Chapter 11: 3.1

Next morning, without mentioning anything about yesterday’s night, I was preparing to set out after breakfast. While sitting on the bed, Aine asked me. “Work today?”

“Yeah, I’m thinking of doing one of the requests I got yesterday. Something can be done near the capital… so I guess monster subjugation on the north main road.”

“Monster on the main road… it’s near the capital, but the knights aren’t gonna take it down, huh.”

“I say near, but that place is covered with trees all around. Besides, there are opponents you can’t fight without a degree of ability even if you’re used to fighting. You also got that, right?”

“…Well, guess so. Especially since requests to subjugate monsters are a daily occurrence, too. They’ve even appeared in the royal capital’s underground.”

“Those requests also occasionally come up in the royal capital. Anyway, even adventurers are pretty busy, too.”

“Right… so, umm.”

Aine stumbled on her words, showing a gesture of wanting to say something. Even I knew what she wanted to say—she must be wanting to ask if she could come along.

The ‘heat’ hadn’t come yet today… Going out of the royal capital and heading out to the main road would increase the chances of running into monsters. If she were to go into heat in that situation, it would certainly be dangerous.

However, if we weren’t acting together, until I came back, she would have to wait in constant suffering were she to go into heat.

That was why, I was thinking it was correct to take Aine along.

“Of course, you’re also coming. But, yesterday was the first time you’ve held a sword in a while after all… so I’ll take down the target monster. Other than that, I think I’ll have your help if any other monsters try to attack us.”

“! O-okay. I’ll try not to hold you back, too!”

Aine’s expression turned bright in an instant. At least, she should be able to deal with the monsters near this royal capital without becoming a burden.

If there was a problem, it really was the ‘heat.’ Regarding that, there was also something I got to confirm with her.

“But, I wanna talk about if the effect of your collar were to be active when outside, though.”

“! Y-you’re right. That’s also a problem, doesn’t it.”

“Yeah. I’m sorry, Aine, but… umm, we may even have to do something like that outside, but are you, okay with that?”

“It’s hard to say that ‘I’m okay,’ but… it’s a nuisance, isn’t it.”

“Nuh-uh, I’m okay with it; as long as you’re okay with it. Besides, you also feel more at ease when we’re together, right?”

“That’s, right. I guess I’m more at ease that way.”

“Then it’s settled.”

While it was impossible to not care about it, it’d probably also cause a lot of stress to care about it on a regular basis.

Of course, if the ‘heat’ were to come early in the morning at least it wouldn’t come again that day, so we wouldn’t even have to worry about it, though.

Aine and I finished our preparation, and then left the inn to head for the carriage waiting area.

Although generally called ‘royal capital,’ the inside was divided into several towns, and the land was also vast. There were carriages going around inside the royal capital, and you could pay for it to move around to certain designated places.

My destination was the north main road—we got to take a couple of carriages.

Together with Aine, I headed for the north inside the shaking carriage.

“Hey, what kinda monster are we going after this time?”

“Yeah, it is some kind of monster named ‘Gray Bear.’”

It was a huge bodied monster with gray fur. Both arms grew thick, and the three claws could easily tear apart even a large tree. Recently, the monster seemed to have moved its territory closer to the royal capital, and there were about three cases of damage just this month alone. It was mainly carriages loaded with food and stuff getting attacked, and several adventurers working around the north main road getting killed.

The request must have been directed to me since there were two A-rank adventurers among them.

The request might go to another S-rank adventurer had I not taken it, but as the guild leader was saying, I got the feeling that many of the other S-ranks had a strong peculiarity.

Although I’d only met with some of them a few times, they all varied from those who wouldn’t take a request unless it was a real national crisis to those who would make daily money from requests that beginners would do on a whim.

In the first place, only few of them would properly respond to the adventurer guild’s summon. I was in the position where I got to do all kinds of jobs because of this, though.

“Since it’s requested of you, it means it’s plenty strong, right?”

