Chapter 29 - Rumors
Seeing us all exit out of the forest unscathed, the village chief happily hugged the returning rabbit folk who then explained what happened to the rest of the adults here.
As they were explaining, Vanessa and Luke had finished dragging over the large boar which caused the villagers there to cheer with surprise. They then helped to drag the corpse over to the center of the village where everyone else was watching. Seeing the beast, they also cheered as the hunters then offered to take apart the meat and bones.
Of course, Luke decided to share the meat of the animal with the whole village and asked me to store the bones and skeleton that remained. I did not ask and I simply directly stored the skeleton which caused the village folk to yelp in surprise.
But soon the atmosphere of the village became cheerful as the village began a bonfire to celebrate while cooking the meat of the boar. Taking this opportunity, I decided to ask about the insects that she had sealed.
"Oh, those? They are still in my bag. Do you need them?" She asked me.
"Didn't they drown in your water? Would that make them difficult to find out about?" I asked.
"So that was what you were worried about! The water that I sealed the bugs in is actually a special type of water that acts as a sedative making all of them inactive and stable. It has all the nutrients that most regular forms of life require so the guys are all still alive and are just asleep."
Magic like that was quite eye catching and surprising to me. But since the others were not that surprised maybe it is something normal for humans to know?
I gave this information to one of Alice's clones and they added it to the database so it is not something that was in the library of the Demon King that is for sure.
After that, I decided to join in with the festivities and together with the others celebrated this festival atmosphere. I even got a little closer with Vanessa with the help of some alcohol.
Then I sort of blanked out.
It was the next day when I woke up again and I was sleeping on a large bed with Wendy on my side. She was surprisingly a bad sleeper as she had clung on to me like a body pillow.
After a few fruitless attempts to softly get out of the mage girl's embrace, I finally succumbed myself to lay there staring blankly as I waited for someone to call us awake.
Thankfully I did not have to wait too long as the right person arrived to save me the trouble.
"Oh dear, it seems that you are in quite a bind. Need help?" Said Mellie wearing an apron who chuckled after seeing the situation.
"Yes please." I responded.
After gently prying Wendy away and stuffing her empty arms with a pillow, she helped me up as my legs were a little numb from the position I was in and I was barely able to get up to sit on the sofa where both Vanessa and Luke were sitting.
Unlike as usual, Vanessa did not disparage me for being myself. Maybe it is the hangover talking, but I think her in this state is rather cute. Luke on the other hand was there playing around with a spoon in hand twirling around his fingers over and over.
I decided to simply lay on the sofa until the breakfast that Mellie was serving was ready.
Once it was, she then called Wendy over as the rest of us brought the light dishes over to the table. When Wendy had finally arrived, we were all patiently waiting for her as she chuckled and sat with us. Then we all ate a fulfilling meal as we then sat around before getting up to move around some more.
Luke decided to head to where the village chief was to ask if the village needed any help while the others started practicing their magic and skills. Watching them from the sidelines made my hands feel itchy, but I still kept watching them until finally...
"Hey Felicia, why do you not ever train? Your space magic still has a lot to go and Alice still trains despite her strength." Wendy asked.
I then told her how I felt about the situation to which she shook her head and sighed. On the side, hearing my outrageous remarks Vanessa clicked her tongue and talked haughtily to me.
"Knew there was a reason I disliked you so much. You should always strive to get stronger. You don't want to be helpless whenever a crisis strikes right?" She said.
Although her words do indeed make sense, I was not a normal person. No matter what kind of training I do, how could I compare to a hard working genius like my main body Alice? Her strive to better herself and attitude towards me helped me to understand that sometimes effort does not reap rewards and that sometimes it is okay for a person to not strive.
No matter what situation pops up, I can always ask my main body and her clones for backup so there is not much I need to work hard for.
But such feelings can't really be explained or shared with them so I simply kept quiet which made Vanessa click her tongue again.
"It's fine. You will eventually know the error of your decision. Until that day comes, I will not hold it against you." After she said that, she went back to training on her own.
Seeing her like this made me want to second guess myself for a moment. When we had finally got along a little closer I made our relationship back up a bit. Although closer than before, it is still only at the level of an acquaintance. Was my decision right?
Shaking my head and getting out of my thoughts, I decided to leave my thoughts for later.
The remaining training time quickly passed and Luke happened to arrive with new quests in tow. There were no longer any simple subjugation quests, rather they were more helping out the rabbit people with chores around the village.
