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While we’re putting away everything after lunch, Akane, who’s helping me, suddenly starts looking around.

“What happened?”
“…!!”

I ask that and Akane pokes her own cheeks and then shakes her head. Then she jumps on my shoulder and nuzzles up to me. What’s gotten into her all of a sudden?

It doesn’t look like she’s seeking attention, it’s more like she’s scared of something.

And then I hear a strange sound, something like a flying bug. We’re inside a forest so bugs flying around aren’t too weird, but I have to remember that this isn’t the same world as the one I was in before. Such sounds don’t always belong to normal bugs.

I look around but then the sound stops. I guess the bug landed somewhere.

“Ah!”

There’s a large shiny red wasp, around a meter in size, standing on Olvia’s back. It’s angling the enormous and sharp stinger on its abdomen towards Olivia, and then it stabs before I can do anything.

“Huh?”

Even though she was just stabbed, Olivia doesn’t look like she’s in pain, merely turning to look around in confusion. That also seems to confuse the red wasp, as it tries to stab again and again, but can’t do anything, almost as if it was trying to stab armor or a rock.

Swish swish, woosh, slam

Akane quickly wraps the red wasp in steel silk, then pulls it away from Olivia’s back and onto the ground. Then she makes two fist sized rocks fall on it. The red wasp squirms for a bit, but then stops moving.

“Good job, Akane. Young Lady, are you hurt?”
“I’m fine. This is the first time I see a monster like this though.”

We stop tidying up and go analyze the red wasp.

It’s not moving now, but insects usually have other nerve centers separate from their brain or heart, so we can’t let our guard down as it could start moving randomly. I start by cutting off its wings, then separate its head and its abdomen from its torso, making sure it’s completely dead now. Those joints are considerably weaker than its main carapace, so I guess it’s not the most resilient monster out there.

Then a liquid starts to trickle out from the stinger, which moments earlier was trying to pierce into Olivia. I doubt it’ll do much to me, but I probably shouldn’t touch it either way.

“Do you see anything interesting?”
“Not really, it seems to have venom on its stinger, I’m not sure about the type, though.”

I guess our best bet will be to ask in the adventurers’ guild, and that will go better if we bring the actual monster, so I’ll put it in my magic storage for now.

This really shows that even if we’re inside the Valhen Woods, the ecology here is way different from somewhere like Ingralowe. We don’t know anything about this place though, so maybe it’s best if we hurry back to the main road.

“Maid, there.”
“Hm?”

Clarissa points somewhere with her nose, and I see a red wasp carrying a person fly by. So there are more around here, we should leave before we end up like-

“They attacked someone?!”
“Let’s go help them!”

Before I can do anything, Olivia dashes forward.

“Full Divine Wind!”

At first, it looks as if Olivia is clinging to a tree, then she propels herself off it, activating her Magical Arts in a powerful leap. She swiftly rescues the captive from the wasp’s clutches before it can react.

“Awooo!”

Clarissa’s orbs of light then obliterate the wasp.

Once back on the ground, Olivia gently sets down the rescued person, an elf woman who seems too weak to stand and remains lying there. She doesn’t seem to have any external wounds, and she seems conscious, but she’s not moving other than trembling slightly.

These symptoms seem familiar.

“Natalia, what’s wrong with her?”
“I think she’ll be alright.”

I take out some paralysis medicine from my magic storage and slowly pour it into the elf woman’s mouth.

“Gh…cough cough! Huh, what? I can move?”

After I empty a bottle of medicine into her mouth, some of the liquid gets caught in her throat which makes her go into a bit of a coughing fit, and then she realizes that she can move again.

“Thank you so much for saving me, I really can’t thank you enough.”

She quickly stands up and starts thanking us for saving her.

As I assumed earlier, she’s an elf named Shirley. She’s an adventurer who lives in a nearby town, and she was on a quest to gather materials in the forest when she went a bit too deep in and ended up being attacked by the wasp monsters we just saw.

Now she’s done being in the forest for the day, and asks if she can hitch a ride together with us on our way back. Olivia happily agrees and so she ends up sitting next to Olivia in the driver seat.

“You’re a rank D adventurer too then, Shirley?”
“For now, yeah. Though I think I have the skill to go higher soon.”

Shirely seems to be a really extroverted person, as the ice between her and Olivia quickly breaks and they talk without reserve, and I listen to them from within the carriage.

“This failure stings a bit though. I really didn’t think I’d be attacked by Ruby Burrowing Wasps.”
“Is that what those wasp monsters are called?”

That name rings a bell, and then it hits me. That’s the monster that produced the toxin applied to the dagger used by the serial killer I encountered before.

That soon brings back a lot of memories, and I end up taking out the dagger, which I kept inside my magic storage since then. The toxin on the blade has long dried out, and due to my neglect in its maintenance, it’s now covered in rust.

“Those monsters have a really potent paralyzing venom, which they use to immobilize their prey, and then they carry it to their nests to be eaten alive.”
“Eugh.”
“So you really saved my skin back there. I don’t even want to imagine where I’d be right now if you hadn’t been there.”

