Ch 12

When he couldn't get through to me, the man began to appeal to my companions.

"She’s still a child. Shouldn't you save her?"

Caesar smiled. "Don't worry too much. She may not look like it, but my sister is quite strong."

Caesar was ignorant in the ways of magic, but he sometimes saw me teach Arwen, so he knew her abilities well.

"Maybe you should talk after seeing her fight?" I said, nodding towards Arwen.

The boy and the man reluctantly looked over at Arwen fighting. Arwen shot dozens of magic bullets towards the gogmagog to disorient it. It tried to throw a rock at her as it stumbled around, but Arwen calmly dodged it. Then, because its skin was hard to penetrate, she gathered her mana and strengthened the spirits of a dozen daggers and threw them. The daggers, containing ghosts, moved in perfect order according to Arwen's instructions and dug into the gogmagog's vital points. The man was in awe.

"See? She can do it alone." I said smugly.

The man was left speechless, and he nodded his head as if he had lost his mind. Arwen, who had no actual battle experience, returned slowly in a cold sweat after some time.

"… I took care of it."

"Great job. This is enough for the first time."

Arwen grinned with joy as I praised her and wiped the sweat from her forehead with a towel.

"Next time you fight, let's stick to just magic bullets. If the means available to you are limited, more creative battles are possible."

"… Yes!"

"Good, then…”

I was going to teach her how to collect by-products, but suddenly the kid said timidly, "Excuse me! I-if it doesn't bother you, there's a group of people...!”

I knew what he wanted to say. There was no chance it was just the two of them in this dangerous area, of course they had escorts. However, unlike the child, the man looked miserable and hopeless. Of course, it was too late to run away at that point, because if they were being chased by a gogmagog, it meant they were on the verge of death to begin with.

"Hey, Den, will it be okay?" asked Hillis, wanting to go take a look.

I nodded. "Go with Tristan."

Tristan could contact me no matter how far away he was. Hillis smiled brightly.

"Thank you!"

She was so nice.

I looked at the kid's escort. "You should go guide them. Even if they can't be rescued, you can bury them and Hillis can pray at their funeral."

The man looked at the little boy and me and seemed to be troubled. I understood. He was anxious about leaving the child alone with people he had just met, but if he took the child with him, it would be a terrible sight for him to see. While the man agonized, the child spoke with dignity as if he had also noticed the reason why his escort was worried.

"Damian, go."

"B-but."

"My father said that once you believe in good will, don't betray that good will. I don't think it's right to be suspicious of them now. They saved us, after all.”

He spoke intelligently, beyond his years, but he could have very well been setting himself up to be stabbed in the back later. Regardless, the escort immediately nodded at the child's words. Even a child like Arwen could catch a gogmagog alone, so he may have just resigned himself to the fact that if we wanted to harm them, they wouldn’t be able to stop us.

The man, who was about to get back on his horse to guide, bowed to me and my party. "Oh, we haven’t introduced ourselves yet. I am Damian, and the young master is…”

"My name is Cain. Thank you for saving us."

Cain greeted us politely, mimicking the imperial accent and manners as much as possible, thinking we were members of the imperial court. Being conscious of this and knowing the standard of imperial behavior meant that he must have been receiving a high level of education in the Republic. The Republic was isolated nationally one-hundred-and-twenty years ago after the reign of the Demon King, with about half of the country being annexed into the Demon’s Territory. As a result, relations with the Empire became important, so among the ruling class of the Republic, the pro-imperial faction gained power. I heard that the children of this government, commonly referred to as ‘Republic nobles’, learned and mastered the imperial accent for diplomacy with the Empire from an early age. If a child this young had received this much education, he was not a child of an ordinary family.

"Then I will be back,” said the man. “Please take good care of the young master."

Damian still hesitated to leave Cain, but got on his horse while Tristan and Hillis also got on the Wheat Crepe horses. As the three of them rode off, I looked at Arwen and said, "Well then, let's practice collecting materials."

"Yes!"

Cain looked at me with astonishment as I lifted the gogmagog's body with magic, which was quite far away, and brought it in front of me.

Ignoring the child’s gaze, I asked Arwen, "What are the magic ingredients that you can get from the gogmagog and ogre types?"

“… Blood, optic nerve, spinal fluid, gallbladder.”

“And other by-products?”

"… The calf muscle fiber is elastic, so it can be used as a bow string if processed with magic. Leather is good for armor, and bones can become craft materials like ivory."

At Arwen's answer, I nodded and stroked her head.

"You remember it well. What should we do first?

"... We have to drain the blood.”

With that, I took out a needle the size of my arm from my pocket space and handed it to Arwen. Arwen fumbled around the gogmagog’s neck with her hand trying to find its aorta.

"A little bit higher than that. Yes, there. Press it hard."

"… It feels more elastic."

"That's right. If you get used to it, you can find it at a glance, but if you can't, remember the feeling."

I grabbed Arwen's hand and put the needle into its neck, guiding her through the process. I once did this often in my hometown, but it felt new to me after such a long time.

"Now make a mana membrane at the opening of the syringe and then pull it."

Arwen followed my instructions, causing blood to spew out vigorously.

"Towards the air, don’t let it touch the ground! Keep pulling the blood! Yes, like that!"

About thirty liters of dark red blood floated in the air.

"I'm going to freeze the blood now, so let's divide it and freeze as much as we will use in one go."

Arwen, sweating from her brow, divided the blood into small sticks, and then froze them with magic.

"Ugh..."

She made a pained sound because it was difficult using several different types of magic at the same time, but she still followed well.

"Let's store it in my pocket space, and continue."

"…Whew! Yes teacher!"

