It was almost noon when we finally reached the village.

The scent of humans in this place is really strong so it really is the place where humans live. I could even see some walking here and there.

It doesn't seem that anybody has noticed us.

"Right. Snow, leave the carriage here." Night said as she gestured me to follow her.

She leads me towards the edge of the forest and told me to place the carriage behind the trees.

She's obviously trying to hide the carriage but I don't know the reason.

"Why are we hiding the carriage?"

But before I could even ask, Sun asked her before I could.

"Wouldn't it be strange for a small girl like Snow to walk around, pulling a carriage?"

Is it really that weird? I guess normal humans wouldn't be able, or at least find it hard, to pull a carriage on their own so I think it's reasonable.

"Oh, that's right. Then we'll carry the rest of our stuff then."

They then grabbed everything that is essential. Clothes, papers, scrolls, water containers, those metal rods that they use to stick the animals to burn them in fire and some other things.

They then wrap those things inside a cloth and carried them on their backs.

I tried to help them carry some but they refused.

Instead, they asked me to put on this really big cloth that they use to lie or sit on the dirt with. They always clean it after they use it so it isn't dirty.

But I don't know what it's for.

When I asked, Sun said that it's to hide that I have pale skin.

My pale skin is the only apparent difference that I have with humans so they might think of me as strange if they saw it.

I just wish I wouldn't hide it like this the whole time we are in the village.

After a couple of minutes walking, we finally reached the entrance of the village.

There, we saw a gathering of a few of the villagers.

The humans here have different shapes and sizes. Some are as small as me, some are as big as Night or Sun, some are as small as me but have clearly weak bodies.

For the third type, there's three of them.

The one that seemed to be a male, noticed us and approached us and then the others followed him including the other two with the weak bodies. They're females by the way.

"Who are you, people?" The weak male human said.

As expected, his weakness is showing in his voice as well. Although it's loud and somehow has a bit of dignity in it, it's clear that he's just trying to look strong.

"We're just mere travelers. We've been traveling for... two months now and we wanted to rest in your village." The one who answered was Night.

Then Sun followed up.

"We don't need any special treatment. Simply being inside the village is just enough. We can simply set up a tent for us to sleep. We just want a secure place to sleep to ease our minds."

The weak human thought about what Sun and Night said and after looking at the two of them, his eyes landed on me.

"A child?"

When Night heard that, she moved a little to cover me.

"Yes. We found her in the forest so we took her with us." Night said.

"What's your destination? Is it the capital?"

"Yes, you are correct."

"The capital, is it? And two months... Did you perhaps rode a carriage or a horse?"

"We used a carriage half way but we were attacked by bandits. Thankfully we escaped with our lives but the horse and the carriage as well were taken so we had to continue on foot."

"Then you two must be from the south. Teltorte is it? You two must be taking refuge from the [civil war]?"

Civil war?

"Huh? Y-yes, we are..."

Looks like Night isn't too sure of this 'civil war' as well.

"We heard all about it. It's really saddening how the citizens there are treated. But here in Ronoa, you'll be safe. [Slave] trade isn't legal in this country so many take refuge in the capital. But I advise you stay away from the capital for a while. It had gotten a bit too crowded there you see."

The weak human's tone turned softer when he started to speak about things that I don't understand.

Sun and Night don't seem to understand what he said as well. Or rather, it's more like they're surprised.

I don't care anymore. I'll let the worrying part to Sun and Night.

"Then, can we stay here in the village for a while?" Sun said, returning the conversation back on track.

Then the weak human male turned towards the other weak humans and talked about something.

After a few words were exchanged, they seem to have reached an answer.

"We would welcome you in our village and let you stay here as long as you want but... we have a problem here." The weak human said grimly.

"You see, we have a bit of a monster problem. A few days ago, the goblins in the forest have started to raid us at night. Although we managed to put a stop to them at first, their raids had escalated in strength each day. Last night's raid resulted in two of our men getting serious injuries." The weak human continued.

"Have you reported this matter?" Night replied in worry.

"Yes. The subjugation team should be arriving a week from now. Right now, we're discussing how to survive until then. Right now, I think you should just head to the village north from here."

"No, we'll take our chances and rest here. After traveling for two months nonstop, we're very exhausted." Sun said in refusal.

In the end, we are allowed in the village. It looks like the weak human is going to lead us to where we would be staying. I'm guessing that it's going to be like one of those houses. How exciting!

Tons of humans that I could meet. Maybe I could learn more about their culture. There's just so much that Sun and Night could show me. With this, I'll learn even more things!

