A Continuing Bad Connection (2)

“First, we need to quickly inform the mayor about this. A subjugation team will surely be formed.”

“Then do so.”

I didn’t object to Patrick’s suggestion to retreat for now and report first. Even if we swept away all those goblins by ourselves, there wasn’t much to gain.

‘Let’s be a bit more certain.’

Above all, this was a matter related to the spirits of this world. I didn’t want to act rashly with a light heart and without caution.

Later, when we returned to the village and informed them of this fact, the villagers, including the village chief, were all shocked and began to murmur.

“How on earth did so many goblins come all the way here?”

“That’s unknown. Anyway, the city will likely send a subjugation team right away, so it would be good to prepare defenses in the meantime.”

Patrick sighed at the village chief’s dazed mutter and gave some advice, telling them to hold out until support arrives. Actually, a message was sent to the city that very day, so an answer could come as early as tomorrow. It was a serious enough issue for the mayor to prioritize over everything else.

“Let’s stay here until things become clear.”

And when we were alone, I suggested to my companions that we stay in this village. The investigation mission was over, but my business wasn’t finished yet.

If they really form and dispatch a subjugation team from the city, I needed to slip in there and find out what I wanted to know.

“If that’s your intention, we have no choice.”

Both Patrick and Lina were essentially people who moved centered around me. After glancing around, he sighed and left, saying he would go get rooms.

“So that goblin, there’s something to it, right?”

“It’s probably related to the curse. Like that werewolf. Don’t worry too much. If I can lure out the others, you won’t be in danger.”

Lina asked with a worried face. It seemed so obvious what the root cause was that even she could notice.

Of course, we’d have to check directly to know what the truth really is.

“Sleep well tonight. I won’t hug and bother you.”

I smiled at Lina. It seemed that quite a lot would happen tonight while she slept.

“So you did know something.”

That night, in the darkness that belied the bright full moon.

I threw myself out of the inn window, barefoot in the pure white nightgown Lina had chosen for me, and smirked upon finding Patrick waiting as if he had known.

“Just speak comfortably. I get confused switching depending on the situation.”

“Could it be those young ones are the problem? That group led by the one called Ian.”

He immediately dropped formalities when I told him to. Given my appearance, this seemed more comfortable for him.

“I was just keeping an eye on them because it was clear they were hiding something. And as I suspected, they just secretly slipped out of the village.”

Since he had noticed everything anyway, I saw no need to hide and told him the truth. Actually, I noticed the suspiciousness of Ian’s group when I was tending to their wounds while Patrick was questioning them.

They insisted they didn’t know about the goblins, but I caught on at that moment. It was an intuition, if you could call it that, of a High Elf sensitive enough to communicate with spirits.

In fact, as soon as we told them about the goblin group, they secretly left the village tonight.

“I plan to catch them before they go deeper and get unnecessarily killed or injured. After catching them, I’ll have to hear what they know. I’ll leave Lina to you. She’s asleep, so you just need to watch over her.”

“Alright. I don’t know if I should dare say this, but be careful. And… I don’t think you will, but please don’t harm them. Sometimes hot-blooded teenagers make mistakes and grow from those mistakes.”

Patrick clicked his tongue softly and nodded.

At the same time, he made one request of me. Seeing him force himself to say such things while being extremely cautious of me, it seemed that the appearance of those kids was somehow related to his own past.

“I’m not a murderer. What do you take me for?”

I snorted. While the current me was certainly not the uncontrollable great being that Ethan and Patrick misunderstood me to be, I wasn’t an idiot who went around abusing the power I had somehow obtained.

‘Let’s go.’

I turned around and melted into the darkness, tracking the targets through the earth spirits. I was much faster moving the earth than they were stumbling through the dark forest on foot.

I would probably catch up to them in an instant.

* * *

“I-Ian. Slow down a bit!”

“But we don’t have time. We must meet uncle!”

The unexplored forest is particularly dark because you can’t even see the moon and stars. These people were forcibly wandering around such a place with barely a torch in hand.

‘Uncle Kai couldn’t have. He couldn’t be the culprit who brought in the goblins…!’

Especially Ian, who was at the front, looked like a madman with bandages wrapped around his wounds and his skin color so pale. It meant the situation was that urgent and precarious.

“But what if uncle really did such a thing!? Even what Uncle Dune said…”

“Shut up, Thomson! If you’re human, you shouldn’t have such suspicions!”

When one of his friends muttered fearfully, Ian stopped and shouted. Startled by this, the friend called Thomson hurriedly nodded.

“We all owe our lives to him and are indebted to him. Even if all the villagers and others try to kill him, we…”

“Wait! What’s that sound?!”

In the middle of Ian gritting his teeth and speaking to Thomson, one of them was surprised and frantically looked around.

Only then did they stop talking and hurriedly shine their torches around, trying to find the source of the creepy chill that was slowly approaching.

‘Is it goblins?!’

Ian, clutching a club in his other hand, swallowed dry saliva. Since hundreds of goblins had made a settlement nearby, the area would have become their territory.

Although they were diurnal, unlike humans, they were likely to have good night vision.

“Hii, hiik…”

However, the enemy that revealed itself was not a goblin. A huge wild boar with sharp fangs exposed like blades snorted at them, its red eyes flashing.

It wasn’t a simple wild boar. It was a Blade Boar, one of the magical beasts whose meat is exceptionally delicious and popular, but adventurers who try to catch it always end up with injuries.

“Uu, uwaah!”

As it charged towards them, they couldn’t fight properly and their formation immediately collapsed.

They had learned how to fight goblins, but they hadn’t yet learned how to fight magical beasts that push with overwhelming strength and mass.

“—!”

Then, the wild boar, certain of its victory, became excited at the thought of slaughtering these stupid and weak prey and charged even more fiercely.

‘I’m dead.’

Ian, who had become the target while reflexively scattering and throwing his body, froze at the sight of the enemy charging with enough force to make the ground vibrate.

He had a club in his hand, but it was clear that this wouldn’t even scratch the body of that truck-like beast.

“…?!”

“—!!”

But at that moment, the ground they were standing on vibrated even more violently. It was a vibration incomparable to the boar’s charge.

‘Wh-who is it?!’

Ian was shocked to see a huge mass that passed by his side in an instant, bringing the vibration. Someone riding a boulder larger than a person passed by him and collided the boulder they were riding into the wild boar at that speed.

With a loud noise, the wild boar with its head crushed staggered, bleeding.

As the person who had gracefully descended from the boulder they had ridden on stretched out their finger and pointed to the ground, the earth beneath the wild boar’s feet suddenly split open with a crack and swallowed its huge body.

The rumbling of the earth that had been so strong it was hard to stand up finally stopped. Only when the wild boar’s roar was completely buried underground.

‘A girl?’

Now, instead of the wild boar, what stood before them was a girl showing only her back to them, her white clothes and silver hair fluttering in the gust of wind that had swept through.

The pure mana she possessed made her already bright silver hair shine and glisten even more.

Ian’s eyes widened as he saw the long, pointed ears that pierced through the hair on the head of this mysterious being.

It was common knowledge, even for a village boy, that those were the symbol of elves.

“Coming to such a dangerous place means you have a good reason.”

The girl, standing barefoot on the ground, still with her back turned, broke the silence and spoke first. Ian and his friends, who had been staring at her blankly, all flinched at once.

“Having already counted yourselves as dead once to come this far, now speak obediently. Tell me what circumstances you have. Unless you want to be buried in the ground and meet that wild boar again.”

The girl turned her head slightly and her eyes flashed. Ian felt his breath stop at the intense blood-red eyes shining in the darkness.