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After dropping Cielmer at a female-only inn, I immediately went back to the guild. I originally planned to drop by somewhere to buy dinner for Carol and myself, but because of that exchange we had on the way to the inn, I feel like I might need to discuss this with Carol as soon as possible. She was definitely testing me. From how the conversation went, I couldn’t help but think so.

At the same time, it might also have been an indication that she’s willing to trust me. Although she appears to be nothing more than an adorable girl barely at the age of 10, her behavior completely begs to differ. She does respond in ways befitting of her age sometimes, but she’s extremely clever. There were more than a few times where I was surprised while conversing with her. Based on the fact that I saw her block the spear of ice and on what Carol said, she has quite the strength for a 10-year-old.

The guild has many rooms in the building but there are times, like handling special requests for example, when we need to talk to hunters privately. So To accommodate such situations, the guild provides small, unnamed rooms, known as the 「booths」 among the staffs. I open the door of one of those booths and step inside.

「I’m here.」
「Welcome back.」

After being greeted by my longtime friend Carol, I sat down. She asks 「So, will you be lecturing me now?」 with a carefree look, and I will absolutely lecture her. But before that, there’s a much more important matter to attend.

「That’s for later.」
「Then, you managed to probe some information out of her?」
「I did… But not quite. It’s only a hunch but it felt more like she intentionally gave it to me.」
「Hmmm, as I thought, she really isn’t normal. Though, just the fact that she was still lively after tanking the ice spear already makes it hard to see her as a 10-year-old child.」

With great interest in her tone, Carol said so. I’m also quite interested in her as well but for now, I’d like to sort out the information that we know.

「Is it true that you used ten of those?」
「Absolutely. Honestly, even I thought that I went too far, but I didn’t expect that she’d block them all.」
「In that case, her defensive ability is about A-rank, right?」
「Her offensive ability is definitely above B-rank. Even if we had another battle with the same conditions, I probably won’t lose, but I can’t win as well. I’d win if I use my Job, though. Still, in regards to her proficiency with barriers, I’m definitely no match for her. It’s frankly insane, you know? That thing.」
「Is it really enough to make you say that?」

Hearing Carol casually say so, I unconsciously knit my brows. It might be because I’m not quite knowledgeable in sorcery, so I don’t really understand what’s insane about it. But calling a 10-year-old girl insane, isn’t that too much?

「So you know that it had enough defensive capability to offset one spear of ice, right?」
「Well I actually saw it happen.」
「Even that isn’t something a 10-year-old child can use. With that barrier alone, you can stroll through 80% of all monster biomes while humming a tune. In addition to that, until the spear hit her, I didn’t even notice that there was a barrier. That’s why I really thought that I messed up.」
「So you mean that you didn’t use it because you knew about the barrier?」

Really, if it wasn’t Cielmer, my head would probably be flying by now. No, maybe it won’t even be a problem at all. Carol’s rank is high enough that she’d be pardoned for a 「little accident」 like killing a newbie. If I’m forced to say, the only problem then would be the state of my mental health.

「In the first place, why did you approach her?」
「Well, I mean, she has two magic stones from B-rank monsters, you know? If she did obtain it by herself at that age, there’s no way that I wouldn’t get interested with her.」
「Even if you knew that she can defeat B-rank monsters, I don’t really think it warrants using the ice spear on her.」
「You’re awfully repetitive today, you know? I really am reflecting on it, and while it might have been a real nuisance to her, isn’t it great that we can accurately measure her true strength?」

Certainly, even if I know that she’s strong, the fact that I saw her block the spear of ice right in front of my eyes really changes my opinion of her. I’ve also seen Carol use the ice spear a few times but ten of those would be more than enough to easily freeze a training ground of that size. Right in front of my eyes, Cielmer blocked an object containing an immense amount of energy while ensuring that there was no collateral damage. My personal assessment of her changed instantly.