Although the gazes of the humans here aren't really welcoming. Some looked at us with pity and some looked at us as if we're really dumb.

So those goblins are attacking this village as well. From how the weak human said it, this doesn't seem to be something normal. Although goblins are hostile, they are afraid of things strictly stronger than them.

Humans are stronger than goblins so it's natural that they don't attack this village. At least not that often I assume.

There's also the fact that they often attack at night. Even when we're traveling, not one of them ever attacks during the day. They don't seem to be nocturnal creatures as well since I saw a few of them walking around at midday in the forest a few times.

My guess is that they know that humans sleep at night so they attack humans at night to catch them off guard. It seems plausible and it might be the actual reason. But of course, there might be other reasons as well.

And speaking of attacking, the weak human said that they attack every night, and each day, their attacks grow stronger than the last. That would mean that they increase in number each day.

And it seems that the humans in this village are able to fend them off which would mean that the humans here are pretty strong as well. At least, they're stronger than the raids that those goblins had sent out towards the village.

So in that difference in strength, why didn't they just save up their goblins and attack in one night with many goblins to raid the village? It would be more effective and they wouldn't suffer many deaths as well.

Could there be a reason why they don't do that? Or are they just dumb?

Well, I guess it's fortunate that they didn't do that. I would prefer to visit a village filled with humans that are alive than a village where the humans are dead.

While I was thinking that, we finally reached where we would be staying. The house looks to be in a little bit in a worse condition than the other houses.

"My apologies, this is the only house that isn't occupied. You could also stay at my home if you want."

"Ah, no no! This is more than enough! We can't possibly intrude in your home. Thank you for letting us stay in your village." Sun said in a fluster.

"Well then. Please be careful at night." After saying that, the weak human left and headed off somewhere else.

Once he's out of sight, I pulled on Sun's sleeve.

"Who's that?"

"He's the village chief. The one who leads the whole village."

So he's actually important but there's still something I don't understand.

"He's weak. Why listen?"

They seem to be a be a bit taken aback by what I asked.

Did I say something weird?

"You see, Snow, the village chief might look weak but since he's old, he knows a lot. Leadership isn't only measured by someone's strength. Their knowledge and intelligence is also a big factor." Night explained.

Is that so?

I don't know much about leadership but I assumed that the strong is always followed because if you don't have the strength to show to your followers, they wouldn't listen to you.

I can see how a smart leader would also be good.

Ending that thought there, we headed inside the house.

The house is really spacious compared to the carriage. There's a couple of things here that I've seen for the first time.

In the first room, there's things like 'table', 'chair', 'pot', 'cauldron', and some other things. There's also several window-like holes on the wall as well as several chopped tree pieces in one of the corners of the room.

Sun and Night headed towards another room, to which it headed towards next. The room that Sun and Night went in is smaller than the last one but this one has something called a bed.

It's a large soft thing that is meant for sleeping on. Just looking at it, I felt sleepy. But now is not the time to do that. I still have some exploring to do here.

Leaving the two there with whatever they were doing, I went back to the room before.

The room with the bed is left from the room with the table. On the right is simply a door that leads to the outside, the back of the house.

I exited the house though there and saw a small structure thing close to the house. I'd say it's half the carriage's area. There's also an awfully pungent scent of human waste in there. I decided not to get near there.

When I went back to the house, I saw that Sun and Night are done doing whatever they were doing in the other room and took out the cauldron thing.

"What's it for?" I asked.

"We'll be cooking." Night answered with a smile.

They then placed it on top of two rectangular hard stone, leaving a gap in the middle. After that, they put in a couple of pieces of wood in the gap.

"... Next would be water... Could you two draw some water from the [well]?" Night said to me and Sun.

Well?

"Alright. Let's go, Snow."

Sun held out her hand to which grabbed promptly.

Our destination should be towards where this well is.

With us are two bucket things to hold the water with.

From I gathered, this well should be a place where water can be collected from. I don't see how that would relate to anything that Night is doing.

The cauldron thing is too small for bath use so that possibility is out. Maybe it's to heat the water for consumption? I think Night mentioned that one of the reasons why they burn meat before eating them is for sanitation.

She explained how that works but I couldn't really comprehend it.

I'm sure I wouldn't arrive into any worthwhile assumptions in this so I decided to ask Sun.

"What's Ni—Roosevelt doing?"

"Oh right. You've never seen us doing it during our travels. It's called cooking. Essentially, it's using other foodstuffs, which is called ingredients, mix them together in a certain way to make a more delicious meal."

"Mix flavors?"

"That's right. Would you like to try it after its done?"

Mixing foodstuff... That would involve those bitter carrots and potatoes then. Would that be alright? Could blood be added on that cooking?

