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nCh. 92: Accepting after Questioning

nLapis’ interrogation lasted until Loren’s coat was completely dry.

nBy then Lapis’ and Feuille’s clothes had dried as well, and while Feuille had put them on as soon as they dried, Lapis put her clothes on with a difficult face after she had finished questioning Corne.

n“How was it?”

nWhen Loren, who had been waiting for her to finish, asked her, she shook her head, as if giving up, and finally opened her mouth.

n“First, this place seems to be the hidden village of fairies.”

nLoren had guessed this place was so since Corne had mentioned the fairy chief, but it seemed like he wasn’t wrong.

nThey had been looking for clues to find it, but it seemed like they had managed to directly find their way there.

nThat was good news, but it was bad news at the same time.

nIt was about the residents of Feuille’s village.

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nThey were looking for the way to the hidden village because they thought maybe the residents fled there.

nBut they couldn’t see any elves in the area, and there was no way they could be inside the small buildings the fairies lived in.

nWhich meant that the elves hadn’t fled to this place.

n“I asked her just in case, but she said there weren’t any elves that came here.”

n“Is there someplace similar to this?”

n“Not any that Corne knows of.”

nIt wasn’t like all hope was lost.

nThe elves fleeing to the hidden village was just Feuille’s guess, and they had no idea what they actually did.

nThere could be some that fled to other villages.

nBut there was no way to know for sure, and the only thing they did know was that Feuille was the only elf currently there.

n“Everyone…”

nFeuille was shocked at the fact that he could be the only one who survived, but neither Loren nor Lapis could find any words to say to him.

n“Being kidnapped by bandits, but surviving because of that is quite the luck, right?”

n“Loren, that’s not something you should say out loud, even if you think it.”

nLoren and Lapis said to each other in hushed voices.

nHalf of them was a mercenary that experienced a companion that was doing fine the previous day become a cold body the next day, and the other half was a demon that didn’t really care about anything other than her interests.

nBut it wasn’t like they couldn’t sense the mood, but although they didn’t say anything careless that could make Feuille feel worse, they didn’t really understand how shocked he was, so they couldn’t think of anything to say to him.

n“Umm, on a different note, the chief seems to have locked himself in the deeper part of the village behind a blockade, and if we want to kill him, we have to start by breaking past it.”

n“Can’t Corne and the fairies break it?”

nLoren thought that the fairies, with their magic skills, could unlock a blockade or two by themselves.

n“It seems they could do something about it if they try very hard.”

n“Then…”

n“It means that even if they could get past the blockade, they won’t have enough power to defeat the chief.”

nEven if the fairies broke through the blockade to fight the chief, if they didn’t have any mana left, they couldn’t face him.

nThat was why although Corne wanted to defeat the chief, she was having trouble doing so.

nEven with the current total current strength they possessed, they couldn’t defeat him, which was why they decided to resort to asking outsiders like Loren for help.

n“Is Corne in somewhat of a high position here?”

n“High enough to be in charge of everyone, it seems.”

nCorne’s suggestion was to have all the fairies in the village break the blockade that was closing the path, then have Loren and Lapis go to where the chief was and kill him.

n“Hey, it’s fine if I’m misunderstanding. But you said you could break past the blockade if all the fairies helped. That means that the chief is stronger than all of you combined, right?”

n“I guess so.”

nNeeding the powers of all the fairies combined to get past the blockade the chief set up meant that the strength of the whole fairy village barely balanced out the strength of the chief.

nIt was perceivable how strong the chief was, and wasn’t hard to guess how much of a pain he would be to deal with.

n“Can the two of us defeat him?”

n“It’ll work out if we don’t mind others.”

nTo Loren’s worried words, Lapis’ response was strong.

nBecause they were worried about someone seeing them, Lapis hesitated using her powers, and Shayna, who was within Loren, couldn’t use her powers to the fullest.

nBut if that were gone and they could use their powers without any limits, both Lapis and Shayna were powerful beings, and would be able to stand their own against the chief.

n“Well, even if there were people looking, we could probably talk our way out.”

n‘Onii-san, Shayna will secretly help too!’

nEven if they didn’t go all in, between the strengths of the demon Lapis and no life king Shayna, Loren thought they could go even with the chief.

nEither one of them could destroy a whole nation if they wanted to.

nSince all he could do was swing his great sword, Loren was thinking he would be able to be an annoyance at most, but Lapis and Shayna were thinking that putting Loren in front and supporting him would work out.

n“So are we fine with accepting her request?”

n“Yes. I’ve talked about the rewards already as well.”

nLoren thought that Lapis had just been questioning Corne, but it seemed that she had made her request into a job, and even talked about payment.

nAs Loren was impressed at how quick she was with it, Lapis started talking about the payment details.

n“Although I said we decided on the payment, it won’t be anything fancy. After all, fairies are a race that don’t have many metal items, just like elves.”

n“They don’t look like they’d eat much either, so there wouldn’t be much to give us either.”

n“If you think about it that way, the fact that the chief ate all the food from the elf village is quite terrifying. Maybe they have stomachs made of iron and very strong stomach acids?”

n“No idea. So what condition did you agree on?”

nFairies had less contact with humans than elves did.

nHe couldn’t think they had money stored anywhere in the village, and asked Lapis.

n“She promised that if we manage to kill the chief, we could choose one thing what they have, and take it.”

nLapis’ conditions bet on there being something of value among the things that the fairies had gathered.

nEven if there wasn’t anything that would be expensive, if they could find a gem, that would still be worth quite a bit.

n“Even if we don’t get lucky, I’m looking forward to finding something that would give us some profit.”

n“That seems reasonable enough.”

nThere was also the option of asking for more, since the fairies were desperate for help, but Loren thought that taking advantage of them wouldn’t feel good when they received their payment.

nSo he thought that the condition that Lapis had chosen, which allowed them to take the job in a good mood and keep them from being in the red, seemed just right.

n“We leave Feuille here. No objections, right?”

n“Of course not.”

nFeuille raised his head when they said that, but neither Loren nor Lapis was going to take him to the chief.

nThere was a possibility that the fairy chief had killed everyone in his village.

nThen it meant that it could be a chance for Feuille to avenge them, and he did indeed want to strike a blow.

nBut even knowing so, the reason why Loren and Lapis wasn’t going to take him was because of what Corne had said earlier, that the chief created new fairies out of the dead bodies of elves.

n“If we take you, we need to protect you. And in the case that the chief makes fairies out of your body, we’ll be attacked from both front and behind.”

nSo when Loren asked Feuille to keep his feeling in, he looked like he wanted to complain, but he silently looked towards the ground.

nSeeing it as he understood his reasoning, Loren told Corne, who was floating around and wondering when their conversation will end, that they would accept her request.

n“I can’t guarantee that we’ll be able to do something, though.”

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n“That would be wishing for too much. We’re thankful that you are willing to help us.”

nCorne flew around Loren happily.

nLoren decided not to follow her with his eyes, since he would get dizzy if he tried, and asked Corne, who was still flying around him.

n“We can count on you guys to break the blockade, right?”

n“Of course. We’ll be as much help as we could.”

n“So you’re fine with the request being defeating the chief? Killing him?”

n“…Yes, please do so.”

nThere was a small moment of silence before the words came out of Corne’s mouth.

nLoren didn’t know what kind of thoughts and feelings went through her mind in that short moment, but since she managed to give him a definite answer, he gave her a firm nod.

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