Ch. 130: Arriving at Neighboring Village
After walking for a while, having conversations as they did so.
A few members had suffered light injuries before they even reached their destination, but other than that, nothing stood in their way, and they arrived at the village that Rose told them about just as the sun was starting to set.
Its size was like Rose’s village and looked like any other village as well.
But although there were signs that it was inhabited until recently, when they scanned the area, it was nothing but a ghost town.
“Naturally thinking, something’s going on in there.”
After going around once and standing in the center of the village, Loren’s gaze was directed at the dense forest to the north of them.
The forest was creepy, since he couldn’t see inside at all in the dying sunlight, but at the same time it just looked like a normal forest.
“Isn’t that a bit simple? It’s possible that the village got attacked by monsters or something, isn’t it?”
In Lapis’ arms were vegetables and salted meats she got from who knows where, and Loren couldn’t help but look at her sharply.
“I found them in the food storage, but it’s about to rot, and that would be a waste. We should use it for our own good instead of wasting it, don’t you think?”
“If we find villagers, you’d better pay them back.”
Loren was hesitant to take the village’s food, which could be considered a part of their fortune.
But as Lapis had said, he knew that it was better for them to eat it than let it all rot.
So, it was Loren’s opinion that although they should use what they could, but make sure to pay the villagers in case they were found and made sure to express that firmly to Lapis.
“Alright then. I’ll do that.”
Lapis agreed to do so quite easily.
Loren continued staring at Lapis, thinking that she somehow knew that she wouldn’t have to pay anyone anything, but Lapis started laying out the ingredients she brought, not paying any attention to him.
“They aren’t fresh, but good thing there are vegetables. It looks like we’ll have a good dinner tonight.”
“That’s nice. By the way, where are the others…”
Right as Loren started, he saw Ange and the girls bring sausages as well as some barrels out of the houses, and sighed, but then he saw Klaus bring a cow out of the cow shed and gulped.
“What are you guys doing?”
Wondering what his voice sounded like as he called out to them, all of them started stuttering excuses like Lapis, and so Loren put his hand against his forehead and sighed.
He thought that what they were doing was theft, but since it seemed that using what was available was part of an adventurer’s creed, he didn’t feel like saying anything more.
“You guys pay the villagers too if we find them, alright?”
“You’re pretty strict when it comes to these things, huh.”
Klaus said, impressed, but the cow that he had brought was quite thin and weak since it had been tied up for a while.
Although it hadn’t starved to death yet, it proved that the people who took care of it had been gone for a while, but it still didn’t tell where they went.
“What’re you going to do with that cow?”
“I thought maybe we could get some milk.”
“Not with how thin and weak it is. Take it back.”
“Alright. But these animals are lucky. There isn’t anyone to take care of them, but they haven’t been attacked by beasts or monsters.”
Loren thought for a moment at Klaus’ casual words.
Livestock in these kinds of villages were often attacked by beasts or monsters regardless of villagers being there or not.
On top of that, the fact that they weren’t attacked even though there was no one to take care of them was strange.
“Ill tie it back, but I could give it food, right? I don’t want it to starve.”
“Yeah, that’s fine. I’ll help.”
He wasn’t sure what happened to the villagers, but the animals were still alive.
There was no need to make them starve, so Loren decided to go with Klaus to tie to cow back up and feed them.
While they did all that, the sun had started to set and their surroundings started to get dark, so the company decided to camp in the middle of the village.
They had considered borrowing some of the villagers’ houses and sleep there but sleeping in houses which the owners had vanished mysteriously wasn’t the most pleasant, and everyone except Loren declined.
“All of you definitely can’t come to the battlefield. Sleeping next to corpses happen all the time.”
“But you will get attacked if they turn undead.”
“Every now and then, yeah. Things like that happen.”
As Loren had said, there were times where soldiers died because bodies that hadn’t been treated properly turned undead and attacked them.
