Book 6: Chapter 31

After a little while, there were new visitors in Nefas’s room.

They were Marin who carried a gigantic shield as big as her on her back, Orel who was scratching his head looking like he found this to be a pain in the neck, and then Nino who was making a completely displeased face.

Nefas displayed an unabashed delighted-looking expression from Nino’s unexpected visit.

Seeing that, Seira greatly drew back.

「……Tsk.」

Without hiding her irritation about being called here all of a sudden, Nino clicked her tongue.

「Sorry. But all of your abilities were needed.」

「That doesn’t matter. Nino only came here because it was Demon King-sama’s request. If it weren’t for that, Nino wouldn’t have come to a place like this.」

「I see. But, it still helps.」

After saying his thanks to Nino with a wry smile, Sancreed then turned his gaze to Marin.

Marin, who was different from Nino and had a composed look, noticed Sancreed’s gaze and made a bow.

「This time I have received the command to support you. I am lacking in ability in regards to battle, but I shall devote my all to the endeavor.」

「Yeah, I’ll be counting on you.」

「Yes, please leave it to me.」

Behind the nodding Sancreed, Seira made a curious face at the maids that had appeared.

She wondered who would since he said that they were most suitable, and who appeared were two maids, and an uninteresting ossan.

Since one of them was clearly a Maid Knight, she would certainly be useful in battle, but if he said that she was most suitable personnel, that raised a question mark.

Why was she called here? That is what Seira was unable to understand.

Maybe having sensed Seira’s worry from how she tilted her head, Nefas walked up next to her and explained.

「It’s her 【Magic Eyes of Greenery】.」

「Heh?」

「She……Nino is a forest pro that possesses 【Magic Eyes of Greenery】.」

「【Magic Eyes of Greenery】……? But isn’t that, that’s just an ability to manipulate plants a bit ,right?」

With Seira’s understanding, 【Magic Eyes of Greenery】 were like that.

In addition to the 【Magic Eyes of Greenery】 which couldn’t do anything but be at the level of pestering the opponent at most, there was the 【Magic Eyes of Coercion】 which gave a small bit of pressure to the opponent, the 【Magic Eyes of Farsightedness】 which let one see far into the distance, the 【Magic Eyes of Night Vision】 which let one see no matter if it was day or night, and so on. Those that possessed Magic Eyes would occasionally appear.

However, they were generally powers that were at the level of being 「slightly convenient」.

Among those, even if she possessed the 【Magic Eyes of Greenery】 which were said to only being able to hang the opponent with vines as the most they could do, what was he saying that she could do?

「Ahh, that’s the general knowledge of mankind on the Shutaia Continent. But, it seems that there’s a rank to Magic Eyes. Well, you’ll understand soon enough.」

「Hーn?」

Understanding that he didn’t seem to have an interest in explaining it right now, Seira gave a half-hearted response in return.

On the other hand, Nino had no interest in going along with their idle talk, and hurried Luuty and the others.

「So, where’s the place? Nino is going to finish up the job and go back.」

「Yes. In that case, I have a simple map prepared.」

However, seeing the map that was brought out, Nino made a sour face.

On that map, there was nothing but the locations of the highways, checking stations, and the royal capital drawn, while the most important part was rough with only the words 「Great Jiol Forest」 written, and the topographical details couldn’t be told at all.

Moreover, that Great Jiol Forest part roughly made a circle.

「……What is this?」

「It is a map.」

「Nino thinks that this is called a drawing.」

Hearing Nino’s words, Luuty expressed a troubled looking smile.

Certainly, just as Nino pointed out, like this, it was closer to a drawing rather than a map.

The positioning of the highways were done accurately, but to begin with, if one just went along the highway and saw the billboards at every important point, they wouldn’t get lost in the first place.

In cases where they would leave the highway and search deep in the forest like this time, this map would be completely useless.

However, from the point of view of national defense, depicting the topography of the Great Jiol Forest, which acted as a natural fortress that protected the Jiol Forest Kingdom domain, in detail was a taboo, and that couldn’t be helped in a certain way.

「……Ahー, let me look at that for a bit.」

After Orel, who had kept silent up until now, nimbly took the map from Nino’s hands, he looked through the map and nodded as if he understood something.

「I’ll ask this one thing, but you think that the settlement is somewhere within the range of this circle, right?」

After Orel said that, he continued sounding like it was a pain.

「I don’t think that there’s only one settlement but……well, whatever. It’s fine if we just crush that one settlement along the highway this time.」

「Eh, what do you mean by that, Oji-san?」

Orel’s temple twitched from being called Oji-san by Seira, but there was also a part of himself that couldn’t deny her.

「I ain’t an Oji-san……well, I guess I didn’t introduce myself. It’s Orel. ……Listen up, okay, Jou-san? This Goblin settlement or whatever, it’s not like it suddenly comes out from nowhere. It was newly created by a guy who went independant from a different settlement somewhere.」

Since all living creatures wouldn’t spontaneously generate from places where there was nothing, there should be a cause that led to the settlement being created.

