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nCh. 81: Gaining Information from Assessment

nThe elf boy’s name was Feuille.

nLoren had spent around half a day gaining needed information from him.

nFinding out his name was already hard, but since Feuille was young, his speech became garbled sometimes and couldn’t remember things here and there, which made the information that Loren got be quite vague.

nBut since Lapis, who had been listening to their conversation, organized all the information, so by the time Feuille became tired of talking and fell asleep on the back of the donkey, they had most of the information they needed.

nAccording to it, Feuille was from one of the villages of elves living in the Black Forest and was ten years old.

nWhile helping gathering fruit and herbs in the forest with his friends, they had accidentally gone too close to the outskirts of the forest, and unfortunately ran into bad looking men.

nThe men had tried to capture them and take them, but they lacked finesse, killing half the children and letting the rest escape.

nThe only one who was caught had been Feuille, who had tripped and fell.

nAfter tying his arms and legs, the men carried him for around a day and into the campsite, and was thrown in the box that Loren and Lapis found him in.

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nHe was scared at what was going to happen to him, but after crying himself to sleep, he didn’t remember seeing anything.

nLoren couldn’t tell if his luck was good or bad, but since he hadn’t been found by the undead because he was unconscious inside the box, his life had been spared, so Loren guessed that his luck wasn’t bad.

n“There isn’t really any interesting information.”

nLapis said as she looked at Feuille, who was sleeping with his arms around the donkey’s neck, but to the victim himself, it was a matter of life and death, so Loren thought interesting or not wasn’t relevant.

nBut he couldn’t help but feel that entering the forest with Feuille was dangerous, but when he told Lapis, she gave him a confused look.

n“Why would you think we would be in danger?”

n“They could think that we’re with the ones who killed and kidnapped their children.”

n“People who kidnapped a child wouldn’t come back to return him.”

n“That’s true, but…”

nLapis was right if it were thought about calmly, but there was always the chance of a misunderstanding, so if the elves caught wind of humans having custody of one of their missing children, Loren thought that they could believe they were the ones who did it.

n“It’s elves, you know?”

n“Well, there’s a possibility.”

nLapis understood that even if they weren’t suspected, the elves could imagine that they were they brought back their child for things such as doing something to the village or looking for some rewards or compensation, and for some reason, bringing the child back out of kindness wasn’t an option.

n“There are lots of weird ones among elves, after all.”

n“I don’t think they’d want a demon saying that about them.”

nLapis was offended at Loren’s poking remark, but she didn’t counter, since it wasn’t like she didn’t have a clue about what he was talking about.

nAs they continued like that, they had reached the city that was closest to the Black Forest by the end of the day.

n“We really didn’t have enough information. I didn’t expect there to be a branch office for the adventurers’ guild in this city.”

nBefore they went to get rooms for the night, they went to the branch office they found by chance and gave them the extermination parts and materials from the monsters they had encountered.

nWhen Feuille had woken up, Loren and Lapis had been taking apart ten ogres, but they had defeated quite a bit of monsters before that.

nThey had quite a bit, so they decided to take care of them before they entered the forest.

n“You balance it here too?”

nAs Loren put the bags, which were bloody and looked unsettling, on the front desk, the girl standing behind it took them without breaking her smile and shook her head.

n“All we do here is take and assess. We issue certificates, so please go to one of the base guilds and receive your money.”

n“I see.”

nIt was slightly troublesome and was unsure if the guild would give them the money when they returned, but it was helpful that they didn’t have to carry around everything the whole trip.

nOn top of that, this branch had a bar along with it, like the guild in Kauffa, so Loren pointed at Feuille, who was walking and looking around the place, and told Lapis.

n“I’ll take care of things here, so go get him something to eat. He probably hasn’t eaten anything in a while.”

nBeing kidnapped, tied up, and thrown into a box, it was hard to think that he had been treated decently.

nTo a young child, missing one or two meals was quite harsh, so as Loren asked Lapis, worrying about Feuille, she nodded and took him towards the bar.

nAlthough it was called a bar, it was closer to a restaurant, so as he saw them off, he hoped there were things that even a child like Feuille could eat, and when he turned around back to the girl at the desk, he saw that she was looking at them as well with interest.

n“Did you see anything new?”

nAs Loren asked her to put up a lighthearted conversation, the girl realized that she was staring at the companions of one of her customers and nodded her head in embarrassment.

