Chapter 17 (1/2)

17

“Mother, is there anything I could be helping with right now?”

I asked this before leaving her room.

If possible, since I was back in the territory for a change, I wanted to be of help.

“Let’s see ..”

While Mother was in thought mumbling ‘was there anything like that?’ the sound of a knock could be heard revebrating through the room.

“It’s Salie. May I disturb you, Madam?”

“Ara, Salie. It’s fine, please enter.”

Saying ‘Excuse me’ Salie entered the room.

“What happened? You seem unusually fl.u.s.tered.”

“Yes, truth be told, a messenger just arrived stating that monsters have appeared near Nan village  and a number of villagers have sustained injuries. Around 20 monsters have been sighted, it seems.”

“Near Nan village .. if I’m right there shouldn’t have been any monster sightings around there for several years already. The inhabitants must have been surprised since they hadn’t encountered any for so long, I’m sure. We have to immediately gather and dispatch a subjugation party. As for the groups that can be moved right now .. that would be Thoma’s unit.”

“Mother! Please let me go as well!”

I immediately requested of her.

“Ririina .. true. We need every single person more that can head out right now. But it has been a while since you went to subjugate monsters so will you be fine?”

“Yes! Because of the fight with those masked men I have a grasp on how well I can currently move. Furthermore, if there are injured every helping hand should be necessary. I won’t forget to bring the medicine either.”

“In that case I’ll ask you to act with Thoma’s unit, please. And don’t do anything too reckless, you hear.”

“Yes, understood! By the way, where is Thoma currently?”

Upon those words Salie answered me.

“Ririinsama, if it’s about Thoma he is currently getting called by Sana. They should be arriving here any moment now.”

Just as she said a knock resounded from the door.

From outside the door a voice ‘It’s Thoma’ could be heard.

“Come in please”, anwered Mother.

“Excuse me!”

“Thoma, you have heard the story from Sana I take it? I want you to head out for Nan village right away. Ririina will be accompanying you as well.”

Thoma mumbled as if surprised ‘Ririina .. sama will?’.

Towards Thoma I declared.

“Thoma, you should know about my abilities very well, shouldn’t you? In any case, having more people help should be better.”

“That’s true, isn’t it. I understand. Ririinsama, please help us out. Just, please be careful not to do anything too reckless.”

Why would he worry about the same thing Mother did?

Being reckless or such I wouldn’t do, I’m just doing what I can while I can.

And so it’s been decided that me and Thoma, as well as Thoma’s unit would be heading out straight away.

When I met them it turned out that the people of his unit were all people I had previously in the past fought side by side with.

So despite being surprised when they first saw me, for some reason they all went ‘after all, Ririinsama stays Ririinsama’ when they were told that we would be going on this monster hunt together.

Somehow I can’t accept this.

In any case, it’s true that it made things easier with them all being aquaintances.

We quickly prepared everything we needed, mounted the horses and departed.

Nan village was about 30 minutes from here on horse back.

All in all our troop heading towards it consisted of 10 people.

All that said, for there to be a sighting of as many as 20 monsters, it was greater number than we had heard of in recent times I think.

For there to be so many in a single location, it was similar to the encounter size of the outbreak back then.

Since the sighting alone told of around 20 there was a change that there would actually be more monsters than that so we would have to brace ourselfs for that.

In the meantime we arrived at the village.