Blessed Side Quest 3
A carriage racing down a well-kept road, and a musclebound giant running right alongside the horses pulling it.
In that truly bizarre formation, we left the relay station and headed for the blessed Avergne Forest near the capital. Even through the soundproofed walls of the carriage, the clatter of hooves came mixed with the heavy thud of human footsteps, which made it hard to focus on the internet window I was browsing.
Of course, the carriage had been prepared for our party, so there was no seat for James and his mountain of muscle. Not that I particularly wanted to haul that oppressive bulk of a man aboard anyway. And so the strange journey continued—horse and man running side by side.
"Ah—we've arrived."
"Hmm. Earlier than I expected."
The coachman, whose complexion had grown distinctly uneasy over the course of the trip, knocked on the carriage door to announce our arrival. He was skilled enough to be employed by a knight order, but even he had probably never experienced a human keeping pace with a carriage.
Mindlessly wasting time watching bird-feeding videos in a park had left me feeling surprisingly refreshed. Thinking that, I was the first to step down—and the vast forest spread out before my eyes.
As if determined to prove it truly was blessed, the landscape unfolding ahead was incomparably more radiant and beautiful than any forest of the Tower. Even with trees rising in dense abundance, sunlight poured through in a gorgeous cascade, as though every single trunk had been carefully tended by hand.
Han Se-ah's broadcast has begun!
Han Se-ah_Heart-Pounding! Side Quest in the Blessed Forest
"Wow… just looking at it from the outside is enough to take your breath away."
"You can feel the warmth all the way out here. It really is a fine forest."
Following behind me were Han Se-ah, who had quietly started her stream, and Grace. Kayden and Irene climbed down after them, and all of us stood gazing at the forest with soft sounds of wonder. The carriage had stopped at something like a checkpoint at the forest's edge, but the crisp air tickling our noses was already clearing our heads.
As a royal forest, it looked as though the perimeter had been ringed with something close to a military garrison so that no one could simply wander in. Then again, with Holy Power seeping out even this far from the trees, tight control made perfect sense.
"Adventurer Hanna's party, here on commission. We've arrived."
"Confirmed. This way— Sir James?"
"Ah, right. You've been working hard on checkpoint duty. I'll handle the escort from here."
"Y-yes, sir. But… did you come… with the carriage?"
We had gathered in a little cluster in front of the carriage, filling our lungs with the fresh air, when soldiers gripping long spears approached—and jumped out of their skins. James hadn't climbed down from the carriage; he had simply popped out from behind it. Of course they were startled.
The soldiers weren't used to the spectacle of a man sprinting alongside a carriage either, and they stammered while scanning the surroundings. They seemed to be looking for the horse James must have ridden in on… as if they simply couldn't accept that he had run here on two legs.
Leaving the bewildered soldiers still peering around behind him, James slipped into the interior of the forest checkpoint, which looked every bit like a military outpost. Following him inside, I found a cluster of temporary buildings that genuinely called a real army base to mind.
Soldiers were the enlisted. Knights were the officers.
Watching James chat casually with the checkpoint soldiers and stroll right through, he looked exactly like a military officer breezing past entry procedures into base. Maybe that was why the viewers started whining the second the stream went live that it reeked of military life.
And the purpose of that whining was obvious enough. Don't show us a bunch of grimy guys—show us the pretty female characters. The moment the camera finished a rough sweep of the checkpoint interior and swung back to Grace and Irene stretching after climbing down from the carriage, the cheers would be entirely predictable.
"This way, Roland. The sun's going down soon, so we'll have to stay the night here."
"Yeah, we got here at an awkward time."
"Starting the search now… the forest really is a bit too big."
At James's words, Grace slowly turned her head from left to right, taking in the forest, and murmured under her breath. No matter how far she craned her neck, her field of vision stayed packed solid with trees, as if a horizon of nothing but woodland stretched out forever.
Even if it was a forest near the royal capital, it was still a place wide enough for orcs to slip in unnoticed and try to build a settlement. Starting a search in the late afternoon would leave them short on time even if they stayed up all night.
"We've spent the last two days straight riding a carriage from Adventurer's City all the way to a forest near the capital. Nothing unusual to report… well, except that the knight guiding us is an acquaintance of Roland's, and that he's a musclebound macho who ran alongside the carriage the whole way?"
We trudged into the base interior under the soldiers' fervent stares. The forest was so vast that ordinary troops had been stationed alongside the knight order, making the place indistinguishable from a real military installation.
