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Near the entrance to the basement of the big boulder that Maxwell had buried, now stood two men.

They had no special characteristics, and lacked any impressionable features to the point you’d forget them after a few minutes even if you passed by them in a town.

“How is it looking? Does it look like someone buried it?”
“Yeah, this seems artificial no matter how you look at it.”

One of them inspected the entrance state and conveyed it to the other.

They didn’t seem to be even remotely disturbed despite this cataclysm before their eyes. The underground space of such a huge boulder had collapsed in just one night. That itself was probably not too unusual.

However, accomplishing something like this secretly without making any noise could only be done through divine skill.

These two were aware of that fact, yet they remained calm.

“The fact that they managed to accomplish something so flashy so secretly could only mean…”
“Yeah, it was definitely Maxwell’s magic.”
“Then, do you think he saw “that” underground?”
“I suppose he did… As planned.”
“As planned, indeed.”

The men nodded to each other, and then proceeded to carefully fill and erase any traces left in the surroundings.

“I’ll handle things here, so you go report this to “Master”. If they did this last night, we can’t delay it any longer.”
“You are right. Even if I use Cargo… It would still take half a day to reach the capital from here. I’ll leave the rest to you.”
“If we don’t report it until it’s too late, Master would kill us both. So hurry up.”

One of them departed from the place. The other kept watching over his back until he was no longer in sight. And after he disappeared inside the forest, the man muttered to himself.

“Good grief, since Master Mateus knew they’d sniff this place out, he should’ve just made us ambush them here…”

While mixing complaints in his sighs, the man filled up what was left of the hole. With how roughly Maxwell covered it, there was a possibility of someone still seeing through what used to be there.

It would be inconvenient even for them if this place was abused by a third party. If it could no longer be used, it was better to seal it off completely. That was what he had been instructed to do.

“Still… To come here and shift the target. Master sure is ill-natured.”

Despite his grumbles, his hands did not stop. He had to stay alert for any nearby presence, so his work efficiency was quite bad.

Even so, the man kept doing his job. And it continued all the way until the sun had set.

◇◆◇◆◇

After we left the city, we started looking for prey while not deviating from the highway. We accepted the commission to gather herbs, but securing meat would help Cloud’s standing. You could even say this was our priority.

The Guild’s commission was of course important. As such, we ended up doing both jobs at once — looking for prey while gathering herbs along the way.

This could also prove to be good training for parallel thinking.

“Mgggh, I can’t concentrate.”
“Ah, Michelle, is this not a Millud tree?”
“It is but it has no leaves left on the bottom side. I have to climb up.”
“Want me to climb instead?”

I was the most nimble among us four by far. Millud trees generally had leaves where we could reach with hands, but now those places had been picked clean.

Looks like the insufficiency of the Millud leaves was having an effect even here. Michelle was quick to overreact to my suggestion.

“You shouldn’t climb the tree, Nicole!”
“Huh, why?”
“I mean, monsters will find us if you do!”
“Why are you bringing up something that happened ages ago?”

It’s been over seven years since the Kobolds attacked us back when we slipped out of the village to play. Back then I didn’t know the power of my body, so I got trashed quite a bit, but there’s no way mere Kobolds could do anything to me as I was now.

In the first place, there was no guarantee that we’d find any monsters here.

“What are you two talking about?”
“In the past, Nicole did something extremely reckless.”

Michelle started telling Letina about my heroic saga of the past. After hearing it, someone’s eyes started sparkling in awe… and that someone was Cloud.

“You defeated Kobolds when you were three years old? That’s crazy!”
“It would’ve been better if no fight happened at all. But I couldn’t just look away.”
“Fighting to protect the village from monsters, that sounds so cool.”
“If you lose you die in vain. Adventurers need to put survival as the first priority.”
“Ugh, I get that but…”
“I told you that I’d remind you over and-….hmm?”

I suddenly noticed rustling in the grass. It was something different from the swaying caused by the wind. It looked more like something was lurking in it.

I motioned the noisy trio to be quiet. Seeing it the girls stopped their gossip at once. We had been partying for quite a while now, so we were in sync during these kinds of moments.

I pulled out my katana while releasing a thread from the other hand. At the same time, Michelle prepared her bow while Cloud his shield. Letina also set up her staff to cast magic any time.

I approached it without a sound and then jumped into the grass from a low position, trying to deal a preemptive strike. The other party didn’t sense us approaching and was stiffened from being taken by surprise.

It wasn’t a monster or an animal, but a human man.

“Waah!”
“Oops… Okay, stop, it’s a human!”

The man turned over with a scream and I stopped in place. I issued commands to Cloud and the girls to not pursue him any further. Hearing my warning, Michelle hurriedly lowered her bow.

“What, it’s just brats… Why the hell are you startling me for.”
“We mistook you for our prey. Sorry.”
“Are you playing Adventurers or something, be careful with that.”

The man stood up with grumbles. He looked like an average villager but had a sword on his waist. He had a surprisingly… faint impression.

“Good grief, I can’t even rest properly around here.”
“Why were you even resting in the grass?”
“It’s up to me to decide where I want to rest.”

As he said, we were outside of the city. He was free to rest wherever he wanted, but in that case, he shouldn’t complain about getting attacked.

“Pay more attention.”
“Yeah, sorry.”

It seems that he was trying to hide, so being discovered by me made him feel awkward. He spat on the ground to gloss over the issue and left off.

We were in the wrong this time, so we apologized and watched over him as he left.