.
“Looks like he did his fair share of investigating Okanke’s problems. He had evidence of embezzlement…and illegal contracts… He was very thorough. Oh, somebody also got their hands into some illegal drugs, too. We’ve also got threats and blackmail…ugh.” Zinal sighed heavily, and Fische looked just as frustrated.
“Look how deep the rot spread… I’m almost impressed,” my father said.
Everyone nodded in agreement. The guild master had tried his hardest to work in the most hostile environment you could imagine.
“Wait, what’s this…?”
A deep crease formed between Fische’s brows as he stared at a document from the pile. It seemed to say something very important. He silently handed it to Zinal, then checked the magic bag again. Zinal scanned the document he’d been handed, an equally grim look on his face.
“Okay, there’s no point in us staying here forever. Wanna go back to the village?”
I looked at my father to find he was shrugging his shoulders, which was probably his way of saying he didn’t want to meddle any further. I looked back at Fische and Zinal to see they were already putting everything back in the magic bag.
“Guess we have to go back there,” I replied.
If we were going to hit the road again, we would need to pack. Then again, we were mostly already packed, so we could leave anytime.
“Will you leave Okanke tomorrow?” Zinal asked.
I thought for a moment. I wanted to cook some food to eat on the road, but I would only have half a day to do that if we left tomorrow. Between prepping the ingredients and cooking them, I was quite limited in what I could make.
“Let’s go the day after tomorrow,” my father said. “We’ll borrow the kitchen tomorrow to do some cooking.”
That’s my dad. He gets it.
“Okay. When we get back to the inn, I’ll let them know that you want to use the kitchen,” Zinal said. “Write down everything you need us to buy for the journey—including any ingredients you need for cooking. We’ll go out today to buy them.”
I was a little confused. Was there some reason my father and I shouldn’t be walking around town? I wanted to look at the groceries with my own eyes, but if people out there were waiting to give us a hard time, maybe it would be better for us to stay in. Yeah, let’s go straight back to the inn.
“Ivy, was there anything you wanted to check out?” Fische asked.
I shook my head. It wasn’t necessarily something I had to see for myself.
“Okay, then let’s go back and—somebody’s coming,” Zinal said.
I perked my ears and searched for auras…but I couldn’t quite place it…
Oh, there it is! It’s a very faint aura, so I didn’t notice.
“That’s a high-level adventurer aura,” Fische said.
I heard my father grip his sword. If this high-level adventurer was a bad guy, we’d be in for some trouble.
“If they run into us in here, we won’t be able to escape,” Fische added. “Then again, we won’t need to. We have the serpent protecting us.”
Everyone’s eyes turned toward the serpent at the cavern entrance. It had been so quiet I had almost forgotten it was there.
“We should make first contact, just in case our guy isn’t an enemy. You two stay here,” Zinal said, heading for the exit with Fische.
“Be careful out there,” I said.
The two smiled and walked out.
“Think they’ll be okay?” I asked.
“I didn’t sense any malicious intent, so I doubt whoever it is will attack them on sight.”
I nodded and moved closer to the cavern entrance so I could see outside. The serpent was also curiously eyeing the outside area.
“Can you see anything?” my father asked.
I peeked outside, but I couldn’t make out Zinal or Fische’s silhouettes. I didn’t sense any fluctuations in magic energy or any malicious intent, so at least they didn’t seem to be fighting.
“We sure came to a pesky village, didn’t we?” my father sighed.
A chuckle escaped me.
“What?”
“Oh, I was just thinking we seem to run into trouble everywhere we go.”
Most people didn’t run into so many problems during a journey, but I had no choice other than to accept my fate.
“It feels like somebody’s guiding us along,” I said.
“…You’re probably right,” my father sighed deeply, accepting our fate along with me.
“Should we just turn around and go back? Not bother with the royal capital?”
I pondered my father’s suggestion. We certainly did have that option. The fortune-teller had even said I didn’t have to go to the town next to the royal capital.
“Looking back now, the fortune-teller worded her directions very strangely,” I remarked. “She didn’t specify exactly where I was supposed to go, and she even said I didn’t have to go.”
She said to go to the town neighboring the royal capital, but it turned out the royal capital had more than one neighboring town. She said she wanted me to go there, but she didn’t say what I would be doing there. What’s more, she also said I didn’t have to go.
“Why…why did I never question it all this time?”
“You mean, what the fortune-teller told you?” my father asked.
I nodded. It had been a very vague request.
“She wanted me to go, right?”
She didn’t tell me where or why, but she wanted me to go? Wait, did she not want me to go? Huh? Which is it?
“Ivy?”
“It’s nothing. I think I do want to go to the towns next to the capital. I have a curiosity I just can’t shake.”
But I didn’t need to go to the royal capital itself, so I wouldn’t go there.
“Okay. But if you ever think your life is in danger, we’re calling it off.”
I nodded in agreement. Of course we would.
“They’ve come back…only Fische, I think?”
“Looks like it,” I agreed.
As we climbed out of the cavern, we immediately spotted Fische. I was going to call and wave to him, but my hand froze when I saw the irritated expression on his face.
“Uh-oh… Seems like something happened,” my father remarked.
“Yeah.”
I want to ask, but would that be okay?
“May I ask what happened?” my father inquired.
Fische thought it over. “Only the basics.”
“I don’t mind.”
“So the aura we sensed earlier…it was a high-level adventurer we know. He’s trustworthy, so when we gave him a quick explanation of what happened, he told us more. You were right, Ivy: Ruzzy was shut off in that cliff for protection. And the guild master left Ruzzy’s side because his assistant used some people of the village to trick him, though the guild master was very likely wise to the plot.”
My father slowly nodded in understanding. “Okay. Thanks for telling us.”
“Zinal went back to the village with this adventurer. We’ve got some planning to do now that we know what we know.”
Some planning? What are they going to do?
“Is it okay if Ivy and I go back to the village?”
“Of course. Also, you can leave the day after tomorrow as planned.”
My father nodded. We weren’t sure what Zinal was going to do, but I hoped he wouldn’t endanger himself with whatever it was.
“I hope Mr. Zinal doesn’t get himself hur—”
I cut myself off, knowing I shouldn’t say it. Zinal and Fische were in their line of work because they had strong convictions.
“Ivy, he’ll be fine.”
I looked at Fische to see him wearing a calm expression—the complete opposite from before. If he said Zinal would be fine, I had to trust him.
“Okay.”
Chapter 546: Cook All the Things!
Chapter 546:
Cook All the Things!
I FELT GIDDY AT THE SIGHT of the giant pile of groceries before me. I was going to cook a lot more than usual, so I had to really bring my A game!
“Okay, where should I start… Huh?”
I looked around the kitchen to see my creatures merrily jumping into the pot. Um, you’re not supposed to be in there…
“Sora, don’t go in there. That’s where the food should be.”
“Pu! Pu, puuu.”
“Teryu.”
Sora and Flame merrily moved out of the pot and into the frying pan.
Um, no, guys…
My father, who had been watching the whole exchange, put the lid on the frying pan.
“Huh?!”
I immediately took the lid off, and Sora and Flame looked upset.
“Puuu.”
“Teryuuu.”
“Ha ha ha ha! Well, serves you right for getting in the way.”
I had to laugh at my whining slimes. Apparently, coming into the kitchen when they were not usually allowed to be there had gotten Sora and Flame a little too worked up.
“Still, what were the odds that the innkeeper would be taking the day off?”
My father’s remark brought my mind back to what Zinal had told us. “For the next few days, the inn is on break. Nobody will be there, so you can let your slimes play in the kitchen if you want.” That had just been so shocking that my father’s jaw dropped. But apparently, the innkeeper and our friends would be spending the next few days gathering evidence and making sure the victims were safe.
“Still, I really am surprised how empty this place is,” my father remarked.
Nobody was at the inn right then. This place was a refuge to keep victims safe, but there were so many victims this time that Asuro wouldn’t be used. Because of that, the innkeeper gave us free rein of the place.
“Inns feel very surreal when there’s nobody in them, huh?” I said.
“They sure do.”
I was washing the vegetables for prep…and starting to realize we really had a lot.
“You okay there?” my father asked me worriedly as he filled a pot with water.
“I’ll be fine. I’m only making easy things today.”
First, we were making dinner for the inn staff. They usually did the cooking, but they had no time for that today, so they had paid us to cook for them.
“Okay.”
“How many portions do we need again?” I asked.
“The innkeeper has a staff of ten people, so eleven should be enough. Oh, wait, they said they’d be happy to have a snack in between tasks.”
A snack between tasks… Maybe onigiri would be good? I took my father’s advice and added more rice to the pot. We had to make enough for the road, too, so I would need to cook three or four more pots of the stuff after this one.
“I was thinking of making rice balls and rice bowls—think that’ll work?” I asked.
“It should. The innkeeper did say they were okay with ryce.”
I did remember the innkeeper saying he was fine with rice, since he had eaten it before. But the person dressed as an adventurer beside him had looked shocked. I assumed they’d never had rice before.
“What are you going to do with all this water?” my father asked.
“I’m making a wild pigeon broth, so put all those pigeon bones in and light the fire.”