A little later, we found the well that Night was talking about.

This well is a really deep cylindrical hole surrounded by stone barriers to prevent anyone from falling into them, I assume. There's also a long object made up of a bunch of hair-like materials tied together in a spiral manner.

It's called a rope it seems.

Attached to this rope is a bucket like me and Sun is carrying, only smaller.

"How it works?"

I asked Sun regarding how we can take the water from the deep hole.

"It's simple. You throw the bucket in the well and have it catch the water. After that, bring it up again and pour the water from the bucket to the bucket we're carrying."

Sun explained as she demonstrated how it works.

It really is simple but it's also apparently a lot of hard work to do. Water is quite heavy in large amounts.

"I help."

"No need for that, Snow. Let me show you that I can handle this much."

I got refused yet again.

So now, I just sat there and watch Sun struggling to pull up water, pour it in our buckets and do it all over again.

After a while, she's finally done. Due to the sun being just overhead of us, it had been quite hot. From that and the fact that Sun had been doing some strenuous work for a human, she's now covered in sweat.

For some reason, I don't sweat myself.

"See?" Sun said with quite a radiant smile.

Her breathing became rough after that. She really did a lot of tiring work.

I think I know what to say in these situations...

"Good work."

With a smile and a 'thumbs-up' to go along with it.

Upon seeing Sun's blushing face told me that complimenting her is the right choice. I feel like I'm getting closer to understand humans now.

Complimenting someone after they did something tiresome would make them happy.

I should say a good job to Night as well later.

After that, we returned to the way we came from. The distance between the house and the well wasn't really that long, but it was far enough that carrying two water-filled buckets is tiring.

For Sun that is.

I tried to help, of course, but Sun refused again. She said to leave it to her.

But we aren't even halfway there and her arms look like they're about to fall off.

That's when I forcibly took a bucket from her hand and held it with both my arms. The bucket is certainly heavier than before but for me who managed to push around something like a carriage, this is nothing.

Such is the strength of a vampire.

Still, she could have relied on from the start. No need to tire herself. They did that with the carriage so why didn't Sun want to rely on me on these things as well?

...

Let's end that thought there. It's making me feel bad.

With me carrying a bucket, our travel time has gone faster now and we arrived at the house in a few short minutes.

There we saw Night cutting up a carrot into small pieces with a sharp tool which looks similar to a sword, but shorter.

It's a knife.

Sun and Night poured half a bucket of water in the cauldron and lit the firewood below it using a fire scroll.

Then, Night continued cutting up the vegetables with the help of Sun this time.

"You can watch us if you want, Snow."

Night told me but I'm already doing that.

After the carrots and potatoes, they took out the leftover raw rabbit meat that they've been saving their afternoon meal and cut that up as well.

After a lot of cutting, Night threw them in the cauldron with the hot water. She threw in the rabbit meat first and then scooped away some white stuff that suddenly floated up on the surface of the water.

Next, she threw in the vegetables and some powder thing. When I asked what it is, they said it's salt and herbs. They explained that they are seasonings and that they make things tastier.

That's quite fascinating. The salt is... Salty and the herbs have a differing taste but they all taste bad when tried alone. This cooking, it seems like, has the ability to combine all these not so pleasant tasting ingredients into something appetizing.

At least that's what I thought. I still haven't tasted it yet.

A couple more minutes later, Night announced that it's done.

I've got to say, it does smell pleasant. Night said that this one is called a stew. She also said that through cooking one could create many more different dishes.

This cooking is really quite practical, huh?

I'm sure for a human, who isn't capable of drinking blood for sustenance, cooking would be a great thing.

But, time for the taste.

Night poured the water part of the stew and added some meat and carrots inside this thing called bowl. More specifically, earthenware bowl.

She also passed me an object called a spoon. It's meant to make eating easier. Sun taught me how to use it for a bit.

Now then. Let's taste it.

Upon taking a mouthful of this stew, it's really hot but more than that, it's quite delicious. The mix of all the flavors of the ingredients is really good.

And here I thought humans are really unfortunate to not be able to appreciate the taste of blood. If they have something like this, then I can rest easy.

It looks like the things that Sun and Night are eating during our travel is simply the result of a lack of equipment.

Then now that we have these, I'm sure that they wouldn't resort to eating burned rabbit meat and burned potatoes again.

"Is it tasty?"

Night asked me and I gave her a solid nod. It's quite surprising how delicious it is. I'd say it's better than boar blood or even rabbit blood.

"Very delicious. Good job."

I also complimented Night. It looks like she's happy from that.