Volume 5 - CH 36

When I opened my heavy eyelids, the red-haired girl who retained her childishness was looking at me with a worried look on her face.

She had several strands of cat beard on her adorable appearance which didn’t seem to be any different from humans. Yeah, I knew her. She was the girl I wanted to save at all cost.

「Mornin, Shar.」

I felt a sense of relief as she greeted me with smile on her face.

「What a relief. You’ve finally woke up.」

Shar hugged me, she buried her face on my chest till I couldn’t move at all. It seems she was really worried about me..

I tried to raise my hand to brush the back of her head but,

「Cast!?」

I felt sharp pain piercing my right arm as the bone of my right arm creaked. The same goes for my left arm and leg. It seems I couldn’t even move my finger.

「What happened to me?」

「Gil, you’ve been sleeping for three days and three nights.」

Shar replied immediately while wiping her tears with the sleeve of her right arm.

「I see…」

There were too many things that I couldn’t understand but, seeing that Shar had already returned safe and sound, I felt relieved that one trouble had left. At the very least, the mastermind who sent the group of thieves wasn’t involved with us anymore. It should be a good thing. Nevertheless, even now, I neither had idea about the identity of the mastermind, nor their goal. I’ve this fear that something like this incident would repeat in the near future. Nevertheless―― We’ve at least overcome one crisis.

And yet――

「Are you sure that you’re not going to put me in the underground jail?」

I wanted to avoid the situation in which Shar’s position got worsened since she fussed over my health. I mean, even I couldn’t trust myself.

「Don’t worry. Everyone decided to accept you as one of the residents of this village. You’re one of us now.」

When I was wondering where that voice came from, the door opened, followed by the entrance of the owner of that voice, a cat-faced man with scar on his left cheek, Chigi who carried something in the bucket in his hand.

「Eh? What do you mean?」

「I said, you’re one of us now, you’re also the villager of this village.」

「You mean I… Am your comrade too?」

「Yes.」

「Are you sure about this? I’m a human too you know?」

Even though they’re extremely vigilant toward me till just a while ago-To the point that they wanted to kill me for being a human- How did they recognize me as their comrade that easily?

「It doesn’t have anything to do with being human or not… Is what I want to say but, everyone seems to understand that there’s no need to suspect you.」

「No need, to suspect me?」

Chigi heaved a sigh as if literally surprised upon hearing my question,

「Otherwise, we will make an enemy of the guy who can literally slaughter all of us with a flip of his hand. That’s why there’s no need to be wary of you.」

「No way, that should be the effect of those sta――」

「I tried the stakes too and yet, it has no such effect. You won that battle with your own power, overwhelming your opponent with absolute power.」

「The stakes… Have no such effect?」

Sure enough, my movements felt way too natural. Both my abilities and dynamic vision literally rose across the board, and yet, I felt nothing abnormal about that situation. I just felt that I moved like usual. Well, that might be the reason why the backlash was enough to literally force me to pass out for three days, leaving numerous cracks on my bones, and tore my muscles.

「Anyhow. With this incident, we realized that this village is in danger.」

「What about the barrier?」

「Aah, in my final analysis, the reason we can overcome this situation is thanks to you but, had we put in the same situation without you, this village will definitely wiped out.」

Yeah. They’re relying on Shar’s barrier but that was also this village’s fatal weakness. Reason being, the mastermind of this incident had actually kidnapped Shar from within the barrier. If we didn’t think about other defensive tactics, we might be wiped out for sure next time.

And by the way――

「Shar, do you remember what happened when they kidnapped you?」

Well, it didn’t really matter if she couldn’t answer though.

「Uuhm… I don’t remember at all. When I woke up, I was already in my bed.」

Just as I thought. The mastermind really did as they pleased.

I knew that the mastermind didn’t wish to harm Shar. Was it just to test this village? No, that didn’t seem to be the case. The mastermind gave us the time to prepare for the counter-attack against the thieves after all. Without that precious time, this village would be finished for sure.

Since that was the case, the motive of the mastermind might be purely for entertainment. They used this village, Ket Nya, as a chess board. If that was really the case, there might be another test waiting for us. Chigi must’ve realized this fact.

「Do you mean, we’ve to reinforce the defense of this village?」

「Yes. This place is our village. We’ve to protect it with our own hands. And…」

「I know. I’ve nowhere else to go anyway, I’ll cooperate too.」

Seeing me raising my right arm, which became quite muscular after the last battle, and agreed to Chigi,

「Thanks a lot, Gil!」

Shar embraced me with all her might, I ended up suffocated by her.