Volume 2 - CH 110

It had been about 30 minutes since our last break, and we finally reached the village after continuing to push the carriage forward in the rain.

The village is not very big, but there are many houses and fields.

This alone should be enough to feed the village’s residents.

I entered the village with the shallow thought that the village would survive the winter successfully, although I did not know what would happen in the winter.

The village is surrounded by a fence, perhaps as a measure against monsters and beasts.

However, the fence is only low enough to reach around the waist.

I don’t think this is enough to prevent the invasion of monsters.

But it might be better than nothing, and maybe there is not so much damage from monsters and beasts here.

I think we should be vigilant in case something happens,……, but that’s not something me, a stranger, would advise the villagers to do.

It might be a thoughtful thing to do.

The villagers welcomed us with open arms.

The name of this village is Kosh-village.

That’s an unusual name.

After a brief exchange of greetings with Schmal, the village head of Kosh-village, we were taken to a guest house to drop off our luggage.

There seem to be only a few places in the village that look like a guest house.

They are not very tidy houses, but as long as we could shelter from the wind and rain, it would be fine.

However, I felt a little strange when I entered the house.

There was a strange smell.

It was a smell that I had smelled somewhere before, but I could not figure out what it was.

Reizen seemed to have noticed this, too, and tilted his head at the strange smell.

However, only Uchikage seemed to know what it was.

“Is it the smell of blood ……?”

“Blood, huh? ……Oh, it sure smells like that when you mention it.”

The owner of the inn, who was listening to the conversation, trembled.

He seemed to be trying to act normal, but his plastered smile would not hide the fact that he was in the middle of an event.

It could have been some kind of crime.

We should ask him about it.

“What does this mean?”

“Um …”

He seemed hesitant to speak, but after letting out a big sigh, as if he had given up on something, he began to talk about the situation in a few words.

“I don’t know if it’s any of your business if you’re not a doctor, but ……. There are a lot of injured people staying here.”

“Injured?”

“Yes, ……. This is a small village, so there are not much medical facilities, let alone medical equipment. The doctor here is away on a medicinal business in the Kingdom of Salettana.”

“That is fine, but why were there injuries?”

“That’s ……”

The story goes like this.

It is said that a dog-type monster beast has been appearing in this village recently.

In the beginning, it did nothing more than eat the crops in the fields, but eventually it began to attack the people of the village.

When I asked him about the characteristics of the dogs, he told me that they were the same kind of drooling dog-type monsters that I had killed before I came here.

I think I’ve killed about 20 of them. …… Maybe there are still more of them ……

Since they were attacking people, they sent a request to the guild of the Kingdom of Salettana and asked them to call adventurers. ……

They said that there were so many monsters that every adventurer who came was a failed attempt and came back injured.

So it seems the only people staying at this guest house are adventurers.

Apparently, they have suffered serious injuries, such as having their hands bitten off or having large wounds on their backs.

Therefore, the smell of blood has recently begun to fill the air. ……

The owner of the guest house was not happy about the inconvenience, but he could not throw the injured out of the lodge, and since they had been paid for their accommodations, there was nothing he could do about it.

After hearing this, Uchikage spoke to the owner of the guest house.

“What rank is this request?”

“Let’s see, …… several times the adventurers have failed, so it should have gone up to …… rank B.”

“B huh ……”

The difficulty level seems to increase with the number of failures.

Up to now, five C-ranked parties have come.

All of them had failed and had returned with serious injuries.

Was it such a tough opponent?

I usually kill them instantly with my 【Water Spear Volley】……

No, but we have to consider that there were many of them.

It may have been an easy win if it’s only a few of them, but if they went to the residential area, there would be more of them than when I encountered them at that time.

Besides, the ground advantage is on the other side.

Since they will probably coordinate their hunting methods, it will be easy for them to attack us if we are not careful.

Now, why I’m talking about the assumption that we’re going to go and take them down…….

“Aniki! Uchikage! We must go! We can’t leave the people of the village in trouble!”

I thought I told him. Since this wasn’t an official request and we weren’t adventurers, we wouldn’t be paid at all.

Even when I told Reizen about this, his intentions remained the same.

Yes, I appreciate the fact that he doesn’t care about the reward.

Well, I am a bit curious to know how much of a B rank it is.

So this time, I decided to take Reizen and accept this request.

Of course, it’s unofficial, but …… well, it doesn’t matter as long as they don’t find out.

“I’m off then!”

“O-, wait a minute, Reizen! He’s already gone!

He’s a turtle, right?

He’s pretty fast, isn’t he?

Maybe it’s because he’s in human form. ……?

Well, it can’t be helped, I’ll go with him.

I’m sorry to say that Uchikage will have to stay and watch Alena and Satella.

“Is everything okay?”

“I think so. ……. Well, at worst, that guy will be a good shield.”

As far as we are concerned, we are not prepared for it, but …… well, if I search with the 【Haze Manipulation】, I’m sure we’ll find them soon enough.

Speaking of which, have they found where this monster lives?

That’s what I thought and asked the owners, but they said they have no idea.

The adventurers…… what are you guys really doing here…….

So first we need to find out where they live.

The more attacks we get, the closer they will be to their homes, so let’s just go into the mountains to intercept them and get everything ready as we go.

If I return to the road I came from earlier, I might be attacked again.

Let’s gather information in the village for a little while, though.

“Reizen! Come back!”

For some reason, I started with the process of bringing Reizen back …….. …… but that’s OK, I guess.

After I managed to bring him back, I decided to talk to the adventurers who had fought with the monsters.