The bandits knew their way well. Before long, the dense trees became sparse, and a shabby, small village came into view.
"They don't seem to actually live here. We can worry less about Mabelwood."
From his tone, he didn't seem to have worried about Mabelwood himself. Well, he wasn't that type of person either. Esperanza thought while rolling her cheek with her hand. Was it that obvious?
"Are there people?"
"I don't see any, but by presence, let's see, about five people? Not many."
"If it's that much. Let's consider it as none and collect some soil. Esperanza, you go check that house to see if there are any objects that might have magic power remaining."
"Will it be okay? Those people should still be armed."
"I have weapons too."
Cider said, lightly lifting and waving his pistol. Esperanza hid her feelings of distrust and went inside the house. All the locks were broken. The bandits must have done that while using it. The interior was only minimally cleaned, and Esperanza examined a few household items that seemed like they would have originally belonged to this house.
Can't tell anything by looking like this, right? Esperanza put a bowl that had definitely been originally in this house into her inventory.
Nothing like magic power was displayed. It was an ordinary bowl. Though there wouldn't be any magic power anyway. She concluded that at Esperanza's level, it was completely impossible to grasp unless examined with something like the Stimulator that Cider used.
In that case, there was no reason to wander around alone out of boredom. If Cider got hurt by the bandits in the process, she might end up having to drag two horses and one person by herself......
Just as Esperanza was about to open the door, a scream came from outside.
"Agh!"
Her hand that had been gripping the door handle hesitated, then threw the door open.
"Did you kill them?"
"I didn't kill them."
Cider said, pointing to the man who had fainted cleanly. He really didn't kill them.
"How did you make them faint?"
"I can see how much you look down on me, but I have my methods too. More than that, this soil here is unusable."
The man, who had gotten plenty of soil on his palms with an innocent face like a child playing with dirt, said while brushing off his hands.
"Why?"
"It's old, so there are hardly any traces of magic power left. With this much, I can't draw meaningful results. I tried digging deep just in case, but it's hopeless."
Cider gave up his attachment and got up, brushing himself off.
"How about your side?"
"I had no idea at all. Want to see?"
When she took out the bowl from her inventory, Cider raised his eyes and said:
"Be careful because putting it in there might change the flow of magic power. But this too...... isn't very helpful. I don't think we can get anything here."
"Then let's just go back?"
After coming all this way?
Cider pondered briefly. Going back to the mansion now wasn't a problem, but it felt wasteful to have made the effort to come to Mabelwood.
"Shall we look a bit more?"
They scattered and thoroughly searched the village. Esperanza gathered a lot of things and took them. He said that objects that had been in boxes or buried were more effective because magic power didn't disperse.
Being reluctant to carelessly rummage through dead people's belongings, Esperanza didn't touch things that seemed like personal items. Of course, Cider probably wouldn't have such considerations.
Something caught Esperanza's eye as she was searching inside and outside the house for a while. Green fur that couldn't be commonly seen. She wondered if she had seen it wrong. Esperanza carefully extracted the fur that was placed under a flowerpot.
It was just a few strands of fur. If it hadn't been that vivid fluorescent green, it wouldn't have been noticeable, but she had found this. Esperanza ran to where Cider had been.
"What, where did he go? Lord Avondale, where are you?"
"......Here."
Cider responded in a somewhat sulky voice. Come to think of it, his posture was also a bit crooked, and he looked quite displeased. Esperanza, flustered, pulled back the hand she had extended toward her chest.
"Did you find something?"
"Why are you talking like that? I found something. Look at this."
When the reaction seemed unusual, Cider collected his emotions and took out white gloves from his pocket. Esperanza opened her inventory as Cider instructed and took out several pieces of equipment he wanted.
"I can't be certain, but...... among what I've seen so far, this seems to have the most possibility. Where did you find this?"
"In that flower bed over there. It was under a fallen flowerpot. It's probably monster fur."
She couldn't get a sense of what kind of monster it was. What had fur that was such a bright green color? There seemed to be quite a few.
"We'll look through the encyclopedia for that gradually. But is this all?"
A few strands of green fur. It had such a pitiful presence that it seemed like it would blow away with even a gentle breeze.
"Still, where else would we find something? If we tried to find more of this in such a wide area, our eyes would fall out."
It was lucky to have found even this much. If it hadn't been under the flowerpot, there's no way fur like this would have remained. It would have all blown away.
