Chapter 107 - Explanation after Delay (1/2)
Ch. 107: Explanation after Delay
The group had left the campsite, but they still had a day’s worth of walking to reach their destination.
If they moved smoothly, they would reach the ruins at nighttime, but Loren suggested they slow down a bit and spend a night slightly far off from it.
Dia, who wanted to reach the ruins as soon as she could, didn’t like his suggestion and said they reach their destination as quickly as possible, but Loren didn’t listen to her, and forcefully slowed down their speed.
“You’ve realized something, haven’t you?”
Lapis, who didn’t say her opinion, asked Loren.
Near him, Dia glared at him, telling him that if it wasn’t a good reason, she wouldn’t go easy on him, but since he had nothing better to do, Loren explained why he suggested so.
“First of all, it’s to mess up the interferers’ schedule.”
“Schedule?”
“Yeah. It’s just a guess, but the route we’re using is known to them, right? If it wasn’t, there’s now way they could send such a large amount of undead straight to that particular place last night.”
It was the pack of undead that they couldn’t wipe out completely even with Dia wiping out a portion of them, Lapis cleansing them one after another, and Loren swinging his great sword around all night.
Of course, it was way more than a few dozen, and if such a large number of undead were wandering around that area in plain sight, they would notice them, and since they didn’t, it meant that they came from the opposite way of them so that they reached their campsite in the middle of the night.
To make that possible, there was a need to have a general idea of where they would set up camp.
“Even if we don’t walk on the road, it shouldn’t be surprising if we run into a village or two. But we haven’t, so it means Dia selected a route that far off from them, which would limit the number of routes she could take.”
Villages weren’t always near roads or highways.
Small villages existed here and there, and even if they weren’t following the road, it was strange they hadn’t seen one yet.
“Of course. I want to stay away from meaningless confusion and fighting. There’s the ones who want to interfere, as well as the fact that I’m not a being that would be welcomed at human dwellings.”
Not welcomed, was a very moderate way to put it, but Loren had no intention of pointing that out, so he just nodded.
Dia’s thought of not wanting to involve humans was favorable to him, but he felt that it was a bit too late for that.
He thought so because he was sure that a few villages had become victims and turned into the pack of undead that attacked them the night before.
But Loren didn’t say anything about it, and just prayed that the victims found peace wherever they went.
“I think that whoever is trying to interfere is piecing together our route and the speed we are travelling at, and calculating where we would be at what time, as well as where we would camp, and set a schedule based on that.”
“So, you want to slow down on purpose to mess up their calculations.”
It wouldn’t mean anything if there was someone spying on them, but Loren thought that it was better than not trying anything.
“The second reason is to make sure that the time which we run into such problems is during the day.”
“I don’t care whether it be night or day.”
“Of course, you wouldn’t, but it’s troubling for us. What human would want to jump into the middle of undead in the dead of the night, when they are the strongest?”
The undead were weak against the sunlight.
Of course, when it came to Elders, it wasn’t a fatal weakness any longer, but they were still somewhat weaker during the day.
He wasn’t sure what was waiting for them at the ruins, but if they reached it during the evening and started exploring during the night, trouble was bound to hit them during that time.
“Putting into consideration there’s going to be at least one more attack, it should be better than rushing in there at night.”
“So, you’re trying to reduce the chances of meeting two attacks, I see.”
“If you didn’t have such a reason, I was about to think that you were just trying to prolong the inevitable, but since you have a legitimate reason, I guess it can’t be helped.”
Dia, who had looked upset, couldn’t seem to bring herself to keep urging to hurry up, so she decided to listen to Loren’s suggestion.
But Loren still had a feeling they would run into a second attack, but then noticed that Dia was looking into empty space, as if she had noticed something.
“What’s wrong?”
“This is…”
Not responding to Loren’s question, a bright smile appeared on her face as she continued staring at a point in space and started running off.
He wasn’t sure what had gotten into her, and all Loren and Lapis could do was follow Dia with their eyes, and as she stopped in the middle of nothing, she raised her arms and said with a smile.
“Master! What are you doing here!?”
During her words, the space in front of her warped.
Loren and Lapis stiffened at the sight, but Dia wasn’t alarmed at all, and just stood there with her arms outstretched, and suddenly a hand appeared out of the distorting space, grabbed it, and widened it.
Eventually, when the distortion was wide enough for a person to go through, a woman with platinum blonde hair, wearing a black dress that was open wide at the chest appeared.
9
The woman looked around slowly, then confirmed the sight of Dia looking at her with a smile and her arms outstretched, frowned for a moment, and dropped her fist on Dia’s head.
“Ow!? M-master!?”