Oh yeah, that serial killer also said something about the venom being potent enough to knock out a dragon. And the wasps eat their prey alive, huh. That’s definitely something I wouldn’t want to picture either.

“So they were really dangerous monsters. One of them tried attacking me too, but I’ve been training a lot so the stinger couldn’t do anything to me.”
“I don’t think that’s how training works at all… You’re a human, right Olivia? You don’t secretly have scales growing on your back or something?”
“I’m human.”

Considering everything I’ve experienced today I’m also starting to doubt that.

“I’m also wearing this accessory that nullifies toxins though, maybe that helped too.”
“There’s a bunch of different types of toxins though, I don’t think a single accessory could neutralize all of them.”

She’s talking about the ring I gave her before. I was a bit worried that it wouldn’t do a lot, but I’m glad to hear that it was actually worth it to buy it.

“It’s this one right here.”
“Let me see… Wait, how did you get this?”
“Natalia bought it for me before… Right, Natalia?”
“Yes, there was this street vendor selling it in our hometown. What about it?”

It seems something is weird about the ring, so I look out through the window, and see Shirley looking in shock at the ring on her hand, which is tied to Olivia’s neck with a string.

“What about it you say? This accessory covers an incredible range of toxins, it’s not something an adventurer can buy just like that! Not even most nobles would be able to buy it, and it’d be considered a national treasure in a smaller country!”

I think I’m the one who’s shocked the most now.

I do remember the ring was pretty expensive when I bought it, but the other day I saw many items that were many times more costly in the accessory stores of the capital. The guy who sold it to me did tell me it was his best item, but I had no idea it was this good.

“Hahh…you’re actually starting to scare me now. You have accessories like this, Servants of an outrageous level, you might come from a rare species too…”

After that they continue talking for a bit, then we reach a crossing where Shirley gets down to head to her town.

“Well, this is as far as I go. Thank you again for rescuing me. Take this as a token of my gratitude.”

Shirley says that as she throws a wooden tag to Olivia, which is engraved with the figure of a large tree.

“I’m sure it’ll come in handy if you ever go visit the World Tree.”

Saying that, Shirley starts walking on a different path than ours, and we continue on our trip back to Bamel. And so our hectic days in the capital and its outskirts finally come to an end.

Shirley turned around and grinned as she saw the carriage pulled by a wolf far away on the highway.

“I heard she’d be around here so I tested her a bit, but she’s even better than I expected. I really thought those were exaggerated stories when House Vitus first contacted me, but now I can actually believe all of it.”

House Vitus was one of the three archduke houses of Seperion, just like House Pynemo. They were also the current employers of Shirley.

Olivia had a very promising future in front of her, and she was of noble descent, so any noble would want to have her on their side, and if that was impossible, then they would do everything to stop other nobles from approaching her. House Vitus had heard that one of their biggest rivals, House Pynemo, was trying to get Olivia on their side, and their heir Charlotte was a personal acquaintance of Olivia too, so House Vitus was doing everything to stop them from getting any closer to each other.

But if they were careless about it and their intentions were revealed, then not only would Olivia and House Pynemo band up against them, they would also receive a lot of flak from the general public. So they needed to keep their true intentions secret and only act in a way that would let them claim they meant no harm whatsoever, and actually were trying to help.

The method they chose was to heavily publicize Olivia’s accomplishments, including the defeat of the Black Roc which Charlotte had tried to keep secret, all to cripple Olivia’s calm lifestyle and her upcoming career as an adventurer.

The records from the Magic Academy showed that Olivia had lost both her parents, and was trying to work as an adventurer and eventually gain the same fame they did through her own efforts, and that was House Vitus’ vector of attack.

That way House Pynemo would be the first ones doubted for leaking those stories, and even if people discovered that it was actually House Vitus behind everything, they could always claim they were just trying to help Olivia become popular.

In the grand scheme of things, telling stories was really nothing big anyway, so even if Olivia got mad, it was hardly something people would hold against House Vitus. It was a very safe and effective tactic which could hardly be identified as more than an attempt to annoy Olivia.

It was certainly a cowardly and underhanded method, but that was how nobles operated. That much was expected of them. And the person they picked for the job was Shirley.

“I feel like this is going to last quite a while, and it’ll be fulfilling and interesting at the same time. I really nabbed myself a good job this time. And now…”

Shirley waved her arm, taking out a hooded robe and a lute from her magic storage.

After putting on the robe and plucking the lute’s strings, a flowy melody spread out. But that melody contained certain sounds humans could not hear, but would charm and take hold of those who could hear it.

Monsters turned into her thralls began to gather, hypnotized by the melody, making their transparents wings chatter as their red caparaces glimmered under the sun.

“Olivia, let’s see for how long you can entertain me, the Melody Enchantress Shirley.”

Shirley grinned as she was surrounded by more and more Ruby Burrowing Wasps.