Chapter 110 – The Adversary
Roden did not go through the door to get out as quickly as possible, but through a hole in his room.
There was no need to look around because Loxia was waiting patiently at the location where we parted just a moment ago.
“… Ah!”
The girl, who had been holding her hands together hoping that her master would not get hurt while waiting, smiled in relief as soon as she saw her master.
Tak-tak-tak! Roxia leaped faster than she could walk as Roden approached and gave him a tight hug, her arms wrapped around her master’s waist and her head lifted.
“Master! I’m glad you came back safely.”
“You waited? It’s over now.”
I was attacked by mysterious demons out of nowhere from dawn, and part of the house was destroyed, but I decided not to take it seriously. Broken things and houses can be repaired as long as you have enough time and money.
Roxia, who felt Roden’s body temperature with her whole body for a while and regained her peace of mind, still kept the quiet city of dawn as usual in her gaze and raised her doubtful voice.
“Even considering that this is a suburb area, if there is such a loud commotion, shouldn’t the people living nearby or the guards patrolling the city come soon?”
“It’s just personal speculation… It looks like they put soundproofing magic on the surrounding area in advance. Among them, there were some wizards with some skill. The magic lasts about 20 to 30 minutes on average, so the effect must have ended by now.”
“In the meantime, she thought she had learned a lot from Merim unnie, but her magic has all sorts of different things.”
If a skilled wizard had been mobilized, he wouldn’t be a simple petty thief like the master said.
Roxia wanted to throw the question that had bloomed in her heart to Roden again, but now it was early morning when she was supposed to be asleep.
“Well then, the remaining problem is…”
Roden muttered, scratching his head as he gazed at the house with the huge hole pierced in his side.
Thinking about restoring it makes my stomach hurt even more than when I fought them.
There was no such thing as a maniac hobby of calmly sleeping while leaving corpses scattered around the house.
Roden, who entered the shop area through the door with Loxia, sat down with the girl and carefully asked her question.
“When I cut the throats of two guys in the room a while ago… ．Did you see it too?”
What Roden wanted to check was whether Roxia had seen the scene where her corpse’s polymorph was released and she returned to her demon form.
He prayed briefly in his heart, wishing that the girl did not know the cruel truth that her kindred, whom she had been reunited with, had sought her life.
“Ah… As soon as the master swung the sword, both of their heads fell off in an instant.”
“Then what happened to the head that fell on the floor?”
“Yes? Oh, no. I didn’t see it because I don’t have time to keep worrying about the fallen hair. Did something happen?”
“… If you haven’t seen it, that’s enough.”
“?”
Her prayer was only half effective. Roden, who tried to avoid the puzzled girl’s eyes, got up from his seat.
“Loxia, I’m sorry for making you wait by yourself again, but could you wait here while I tidy up the living room?”
“Master, don’t clean up alone, let me… “
Roxia, who was conscious of the fact that she had been kept by her owner and was of no help since the raid at dawn, wanted to help her clean up the house.
But Roden held her back by holding her beautiful hand.
“I don’t want to touch the corpse directly with these hands. Wait here.”
Even if those corpses are demons, the same kind as this child, we can’t show them hastily.
“Instead of that, there’s something that needs your strength at the very end, so please help me with that.”
“… All right.”
As Roxia, she had no choice but to quietly listen to her master, who had a very determined expression and voice.
After rummaging through her inventory and pulling out a thick cloak, Roden covered her girl with a cloak so she wouldn’t get cold while she waited, and then she went into the living room alone.
The task of removing the corpse requires quite a strong sense of humor, but for Roden, who has made countless headless corpses in the past, it is as simple as arranging four corpses.
After bringing the large batteries left in the basement, he began to collect the corpses of the demons one by one.
* * *
In the quiet forest of dawn.
“… Dig”
While concentrating on her mind with her eyes closed, the crystal ball of the wand held by Roxia emitted light from her magic power, completing the spell.
ㅡKoo-gu-gu-gu… ．
Digg, which was completed by investing a considerable amount of mana, was able to create fairly deep pits. Roden, who was waiting right next to him, skillfully put four cannons into each pit.
Eventually, Roden, who had pushed all the cannons in, nodded, and while he was working, the pits were covered with lumps of earth, following the will of Loxia, who had been reciting a spell in advance.
“Master, is this enough?”
