Chapter 125 - Encounter during Travel (2/2)

“There might be a next time. In that case, I’ll be looking forward to seeing you again.”

Seeing her movements and voice, Loren had a good guess of what it was.

It seemed that every time, she had been depending on adventurers like Klaus to bite the hook.

He had no idea how far her “service” went, and how long she had been doing this, but sensing that she was quite good at what she did, he backed off as naturally as he could as she stepped closer to him.

“This time was by chance, so there’s no next time. For us, anyway.”

“Hm, you’re a hard person.”

Seeing Klaus mesmerized at Rose, who had bent over slightly, emphasizing her chest, Loren waved his hand as if he was batting a bug away, signaling for her to go away.

“If only our leader had half that self-control…”

“It’s useless to hope that.”

“This must be a trial from god.”

Hearing the girls around Klaus muttering, Lapis had a smug look on her face for some reason, but after making sure that Rose had left, Loren returned his attention to his surroundings.

He then suddenly smelled something in the air that shouldn’t be there and looked upwind.

When attacking coming from upwind was quite naïve, even when put into soft words, but if being found out wasn’t a hindrance, it wasn’t a bad place to attack from, with the tailwind helping them.

“Something’s there!”

The whole company tensed at Loren’s warning.

The smell that drifted on the wind was unpleasant body odor and the smell of leather.

They were smells that warned Loren of danger, as he was familiar with them during his life on the battlefield.

“Bandits.”

When Klaus drew his sword, nasty looking men suddenly stood up from the middle of the field, as they had been lying in wait for victims to show up.

They were wearing dirty leather armor, which was what made Loren aware of them, and they had different weapons as well.

The bandits would’ve preferred their victims closer to them, but with Loren realizing they were there, they had no choice.

Loren immediately assessed that they couldn’t run.

If they left all the supplies, there was a chance they could do so, but it was hard to believe that the villagers would want to leave their lifeline behind.

It wouldn’t matter if they died, but if the bandits took the supplies, they were going to go down the same path anyway.

But Loren still asked Rose.

“Are you willing to abandon the supplies?”

“W-we can’t! Without it, we’ll…”

As her response was the expected one, Loren scratched his head.

If they couldn’t run, the only option they had was to fight.

When he squinted his eyes, he saw around twenty armed men, and unthinkingly said to Lapis next to him.

“You could handle them by yourself, right?”

Lapis immediately elbowed him in the gut.

When seen from others’ perspectives, it might’ve looked like Lapis was annoyed that Loren said something a bit stupid.

But knowing that Lapis was a demon, and with the amount of force behind the jab, Loren felt a chill go down his spine for a moment.

“What are you saying Loren? I’m just a priestess. I know a bit of self-defense, but there’s no way I could deal with all those bandits.”

Her blow didn’t deal that much damage to Loren.

Although there was a dull sound when her elbow made contact, to him it felt like he was poked very hard, so he looked at Lapis, thinking that she had held back, but for some reason she had a vexing look on her face, so he realized that it was because of the quality of his armor.

At the same time, he reminded himself that they were with Klaus and his party as well as Rose and her villagers, so they couldn’t depend on Lapis’ abilities.

“Sorry. That was a bit mean.”

“It’s fine as long as you understand.”

After apologizing and letting the people around them know that it was a joke, Lapis’ face loosened up and she nodded.

“Then leave this one to me. That number is no match for me.”

“I don’t feel like it, but I guess it can’t be helped. Protecting the weak is our job too.”

While Loren and Lapis were doing their thing, Klaus and one of his party members, the knight named Layla, both readied their swords and stepped forward.

Ange moved behind them with her staff in hand for support, and Roll the priestess stood even farther back, watching the whole situation.

“I guess we’ll watch for separate detachments and protect the goods.”

“That’ll be fun…I mean, the villagers will need protection.”

Letting Klaus deal with the situation, Loren walked over to the villagers and carriages, his hand still on his great sword.

Lapis covered her mouth with her hand as she followed him, warning herself to watch what she said.