Chapter 80 (1/2)

Ch. 80: Awakening After Withdrawal

In the end, all they managed to take from the campsite was a small bag filled with silver coins and cheap looking accessories.

That and a few bottles of expensive looking alcohol and some food.

Lapis complained that the rewards didn’t match the hardship they went through, but Loren wasn’t sure what kind of hardships she was talking about.

If they were to talk about hardships, Loren thought that it would happen more often as time went on.

The elf child that was laid on top of the donkey caused him to have the thought.

Although it looked like a child, Loren thought that there was no telling how old it actually was, but Lapis explained that elves aged at the same pace as humans up to a certain age, and from that point changes to their appearances stopped showing, and although they were a race that lived for a long time with young appearances, it was okay to think they looked like their age until they reached adulthood.

As well as no matter how young and beautiful an elf looked, she could be over ten times your age, so he should be careful when trying to put his hands on one.

Loren wasn’t sure if such a time would come, but he decided to keep that in mind.

“But then again, why was this child stuffed in a box inside the campsite?”

As Loren asked as he took the reins of the donkey, Lapis didn’t answer.

It seemed that there were things that even a priestess of the Knowledge god didn’t know.

It was hard to tell if the child was a boy or a girl from the way it looked, but Lapis easily took care of that.

The method she used was grabbing Loren’s wrist and shoving his hand onto the elf’s crotch.

“So?”

“You f…he’s a boy.”

Lapis asked him with a cool face, while Loren stopped himself from cursing at her and her nasty method and told her the result based on the sensation on his palm.

“Oh, a boy. Why would the bandits kidnap an elf boy…Well, there are people with those kinds of tastes, so I guess it wouldn’t be surprising if there was demand and supply for that.”

“Why did you have to suddenly do that? It just felt awkward since he’s a boy, but what were you going to do if he was a girl?”

No matter how pretty his face was and looked like a child, feeling what was down there was still unpleasant, and Loren frowned, but if the child was a girl, that would’ve been even worse.

He shivered at the thought of his hand touching between the legs of a young girl.

“Then we could just say that you were lucky.”

“Lucky my ass you wicked demon!”

Loren thought that she could’ve done it herself, but then that meant a pretty girl would be reaching between the legs of a young girl, or a young boy, and felt that it would be a totally different dangerous situation.

As he gave up, deciding that it was fine since the victims were him and an unconscious person, Shayna couldn’t help but think that Onii-san was slowly becoming influenced by Onee-san’s actions, but she knew not to say such a thing to Loren.

“So, what are we going to do with him?”

They started moving before the sun rose.

Lapis knew that there was a high chance of them being spotted if they stayed at the campsite for too long, and Loren agreed.

If they were spotted and questioned, Loren knew that he would feel too much guilt to hide the truth completely.

Lapis would be able to play dumb and lie her way out, but unfortunately Loren wasn’t good with words.

“It’s not like I haven’t considered leaving him behind.”

Even after they left, the summoned undead were still wandering around within the campsite.

If Shayna was right, they would return to dust once the sun came up, but if they left the boy there, the undead would’ve found and eaten him.

Loren guessed that Lapis didn’t go with that since she had something in mind, but her response wasn’t very clear.

“It was just a feeling, I guess. The fact that we met an elf on the way to a forest with a village of elves kind of bothered me.”

“Like superstition?”

“Something like that maybe?”

“It’s not like elves would curse you if you killed one of them, right?”

“Even if that were true, the ones that would be cursed is the undead.”

Lapis put Loren in a darker mood with her harsh words, but she continued explaining why she didn’t leave the elf boy behind.

“But no matter the circumstances, it’s hard to think that he was there of his own will in that situation. Then it would mean that he was most likely kidnapped. I’m sure that his family is very worried right now.”

“Looks like you’ve got some kindness in there, after all.”

Even if part of her thoughts was taking the child back to the elves so they wouldn’t be treated poorly, what would happen there wouldn’t be a bad thing.

Loren was relieved that the conversation didn’t go in the direction of using the child to lure out some of the elves, capture them, and do whatever.

He wasn’t sure why the bandits kidnapped the child, but since they had brought him all the way here, they must have been planning to sell him.