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–––Ciel’s viewpoint

Our entire party was formed by silver rank adventurers, so we knew how to get ready before departing. Tool bags and rations of food and water, a small knife to cut branches and meat, flint, insect repellent plants and reduced soup, with all of that packed we departed. Our destination was a farming village around ten days away by foot, and it was built at the border of a thick forest.

“Apparently the main products made in that village are wood for construction and animal hide. They constantly work inside the forest for that, but recently there have been multiple sightings of a werewolf.”

On our way there, we went over the details of the request again, reading out loud everything that seemed important.

“They only saw one werewolf, right?”
“According to the request, yes. Though even a single one is a powerful foe, and if there are more then we’d need many times more people than what we have.”
“That’s true. But well, I never heard about werewolves scheming something like that together, so we should be fine.”

Vitis spoke as her ponytail swayed behind her. As we had guessed earlier, Vitis and Labrusca really were siblings, and both used to live in an orphanage. Though they were not always orphans, instead their parents passed away at a young age and they had to live for a few years in the orphanage.

Due to their limited education and lack of money, their options were heavily restricted. They could try to become apprentices under a merchant, work hard watching livestock and running errands, being in an even harsher environment as pupils of a mechanic worker, or living as beggars. If neither of those seemed appetizing enough, the last option was to become adventurers, though there were almost no orphans that chose that route. Generally, that was because an orphan would have a hard time gathering the required equipment, but more importantly, orphans did not usually grow up being fed enough, so they would lack the stamina to last long as adventurers.

Or more often than not, they would be allowed into a random party to run errands, only to be paid scraps off the table afterwards. If they complained about that, the next time they would be left alone to do everything, which also heavily affected their survival rate. In other words, these two were extremely lucky and talented to reach silver rank while living in those conditions.

We had only met them earlier so it might be a bit too early to let our guard down around them, but I also felt bad for everything they probably went through in the past so I tried to smile in a friendly manner. With time, they seemed to start relaxing around us and they began telling us stories they had heard about Karin and I.

“Your names have been making the rounds recently, you know? They say you were in the same party as our hero, Princess Luvias.”
“And also that you’re the main disciples of Master Lapis? So apparently you’re really strong when fighting.”

It was hard to believe that stories like that were already public. When we were in the party with Luvias we were in the city only for a short moment, but I guess there’s always someone with eyes sharp enough to notice.

“We do train with Lapis a lot, but I don’t think we’re that amazing so keep your hopes down.”
“We still can’t match her even if the two of us go against her alone after all.”
“I still feel jealous though. Her students always improve a lot, but if you miss her classes you have to wait months before she teaches the same subject again.”
“And all her students get much stronger every time, she’s really amazing.”

Hearing that, Karin and I felt elated as if that praise was directed at us. But I guess that’s a natural feeling when a close friend or relative gets complimented. I also felt like the two had actually met Lapis at the training school, considering they referred to her as Master Lapis. That made me think of something so I turned my head to ask them.

“Oh right, I wanted to ask this for a while, but are you two okay with standing in front?”
“Sure, we both have shields, so we don’t mind being used as walls.”
“We’ll make sure you have enough time to prepare your magic.”

That was a relief, the two knew how to adapt to a situation. Sometimes adventurers with too much pride would get all fussy when asked something like that and it could get annoying, refusing to act as shields or decoys and saying that if I wanted to use magic to do whatever on my own. Thinking this felt like self-praise, but I was convinced that a well-supported magician could easily turn the tides of any fight. That is why whenever a magician is in a party, it is best if the vanguard resorts to acting as simple walls to buy enough time. That way they could simply focus on defending while waiting, and the overall chances of someone getting hurt decrease significantly. Then the magician can simply unleash a massive spell from behind and win the fight in a single strike. That was truly the safest and most effective strategy.

“Thank you. Now onto how we’ll split the rewards, is it okay if everyone gets a fourth of the money? And if we get any valuable loot we decide with rock-paper-scissors. Also, if someone already won one item, they can’t participate in the next round. Does that sound good?”
“I don’t mind.”
“Same here. Either way, I don’t expect a werewolf to drop anything valuable.”

As Vitis said, werewolves were known for being ridiculously strong while never dropping anything good. In part that was due to their rather small size compared to other monsters, and also because they had a more humanoid shape. To compensate for that, the reward for completing the request was set a bit higher than average. That way, at least some adventurers strapped for money would end up taking the request given the higher reward.

Deciding the details of the reward went more smoothly than I expected, so I patted my chest realizing I was worrying for nothing. Whenever I met nicely minded adventurers like them, I always felt like forming a party with them every so often afterwards. But I kept all of those thoughts only to myself.