「Well, it doesn’t matter since it’s out of range from this time’s job. It’ll probably be found soon enough.」

「Eh? Oji-san, you’ll go and find it?」

「Ahn? Someone else’ll go.」

When Seira turned her gaze to Nino, Orel went “ahh” and nodded.

「She’s for extermination and escort. Nino is a battle expert in the forest after all. Searching for people is my job. And while we’re at it, that blue maid over there called Marin is also necessary escort personnel.」

「Escort?」

「Ou. For your escort. Also, well……it’s camouflage.」

Hearing the word camouflage, Seira groaned with a *muu*.

Although it was a private matter, since it would be a problem if it were made known that Seira, who was in the position of being a guest, had whimsically went out and exterminated Goblins, they had to work out a plan with some kind of method.

「This time’s case, it seems that it’ll be treated as a hunt for the Goblins that would bring harm to the Jiol Forest Kingdom and tried to attack their guest from the St. Altlis Kingdom. Ojou-san……it’ll be reported that you didn’t participate in it. You understand, right?」

「But, that’s……」

「What, it ain’t a problem. From what I heard, it seems that the plan was to spend another half day in this room chatting, isn’t there. With that much time, we could crush three Goblin settlements and still have enough time to drink some tea.」

Orel said that, and made a savage smile.

In cases like this one, searching for the enemy is what would take up the most time.

Even if they were able to specify a rough range, searching for a Goblin settlement from this Great Jiol Forest would normally be extremely difficult.

If they were to bring in a large quantity of personnel and thoroughly take their time to chase after traces of them, no matter how fast they went, it would probably take several days.

In the Great Jiol Forest where the magical power density was high, the accuracy of Magical Power Perception would fall, but if it were Nino, she could find them in half a day.

However, if it was Orel, it would finish immediately.

If they were to make use of his Magical Power Identification ability that was a cut above the rest, even if it were in the Great Jiol Forest, he would be able to easily locate the places where the diminutive magical power of Goblins were gathering.

「Well, let’s take it nice and easy……Yosh, let’s go.」

Orel tapped on Marin’s shoulder, but Marin violently brushed that hand away.

「Please don’t touch me. It’s unpleasant.」

「Saying it’s unpleasant……you……」

「Now then, let us go. Time is limited.」

Leaving Orel at a loss for words, Marin started up Transfer Magic.

Since Orel himself couldn’t use Transfer Magic, Marin had the role of doing support for that as well.

「Oh, that’s right. Here’s some conversation content meant for camouflage use that someone with smarts on our side thought of. Here.」

Just before he moved with Transfer Magic, Orel threw over a single document.

Luuty picked up the left behind document.

「Erm……Regarding the food culture in the St. Altlis Kingdom? Regarding the food that would be considered the basics of everyday life, talking about the model eating habits of the St. Altlis Kingdom and its development could be considered to be the ideal contents. If it seems to be too difficult to talk about this, even talking about the music culture would be fine……?」

「Eh? Erm……」

Seeing Seira start to make a difficult face, Luuty breathed a sigh.

「Well, they probably chose topics that were harmless and inoffensive but……they made a mistake in the person.」

Hearing Luuty’s words, Seira reflexively averted her eyes.

In the distant future, at the time where she would be asked about the contents of her conversation with Sancreed, a Mazoku, if she were to be honest to a fault and answer that she was asked about Magic Swords, that would cause unnecessary dissension.

If the conversation were about food culture and music culture, since it would only be thought of as trying to obtain stories from other nations for the sake of lifestyle improvements even if the contents were somewhat complicated, it was quite convenient.

However, it looked like that was a bit too much for Seira to bear.

「Well, it should be fine if we go in a direction where you, Seira-san, couldn’t answer and I, who was present at the time, gave an explanation of it.」

「Ugh. But, what if I’m asked about the contents of what you talked about, Sensei?」

「Just say that you were engrossed in the snacks and didn’t listen. You actually did that in past after all, didn’t you?」

When Seira reflexively averted her eyes, the figure of Nefas looking completely delighted about talking to Nino had entered her gaze.

Nino noticed Seira’s gaze, and pushed Nefas aside.

「……Do you need something?」

「No, not really. Ah, more importantly, Nefas!」

「What is it?」

Seeing Nefas grinning so delightedly, Seira pointed a finger at him while drawing away from him.

「The one in charge of the searching was that Oji-san! What “it’s her 【Magic Eyes of Greenery】! You were completely wrong!」

「Nn? That’s true. More importantly, Nino. There’s a store that was made on the main street not too long ago but……」

「Uwah, he’s not listening to me at all.」

Nefas’s almost one-sided conversation that looked like he was running wild with it, would continue until Orel came back later.