Chapter 92

While I was completely exhausted, I had been able to get a little sleep, and it was now time to prepare for our departure.

First, I washed the pot that I had filled with water in the kitchen. It was easy to clean, thanks to my forethought the previous night.

Next, we needed to clean this house that we had used. It was already clean thanks to our work yesterday, but we had sort of made a mess of it again last night, so there was some cleaning to do. Well, it was nothing a wet rag couldn’t fix. Okay…I just needed to make sure that we didn’t leave anything. Then we locked the door and it was over. Thank you.

“Come on Daniela, we’re leaving.”

“Aye, I know.”

She stopped staring at the house and turned around to follow me. We were headed for the chief’s house.

I knocked on the door like I did yesterday, and Merica came out to greet us. I didn’t know if it was because she was expressionless or she had just woken up, but she looked up at us dumbly.

“Morning, Merica.”

“…Morning, Asagi and Daniela.”

“Is Rengel awake yet?”

“…Yes.”

She opened the door and we went inside. Rengel was in the living room and drinking some tea. I greeted him and returned the key to the abandoned house.

“Thank you so much. We’re very grateful.”

“Ahh, it’s nothing. I should be thanking you for cleaning the place for us. Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it. Oh, by the way. Someone from the village gave us some soup yesterday…he said to leave the pot here, and he would come for it later. Is that alright?”

“Ah, yes, just leave it over there.”

He pointed to the corner of the room, and so I placed the pot there. That really was some good soup.

“Please tell him that it was delicious.”

“Hmm, very well. And so, are you two leaving now?”

“Yeah. We’re not in a hurry, but we want to make the most of our time.”

“That is a good thing. I pray that your journey will be safe. Hey, Merica, say goodbye to our visitors.”

I looked towards her and saw that she was staring at us with dewy eyes.

“…Asagi…Daniela…stay safe…”

She sniffed and looked at the floor. Ahh, so she would miss us, it would seem.

We had only spent one day together cleaning a house. What a good child.

“Aye, you too, Merica. Stay healthy and grow strong.”

Daniela said as knelt to give Merica a hug. I could only see her back, but since her voice trembled, she probably had the same expression that Merica had now.

Rengel watched this with a smile.

And so I hugged both Daniela and Merica and said farewell.

“Goodbye, Merica. You take good care of your grandpa, okay?”

“…Okay…”

She brushed away the tears in her eyes and nodded. I felt that she would keep this as an important memory in her heart. And it would be the same for us.

“…Asagi, I’ll give you this.”

“Hm? Oh, that’s cute…”

It was a very small figurine in the shape of a cute animal. There was a string attached to its head that made a loop. I could use it as a strap for the hollow bag…

“Thank you. I’ll treasure it forever.”

“…She’s called Gumi. Be nice to her, okay?”

“Ah, of course. Nice to meet you, Gumi.”

I attached the strap to the bag and petted it. Merica watched this happily and petted it as well.

“Alright, we better get going. Thank you for everything.”

“Aye, stay safe.”

“Goodbye, Merica.”

“Bye-bye, Merica.”

“…Goodbye, Asagi, Daniela.”

We waved goodbye and left the chief’s house. We started walking to the west. When I turned to look behind us, the two of them were standing in front of the house and waving. We waved back one more time before walking through the gate. After we had walked a little, I turned around again and saw that they were now watching us from the gate. Oh, this was going to make me cry. I mean, Daniela was already doing just that.

“Oh…sniff…they were such nice people…”

“Don’t cry…it’s contagious…”

I said with a snuffle. Ah, it was no use. I looked up to stop the tears and saw my vision warp.

Finally, we reached a downward slope, and Senka Village disappeared from our view. We continued to walk for a while as we sniffed. Little by little, the highlands plateaued, and we came down to flat terrain. The land here was shrouded in a thin mist. It reminded me of my first day in this world.

“Hey, Daniela.”

“What?”

“How long will we have to walk until we reach, uh…”

“Replant.”

“Ah, yes, yes. When will we reach it?”

“It will likely take us three days.”

“Right…”

It seemed that a lot of these places were a similar distance from each other. This empire made things quite easy for us travelers.

As the two of us walked through the mist, Presence Detection alerted us of a monster. I unsheath the greatsword that hung from my shoulder.

“Grass wolves? Seems a little different this time.”

“I do not know… I have heard that there are monsters that only appear in the mist. Perhaps it is that.”

“Are you serious? I was in the thickest mist when I first came to this world. I could have died…”

“Do not worry. These monsters only live in Flugelnia.”

There really are all kinds of monsters in this world… And this one would show itself any moment now. I wanted to see what it was like first, so I lowered my sword to a defensive stance. Daniela also unsheathed her sword and stood behind me.

And what appeared from the mist, was none other than those humanoid monsters, goblins. But these ones were strangely pale. Perhaps it was a camouflage for the mist? They wielded the same iron swords that the other goblins carried. This one was thin and short, so close to a shortsword. He was looked like an assassin.

“Mist goblins…monsters that attack you from the mist.”

“Is that their real name?”

“I think so.”

“I see… Daniela, we’re surrounded.”

“Aye, I know.”

With Presence Detection, I could clearly sense that we were surrounded. A person who couldn’t use Presence Detection would likely get attacked quickly in the mist, and die. It was a horribly frightening way to die…

I stared back at the goblin, not giving it an opening to attack. Then it pulled back and vanished into the mist. In the same instant, a different goblin jumped out from the side. Daniela moved to engage, as I turned to face yet another goblin who came from the opposite direction. I blocked the first blow with my greatsword, then cut through him with a swing. The blade was sharp. There was something that looked almost exaggerated about the way the goblin was hacked and how the pieces went flying back into the mist.

“Daniela, these guys are really coordinated! We can’t underestimate them!”

“Still, they are no match for us!”

Our backs faced each other as we defended against the goblins that jumped out from the front and back. Just then, a second goblin appeared from behind the one that I was facing. As both of my hands were full, I generated an ice arrow in the air and shot the goblin. The goblin that was in front of me looked shocked by my display of magic, and so I kicked him, then rammed the sword forward as he stumbled. He struggled to pull the blade out, but his strength was gone, and I shook the dying goblin off of the blade. Daniela was also using her wind magic to fight.

“…Looks like that’s all of them.”

“It was quite an attempt…”

Daniela swung her sword to remove the blood before returning it to its sheath. My sword was too big to do something as cool as that. And so I was forced to use blue magic in the sword and create water to wash the blood off. It created a great gush of water that cleaned the blade nicely. And I put it back in my sheath and hung it over my shoulder.

“Hahh…that was scary. Let’s get out of here. It’ll really slow us down if we get attacked again.”

“Yes, but wait. We have to collect the proof of the hunt.”

“Ah, right. I have to collect their weapons for my allowance as well.”

We squatted and quickly salvaged what we needed. I didn’t know what we needed for proof, so we took the hands and ears. There were six swords in all. And we had proof of hunting six goblins. The swords were in surprisingly good condition. Where had they picked these up…I didn’t really want to think about it.

We were attacked several times after that, but it wasn’t too hard to deal with. I just watched as my allowance grew until we were finally out of the mist. Our surroundings were the same flatlands, but there was a forest in the distance. Apparently, Replant was on the other side of that forest. We camped in front of the forest that day, and on the next, we plunged into the forest that spread out before us.