Chapter 177 - An Encounter in the Rain

An Encounter in the Rain

I was tired as hell after the fight, but as it was now my turn to watch, I had no choice but to stay awake until morning. Thankfully, no one had ordered a second shipment of monsters, and so I was left to sit there in peace and in boredom. It was better if you moved a little. Staring into the flames in this state was like begging to be put under hypnosis.

When the sun rose, I covered the hypnotizing flames with a pot. Then I filled the pot with water and took out some vegetables from my bag. It looked like cabbage. I tore it up by hand so that they became smaller pieces. When the water came to a boil, I dumped the meat into the pot. I had an assortment of spices that I wasn’t quite sure of, and had to taste the soup as I added them and removed the scum from the surface. I had also bought something that looked like pepper at the market yesterday, and so I cut it up and dumped it in as well. It looked spicey. Once everything looked nice and soft, I added the cabbage at last. When the color of the leaves turned vibrant, it was ready.

“Daniela. Morning.”

“Mmmm…fine…”

Daniela emerged from the pile of blankets. She then crawled out of the tent and dunked her head into a bucket of water that had been prepared. Breakfast would be served once she was finished.

“I tried to make a spicy soup this time.”

“Thank you…mmm…it is so spicy.”

“Yeah, I just told you…”

Well, it was always hotter than you expected. I get it. …Yeah. It really was spicy. But good.

When the food was done, we washed the bowls and put everything away. We would take a short break and then get ready to leave. Take down the tent, extinguish the fire, make sure we didn’t leave anything. It was all so very familiar to me now.

And so our camp ended. And we started off for our next destination.

This had become a regular thing for us quite a while ago now. Fighting monsters, talking with ruffians, and even killing humans. Things had changed inside of me. After all, even monsters were living creatures.

Still, traveling with Daniela was fun. And it was wonderful how we would meet new people.

There were more days now that I looked back at my time in the convenience store and thought of how idle it had all been. But there were pleasant customers, the manager was a bit strange, but pretty. And there were good things that had happened. Though, I was still stabbed.

In the end, I just loved to travel. But…

“This is horrible…”

“What are we going to do…”

We were currently in the middle of a rainstorm.

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We hadn’t been walking for more than ten minutes when the clouds started to darken. By the time I had become genuinely worried, drops of rain began to fall. We looked for a place to wait until it stopped, but the town was still quite far off, and we would be drenched when the rain really picked up. And so we set our eyes on a large tree. No sooner had we arrived, than the landslides began, as if waiting for the perfect timing.

Of course, this roof of leaves was not waterproof, but it was better than nothing. We used some branches and cloth to make a kind of tent…thing. To ward off the rain. Thanks to it, we avoided being drenched through.

However, the cloud was very large, and the rain showed no signs of stopping any time soon.

It was still morning, and yet the sunlight seemed to have vanished, leaving a darkness close to night time. Occasionally, there would be bursts of light between the clouds. But mostly, we saw nothing but the horrible rain.

“What the…”

“We will not be able to move like this. Forcing our way forward will only result in us getting sick.”

True. It wouldn’t be too bad if we could wipe ourselves dry and soak in a hot tub. But that wouldn’t happen. We needed an inn for that. And I wasn’t going to look for an inn in this weather.

There would be no bathing for quite some time. Our bodies would get colder and our strength leave us. We would have no medicine and nowhere to buy any. Well, the Appraisal glasses might help me find some, if there was any to find.

In any case, falling sick now could have grave consequences. And so we decided to stay here and wait.

“Huhhh… If only we could have reached the town…”

“It cannot be helped. These things happen.”

Daniela pressed her shoulder into mine. Yes…there was nothing to do. I guess we could fool around since no one was watching. Yes, we might as well.

Daniela had been whispering sweet words into my ear, but then she stopped. Why…?

“Asagi. Monsters.”

“…”

“Come on, get ready.”

“They have the worst timing…”

“We can continue this later.”

“Oh, well. Time to kill.”

I straightened my back and picked up the devil sword that I had leaned against the tree.

“To be precise…”

“Eh?”

“Someone is being chased by a monster.”

“You should say that first!”

I pulled the hood over my head and ran towards the approaching presence. They were thankfully coming towards us, and right into my detection area. So now I knew where they were.

I may catch a cold by doing this, but that was nothing compared to a person’s life. Even if the cold turned into something worse and dangerous. There was plenty I could do before that happened, and it was easier to help save a life before thinking about any of that.

And so I ran. And so I nearly died. I was running without having a clear view of my surroundings, searching for the presence of the human and the monster. That’s when a covered wagon appeared before me and nearly ran me over. My eyes met those of the driver, but Legs of the Forest Wolf kicked in instinctively and I dove to the side.

Then it rushed passed me. The monster chased after it. From what I could see, it looked like a boar. But there was magic as well. It was definitely a monster. I had never seen them before, but I knew their name. Iron Boars. They lived in the empire and had fangs as hard as iron. And very sharp as well. Sharp as a sword. Dangerous things.

Something must have caused them to become aggressive. Perhaps the wagon had been in a rush to return to the town since it was raining, and they had gone through enemy territory.

“But there’s no point in thinking about that now.”

I frantically used Legs of the Forest Wolf to chase after the wagon. It didn’t take long, and I slashed at the giant body from the side. Blood flew in the air and merged with the rain. The thing lost its balance.

“BBMORGH!!”

“Stop!”

I thrust my sword into the neck of the iron boar as it thrashed. It took all of my strength to pull it out, but when I was done, the iron boar was dead.

“Phew…”

Another life is gone. However, it had to be done to save that wagon. That was how the world worked. I had to follow the rules as a citizen. When in Rome, etcetera.

“Hey!”

“Hm?”

I looked up and saw the wagon. Someone was waving at me. And it wasn’t the driver…

And so I grabbed one of the legs of the iron boar and dragged it towards the wagon. Even though it would have usually been too heavy, Legs of the Forest Wolf allowed me to advance while holding onto it. Of course, my hand would be weak and shake uncontrollably later on.

“You saved us! You have!”

“Well, I couldn’t just ignore you.”

“It would have been quite terrible if this wagon were any slower than it was! Really!”

The merchant-like man took my hand in his iron grasp and shook it wildly up and down.

“I wish that I could do something to repay you, but I don’t have anything that I can give you.”

“Oh, don’t worry about. We just happened to be in the area.”

I pointed at the tree.

“We were waiting for the rain to stop.”

Among other things.

“Ah, I see. Yes, you would get quite wet if you attempted to reach the next town like this!”

I was quite wet already!

“Yes, yes. This is quite the chance encounter. Will you not ride with us then?”

“Oh? Do you mean it?”

This was fantastic. We would lose no more time!

“What do you say?”

“Thank you! Uh, I am Asagi. An Adventurer.”

“I’m Tanjelin. A humble merchant.”

And so through this merchant, we had obtained a means of advancing through the rain.

Helping people really paid off.