Chapter 45

Chapter 46

「……It’s, quiet.」

A few hours after entering the forest.

Within the quiet stirring of the trees, Sharon muttered those few words.

「……It sure is.」

After a bit of silence, Luuty answered her like that.

It simply sounded like the details of their conversation was that it looked like a normal forest without any Ogres.

And in fact, Sharon’s muttering had that sort of meaning, but Luuty’s answer to her was different.

It had a meaning that Ogres lived quietly in forests.

It showed that Ogres demonstrated that they possessed aspects as folk that live in forests.

In fact, in cases where Goblins lived in the forest, they would pointlessly raise flirtatious voices, and pointlessly clear away trees.

They would bite into the forest, and even cause fires.

With that way of doing things, they could be called sworn enemies to the Sylphid whom many of them lived together with the forest.

However, what about Ogres.

There were no cut open paths, and looking at the appearance of it, there wasn’t any sort of difference from a normal forest.

If one excluded the fact that they preyed upon mankind, they could be said to be creatures that are able to coexist with the forest.

However, that was also a source of bitterness for Luuty who was a Sylphid.

She disliked the fact that Ogres shared something in common with the Sylphids.

She disliked and couldn’t stand the fact that she possessed more of a favorable impression of the Ogres that moved as if weaving through the forest than the Humans that cut through the forest and created paths.

Due to reasoning as a Human, she suppressed her instinctive emotions as a Sylphid.

It was because of that that Luuty made a short response.

「……Are you alright?」

Luuty trembled a bit at Shion’s words.

She thought that he might have seen through what was inside her heart, but then immediately changed her mind thinking that there was no way he could have.

She made herself consent to the idea that her moment of discord had probably made her look like her condition had gone bad.

「It would be better, to not push yourself.」

「Yes, I am fine.」

In response to Nino’s words who had followed up after Shion, Luuty lightly shook her head and answered like that.

Reorganizing herself with her pride as an educator, Luuty returned to her usual style.

Due to this, she hadn’t noticed the out of place feeling that she probably would have had if she were her usual self.

That the words that Shion and Nino said just now were not questions about Luuty’s health, but about her heart.

That she herself had asked herself if it was alright to be an ally of Humans, was something she hadn’t noticed.

「Still, just how should we search for them. Even if we blindly search for them like this……」

Sharon nodded at Kain’s words.

The forest was deep, and if they just walked about like this, they wouldn’t know if they found traces of the Ogres.

Thieves and bandits would also hide in places like forests and mountains, and they would even do so after making their own traces hard to find.

In fact, the Jiol Great Forest that is said to be a natural stronghold and conceals the country of the Jiol Forest Kingdom is said to continuously bewilder uninvited guests.

Even if it didn’t go that far this time, searching for Ogres that were lurking within a forest is difficult for amateurs.

「I have a way.」

That is why Shion said that.

Shion did not have the time to spend several days on an Ogre search like this.

He needed to quickly defeat them, and turn it into a direction of being a 「trivial situation」.

Unlike Luuty who stubbornly would not break her status as a chaperon, Shion did not have the time to wait for Kain and Sharon to notice.

「It seems that cases missing persons have already appeared, but if they were turned into Ogre food in the current situation, then that limits who the victims are quite considerably.」

「Could it be, were they lumberjacks!?」

Shion nodded at Kain who shouted that.

That’s right. The fact that the Ogres haven’t attacked the town means that there is a possibility that the Ogres have not yet noticed the town which would have been a feeding ground for them.

And then, with the fact that cases of missing persons had appeared in this situation, one could hypothesize that they were people who entered the Ogres’ range of action.

In this situation, the range would be the forest, but when speaking of Humans that would expressly go into such a place, the first ones that came to mind were lumberjacks.

With a town being this close to the forest, one could imagine that forestry would be popular to a certain extent. Furthermore, when that forestry was turned into an impossible situation due to Ogres, one could understand how they got into a situation where they had a cornered mentality to the point that they made an appeal for aid.

「Then that means that they might appear in the place that the lumberjack people did their job.」

「That’s right.」

The site that had become the current logging spot most likely overlapped the Ogres’ area of activity.

Of course, it might have been a mere coincidence at first.

However, Ogres had a high amount of intelligence.

If they understood that it was a site where they were clearly doing something, they could surely predict that the lumberjacks weren’t there by coincidence.

「Humans are coming to cut trees……they might understand that much.」

That’s right, just as Nino said, if they noticed that the purpose Humans came to the forest was to cut down trees, the labor for Ogres to search for Humans would become alarmingly easy.

An axe striking a tree, was a unique sound.

If they progressed through the forest relying on that, then Humans would be there.

From the Ogres’ point of view, there was no easier hunt than this.

「Ah, in that case……」

Kain started to say something right there, but going *Hah* as if he had realized something, he sent his gaze to Luuty and sank into silence.

What Kain was about to say was simple, and was that if they were to cut down a tree, then they would be able to lure the Ogres.

That was correct, but there were problems as well as mistakes with it.

First, if one were to say if they could draw Ogres to them or not, it was possible.

Ogres would come without a doubt.

However, Luuty, who was a Sylphid, would have a worse impression of them.

Sylphids could be convinced that logging for the sake of one’s livelihood was needed, but to do meaningless logging, a normal Sylphid would fire an arrow at them.

Even if Luuty would not go that far, her impression regarding Kain would probably become the worst.

And then, there was also the problem that there was no guarantee that all of the Ogres would come to them.

For example, if there was only one of them, then it would probably be fine like that.

However, if there were several of them, the possibility that all of them would come was extremely low.

Even for Humans that were encamping at night, they would split up between being on standby at their base and going out hunting.

Ogres would definitely do that as well.

「You did a good job of finding what we should focus on.」

After seeing through Kain’s discord, Shion said that and nodded.

The aspect of luring them wasn’t bad.

But because he thought of annihilating all of them right there, the difficulty of the strategy would increase.

If there was a method to lure them, there was only one thing that they should do.

And then, that was possible for Shion’s group.

「Nino. Can you do it?」

「Nn, simple.」

She was probably thinking the same thing the Shion was thinking.

Nino responded like that to Shion’s words.

「……You couldn’t possibly doing what I think you’re going to do.」

「Will be considerate of the trees.」

「That is not what I mean.」

「Possible for Nino.」

Having noticed Shion and Nino’s idea, Luuty showed her disapproval, but Nino shut that out with a few words.

And then, having noticed what she was going to do, Kain looked at Nino and made a difficult face.

「I, I don’t get it. What’s going on……?」

In response to Sharon who had grabbed on to Kain’s arm and shook it, Kain asked Shion with his gaze.

When Kain saw Shion make a small nod, Kain put it into words.

「……It means, that we will have the Ogres guide us.」

They would be guided by the Ogres.

Seeing to have been excessively confused from imagined a surreal scene from those words, Sharon was at her wits’ end.

「Erm……In other words, something like……Charm Magic?」

In response to that answer that was let out with great trouble, Shion shook his head side-to-side.

That was also possible, but it wasn’t certain.

As long as it wasn’t certain, it wasn’t a measure that they should take now.

「Well, seeing it once is better than hearing it a hundred times. Let’s head to the logging site.」

If it was the logging site, there was no mistake that it would be a place close to the town.

After thinking about that, one could say that the fact that the town wasn’t attacked yet was fortunate, but that was not something that should be said right now.

With everyone nodding to Shion’s proposal, they started to move towards the logging site.

Chapter 46