“I wonder about that. Well, I guess it’s not like it can be left alone, though.”

“…Don’t push yourself, okay?”

“Hahah, do I look like the type who will?”

“You’re the type who will, you know that?” Aine said with a worried expression.

Not like I planned to overdo myself. At the very least, I planned to withdraw immediately were there to be anything that might endanger Aine’s safety.

But based on the information I’d seen, It was an opponent that even I could deal well with.

In the first place, adventurers recognized as S-rank fell under the class called ‘hero’ even in the country. I supposed it would make for a bad example if you could not win against a single monster appearing in the vicinity of the royal capital all the while that much of your ability was being recognized. But I wasn’t even interested in such a position, though.

Changing carriages, Aine and I arrived near the north main road. After passing through the gate, the main road would continue for a while, but it’d be covered with forest from then on.

Many monsters wouldn’t change their habitat, but a monster would occasionally grow as an ‘individual,’ and the monster that had gotten stronger would change its habitat from place to place.

The prime example of this would be the monster called ‘dragon.’ Many of them, known as the strongest naturally, did not have a fixed habitat to live. The dragon called ‘Wandering Dragon’ was also called so because it changed its habitat in a particularly short period of time.

The target this time was not a monster like a dragon, but a type of monster called ‘Gray Bear,’ few in numbers but there were some examples of its subjugation.

“Then, let’s go. Let’s first try going to the spot where the damage was first done.”

“I’ll leave it to you. I mean, I’m not even familiar with this area. But, how do we search for the monster? If it’s a knight order, it’s the basic to search with a human-wave tactic, though”

“Well, I guess we’ll just have to find it with our feet. There aren’t that many large monsters around here, and maybe we can immediately know from the sound if it’s acting violently.”

“…I guess that’s how it is, huh. I’ve got something similar happening, too.”

The first was to search for the monster—regardless of the rank of the job as an adventurer, everything got to start there.

The first place Aine and I visited was a fork up ahead on the main road. Although it was a fork on the road, one of the paths would lead to a dead end—exactly around here was the location of the first damage.

“A peddler was attacked here. Five carriages, and several mercenaries were hired as escorts. It seems in this case it was so engrossed in the load, so there were some injuries but no deaths. At that point, it was confirmed that it was a monster called ‘Gray Bear.’”

“Does this mean, it’s more about targeting the load than attacking people?”

“Yeah. Apparently, most of the load was fish being transported from a seaside town. Especially since the smell of fish is so strong. I’m thinking it went into hiding using that load of food as a reserve.”

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A few days later, yet another peddler had gotten attacked. It’d happened a little further down the road, and similarly had been loaded with food, apparently.

And then, the last one to be attacked had been several adventurers. It appeared that they’d suddenly gotten attacked when leaving the path and entering the forest.

Apparently, their original purpose had been to mine the ‘magic stone’ from a cave deep in the forest.

Magic stones were used in many households; for example, the equipment used to draw water was using the magic stone as a source of power. It also often came out as a request for adventurers; and probably including the A-rank adventures, they’d taken a large number of procurement requests.

As a result, only two people survived. The strong ones, including the A-rank adventurers, had stayed on site and never come back.

It didn’t mean their corpses had been recovered, but according to the surviving adventurers, they most likely wouldn’t survive.

“That means, won’t its den be around the cave?”

“I can say that’s the most likely case. Aine, I’m thinking of entering the forest now, but we’ll continue on while making stopping points to be on the safe side”

“Got it. That’s also something the knights often do.”

Aine and I walked out of the main road and into the forest.

The footing was a little bad because of the overgrown vegetation, making it hard to proceed. I continued to walk ahead while trampling the grass to make it easier for Aine who was walking behind me.

Inside a forest, you would have to be especially alert to your surroundings. The visibility was often poor, making it not possible to even see several meters ahead.

Not only the front, but you’d also have to focus your attention to the right, left, and the back. I’d be fine even just on my own, but right now I was acting with the two of us together.

