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We joined the line, but ultimately failed to cross to the United Three Nations during that day, so we just took a reception tag with our reference number and had to spend the night there.

Adventurers were camping outside of the lodging houses in order to save the expenses. Able merchants or high-ranked Adventurers like us on the other hand just rented a room and spent the night there.

The rooms were extremely limited because of that, but we somehow managed to secure one.

“Though we only managed to get one room, so all four of us will be sleeping together.”
“Cloud, make sure you don’t do anything weird.”
“I woooont!!!”
“Ohh, for Michelle to actually be vigilant towards a man… How you’ve grown!”
“There were many people wanting your belongings and even approached me for it, so of course, I’d start getting vigilant.”
“Tell me their names. I’ll assassinate them right away.”
“Here is the list.”

Michelle’s bombshell announcement was smoothly followed up by Finia. Taking a look at the memo she presented, I saw a few familiar names.

“Oh, Mark’s name is there. Tony’s too.”
“They are frequenters. Please don’t approach them defenselessly, Lady Nicole.”
“O-Okay… Hmm, Lyell?”
“It seems that he found out about this network recently, and told me to prioritize him if I obtained anything.”

It must be just that he was trying to protect his daughter by infiltrating the network. It must be, it must.

Otherwise, Maria’s punishment magic would have exploded on him. Though that black-hearted Saint has a careless side too, so she might have overlooked it… And it would be hard to assassinate Lyell anyway. He’s just too tough.

Then suddenly, a knock on the door interrupted our chat.

It was a reserved, weak knock that felt quite disturbing.

“Umm, dear guests… I am a staff member…”

I sent a gaze at my comrades and approached the door. There were cases like this where thieves pretended to be inn staff. It was already quite late, and many people were out of their rooms having dinner at the cafeteria.

In other words, this inn full of accommodated rooms temporarily had a low number of people in it.

Responding to my vigilance, Cloud brought his shield and stood near me. This was done in preparation for receiving an attack. Michelle and Fina also became alert with their specialized weapons in their hands.

We were aware that a party full of girls like ours was quite prone to get targeted.

I slightly opened the door and peeked outside from the gap. Even in the case that there was a robber outside, Cloud would be able to follow up even if I was kicked back along with the door. And as long as he managed to stop them even for a moment, Michelle and Finia would barrage them with merciless attacks.

However, outside instead stood an elderly female and an elven man and woman. It was the proprietress of the inn and two familiar Adventurers.

“My apologies, but would you be willing to share a room? These people are elves as you can see, and with that reason…”
“……Sure, we don’t mind.”
“Ah, oh, it’s the elves we met before!”

Michelle raised a cheer, but as she said, these two that the staff person brought to us were people I remembered. Or rather, they were people I was quite indebted to.

It was Haumea and Cole, standing before my eyes.

“It has been a while, Miss Haumea.”
“Oh, Nicole and Michelle. I see you remember us! But I see Michelle doesn’t remember our names…”
“Ahah, sorry.”

Michelle said while pulling a tongue and scratching her head. We certainly weren’t very involved with the two, but her name had helped me a lot.

Plus I caused her some trouble during the Elliot matter too. Hope she is no longer suspected of being my disguised form from back then.

“Last we met was in the Guild’s training area, huh.”
“Oh my, are you all acquainted?”
“Yeah, a bit in the past.”
“Cole, that’s an understatement. We’ve seen each several times at Raum’s Guild.”
“Then about sharing this room…”
“Ah, we are fine with that. We can trust them.”

We’ve actually only met twice. But it would be strange to doubt someone kind enough to stop a carriage just to help a passing-by child.

Besides, meeting her now could even be called a divine grace in a way.

“Please enter. It will probably be quite cramped with six of us here though.”
“That’s no problem. It’s far better than camping out.”
“Thank you.”

The two bowed to us as we invited them in. The room was wide enough to fit six people. That just left the problem of the number of beds.

“Okay, Cloud’s on the floor.”
“Whyyyy?!”
“Oh no, that won’t do. We arrived last so we’ll do that.”
“But Cloud, do you plan to make a girl sleep on the floor?”
“Ugh, well…”
“Nicole, I’m really fine with sleeping on the floor!”

After teasing Cloud for a while, I just shrugged and called it a joke. With the condition of this room, the number of beds was irrelevant. You could just use blankets and make hammocks.

“Just kidding. I’ll make some makeshift beds, so the rest of you help me too.”
“Makeshift beds?”
“Yeah. I’ll just stretch ropes from that place on the wall to a pole or something and just cover them with sleeping bags and be done.”

The room had metal fittings on all four sides to hang a lamp on. If I used them as the bed supports as is, they could break or get damaged, so I would strengthen them with the Toughness spell of the interference system.

If I poured in a large amount of magic power and extended its duration, it should last until morning.

“Of course, the one sleeping there should be someone light… Wait, isn’t that me?”

I was obviously the lightest among us six. Next would be Finia. Michelle was clearly bottlenecked by her chest. I never expected my proposal would end up driving me out of my bed.

“Oh well. Finia and I are the lightest ones here, so we’ll go with the hammock method.”
“Alright.”
“That aside, I have something to discuss with you…”

I couldn’t waste this chance meeting. I had something I’ve been thinking about for a long time. It was time to put it into practice.