A night has passed and the sun shined brightly.

It is now noon and the visibility of the surrounding is as clear as the day(lol).

Celesta village is within the eyes reach.

The place is a common farming village and wide fields surrounded the area that gave off that country feeling.

The carriages carrying Shin and the others moved off from the path and stopped for about 200 meters away from the village under the cover of thick forestation.

Reports said that the village is swarmed with monsters so they cannot just barge in without a plan or concrete information, especially when they haven’t heard whereabouts of any survivors, if there are any.

For now, they all got out from their vehicle.

Emilia gathers her knights and chose one from them to scout the village premise and gather useful information.

A female knight who was assigned by Emilia immediately dispatches off the scene.

Meanwhile, the other knights are preparing their gears waiting for instructions.

But despite being a rather dangerous mission, you cannot feel any tension coming from the knights nor hesitation in their eyes.

Everyone is on high spirits. Some even got into a playful mood.

As expected from the highly trained knights, not losing composure even in this situation, thought Shin in his mind.

Because of this, Shin’s girl companions were at ease.

This will be their first experience in actual combat. Unlike the stationary monster they have encountered during their first adventure together, the monster that they will encounter sooner or later would be somewhat different.

What’s odd about them is that they defy the common knowledge about monsters.

They naturally tend to avoid human settlements because as what Tia said before, every village has a protective barrier in them that wards off nearby monsters.

Shin’s conclusion leads to demons controlling them.

It’s a bit of a long shot or might not that’s why Shin requested to come here.

He wants to make sure if this was demon related or some high level monster’s doing.

Either way he came here for his quest regardless of what it is.

But first, he needs to protect the people around him.

He’s not confident enough to assure everyone’s safety.

Good thing Emilia and her knights are here.

Seeing how strong they are, this quest might be easy.

After a while, the knight who was tasked to check out things on the village returned.

“Status report?”

Emilia immediately inquired.

And with a bow, the female knight reported.

“We can easily enter the village. Somehow the entrance isn’t that occupied by monsters. Their numbers can be counted by fingers. But it is tad different within the village.”

“How many are there?” asked Emilia.

“Roughly about 40 to 50”

“That’s quite a number, huh? What kind of monsters are there?”

“Orcs. They are common around this area. Usually, they can be found almost every cave around here. Having them attack a village is unheard of”

“This might be an isolated case” Emilia in deep thought and continued. “Tia, we haven’t received a report about a village being attack other than this village haven’t we?”

Being called upon, Tia grabbed her bag, picked some documents and scanned it thoroughly.

“Yes, Emilia-sama. This is the first one. I checked again if maybe I neglected some of the papers. It seems this is an isolated case.”

“Is that so. We will investigate about this oddity later. More importantly, how about the people? Have you seen them?”

“About that, it seems that they barricaded themselves inside the church. The local priest might’ve set up a barrier around it. I don’t know how many of them are in there but sadly as expected... it seems that there were others who didn’t make it.”

Shin and the girls who were listening on the side wore a sad face when they heard the report.

Among them was even more devastated Clarisse who covered her mouth with her hands and almost broke down.

Good thing Shin was there to support her as he added some words together with Yuffa and Tanya.

“I know this is hard for you but hold it together for now. Because for all we know, your parents might be safe inside the church. We can only hope for the better”

“Stay strong Clarisse-chan. We’re here for you whatever happens”

“Nee.. Why is Clarisse onee-chan crying? There, there onee-chan. Where does it hurt?”

Tanya was poking Clarisse’s side trying to ask her but then she settled by hugging her on the side.

Clarisse smiled a little and hugged back Tanya.

Though deep inside, she’s not prepared for the worst.

She still hasn’t apologized for leaving them without warning and it’s now weighing in her conscience. She loved her parents very much so she can’t forgive herself if something happened to them.

If that happens…

Clarisse tightly hugged Tanya to soothe her inner feelings.

Shin watched the girls and some thought came into mind.

Isn’t hope supposed to be present at the very beginning?

It is that time when you’re expecting from something you are unsure of the outcome, doesn’t it?

But why does most of the time, hope only comes after you’ve given up?

And isn’t hope supposed to be a positive thing?

But why does it sound like it comes from a negative feeling?

After coming to this world, Shin started to feel like he’s slowly learning about life more deeply.

He started to feel like he’s maturing compared to his old self.

Although it is a good thing, but thinking about this deeply, he thinks that his life before might be a little better when things were easier and less complicated.

Even so,

This kind of life might be tad different from before but so far it’s not all bad things.

He gained something even more than that.

Something that the other life cannot offer.

He might experience far from his expectation of what he thought his life would be in this world.

But the reward of adventure and its equivalent risk makes it all worth it.

After a while, Emilia walked closer to them.

Apparently, they’ve finished discussing their strategy and she wants to share it with Shin and the girls.

“Are you all ready? We’ll charge through head on”

Shin counted all of them and they numbered 28 including the drivers which are also members of the knights.

They’re a little outnumbered but that doesn’t mean they’re outclassed.

“Our numbers should be enough. How’s the villagers?”

