Episode 20.4

Once Lecan got back at town of Vouka, he went straight to the weapon store and collected the <Sword of Agost>.

He's going to be busy processing the herbs from tomorrow on.

Kyumis herb, the main ingredient for stamina restoratives will lose its medicinal efficacy if it isn't processed while still damp.

Thus, they're going to deal with Kyumis herb first before all other herbs.

At first, Shira taught Lecan how, afterward he continued to work on it himself.

Shira was done with hers very shortly and proceeded to sort other herbs.

As for Lecan, he still hadn't finished with Kyumis herb even after two days.

After all, you could only gather Kyumis herb in month five to seven. In other word, he's got to make a year worth of stamina restoratives. He ended up gathering quite a lot due to that.

Eda also helped at first, but she apparently quickly got tired of it and made a mess as she went on, so Lecan made her clean up Shira's house instead.

Right now she's standing in the garden's entrance, tirelessly practicing <Sleep>.

That's a method Nike taught her during their herb gathering trip.

Trees growing in a forest are the best target for practice.

They won't sleep since they have no consciousness, but the magic still gets a feedback when it hits.

The thicker and bigger a tree is, the stronger the feedback.

She would practice on various trees, ones growing on the side of the road, ones growing far deep, or casting the spell on trees while running.

Eda was ecstatic when she managed to cast <Sleep> on two trees at once, but Shira scolded her instead.

"Your casting will get sloppy if you do that. Focus on casting the spell on one target proper for the time being. Casting a spell to multiple targets is still too early for you."

She's practicing <Sleep> on herbs growing in the garden right now, but since that can be done with only little mana, she can do it endlessly.

It seems she would also occasionally cast <Detect> to probe the neighborhood.

By the way, they told her that Nike had once again gone to some distant place to attend some business.

Noon on the second day, Shira spoke.

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"Oh? Someone's dropped by."

"My hand's full right now. Eda can deal with whoever it is above."

In the evening, when Lecan was finally done processing Kyumis herb and climbed up, Eda had a troubled look on her face.

"Did something happen."

"Ah, Aira-san came by earlier."

Aira is a staff member of this town of Vouka's Adventurer Association.

As far as Lecan knew, Aira had never come to Shira's house before.

"They're dispatching a suppression force to deal with a bandit gang tomorrow morning. She wanted you to come along too, Lecan."

Asking for more detail, apparently there have been cases of bandits attacking travelers in the vicinity since two years ago, they constantly shift their areas of operation, but the gang has grown exponentially larger recently and started to even raid small caravan groups.

This town has also suffered quite a bit from them, and the town lord has been posting quests to gather info and search for that gang, which has succeeded narrowing down the gang's present location, so they're forming a suppression force to deal with those bandits.

The suppression force consist of adventurers mainly. Five rank silver, 12 rank copper, as well as six members of Vouka's guard corps under the town lord's order. The one in command of the suppression force is one of the corps' captains, a man called Ritton who's in charge of the town patrol, but the one commanding on site will be the silver rank adventurer, mage Zeki.

Zeki is a personal bodyguard of Chaney Company, but apparently the town lord has requested for Chaney Company's help in this matter. The town lord was originally asking for Vandam and Zeki's presence through Adventurer Association, but unfortunately Vandam has already departed to Vantaroy for an escort duty, and won't come back for a while.

As they don't want to miss this chance, the suppression force will still be formed regardless, but the enemies apparently number more than 20, and the leader is very strong.

Silver rank adventurers aren't necessarily all proficient in combat.

That was when Adventurer's Association had the idea of dispatching Nike or maybe Lecan. Hence why they sent Aira to Shira's house.

Aira who heard from Eda that Nike had gone somewhere far and wouldn't come back for a while asked her to ask Lecan if he could take part instead before returning. Lecan had told Eda to keep the underground workshop a secret. Therefore, Eda must have told Aira that Lecan wasn't here.

"How many days will this suppression last?"

"You can apparently get to the location in one day, but with the time to scout them added, it would take four days in total."

"I can't go tomorrow. Gotta sort the herbs."

"Yeah, I figured. So, Lecan."

"What."

"Can't I go instead?"

Lecan couldn't give her an answer right away.

Suppressing bandits means fighting humans. Even if the goal is to arrest them, there's no way the combat will end with no one dying.

Eda is still too young, thought Lecan.

She's still 14. She doesn't have to comprehend what it means to deprive someone of their live yet.

However, Eda is an adventurer. She might find her calling in another occupation in the future, but she is and will be an adventurer for the foreseeable future. Which means she can't avoid fighting humans.

In fact, this might be a good chance considering she will have company.

Moreover, the one in charge is that Zeki.

Both Lecan and Eda are familiar with Zeki during their escort duty and such. That man won't recklessly rush headlong into battle, nor will he treat Eda badly.

"Very well. Go."

"Un!"

"However, you must not use <Purification>. <Recovery> is fine."