Chapter 127 - Deriving at Destination (2/2)

Keeping his frustration back, Loren asked in a low tone, strengthening his grip on Klaus’ shoulder, and as Klaus grimaced at the pain in his shoulder, he wondered what kind or response Loren was expecting, and eventually found an answer.

“There are a lot of young girls and elderly women? But Loren, discriminating women based on age or looks isn’t a very good…Ow! It’ll break!”

“Do you try to get with any girl you see?”

“Of course not! I just don’t judge women based on those characteristics!”

Loren let go of Klaus’ shoulder, as his straight answer gave him a sort of a refreshing feeling.

Freed from Loren’s tight grip, Klaus cocked his head as he massaged his shoulder, as if finally realizing what Loren was talking about.

“But it’s strange that there aren’t any men.”

“There’s a reason for that.”

Rose suddenly interrupted their conversation.

Loren hadn’t noticed her walk up to them, as all his attention was on Klaus, so he stepped back a few steps in surprise, but Klaus didn’t even blink, as a sloppy grin appeared on his face.

“What kind of reason would that be, chief? Can you tell us?”

“Master Klaus…But what would you do if I told you?”

“Not a doubt. If there’s a woman in need, there’s no way I could ignore her. If there’s anything I could do to help, I’d do it gladly.”

“Ahh…Master Klaus.”

Rose said emotionally.

Klaus didn’t let his smile fall, but Loren was trying to get away from there as quietly as he could.

Of course, Loren wasn’t someone who would immediately try to help a village even if he heard about a village’s plight.

The only ones who would do that were the hero of a fairy tale and wouldn’t be something that adventurers or mercenaries would do, but apparently it wasn’t so for Klaus.

It might’ve been because of that personality of his, the nation thought that if they took care of him, he would use his gifts for them, but it didn’t concern Loren, but Klaus, with his head still turned to Rose with a smile, grabbed his belt.

“Where are you going Loren? You should listen to what she has to say with me.”

“No. I’m not interested.”

“You’ll listen even though you’re not interested. I’m the party leader.”

Loren was about to ask what the hell he was talking about, but when he thought about it, even though he was a temporary member, he was currently still part of Klaus’ party, and Klaus was indeed the leader.

It seemed harmless to ignore him, but the fact that Loren thought that it seemed childish to go against his word that he would listen to the leader just because he didn’t want to listen to the chief, showed the upright side of him.

“Just saying, if you decide to take it, it means extra payment. And I can’t guarantee that Lapis would agree to help either, so keep that in mind.”

Loren said to Klaus, not wanting to take an extra job without extra payment, Klaus whispered back, still not taking his eyes off Rose.

“I know. No matter what happens, I won’t ask you to help for free.”

“I mean, you could just stick to the original job…”

Loren couldn’t understand sticking your head further into trouble, but seeing Klaus go back to talking with Rose, with Rose continuing to thank him, he already knew the reason.

“Actually, there’s another village to the north of this one…”

“What about that village? Was there a conflict?”

“No, we are very friendly with each other. People came and went between the villages, but a few days ago, people stopped coming.”

Since the people who came almost everyday suddenly stopped coming, Rose became worried and sent a few young men to check on them, but they never returned.

“We knew something was wrong, so this time we sent more men and asked the soldiers that protect our village to go with them…”

“They didn’t return either?”

Rose nodded at Klaus’ response.

Suddenly losing communications with another village wasn’t uncommon.

Villages could disappear anytime, whether it be attacked by monsters, raided by bandits, or get caught up in a battle.

It was more likely so if the village was still in the middle of building up.

“Seeing that both groups didn’t come back, I warned everyone to forget about the village and not to go close.”

Rose’s decision was a bit late.

But it was still better than not trying anything, so she planned to write a petition to the nation to do something about the situation, but even as she went through the process, for some reason, there were continuous cases of people walking over in the direction of the neighboring village.

“And because of that, all the men went off somewhere?”

“At first it was just the men, but then women started disappearing too, as if being attracted to something…”

If it were just men, Loren thought that maybe it was a succubus, but when she mentioned that it was both the men and the women, Loren wasn’t sure anymore.

It was apparent that the reason lied at the neighboring village, but with the investigation groups not coming back, there was no information at all.

“Master Klaus, if you are willing to help us, could you please go to the neighboring village and investigate what the problem is, and save the people who disappeared?”

“Well, I can’t say anything for now, but I’m not someone to leave a woman in distress. Please don’t worry.”

“Ahh…Thank you so much Master Klaus…”

Rose jumped into Klaus’ arms as he showed a reassuring smile.

Seeing him hug her back. Loren started wondering when Ange and the other girls would stab him to death and remove the problem.