Chapter 15
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“Anyway, why all of a sudden?”
“I was thinking maybe I could teach you a bit more. Of course, only if you want.”
“Ah…”
“Training together with me might not be a bad idea.”
After a brief moment of consideration, I shook my head.
“For now, I think it’s better to focus on getting more proficient with my new ability.”
The ability to handle resentful spirits.
At this point, even pouring all my time into mastering it still wouldn’t be enough.
“Once I’m completely used to this ability, I’ll learn swordsmanship from you then.”
“Alright.”
I hadn’t expected Isael to be thinking about something like this.
The fact that he had considered teaching me swordsmanship felt oddly admirable.
Isael, I’m really touched.
“You were thinking of me, right? Thank you so much for offering.”
“…Not really.”
Seeing my face break into a wide smile, Isael turned his head away and cleared his throat again.
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When Isael and I came out of the forest together, Felix came running toward us as if he had been waiting.
“What the—?! Back off."
As soon as Felix stood too close to me, Isael warned him.
Felix seemed to falter for a moment, then soon spoke with an unusually determined expression.
“Rosette, I’ve made up my mind.”
“About what?”
What kind of nonsense was he about to spout now?
I looked at him with cold eyes.
“I’m going to stick with you until the end. I’ve decided to leave this place together with you.”
“…Really?”
“Yes!”
Ugh, my ears hurt.
“Lower your voice!”
“Ah, sorry…”
Why was he making such a grand declaration out of something so unremarkable?
“Well… anyway, I mean, let’s get along well from now on. That’s what I was waiting to say.”
“Yeah, sure. Got it.”
I replied halfheartedly and started organizing my bag.
It wasn’t particularly surprising that Felix had decided not to return to his companions right away.
If it were me, I’d do the same.
To go back over there immediately, he would have to cross the island alone, which would be far too reckless.
He really is good at calculating gains and losses.
Felix, with his shameless, opportunistic ways, was really annoying, but he was unexpectedly pulling his own weight.
He could be a bit bothersome at times, but he was still at least somewhat helpful to our side.
Felix deciding to stay wasn’t such a bad thing for me either.
“Um, Rosette…”
“What?”
When I looked up after finishing with my bag, Felix spoke cautiously.
“I’ll do my best to be helpful to you from now on, so please watch over me.”
“Uh, okay…”
As I gave another vague response, Isael shoved Felix aside and moved to stand next to me.
“What were you talking about?”
“Ah. He just said he’s going to keep traveling with us.”
“…Out of the blue?”
Isael frowned and looked back at Felix.
Now that I thought about it, Isael still did not know that Leonard had arrived here.
“The thing is, we saw people from the Camelot Empire arrive earlier.”
As I spoke, I pointed with my finger at the first island.
“Do you see it over there? The island we passed through.”
Isael turned to look back at the first island with a grim expression.
“…There are people I’ve never seen before.”
“Yeah. Since we couldn’t hear anything, we realized it late, but anyway, it looks like they made it safely to this floor too.”
After hearing my words, Isael seemed to think deeply for a moment, then suddenly turned his gaze to Felix.
“Was the shouting you did earlier because of those people?”
“Yes, Your Highness! I was the first one to discover them.”
As if he thought he had accomplished something, Felix wore an expression like a child eagerly waiting to be praised.
“I see… So it’s those bastards.”
Isael muttered darkly as he stared at the island.
He stood there for quite a while, his eyes never leaving it.
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After taking an appropriate rest, I sat Isael and Felix down in front of me and began explaining.
“Alright, listen. This is my plan.”
In truth, it was such a simple idea that it hardly deserved to be called a plan.
“We keep an eye on them, and when they try to move over here, we move on to the next island as well.”
Once the demonic beasts are drawn over to their side to a certain extent, we move while that opening exists.
Then, on this side, there should be far fewer demonic beasts left than the number we faced before.
We’ll use them as bait.
It wasn’t as if we were directly pushing anyone off the island.
We were simply using them so that we could cross over to the next island a little more easily.
I felt no guilt at all about carrying out this plan.
“We won’t know how the demonic beasts will actually react until we see it, but if things go the way I expect, it will be much easier.”
“Certainly… That would be the case."
Please, let it go exactly the way I’m thinking.
When I glanced back at the first island, I happened to see Leonard standing there, facing this way.
You won’t be able to come over here easily.
Still, since he was the protagonist, he would probably manage to escape this floor somehow.
But that needed to happen only after we had gone down to the lower floor.
I intended to stay ahead of him the entire time and take everything useful for myself.
So that there wouldn’t be a single thing left for those who arrived later to pick up.
“Any objections?”
“No.”
Isael answered immediately.
Caught up in that momentum, Felix hurriedly nodded as well.
I looked at Isael with satisfied eyes, then took some mushrooms out of my bag.
“Alright, then let’s eat this now.”
At that, Felix’s eyes widened.
“Oh! Mushrooms? Where did you get these?”
“I found them by the lake.”
“Wow… Something to chew…”
Apparently happy just at the fact that he could chew and eat something, Felix’s face brightened.
Well, he’s been picking up and eating beans this whole time.
I can’t even remember the last time was that I ate a proper meal.
I first picked out the largest mushroom and handed it to Isael, then gave Felix the ugliest one.
“Thank you, Rosette.”
Felix began chewing on the mushroom with a deeply moved expression.
Taking bite after bite, savoring the raw mushroom as he ate, Felix looked genuinely happy.
…Is it really that good?
No matter how tasty a raw mushroom could be, how could he eat it like that?
Out of curiosity, I took a bite of the mushroom.
But as expected, it was exactly as I thought.
Ugh.
Perhaps because it hadn’t been cooked at all, the smell was overwhelmingly strong, and there was hardly any taste to speak of.
No, to begin with, it simply wasn’t to my liking.
Sigh… I want to eat meat.
Still, I figured this was better than nothing.
With the feeling of chewing on dirt, I forced the mushroom down my throat.
After finishing our meal, we each rested while watching the situation on the first island.
Before long, Leonard and his companions stepped out of the island, showing signs that they were about to cross over to this island.
As always, Leonard was at the front this time as well.
With him leading the way, all the others stepped down into the river.
Although it was not the Holy Sword, Leonard vigorously swung the fairly decent sword I had obtained for him and cut down the demonic beasts.
Behind him, Cain followed, dealing with the beasts using his mace.
Louis stood in the rear, protecting Ariana in the center while supporting their companions with magic, and Jade guarded the very back, defending their rear.
Even from a distance, they looked like a well-coordinated team.
They were all damned bastards, but still, if one of them had to fall over to our side, I wished it were a mage like Louis instead of Felix.
Cain wouldn’t be bad either. Jade’s not bad, too…
But my reality was Felix…
Smacking my lips in disappointment, I looked over at Felix.
He flinched and took a step back.
“Rosette, what are you thinking right now? Your face is…”
“What about my face?”
“Ah, no, it’s nothing.”
Watching Felix shake his head vigorously, I swallowed a sigh.
Right, Felix is a person with his own strengths. You just had to put in a lot of effort to find them…
At the very least, he seemed to feel guilty toward me and to be sorry.
Whether he would be helpful to me in the future was something only time would tell.
Anyway, just as expected, the demonic beasts were swarming toward where Leonard’s group was.
Of course, there were still quite a few beasts around the island we were on, busy fighting among themselves.
Even so, it looked like we would be able to cross over to the next island more easily than before.
I turned to Isael and spoke, “Let’s get going too.”
“Yeah.”
Isael, who had already finished preparing and was waiting, nodded once and immediately took the lead as we left the island.
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