Chapter 336: A Flashy Settlement

Unlike the dinner, we headed to the inn’s cafeteria to eat breakfast. When we showed our faces there the next morning, the place was filled with strange rustling.

“What’s going on?”

Lyell promptly sensed the strange mood and quickly went to ask people about it. It was probably my imagination that his walking looked a bit unsteady.

I wanted to think that it wasn’t the after-effects of Maria’s punishment. I didn’t want to imagine the kind of punishment that’d leave damage on THAT Lyell.

Meanwhile, Maria left the seat and quickly ordered meals for everyone. The harmony of their actions could be said to have come from their long time spent together. Cortina looked at those two with a somewhat envious expression.

“Envious?”

“Huh? Well, yeah. A bit. I can’t imagine myself becoming like that.”

“Really?”

“I agree with Nicole. You can be unexpectedly devoted.”

“Get off my case!”

The topic seemed to have been embarrassing for her, her face was beet-red. She was quite prone to get shy when dealing with her comrades. She was extremely adorable like that from my perspective.

“Nhehe.”

“W-What’s with that obscene laugh!”

“You’re so cute, Cortina.”

“What are you saying to an older person? You’re the cute one here!”

She quickly picked up Kabby who had reached her feet and put it on my head. Kabby had been growing lately, so it was a bit tough to keep it on my head.

“Fugyu.”

“Kyahaha, daauu.”

Fina started hitting me as I was being crushed next to where Maria sat. Her hands were covered with drool and made my cheeks all sticky.

“Ugh, you’re so mean Fina.”

“You’re the big sister here, so you should handle that much.”

Maria offered me a handkerchief while laughing. I took it and wiped the drool, but now Kabby started licking me. It was probably trying to clean the drool from me, but it was having the opposite effect.

While doing that, Lyell came back. His expression wasn’t severe, but instead a quizzical one as if he had heard something strange.

“Welcome back. So what’s going on?”

“Well, it seems like there was a big rocky mountain to the northwest from here, but it had collapsed in one night.”

“Collapsed? Did it block the roads or something?”

“No, that doesn’t seem to be the case.”

According to what he said, it turned out that it was the mountain where Den used to live. Besides, Den had been witnessed there sometimes, so people rarely approached it.

But it was so big that it was a good landmark inside the deep forest so it had been quite discussed. A large boulder inside a deep forest that could serve as a landmark was quite a valuable thing.

And such a huge boulder crumbling down soundlessly overnight had become a hot topic.

“Soundlessly, huh? This is clearly someone’s doing.”

“Among us, Maxwell is most likely the one that could do it.”

“But he’s been busy with the settlement of the city affairs. I don’t think he’d be able to have time for that now.”

Though we managed to keep the harm from the Goblin raid to the minimum, the residential area had been damaged and the barricades needed to be disposed of and so did the corpses.

Maxwell had been tasked with dealing with that and commanding the situation. Nobles might have nominated Cortina, but part of the nobles have given tyrannical orders, so they couldn’t butt in so much considering their standpoint.

“Then, though it depends on the size of the mountain, maybe you could do it, Dear?”

“It’d be impossible even for me to soundlessly destroy a big enough boulder that served as a landmark. Maybe Reid has some ace up his sleeve.”

“No way.”

“Huh?”

“It’s nothing.”

I ended up retorting to Lyell’s overestimation of me. I was certainly more versatile compared to him, but I haven’t abandoned my humanity yet.

As I sat prostrated due to Kabby’s weight, Fina energetically reached out to me. She was probably aiming to hug Kabby who was on my head.

Maria put her on top of Kabby, squashing me even more.

“Gugyu.”

“Aauh! Dauu!”

She hugged Kabby with all her strength and started flapping her legs in happiness. That meant she was kicking me in the neck and shoulders.

“Ah, that actually feels good. Keep going, Fina.”

“Nicole, you sound like an old woman, you know?”

“Well, I’ve been over-exerting myself a bit too much lately.”

Kabby misunderstood my happiness from Fina’s movements and started kicking my head. Sorry, but you got it wrong. That part isn’t stiff.

“Leaving that aside. The collapsed site is so tough that you can’t dig a hole there with shovels even if you tried.”

“Oh?”

“Not just that, you can’t even drill a hole with a Tunnel spell, and even acid can’t melt it.”

“What the, sounds scary.”

But hearing that much, I could already imagine whose deed it was.

It was definitely Whitey’s doing. She probably found out that place was the source of the Goblin Lord and sealed it as a preventive measure. But I couldn’t help but point out that her flashy way of dealing with it had ended the whole thing on a poor endgame.

“Still, that Whitey did some work this time.”

As I mumbled to myself, I pinned Kabby’s paws that were still hitting my head. Maria pulled Fina away next and Kabby was taken along with her.

Conveniently, the food arrived just then.

While feigning ignorance at Whitey’s deed, we enjoyed a relaxing breakfast for the first time in a while.