190 - - ghost story of a drugstore

"You're working hard this late."

At Thor's call, Raszel, the man who had been swinging his sword, looked at him for a moment.

He does not reply, but raises his greatsword again.

The sharp sound of the sword cutting through the air rang out, and just before it hit the mud, the tip of the sword came to a sudden halt.

It changes direction and leaps upward at an angle in an instant.

The path of the sword is not disturbed in the slightest, even on the unstable muddy footing.

He must have trained hard.

Rassel makes a final thrust with a large step, and sheathes his great sword with a controlled exhalation.

He looked up and looked straight at Thor.

He was still breathing heavily, and his forehead was covered with large drops of sweat.

After looking at each other for a long time, Razzel finally opened his mouth.

"............ after I lost to you, I was told a lot of things."

"I see."

"But I know best. Your sword was the real thing."

After saying this, Razzel puts his hand on the hilt of his sword again and begins to repeat the exact same pattern.

The silver blade slices through the haze, illuminated by the moonlight coming through the cloudy sky.

Moe, who has finished his small business there, comes out of the latrine with a sleepy look on his face.

The child reaches out to him, and Thor gently picks him up and heads for the stairs.

At his back, he hears the sound of a sword swinging and a murmur.

"I can't reach you now, but I will beat you next time.

Thor turned to look at the voice, scratched the bottom of his chin, and spoke back.

"You don't have to be so particular about me. If it's someone you want to challenge..."

Razzel stopped and quietly shook his head as Thor pointed with his chin at the figure of a giant standing behind the haze.

"...... that thing couldn't fight even if it wanted to."

"I thought you said you were shorthanded."

To these words, the brown-skinned swordsman shakes his head slightly again.

"No?"

There is no answer to his question, and Raszel resumes his swing, as if the conversation is over.

Thor waits a little longer, but when Moo in his arms trembles, he gives up and goes back to his tent.

The next day, he accompanies the spider hunting in the passage.

Thor and the others, who had wrapped the spider's skin around their boots, immediately engage in combat with the monster.

The spider no longer gets trapped by the threads, but still no spider comes out from the back of the hole.

Thor, having no choice but to jump into the hole himself, leaves the result of cutting through the spider and only the act of jumping into the hole.

In the end, the day ended without retrieving the right upper jaw, which was the proven part of the defeat, let alone the thread gland.

Incidentally, the blue-striped serpent and the swamp spider both cost 50 skill points and 5 large copper coins to kill.

This is exactly ten times as much as hobgoblins and red poison frogs.

The purchase price for the skin of a serpent and the thread glands of a spider is three silver coins each, and for the meat, one silver coin each.

However, it is said that most of the meat is thrown away because there is not enough space to store it and it is not worth the trouble of carrying it around.

On the fourth day, a noxious fog was expected to appear in the afternoon, and a red flag was placed on top of the tent.

Thor and the others were planning to leave, so they thanked us and left the encampment after breakfast.

The question and answer with Lasserre had been on Thor's mind, but he did not dare to ask Barconia about it.

If there were other reasons for the impossibility of defeating the giants so soon, he did not think he would reveal them so easily.

People who talk a lot are better at hiding their true feelings behind superficial words.

Thor and his friends boarded Garudo's carriage, which came to pick them up as scheduled, and set out for home.

They stayed overnight on the road and returned to the city the next day.

On the way, Thor and his friends accompanied Garudo to the inner city.

The destination was the medicine cabinet of the Temple of Quest.

"Hello, Euril.

"You look the same, Audre."

The man who greeted us was Aurindor, a medicine man wearing a white coat over his clothes.

He is as ageless in appearance as ever, and as friendly as ever.

Even after the festivities of the recapture of Bossalia, his attitude towards his best friend has not changed in the slightest.

The ash-eared beauty with short hair had just finished interviewing her client.

Rudel, a young girl sitting on a chair, turns around and her eyes light up.

She was born between a brown-horned and a blue-scaled tribe, and had suffered from a mixed disease for a long time, but the medicine she had obtained in an incident the other day seemed to have greatly improved her condition.

She is still a little weak, so she is checked by Odle once in a while, but she is almost completely cured.

Rudel gets out of the chair and rushes to the hospital.

However, he seems to be slow on his feet and does not seem to be able to move forward.

"Look, father's home, Rudel!"

His father, Garudo, looks at him as if he has changed, his beard loosening sloppily and his arms outstretched in anticipation.

The daughter, however, easily ignores his arms and walks past him, coming to a halt in front of Moe.

"Lou!　How are you?"

Rudel's mouth broke into a smile at the cheerful question, and he reached out his hand and patted Moe's head.

Then he moved his face close to Moe's and put his lips on Moe's cheek as a greeting.

Moe kissed Rudel on the cheek in return, and the children laughed happily.

Rudel walks up to Garudo, who has been frozen in silence after his daughter ignores him, and lightly kisses the bearded man on the cheek.

Then he walked back to O'Dowd's side and beckoned him to bow his head.

Rudel and Moe kissed the medicine man's cheeks from both sides when he was in the right position.

After thanking him, the young girl bows her head to Thor and the others, opens the door, and walks out.

Naturally, she is accompanied by Moe, who is still holding her hand.

The two run in good harmony toward the school building.

"Well, sir, I'll be looking forward to working with you again..."

"Yes, you can count on me."

After regaining his composure, Garudo returned to his serious face, greeted Odle, and left the medicine cabinet as well.

He now had to go to the wilderness to pick up his new wife, Saralisa, for her party at Bettina's.

After seeing off the hurried backs of his guardians, the owner of the medicine cabinet asked his best friend, crossing his legs gracefully.

So, what can I do for you today?

"I want you to use this to make a potion to restore magic power."

O$$ peeked into the leather bag that Yuril held out to him and quickly identified it with a flick of his nose.

"Honey water of the silver floating flower. How's life in the swamp?"

"The only thing I appreciate about it is how cool it is."

It's so muddy, it's a disaster!

"Speaking of the bog, have you met the witch yet?"

Isn't that a fairy tale for children?"

Odle smiled thinly at Sola's reasonable question.

"I've been looking into the lore around here, and it seems to go back quite a long time. But for some reason there are no major anecdotes. There are only vague stories about them coming to kidnap people in the mist."

"Oh, I see."

"This kind of collective memory tends to pass on the original elements with surprising clarity. Groups tend to reinforce each other's common memories. But even so, the origin of the group is still ambiguous.

"So there was never actually a witch who kidnapped people?"

Yes, that is a possibility. I thought the original story was just a case of a competitor who got into trouble and ran away into the swamp, but maybe it is an example of a different matter that changed its form for some reason. Or maybe they had to change it."

"Ugh, it sounds like a really scary story!"

The girl reached out her hand and squeezed the sleeve of Thor's dress as he stood next to her.

Odle, who had one eye closed at the sight of the girl, offers the package on the desk to Thor.

"Here, I apologize for scaring you. Use it if you like."

What's this?

It's a medicine to restore your strength. The medicine is provided by a red-haired girl with curly hair.

It appears that Bettina has sent them to us.

Thor accepts it gratefully and asks her about the important point.

"Did she say anything else?"

"Yes, I got your message, too. He said it's only a couple of weeks away, so just keep your head down and wait."