CH 152

“Heave-ho… ah,” I grunted.

It was a few days after returning to Bidden Village. I left the village and stepped into the Aphrata Mountains to investigate the current state of the saber boas.

The Aphrata Mountains are fairly high in altitude. Also, the road is relatively steep, so even in peaceful times, it’s a bit of a pain to hike up like for a picnic. Furthermore, I’m climbing up to investigate the monsters that have increased too much, so it’s pretty tiring.

“Are you two okay?” I asked.

“Yeah, there’s no problem if it’s just this much,” Henblitz said.

“I can still keep on going and going!” Kuruni yelled back.

“Haha, like I thought,” I said.

The companions this time are Henblitz and Kuruni. I don’t intend to overwork them, but they knew my purpose and followed me to Bidden Village, so I’m going to have them work hard.

Well, it’s as expected of a Knight of Rebelio. It doesn’t seem like they normally have the experience of marching to a mountain like this, but I wonder if the knights are still going on expeditions to various places. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I’m familiar with the mountains, but I have some knowledge because the village is close to the mountains. It’s more than amazing that they can follow me while not feeling their strength sapped.

“Today or tomorrow, I’d like to get at least some sort of target,” I said.

I will touch on the purpose of this expedition while we walk on a road you couldn’t even call a dirt path.

I didn’t enter the Aphrata Mountains today to defeat the saber boas. Or rather, it’s completely unrealistic to target a specific monster in this stupidly fucking wide mountain without doing any preliminary research.

So this time it’s just reconnaissance. Of course, it would be nice if we could find a flock of saber boas with the best luck, but as expected, it wouldn’t be so easy to estimate.

The weather should be stable until around the day after tomorrow, so I’d like to do some preliminary inspection during that time.

It is not possible to understand everything in a single climb, and the element of luck is also involved. Exploring mountains isn’t something you can do all day long. And I definitely don’t want to go into the Aphrata Mountains after the sun goes down. It will definitely end in a disaster then.

“But can we trust the weather? No, it’s not like I’m doubting you…” Henblitz asked.

“Yeah, I don’t think it’s a problem,” I said. “My Old Lady’s predictions are rarely off by much.”

“That’s just amazing…” Henblitz said.

I decided to climb at this timing this time because it was judged that the weather would settle down for a while. And the Old Lady was the expert on that decision.

She didn’t do anything special. It’s not like the Old Lady can use magic.

However, for some reason, my Old Lady says that if she looks at the sky, she can tell the future weather. I’ve been hearing her mysterious predictions since I was a child, but she can’t go wrong anyway.

Of course, just when I thought I could endure the cloudy weather, it started to rain lightly, or vice versa, so there was a slight madness to the method. Even so, it has never rained when she told me it would clear up, and as far as I can remember, it always rained when she said it would.

According to my Old Lady, she can somehow understand it with her eyes, nose, and the sensations on her skin, but the accuracy is too high for some reason. Not only me, but everyone in Bidden Village has been helped by that prediction, so I have no intention of being stingy, but the more I hear about it, the more mysterious it is.

Unfortunately, I don’t have such a special ability, so it’s not something that’s inherited by blood, but I guess you could say that’s her dominant ability unique to herself.

Well, I think that if anything, the quality of my eyes probably came from the Old Lady rather than the Old Man. It’s not like the Old Man has bad eyesight, but even so, he’s no match for the Old Lady.

“Oh, poop,” I said. “… Hmm, they seem to be closer than I thought.”

“Is this saber boa poop?” Henblitz asked.

“Maybe it is,” I said.

As I was walking for a while thinking about such things, a rough dark brown object appeared among the short plants.

I’m not a biologist or anything, so I can’t confirm it’s a saber boa just by looking at this poop. However, I can somehow tell if the owner of the excrement is a herbivore or a carnivore. And no matter how many times I stepped into the mountains, it was more dangerous than I thought if the feces of carnivorous monsters can be so easily found this close to the village.

Even when I participated in the past subjugation, it was rare to find traces of their roaming so easily. It’s mostly a matter of sticking around for a few days and finally finding something that looks like evidence.

