Chapter 162: Departing, Again, and Camping (2/2)

“We don’t mean it… Well, it can’t be helped then.”

Loren decided to move and sit down next to Lapis. Even if his sword got in the way and he had to put up with some discomfort, if it could help Lapis concentrate on driving, then it had to be done.

Behind him, Gula was grinning and Tizona was watching them with great interest. He tried his best to ignore both of them.

“The stares at my back is making me uncomfortable.”

“Do you want me to put them down?”

Lapis said, totally unlike a priest. Tizona turned her eyes away in panic, while Gula immediately pretended to be asleep.

And so, after a smooth journey, the party reached their destination. The sun had already set by then, and it was pitch dark. They stopped near the ruin.

“It went surprisingly well.”

“This gang assimilated all other gangs in the region, didn’t they? And we’ve just destroyed one of their depots. There are probably no other bandits in this area.”

“No monsters have appeared either.”

“Monsters are typically more sensitive than humans.”

If humans could sense the presence of a being like Gula in the carriage, no one would dare to meddle with them. Monsters were surely superior to humans in that regard. As long as Gula didn’t try to hide her presence, they wouldn’t be attacked by monsters unless something exceptional happened. In Loren’s opinion, while they were on the move, there was nothing to be more thankful about than this.

On the other hand, if they needed to hunt monsters to earn money, Gula would need to hide her presence – that was something they needed to pay attention to.

“So, what do we do now?”

To reach Tizona’s ruin, they needed to leave the main road and go a short distance towards the mountain region.

Even though Loren knew it was best to attack at night, charging in without a plan and no knowledge of the enemies’ numbers or organization couldn’t be considered a good idea at all.

“To avoid being sticking out a mile, let’s spend the night here and scout the place by eye. It’s troublesome, but our opponent is a large bandit gang. It won’t be strange if they’re hiding something.”

In reply to Loren’s opinion, Lapis said:

“That’s quite a cautious move. I feel like we can just charge in with this party. If things don’t go well, Gula and Tizona can finish it off by themselves, right?”

“I huh… Not really.”

“I’ll go if you tell me to. That said, Gula, are you really a magician? I’ve seen the leftover marks at the depot. Just what kind of magic are you using?”

“It’s a secret. Only third-rate magicians reveal their skills, don’t they?”

Magicians could only use a limited number of spells. Even though each of their attacks was very powerful, they normally didn’t fight alone like Gula had done at the depot. The basic battling formation would involve a vanguard, who intercepted incoming attacks to some extent in the magician’s place, while the magician himself commenced a high-powered attack to bring down the enemies. But the marks Gula left at the depot just didn’t look like what a magician’s attacks would cause.

“So you’re a rather high ranking magician? In that case, I think you should be more well-known.”

“If’ya don’t wanna be known, ya’won’t. Der’re a lot of hidden geniuses in dis world, right?”

“That… But if she is that powerful, she should have gained some fame, whether as a magician or as an adventurer, right?”

“I’ve got nu interest in such things. I can’t eat fame.”

“This talk is fun and all, but don’t forget that we’re quite close to the enemies’ base. It’ll be trouble if they discover us and strike first.”

Loren cut in and forcefully ended Tizona’s and Gula’s conversation, as he was feeling a bit impatient. Gula seemed to understand that something bad would happen if her true identity was revealed, so she was thoroughly dodging the topic. But the longer this conversation dragged on, the chance of her slipping would become higher, so he thought it was best to stop it right now.

“Rather than that, let’s hide our carriage asap. We also can’t cook, since there’ll be smoke. If we can’t find any pit nearby, we’ll have to dig a hole to hide the carriage ourselves.”

There were no bushes to hide the carriage in sight. If there was a gouge somewhere, they could put the carriage there and camouflaged it with some plants to avoid the bandits’ detection. But if they couldn’t find anything like that, they would have to dig a hole as Loren had said.

“We’ll have to dig non-stop, without even time to sleep.”

“I’d hate that. Tizona-chan, let’s search with all our might, heh?”

“Understood. Let’s search.”

Tizona and Gula finally understood that this was not time for chatting and obediently followed Loren’s instruction, immediately starting to search the area.

Deciding that he had successfully diverted Tizona’s attention, Loren quietly stroked his own chest in relief while Lapis patted him on the back.