Since we were starting it in the morning, we would have a tasty broth by the evening which I would then use to make a nice hearty soup.
“The look on the innkeeper’s face sure was funny,” my father said.
I thought back to the look on the innkeeper’s face early that morning. Pigeon soup was well known as a medicinal brew sold by drugstores, famous for reviving your stamina and tasting terrible. That was probably what he thought I’d meant when I said I was making wild pigeon soup, and the look on his face was just… I chuckled now thinking about it.
“He didn’t have to put up that much of a stink about it,” I muttered.
“No, Ivy, believe me, medicinal pigeon soup is really something. You should at least try it on—no, actually, don’t.”
My father had a sour expression on his face. Everyone had that look when they thought about pigeon soup, and I found it a little hilarious.
“Okay, let’s get all these veggies cut.”
I grabbed the knife and reached out to the giant pile of vegetables.
“All done!”
After we cooked the giant feast, I divided the dishes between food we would take on our journey and food to give to the inn staff. The wild pigeon soup was filled with meat and vegetables, and it looked quite inviting. The onigiri were coated in a seasoned marinade, so they ought to be approachable, even for first time rice-eaters.
“I think they should be coming back any minute now…” My father looked out the window.
“Where are the monsters?” I asked. “Oh, look, everyone played so hard they’re fast asleep!”
After running around the inn all day, the quartet were in a cuddle puddle by the kitchen door. Everyone, even Ciel in slime form, had played their hearts out.
“Toron sure is being quiet.”
I looked at Toron to see the little tree staring at the platters of food in fascination. It didn’t seem to be contemplating any mischief, so we were probably safe, but what was the little tyke doing?
“Toron… What’s up, buddy?”
“Gyah.”
…I’m still having a hard time building a mutual understanding with you.
“Are you hungry?”
“Gyah?”
Okay, it’s not that. I thought you might be hungry since you were staring at all the food.
“All right, let’s get back to our room,” my father said.
“Sure.”
I transferred my sleeping slimes to their bag and picked up the magic bag that held all our food. We had made food for Zinal and Fische, too, so I wound up cooking way more than I’d expected, but it had been a lot of fun.
“Aren’t you tired? Toron, get in your basket, please.”
“Gyah.”
When Toron got in the basket, my father looked around the kitchen. The innkeeper’s one very firm request was that we remember to put the fire out.
“Looks good to me,” my father said.
“Yeah, and I’m not tired. I had a great time.”
“Okay, well, glad to hear it.”
When we got back to our room, we let the creatures out of their bag and took out potions for them.
“Puuu!”
“Teryuuu.”
“Pefu!”
Huge appetites as always. Well, they’ve been bouncing off the inn walls all day, so of course they’re hungry.
“Ah, it’s reacting!”
My father looked at the magic item the innkeeper gave us. It was matched with a magic item the innkeeper had, so its light would gradually change from white to green when he was approaching.
“Looks like they’re back,” I said.
“So it does. Should we have dinner?”
“Sure.”
We left our room, locked the door, went down to the first floor, and unlocked the inn’s front door.
“Thank you for your service,” my father greeted the innkeeper, who smiled in return.
“No problem. Something smells good.”
“It sure does,” said Zinal, following the innkeeper inside together with Fische.
“Thanks, Ivy. I hope you aren’t too tired?” Fische asked.
“I’m all right,” I assured them. “I got to cook a lot, so I had a great time.”
The innkeeper gave my head a few pats. “If only my granddaughters were just as little and precious as you.”
I tilted my head. He had granddaughters?
“That’s impossible,” Zinal scoffed. “They both started swinging a sword like their grandfather when they were little, and now they’re fierce adventurers, feared by all.”
Feared by all? That means they must’ve grown up to be mighty adventurers. They both sound incredible.
The innkeeper sighed at Zinal. “Tercules keeps swearing she won’t marry a man unless he’s stronger than her.”
“But that means only a few high-level adventurers even stand a chance, doesn’t it?”
Is she really that strong?
“Tell me about it,” the innkeeper groaned. “Meanwhile, Amakis lured a fledgling adventurer into marrying her.”
Lured him?
“Ohh, I know her. She made a big announcement like ‘I love a man who needs my protection!’ …So she got married?” Zinal looked at the innkeeper in surprise.
“Yeah, she did. To a poor chap two years younger than her. He’d only been an adventurer for a year when she sunk her venomous fangs into his heart.”
Her venomous fangs… Just what kind of granddaughters did this man raise? Now I really want to know.
Zinal smirked and patted the innkeeper’s shoulder while Fische tried to hide his laughter.
“Supper’s ready,” my father announced.
The innkeeper’s face lit up. “I haven’t eaten anything since breakfast, so I can’t wait.” And with that, he skipped toward the food.
“After all that working, he’s sure got energy,” Zinal sighed behind the innkeeper as he danced along the way to the kitchen.
“Well, I’m exhausted,” Fische said.
Zinal nodded.
“So, um, what about the other people working with you?” I asked.
I was confused because the only people who’d walked through the door were the innkeeper, Zinal, and Fische. Had their colleagues gone home?
“They’ll come back as soon as they’ve finished their own tasks. The innkeeper will make sure they’re fed,” Fische said.
I nodded. I decided it was best for the innkeeper to deal with them, since that was what they were used to.
“Got it. Can you and Mr. Zinal eat right away?”
“We can. We haven’t eaten since breakfast, either, and we’re paying for it now.” Zinal clutched his belly in agony.
“Well, I’ve made pigeon soup and rice bowls with extra meat. Wait in the dining hall and I’ll bring the food to you.”
“Oh, don’t trouble yourself; we can carry our own food. You had to cook a lot extra. Aren’t you tired?”
I shook my head. “I insist, let me serve you. I just have to heap the food over rice and it’s done.”
Chapter 547: Early to Bed, Early to Rise?
Chapter 547:
Early to Bed, Early to Rise?
“YOU’VE BEEN A WONDERFUL HOST.” I bowed graciously to the innkeeper of Asuro.
“And you’ve been even more wonderful guests. Thanks for dinner; it was delicious.”
The dinner we’d made the night before had been such a big hit that I taught the innkeeper how to make rice bowls first thing that morning. Still, I’d never dreamed that a portion for twenty would feed the innkeeper and his nine friends with no leftovers. When I heard their selfish cries last night of “Man, I feel sorry for the poor saps who didn’t make it back in time to eat any of this,” I decided to make twenty portions so we’d have extra, and I hoped that the people who didn’t get any dinner last night at least got some food this morning.
“And I’m very happy that you liked my cooking,” I said.
The innkeeper gently rubbed my head. “I doubt you guys had much time to rest here, but I promise it’ll be better next time you come to this village, so I hope I’ll see you again.”
According to Zinal, they had obtained enough evidence to arrest everyone involved in the crimes, and Zinal’s friend would arrive the day after tomorrow to arrest them.
“We’ll definitely be back,” I promised.
Will we have time for a leisurely chat next time?
“Next time you’re here, I’ll introduce you to my granddaughters.”
His granddaughters? They sure sound like accomplished adventurers. And they did pique my curiosity, so I’m actually kind of looking forward to that.
“Make sure they know not to fill Ivy’s head with strange ideas,” Zinal said, patting the innkeeper’s shoulder.
“They won’t fill her head with strange ideas. Only important ones.”
Zinal sighed. “Just how important is it to know how to wrap a man around your little finger?”
“Where’d you hear that?” The innkeeper gave Zinal a strange look.
“I caught Amakis telling another lady adventurer that it’s the most important thing to know.”
“That little scamp… She’s still at it?” The innkeeper sighed heavily.
“Has she always been like that?”
“Yeah. Apparently, she says it’s a necessary precaution to keep stupid men from fooling them.”
“I see. But just knowing they’re friends with your two granddaughters should keep them safe from bad men anyway. After all, they’re notoriously terrifying.”
They’re terrifying?
“‘If he hurts you, hurt him back until he cries for mercy,’ ‘If he’s gonna hurt you, crush him to oblivion,’ and ‘Kick all cheating scumbags straight to Hell’—those are their credos. And they’re not just talk!”
Wow… These women sound like they’d be a nightmare if you got on their bad side.
Zinal turned to me. “Ivy, just so you know, Tercules and Amakis are going to become the new adventurer guild master and captain of the village watch.”
“Whoa! Are they really?” I asked the innkeeper.
He smiled a bit sheepishly and nodded.
“Well, I’m glad to hear that,” I said.
They sounded like strong and wonderful people, so this village would be in good hands.
My father, who was doing one last check of our belongings before we hit the road, walked up beside me and tilted his head. “What’s up?”
“The innkeeper’s granddaughters are going to be the new adventurer guild master and the captain of the village watch.”
My father looked a little surprised by the news, but he quickly nodded approvingly. Did he know them?
“At least half the staff at the adventurer guild will tremble when they find out.”
My father’s prediction confused me. Why would they tremble?
“The watchmen, too, I’ll bet,” Zinal said. “Any of the guys who barely escaped getting arrested this time were probably already scheming up a way to do better next time.”
I sighed. Why couldn’t they just know when to throw in the towel?
“But the next captain of the watch will be either Tercules or Amakis. Either way, those guys will be shaking in their boots.”