There were female knights, but only a handful. Inside the base itself were ordinary soldiers without a single star of rank among them. With nothing but dark-haired men around, it was only natural that every gaze locked onto our party of beauties.
Even so, these were soldiers charged with guarding a blessed forest near the royal family, and their discipline held firm—they sent heated looks our way and nothing more. This wasn't some ragtag army; no common soldier was about to pick a fight with adventurers escorted by a knight.
"You can use this barracks. It's been maintained for receiving guests, so feel free to use the facilities inside. There's a kitchen if you want to cook, but you're also welcome to come eat with us in the mess hall."
"We've got our own provisions. We'll handle meals ourselves."
Under those burning stares, we were led to a two-story wooden building. From the outside it looked like a container-style living quarters made of timber, yet inside it was a clean, well-kept structure complete with a hearth, bedrooms, and even a shower room. The claim that it was for guests hadn't been empty talk—the neatly arranged interior drew a collective sigh of relief from the party.
With nothing but soldiers roaming the grounds, they had apparently been a little worried we might end up sleeping in military tents.
"You've got provisions?"
"Our mage is pretty talented, you see."
At James's question, I naturally brought up Han Se-ah's inventory. Call it a conditioned reflex—I still couldn't figure out why teasing her about the inventory was this much fun. Sensing that the Han Se-ah hype train was starting up again, she quietly tried to slip away toward the bedrooms.
But I wasn't the only one firmly committed to the genius-mage-Hanna theory. Like a cop nabbing a pickpocket, Grace smoothly looped her arm through Han Se-ah's and beamed as she urged her along.
"Hanna! How about we pull out the ingredients in the kitchen and get ready?"
"Ah, Grace…"
"Let's take the dinner fixings out of your spatial magic—the in-ven-to-ry—ahead of time."
Grace enunciated each syllable of "inventory" with deliberate clarity, clearly for James's benefit rather than Han Se-ah's, and I couldn't help smiling.
Come to think of it, I'd been wondering why teasing Han Se-ah was so entertaining—and it was because it mirrored the excessive praise the knights used to heap on me. Whether it was Han Se-ah the player getting treated like a genius for her inventory function, or me the transmigrator getting cast as an extreme hard worker because of Roland's muscular body, the embarrassment was exactly the same.
"Ohhh, what… is this…?"
"Pretty impressive, right?"
"It's incredible! If magic like that spread widely, supply worries would be a thing of the past. Hey, Roland! Where did you find a mage like this?"
James's reaction was the most enthusiastic we'd ever seen, and both of Han Se-ah's cheeks flushed bright red. It wasn't Azure Dragon on the left and White Tiger on the right—it was Grace on the left and James on the right, both of them spouting words like genius, revolutionary, and goddess of logistics.
Goddess of logistics? James, you bastard—you'd been hanging around with bards in the capital and gotten far too comfortable with greasy, cringeworthy lines.
Trembling under that syrupy praise, and with the viewers' covering fire leaving her nowhere to hide, Han Se-ah bolted into the kitchen. Of course, to Grace—who was thoroughly smitten—her flight only looked like the modest blush of a genius mage who didn't know how to flaunt her gifts.
"Hanna seems a little timid compared to the talent and ability she has. Magic of that caliber would be fine to show off."
"I guess she just doesn't want to brag about it."
"A mage who knows humility… you've found yourself a fine companion, Roland."
"You two keep talking. I'll go help sort the ingredients."
With that final bit of damage packed firmly into Han Se-ah's back, Grace trotted off toward the kitchen with Irene. Left behind naturally were me, James, and Kayden—who seemed to have checked his brain somewhere else entirely.
The moment those two words—"princess"—had been spoken, the usually stoic Kayden had short-circuited like a cat with tape stuck to its fur. I'd thought he was genuinely cold and sharp… was he just bad with people?
"Ah, and the shower facilities in the barracks are communal, not private, so work it out with your party. Even if there's someone you'd like to go in with, hold yourself back a little. There's no soundproofing magic tool here."
"…T-together, you mean?"
"Yeah. Three women, two men, so you two can wash together. The last guests we had were so heated that you could hear the beds creaking at night. The beds here aren't exactly high-end, you know."
Watching Kayden's face turn scarlet at the casual dirty joke, James threw his head back and roared with laughter.
Not cold and sharp at all… just awkward with people, huh?