Chapter 132: From Arriving To Travelling Together (2/2)
“They won’t. But don’t go berserk. If you do, I don’t know what kind of damage you’ll cause. I, knight Layla, will guarantee your safety myself.”
Having the knight using her own name to assure it, Loren accepted that everything was alright and finally moved his hand away from his weapon. He felt relief flooded the atmosphere as he did so. Turning around, he met Lapis’ eyes; she was peeking out through the slits. He beckoned them over, indicating that all was good.
“Could you please come this way? The captain wants to talk to you about something.”
A soldier told Loren once everyone had come out and led him away. Following him, Loren was taken into the center of the group of troopers gathering in the plaza, and came face to face with one of them.
“Excuse me for staying on horseback. I am Karl Belnadotte, a Knight of Vergenburg. I am currently the Captain of this group.”
The one who introduced himself was a middle-age man, who dressed in nicer armor than the surrounding soldiers. He had an impressive beard, and the gaze he gave Loren from his horseback was not that unpleasant despite the hint of caution it held. Loren bowed slightly in return.
“Loren, adventurer. I am here due to some circumstances.”
It was good manners to introduce your name after being introduced; even Loren understood that much.
In this kingdom, knights were also a part of the aristocracy, and Loren had thought that they wouldn’t have bothered about things like the name of an adventurer. But the reaction of this knight didn’t make him feel any distaste.
“Thank you for letting me know your name. I have heard a bit about your circumstances from Knight Layla. As I understand, you were entrusted by the neighboring village to investigate the unusual happening here; is that correct?”
“Yes, that’s about it.”
Loren felt a little reluctant about the term ‘entrusted’. To be correct, he was temporarily instated as the leader of the party, but he had no intention to explain that to the knight in front of him. Even though it couldn’t be helped, having others known that someone like him had taken the role of the temporary leader was embarrassing to him.
And, by all rights, Klaus should have been the one to stand here and talk to this knight as the leader. In a manner of speaking, Loren felt like he had been cajoled into this somehow. Even though he had been the one to step up first, he wanted to complain about how wrong the role assignment was.
“Is that… Sir Klaus? There’ve been rumors about him for some time now. I’ve heard he’s a brilliant adventurer.”
Glancing behind Loren, Karl saw Klaus and bowed ever so slightly. Klaus also bowed to him in return. Admiring the difference in treatment, Loren tried throwing a question once Karl’s eyes had returned to him:
“What are you doing here, Sir Knight of Vargenburg?”
“It’s a classified military mission, so I can’t talk about it. But we plan to enter the forest and head for the northern exit.”
Was it proper to say that, Loren wondered. With the war going on, he couldn’t think of any other reason why they would come out of the forest from the northern exit except to strike the enemies from the flank or the rear.
Riding through a forest didn’t seem like a very good idea, but the forest wasn’t that dense to make passing it on horsebacks impossible. They probably could make it if they slowed their speed.
“However, there’s something that bothers me a little. That concern has gotten stronger once we arrived at this village.”
“Would it be alright for me to ask what it is?”
Lapis asked Karl before Loren could open his mouth.
Karl looked alert for a moment, but once he noticed that the one who had asked the question was a girl in priest clothing, he softened just a little. When Loren was thinking how convenient it was to have clothes that could announce to everyone that one was a priest, Karl spoke.
“You have known that there is a war going on in this vicinity, I believe.”
“Yes, we’ve heard of that.”
“The truth is, desertion has been happening one after another in both armies.”
That was not anything unusual, Loren thought.
In the first place, there were very few people going to wars because they liked it. Most people did because they had no other choice, and as they could die at any time, he could understand why some wanted to run away.
It was a bit concerning if desertion was happening in both sides, but the chance of dying wasn’t that different for front line soldiers whether their side was winning or losing. So, it was not like people would run away only when they were losing.
“It seems like the deserters have taken refuge in this forest.”
Karl turned his stern eyes to the forest and scowled.
“I thought that they would hide in this village before passing through the forest, but if this place has become vacant, then where did they go?”
“Are you thinking that they’re staying in the forest?”
“I don’t know. But we don’t have the time to ponder or investigate it.”
Having said that much, Karl made a proposal to Loren as if he had just come up with it:
“If it’s alright, what do you think about travelling together with us? Since the village has been in this state, I believe you have also thought about investigating the forest.”
“I don’t want to take part in wars.”
“Don’t worry about that. If you come with us, you’ll be able to grasp the state of affairs in the forest to some extent, and it’ll be safer than you going through it alone, don’t you think? I also believe that it’ll be safer for us to cross the forest with some adventurers than by ourselves. What do you think?”
It could be said that the ability to detect danger of adventurers was superior to that of knights or soldiers, whose main purpose was to fight. In exchange, they could borrow the knights’ and soldiers’ combat ability to pass the forest – that was what Karl was proposing.
It was not such a bad bargain, but was there a catch in it somewhere? Loren wondered. He looked at Karl, who was waiting for his answer while considering what to do about it.
Well, it has been more then three months and Lizz and I were looking for another novel to translate and came across this one. Coincidentally, Xemul was also reading this novel, so he is coincidentally positioned to check for terms to follow the previous translator. LOL.
If you are the previous translator and wishes to contact me, here is my email: [email protected]
Anyways, we will continue to translate with a schedule of 1 a week (Every Saturday +8 GMT at 9 PM). If you wish to support us to translate this, there is a Patreon for it to read ahead.
LOL. I wrote a side-story for the tiers for fun. First time I did something so extra for a novel. Haha. (Except for Martial Peak and the 0.5 Chapters. Those are just for further education.)