nLoren wondered if they didn’t see many elves in the area but thought that would be weird since the city was right next to the Black Forest, and there were elves inside that interacted with humans.

n“My partner? With her youth and looks, she could probably become anything she wants, instead of being a priestess, in my opinion.”

nLoren casually pointed out something that was most likely not what attracted the girl’s attention, and as he thought, she shook her head this time.

n“Your partner is indeed very pretty…but pardon my rudeness. You had an elf child with you…so I couldn’t help but look.”

nAs she bowed her head as she apologized, Loren waved his hand telling her not to worry about it and wondered why what he thought was wrong earlier was in fact right, so he continued the conversation.

n“This city is right next to the Black Forest, right? Don’t you see elves often?”

n“Yes, until a little while before.”

nLoren felt disturbed when he heard the words, ‘little while before’.

nIt meant that it wasn’t rare to see elves in the city.

nBut they had stopped seeing them for a while now.

n“Every now and then elves would come out of the forest to sell things they gathered in the forest and woodwork.”

n“And they stopped coming since a little while ago?”

n“That’s not all. The people who did business with them got worried that they didn’t show, so a few of them hired a few guards and went into the forest, but…”

nThe girl the put her hand to her mouth and beckoned Loren to get close.

nLoren leaned over the counter, guessing that it wasn’t something to say out loud, and the girl told him in a small voice.

n“No one has come back. It’s only been two, three days, and the Black Forest is quite a large forest so they might still be investigating.”

nThe girl’s hands hadn’t stopped working through the whole conversation.

nShe counted the number of extermination parts, sorted the materials, and recorded the amount and values onto the document in front of her.

n“If they don’t come back soon, we’ll have to put up a search quest for them, but we’re a small branch office and don’t have much money to spare, so we are considering asking nearby branches for a decision.”

n“That’s quite a worrisome story.”

n“I agree. There aren’t any reliable adventurers here, either. We’re small, so not a lot of them come here. It’ll be helpful if a kind adventurer somewhere goes to see what’s going on.”

nLoren gave a troubled laugh as the girl glanced at him.

nPutting Feuille aside, although Loren and Lapis were a party just by themselves, they had brought in ten ogre’s worth of materials, so it was obvious that they were quite strong and skilled.

nAlthough they were copper rank, it wasn’t a feat that normal copper rank adventurers could pull off.

nThe girl might’ve been hoping that skilled adventurers would go to the Black Forest and see what’s going on, but to Loren, he didn’t care about his personal evaluation, but he didn’t want to work for free.

n“Won’t someone go if a quest is put out?”

n“It’s hard to know how much the rewards should be until the situation is clear, so.”

n“An investigation for an investigation quest. Well, I might be interested in taking it if I’m feeling like it and it’s worth enough money, but I do have a partner. It’s not something I could decide on my own.”

n“That’s true. Okay, the assessment is done. This would be the certificate.”

nThe girl changed the subject, as if she had just tried asking, recorded the results, signed that there were no mistakes, and handed the document to Loren.

nAs he thanked her, took it, and started heading towards where Lapis was, the girl said in a small voice behind him.

n“If you decide to take it, I’ll make sure you get some extra, you know?”

nWhen Loren turned over his shoulder, the girl smiled and pointed towards the quest board.

nLoren could see that there wasn’t a quest on there like what the girl had mentioned, but it seemed that it would be put on there soon enough.

n“I’ll be in your care if that happens.”

nAfter saying so, he walked over to where Lapis and Feuille were sitting. He saw Feuille devouring stew, bread, and salad, and Lapis, who was looking at Loren with a smile.

n“Welcome back Loren. How was it?”

nLoren gave her the certificate he had received, knowing that it wasn’t what Lapis was asking about.

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nNot saying anything, Lapis took it and looked through what was written on there and put it in her pocket.

n“So, what else?”

nLapis asked Loren, wanting something else, so he pulled a chair and sat down, and started telling her what the receptionist girl had told him.

nPrevious

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nHey guys Kaoto here.

nOh man the days off were such a blast!

nI got to do quite a bit of things that I kept on hold, and it was a lot of fun.

nThen I realize that I have regular work schedule from this week…

nWell, since I’m done with this chapter and it should be posted within the next three minutes, I guess I’ll play a bit of God Eater 3 to get ready for the next large update, watch a movie, and go to sleep early.

nYeah, that sounds good.

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