Chapter 104

We somehow were able to set the plot to capture Grond.

I walked through the mountains outside of Dartlas after getting one part of the plan ready.

It wasn’t the Audilus mountain range, but the forests in the mountains weren’t very deep, and parts of the mountains were very easy to move across. Because of this, it was more like hiking than actually climbing a mountain.

『Hey! Adventurer! Let me practice with you! If I get stronger, I can protect everyone!』

『Brother Adventurer, lemme give you this! I can’t depend on Kelly, so just like you did with Toria, can you help all of us when we need you?』

『Sh…Shen Fa?!!!』

『Shen Fa, you’re…you need to have more pride like a man….』

In the bright and clear weather, feeling the warm, clean air, I remembered the picnic I took with those kids.

『Brother Kaito! Toria made this! Eat it! Eat it!』

『Which? Which? Ahg! Toria! Are you even my friend anymore?!』

『Huh? Weren’t you just trying to eat the piece that I just gave Mister Kaito?!』

『Oh, oh yeah. Will you be my friend later then? Will it make you happy if I pat your head, Toria?』

『Geez! Don’t treat me like a kid!』

『Hah hah hah hah!!』

The sun flooding through the trees in that wonderful memory only made the pain I feel worse.

「Master, are you okay?」

「Why are you zoning out like that?」

I noticed that they were talking to me.

「Ah, no, nothing…」

「You really are stubborn about things sometimes, master.」

「Mister Kaito, don’t you believe us to?」

I was about to object but stopped myself, looked, and simply shrugged my shoulders in surrender.

「…nah. Sorry. I was just remembering things.」

This was to check if the condition was right for the final event.

The final event I chose was made from my mistake the first time, in this disgusting, vice-ridden school.

That day, as that rotten reality seemed to laugh before me and drive me insane, that collapsed place was now covered by swaying fields of grass.

「Really, like remembering a story all over again.」

Yeah, a story, all over again.

I didn’t need to even think it over, the feeling of it had permeated my organs.

The regret, anger, sadness, loss of faith.

That girl whose hand I never reached, never grabbed hold to.

Not able to do anything, just a bloody hand to extend with no help.

Then, the only word she said, help, was the only word I heard that day.

「No, even with that memory, it’s different than that. Nothing’s over yet.」

No one thing has been completed yet.

Nothing has been forgotten, it still is fresh in my mind.

「No time to get lost in your emotions, master.」

Minnalis said with a lightly urgent tone.

「They don’t know anything. They don’t remember a thing. They live as if that first world was nothing, that only these scars of a second world exist.」

But, even with all my anger for them steaming out of me, Minnalis just kept smiling in her alluring way.

「Well, it’s not nothing. It can’t be nothing. Let’s show them, everything. Cut it into their souls.」

「I think this is why I became your ally. Never forgiving or getting used to all the pain and anguish, anguish, anguish you feel, just let the pain fill inside you. We’ll kill all of them.」Shuria said.

Shuria laughed happily, while Minnalis continued.

「Yeah! So let’s get working until we get back at them!」

Not holding back, I was thankful for the right words of these girls at the right times, as we continued toward the goal.

Where we arrived was in the middle of Audilus Mountains, far from the road, in an open place a bit from a grove.

「…」

I wasn’t prepared for the scene I saw, as for a second the image of that wooden-built school’s image stood with the current empty field in my mind.

「Ok, we’re here.」

There was a 50 foot hole in the middle of the field dug there.

「Squeek! Squeek!」

One mouse came close to my feet.

Mouse One, or Mousuke.

Yesterday, as I was observing Grond with Mouse One, Shuria strongly stated 『Mouse One? What kind of name is that? It’s so cute, don’t give it a lame name like that!』

I thought Mouse One was a good name for it, and when that newly named Mouse One, or Mousuke, heard it, it got depressed.

When I asked about it later, he said that he liked it so much that he cried and said he’d take it to his grave.

So that’s why the Mousuke liked his name, and improved his skill.

His new skill 「Leadership: Mice」was received, and he took over the destiny of other mice through leading them.

With that new power, Mousuke used his power to dig a hole for this last event.

I usually had to do all the work alone with Minallis and Shuria.

But with Mousuke using his new power, the hole was quickly done.

「Yeah, this size of a hole is perfect.」

After getting close and squatting to look, it had a depth of 10 feet.

「Squeek!」

Mousuke jumped on my shoulder and squeaked with an exclamation like 「Praise me now!」

Also, Mousuke liked to look good, so if he found a river nearby he’d wash up and set his hair in place, and if you rubbed a little soap on him, he’d lather up happily and get completely clean.

Because of that, he was different than all the other mice and had beautiful fluffy hair.

「Oh, cute guy, cute guy! Did well!」

「Skweeek!」

I thanked him while rubbing his head and Mousuke squealed at it.

「「…」」

「You don’t have to say anything, you two. We know what you’re thinking.」

The two others looked a little jealous. Leticia would have called me stupid or something, but these two, nothing.

「Here, you can rub him all you want. Mousuke’s not going to object at all.」

「Master…」「Sigh…」「Squeek Skweek!」

「…Huh? Did I say something wrong?」

The two girls looked at me and the mouse with disappointed eyes, and I felt as if I had made a mistake.

☆

It was back during the summer vacation of my fourth grade.

Using the long break, I went back to my grandparents’ house in the country. For bug catching, summer festivals, playing around in the river, and after that was, as the phrase『he who does not work, does not eat』goes, I had to pick cabbages and carrots and such out of the field.

Well, what I want to say is…

「Planting seeds involves a lot of stuff and can be really boring…」

After seeing this last stage come together the last few days, and this escape from reality involved, I had to sneak in and out of over 10 smaller trade places.