There was a gleeful grin on Zinal’s face. It went to show just how deeply those women were feared. But would they be okay? I could imagine them being on the receiving end of all sorts of bribery and blackmail.
“Don’t worry, Ivy,” my father said. “Tercules and Amakis can never be bought off, and they’re good at sniffing out traps and turning them against their enemies, so they’ll be fine.”
Zinal and the innkeeper nodded, which went to show just how trusted the women were.
“I really can’t wait to meet them,” I said.
The innkeeper smiled and said he’d let them know.
“We should hit the road,” my father said.
I picked up my luggage and waved to the innkeeper. When we got to the village gate, Fische was there waiting for us.
“Are you done with your errand?” I asked.
Fische grinned devilishly in reply. I probably shouldn’t ask him what he did.
“Druid, Ivy, I’ll meet up with you in three days,” Zinal said.
“All right,” my father said, slipping through the gate.
“Take care, Mr. Zinal,” I said. “We’ll be waiting.”
That morning, Zinal had told us he couldn’t leave with us. Because of an unforeseen discovery, he needed to meet with his friend directly.
“Don’t worry, I won’t do anything too dangerous,” Zinal promised.
I waved goodbye and stepped through the gate. Fische followed right behind us.
“Guess we’ll take it slow until they catch up with us,” my father suggested.
I nodded in agreement as we set out to the next village: Okanny.
“I sure would love a nice leisurely trek all the way to Okanny,” Fische remarked. I smiled sheepishly.
“You’ve been rushed off your feet until just a few minutes ago, haven’t you, Mr. Fische?”
“Yeah, I really did run around until the very last minute. Okanke Village was supposed to be a nice rest on the journey…”
Fische looked behind him, so I followed his gaze. We were walking slowly, but Okanke’s gate was already out of view.
“I can take them out now, can’t I?” I searched for auras in the area, then unlatched the lid to the bag containing my creatures.
“I think it’s fine. I don’t sense anybody nearby,” Fische replied.
When I opened the lid, the creatures jumped out, led by Ciel.
“We’re moving on to the next village today, guys.”
Mrrrow.
“Pu! Pu, puuu.”
“Pefu!”
“Te! Ryu, ryuuu.”
“Gyah!”
At the sound of Toron’s voice, my father lowered the basket from his shoulder and looked inside. Today, Toron had actually woken up in the morning.
“You’re awake! Usually you’re still asleep right about now.”
Toron’s leaves jiggled in a yawn. It was awake but still sleepy. Flame used to sleep a lot, too, and now that was Toron’s job.
“Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.” I casually said the words that popped into my head. What did that mean, exactly?
“You know that saying, too, Ivy?” Fische asked.
That confused me. Was it a saying?
“Did somebody say those words to you once, Mr. Fische?”
“Huh? Yeah, my real employer did.”
Would that be his highest superior in his secret work? I have the feeling “Early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise,” is a saying from my past life. If Fische’s real employer knows the saying, does that mean he has a past life like me?
“He said he learned the saying from his grandmother, who’s no longer with us. She also said, He who runs away wins the fight.”
Huh…I’m not sure why, but I’m feeling nothing. Maybe that’s not a saying from my past life?
“There’s also Haste is bad taste.”
Haste is bad taste? That one does sound familiar, but this saying makes it sound like it’s rude to be hasty, so I think it’s not quite the same. Let me see… Haste makes waste. Yes, that one sounds more familiar…
“What does it mean?” my father asked.
“Uh, I think it’s something like ‘if you act in haste, you’ll lose out on something.’”
My father nodded. “Yeah, those are wise words.”
Maybe Fische’s employer’s grandmother is the same as me. Too bad she’s no longer with us. Was she guided by some invisible hand like I am?
“Ivy…something on your mind?”
I must have really been dazed, because my father’s voice made me jump.
“I’m okay.”
I chuckled and shook my head. My father really did worry too much about me.
“I just thought those sayings were a little interesting.”
“More like a little funny,” Fische smiled. “I think my favorite one is An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, if a guy punches you, kick him, forsooth.”
Huh?! I feel like these sayings have been mutating more and more…
“Yeah, I like that one, too.”
Ack, and my father actually likes it!
Side: Zinal the Bystander, Part 1
Side:
Zinal the Bystander, Part 1
ZINAL’S PERSPECTIVE
“HEY THERE. Haven’t seen you in a while.”
As I watched the criminals running away, I heard somebody call out to me from behind. His aura was faint as it ever was. (But I noticed it, of course.)
“Yeah, long time no see. You’re looking well.”
My friend shrugged his shoulders in reply. His name was Galtos. He did secret work with me, and he was somebody I could trust. He’d saved my life too many times to count, and I’d saved his ass plenty as well.
“So…was it really okay for you to do that?” he asked.
I followed Galtos’s gaze to the fleeing criminals, who had already vanished into the darkness.
“Yeah, it’s fine.”
I sensed an ominous energy from him when I said that.
“I didn’t exactly let them get away.”
“Um, yeah, you did. I just saw them run off.”
“He’s right. I tried to stop them, too, but he insisted—said we could let them run.” Juss, another one of my friends, raised a dissenting voice, his irritation on full display next to me.
Well, to those not in the know, of course it looks like I let those guys escape. Especially since that’s literally what I did.
“So, what’re we doing about the ones who ran?” Galtos asked.
“We’ll catch them, of course,” I answered.
Both Galtos and Juss looked at me like I was crazy.
“You’ll catch them? If you wanted to catch them, why did you let them get away in the first place? Are you dumb?”
Juss hit my shoulder, and it hurt. He was seventy years old and retired from adventuring for many years, yet he was just as crazy-strong as he’d always been.
“Well, I thought you were dumb, but I had no idea you were that dumb.” Galtos unsheathed his sword. He was probably going to run after the guys who’d just escaped that very minute.
“You don’t pull your punches, do ya? I’m telling you, it’s fine. They’re gonna make a move soon.”
The pair gave me a strange look when I said that.
Huh? Ah, it looks like one of them has already arrived.
“I’d like you to meet a friend of mine. This is a monster who’s been helping us a lot in this fight.”
A silhouette suddenly surrounded the three of us.
Wow, this serpent’s a big guy.
“What?!”
Barely after Galtos and Juss’s jaws hit the ground, the trees shook with a collective roar from the forest. It sounded like our escapees had just made friends with the serpents, though I suppose that was the last sort of friendship the boys wanted.
“Hey…Zinal?”
“What’s up?”
Juss’s shaky finger pointed at the serpent.
“Don’t point, man. It’s rude.”
Juss’s fiery eyes shot at me.
This guy’s funny. So this is what stoic Juss looks like when he freaks out.
“Isn’t that a serpent?”
“Can’t you tell? Good evening; thanks for all the help.” As the serpent bowed its head to me, I mimicked Ivy and delicately tickled its nose. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Galtos and Juss scoot back a few paces.
“We’re safe,” I assured them.
Juss cautiously approached the serpent. “Incredible…” He timidly reached out to the serpent, who stared intently at his hand. Maybe it was starting to feel impatient, as its nose swooped forward and nuzzled Juss’s hand. I couldn’t help but chuckle at the way Juss’s hand shook, and I got quite the death glare from him in return.
“The guild master’s tamed monster…it wasn’t a serpent, right?” Galtos also approached cautiously and softly touched the serpent.
“Right, it wasn’t a serpent. And this one isn’t tamed by anybody,” I said.
“Yeah, thought so.” Juss nodded, eyeing the serpent’s forehead.
“I’ve heard that special tamers can form bonds with monsters they haven’t tamed.”
I thought back to the way Ivy interacted with the serpents. She let them crowd around her like it was nothing The sight was not only abnormal; it was impossible. The first time I saw it, I was so shocked it took everything in me not to scream. And when she introduced us and said, “Aren’t they cute?” I struggled quite hard to find an answer.
Serpents were highly intelligent monsters. They weren’t in the Top Three, but you could call them a special monster. A few of them coexisted with humans, but that was incredibly rare. Most serpents lived deep in the forest and tried not to interact with humans. If they suspected you were an enemy who had barged into their forest, they would make sure you’d never come out alive. In the ancient texts, there was even an account of a serpent destroying a village because humans made it angry. And that same type of serpent let Ivy ride on its back with a big smile on its face.
“That so? I’ve never heard of that…” Juss mused in bewilderment.
I nodded in understanding. Of course he wouldn’t have heard of it.
“Probably because there are hardly ever any tamers special enough that monsters would want to help them,” I said.
Hardly ever wasn’t quite it—more like only Ivy. Juss thought over what I’d said.
“Zinal…have you met that special tamer?”
I slightly shifted my gaze toward the terrified cries coming from the forest. They were probably running around a lot, since their screams were coming from a wider range now.
“I have.”
I assumed the serpents were treating the men to that little game of tag because they’d made Ivy cry. The moment Ivy cried inside that cliff, the air around the serpents changed right away. And it wasn’t just them. Ciel and the slimes changed—only for an instant, but I noticed. I don’t understand monsters very well, but they were probably very angry at the people who made Ivy cry.
“May we ask who it is?” Galtos asked, his eyes brimming with curiosity.
