Chapter 28 - Village Helper
We did not chat inside the carriage, but simply on the outside. The one responsible for driving the carriage was gone temporarily so it was safe enough an option for us.
"Unfortunately, we were not able to finish off that guy." Luke said, but he did not sound that upset with this current set of circumstances.
"Did you really expect that it would be that easy to take down a wanted criminal on that guy's level? If he did not have contingencies prepared I would be shocked." Vanessa stated with her hands on her hips.
After some chatting amongst each other, the others were unable to get any information out of this encounter. The main force in this fight was most certainly the shadow mage as they are the sign piece of the Shadow Serpent group.
It is just that they were beaten down and found out before they could become a problem. What is difficult now is that with an organization like this, it is unlikely anyone else would have any information that would lead back to that mage. So we would be unable to deal with this major problem. There is also the fact that it is rather strange that this group had attacked this caravan now.
For what reason would such a group have to attempt to hijack this caravan? Was it for money? Doesn't seem like it. They smashed the carriage after all.
They also had members planted into the adventuring group that were escorting this caravan. So this most likely is not a spur of the moment kind of situation.
What kind of conspiracy would these guys have that would warrant such preparation?
It seems like there are no more leads that can help inform us on the situation. As expected, even if they were able to save the Earth mage and interrogated him, the adventuring group was unable to tell us of the true purpose of the attack. All that it proved was that those few members who had gone were indeed undercover in their adventuring group for several years now.
This news seemed to infuriate a few of the group's leaders and so they vented on the captives before keeping them tied up in one place for our next destination to hand them over for their bounties.
Well, not exactly our next destination.
Back at the start of this adventure, we had chosen to start exploring from the very bottom of society here. Thankfully, the adventuring group would be able to handle the rest of the journey with less problems.
Having less traitors along their midst, they would only have to brave through the ordinary dangers on this path. As a major trade route between the Empire and the land belonging to the Beast men, it only makes sense that the path is quite strongly defended.
So after resting for half a day to help all of the injured recover to good enough state while salvaging the damaged carriage was what we did for the rest of the day. Our combat strength was mostly intact so we did not worry much about whether we would encounter much danger at this place.
Because of this, we decided to just camp here. It was mostly opened up due to the fighting anyways and the injured needed to rest anyways.
The next day, we finally departed to the village closest to us. This was the place that Luke and the others had decided upon and it was not too out of the way so the merchants drove us quite close by as thanks for the situation in the battle.
When we arrived at the village, there was not even a guard at the gate. Around the place there were several people with rabbit ears wandering about and when they saw us they stopped to look at us with scrutiny before hopping back in the village likely to inform other people of our presence.
Soon, after waiting for less than a minute, an elderly rabbit eared man walked over alongside two older rabbits who wore hunter like gear.
"Welcome to our Green Hill Village. I am the chief of this village here. Outsiders, for what reason do you wait here?"
On the side, the two hunter rabbits also cautiously had their hands on their sheathed weapons on their belt and looked at us warily.
"My name is Luke and our team wanted to start an adventure of the Beast men territory from the very bottom up. Is there anything that we can do to help your village?"
Hearing this, the two adults were rather skeptical. But they eventually turned to look at the older rabbit folk to see what his choice was. As for me, I was using a different application of my appraisal on the surroundings.
Normally, you would focus your gaze on a target in order to use an ability like appraisal. But some people have trained it so that they can appraise without direct eye contact by focusing their mind. For me, I can also use my spatial perception to do such a thing and achieve a higher level of stealth when appraising but that is not what I was doing.
Instead, I was appraising the air. Of course, normally such an action would simply tell me that I was looking at air. But through a specific perception belonging to the Appraisal skill, I can sense the particles of magic in the air in order to tell how strong the surroundings are based on the quality of the mana present.
Most people do not have the mana perception to do such an operation, but as a clone made from Alice, even with a mind of my own I have some small skills like that. Of course, such things would not be displayed in my status since it would normally be developed as your own magic developed so it does not display while others view my status.
With this analysis, I found that this village was exceedingly normal. No special fluctuations appeared much at all. At most, you can say there is someone with the equivalent of low level skills in combat here.
Such a weak place would never appear in the territory amongst demons, but it is rather common place in smaller places like this.
While sensing this, I also noticed that there was a slightly stronger ant in the distance that appears to regularly wander around the farmland area. When I looked at that direction, I indeed noticed that there were traces of trampling over in the distance.