“They’re safe as long as they don’t go out of the church. Every corner of the village is surrounded. They can’t get out of there unless the place is monster-free. We’ll just have to eradicate them all.”

“With you saying that, I guess this isn’t so hard after all.”

“Well, I’ve encountered many Orcs before so yes. They are big fellows but the only thing they can boast about is their brute strength. That’s all”

“Same here. I’m just not sure if the Orcs here is the same as I’ve killed before”

“Why is that? Have you killed a higher level Orcs or some kind of different type? I thought monsters have specific levels to them?”

“You are right Emilia-sama though-” Tia suddenly intervened after she separated from the group of female knights. She continued “They do have specific levels but it depends on the location”

Opps.. Shin made a blunder.

He can’t say that he killed them in a game. He was taken by the flow of conversation that’s why Shin slipped out.

This would be the first time that he was thankful of Tia’s intervention.

“What do you mean Tia? Even though I’ve been killing all kinds of monsters from the past, that’s the first time I’ve heard of it” said Emilia with a frown.

“I can’t blame you Emilia-sama. You never left this country because of your duty to the king of this kingdom after all. Unlike me who were gone into different continents because of many errands. Apparently, the closer you are to the demon continent, the stronger the monster they become. That’s why the Scorching Shield kingdom on the fire continent which is the closest from the border of the demons is the destination of those 200+ adventurers.”

“That’s explains why we have the highest adventurer registration every year since our location is the farthest from the demon continent. Perfect place for starters”

“Yes. It is a lot safer here but there’s not much of a difference. Monsters are more aggressive the farther you are from the kingdom especially to the west side. So new adventurers tend to ignore west and proceed north where the direction of the fire continent is”

When Emilia and Tia where conversing, Shin learned for the first time that the place he was dropped to is the starting line for new adventurers. Also, that the kingdom is far away from the demon continent.

‘Wait.. demon continent? Does that mean that this place is separated from demons? If so, then the behavior of the Orcs was just illogical and had nothing to do with them?’

This is either good or bad news… Shin wasn’t sure.

But one thing that makes this a good news for him is that, he was just starting.

He is somewhat elated when he knew that there are more powerful creatures out there somewhere. That what he is right now still have more space to improve or upgrade.

Shin might face far greater than he could even imagine.

He might die in the process.

Who knows of what the outcome of his mission in the future. But this doesn’t change what Shin feels.

He chose this path and he will see through it to the end.

“Hey, what’s with that creepy smile of yours?”

“Huh?”

Shin was spacing out when someone broke his thoughts.

It was Tia who was looking at him making a scared face intentionally.

“Quit that smiles of yours and get ready. Everyone has gathered except you. We will enter the village now.”

Eh? Huh?

Shin looked left and right for Yuffa and the girls but they already left his side and lined up with the female knights.

He failed to notice his surrounding when he was in deep thought.

He cleared his mind then joined in and lined up with Yuffa.

“Shin-sama? I thought you heard me when I said that Emilia has called for us.”

“Sorry about that. I was occupied by my thoughts. So what are you going to do?”

“Um.. Since you’re charging in front together with Tia-sama and Emilia-sama, they asked for my assistance and requested that I support them at the back together with Tanya and Clarisse”

“Is that so? It’s good then. Do not let your eyes off of Tanya, okay?”

“I will protect her with my life”

“Mou~ Shin-oniichan~ treating me like a kid. Hmmp”

‘but you are a kid’ is what Shin wanted to say but didn’t because of Tanya making that kind of face.

Tanya pouted because Shin treated her like a child.

How cute~

Shin laughed and ruffled her head.

“She also said that I’ll only need to aid her knights and Clarisse because Shin can do anything on his own” Yuffa added with a wry smile.

‘What’s up with that?’

Shin looked involuntarily to Emilia’s direction.

Their eyes met.

Emilia immediately showed a smile that most likely meant to tease him.

To that, Shin only smiled back with confidence.

He then turns his attention to Clarisse and finds she was holding her bow with a shaky hand.

Clarisse wasn’t afraid because of the monsters. She is afraid to know the condition of her parents.

Whoever in her situation will understand her worries and will feel the same way as she is if we’re talking about parents.

It is obvious how someone on that situation would feel so Shin lightly taps Clarisse’s shoulders.

Having many thoughts, she was distracted and didn’t expect his tap so she was a little jumpy.

“E-eh? W-what is it Shin?”

Shin gave her a look of confidence and speaks as gently as possible.

“Calm down. What would you do if you hit your allies with your bow because of your shaky hands? Listen, I know you are worried about your parents but we have to do what we can as best as we can. Leave your worries for now and focus on what’s ahead of you, got it? We will save them all.”

Clarisse nodded wordlessly.

She took a deep breath and calms herself down.

Shin is relieved knowing that Clarisse is a strong girl.

He walked to the front and lined up with Emilia and Tia.

They looked at each other and nodded.

When all of them are in position, Emilia thrusted her sword upwards and shouted.

“Everyone! Let’s go!”

With that as a signal, everyone strides towards the village entrance.