“It might make the serpents mad, but if you’re okay with that…”
The serpent suddenly jutted its face away from my petting hand and looked down at us.
“Ah! Zinal, don’t you dare drop that name,” Galtos sputtered. “Sorry, I promise I’ll never ask again. By the way…just out of curiosity…exactly how many serpents are helping this tamer?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “I dunno.”
“From the way the trees are moving, I’d say there’s around fourteen of them?” Juss suggested.
I looked into the forest. I knew the serpents could move without a sound, yet the trees kept swaying and rustling wherever they were.
“No, more than fourteen?”
There were about twenty-eight guys on the run, and since they could possibly have scattered, there might be more than twenty serpents now.
“Yeah, I think there’s at least twenty,” I said.
“Twenty! Just one is scary enough…” Juss muttered. “Well, they’re only getting chased because they’re running. If they hadn’t run for it, they wouldn’t be in this mess.”
I smiled cynically in reply.
“So, wait, Zinal, how did you join this task force?” Galtos asked.
“A couple days ago, we finally got the guild master’s assistant to tell us where the master died. When we went out to the forest to look into it, we found two serpents waiting for us by the dump.”
My explanation seemed to surprise Galtos. I guess that was fair, since serpents don’t make a habit of hanging around dumps waiting for people.
“They were probably looking for my aura,” I explained. “They wanted to tell me about what happened. It was quite the ordeal. We knew they wanted to tell us something, but it was hard to understand.”
To be honest, I wanted to give myself a medal for being able to understand as much as I did.
“It really is amazing you understood anything.”
“Anyway, the serpents brought some smaller monsters along and pushed them so they’d run. Then when they ran, the serpents caught them and brought them back. After they did this three more times, I suddenly got an idea and asked them, ‘Do you want me to let them escape while they’re in the convoy?’ And it turned out I was right. You can’t imagine how relieved I was.”
From an outsider’s perspective, two serpents and I were terrorizing a bunch of terrified little monsters. It was probably quite the brutal sight. Still, I really was glad I’d managed to understand the serpents.
“Oh! So the serpents…they’re toying with the ones who escaped?”
I followed Juss’s gaze and smiled. Since it was nighttime, I couldn’t see much, but I could make out a serpent holding and waving something in its mouth. I assumed it was one of the escapees.
“So, what’re we gonna do about them?” Galtos asked.
I looked back at the village gate, where two men were sneaking out. We hid behind some trees and checked out their faces.
“No doubt about it: It’s our old friends.”
I hadn’t thought I’d bump into any church bastards in this village. Okanke Village didn’t have a church. The guild master had destroyed the church, using some rather vicious methods. Thinking about it now, that guild master must have been some guy. After doing that, he methodically quashed all the church’s opportunities to build, so they couldn’t steal money from the village. That was why there was no church presence there. So what were clergy from the royal capital doing here?
“What should we do?” I asked.
“Secure them and take them with us,” Juss answered.
Galtos nodded. “Okay, we’ll just catch—aaand they fainted.”
Just then, I noticed that the serpent who’d been next to us had lunged at the two clergymen from up high in a tree. The men fainted without so much as a whimper.
Were you bored, buddy? Well, I don’t blame them for fainting. Seeing you lunge at them from above must’ve been traumatizing.
Side: Zinal the Bystander, Part 2
Side:
Zinal the Bystander, Part 2
ZINAL’S PERSPECTIVE
JUSS TIED UP the unconscious clergymen with some rope.
“Wait, Juss!”
“What?”
“Sorry, but can you untie them for a bit? I want to look them over,” I said.
Juss gave me a funny look. That was when I remembered he hadn’t been doing any secret work in a while.
“We recently found some clergymen with summoning circles carved on their bodies,” I explained. “Maybe these guys have them, too.”
Juss’s eyes widened. “Summoning circles on their bodies? Is that even a thing?”
I guess you would have to see something like that for yourself to believe it, because why would anybody carve something so terrifying into their own body? From the lack of shock on Galtos’s face, he clearly already knew that intel, but he was eyeing me with a dubious frown.
“Yeah, it’s a thing,” I replied.
Juss loosened the ropes and pulled up their clothes. We also rolled up their pants to check their legs, but there were no summoning circles to be found.
“No summoning circles,” Galtos said.
“Yeah, that’s a good thing.” I nodded and put their clothes back on. “Go ahead, Juss.”
“Hey, Zinal, did you find Rulu’s remains?” Juss asked me as he tied up the men.
“There was nothing to find. All his personal effects were destroyed, and we didn’t even find anything where his body was. All he left behind were the things buried behind that cliff wall.”
“Okay…”
The guild master was murdered in the forest, not in a cave, and his body was just carelessly dumped there. We looked around, hoping that if we couldn’t find his bones, at least we might find anything he had on his body at the time…but there weren’t even traces of the corpse itself. Whenever a corpse was left in the forest, monsters trashed it. That was probably why the guild master’s assistant had dumped the body there.
“By the way, what happened to the scumbag who lured the guild master into the forest?” Galtos asked. “I don’t think he was with the prisoners.”
Juss shook his head at Galtos in reply. Just then, I remembered Galtos had arrived behind schedule, so he still hadn’t been briefed on everything.
“Rulu’s detractors took his little sister hostage,” I told him.
“Wow, really? Did she get saved?” Galtos asked.
Juss clenched his fist. “When she found out it was her fault that her big brother betrayed Rulu…she died. She was sickly to begin with. And her older brother was so tormented with guilt over what happened to her and his role in it that he killed himself. Their uncle found the letters they both left and gave them to me.”
The uncle in question was somebody Juss had saved from a nobleman in the past, which must have been why he entrusted Juss with the letters. It was scary to think what might have happened if those letters had fallen into the wrong hands.
“Well, what a shame… Ah, so that’s why the order changed to ‘Capture everyone alive.’”
Galtos nodded in approval. The first order we received from our secret employer was “Expose the truth and capture the criminals—dead or alive.” But in light of the new information, the order was changed to “Don’t kill anybody—bring everyone to me alive.” The order not to kill was not made out of mercy. The person pulling our strings was anything but merciful toward criminals. The reason they were to be brought back alive was “Killing them ends their suffering too quickly.”
What a terrifying employer I have…though I’m happily obeying the orders.
“If our employer hadn’t ordered me not to, I would have killed them myself.” Juss sneered bitterly into the forest. He and the guild master were friends and had worked together many times. The reason he’d come to Okanke Village in the first place was because he sensed foul play when he heard the guild master had died.
“I’m really glad you came here, Juss,” I assured him.
Their uncle had apparently been really torn over what to do with their letters. If he handed them to somebody on the wrong side, that might get his family killed. But he knew trying to flee the village with his family would absolutely get them killed. He was even considering pretending he didn’t see the letters, if things really went south. But when Juss happened to find him then, he decided to entrust the letters to him, which must have taken a lot of courage. Even though Juss had helped him in the past, there was no guarantee he was still a good person. But apparently, the mere fact that Juss wasn’t from Okanke Village was enough to earn his trust.
“Oh? Somebody’s coming our way.”
Probably trying to run and hide in the village. I don’t think that’s happening, buddy. I looked at the gate, the only entrance to the village.
“Looks like telling the gatekeepers to hole themselves up inside today was the right call,” I said.
Juss smiled. “Sure was. I didn’t get why you said it at the time, but now that I’m seeing it, I know that was the way to go.”
Our eyes were turned toward the serpent sitting in front of the gate. Noticing the approaching presence, the serpent rose up and slithered its tongue. Its sharp eyes peered into the trees.
“I know it’s not gonna attack us, but I’m still terrified,” Galtos said. Juss nodded dumbly.
“They’re very cute, apparently.” I relayed Ivy’s words, chuckling at the pair.
What did she say again? Something like, “Just look at their big round eyes and the little tongue slithering out of their big mouths—isn’t it cute?” To be honest, I don’t see it at all. No matter how you slice it, the serpents give off a ferocious image, and that red tongue slithering out of their mouth shackles you in terror.
“They’re what?!” The pair gasped at me in disbelief.
This time, I couldn’t help but laugh loudly. The serpent eyed me, but all that time with Ivy had made me immune to its terror. It was funny when I remembered how my back broke out in a cold sweat the first time. Wait a minute…was Ivy transforming me?
“Agh! It’s looking at us,” Juss hissed.
I put a big smile on my face and waved at the serpent, who answered by waving a little right and left.
“Zinal…you really are amazing,” Galtos said.
I looked at Galtos in confusion. He was staring back and forth between me and the serpent.
“What’s so amazing about me?”
“Um, how can you act so calm around a serpent?”
How can I act so calm? Well…because that’s how Ivy acts around them. Whenever she meets the serpents’ gazes, she happily waves at them. And she pets their noses and pats their bodies softly, hugs them, rides them… That’s right, I remember one time she stuck her head in a serpent’s mouth because she wondered what their teeth were like. That’s why it never felt strange… And that terrifying tongue? Well, I can’t ever see it as cute, but I’m not scared of it anymore.
I chuckled softly. Being with Ivy really had changed me a little.
“What’s so funny?”
“I dunno.”
Galtos and Juss eyed me with subtle looks of disgust on their faces. Rude.
