CH 106

“Then, exploration will wait until our field work is done?”

“Yes. That’s the plan.”

“Got it. Then let’s do it!”

After the party, when I laid out plans for the near-future, Reno immediately started preparing for work.

I was sure Reno would complain.

Yet she should no signs of doing that.

What changed?

As I tilted my neck looking at her, our eyes met.

“Mm? Lain nii-chan? Is something wrong?”

“No, I just thought you would be more impatient about exploring.”

Reno gave a dumbfounded look at my statement.

I guess she didn’t understand what I meant.

“What do you mean? Isn’t it obvious we can’t do what we want until we’ve finished our work?”

I look over to Sui, but she was making a face that expressed this was natural.

Apparently, I was the one not making sense here.

Reno and Sui turned 13 this spring.

Two years until the age of adulthood.

They were still kids.

However, it seems that selfishness doesn’t go through them just because they’re children.

Children working in a farming village was completely natural.

Let alone Aria and Milia who were former aristocrats with good education, Kili too seemed well-collected for a 16 year old.

Since they were working from childhood, they must not have had time to get coddled.

The reason why I thought that was sad must be because of my memories from the previous world.

“Then, let’s start our work from tomorrow.”

While thinking so, I moved the conversation forward.

“From tomorrow? Not today?”

“Hey now, Reno, Aria and the others are tired from their long journey, so let them at least rest for a day.”

“Oh, I guess that’s true.”

We had just come home.

Aria in particular was tired.

It might be better to take the day off.

It’s almost turned dusk while we were partying.

“Let’s do it everyone. Lain, what will you do for two weeks?”

Aria asks me my schedule.

Aria and the others will now work on cultivation for two weeks.

Since I couldn’t do farm work, I was not a part of their strength. So I had nothing to do.

I couldn’t cultivate, after all.

I actually wanted to do something.

“I was thinking of hunting the monsters that came out of the demon forest.”

“Monster hunting?”

“Yeah. Till now, I was only getting rid of monsters that approached the village, but I was thinking of expanding my range.”

A fairly large area of ​​the Margravate borders the demon forest.

There were places other than near the village, from where monsters invaded the territory.

In fact, the monster that Aria had defeated seemed to have also been from the forest.

The main reason why monsters come out of the demon forest is to crush the area outside of the forest’s control nearby, so monsters are most likely to appear here where the village is located.

In places other than here, monsters that could no longer stay in the demon forest escape and run out of it.

However, on rare occasions, monsters went out near human settlements.

And such monsters often attacked humans to replenish their magic power.

Since humans have generous amounts of magic power stored in their bodies.

It would be one thing if the ones they attacked were strong people like adventurers, but if they attacked a village full of common-folk then it would be a disaster.

Ordinary people can’t win against monsters, so they have no choice but to run away and hide until the army comes to subjugate them.

If they aren’t dealt with in time, then even a single monster could cause devastating casualties.

Since I have free time on my hands, I have decided to wipe out the monsters that were hanging out near the Demon Forest around this time.

I owe Margravine-sama a lot, so I should pay back at least this much.

Especially because in spring, the monsters of the forest become active and start coming out at a faster pace.

This village was almost in the middle of the Margravate’s borders, that are adjacent to the demon forest. If I went with full physical strengthening, I could reach the edge in half a day.

“I’m indebted to Margravine-sama, so I was thinking of thinning out the hordes of monster that showed up early-spring. There’s bound to be some leftovers though, so I’ll keep hunting magic stones as my official reason for a wide-ranged hunt.”

“…Yes, if you took it on in the form of a request, you would just get asked again. I think magic stone collection is a good reason.”

Milia agreed with me.

Although, killing time is a large part of it.

I can’t help Aria and the others with their work after all.

Selling a favor in order to cash it in later is also a part of my calculations.

“Then, leaving Lain with that, are we set to continue our exploration work after two weeks?”

“That should be fine, since cultivation work should be finished by then. The demon forest should have also calmed down by then.”

“The demon forest calms down?”

“Eh? Did I not tell you? During the first month of spring, the monsters start moving a lot more spryly.”

I didn’t know why, but monsters became active in early spring.

The monsters in the demon forest would become stronger, and the mana concentration would also rise a little.

Mom used to happily train during this period, but Aria and the others are probably not at that stage yet.

There were coincidentally no explorations into the forest this year, but we might have to be careful next year.

Although, everyone might become strong enough to not worry about that by then.

“Then we will continue our exploration after two weeks. Let’s finish cultivating the land by then!”

“”””Oh-!””””

And so, we set out keeping our future exploration in sight.