Chapter 120 - Volume 7 (1/2)

Volume 7, Chapter 6: The brilliant daily life of the Saint, Part 3

The storm of romance abruptly began.

“W-we will escort you on your journey.”

Fannie was going to go investigate one of the smaller nations near the center of the continent, but it was about 1700km away.

For modern earth, it was a distance reachable within a day, a distance equal to about two countries in Europe, but, for horse-drawn carriages, it was about a month’s distance. Even if they were to use a fast warhorse-drawn carriage it was estimated to take over two weeks.

The Sail country, with the excuse that they couldn’t just let a maid travel alone to such a faraway place, attached someone to surveil her.

After all, this girl was one of the attendants of the [Saint], who had been able to take and block the attack of a hero right after being summoned. Because she might have some special magic, they wanted to confirm it, but more than that, danger might befall her, since the [Saint] didn’t make an excuse to leave the country.

That’s why Fannie’s departure was accompanied by five soldiers and three knights, with two large carriages drawn by three large warhorses. However, since Fannie’s mistress Yurushia had 15 people escorting her and four servants originally, she didn’t feel off, since they usually commuted by a four-horse carriage.

Although it was trivial, the knights appointed as escorts were the young sons of the aristocracy who were all between 15 and 17 and were meant to give the expedition gravitas.

In fact, three agents of the country were mixed into the soldiery, and they would move if anything happened, but the problem was the knights were formally supposed to be in charge, and all of them were riled up by Fannie’s adorable appearance.

“Yes, thanks~”

Soft silver hair that flowed smoothly to her shoulders.

Fine, white skin. Slightly moist cherry-pink lips. Beautiful eyes like gems that shone through her eyelashes……

A thing of devilish beauty that didn’t have any of the flaws of humanity.

Yurushia, her master, was slightly frightening because her beauty was too perfect, but Fannie, who always had a lovely smile next to her, was a hot topic amongst the knights that didn’t know them.

Fannie was still 12 years old, but even with their honor, it wasn’t so strange that she was being looked at that way.

In this world, noble children made their social debuts at 13, and would be recognized as marriageable at that time. For the men, the age of marriage was appropriate, but for noble ladies, it was desirable to marry between 15 and 20, so they might be engaged before they turned 13.

Especially in the case of Fannie and the Demons, because they looked like junior high school students due to their good looks, they were well within the ‘strike range’.

With that kind of situation, she was leaving Sail, but then there was another problem.

While it was comfortable, and it seemed that everything was alright, having a carriage with cushioned seats like a noble, and having all her lodging and meals on the way arranged for…

(Bored~~)

Fannie had nothing to do, and so she was very bored.

After all, if Fannie had been alone, she could have easily covered the distance in half a day.

Even when she wanted to beat up the bandits that appeared along the way in the wastelands, she didn’t get a turn at all because the knights were being awfully enthusiastic. At the beginning, she had been told by her mistress that she should hide her abilities as a Demon as much as possible while in Atra.

And……

“Fannie-san, I picked you some flowers. I wanted to present them to you…”

“Thank you~”

The youngest one here was the blonde knight Friedel, the youngest son of a Viscount, who handed her a flower with a smile. Fannie thought that if he was so free, it would have been better if they just sped up instead but received it with a smile.

Because this Friedel stuck to her side for some reason or another, Fannie, whose movements were being restricted, accumulated stress.

“…… can this state of affairs be changed?”

“Ms. Fannie, did you say something?”

“No”

The fifth day after Fannie started to think from the stress. She saw a group of zombies along the mountain road of a small country.

Although it was merely a small crowd, it was rare to see that many along this mountain road, which was neither a labyrinth nor a graveyard. In this world, there were “adventurers” unlike Atra, so it seemed that that would be the end of that party, who were a ramshackle bunch of varying ages and clothes.

“Ms. Fannie, please. stay back!”

“Everyone! Do not be afraid!”

“Draw your swords!”

The knights held their shields, and pulled out their longswords, while the soldiers turned towards the zombies with their spears.

Zombies in the movies had more strength than humans, but because it was a lesser spirit possessing and moving a corpse, the rotten muscles were slow to move, and they weren’t a big threat.

It was a monster that even novice adventurers could kill and couldn’t possibly be a match for knights and soldiers who’d received battle training, but the knights were strangely concerned under Fannie’s gaze and were very enthusiastic.

“I’ll do it too~”

Fannie had reached her limit, and since this was something her mistress had ordered of her, she wasn’t going to abandon it.

The movements of the knights slowed for a moment without a sense of urgency at all, as if they were shopping in a city.

“Eeh?! Ms. Fannie, it’s dangerous!”

Fannie’s Demonic ability was to show people a ‘nightmare’, which normally would have little effect on corpses, but such a thing wasn’t an issue for an [Archdemon].

“eei!”

As Fannie struck the foreheads of the zombies with a tree branch she’d picked up, the zombies collapsed like puppets whose strings had been cut.

What Fannie did was simply pouring pure Demon ‘Miasma’ into them.

The zombies themselves were moving under the power of a tiny bit of miasma, but just like how plants died if you overwatered them, the dense miasma of a Demon decomposed the zombie’s muscles in an instant, rendering them inoperable.

In the blink of an eye, with all four of them defeated, the stunned knights spoke out.

“…… oOH, is this the [Holiness] of those who serve the saint?”

It’s completely off the mark, but they couldn’t tell.

“Well then, please dismantle this.”

“……eh?”

The eyes of the knights were moving up and down from the corpses.

Nobody wanted to do something like disposing of a corpse, but they couldn’t let Fannie, a girl, do it, and so the knights began to disassemble the corpses together with the soldiers.

Fannie actually didn’t mind breaking the corpses with her bare hands, but since she didn’t want to get herself dirty, she hit them with a stick.

“…… Ah, Ms. Fannie, something came out.”

“Show me~”

As Fannie looked at the source of the voice, there was something like a crumbling gem around the heart.

“It seems different from the mana stones……”

“That’s right”

Mana stones were generated in the bodies of [Demonic Beasts] that had been mutated by magic, and the magic power would crystallize the blood, solidifying like a gallstone, and came mostly in shades of coal.

Of course, there were demonic beasts that were bloodless such as golems or skeletons, but between their ores, the bone meal, and the coagulated mana stones, there was surprisingly little difference.

In Atra, since demonic beasts didn’t come out much, mana stones were uncommon, but in this world, they were used like batteries for [Magic Tools], and as proof of subjugation for an adventurer when they slew them.

However, when the gems in the corpses were extracted and rolled on the ground, they crumbled into dust as if weathered by the wind.

“………”

Fannie pinched some of it between her fingers, recovering a little of it in her handkerchief.

“W-, what did you discover?”