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During the evening of that day, a letter arrived at Lyell’s mansion.

Sensing the delivery person’s presence, Maria went to accept the letter, but color drained from her face as she read it.

She rushed inside the mansion and barged in where Lyell was.

“Dear, it’s terrible! Fina has…!”
“Huh? What about Fina?”

Lyell turned towards Maria, surprised at her expression. He had his trusty Holy Sword in hand and was in the middle of maintaining it. Lyell’s surprise was quite natural. It was extremely rare for Maria, who always had a smile on her face, to change so much.

Moreover, Fina always had the Carbuncle with her and it was thoroughly making sure that she was safe.

The Carbuncle wasn’t such a strong monster, but it could freely use various spells so it was far more dependable than an average Adventurer. He never considered that something would happen to Fina since the Carbuncle was protecting it.

“It says… It says Fina was kidnapped!”

Maria held out the letter while screaming those words. Hearing her yell Cortina came into the living room too. And hearing her words, she became petrified.

“W-What?! Is that true?”
“I don’t know. But she still hasn’t returned.”
“Let’s first confirm where she is… though if she really has been kidnapped, we can’t really find her so easily. Searching for her if she’s nowhere to be found would take a lot of time.”
“Then I’ll call Maxwell. If he uses Search, he should find her whereabouts right away.”

With Maxwell’s searching spell, he could find her whereabouts if he designated her socks or clothes as the searching target. Unless they were using an anti-detection spell, it should’ve allowed them to find her.

“The letter is telling me to head to Kolbo village.”
“Where is that?”
“I think it was about three days’ distance southwest from here. It’s close to Raum’s border.”
“Why there of all places? Do they want me to do something there?”
“I don’t know. But… Right, Gadius is in Stollar and it’s closer to that place. Let’s ask him for help too.”
“R-Right. Nicole’s also there too. Oh, I have to contact Ashella too!”
“Why are you getting the Pope?”
“I mean, she baptized Fina. She should help with this much…”

They were Six Heroes when they acted like it. They utilized their excelling abilities to take action and contacted collaborators in every place.

As a result, they reached from Pope Ashella to even King Elliot of the United Alliance, growing the scale of the situation even more.

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Gadius got called by the Guild, and when he saw the report, he rushed out, losing his usual composure. Dwarves weren’t very nimble due to their build, but he had enough experience to make up for that. He moved his legs most optimally and centered his body weight efficiently to accelerate himself even further.

He maintained his pace with his practically bottomless stamina, and he returned to his inn, ‘Greatshield’s Protection.’

“Rei—Nicole, is Nicole around?!”
“Bweh! Cough, cough?!”
“Yeah, Nicole just got surprised by the yell and choked on her food over here.”

Looking to the corner of the cafeteria, Nicole was choking violently, the fruit juice having gone down her trachea. Finia was diligently tending to her from the side.

The one who reported the state carefreely was Michelle, who was together with the two as always. Even a dwarf like him could see that the three had grown into charming ladies, but he had no presence of mind to care about that now.

“You knew teleportation magic right? We’re returning to the pioneer village!”
“Huh? What’s with—”
“Fina was… No, it’s bad to say that here.”

Hearing that much, Nicole realized that something must have happened to Fina.

She stopped eating and stood up, gazing sharply at Gadius. The fruit juice was all over her collar so she didn’t look exactly good.

“Got it, let’s go. Are you ready, Gadius?”
“I can move as long as I have my shield with me.”

The northern village was Nicole’s home. She barely needed to take anything with her. Her trusty gauntlets had a transfer spell cast on them so they could be recalled any time and didn’t need to be brought along either.

“Okay. Come, Gadius.”

They moved to a private room for discussion where Nicole got the particulars from Gadius.

“I see… then it would be better to have searching skills, right? In that case, I’ll go as Reid this time. Can you tell them that Nicole went ahead to Kolbo?”
“Sure, but what about your comrades?”
“I would love to have Michelle with me, but too many people would be a problem. Me, you, and one more person would be best… Ideally, Finia, who knows my situation.”
“You could only take two people along, huh. No helping it then. Given the situation, we’ll have Cloud and Michelle stand-by here.”
“Letting too many people know could provoke the criminal too. But seeing Reid and Finia together, they could suspect something. But fortunately, Reid shows up from time to time there, so I’ll just pretend I was simply dropping by.”
“What should I do?”
“You and Finia should…hmm, spend about an hour outside the village and come after that. I’ll come and get you if an emergency arises. They believe I transform with the Polymorph spell, so it wouldn’t be weird that I can use the lower-level teleportation spell too.”
“I see. I feel frustrated to waste an hour, but I suppose it would be safer that way.”

In a case of kidnapping, if you tried to force your way with many people it could provoke the culprit and endanger Fina’s life.

It had to be dealt with quietly and promptly. For that, Reid’s power would be necessary. Finia’s versatility was also desirable to have.

“Call Finia for me. I’ll prepare for the teleportation in the meantime.”
“Got it. I’ll be right back.”

Saying that, Gadius rushed out of the room.

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