Chapter 170: From Escaping To Persuading (1/2)

It was a quiet night at Kapha city.

A cloaked man in grey from head to toe appeared at the city gate. The cloak made it impossible to tell the person’s gender or look, but the man seemed to be of fairly large built based on the height. The person walked quickly while surveying their surroundings from time to time. In short, a very suspicious person.

People shouldn’t be acting that suspicious if they just wanted to get out of the city. Just as the guards at the gate unthinkingly straightened up as if feeling a hint of anxiety, another person appeared behind the first one. The newcomer grabbed the cloak of the suspicious one and stopped it.

“Where are you trying to go, Loren?”

The one who asked that question was a young girl with a sweet smile and an innocent tone. She was wearing priest’s clothes, and the guards recognized her right away – the girl’s name was Lapis, someone they saw often. So the suspicious figure must be her companion, an adventurer called Loren.

“Leaving the city this early, are you trying to run away?”

“That… That’s right.”

Loren was at a loss for words. Meanwhile, Lapis sneakily tore his cloak off him. Loren appeared to be the same as always, but he wasn’t carrying his greatsword for some reason. Noticing that, Lapis stared at him with narrowed eyes, then forcibly pulled him away by his belt without saying anything.

“Ah, wait. Hey?!”

“You’re delusional if you think you can run away, Loren. But alright, I’ll forgive you. We’re friends after all.”

“This is a misunderstanding. I’m not trying to run away. I just want to go into hiding and cool down for a while…”

“I don’t want to hear it. Listen, let’s just go. I’ve already arranged breakfast at the Guild’s dining hall.”

A big guy being pulled away by a small girl wasn’t a common scene at all. The two guards at the gate watched them go while wondering what the heck was happening and exchanged glances after the couple had disappeared from sight.

Meanwhile, Lapis dragged Loren all the way to the entrance Adventurer Guild’s dining hall. Loren surrendered then, and walked inside on his own. They sat at their usual table at the end of the hall, and a waitress immediately appeared to take their orders. Lapis ordered for both of them, paid, then glared at Loren, who was sitting opposite her.

“I don’t want to cancel our partnership, you know?”

It sounded like an excuse even to Loren, but he felt like he had to say something. Lapis nodded.

“I’m not worried about that.”

“It’s just… Our destination this time is…”

Yesterday, Lapis told Loren that she wanted him to accompany her on the way to her parent’s home. And if one thought about it, this wasn’t about Loren wanting to run away, but about Lapis’ home.

No matter how much like an ordinary human priest Lapis might look, she was actually a demon, a being much stronger than humans, and not very well-liked by humans. Of course, Lapis’ home was in the demon country, on the other side of the mountainous region in the center of this continent. And accompanying her there meant going to the demon country.

It was just natural that Loren would think twice about her request. And the decision he came to after such thinking was to disappear for a while and wait for Lapis to cool down. He left his greatsword behind in case Lapis wanted to send it back to her parents’ home to investigate its origin.

By the way, even though there was no detailed map of the continent, it was generally thought to have the shape of two circles. The line that formed the inner circle was the mountainous region that they would have to cross, inside which there was the demon country.

“So even you would hesitate.”

Lapis muttered with some disappointment. It seemed like her anger subsided a little bit.

“I thought that you’ll be able to accompany me there without caring too much.”

“That’s impossible. I’m just an uneducated, mercenary-raised guy. I’ve been taught about the terrors of demons by my company since I was a kid, you know?”

There were a lot of stories about demons’ infamy. The most extreme story was one about the Demon King, which Loren couldn’t help but think to be greatly exaggerated. But even excluding that story, the stories usually ended up with them being the cause of a country’s destruction, a hero’s corruption, or making part of the continent a dead land where nothing could grow from for ten years at a time just for their own research. There simply was no end to their infamy. Loren thought that all of those were exaggerated to some extent after working with Lapis for a while, but he was still worried, and he told her as much.

“To be very clear, I have a feeling that this will become a hassle.”

“So you’re not scared or angry. I’m not sure if I should be happy or sad about this.”

“I’m having my hands full with only you, Lapis.”

“Am I such a handful?”

Lapis watched Loren intently, looking smug. Being asked that question again, Loren tilted his head. It wasn’t like Lapis gave him a horrible experience or anything.