Chapter 280

“Uh, so… Irene?”

“What?”

“Now that I know that we’re hunting Zombies… how many of them do we need?”

“If I’m not mistaken… three of them.”

Truly a quest for beginner adventurers.

Require more than ten, and it’ll be classified as an E-ranked quest instead, but the rewards will still be time-inefficient.

Still, it’s times like this that remind us to never forget the basics.

A mere Rank F quest it may be, if it is for the sake of the world, I will accept it without complaint.

In a way, maybe it was dictated by fate that we met Irene at that place and time, too.

“And where can we find those Zombies?”

“Oh, I remember, of course — north!”

Strange… she just dragged us out of town through the south gate.

“Aren’t we going the opposite way, sir!?”

Pochi suddenly shouted.

Now let’s look at our little lady — hmm, utterly unfazed. Seems like being so… oblivious does have its perks. 

She kinda reminds me of Ferris… Well, no, that kid was her own set of chaos, so I suppose Irene here is still better.

“Pochi, gigantify.”

“All right, sir, I get it!”

Seeing Pochi multiply in size, Irene’s eyes sparkled.

“W-what did she just do!? And how!? Teach me!”

“Ah–!? It hurts, Miss Irene! Don’t pull on my fur, please!”

“Irene, the ability to gigantify is typically exclusive to Familiars — and even then, it’s usable only by ones with skillful control of the arcane energy in their bodies.”

With that, Irene promptly stopped her hands.

Huh, I didn’t expect my explanation to be so effective…

“Well, that’s a shame.”

What’d she mean by ‘that’?

Pochi whispered into my ear,

“Do you remember how Miss Irene is conscious of her height, Master? That’s probably why she was interested in gigantification…”

Oh, I see…

Seems like Pochi does know a thing or two about the ‘maiden’s heart’ thing.

I slapped my hands together, then picked Irene up to put her on Pochi’s back–

“Eek–!? Wait! What are you doing!?”

“Huh? Well…… I’m carrying you up? Would you prefer that I yeeted you instead?”

“Y-you should’ve told me before doing that! Pervert!”

Strange… The way Pochi’s looking at me now kinda… hurts.

Oh come on, shouldn’t you be on MY side!?

“And I don’t need your help! I can do this myself! Hmph! ……Hng–! Hah! Ngh… Hup! Bah… Hngggggg…!”

Irene tried grabbing on to Pochi’s fur, but she still fell off.

Where’d her monstrous strength go?

“Ugh, fine…”

I walked behind Irene and held my Drynium Rod under her feet as she jumped up.

With it as a platform of sorts, she finally managed to get herself on Pochi’s back.

“Hmph! See!? I told you I could do it!”

She doesn’t even notice that I helped. Great.

Maybe my mission is to be Irene’s instructor… I sure hope not.

If possible, I’d like to know the real reason we’ve been sent to this era… Well, not that we can just leave her alone, so we might as well spend some time seeing how things go.

“Hup–!”

“Hwah–!? You’re riding, too!?”

So high-maintenance… Man.

And so Pochi ran, taking care not to shake Irene off, and I ran along beside her.

……Yeah.

“Whew… now we’re at the north gate. We’re on an F-ranked monster hunt, so we shouldn’t have to go too far from town, Miss Irene.”

“……–of.”

“Hmm? What was that, again?”

“…Can’t get off…”

……Guess I shouldn’t have expected every baby to be as well-behaved as Leon.

With a signal of my eyes, I told Pochi to disengage her gigantification.

“Wait, why didn’t you have her stay on this size from the beginning?”

Yeah, I totally saw this coming… Pochi’s normal size is just right for Irene to ride on.

“Ahahaha… because my Master was also going to ride as well, that’s why!”

Welp, Pochi’s already in her entertainer mode. A very Pochi response when she knows she’s interacting with someone with a difficult personality.

…Which means I can’t expect her to actually help out.

And now that we can’t rely on her sense of smell, we’ll have to look for our targets the old-fashioned way.

……Huh?

“Now then! Let’s get to the killing!”