Rustle, rustle!
The trees shook violently nearby as a man flew out of them. His aura had told me he was coming…and now we knew it was the assistant’s right-hand man.
“What the—how—?!” His face twisted in fear when he saw us.
Rustle, rustle!
“Ahh! Help me!”
There was a shaking in the trees behind us, and a man fell over while trying to run toward us.
“Help you? When you boys ran away from us?” Juss demanded.
The man shook his head, his eyes nervously darting behind him. What’s his name again? I think it’s Bol? No, Bonan? Hol?
“Those bastards are attacking me!”
The shaking trees were coming nearer and nearer. Wow, they were shaking the trees so violently before, but now they’re taking it slow. Yes, good. That does ramp up the suspense.
“And who are those bastards?” I asked innocently.
The man glared. “As if you can’t see them! Come on, help me!”
Hey, don’t take it out on me.
“Sorry, but it serves you right for trying to run. It’s hardly fair to blame it on us.” Juss shook his head with a heavy sigh.
Rustle! Rustle!
“Eep! I don’t care anymore! Just let me in the village! They’re gonna eat me!”
“Nah, I don’t think they’ll eat you, buddy.”
If they wanted to eat you, they would’ve done it already. Now, how did you escape those ropes when you were caught? If you just thought about it rationally, you’d have realized something was up. Then again, I guess it’s hard to think rationally when giant serpents are chasing you.
Rustle!
The serpent’s face poked out of the trees.
“Ahhh!”
Screaming, the man tried to run away on his wobbly limbs and wound up crawling on the ground.
“Man, this hurts to watch,” Juss said.
The serpent stuck its head out from the branches and nodded, causing Juss and Galtos to shoot startled looks at me.
“Yeah, don’t ask me. You’re seeing it for yourself. The serpents understand us.”
The serpent quietly hovered its face over the man as he crawled on the ground, then lowered its face toward his back.
“GRAAAAGH!”
The man’s screech was just so pathetic that I had to laugh.
“Krr-krr-krr-krr!”
I turned around at the strange noise and noticed it was coming from the serpent, whose eyes narrowed to slits as it poked the man with its nose.
“It’s playing…” Juss observed.
“Sure is.” I smiled back. The serpents were having a lot of fun with this little operation.
“Should be any minute now…”
About thirty minutes had passed since the criminals had escaped. I needed to catch them one more time and give them a present. I reached into my magic bag and pulled out a pile of slave bands. Slave bands were ordinarily prohibited until sentencing, but there were exceptions, such as if the criminals attempted to escape.
“Sorry, boys, but you tried to run away, so you’ll need to wear these.”
These were special slave bands for escapees, so they wouldn’t be able to cause any more harm. They also couldn’t run away or talk, so they could be quietly transported—they were an excellent product. Perfection.
I petted the noses of the two serpents who approached me. What a smooth, soothing sensation it was. But I’m sorry, Ivy. There’s no way I could ever think their nostrils are cute.
Chapter 548: A Leisurely Trek to the Next Village
Chapter 548:
A Leisurely Trek to the Next Village
“LOOK AT US, walking on a maintained road. It’s been a long time… Wait, actually, it’s been never.”
My father laughed. “Yeah, travels with you always go through the forest, Ivy. Through the deep forest, at that.”
I giggled. “Yeah, we do always seem to tromp through the woods.”
We’d decided to go on a leisurely walk on the village road until we met up with Zinal. This was technically because he might not be able to find us if we went into the brush…but boy, what a smooth walk.
I loved walking through the forest. There were all sorts of interesting things to look at. Especially deep in the forest, you’d find rare flowers. The only issue was that all the rocks and tree roots on the ground made walking difficult.
But the walk out of Okanke had been smooth sailing so far! I said the road was maintained, but its care really was minimal… Wild to think it made such a difference.
“Zinal should catch up with us soon,” Fische said.
My father nodded. He’d said he would come join us as soon as he finished what he needed to do. And since the serpent was nodding beside us, he would probably arrive on Snakey-back.
“Wait a minute. If he’s riding on Snakey-back, maybe we should meet up in the forest after all…”
Fische shook his head at me. “There’s a big river between Okanke and Okanny. It’s hard to cut straight through the forest.”
A big river? That’s right, I remember there was one on the map. It was so big, I wondered if it was a misprint, but I guess it’s really there.
“I thought the river accidentally got drawn too big on the map,” I admitted.
“Yeah, that’s just how wide that river is. If you want to travel from Okanke to Okanny, you need to either take the village road or go through the forest along the village road.”
Fische’s explanation made me look at the map again, and he was right. The river cut off only along the village road and the forest next to it. But where was that huge amount of water even flowing to? Did it go underneath the village road?
“Are you wondering where all that water goes?” my father asked. I nodded. “The river connects to a giant underground cave, apparently. The current is fast and strong, so it can only be observed passively from nearby. They say nobody knows what the inside of the cave looks like.”
Wow, a river in a cave! It sounds interesting but dangerous, so we should probably stay away.
“Oh, right! I forgot to ask, what happened with the Okanke village landmark investigation?”
Fische’s question confused me. What did he mean by “village landmark investigation?” Oh, was he talking about the tree and big boulder by the two types of blossoms? That’s right, we were looking into that, since the map didn’t match Zinal’s and Fische’s memories.
My father sighed. “A big shot in the village paid to have it taken off the map.”
“It got taken off?”
“Yeah. Near the second marker, there’s a field where expensive medicinal herbs grow. He wanted to monopolize that spot, so he paid to have it erased from the map. You know how adventurers head toward landmarks so they won’t get lost? He probably didn’t want them going there. The late guild master found out and everyone involved was punished.”
“Okay, wow…” Fische sighed tiredly after my father finished the story. “Sorry for making you do such a pesky investigation.”
My father laughed. “It wasn’t pesky at all—I asked a villager about it and got the story right away. But I’m sorry I forgot to tell you. I went ahead and told a staff member at the adventurer guild that the map was confusing, so one of the tree markers is probably tied with some string by now.”
Apparently, whenever there were similar landmarks on both sides of a village road, one was tied with string so people could tell the difference between the two.
“Okay, thanks for letting me know.”
Wait a minute…what’s that sound? I thought…I just heard something…
“Oh! It’s the sound of water!”
The sound of running water was coming from the forest and echoing out, but I couldn’t see a river anywhere nearby. Did that mean there was a huge amount of water flowing?
“Pu! Pu, puuu.”
I turned when I heard the excitement in Sora’s voice to see the slime impatiently looking into the forest. We needed to pay attention—it might be dangerous.
“Sora, not today.”
“Pu?!” Sora made a strange sound.
“The river nearby is very, very big. It’s flowing very fast, too, so we can’t play in it like we usually do.”
If the river was as big as the map made it seem, we would be in big trouble.
“She’s right, Sora,” my father said. “If you try to swim in it like you usually do, you’ll get stuck in the current and Ciel won’t be able to rescue you. Better luck next time, okay?”
Sora looked at Ciel.
“Hey, don’t make Ciel come to your defense!”
“Puuu,” Sora whined. But I really had to put my foot down this time.
“Does Sora like the water?” Fische asked.
I pondered this. Was it the water Sora liked? No, I didn’t think it had been all that excited when we went to a lake. What’s the difference between rivers and lakes…?
“Maybe Sora likes running water?” my father suggested.
Oh, now that makes sense!
“Pu! Pu, puuu,” Sora confirmed. Then I remembered Sora did seem to enjoy tumbling in the current.
“It sure is fun letting the water carry you, huh?” Fische said.
“Pu! Pu, puuu.”
With a playful laugh, Fische picked Sora up. “But the river here is dangerous, you hear? There’s lots of water. If you let the current carry you, you’ll wind up in some strange place before you know it, and Ivy might not be able to find you.”
“…Pu!”
Wait a minute. Sora looks…
“Oh! Okay, we’ll help you find a river where it’s all right to let the current carry you,” Fische promised.
“Pu! Pu, puuu.” Sora happily jiggled in Fische’s arms.
“Can you deliver on that promise?” my father asked.
Fische shrugged. “I dunno. I just made Sora so sad I had to do something.”
He was right. When he suggested Sora might lose me…Sora’s reaction surprised me. It was like I could just see the word “Nooooo” sailing overhead?
“Yeah, I can see why Sora’s reaction startled you,” my father said, giving the slime some pats in Fische’s arms.
“Sora’s range of expressions are still on a whole other level from ordinary slimes, but that expression I just saw definitely was extraordinary,” Fische said.
My father smiled. “Yeah, Sora is really great at expressing emotions.”
“The first time I saw it, I was genuinely shocked,” Fische said. “I almost thought Sora wasn’t actually a slime.”
I gave him a curious look. “Are there monsters that look like slimes?”
Fische shook his head. “Uh, no, there aren’t, so I thought Sora might be a new breed.”
Oh, a new breed! Just like there was that rumor about us riding on Snakey-back being a new breed of monster.
“Oh—I wonder if the serpent caravan will turn into a rumor again this time?” I asked.
Fische averted his eyes. Why? That’s strange…
“There probably will be some serpent rumors, yeah. But none about them traveling,” he said.