“Yes. Thanks for your help. Loxia saved her a lot of trouble.”
Huh, it’s like a persimmon.
The pit is not just completely filled up, but it has been properly camouflaged so that there is no sense of incongruity compared to the surrounding land.
I felt it the other day when I saw the traces of Loxia hiding the peephole, but I immediately thought that this child has a natural talent for hiding something.
ㅡThuduk, thudduk.
Roden divided the four bags containing the corpses of the demons into two, and relaxed the bodies that had suffered from moving them to the outside, avoiding the eyes of the guards and citizens.
If these guys weren’t demons, I would have just handed over the body to the guards without having to go through such trouble.
It is an inevitable choice for Roden, who wants to hide the fact that the attacker is a demon from the girl.
Looking up at the stars in the dawn sky, Roden, who had somehow relieved her aching body, saw Loxia again. She reverently put her hands together toward the grave without a tombstone, where her demons were buried. I was meditating.
“They attacked us, but being buried in the ground like this, I felt a sense of weight or a sense of duty, so I did this without even realizing it. Master, am I weird?”
“No, it’s not strange. Let’s do it together.”
Instead of returning immediately, she stood with the girl in silence for a while toward the graves.
When I think about it, I don’t know how long it’s been since I’ve been able to set an example for the dead. She felt that she had been able to realize something important as a person that had been forgotten for a long time thanks to Loxia.
“… That should be enough. Get up.”
“Yes.”
Roden left the forest with Loxia on his back to quickly return.
At dawn like now, it is only natural that the gates of the city are firmly closed. Roden passed through the blind spot of the city wall without difficulty and entered the city without much hindrance, and Roden and Roxia returned home safely.
There were still a lot of things to do in the house, but I decided to get up and clean up after a good night’s sleep.
Roden’s room was in a complete mess, so the place where the two went to sleep was Roxia’s room.
The two lay side by side in an embrace.
“… Come to think of it, this is my first time lying on this bed.”
“Until now, I went to the master’s room from my side. Ho, by any chance, doesn’t it smell strange?”
“What is the strange smell? Rather, it only smells good.”
“Ugh, I’m happy, but I’m a bit embarrassed about something…”
These are not empty words. The bed Roxia had been using for about a year was filled with her body odor and the subtle scent of lavender, and I felt that my mind and body were at peace.
If it were the two of us normally, we would have had a body-to-body conversation while biting and sucking stickyly from the middle, but at least now, the desire to sleep was much stronger than the sexual desire.
Not long after lying down on her bed, Roden gently caressed Roxia’s back, her eyes closed, and slowly fell asleep.
After a day like that, starting with the guard who found traces of destruction in the store only when the day was bright, people gathered one by one and asked what had happened.
Roden, who had matched her story with Loxia beforehand, said that robbers broke in during the night, and in the process of chasing them out, she evaded that she had become like this.
Of course, today we are closed due to house repairs.
* * *
“It’s time to get in touch…”
At that time, Merlin, who was handling a mountain of paperwork at his private laboratory to help his master Escaros, was puzzled by the fact that regular reports did not come to the hound agents dispatched to the human realm, to be exact, the only wizard among them, Pinet. Was feeling
“…”
Convinced that his faithful henchman, her apprentice, had either forgotten or delayed her report, Merlin put her papers in a corner and muttered long-range telepathy.
But no matter how much she concentrates, she can’t catch the signal. Not only the wizard Finette, but also the monk Borbo, the swordsman Raniet, and the thief Erna… ．I can’t find them at all.
One of two things. The four of them went into a dungeon, a different dimension, so they couldn’t find the signal, or they all died together.
There was no report that he would enter the dungeon, so the latter possibility was strong even if it was hard to believe.
Among the trained hounds, the combination of four excellent in both combat power and linkage is impossible to beat unless you are a fairly strong person.
Whoever? How? Doubts arose again.
ㅡBrush, rustle.
She rummaged through the piles of papers and pulled out a map of the northern continent, where Merlin found Varmela, the last estate the hounds had visited.
In her last report, she said that she would raid a potion shop that supposedly hides her people. Could it be that she was attacked there in reverse?
No matter what the truth is, it’s not something to be overlooked. Merlin stared intently at the area where Varmela was marked and began to guess the coordinates needed to teleport her to the surrounding area in his head.
