Chapter 499: A moment before departure 2
With only four hours or so to spare, there was only so much I could do. I had already done a trip to the hot spring and a tour of the girls’ workplaces……yesterday and that was supposed to be the last one, so another……was a little out of place in my mind. I forgot to go shopping for souvenirs for my colleagues……but there is nothing good in Polka. No, the food this time of year is a lot better than in the remote areas of Renfangas,…… but there was a good amount of food among the supplies Laila took with her. There must have been two or three barrels of alcohol. I can only think of erotic items……that I would be happy to bring to the camp, but there are no erotic picture scrolls in Polka, let alone in Celesta. So I dismissed the idea of looking for souvenirs. It’s not so bad to do nothing in particular and spend the time……in a daze before going into battle, as is often the case in military activities. No, it is recommended to check the equipment and personnel as many times as possible if you have time, but with the time available like this, I don’t think it is something you should dare to do. But with the amount of time available, I don’t think it’s something they would dare to do.
“I’ll go to to check on Bauz and the others……? No, but”
Maia and Aurora are looking at me as I fold my arms and worry. The other people dispersed in three or four……Hilda responded to Apple’s request and began mixing Apple’s exclusive motion sickness medicine on the driver’s stand of the carriage, while Dianne-san seemed to be waiting as her responsibility.
“Andy-sama”
“Hmm?”
“If you can’t think of a place to go, how about Breakcore´s place?”
Maia suggested slowly.
“Breakcore……is a bit far from the holy beast labyrinth, isn’t it? It would be tough to get there and back in four hours……”
“If you hurry, you’ll be fine. I’ve been working on my flying lately, so I think it will be a little faster than before”
“I see……umm, I don’t think I’ll be able to do anything more than look at her face and come back”
Aurora chuckled at my mutterings.
“Still, a woman is happy just to have someone she loves come see her face”
“I guess that’s how you see it…but you call her a woman?”
In the first place, she said that she had forgotten her own gender, so she was pretending to be a woman for the time being…….
“Are you now saying that it might be a man?”
“……No, I’m not saying that, but”
Yup. It doesn’t matter which one is the original. They’re just completely different as living beings. It wasn’t even at the level of whether it was a person or not. If she is defining herself as such now, that is the closest to the truth. That’s the way she is. I knew that and yet I made a tactless comment.
“It’s a holy beast that has a different sense of time than even us elves, but it’s not something that would be useless to meet……. I don’t think it’s something you should let go of”
“She’s also Andy-sama’s pet”
They both seem to intend to 「Account for Breakcore as one of their own and greet her properly」, as they both have ties to the northern forest. It is indeed desirable for female slaves to get along well with each other. The baron is right. But in reality, I am not sure if things can be done in such a short period of time. I looked at Dianne and she lightly shook her long ears to show that she had heard, then smiled lightly and gave a Celesta-style hand signal, 「Go on」, she said.
“If it were true, troop actions would be punctual, but……this time it’s not particularly imminent. If you’re running a little late, we’ll wait for you. No one will object to a greeting to Breakcore. It doesn’t have to be right now, but they might say……”
“Thank you”
I returned the salute with a Celesta-style salute and immediately ran into the baron’s mansion. I was going to ask Irina, Christie or Fennel to take me into the forest.
Irina was the one who guided me to the forest. It looks like she just wanted to push Christie to do the paperwork, but since I am the one who is being selfish, I won’t say anything about it. I asked her to take me to the Red Clan Village.
“A Breakcore greeting, huh? Well, it’s a place, so I don’t think she’ll complain if we meet only a few times a year”
“She’s waiting for me with my collar on, you know”
“I’m wearing a collar too, you know. Don’t you like it?”
“Good, good”
I pet her.
“……I don’t think it’s normal to be stroking my butt when you say that”
I was stared at.
“No good?”
“I’m not saying it’s no good, but I can’t ride it if I know it’s a joke”
“Alright, then, let’s get serious”
“Andy-sama. We don’t have time for this”
Maia stopped me with a straight face. I was just joking around, so it was a nice comment.
“Nuuaaaaaaaa!!”
I saw a strange elf running from the edge of the clan village, making strange noises.
“What is that?”
“……You must be a fool who doesn’t like the fact that you’re patting my ass”
Irina let out a sigh and stared at him, but suddenly the guy slipped, rolled around twice and stopped moving in the middle of the road. I looked closely and saw that it was the clan leader after Diel, the one who became the clan leader after, uh, what was his name.
“……Irina”
“What, I just paralyzed him. He’ll move after a while”
“He’s a clan leader, isn’t he……?”
“If I had merely enchanted him, I would have been accused, but I have the right to control his wild moods. ……Marc, I’m going to go to the holy beast labyrinth for a little while”
That was his name, Marc.
“Nu……Nuaa……”
He was twitching, but Irina ignored him and instructed Maia to dragonize. If this were a human town, dragonizing in a bad location would be a disaster, but in an elf town, the houses and trees are arranged with a lot of room to spare, so it’s not a problem.
“Let’s go Smithson-dono, sky-blue princess”
“Can we leave him alone……?”
Marc is kind of groaning in a pained posture with his shoulders and neck propped up against the ground and his hips thrust up in a weird way.
“Someone from the clan will clean up the mess”
“……If you keep going like that, you’re going to end up with a lot of enemies”
“Despite Diel, this one is good”
“Terrible……”
Judging by the look on his face, I don’t think he’ll give up.
Then, ride on Maia’s back to the holy beast labyrinth. Thanks to Irina’s wind-blocking magic, we were able to fly at high speed without any wind pressure.
“Maia could fly more seriously this way”
“Is she usually not in her element?”
“That’s true. Andy-san can’t run as fast as he can with that thing on his head, can he?”
I don’t know if Maia understood what I was saying (since the wind blocking magic blocks the forward sound), but I think the flapping of Maia’s wings is a little more intense than usual. The wind pressure can be eliminated, but not the ups and downs that accompany the flapping, so I sometimes feel my feet float and I cling to the spikes on Maia´s back, keeping my hips low and fidgeting. ……Is standing flatly even though Irina is about to be the first to be blown away?
“……Irina, do you have a surprisingly great sense of balance?”
“Kukuku. Reconsider your situation……that’s a joke. It’s an application of magic I learned from Selenium a while back”
“?”
“It’s called a coverlock. It’s a spell that makes the knots in that rope unbreakable. I polished it up and made it so that my feet would suck on it wherever I wanted them to. ……B, But it’s surprisingly tiring on the ankles”
She seemed to be quite skinny.
“I’d love to learn how to do that”
“Good. I’ll teach you on the way home……I’m sure you’ll be able to memorize it, but I’ve already taught it to Apple. If you can’t memorize it, you can ask Renfangas for the rest”
I’m impressed by the fact that there are so many things going on in the world that I don’t know about……it’s only natural that I don’t know about it, since my mind can’t get involved in magic at all.
“I’m almost there. About twenty percent earlier than before……”
Chibi Maia appears on my shoulder. I can’t hear the sound, but I don’t have a problem with Maia’s message because it is an illusion sent directly into my head, including the sound. But 20% or……is pretty fast, isn’t it? The forest opens up and a grassy field spreads into view and beyond that I see the labyrinth village and the holy beast labyrinth.