Rumors not about them traveling? What else…could it be? I can’t think of anything.
“Don’t worry about it. It’s just a rumor,” my father said, gently patting my head.
Maybe I really don’t need to worry about it. I feel like I don’t want to hear whatever the rumor is anyway.
“Got it.”
“Your instincts scare me sometimes, Druid,” Fische said.
Huh? What did Fische say just now? What’s “rinstincts”?
“Did you say something?” I asked Fische, who shook his head back.
Mrrrow.
I looked toward Ciel and saw the adandara looking back the way we just came. Was something wrong?
“What’s up?” I asked, petting Ciel’s head and searching the forest for auras. “Is there a monster?”
“Seems like it,” Fische said. “And it’s headed right for us.” He unsheathed his sword and took up a battle stance. I looked at my father to find he was already pointing his sword at the trees.
“Ivy, hide behind a tree.”
“Okay.”
I called out to my creatures, and we all hid behind a big tree. The aura I was sensing from the monster was strange, though. It felt…scared?
“Something’s off. Is the monster scared? This thing I sense in the forest…this aura…is it a serpent?” Fische asked.
I widened my search for auras, and I definitely did sense the auras of some serpents between us and the monster.
“Yes, there are some serpents near us,” I said.
Is Zinal with them?
“They’re coming.”
My father’s voice made me look up to see a monster charging at the men with incredible force. However, it slipped right past them without even so much as a glance.
“I think it’s overwhelmed by the serpent auras.” Fische sheathed his sword.
“As overwhelmed as it is, that monster won’t attack us. As long as we don’t get in its way, we won’t even get hurt. But wow, it really was overwhelmed, wasn’t it?”
My father sheathed his sword and watched the monster run. I agreed with him. Were serpents really enough to overwhelm a monster that badly?
Chapter 549: Rendezvous
Chapter 549:
Rendezvous
“GEE, THAT’S STRANGE,” my father said.
“It is, right?” I agreed.
Fische nodded beside us. For the past few minutes, several different types of monsters had run past us. To be honest, I’d never seen monsters so overwhelmed and confused before. Even when we rode through the forest on the Snakey caravan, the monsters hadn’t been this frazzled.
“What do you think happened?” my father asked.
“Beats me,” I shook my head, just as baffled as Fische.
“Oh, Zinal is coming!”
I looked where Fische was pointing to see Zinal waving on Snakey-back. I waved in return.
“Huh?”
I’m not sure what…but something’s different.
“What’s wrong, Ivy?”
I wasn’t quite sure how to explain it to my father. It might’ve just been my imagination. But…
“Maybe the serpents are excited?”
My father and Fische looked at the serpents.
“You think?”
“Yeah. Their tongues are moving faster than usual, and their tails are a little faster, too.”
“I’m surprised you even noticed that.”
I didn’t catch what Fische said, but he sounded amazed. Had I said anything amazement-worthy?
“Zinal, good to have you back. How’s our problem doing?”
“It’s gone. But, well…” Zinal trailed off and smiled sheepishly. I couldn’t quite place his expression.
“What happened?” Fische asked.
“Well, it’s like this…”
Is it okay for me to hear this? Should I step away? I looked at my father, who simply shrugged his shoulders. I should just ask Zinal.
“Agh!”
Right when I was about to ask Zinal, I suddenly got swooped off the ground. Feeling something firm against my stomach, I looked down to see a serpent beneath me. Apparently, it had just decided to lift me, which was startling.
“Um…what was that for?” I asked.
“Pu! Pu, puuu.”
“Te! Ryu, ryuuu.”
Sora and Flame seemed very excited by what Snakey had done. Not sure what to do, I looked at the men. My father and Fische appeared stunned, but Zinal was smiling sheepishly.
“Sorry, Ivy. The serpents are in a really good mood, so they’re acting a lot more assertively.”
Ohh, so that’s why their tongues and tails were moving differently. Were all those retreating monsters confused and overwhelmed because the serpents were excited?
“They’ve been like this for over half a day,” Zinal sighed.
“Whoa!”
Over half a day? Will they be all right? I made eye contact with the serpent lifting me, and its tail slithered with even more reckless abandon. Strange. They were usually so docile.
“Did something good happen to you?” I asked.
From the way Snakey waved its tail, I knew I was right.
“They helped me with a little problem,” Zinal explained. “And they seem to be happy that it went so well, because they’ve been like this ever since we finished.”
Snakey waved in reply.
They’re happy it went well? Aw, that’s kinda cute.
I reached out to the Snakey holding me and petted its forehead.
“I’m glad things went well for you. But let’s dial it down, okay?”
It was adorable, but I really needed to calm them. I felt sorry for all the overwhelmed monsters.
“Little good that’ll do if our monsters are still overexcited,” my father pointed out.
I followed his gaze to see Sora and Flame having a jumping contest.
“Sora and Flame, you kids dial it down, too, okay?”
“Pu! Pu, puuu.”
Boing.
“Te! Ryu, ryuuu.”
Boing.
Yeah, this won’t do at all. Oh, Ciel stopped them from bouncing! Wait a minute, where did Zinal go? He was next to me a moment ago.
I looked at my surroundings from Snakey’s hold to find him chatting with Fische a few yards away. Were they debriefing each other?
“It seems that all the people directly involved with the guild master’s murder were arrested, and so was everyone who knew but didn’t do anything. The ones who made those illegal contracts were arrested, too,” my father told me.
“That’s good,” I said with a nod. I liked to think this would make the guild master’s and Ruzzy’s spirits rest easier. I looked down at the serpent holding me. Had it helped in the arrests?
“Did you help Zinal make the arrests?” I asked.
The serpent tilted its head a little. Was I wrong? Oh well, it doesn’t matter.
“Thanks for the help,” I said.
“Krr-krr-krr-krr!”
The serpent’s reply brought a smile to my face. I didn’t know what Snakey had done, but I doubted it was anything brutal. The serpents were all such sweet souls.
“Sorry we took so long. Let’s head out.”
Finished with their conversation, Zinal and Fische came back to us.
“Hey, Snakey? Can you put me down now?” I asked the serpent, who showed no sign of wanting to let me go. But after a moment of musing, I was lowered down. “Thanks.”
Snakey rubbed its nose against me in reply.
“Why are you always so gentle with Ivy?” Zinal whined.
A different Snakey answered Zinal with a headbutt.
“See?! Completely different treatment!” Zinal picked himself off the ground and protested at the serpent who had knocked him down. It was nuzzling its face against him. “Again, know your strength! You really do handle me horribly, you know?!”
With a merry laugh, Zinal swatted the serpent’s nose. It looked like the two had forged a good bond. In fact, they looked much friendlier than they’d been a few days earlier. Maybe working together had deepened their relationship?
“Ivy, something on your mind?”
“I was just a little surprised to see what good friends they’ve turned into,” I answered, smiling as I watched them.
My father made a face. “Good friends? From where I’m standing, it just looks like the serpent is using Zinal as a plaything.”
I could definitely see how he got that impression, but the serpents clearly trusted Zinal. I assumed that was why they acted so needy with him.
“Hey, don’t pull on my clothes!”
Fische laughed at the hint of defeat in Zinal’s voice.
“We should head out,” my father said. “What should we do about the serpents?”
The serpent swished away from Zinal the moment my father said this, and the one next to me also scooted back.
“Do we split up here?” I asked them.
“Krr-rr-rr-rr!” the serpent trilled sadly.
I reached out and touched its nose. “I’m sorry. I hate to see you go, but I won’t stop you. Thanks. I had a lot of fun.”
“Krr-rr-rr-rr!”
After getting a lot of pats, Snakey quickly slithered away. Looking back at us, the serpents headed off the way they came.
“Bye! See you later,” I said.
The serpents swished their long bodies in reply.
Wow, there’re six Snakeys here today. I didn’t see them all since they were hiding in the biggest one’s shadow.
“Aw, they’re gone,” Zinal sighed sadly.
Fische chuckled. “You all sure got chummy. Mostly because they were using you as a toy, though.”
Zinal smiled sheepishly. “They’re very intelligent monsters, seriously. Their control of their strength is exquisite.”
But didn’t he just complain about Snakey not knowing its own strength? Oh, is he trying to say the Snakeys toyed with the criminals just enough not to hurt them? Well, yes, I agree they do have excellent control over their strength.
“Well, let’s head to the next village,” Zinal said.
“Not so fast,” my father interjected.
Fische and Zinal gave him a curious look. “Something wrong?”
“The monsters are too excited,” he replied.
I looked down the road leading to Okanny Village and scanned for auras. I could feel a bunch of monsters wandering nervously inside the forest, and I could even hear the usually elusive sound of them moving through the treetops.
“Yeah, that’s no good. Guess we’ll have to wait until they calm down,” Zinal said.
Everyone nodded in agreement. We couldn’t do anything about it.
Mee-yaaah!
I looked up with a start as Ciel’s voice echoed through the trees all around us. And for some reason, the adandara looked very smug.
Flap, flap…rustle, rustle…tomp-tomp-tomp-tomp!
“I’m impressed.”
I nodded back at my father. With just one roar, Ciel had made all the monsters hiding in the trees disappear. That’s our Ciel.
Mrrrow.
