It has been two weeks since the appointed day …., that is, three weeks since we left the elf village. We were still working with Eleas in the first town. The reason for this was that Eleas, who had become so inconsistently strong, had no one else to partner with but us, and he herself wanted to continue adventuring with us, but the …… most important reason was that we had discovered that the location of the Demon King was much closer than we had thought.
“Well then, Ed-san, Tia-san. See you tomorrow!”
“See you later. Sleep tight and get some rest, okay?”
“Good night, Eleas-kun”
The third night of the third week. After saying good night in my room at the inn, Eleas returned to his room, and Tia, who showed no sign of returning to her room, looked at me and smiled.
“Anyway, It was kinda nostalgic”
“Well, it’s not so much that I feel nostalgic… No, I guess I am being nostalgic after all.”
That night when the one-week deadline arrived. I ended up treating them to dinner, and in desperation, I told them about my many failures in an amusing manner.
But, well, the distance between us had become a bit closer than I had expected, and I feel that I was long the “Senior Adventurer” but more like a “Friendly Neighborhood Nii-chan”. It’s not like we’re overly familiar, but it’s like my sense of wariness has decreased notably, just like relatives…?
“Ah!?”
“? Something wrong?”
“Uh, no. Nothing.”
Looking at Tia, who was completely defenseless, I couldn’t help but smile.
Yeah, the closeness I felt to Eleas was the same as with Tia. What is it? I have always had an image of elves as being rather uptight or cold and unapproachable, but I wonder if they were in fact a very friendly race. Or Were these two the exception? Well, I don’t know for sure.
Incidentally, it was not only Eleas who changed his attitude after the exposé but also Tia had started looking at me very kindly and taking care of me. Tia, who was acting like a big sister, was slightly annoying, but the fact that she wasn’t maliciously teasing me also made it worse. …. No, that’s all right now.
“Now, Tia. The usual routine report, How’s it going for you?”
“Hmmm. No. I still don’t have any information.”
Tia, sitting on the bed with a slight look of impatience and irritation on her face, said. I had asked Tia to gather information about a Demon King-like entity, but it seems that she had no luck this time either.
“I see. Then there’s a good chance they haven’t done anything noteworthy yet.”
With that said, I took out a paper map from the [Stranger’s Box] and spread it out on the table. It was not a shoddy map that one could buy at the Adventurer’s Guild that showed the connections of the roads, but an extremely elaborate map that was made using [Copy and Fake] and [Auto Mapping]
“Well then, on my part, …… the location of the Demon King is almost certain.”
Several black dots struck on the map and lines extending from them. By adding a new one to it, a black line intersects the still blank part of the map.
My banishing skill [Akashic Compass] could only tell me the direction in which the object I was looking for was located. If it were an ordinary object, I could just go straight ahead, but this time, the object I am looking for was the Demon King. If I got too close and made unexpected contact, it could lead to a battle, so I went out alone and used the [Akashic Compass] from a distance to determine the direction in which the Demon King was located, and then I was able to locate his location… It was finally a fruitful result.
“Based on the information I’ve gathered, I think it takes about a week by carriage to the nearest town. From there, it’s probably another three or four days on foot… But I don’t know the exact details after this point. I think we should gather information about the surrounding area in the nearby town as a precaution before we launch an attack.”
“Yeah, It’s pretty close.”
“Yeah, it’s close. We still have a chance… a chance to make it in time.”
If the Demon King is definitely there, and if it is possible to come into immediate contact with him and easily defeat him, there is still a possibility that we will somehow make it in time for the Elder’s lifespan. However, the elder’s life expectancy was only estimated to be “within two months” so whether we would really make it in time is still unknown.
Nevertheless, the current situation was the best and the fastest. If we wanted more, we would have had to abandon Eleas and work tirelessly, but even that has its limits. At the worst, there was a possibility that the Demon King was in a place that we could not reach even after chasing for two months.
In other words, the current feelings were based on hindsight. I was feeling “If we are focused on that, we can deal with it faster” because the Demon King happened to be nearby by chance. If the Demon King had been far away all along, I would have felt “There was no way we could have made it in time, why did we abandon Eleas and focus on investigating the Demon King?”
“I get it. Then we leave town tomorrow?”
“No, the wagons aren’t leaving, so we’ll leave the day after tomorrow. Then all that’s left to do is to figure out what to do about Eleas――”
******
“I’m going! Please take me with you!”
The next day, when we explained that we had identified the location of the cause of the pollution of the spirit tree and that there was probably a vicious demonic beast there that would be the source of the problem and that we would have to fight it, Eleas told us so almost without hesitation. Then, Tia said to him with a troubled look on her face.
“That said, …. hey Eleas-kun. You heard what we said, right? Where we’re going may be far more dangerous than what you’ve seen so far. So――”
“But! You two are going to such a dangerous place to save the spirit tree in my village, aren’t you? Then I, the elf of that village, should be the one who has to fight first!”
“That may be so, but …… Ed!
“Hmmm…… hey Eleas. The place we’re going to is a place where even we might die. If you’re going to follow us there, does that mean you’re prepared to die too?”
Tia looked at me with a troubled face, and I asked Eleas. Then, Eleas shook his head slowly with a thin smile on his face.
“No way! I won’t die. In order not to die…in order to prevent anyone from dying, I want to go with you.”
“Ho?”
At first glance, it sounded like the statement made by Eleas on that day when he forgot his fears and became arrogant. However, the determination conveyed in his words was completely different from that of that day.
“I think the reason I have become so strong so quickly is because God must have gotten to me in time to help Ed-san and the others. I don’t think I would be a hindrance now and if I could, I would sneak into the shadows to provide cover, or at least get a safe place a little further ahead …. or at least if I felt it was too dangerous, I would return to town on my own, I would leave on my own right there. I will leave. So please, I beg you! Please let me fight alongside you for the sake of everyone in the village where I was born and where they raised me and sent me off!”
“… Alright. Then let’s go together.”
“Huh! Yay!”
Eleas, who had been bowing deeply, looked up at my words with a shining smile. But Tia looked at me with concern.
“Ed, are you sure?”
“Yeah, If he is not taking the situation lightly or overconfident in his abilities, and he wants to fight for what is important to him, that is already a warrior’s decision. In that case, no one wants to regret “I should have done it” when they succeed more than “I should have quit” when they fail. Besides,……, after all, a Hero is indispensable in defeating the Demon King, right?”
Tia gave me a bewildered smile as I curled the corner of my lips upwards
“……Well, yeah. Okay, then I’ll just do my best to be prepared for that.”
“I’m counting on you.”
With a future hero, the best partner, and me, the current Demon King, there was no way we could be defeated by a Demon King who was only 1/100th the size of the Demon King.
Thus, the Hero’s, without a single hero, set out on a journey to defeat the Demon King without a single person missing.
(T/N: Sorry No Coffee chapters today, I was out so didn’t have time)