Over on the hero's side, he had finished negotiating a deal where the party helped to eliminate a boar that had been trampling their fields recently and in exchange the village chief will tell us about the place and give us a temporary house to stay.
After agreeing to his terms, Mellie called me and then the five of us headed over to the trampled part of the farmland while guided by one of the rabbit hunters.
Hearing their conversation on the side, I noticed that they were a little more calm when chatting, but they still had their hand by their weapon.
I didn't mind since if I was in a similar situation I would have likely done something similar.
When we arrived at the place, Vanessa and Wendy both squatted down to take a closer look at the marks left upon the ground. After seeing the shape of the prints and comparing them with their memories they confirmed that the target should be a hooded creature of some kind.
Although not guaranteed to be a boar, it is still quite likely from the bite marks around.
With our target confirmed, the other members of the party all got into serious form. Then, lead by Vanessa, we headed straight to the nearby woods.
I was rather surprised that Vanessa was taking the lead. I thought that maybe Wendy would with magic or even Luke, but for her to track the traces down was rather interesting to me.
Confirming that she was on the right path, we quickly encountered a large clearing with the target in sight. At the back, the rabbit person tensed up once seeing the target. I quietly patted his shoulder which surprised him at first but he knew to keep quiet and made minimal noise.
"This is a simple problem for any of us. So don't worry too much. We can handle this." I said to comfort him.
Watching on the sidelines, I watched as the party fell into position ready to fight. Thee rabbit person saw that I was not in position with them and asked why that was.
"I am still rather new to this party. But they were still very strong even without me. Since I am here, I should stay here to protect you. You are important to our client after all. Only you can confirm to the village that we finished the job correctly." I responded.
Now the hero party had closed in on the pig and it was at this time that the rhythmic breathing of the pig was suddenly stopped. I held my breath for a second, but the Hero Luke immediately ran in to swing his sword at the foe.
With a loud squeal the boar quickly struggled to stand up and swung his head towards the hero still drawing his blade back. But before those fangs could reach him, Vanessa had already charged in with her shield and block the heavy blow in advance.
In this time, the boar and the hero both stepped back and repositioned themselves. The boar then screamed into the air and then with heavy breaths it charged towards the party.
From the back, Wendy had finished casting a spell and a quick ball of water was formed that she shot in front of the path of the boar. Unable to stop its momentum, the boar then rushed into the softened ground in front of it and the weight of its body slowly sunk the boar into the ground.
In this time, the hero flanked the boar to its left side and rushed forward with his blade in hand. To prevent a counterattack, Vanessa also charged with a shield bash straight at its head.
This small interruption made the boar pause for a moment which was enough for the hero to land a decisive blow on it.
Cutting the boar straight down to bone, the boar screamed and slowly buckled under its weight. Then, relying on expert maneuvering the team slowly exhausted the boar out of its energy as it fell into the now dirty mud.
Even though the boar stopped, Wendy quickly shaped some water into needles to pierce into its head and confirm that the target wa sfully dead before releasing their breath.
Then when the battle group turned to check on me they saw a bunch of small insects and snakes caught in the air in what looked to be a space bubble.
Time goes back a bit when they were still saying attention to fighting. I was simply watching the area when all of a sudden I noticed some critters unusually approaching. Noticing them with my space magic, I quickly identified their locations with my perception and counted to three.
When the countdown ended, I summoned two void hands to quickly capture the targets and then cover the bugs tightly between the two void hands. Looking around to make sure that there were no stragglers, I took the time to explain things to the stunned rabbit beside me.
"These guys were acting strangely so I simply found and caught them all. Maybe the others would know more about them?"
He nodded and then we noticed the battle finishing up ahead and so we return to the original scene.
"What's going on?" Luke asked.
" I don't know. I just saw these critters all coming by us from behind so I caught all these strange acting guys within my void hands. Do you have any ideas?" I responded.
After I answered, the others became quite interested so they came closer to look at them. After some time, they all shook their heads. Except for Wendy, the others were not really the researching type.
"How about I trap them in a water seal and slowly study them while we are in this village?" Wendy asked.
"Good idea, I will leave it in your professional hands then." Luke responded.
Then I carefully opened the void hands a single exit when Wendy was ready so the insects and other creepy crawlies all swarmed out the exit only to get caught in Wendy's water bubble that she then portioned out into separate containers.
When that was done, we all sighed with relief as we then began making preparations to head back. Dragging along this big trophy, we soon found ourselves back in the field with a few villagers as well as the village chief waiting for us.
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