SIDE: In Moderation!
Side:
In Moderation!
ZINAL ASKED US OVER for a relaxing evening in his room. When I went to invite my creatures, I found they were already half-asleep.
“Let’s let them sleep,” my father said. “They must be tired from all that playing in the forest.”
“Good idea. Good night, everyone.”
“Pu-puuu.”
“Teeeh-ryuuu.”
“…pefyu.”
“Gyau.”
My father and I chuckled over their drowsy replies.
“Wanna come with us, Ciel?” I asked.
Ciel was still in high spirits. Even after playing with the others in the forest that day, the adandara was still wide awake. Getting a head-nuzzle against my thighs in reply, I smiled and gave Ciel’s head a pat.
“Ready?” my father asked.
“Sure.”
As I put Ciel, who was transformed into a slime, into the bag slung over my shoulder, I wondered why Zinal wanted to have a “relaxing evening in his room.” Did he have something to talk about?
We left our room and headed to Zinal’s, arriving just as Fische was stepping out. “Come on in,” he said, holding the door open for us. But was it really okay for him to let us in the room where Zinal was staying without permission?
“What’s wrong? Come on in, guys,” Zinal’s voice came from inside the room. He probably noticed we were hesitating at the door.
When we stepped inside, a surprise greeted us. I never would’ve imagined Zinal’s room being so tidy.
“Ah! Ivy, you’re shocked to see my room so clean, aren’t you?”
Oops. He saw through me.
“Er, no sir, I wasn’t thinking that at all.”
Zinal was staring into my eyes and making me uncomfortable, but I held his gaze.
“What exactly are you two doing?” my father asked, tiredly looking back and forth between us. Hey, in my defense, it was starting to feel like a staring contest I couldn’t let him win.
“Zinal, act your age,” my father sighed at him.
He shrugged and looked away.
“Anyway, what’s the occasion? You don’t usually invite us just for tea.”
Zinal shrugged his shoulders. “Nothing; I really just thought we should make time to relax. Have a seat, you two.”
My father and I sat side by side on the chairs he offered. I opened my bag, and Ciel quietly jumped out onto my lap.
“That so?” my father asked.
“Yeah. So anyway, Druid, we can always have tea, of course, but would you rather have a little fun?”
Zinal playfully pulled an expensive-looking box out of his magic bag. My father looked shocked by the sight of it.
“What is that?” I asked.
There was no crest or lettering on the box, so I had no clue what was inside.
“See for yourself.” Zinal opened it and pulled out a bottle. I nodded when I saw the crest displayed on it.
“Liquor?” I asked.
“That’s right. Druid, wanna drink this with me?”
I glanced at my father to see him staring at the bottle, eyes brimming with excitement.
“How did you even get this bottle? They don’t sell this anymore.”
It’s not sold anymore? So it must be a special liquor.
My father took the bottle from Zinal and stared at it solemnly. “Yeah…this is definitely the real deal.”
Zinal smiled mischievously. Did that mean there were fakes?
“Of course it’s real. So, wanna drink?”
“I sure do!”
My father’s eager reply made me giggle…which he must have heard, since he gave me an embarrassed look.
“May I?” he asked.
“Huh? Of course.”
I never thought he’d given up alcohol. But hadn’t he said he’d drink in moderation?
“Just don’t drink too much, okay?”
As I looked at my father and Zinal, I got just a little worried.
They’ll be okay, right?
Zinal merrily poured the alcohol into three cups which the two of them immediately started drinking.
“Hey, everybody, I’m ba—ah, you’re already drinking.”
When Fische returned to the room with snacks, he smiled at the sight of the already drinking pair.
“Hey, there’s nothing wrong with it. We’ve got a lot,” Zinal said.
A lot?
“Well, sure, but it’s kind of irritating to see you start without me. Couldn’t you have waited just two more minutes?”
Zinal chuckled in reply.
“Here, Ivy, this is for you,” Fische said, setting a basket the size of a fist in front of me. It had a lid, so I opened it and looked inside.
“Ooh, it’s shaped like flowers! What is it?”
“It’s a sweet called hepe.”
The cute little treats made me a bit giddy. I thanked Fische and took a sweet out of the basket. The sweet scent of flowers hit my nose, and it was a lot firmer than I’d expected it would be.
“Thanks, Mr. Fische,” I said, biting the flower-shaped treat. “It’s so tender.”
The pastry softly crumbled away, revealing something saucy inside.
“Agh! It’s spilling!”
I quickly popped the rest of the sweet in my mouth, and a tangy flavor filled it. The contrasting sweet and sour blended exquisitely. It was delicious.
“Well? Is it good?” Fische asked.
Since my mouth was full, I answered with a nod.
“Ha ha ha! Yeah, that sweet fills your mouth with sauce, so it’s messy to eat.”
I nodded meaningfully at Fische again.
“Aren’t there any for us?” Zinal asked Fische poutingly.
He shrugged his shoulders. “You don’t like to eat sweets when you drink liquor, so I didn’t get you any.”
“Oh. Fair point.” Zinal nodded and sipped his drink. He seemed to have a different aura about him. Was it because he was tipsy?
“Hey, Ivy, if I find any other tasty treats, I’ll be sure to buy you some.”
“Thank you very much.”
Fische and I went on to chat a little about sweets. He seemed to know about a lot of specialty shops.
“Once we get to the capital, I’ll take you to all the best ones.”
“That would be great. When we get there, I’m in your hands.”
My father and Zinal suddenly laughed much louder than before. I shot a surprised look at them…and my jaw dropped in disbelief.
“Uh…when did you drink all that?”
Both Zinal and my father had several empty bottles in front of them.
Fische sighed, “Zinal, Druid, you’re drinking too much.”
Zinal adamantly shook his head. “We’re fine. This isn’t enough to get us drunk.”
“Yeah, we’re okay.”
Zinal and my father both looked normal enough. I assumed they really were fine.
“Just try not to overdo it, all right?” I pleaded.
They might have been fine then, but they couldn’t keep up that pace much longer. If they got hangovers the next morning, they would suffer, not me.
“Aw, we’ll be okay. We won’t drink ourselves into hangovers, I promise,” Zinal said, and my father nodded.
Really, though? I can think of several times where my father promised he wouldn’t get a hangover and he did.
“Ivy, I’ll be okay this time.”
“Okay, I believe you. Oh, I’d better be getting to bed.”
Those scrumptious sweets and the tasty tea had made me sleepy. I was sure I would have sweet dreams.
“Okay. Well, I’ll stay here just a bit longer, then I’ll join you,” my father said.
“Okay. Good night, Mr. Zinal and Mr. Fische, Dad. Come on, Ciel.”
Mrrrow.
I was a little worried, but I decided they would be all right with Fische watching over them.
“Oh, bother…”
I was right to have worried last night. Of course they drank in Zinal’s room all night long, and Fische joined them, too.
“Ahhh, I’m sorry, Ivy.”
“It’s okay.”
…Oh, right! I know!
I left Zinal’s room and went back to ours. After I got what I needed, I borrowed the kitchenette on our floor.
“Okay, let’s make this thing!”
I got out a pot and put the medicinal herbs that cured hangovers in it. Usually each adult got one pinch, but today? They were getting two. I mixed the brew and poured it into three cups.
“There. A strong hangover tea.”
Knock, knock.
I brought my brew to Zinal’s room. “I’ve made you all some hangover tea. Here, drink up.”
I handed the cups to my father, Zinal, and Fische. They all stared into their cups and froze.
“Ivy…”
Ha ha! This is kind of fun.
“Is this—”
“Is there something you’d like to say, father-of-mine who promised he wouldn’t drink too much last night?”
“…uh, thanks for the tea.”
“You’re welcome. Mr. Zinal and Mr. Fische, do drink up.”
“Yeah…sure. Dang, it’s strong.”
I only put in two pinches of leaves. Granted, that’s twice as many as I usually add…
With a collective sigh, the trio gulped their hangover medicine down. I was impressed by their vigor.
“Dang…this stuff really works,” my father muttered, a twisted grimace of discomfort on his face. Zinal and Fische nodded silently in agreement, and I couldn’t help but giggle at the sight.
Ooh, I know. Next time they get hangovers, I’ll brew the tea three times as strong.
BONUS: Amiche and Luffie’s Everyday Life
Bonus Short:
Amiche and Luffie’s Everyday Life
AMICHE’S PERSPECTIVE
I LOOKED OVER THE VILLAGE as I headed to the dump where I worked. Three days earlier, a high-level monster had appeared near our village, throwing it into disarray. However, the adventurers quickly went into the forest to put the monster down before it could attack. Nobody died, and any wounded adventurers were healed and ready to go back to work, so the entire village was elated today. Later tonight there would be a big banquet to celebrate the monster’s subjugation, focused on the adventurers who had put it down.
“Puu?” Lulu sounded a little uneasy about the different atmosphere in the village.
I smiled. “It’s okay, Lulu. Everyone in the village is just very happy today.”
Lulu looked around, then bounced up into my arms. “Puu.”
Are you still anxious? Or you did you not understand me…?
“Hi, Amiche!” The shopkeeper of the bakery I often visited waved at me.
“Good morning,” I called back.