“By the way, Irene… You do have a weapon, right?”

I don’t see her carrying anything, but hey, asking just in case.

“Heh, I DO have weapons… THESE!”

…Her fists.

Great. Just great.

Let’s have Pochi help–

“Ah– ah! It’s a butterfly! So cute!”

Nope, she’s too distracted.

Fine, I’ll have to try and help her myself.

While Irene wasn’t looking, I opened my Storeroom and searched through it… And then I realized that I never really used conventional weapons in the first place. Of course there’s nothing.

“Here — it might be a bit too big for you, but try using this.”

“What an ugly color. It’s better than nothing, I guess.”

Yes, little lady, a Holy Warrior’s Drynium Rod is ‘better than nothing’. Which reminds me, I forgot to ask another important thing.

“Oh, and do you know how to cast magic spells?”

“Why would I? I’m training to be a warrior.”

……Oh, I see. So that’s it — I have to steer her toward her path of dedication to magic.

If not… well, the rest of history aside, she won’t be there in the future to teach me the Arcane Energy Circulation Optimizer, and the Teleportation Spell wouldn’t be revealed to the world.

But is that the ONLY mission? If so, it feels… disappointingly small-scale.

What am I REALLY in this era for?

“Master, I see one Zombie up ahead.”

Pochi whispered to me… which Irene heard as well, as apparent from her twitch reaction.

…And she looks so spooked that I almost laughed.

“…Irene, have you ever fought against monsters before?”

“O-o-o-of course I have!”

So she hasn’t.

“Wielded any weapons?”

“Y-yes!”

Nope, not even that.

It’s good that she chose Zombies as her first target, I suppose. They’re slow and weak.

Ghouls may be quite similar, but they’re faster, and are capable of doing her in at this point in time.

“Listen, Irene, I’ll run you through the basics of CQC. Please do as I instruct you.”

“What, so NOW I have to listen to your orders?”

“Please.”

“…Okay, just this once.”

Hmm, so that’s how I should handle her. Good thing she’s more… girly than Ferris.

I’m guessing that she’s currently about the same age as Ferris during the final battle, but hey, personality makes all the difference, I guess?

“A Zombie sways from side to side, depending on the force generated to slowly ‘walk’ forward. It’s said that this is to limit damage to its already-decomposing bodies, and also avoid stimulating its sense of pain.”

“And how do I kill it?”

“Its weakness is the head, but since it’s hunch-backed, head-on strikes will not only fail to knock off its head but also give it an opportunity to strike back. The right approaches are either to decapitate it by smashing its neck from above, or swinging up at its neck from below.”

“G-got it…”

She’s got the energy, so I think she’ll be just fine… but let’s see how she actually fares, hmm?

“Hmph!”

“Good! Lure it close enough, calm down, and strike up!”

“Hah!”

She’s got the concept of kiting down, so that’s good.

Still, if the world wasn’t in this state, she wouldn’t even need to be fighting monsters at thing young age in the first place…

Well, no point in thinking hypotheticals now, I suppose.

“Next, next! Let’s go!”

“How about you try casting some spells? They’re good, you know.”

“No, that splatter just now was fun! I want to do it again! And magic sounds like a hassle, anyway!”

That doesn’t sound right. Is there something keeping magic away from her?

She has a huge arcane energy capacity, and she’s fully aware of it — which means she clearly is very suitable for being a mage.

Something is missing. But what?

“Lord Sagan’s only recently ascended to the throne, but he’s already showing off some sick moves! I can’t let myself fall behind!”

Sagan, huh? Have I heard that name from somewhere before?

Wait, ascended? Throne? …Lord Sagan?

“AHHHHHHHHH!?”

“W-why are you suddenly yelling!?”

“Did you see another butterfly, sir!?”

I really want to call out Pochi’s joke, but now isn’t the time to do that. I mean, she’s always been cracking jokes at the most inappropriate moments!

Wait, no, now isn’t the time to think about that, either!

Now I know what we’re in this era for!

“War Demon Emperor… Sagan…!”