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Chapter 114: Preceding Visitor of the Forest

We prepared the equipment to head towards the forest. That said, we came to this town to relax. As such, we hadn’t brought our proper equipment with us.

Both me and Cortina chose easy-to-move clothes and only brought minimal equipment with us. I equipped my piano wires, yarn strings and dagger, and I was all set.

“This makes me a little uneasy, in the end.” “Can’t be helped. People normally don’t bring weapons at hot springs.” “You have that dagger at least, Nicole. I only have this ring…”

Cortina only had one ring that aided with Magic. Other than that, she was pretty much in traveling clothes. Heading towards the cavern where the member of the Dragon race—weak or not—was said to live, obviously made her feel helpless.

“Cortina, wanna use this?” “The dagger? No, you should use it, Nicole. I’m not good with swords.”

Cortina’s hand-to-hand combat was basically a defensive style centered around long staffs. Daggers required more skill than it seemed, so it was certainly more effective if I used it instead.

“But…” “I’ll just buy a staff on the way. This village is close to where monsters show up, so they should be selling some of those. Even if they don’t, a trekking staff would do as well.”

When it came to defense, sturdiness mattered above all else. Even a simple wooden staff could become very sturdy with her Interference Magic.

“Finia, Michelle, I’m leaving the house to you.” “Yes, please leave it to me.” “You got it!”

Michelle made a fist pump while holding her longbow. I didn’t think anything was going to happen to them inside the town, but I still warned just in case since me and Cortina, the strongest two among us, were leaving them alone.

As we were leaving the inn, Jessica saw us off while looking worried.

“Thank you very much, Lady Cortina. I’m leaving my son to you.” “We don’t know if he’s really there, so please don’t get your hope up too much. But don’t abandon hope.” “Yes, he’s surely fooling around somewhere as always…”

She showed us a hollow smile, but her eyes were clearly filled with worry. She was forcibly suppressing her emotions in front of Cortina, but it didn’t seem like she would hold out for long at this rate.

“Let’s go, Cortina. We need to hurry up.” “You’re right. Well then, we’ll be back soon. Once again, please don’t do anything rash.” “I understand.”

By rash, she meant things like heading towards the cavern by herself. If we don’t return as fast as we can, it’s quite likely that she would make such arbitrary decisions.

Thus, we hastened our pace towards the cavern in the forest.

……

The forest was gloomy and hard to see. Cortina who barely had any scouting skills couldn’t be trusted with the guarding duty. As such, I took the front and surveyed the surroundings. But then, I discovered something peculiar.

“There are footprints here.” “Footprints? Could it be Mikey’s?” “No, they belong to an armed person.”

They were the prints of greaves that fully covered the leg. Furthermore, they even had spikes on them. This could be either a soldier or a vanguard Adventurer that wore it by choice. But it was definitely not something a mischievous villager kid would wear.

“It would be… Quite odd for them to be a soldier. There shouldn’t be any deployed here.” “Yeah. So probably an Adventurer. And several of them” “Several?” “Around three.”

There were three kinds of footprints. Which meant, there were at least three Adventurers in this forest. And their footprints were leading towards the inner parts of the forest.

“Are they heading deeper? Could they be aiming for the Carbuncle too?” “I wonder. My source of information is quite well hidden, so I don’t think that’s it.”

That white thing was still a God. Or rather, she was above other gods when it came to underhandedness. I doubt she would’ve leaked such information so easily. Which would mean, there was another source of information.

“What about the possibility that it’s not the Carbuncle they are aiming for?” “Ah, that’s right! Wasn’t there something about a Named Dragon appearing here?” “Are they planning to defeat a Dragon?”

No matter how you put it, defeating a Dragon, a named one at that, with just three people was nothing short of impossible if you didn’t have some amazing skill. Cortina, however, shot down my opinion.

“That’s not it. There should be a much easier way to make money.” “Make money…?” “According to Bill and the rest, that Dragon comes to take baths, right? I’m not sure how much it loves bathing, but if it’s doing it that frequently, it might not be strange for its scale or two to have fallen off.” “Ah, that’s what you mean.”

Dragons were also reptiles. Not to mention, their regenerative powers were crazy strong. Even if their scales came off after a harsh washing session, they would regenerate immediately.

If there were indeed such scale fragments left there, then you could make quite a bit of profit just by collecting them. There were many uses for scales of a high-ranking Named Dragon.

“If the Adventurers that set out to look for the Dragon’s dropped items were to come across the Carbuncle, what do you think they would do?” “They would most definitely hunt it down.”

Cortina guessed the Adventurers’ goal from Bill’s conversation and hypothesized the worst kind of scenario. I replied with my honest thoughts to it. While it was an ordinary answer, it still said enough about the situation.

“And what if Mikey were to witness it?” “They would most definitely kill him to seal his mouth.” “I think so too. Looks like we really need to hurry.”

Judging as such, we hurried towards the cavern.