“On your way to work?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well, they may have put down the monster, but be careful. The forest is still a dangerous place.”
“I will, thank you. But the village watch and guards are out in full force today, so I’m sure I’ll be okay.”
Four months had now passed since I decided to improve my relationship with Lulu, and now I spoke with Lulu not only at the dump but also in town. Sometimes we’d laugh, sometimes we’d play, and sometimes we’d even fight in the middle of the street. As this became our daily routine, the villagers started looking at us differently.
Before, I’d been a useless tamer who couldn’t do her job well. None of the villagers ever told me so to my face, but as our ability to digest the trash got weaker with each passing year, they would trash-talk us behind our backs. But before I knew it, people were greeting me with smiles again, and there were more of those smiles with each passing day.
“Puu?”
Lulu looked at me curiously, still oblivious as to why the villagers were acting differently. I mean, how could Lulu know when I still hadn’t—
“Puu!”
Huh?!
I looked at Lulu, and a pair of slightly angry eyes stared back up at me.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Puu.”
Lulu looked around, so I did the same.
“Ack!”
I’d been so lost in thought that I hadn’t noticed we had passed through the gate.
“Sorry, Lulu. Thanks for telling me.”
“Puu,” Lulu said smugly.
I hugged my slime tight. Lulu had been much more talkative lately and pointed out a lot of things to me. Ugh, what a cutie!
“Hi, what’cha doing?” Luffie asked.
I finally looked at him and saw a strange expression on his face. “Sorry, I was just thinking…”
“So, are you going somewhere?” Luffie asked.
Huh?
“I called out to you at the gate, but you walked right on by without a word.”
“Agggh, I’m sorry. I was just lost in thought.”
Luffie laughed quietly. “Oh, good. You had such a grim look on your face, I was afraid something was wrong.”
I giggled. “Thanks for caring, Luffie.”
Ever since I improved my relationship with Lulu, I’d been speaking from the heart more. After all, Lulu seemed to understand me better that way.
“Let’s go,” Luffie pointed outside the gate.
“Off to work we go.”
“Puu.”
“Peh!”
Oops, I almost forgot!
“Good morning, Ponyu. Let’s put in another good day together, okay?”
“Peh!” Ponyu happily replied. It was neat to see how its cuteness was so different from Lulu’s.
We greeted the gatekeeper and headed into the forest, closely watching our surroundings as we made our way to the dump.
“Since the high-level adventurers went out to fight, there was a chance the monsters on the village outskirts might feel provoked and run rampant, but the response was quick enough this time that it looks like the forest will be pretty safe.”
I nodded at Luffie. “Good to hear.”
Whether it was because of the veteran adventurers’ intimidation or their sheer presence, any monsters in the area often got excited and rampaged after a subjugation force was dispatched. But since the task force had acted quickly this time, the other monsters weren’t impacted much. This was truly a relief. Monsters were terrifying when they went on rampages.
“Good morning,” we called out to our fellow tamers already working at the dump.
“Good morning,” they replied.
Up until recently, there had been a sort of guilt associated with the word “tamer.” Because of that, a dark cloud always seemed to hang over the dump.
But not anymore. Everyone was starting to gain confidence in themselves as tamers, and maybe that was why I thought the dump felt a lot cheerier now.
“Puu.”
“Peh!”
When Lulu and Ponyu headed into the dump, they bounced over to their fellow tamed slimes and sang at them. They were probably saying “good morning.”
“Puu.”
“Peh!”
But their fellow tamed slimes didn’t speak, so the drawback was that it looked like Lulu and Ponyu were carrying on by themselves.
“Puu.”
“Peh!”
Lulu and Ponyu spoke once more, only to be met with silence yet again, and then they merrily jumped under the trash. I was sure they would do a great job disposing of it, just like they did every day.
“Anything to report?” Ashra asked us.
“No, nothing. What about you, Luffie?”
“Nothing from me, either.”
Ashra made a few check marks on his paper when we answered.
“So you’re on duty today, Ashra?” I asked.
“Yeah, I’m on records duty.”
We’d started keeping records one month earlier so we could all track the health and overall condition of our slimes. And one week ago, we’d also started keeping track of how much trash they were digesting.
“Any news about Stalice?” Luffie asked.
Ashra shook his head.
“Okay.”
Two weeks ago, the tamer coordinator Stalice had gotten violent with one of the new tamers. Before, the worst she had done was harass me and Luffie, but she had finally resorted to physical violence. The masters of both guilds had been keeping a wary eye on her for quite some time, but Stalice never changed until she was finally stripped of her position as tamer coordinator. She hadn’t been to the dump since.
“Well, guess we’d better get started,” I said.
The Stalice problem could only be solved if she decided to change, so we were holding space for her until she returned. We believed that even Stalice could surely turn over a new leaf.
“All right, I’m gonna tidy up the area with all the magic items,” Luffie said.
While Lulu and Ponyu digested the trash, Luffie and I cleaned up the dump. At first, only the two of us did the work, but now everyone shared the load. Because of that, the dump was so tidy it was hardly recognizable.
“All done?” Luffie asked.
After a while, we finished our maintenance work on the dump. Since we did it just about every day, the task ended faster than we expected. And now that the dump was nicely organized and maintained, everyone was more careful where they dumped their trash—well, almost everyone.
“Puu.”
“Peh!”
I looked over at the sound of Lulu and Ponyu’s satisfied voices just in time to see them returning from the dump.
“How’d it go?” Chase asked, eyeing the paper in Ashra’s hand.
“We’re definitely dissolving more trash than last week, and Izu has been dissolving more today than yesterday, too.”
Chase smiled. Izu was Chase’s tamed slime, so he must have felt very proud. I knew that because I was very proud when I learned that Lulu had started dissolving more trash. After all, that meant our bond was growing even stronger.
“Izuuu!” Chase wailed happily as he ran over to Izu, who shrank back a little.
“Hee hee! I get that you’re happy, buddy, but you’re making Izu uncomfortable,” Ashra chuckled.
“Awwww, Izuuuuu. Come on, let me share my joy with you!”
Izu bounced away from Chase’s looming embrace, and the banter escalated into an all-out game of tag around the dump.
“Go, Izuuu! You’ve got this!”
“Puu.”
As Lulu and I cheered Izu on, the slime slammed right into Chase’s face.
“Agh! Izu, don’t be like that.”
For some reason, Izu looked pleased at Chase’s sour expression, which gave us all a good laugh.
“Here.” Ashra handed me the paper documenting all the trash that had been dissolved in the past week, and Luffie peered at it next to me.
“Our total’s gone up,” I remarked.
“Yup.”
Little by little, we were getting rid of more and more trash. It was only a slight improvement, but I knew it was still a great thing.
Once we had the numbers we wanted, we hoped the tamers in other villages and towns would embrace change, too.
Afterword
Afterword
HELLO, EVERYONE. Long time no write. Honobonoru500 here. Thanks for picking up a copy of The Weakest Tamer Began a Journey to Pick up Trash, Volume 12. Thanks to you all, this series has sold a total of over 1.6 million copies! Also, the Blu-ray box set goes on sale June 5th. You’ll get to see Ivy and Sora in all their cute glory, so do check out the anime as well.
In Volume 12, I wrote a little about the war that happened very far in the past. That war is one of the most significant plot points of this series, especially the kind of war it was. That’s the key. So I really struggled with how I wanted to introduce this war into the story. After a lot of thinking, I settled on the painting. That way, I could describe the painting and express what the war was like through Ivy. Then I needed to figure out how to display the painting to signify its importance. I had a lot of ideas, but none of them were really screaming at me, so I agonized over it all the way up to my deadline. But as I wrote the story, I suddenly envisioned a destroyed village in the middle of the forest. It feels funny saying this, but I was shocked at how perfectly it suited my needs, so I decided on the ruins of an old village not found on maps. And since it had a lot of dark and heavy themes, I lightened up the mood with serpents, which was a bonus. I wound up really liking that part of the story, since everything I wanted to accomplish worked out.
In Volume 12, I also featured another deep relationship between tamer and monster. It became a much more tragic story than I originally thought it would be, but I wanted to write about a monster’s self-sacrifice, so I was satisfied by it.
Thank you to everyone at TO Books for your help with Volume 12. My editor K-sama, thank you for always putting up with me. We managed to get Volume 12 published thanks to you all.
Lastly, I would like to thank everyone who read this book with all my heart. I hope you’ll give Volume 13 a read, too. The manga version of The Weakest Tamer Began a Journey to Pick Up Trash is also selling well. May we meet again in this “Isekai’ed into a world…where proper waste disposal rules!” light novel and manga series.
—Honobonoru500
February, 2024
About the Creators
About the Creators
HONOBONORU500
This is the twelfth volume of Honobonoru500’s second story, Weakest Tamer!
Amid a joyful journey, our party encounters a mysterious village not found on any map. There, they find a giant painting depicting a war—what is it trying to tell them?
Then, at the next village, yet another problem awaits.
They kept swearing they wouldn’t get involved in more problems, and yet…
NAMA
Blood type A, born April 2nd. I’ve been watching nothing but foreign dramas lately.
TWITTER: @nama3v3
http://nama3v3.jugem.jp/