Chapter 130 - Arriving at Neighboring Village (1/2)

Ch. 130: Arriving at Neighboring Village

After walking for a while, having conversations as they did so.

A few members had suffered light injuries before they even reached their destination, but other than that, nothing stood in their way, and they arrived at the village that Rose told them about just as the sun was starting to set.

Its size was like Rose’s village and looked like any other village as well.

But although there were signs that it was inhabited until recently, when they scanned the area, it was nothing but a ghost town.

“Naturally thinking, something’s going on in there.”

After going around once and standing in the center of the village, Loren’s gaze was directed at the dense forest to the north of them.

The forest was creepy, since he couldn’t see inside at all in the dying sunlight, but at the same time it just looked like a normal forest.

“Isn’t that a bit simple? It’s possible that the village got attacked by monsters or something, isn’t it?”

In Lapis’ arms were vegetables and salted meats she got from who knows where, and Loren couldn’t help but look at her sharply.

“I found them in the food storage, but it’s about to rot, and that would be a waste. We should use it for our own good instead of wasting it, don’t you think?”

“If we find villagers, you’d better pay them back.”

Loren was hesitant to take the village’s food, which could be considered a part of their fortune.

But as Lapis had said, he knew that it was better for them to eat it than let it all rot.

So, it was Loren’s opinion that although they should use what they could, but make sure to pay the villagers in case they were found and made sure to express that firmly to Lapis.

“Alright then. I’ll do that.”

Lapis agreed to do so quite easily.

Loren continued staring at Lapis, thinking that she somehow knew that she wouldn’t have to pay anyone anything, but Lapis started laying out the ingredients she brought, not paying any attention to him.

“They aren’t fresh, but good thing there are vegetables. It looks like we’ll have a good dinner tonight.”

“That’s nice. By the way, where are the others…”

Right as Loren started, he saw Ange and the girls bring sausages as well as some barrels out of the houses, and sighed, but then he saw Klaus bring a cow out of the cow shed and gulped.

“What are you guys doing?”

Wondering what his voice sounded like as he called out to them, all of them started stuttering excuses like Lapis, and so Loren put his hand against his forehead and sighed.

He thought that what they were doing was theft, but since it seemed that using what was available was part of an adventurer’s creed, he didn’t feel like saying anything more.

“You guys pay the villagers too if we find them, alright?”

“You’re pretty strict when it comes to these things, huh.”

Klaus said, impressed, but the cow that he had brought was quite thin and weak since it had been tied up for a while.

Although it hadn’t starved to death yet, it proved that the people who took care of it had been gone for a while, but it still didn’t tell where they went.

“What’re you going to do with that cow?”

“I thought maybe we could get some milk.”

“Not with how thin and weak it is. Take it back.”

“Alright. But these animals are lucky. There isn’t anyone to take care of them, but they haven’t been attacked by beasts or monsters.”

Loren thought for a moment at Klaus’ casual words.

Livestock in these kinds of villages were often attacked by beasts or monsters regardless of villagers being there or not.

On top of that, the fact that they weren’t attacked even though there was no one to take care of them was strange.

“Ill tie it back, but I could give it food, right? I don’t want it to starve.”

“Yeah, that’s fine. I’ll help.”

He wasn’t sure what happened to the villagers, but the animals were still alive.

There was no need to make them starve, so Loren decided to go with Klaus to tie to cow back up and feed them.

While they did all that, the sun had started to set and their surroundings started to get dark, so the company decided to camp in the middle of the village.

They had considered borrowing some of the villagers’ houses and sleep there but sleeping in houses which the owners had vanished mysteriously wasn’t the most pleasant, and everyone except Loren declined.

“All of you definitely can’t come to the battlefield. Sleeping next to corpses happen all the time.”

“But you will get attacked if they turn undead.”

“Every now and then, yeah. Things like that happen.”

As Loren had said, there were times where soldiers died because bodies that hadn’t been treated properly turned undead and attacked them.

To prevent that, most of the time the bodies in good shape were tied up and stuffed into bags.

“Just for reference, what were bodies in bad shapes like?”

Ange asked, and Loren replied like it was nothing.