Weapons and armor stores and so on, all of these stores covered with the objects of their trade, and with all of their sales not being so good, they had little money to work with.

Because of this, they hid their money here and there, and it took Minnalis, Shuria, and I time to find traces of any of it. Because of this we let Slime-kichi do the work.

With Slime-kichi, just a little crack meant it could get in, and since it could break things up into smaller sizes, it made long-time jobs like that short.

So outside of these places selling things out of their own stores, they also had to mediate the raw materials that the other store traded in.

Because the difference between stores and traders was ambiguous, it was a standard whether or not these stores dealt in these raw materials or not.

Also, it wasn’t just the stores that would haggle in these small amounts with customers, but the stores would frequently take those amounts and use them with the traders as well.

In addition, because most of these stores traded with the people, those using copper and silver were the most frequent, so the use of gold as currency was a little extreme for most of them.

In this world, there were no currency creation technologies detailed like a place like modern Japan, so you would have take thousands of really fat coins around with you, one by one.

Of course, because this took up a lot of space, it was obvious that many of these stores created vault rooms for the storage of all this cash in addition to precious items and magical objects.

Because the entire place was like a safe, it was simple to get away after stealing without leaving a trace.

Because of that, we entered the gloomy, shadowy underground room of the trade company and took out the clanking currency from a magic bag.

Minnalis and Shuria counted along with the list and put the appropriate amounts of money into the bag.

「Silver 145, 146, 147, um…that’s all the silver. After is large copper, 262, copper 300, right?」

If we mistook the amount of one coin, the plan would be half dead. We couldn’t just lay off simply because it was tedious, because this was the key to utterly destroying you-know-who.

This seed we now planted that would grow into a plant of despair, would creep along the earth until it wrapped its vines around Grond’s foot.

That golden fruit he thought he saw before his eyes would distract him from this vine and its flower under his feet.

….Once that flowered vine wrapped around him, however, he would never know that it bloomed with a poisonous flower that could take his life.

「Okay then, this is all. 『Yufon Trading 』written there.」

I took the amount of money and put it in the bag, and then wrote the trader’s name on it. Then I put that bag in my own and stood up.

「No need to stand around, let’s get out of here.」

When I left the vault, I closed the foot and wrote a red symbol with my finger on the door.

「『Close.』」

Clank, the sound of a small spell, as the vault locked itself.

It depends on the rank for the amount of vault of the trader, but most of them are at least strengthened against magic and have an alarm device attached.

In order to deal with that normally, you have to have a magical tool that takes the place of the key, and most traders have the chief hold on to that key without fail.

Stealing that away easily, and doing so without leaving any trace takes too much work

However, even the sturdiest of vaults are vulnerable to a magic storm.

This vulnerability allows you to enter the vault using the 【The Hooked Blade of Schisms]while suppressing MP use. After using Minnalis’ poison, you can put anyone guarding to sleep and simply take the cure yourself.

「Okay then.」

After a few minutes, the guard wakes up and forgets he ever slept.

I made sure there was no one else around, and made my way out the back and mixed in with the town.

「Hey, hey, hey, hey, come in! Today the potions are cheap! Hey brother, do you want to take care of magical beasts quickly?! Buy this potion then!」

There were workers outside of the traders doing their business.

Before I entered to steal, I went along the places that had built up their goods from being a store to a trader, and heard from behind me.

「Hey, brother! You waiting along there!」

「Who…me?」

As I looked along the trader, a man called me and invited me over to see his wares.

「Hard to say this out loud, but from your look, you’re an adventurer, right? You should buy this potion, it’s a good one!」

As she said that, the seller sloshed around a potion in her hand.

「Hm, hah hah, looks like a good HP potion.」

I appraised it and it was a 『Low level HP potion, quality (LOW)』.

「Oh, so you can guess the value of this low level potion? Well, you have the look, so you’re not going to be fooled easily.」

「Yeah, I’ve been here and there. Selling any MP potions?」

「Of course, I can promise you as a magician myself. I have revival potions to strengthening potions!」

She went into the store and brought out a MP potion. I could tell the potion was of good quality.

A restore potion is one clearly connected with life. Those that don’t fool you and those who are honest about the quality are the best merchants.

It seems I was lucky in finding a very honest merchant.

「Okay, I’ll take 10 of those. How much?」

「Wow, that’s generous! 10 silver all together.」

I took out my silver and handed it over, and got a wooden box with 10 potions.

「Thank you so much! Please come again!」

「Yeah, if I feel like it.」

I waved and walked away.

It was good to find a nice merchant once in a while. You don’t know if the book matches the cover, but I don’t have the time to make that mistake.

That’s why you have to pray that you find a good merchant now and then.

However…

Even thinking so, there was no reason to hesitate.

It’s bad to think this way, but, my revenge isn’t so cheap that I need to hesitate.

I will kill him. I must.

I didn’t want to waste the revenge in my killing either, as I’d take any path necessary to do it successfully.

I knew it wasn’t right. But, I wasn’t born to live a life that was all for right things.

If it was really necessary, I could swallow that guilt, and do what I had to.

I wasn’t just an adventurer anymore.

I was thinking it over so much I wasn’t paying attention to anything around me.

Thud, and the small sound of bumping into someone.

「!!」

「Kyaaa!」

He was wearing an army suit with a beret over long blond hair, and the small youth had fallen on his rump in front of me.

He was as small as Shuria, with slitted eyes that reminded you of a cat.

「What a waste. Look where you’re going, Agh!」

「…」

Nonorik had appeared right in front of me.