Chapter 51: Seems Like We’re Staying For The Night

When I woke up, I was in a familiar room. But this time, my limbs aren’t tied up, and by the side of the bed isn’t a smelly bandit, but the beautiful Bia.

「Are you awake?」 「Yeah, um? So, what happened?」 「Before that, you must be feeling hungry, right? Do you want to eat?」

Saying that, Bia fetched me some fruit and a bowl of slightly warm soup. As soon as they entered my vision, my stomach raised a low growl. What I really need right now is Life Essence, but it’s not like I don’t need normal food, so I’m really thankful that Bia prepared some for me.

「Sho? Wa ha he ashr at?1」 「Focus on eating. For now, I know what you want to hear about, so just listen while you eat.」

Saying that, Bia began telling me what happened after that. First of all, it seems that the Ropers were just left as they are, frozen outside. Same as with the Goblins, even though I fainted after casting this time’s “Freeze”, it looks like there are no signs of them breaking free.

After I fainted, they searched the hut and found two bedrooms to lay Lysha and me down. Other than these, it seems that the only places you can sleep on are the ripped sofa and the sleeping bag, showing a glimpse of the bandits’ rough life.

Incidentally, it looks like they found the corpses of the remaining two bandits. However since their bodies were found with all the moisture dried up like a mummy, we have absolutely no clue on their affiliations, identities and stuff. Since we can’t even differentiate other bandits’ faces after they became Ropers, everything about them ended up forever unknown.

Well, enough with the frankly uninteresting bandits, it seems like Lysha’s already awake. She still has a bit of a headache and a lump on her head, but there’s no real danger in her life. Even without me doing it, Audrey had already healed her with Healing Magecraft.

It looks like four hours had passed since I lost consciousness and, looking outside, it’s already pitch black. Since Bia lit the room up with Magecraft, I didn’t notice the sky getting dark.

As the sun was already starting to set when we defeated the Ropers, it seems like they decided that it’s safer to stay here for the night than for us to camp outside or try to descend. But of course, it’s only after they’ve made sure that the inside is secure.

「It looks like you’re feeling better too, Lily.」 「I’m still a bit tired, though. Well, it’s only natural.」 「You did use up a lot of MP, so it can’t be helped.」

Just to be sure, Lysha and I need a night’s rest. It seems like Grimhart and Jessica are keeping guard outside, while Audrey and Bia are in charge of nursing us back to health. Honestly, just being awake makes me dangerously hungrier, so I’ll just sleep and let Bia take care of things. If I don’t, I’ll probably be staring at her deliciously soft-looking lips for the whole night …

D-don’t get me wrong, okay? It just caught my eye for a bit, I’m absolutely devoted to Urania, alright?

「So this means we’re done for now, right?」 「Right. There are some things that still don’t make sense, but the Guild will be handling the rest of the work.」

In the end, the monsters by the base of the mountain probably ran away from the Ropers. The Ropers themselves focused on finding women to reproduce with, but to efficiently take in more Mana, it also attacked monsters. It’s still a mystery why the bandits were attacked, but maybe because they lived in the Sacred Mountain for a long time, they absorbed Mana in their bodies and became half-Magic Beasts(?) is what they speculated.

「It’s safe to say that the Ropers were born from those eggs2. And even though this is the Sacred Mountain, if a monster that can absorb the surrounding Mana was born, that would explain the Mana deprived areas in the mountain.」 「So with this, we can go home, right?」 「Right. If the two of you are fine with it, we’ll be descending tomorrow.」

With this, it looks like our long investigation is now at its end. Ahh, I can’t wait to go down and see Urania.