"Then is it now my turn to look until my eyes fall out to see if there's anything with this?"
Cider replied with a chuckle. Even as he spoke that way, his hand movements were careful as he put the fur into a glass bottle and tightly sealed it.
More time had passed than expected. While searching the village, they had knocked out every last one of the bandit gang, and if those people had any sense, they wouldn't even glance toward Mabelwood for a while. This much should be repayment to Cordelia too. It seemed like the debt of gratitude toward Cordelia, who had readily helped when they suddenly said they were interested in such matters and wanted to investigate, had been reduced a little.
"Let's go back now. It'll be dinner time when we return."
Cider answered while looking at the sky. His loosely tied hair swayed.
"If only we can return on time."
That was the problem. They had somehow found their way here, but they didn't know the way.
"Ah, right."
Esperanza, who belatedly remembered the map, clicked her tongue. Even if she had known from the beginning, it would have been displayed in black anyway, so it wouldn't have helped. When she brought up the map, sure enough, only the path they had taken was beige, and the rest was painted black like the darkness of the forest.
[Map: Greenbelt Forest, Mabelwood]
Greenbelt......?
"The name of this forest is Greenbelt."
At the words tinged with laughter, Cider slowly nodded. However, his brow was slightly furrowed as if he couldn't guess the intent of that remark at all.
"Ah, is that so?"
"Isn't it funny?"
"Why should it be funny?"
Ah. Esperanza slowly blinked both eyes. From Cider's perspective, it was just a quite intuitive name.
"Right...... why would that be funny."
Esperanza, who had become dejected, shook her head. She spurred her horse to go ahead and said:
"It's this direction. I'll go by looking at the map, so it probably won't be the shortest route, but we should be able to roughly retrace the path we came on."
"It's fine if we're late."
Cider couldn't understand that sudden range of emotional change. He guessed that the point of the joke Esperanza had intended was probably something that he couldn't understand, something that only people from 13 years later could share. She had unconsciously let it slip out, and he hadn't understood.
It wasn't anyone's fault. Just a shallow scratch-like discomfort remained.
The way back was quiet. They should have been happy since they had achieved results on the first day, but each was busy with their own thoughts. As the wind direction changed, Cider's voice muttering 'Lord Avondale......' could be faintly heard.
Was it because they didn't properly rejoice even though luck had been bestowed upon them? Misfortune came before they had even gotten halfway out of the forest. Awkwardly halfway. At a time when it was awkward to go back to the village or to continue getting out of the forest.
A thick water drop fell on her shoulder. Heavily, plop. Esperanza looked up at the sky. The sky hidden by tree branches had already taken on a deep gray color.
Swoooosh. It was the sound of rain pouring down like the sound of leaves riding the wind.
❀⋆｡°✿☆❀✿°｡⋆❀
Their clothes got soaked in an instant. She thought it would be passing rain, but for a full 30 minutes. While they could do neither this nor that, rain poured down for the entire 30 minutes.
"How much is left?"
Cider asked through the rain. His white face looked pale enough that blood vessels showed through from being hit by rain. Wet hair stuck to his cheeks. His shirt was so wet it was almost transparent, showing his skin. In that state, they had somehow pulled up their hoods and taken shelter under trees where at least a bit less rain fell. Esperanza squinted and looked at the map.
"About half is left, so...... we'll still need to go for at least another hour, won't we?"
The horses, who hadn't been able to rest properly, were also complaining about the limits of their stamina, and though neither Esperanza nor Cider said anything to each other, their physical condition wasn't very good. Esperanza, who usually didn't get cold easily, pressed her blue-tinged lips tightly together. That didn't make the cold go away.
"I wish there was somewhere to shelter from the rain."
However, hoping for a cave to suddenly appear in such a dark forest was truly unrealistic thinking. Esperanza just blankly stared at the rain that was still pouring down as if holes had been drilled in the sky.
"Don't you have anything in that thing of yours?"
"The inventory? What would be there......"
So what Esperanza found after a while was:
Tarp [22]
Metal Pipe [999]
Rope [999]
Plywood [38]
Wire [157]
Cider clicked his tongue at that sight. She had asked to shelter from the rain a bit, but now it looked like they'd be doing construction in the rain.
"Is there really no other way than this?"
"It's not like I carry around mansions or anything."
When she grumbled in response after going through the trouble of digging it out, Cider sighed. His breath spread out. Thinking that nothing would be accomplished by just staying still like this, they began moving their bodies without either going first.