With a sigh, Vanessa and Mellie rolled up their sleeves and prepared for the next set of challenges for us. Although not as practiced, Wendy came and helped me to prepare to start these quests.
From watering fields to helping with farm work, we spent the next few days helping out the various people of this village. After doing this work, Luke would then begin to ask about the situation around the village and other nearby beast folk settlements.
Because of our work, the villagers started to warm up to us and so they started to open up and tell about their concerns and ideas about things that happened nearby.
"There has been some rumors going about of some missing kids in the nearby villages. We have not suffered, but it has been spread throughout the surrounding villages and so a bunch of villages banded together to send people to inform the town closest to us. They will likely take this somewhat seriously so a few patrolling beast folk might be a bit rough and ask to check your luggage if you had luggage big enough to hide things."
"One time on a trip to town I found that there were notices of cult like activity and that we should be careful of anything resembling such occurrences."
"A few villages away, there is word of a cursed child wandering alone."
Those three statements were the main big important issues that we had heard about from these villagers. Among them, the first wo would most certainly be the most important and the last one is more of Luke being interested in the situation and wanting to check out the situation and see if he wants to get involved in it.
But those two statements are quite worrying as well. There is also some mention of some unrest due to the retirement of an old race leader among the beast folk as well. So there is a lot of tension in this territory that we could potentially get involved in.
"Luke, you should be careful not to get too involved with the crisis here. You know our identities so we can't get involved with politics without giving others the wrong idea and potentially leading to armed conflict." Vanessa said chastising way to which Luke nodded a little aggrievedly.
That warning seemed to come from a feeling of exasperation so I was rather intrigued but when I wanted to ask further the hero embarrassingly pleaded the others not to tell of it.
They agreed so I didn't get to hear the embarrassing story, but that was fine.
What was more important now was to go and confirm these rumors that we have received and to check for their authenticity. So Luke asked about which village had the rumored cursed child came from and we finally set out to depart on our trip to explore the life of those at the bottom of this country.
So we then bid our farewells to the villagers here and headed out towards the next closest village to us. Thankfully, the next place we headed to was not that far away so we were able to arrive after a day of camping outside.
When we got there, I was rather surprised at how different the place was as there were a few more people and carriages going through this larger settlement and so we were allowed into the village much easier.
In order to ascertain the situation, Vanessa and Wendy offered to go and search for our dwelling as the rest of us searched around for any potential clues and rumors that would interest us.
Although this place is called a village it is designed closer to that of a town and even is much bigger than the previous settlement we had arrived in. Visually the last village might have housed under 200 people, but this village seemed to house almost a thousand. There is precedent to call this a small town rather than a village.
Looking around I eventually found the place that I was looking for this whole time.
"An Adventurer's guild."
In front of me was a rather small place for such an establishment but it made a lot of sense. As a mere village, the adventurer's guild would not see the need to expand the size of the guild to the level of a town guild.
Of course, I was not heading here to submit my request. Even if I did, they likely would not have the authority and security to keep the materials I had to turn in. So instead I covered myself in a long cloak and walked into the guild.
The noise stopped for a second as a few people looked up to look at me, but when they saw me in a cloak they simply turned back and the bustle returned. Going to the bar, I placed an order for a meal and some light alcohol and sat down to listen to the talk here.
Among the many adventurers here, there were plenty of loud mouths so I was certain to hear about some gossip and rumors here.
Slicing into the tougher meat roast that I ordered, I perked my ears within my cloak and quietly listened to the conversations all over. They all ranged from small talk about women and small requests to bigger things like ideal hunting spots and notable monsters to be found in certain areas.
None of this stuff was exactly what I was looking for so I simply finished my meal and rested in place before paying for the meal. It was then that I finally heard something worth noting down.
From the edge of the dining area I heard some small talk between a bear like beast folk and one with horns like a bull.
"Have you heard of the Sorens Pharmacy? How is it?"
"Who hasn't heard of them. That pharmacy is what drove the progress of this village to this point after all. The place is pretty good to get a checkup if you are willing to line up for an appointment. The medicine that the doctor makes is quite effective."
"Who is this doctor?"
"Well obviously it would be Doctor Sorens! Who else could it be?"
"Are they trustwor-"
"Shh! Don't say such a thing here, that pharmacist has singlehandedly propped up the economy of this village so the native people here hate outsiders who question the doctor."
Looking around carefully, they only let out a sigh of relief when they found that the surrounding noise had drowned out his friend's voice.
They then chatted some more, but the rest of their conversation no longer spoke about that pharmacy. So I stood up and prepared to meet up with the others to share our information.
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