CH 45

The next day, the members of the search team that Tauro would be working with were chosen and met in the guild’s lobby.

The leader of the team was Kuzoth, a D-ranked adventurer with thievery skills and a veteran who had the ability to search a wider area than Tauro’s “sense presence”.

He is a little short and has a sharp look in his eyes, but his atmosphere isn’t bad.

He is a local adventurer and Tauro believed he usually worked solo.

The other was Cheek, an E-rank adventurer, famous among adventurers for his eccentricities. According to him, he was a skilled merchant and a good negotiator.

Together with Tauro, there were three of them.

“Satou, you can sense the presence of others, right?”

Kuzoth, the leader, confirmed.

“Yes.”

He didn’t remember telling many people about it, so maybe he had an appraisal skill and had appraised him before or maybe he had heard about it from someone else, either way, Tauro wasn’t going to deny it.

“Basically, we’re going to go around the villages in the area where there have been sightings of bandits to gather information and find out where they’re based. I think that’s where Cheek’s negotiation skills and Satou’s sense presence will come in handy. Once we’ve narrowed down the location to a certain degree, we’ll use my reconnaissance skills to kill the lice.”

“Understood, leave the negotiating to me.”

Cheek replied with a mild reaction.

“Yes, sir. I understand.”

Tauro nodded.

“Then we’ll get ready and leave tomorrow morning.”

Tauro was afraid that they might not like the idea of having a ten-year old as a member, but neither of them did.

Maybe the guild had taken care of that when organizing them.

It was Tauro’s first time working with a team and he was looking forward to it.

Three days after their departure, the three of them were steadily making their way around the villages they had entered along the highway.

After asking around, they found out that the village hadn’t been targeted at all and that they had heard rumors but had never seen anyone.

Kuzoth asked

“How’d it go, Tauro?”

Tauro replied, “I don’t feel like they’re lying, everyone is very cooperative.”

Tauro replied.

“Well, I didn’t get any bad feelings while talking to the village chiefs either. More than that, isn’t this rain a bit heavy?”.

Cheek had a good point.

It had been pouring since this morning and it didn’t seem to be stopping anytime soon.

They all put on the raincoats that they had prepared. But they felt heavy.

“Let’s finish today at the next village…”

The two of them nodded silently.

The village was located at the distant end, away from other villages.

As the three of them approached the entrance to the village in the rain, the gatekeeper who was standing guard refused to let them in.

“Who are you, in this heavy rain?”

“I’m sorry, we’ve been chasing a monster around here. Can we take shelter here since the rain is so heavy?”

Cheek sensed the rejection and told him a lie before Kuzoth spoke.

“This village is very wary of strangers. I can’t do that.”

“Of course, I’m not saying it would be free, I’ll pay you well if you can shelter us from the rain under the eaves.”

He pulled out a leather bag containing the money and showed it to him.

“Don’t go inside the village, you can go under the eaves of the watchtower.”

The gatekeeper pointed to a barracks by the entrance to the village.

“Thank you for that.”

Cheek hurried them to the watchtower before the gatekeeper changed his mind.

A man came out of the house closest to the watchtower.

It seemed that he had seen several silhouettes at the entrance to the village in the pouring rain.

“Hey, Byrne! Who are they?”

Tauro thought the voice sounded familiar.

“It’s raining, so we’re renting out the eaves!”

“You can’t do that!”

“Shut up Soak, you cheeky drunk!”

Tauro heard the voice and wondered if it was him, but when the name “Soak” came out of the gatekeeper’s mouth, he was sure it was him.