「So, more about that barrier, she constantly has it up you know?」
「Constantly?」
「I mean that literally. Based on what I noticed, by the time that I approached her at the end of the match, it might have been already set up again. Since then, even while we were talking here and even when you left to guide her to the inn, she constantly has it on.」
「I didn’t notice it though.」
「It was so thin that I just barely noticed it after concentrating so much. And despite that, it can block the ice spear. And that is constantly on her. See, isn’t it insane?」

I almost nodded to Carol’s words. I won’t call it insane but I definitely feel like it deviates from the norm. In the first place, I have never seen a situation where the ice spear wasn’t effective. And since Cielmer blocked it, this means that the way she handled the nine spears before it might have been plenty insane enough as well.

「If that develops further, you could call it the ultimate form of barrier magic. It’s already at the level that you can give it a spell name. Reducing the magic power consumption is one problem to be solved but even from that point of view, that barrier is an exceptional sample. Even her technique in hiding the fact that she’s using sorcery is already top class.」
「Yeah yeah.」
「Don’t be so indifferent. Another thing, I said earlier that I’d win if I use my Job right? But I also suspect that she’s hiding something else, so I’m not sure who will win if we both fight at full strength.」
「Wait, she can still get stronger?」
「I do think that just having that barrier makes her unbeatable by hunters below B-rank.」
「That’s true, but…」
「Well, this is all only my speculation. It’s just from the way she fought but I felt composure from her every move. It’s difficult to explain but she had an ‘I can manage this if I get serious’ kind of vibe to her. Of course she might just be overconfident with no basis, so I can’t be too sure. Still, she has the strength to vouch for that confidence, so I can’t deny that she’s skilled. It might be best to keep my rank a secret. After all, she thinks that I’m a B-ranker.」
「I don’t really think that Cielmer would grow arrogant but that makes sense. She isn’t wrong about you being B-rank though.」

Carol may be a B-rank hunter, but she’s not just any run of the mill B-ranker. Though in the first place, B-rankers aren’t just some “run of the mill” hunters.

「We can speculate about her situation all we want but we need information first. She told you things right? So what did you ask her about?」
「I asked her why she was in a hurry to raise her rank up. After all, what she requested for was an increase in rank. Wanting to have a higher rank isn’t something unusual by itself but… Didn’t it feel like it’s different for her?」
「Well, yeah. Then, how did she answer?」
「She wanted to escape this country.」
「So a 10-year-old girl wanting to escape this country.」
「She didn’t tell me the reason why though. No, before that, she asked me if I’m against her leaving the country.」
「Celia, she’s getting you involved in some kind of trouble, you know? So what did you say?」

Carol stares at me with great interest. But rather than interest, it might be amusement. In other words, she’s probably curious about how much I intend to involve myself in this matter.

「At this stage, I agreed with her. Although for this town’s guild, they might not want to her to leave for another place, so they would probably try to keep her here.」
「So that means you’re lending her a hand?」
「I’ll decide later. This time, I’m still assessing if I should help her. After all, she said that she’s never seen a magic item before. She didn’t know how to use them. She casually talked about it but I suspect that she was trying to learn how common magic items are.」
「Excluding the remote countryside, they’re already quite widespread right? After all, it’s easy to collect magic stones if you just fight low ranking monsters. The price of magic items depend on the item itself, but the cheaper ones are considerably cheap.」
「Cheap enough for a common household to afford.」

Because of that, anyone should be able to encounter a light producing magic item in normal everyday life. As for what this means, I’ll leave it aside for later, and I decided to ask Carol the same question Cielmer asked me.

A-A Celia POV!?
Heya~! It’s not as late as last week’s update, so I’ll look at it as personal growth~
While our tired princesses are having a rest at the inn, we have exposition from the guild’s side of the story! Which isn’t completely uncommon, but we have a perspective on how the guild handles random overpowered children in a way that’s not just “Call the guild master!” and stuff. Very nice.
Both Celia and Carol are pretty observant, which should be natural due to the nature of their work, and while Celia lacks the knowledge and experience to see exactly how “insane” our princesses are, Carol’s nerding out helps us know that Ain and Ciel can go Disney Princess Song Time in about 80% of the known monster habitations. Which is something I definitely want to see.
Anyways, I hope you all enjoyed the read and have a nice day~!