Chapter 56
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 56
Chapter Title: Exploration (2)
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Ian’s Mercenary Corps settled in a spot close to the carriage.
The sun had set, and in the forest shrouded in thick darkness in an instant, an eerie sound of trees rustling in the wind drifted by.
Unlike the camping practice where they had set up in a relatively safe area,
they were now deep in monster territory.
There was no leeway to set up a proper camp or light a bonfire, so everyone huddled together back-to-back, wrapped only in blankets, staying vigilant of their surroundings.
Rin glanced at Tanya’s face, who was sitting right next to her.
"Tanya. You okay?"
"Yeah…."
Rin cautiously spoke to Tanya, who looked drained of energy.
Tanya had seemed excessively tense ever since they set out, and now she sat there sullenly, as if she had exhausted her mental strength.
It felt too lighthearted to just tell her not to push herself too hard from the side… It was a heavy issue for the person involved, after all.
Rin pondered what she could do, then opened her pouch.
She wasn’t the type with the eloquence to comfort someone with the right words in a situation like this, so after some thought, Rin pulled out something she had packed beforehand from her belongings.
Nothing beats eating something to lift your spirits.
Rin held out some food from her pouch to Tanya.
"Tanya. Eat this."
"Huh? Oh, yeah, thanks…."
Tanya hesitantly took what Rin offered.
And right away.
"Here, eat this too."
"I brought some of my own…."
Rin rummaged through her pouch again….
"This too."
"Rin…. How much food did you bring?"
Tanya, who had been meekly accepting what Rin gave her, ended up looking like a squirrel because Rin kept handing over more snacks.
Thanks to Rin continuously pulling out hidden snacks, Tanya finally let out a small laugh, "Haha…."
"Sorry, everyone. I kinda… overdid it, huh?"
"Don’t sweat it too much. Even if it wasn’t for your friends, we still had to hurry as much as possible."
Only then did Tanya realize she had been making the atmosphere too heavy, and as she apologized, Ian replied while shining a small light on the map to check the nearby terrain.
Ian spoke to Tanya again as silence returned.
"So, Tanya. Want to tell us about those friends of yours?"
"My friends?"
"Knowing their personalities might help."
Ian wasn’t some psychologist who could analyze them, and hearing about their personalities wouldn’t reveal where they had fled to.
But he thought talking about it might ease Tanya’s tension.
Tanya thought back to her hometown friends after quite a long time… Looking back, she felt like she had been deliberately trying to forget them lately.
"They were village friends, but… honestly, our personalities didn’t mesh that well. Mine was just too different."
They became friends simply because they lived next door.
Childhood friends often form that way, without any particular reason.
Anne, Karen, Celia.
They were all energetic, proactive friends who jumped at any opportunity to challenge themselves.
"We all decided to go to the city later and open a shop. Since I was the best at cooking, I’d handle the food… and everyone would help with what they were good at."
Going to the city. It’s a dream every country kid harbors.
And kids dreaming such dreams naturally faced the same problem once they grew up.
"But we couldn’t save enough money in the village to open a shop in the city."
Everyone nodded silently, or at least in their minds.
They could all roughly understand that feeling.
Hadn’t they all left their rural villages to become mercenaries for the exact same reason?
It was only natural that such friends would get fired up hearing about Labyrinth City.
"My friends went to Labyrinth to earn money for the shop. I stayed in the village because becoming a mercenary scared me."
Maybe I should have gone with them back then.
That was the thought she had when she arrived in Labyrinth to belatedly search for her friends and started mercenary work.
If I had this much courage now, I could have just gone with them back then.
Mika, sitting on the opposite side, asked.
"So that’s why you started doing mercenary work?"
"Yeah…."
Tanya nodded.
"Maybe I could hear some old rumors or news about where they went… something like that."
At the very least… to find out how they were doing, what happened to them.
That was the mindset with which she started as a mercenary, planning to return to the village with some news.
"Hold on. Quiet."
Rin raised her head slightly and lifted her body a bit.
The sound of leaves rustling. The chirp of grasshoppers.
Beyond that, from far away, a faint, unfamiliar noise that hadn’t been there before drifted in.
──!
"…!"