When we practiced how to take care of the intestines and peel the skin, Cain, who was watching from behind, vomited.

"Education is good, but it doesn't seem good for the child to see something like this."

Caesar patted the kid on the back and nagged me to continue out of sight. It was certainly quite a grotesque scene to show a child.

"If you say so. Since the collection of magic materials is over, let's just not do the bones and sell them instead."

The value would be less, but we didn't need a lot of money right now anyway. Lancelot, who we would meet in Milion, would have exchanged his money to Republican money in advance, or even if not, I could just exchange my own. I put the gogmagog in my pocket space and sat in front of the bonfire with Arwen. Cain, who had emptied his stomach, sat next to Caesar and took a deep breath. The child's expression looked quite dark as he stared blankly at the bonfire.

"Did you say your name was Cain?" When I talked to him, the kid looked at me and nodded. "Even if you spend the night with us, what are you going to do after that?"

Caesar chimed in. "Wouldn't it be better to ask that question after the guardian comes back?"

I grinned at Caesar. "That guardian is just an escort for this kid. It's this guy that's actually in control. Right?"

I could see how obedient the only remaining escort was seeing how he had listened to kid’s instructions to leave earlier.

Cain nodded. "That is… right."

"We don't know why you passed through this dangerous area or how you came across this monster. Honestly, I don't care and I don't want to know. I will not escort you to your destination to receive compensation for your accidental rescue."

I drew that line in advance. Sometimes, when you save a drowning man, they see it as an invitation to ask for more.

"That… can't you at least do something?"

As expected, he was thinking about it. It was only natural to do so. It was a two day journey to the nearest city, but it would take even longer on a horse burdened by two people and their luggage. Also, survival was not guaranteed if they met a group of monsters on the way.

"We have a destination, too. So don't try to cling to the Hillis because she treated you. I decide the plans for our party."

“...”

At my firm words, the little boy closed his mouth and lowered his head pitifully. At the sight, I sighed lightly and said, "Well, but tell me if you have a destination. If our paths align, we will escort you at a low price until then."

I wasn’t sure about taking him to a city, but I could at least take him to a nearby village in good faith. If they took a safe route, they’d be able to get to their destination even if it took a while.

"Uh, don’t you think you like money a bit too much?" Caesar joked lightly, trying to break the tension in the air as he added more wood to the bonfire. I also didn’t like the damp atmosphere and lightheartedly received the joke.

"Money can't solve everything, but it certainly helps. You need money to get to Milion and sleep under a warm blanket."

The little boy suddenly raised his head in surprise at my words.

"Milion! Are you going to Milion?!"

The kid's reaction made me think it would be bothersome for some reason.

"What if we are?"

"Our destination is Peritzbay!" he cried out, almost sounding desperate.

"Where is Peritzbay?" asked Caesar.

I sighed lightly at Caesar's question. "It's an administrative city located right next to Milion, you could even say they are attached."

To compare, it was only the distance of one section of the administrative district that separated them. In fact, although it was called an administrative city, Peritzbay was supposed to be the actual capital. More than one-hundred-and-twenty years ago, as half of the land was eaten by the Demon’s Territory, and the capital, Perigrad, became close to the Demon’s Territory, the Republican government began to move its administrative base little by little, closer to the port city of Milion, in an effort to stabilize its administration. Since then, everything had been relocated to Peritzbay except for the consul's official residence, where the consul did not live.

I asked, looking at the boy with cold eyes, "I think I get the idea now. Are you going to attend congress on behalf of your father?"

At my question, the kid looked at me with surprised eyes, like a rabbit.

"H-how?!"

I replied with a snort, "Why are you so surprised? I can tell from just looking at you."

Perhaps the reason why the Republic had urgently summoned lawmakers to congress was because of the Demon King worshippers. They had grown increasingly restless in the Demon's Territory, trying to summon the Demon King. The issue of summoning the Demon King had already been solved, but it was still too early for that fact to be widely known, and all the Demon King worshippers had not yet been completely eradicated.

"The congress must have urgently summoned the nation's representatives because of what happened in the Demon’s Territory. But you're not following your father, and instead leading the escort yourself. That means that your father is not in a state to attend the congress."

Search bit.ly/3iBfjkV for the original.

If one didn’t comply with the emergency call, one could be dismissed from their post. Because of that, if one couldn’t go, a representative had to be sent in their stead.

"But since you are going on a dangerous road adjacent to the Olympus Forest, it means one of two things. Either you have to take a risky shortcut because time is tight, or it's because you’re being targeted by enemies. Which one is it?"

At my question, the boy closed his mouth and lowered his head.

"So it's the latter, or both. Perhaps it’s not a coincidence that you encountered a gogmagog?"

"… Probably." The boy finally admitted.

If it was as I predicted, there should have been a kind of magic tool that attracted monsters in their luggage. Attracting monsters was a magic that a magician could easily use. When I was thrown in front of a dragon at twelve years old, I had used dragon grass to lure it.

"That means that having you around poses a much greater risk than you let on. And yet, you are going to ask us to escort you?" I asked coldly.

The kid trembled, unable to raise his head to look at me. At that sight, Arietta mouthed some words at me, so he wouldn't hear.

'Hey, is that not too harsh for a kid? Honestly, it is not that dangerous, considering our skills.'

At her words, I playfully put my index finger to my lips and mouthed back, ‘Shh! It's been a while since I caught a pushover. Don't get in the way.’

Caesar and Arwen looked at me as if to say, ‘As expected of you.’ I quickly lowered my hand and reverted back to a cold expression before the kid raised his head. This all was a good life lesson for the kid. And at the very least, we wouldn't be taking advantage of him.