CH 274

Just as Maxwell arrived with Argus, Bauman, and Mateus, he immediately had us change our location and had us prepare for the camping at night. The reason he did that was because there was the smell of blood drifting in the air, which could trigger a monster raid on us.

As he was explaining that to the kids while climbing the mountain, we stumbled upon a half-destroyed hut that we used once back in the day, and decided to spend the night there.

“I had us relocate because I was vigilant of a beast raid. The smell of blood can attract foes more than you think.”

“To think there was such a convenient spot nearby. Were you aware of it, old man?”

“This is one of the huts that had been destroyed when the Evil Dragon Colchis was building its nest. We had also made use of it at the time.”

Mateus asked Maxwell while acting with composure. He had that composure because he was confident he could easily deal with Fang Wolves even if they plotted a surprise attack.

Cloud and Finia were so nervous it was wearing them down. Michelle, who was the target of the previous surprise attack, was particularly tense compared to her usual attitude.

“Michelle, there are no enemies nearby, you know?”

“Y-Yeah. I understand that, but…”

“Is this about the previous attack?”

“Well, yeah.”

In the previous battle, had either I or Maxwell failed to notice it, she would have been taken completely off guard from the back.

Since she always stood at a safe distance and shot at them while I lured the enemies, this was probably her first experience of a real threat to her life.

Even during the fight between Cloud and Mateus, she was still being protected. You could say that she hadn’t been approached by an enemy so closely ever since the fight with Kobolds.

Dogs and wolves… Such a similarity between their races must also have added to her mental stress.

That said, as long as she wanted to continue being an Adventurer, that fear was something she needed to embrace. Knowing the fear and always ready to defend yourself was the utmost measure to raise your chances of survival.

“It would be bad if you are too scared, you know? But still, don’t forget what you are feeling now.”

“I shouldn’t?”

Entering the dilapidated hut, I massaged her shoulders to relieve her tension. Maria had told me once that this kind of skinship was good for getting rid of tension. She was looking quite stiff too.

Meanwhile, Cloud got onto the rooftop and plugged the holes there. Mateus and the other two also found the rags… of what were probably clothes at one point, and used them to close the holes in the walls.

This was needed so the light from the inside would not escape to the outside. If we covered everything, though, it would affect the airflow and could lead to suffocation, so it needed to be done in a way that blocked the light while still allowing the airflow.

Thus, after we finished our preparations and ate Finia’s handmade survival cooking, I dragged Maxwell outside of the hut.

“What is it, a date perhaps?”

“Don’t make me puke. Anyway… What did you discover?”

Michelle and others weren’t aware of it, but we planned to spend the night here from the start. However, bringing these three guys was unaccounted for. The fact that he did it meant that there was something that needed more personnel.

That decision came right after he flew up into the sky, so he must have seen something during his flight.

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“I… Am not sure whether you are smart or not.”

“Oh screw you.”

“When I flew up at noon, I saw a strange group out there.”

“A strange group?”

If we talked about something strange, we who came to a place like this already looked as strange as it could get. But perhaps he saw something suspicious aside from us.

“Yes, there were three adults and five children. They all wore hooded mantles and were hiding their faces and physiques, so I could not identify them. Since they were quite far away, the children might have been Gnomes.”

“Eight people on this mountain. What’s more, hiding their faces in an already unpopulated place. That certainly seems odd.”

If this was a normal mountain, even we wouldn’t come off oddly. However, this was a particularly restless mountain even among the entire Scion mountain range. The mountain where the Evil Dragon Colchis was defeated. It had a sinister impression even now, and few people ever visited it.

In a way, it was a place as avoided as the Mountain in Maleva where Aste lived.

There were eight people here now, and they had climbed up high enough to no longer be considered the base of the mountain. Even if it wasn’t Maxwell, anyone would have felt vigilant towards them.

“Could they be Adventurers that came for materials like us?”

“Most likely not. They seem to have five children with them.”

We managed to come here, but in our case, we had Maxwell with us. And there were nine of us now, but only four of us were kids.

“I will wait until the children fall asleep and then go investigate. We needed people to protect them during that time.”

“So that’s why you brought Mateus’s group.”

“Well, I half forced them to come.”

The most dangerous of them, Mateus, was always at Maxwell’s mansion, but Argus and Bauman were working as guards during the day. Their co-workers knew that they worked with Maxwell, so no one would complain even if they were taken away. The same couldn’t be said for the people themselves it seems.

“Ah, well, just throw them a bone. That aside, where were those people headed to?”

“Higher than us… In other words…”

“Colchis’ nest, huh?”

The place we were at already had scarce vegetation, but if you went even higher, there was hardly anything conspicuous there anymore. When plants disappeared, so did the animals that fed on them, as well as the monsters aiming for those animals.

And up there, there weren’t even Fang Wolves — there was only Colchis’ nest.

“Looks like it needs some investigation.”

“Right?”

We exchanged gazes and sighed at the same time.