“Aine, keep watch on the rear. I’ll watch the front.”

“! Okay.”

In case of acting in a party with multiple people, it’d be a good division of roles. With Aine, I wouldn’t have to worry about entrusting the rear to her. She may not be an adventurer, but as a knight, she must have experiences in these kinds of places.

In fact, Aine was more alert towards the surroundings. The first was to find a more open space and make it the initial base.

I called it a ‘base,’ but we wouldn’t be pitching a tent to stay the night.

At the current situation, it should be the correct one to leave any large luggages there and start searching the area. But, right now I was not carrying any particularly large luggage.

The things we would do was maybe lighting a fire so that we could have a simple mea—

“Aine.”

“Nn, I know.”

I stopped my feet and called Aine’s name, and she replied back.

I could feel the presence of something watching over here from a little distance—four… no, five, huh.

“Looks like small monsters. Be on guard.”

“…Carnivorous?”

“Both you and me aren’t carrying any food, so around here it’s probably Bell Wolfs. It’d be certain if we could hear barks, though.”

When I touched the sword hanging on my waist, Aine touched that hand of mine. When I looked back, Aine was looking at me with a serious expression.

“Leave it to me. I can do it on my own if it’s just five.”

That must be Aine wanting to prove herself ‘to be useful.’ The Bell Wolf was a black furred, wolf monster that acted in a pack of up to ten.

Its characteristic was that it’d use a ‘bell-like’ bark to coordinate with its group—it was not a bark in actuality, but a bumping of the stone-like organs located in its throat.

Besides the chirping of birds could be heard in the forest, a reverberating ‘clink’ sound could be heard from close by—looks like it’s Bell Wolf no doubt.

Their one-on-one fighting ability wasn’t that high, and even a D-rank adventurer should be able to take it down.

However, if it was in a pack, a certain level of ability was needed. …With someone about as strong as Aine, I believed there shouldn’t be a problem, though.

“Alright. I’ll be keeping watch on the surroundings; I’ll leave it to you, Aine.”

“Thanks. Then I’m going—” Aine kicked the ground at the same time.

With a quick movement, she dashed towards the direction of the pack; a quick and agile movement ignoring any vegetation and such. Aine pulled out the sword hanging at her waist and swung it.

“—”

First one. It was cut down without being able to respond to Aine’s movement at all.

Two of them immediately moved towards Aine, who’d moved suddenly. They tried to pinch Aine from the left and right, but Aine stooped low and delivered a revolving strike—the two who had jumped at her fell flat on the ground lifelessly.

The remaining two must have comprehended Aine’s strength. And whoosh, they kicked the ground and vanished. It was settled within a few seconds.

“…Phew.” Aine let out a small exhale and brushed off the blood on her sword. It was a pretty, no-waste movement.

“That was really great. Looks like I can leave the monsters around here to you, Aine.”

“Sure, you can leave it to me. You’d have to fight the Gray Bear anyway, so you should save strength as much as possible. If you like, I can also walk in front, you know?”

“Nope, I’ll take the front. You don’t know where the cave is, right?”

“…Then you don’t have to arrange the footing so much, okay?” Aine said, following my words, but then added so.

It seemed she’d noticed that I’d been fully arranging the footing. Not like that much was enough to be a burden, though.

“That’s not enough to make me tired, you know?”

“Just leave it; please just do like you always do. I’ve told you, right? I’m not gonna be a burden.”

“…In that case—okay, I’ll go as usual.”

After our first battle, Aine and I proceeded on our way again. After once again confirming Aine’s abilities, we continued our search for a place to make our base.

 

TL notes:

Other Changes:

Changing a sentence in chapter 2 part 1:

“Hey, the first request is from the ‘Wandering Dragon’ who came to this continent for the first time in five years, Granvalis, you know?” to “Hey, the first request is the ‘Wandering Dragon’ Granvalis who came to this continent for the first time in five years, you know?”

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