Everyone, who had been quietly listening, clearly heard it this time.
The cry of a beast… a monster, human shouts, and an explosion.
It was the noise of battle.
"It’s nearby! Let’s go!"
At Ian’s shout, everyone jumped to their feet.
"……."
Through the bushes and branches concealing the cave entrance, a petite mercenary peeked out slightly.
In the distance, a few gnolls could be vaguely seen passing by.
"…Don’t those things sleep at night either?"
Muttering a quiet complaint so it wouldn’t be heard outside, the mercenary returned into the cave.
Inside the cave sat two weary comrades resting and the alchemist who was their charge for this escort mission.
"How’s it look?"
"No sign of them leaving."
Finding and hiding in this nearby cave had been lucky, but they were reaching their limit.
"Our rations are almost gone too. Should we head out tomorrow?"
"Yeah… No, let’s wait."
In a situation like this, the client’s will was paramount, but the client, Louise, showed no intention of moving from here at all.
"I have insurance with the Labyrinth Guild. A rescue team might come soon."
"We’ve come this deep into the forest—how would they even know to find us?"
Rescue team. Just hearing the name stirred hope, but rationally, it was impossible.
They had deviated from the main path and plunged into the forest like this—how could a rescue team luckily find them right away?
Coming into this forest in the first place had been the wrong choice.
Anne, the mercenary hired to escort Louise, let out a small sigh.
"Haa…. What the hell was that flower that made us come in here."
"Oh my. Didn’t you get all excited and agree when you heard the price?"
Normally, they never would have approached an unfamiliar forest like this.
The problem stemmed from the alchemist client’s keen eye.
She had spotted a cluster of alchemy ingredients that only bloomed briefly in the nearby forest and proposed it to the mercenaries.
How about a quick detour to dig them up?
Originally, Anne and her friends never would have taken such a risky job.
But they desperately needed big money to establish themselves in Labyrinth.
The issue was that they had overheard just how expensive that alchemy flower was.
Rumors said rare alchemy materials fetched unimaginable prices, and the rumors weren’t exaggerated.
How could mercenaries turn that down after hearing the price…?
"And I took plenty of precautions. I even burned incense to mask our scent."
The alchemist, with a prickly expression, grumbled while pointing outside the cave.
"Those things are rampaging because you touched their hoard of trophies."
"How were we supposed to know that pile of trash was their trophies? You didn’t know either."
It was supposed to be simple: don’t go too deep into gnoll territory, just pick the flowers and get out.
The problem was clearing the junk in the middle of the path.
A pile of log stumps and ragged cloth blocking the way.
They thought it was trash discarded by some previous mercenary group and shoved it aside to clear the path for the carriage….
"Who knew that was a gnoll’s hoard of trophies…."
Anne’s face showed nothing but grievance, no matter how she thought about it.
Gathering picked-up trophies and piling them in one spot was a gnoll habit—and also territory marking.
When people who’ve never seen gnolls hear about trophy piles, they imagine jackpots of weapons, armor, and valuables stacked up.
But in reality, what gnolls collected was closer to piles of trash like logs and rags.
Gnolls gathered anything processed by human hands without discrimination.
They hadn’t known it was gnoll territory beforehand. And it just happened to be right on the path humans used.
To the untrained eye, it perfectly looked like someone’s discarded trash.
Because they had cleared it from the path, the gnolls were now rampaging to retaliate against the intruders who touched their trophies.
After being attacked by the pursuing gnoll pack, losing their carriage, and fleeing into the forest to barely hide—they had been holed up for days now.
They needed to find some new way out soon, but the client seemed intent on holding out here.
Maybe I should scout outside alone when there’s an opening.
As Anne pondered that, a gnoll’s howl echoed from outside.
Anne instinctively felt a chill from the howl, which sounded slightly different from usual.
"W-We’ve been spotted!"
Anne quickly peeked outside and urgently woke the others inside.
Everyone scrambled to grab their gear and stand up.
"Any potions left or something?"
Louise hurriedly rummaged through her bag too.
Regrettably, all the useful ones had been used up already. What remained was….
"Only stuff like this."
"Use it anyway!"
What Louise pulled out was an explosion potion.