Wild animals, monsters, whichever they are, they’re basically good at hiding themselves. Unless you are an apex predator, you are constantly being targeted. And in the Aphrata Mountains, at least saber boas aren’t at the top of the food chain. As expected, I think they’re above the middle.

It’s a little unusual to find traces so easily in such a situation.

There are three possibilities that I can roughly think of whether a saber boa or a herd of meat-eaters similar to them has territory in this area, or the scale of the herd is getting bigger enough to reach the foot of the mountain, or the whole mountain ecosystem is crumbling.

The first one is still fine. Although they are a threat, we also have the strength to eliminate them.

The second one is also troublesome, but if it’s not too much, I’ll be able to deal with it.

If it’s the third one, it’s pretty bad. I don’t think that’s going to happen any time soon, but if it did, it would be a disaster.

I can’t give any answers at this point, but I can only hope that the third case hasn’t happened. With such a situation in such a vast natural mountain, gathering a few people will no longer help.

Therefore, the third possibility is currently ruled out. If circumstantial evidence is available, it’s not the end of it, but there’s no point considering it now.

“Hmm… it’s not crumbling, so it doesn’t look like it’s that old,” I said.

I try poking or turning over the droppings with a suitable tree branch. Although it’s solid, it doesn’t look like it’s really old because it hasn’t returned to the soil yet. In that case, I don’t know if it’s a group or a lone rider, but the possibility of the owner being nearby is fairly high.

It is no wonder that Landrid predicted that the scale of this event might be relatively large. If it was him, it would be a piece of cake to take a quick look around the area during breaks in practice. Maybe he’s even set foot on this mountain on his own.

“What kind of things do you have here other than saber boas?” Henblitz said.

“About that…” I said.

It’s quite difficult to answer if you ask what kind of animals there are other than saber boas. In a mountain range of this scale, there would be an endless variety of animals and monsters, and it’s only natural that there might be species I’m completely unaware of.

“… I think there are a lot of them. But I don’t see any goblins,” I said.

“So I see…”

In terms of animals, there are deer, wild boars, and bears. Smaller ones would be rabbits and weasels.

However, when it comes to monsters, small species like goblins are rarely seen. Occasionally, worms come out, but they’re not really that threatening.

The Aphrata Mountains is a large range, but they are not covered with trees. They’re still growing, but in terms of tree density, Azalamia Forest is much higher. Except for the routes where adventurers drop by, it was an almost completely wild forest.

I think it’s probably because of the steep slope and the climate problem. Or simply the soil doesn’t have enough nutrients to grow big trees.

Well, for that reason, this mountain location which is neither a plain nor a forest has a different ecosystem. Small species such as goblins are rarely seen.

It’s someone I don’t want to remember too much, but griffons are often found in mountainous areas like this.

Still, there aren’t many eyewitness testimonies near Bidden Village until now. If griffons were found frequently, that would be a major incident.

“However, you seem quite used to marching in the mountains, huh, Sir Beryl?” Henblitz asked.

“No, it’s just this mountain, or rather, it’s just around here. I can roughly understand the topography.”

He complimented me but it’s not a big deal.

It’s the same with subjugating saber boas, but I’ve been walking around here for a long time to hunt and test my skills. So, I just vaguely remember that it was a place like this.

Of course, I wouldn’t do anything stupid to let my guard down. If you miss a step, instant death awaits you in the mountains.

This place is not far from Bidden Village, the geography is at least understood, and the weather forecast is extremely accurate. It’s definitely not because I’m amazing.

“… It’s here,” Henblitz said.

“Hmm, which way?”

“On the right-hand side. I think there’s few of them,” Henblitz said.

With that, our alert level jumps at once.

Basically, those who live in the Aphrata Mountains are ferocious. Or rather, humans in this area rank quite low on the food chain. So if you enter the mountain without any preparation, you will almost certainly be attacked by something. From their point of view, we are nothing but creatures to be preyed upon.

“Fugoh,” something went.

“Ah, it was there.”

While keeping enough distance for the three of us to wield our weapons, we walked slowly enough that we could not get separated and that we could support each other’s backs.

As Henblitz read, a single saber boa was peeking out from the front right.