To prevent that, most of the time the bodies in good shape were tied up and stuffed into bags.
“Just for reference, what were bodies in bad shapes like?”
Ange asked, and Loren replied like it was nothing.
“Bodies with no heads or missing limbs won’t turn undead, but even if they did, they can’t move.”
“I shouldn’t have asked…”
Ange said with a sullen face, but to Loren it was nothing out of the ordinary, and it was something he had gotten used to.
Of course, there was a small bit of unpleasantness that didn’t disappear, but Loren thought that such things could become bearable with experience.
“Anyways, lets get ready for dinner. Tonight’s is going to be good, isn’t it?”
“Yes. We got the ingredients and the water from the well is good to use so we have a lot of that as well.”
While they were looking through the village, they found that the village’s well was still okay.
For the water, Loren some up and rubbed it on his arm, and after waiting for a while, this time he put a little bit in his mouth, tasting it then spitting it out, and seeing that nothing happened, he then drank some and waited for a bit again, making sure it was safe.
“It’s probably fine. But boil it just in case.”
“Got it. Should I use <<Purify>>?”
“Feels like a waste, but if you’re just going to sleep after go ahead. But if you were going to do that, did I really have to go through the trouble of checking it?”
“It’s not that I don’t trust you. But there’s the possibility of something we might be hesitant to put in our mouths even though it doesn’t hurt us.”
Loren guessed that could be so, but Klaus and the other girls started looking at the water like something scary was in it.
“There’s a limit to how much I can clean with <<Purify>>, so let’s use it on the water we brought to lower the chances of getting upset stomachs.”
There were two priestesses in the party.
They had many uses of Divine Arts, but they still couldn’t waste a charge just for cleaning water.
“<<Purify>> is a simple Divine Art, so I’ll use mine. Roll should save hers.”
Lapis said and proceeded to use <<Purify>> on the water.
From Lapis’ point, it seemed that Roll was more skilled as a priestess than she was, and skilled healers should save their strength in case something happens, so Lapis decided that a common Art such as <<Purify>> could be done by herself.
“So that means Roll is a better priestess than you are?”
“Unfortunately, yes. Only as a priestess, though.”
Lapis seemed to imply something, and Loren knew what she meant.
Since Lapis was a demon, all her abilities combined, Roll was no match for her, but there was no way she could mention that in front of everyone.
It seemed that Roll had more charges of Divine Arts as well.
“Difference in amount of faith?”
“Something like that.”
Lapis sadly agreed, and Loren patted her on her head to make her feel better.
As they had such conversations, Lapis continued to prepare the food.
Although, it wasn’t much in the first place.
She just cut the ingredients they gathered from the houses into pieces and threw them into a pot they had found in one of the houses as well, poured water in it, and added salt they had found and herbs they had picked in the area and prepared to stew everything, but it was still better and warmer than eating rations, and dinner with soup was nice as well.
The only downside was that they had to eat the bread they had brought.
There was bread left in the village, but they were all rotten and weren’t in a shape to be eaten.
“Women who can cook are nice.”
When Klaus said such carefree words so nonchalantly, while in a village where the villagers had mysteriously disappeared, Loren replied in a cold voice, as he thought that Klaus might be something on a whole different level.
“If you try to hit on her, I’m going to make you go cold.”
“You see. I’m not really into sleeping with other another man’s woman.”
“I haven’t slept with her. And she’s not mine, either…”
“Oh? Then there could be an opportunity…”
As Klaus started to say so, the blade of the great sword that Loren had drawn from his back plunged into the ground less than an inch away from his foot, making the smile on his face freeze as he saw a black wall suddenly appear in front of his eyes.
“You say something?”
“I can’t wait for dinner to be done.”
As Loren asked Klaus in a cool voice that didn’t make it seem like he had just plunged his sword into the ground, almost stabbing someone in the foot, Klaus immediately replied in a bland voice.
Everyone was at a loss of words at his quick-wittedness and guts.