Volume 15 - CH 10

A young child has gone missing from a village in the Lodar wetlands.

The village has been plagued by a swarm of lizards since last year, and I wonder if something couldn't have been done sooner, but I'll ask about that later.

「Ione, Mare, Lily, Nene, and the Mad King, you and a group of Arks will be guarding this village. I'll leave the leadership to Ione.」

Arcs is a former slave of Esclados and a level 35 swordsman. He's a small, fat man who doesn't look like much, but his abilities are such that he was the vanguard of an A-ranked party, and I've made him the leader of the first team as the successor to Matheus, who retired. The first team is already overstaffed, so I'm only going to include strong but beautiful women.

Arcs was also happy to be assigned as the leader of the group.

「「 I understand 」」 「Hmm」「Gahhh!」

One party of the second team mixed with members of the first team, and the number of people will be fine. It's not that big of a village, and the adult villagers have survived for a year, so they should be able to defend themselves.

「The rest of us will search in teams.」

Since we had a similar strategy in Mox Village, we didn't need to give any specific instructions, and the second party scattered around their respective leaders.

「We're screwed.」

「There's no point in looking for them.」

Some of the villagers had given up from the start.

I was tempted to yell at them, but I had been attacked by a lizard just two days ago, so I guess I can't blame them for feeling that way.

But we're different.

This is where the adventurers come in.

「Master, this way.」

It seems that Meena, who is the strongest in this kind of search, has already found the scent trail, so we might be able to find it sooner than we thought.

「It's not efficient for all of us to go around together, so we'll look in another direction.」

Saki said and went in the other direction. Saki said that and went in the other direction, and the members of the team saw that and started to scatter and search.

「Let's hurry up.」

Serina immediately follows after Meena, but I keep an eye on my surroundings and follow her, wary of the monster's surprise attack.

I'm sure Meena will notice if the monster gets close, but she might be slow to react if she's focused on the human scent.

When we come to a muddy puddle, Meena occasionally bends down to check the scent.

As expected, the human scent seemed to fade in the puddle.

「Meena, this place is difficult, isn't it?」

Serina said, but Meena shook her head.

「No, it's okay, I can handle it. I'll figure it out!」

「Yes, good luck!」

She smiled at the more serious look on Meena's face than usual and followed her, looking around.

Meena was a little lost, going back and forth, but she was making steady progress.

And then, her movements came to a halt.

But there was no sign of the young child.

「This is ......」

「What's wrong?」

「The scent has disappeared here. But ......」

Meena's brow wrinkled and her expression changed to one of shock.

「But there is the smell of lizards here?」

「...... Yes.」

Meena nodded helplessly.

If so, it was apparently the worst thing imaginable.

It is better that there is no devoured corpse there. ...... No?

「Meena, do you smell blood?」

「Oh! No, sir.」

「Then it must have been swallowed whole. The child could still be alive. Let's hurry up and go after this lizard.」

「Yes!」

There were also lizard tracks, so I ran after them.

「There they are! That one!」

We found the silvery back of the lizard and ran as fast as we could. But with the terrain like this, we couldn't run very fast because we'd be trapped.

「Damn, I had [Levitate]!」

I used [Levitate] to get closer to the lizard.

At first, I thought it was the back of a two-meter-long lizard.

But as I got closer, I realized that it was a lizard man wearing steel armor. He walks on two legs and has green scales all over his body. ...... This is a lizardman. But this guy is ......

「【Starlight Attack!】」

While I was observing, Serina attacked the lizardman from behind with no questions asked and launch a preemptive strike.

「Nuh-uh! What the hell!」

The lizardmen in this world seem to be able to talk normally. No, the local language is somehow understood by me and Serina as well, so it may sound like a "guffaw!?" to the locals of this world

However, for some reason, only the language of the Mad King cannot be translated. That's probably because of the curse of the armor.

The lizardman seemed to have sensed that we were approaching, and quickly turned around and shot back with the spear he was holding just in time.

Did this guy prevent a blow from Serina?

「That's pretty good. But!」

「Wait, Serina!」

I stopped her.

「Why are you stopping me?」

「Look closely. Do you think you can put a child in that man's stomach?」

I said calmly.

The lizardman was large, yes, but the size of its mouth didn't look like it could swallow a child whole.

And if armed lizardmen were the enemy, it's hard to imagine how villagers without armor could have survived until now.

「Ah, ......」

「It seems that you are not the enemy. I thought you were adventurers hunting me, and I got cold feet.」

「Sorry about that.」

「And it's convenient that you can speak the language. Perhaps you're looking for a young girl of this age? Human.」

The lizardman patted a little above the knee to indicate his height.

「Yes, we are」

「Then she has been under our protection in our village. I'll show you. This way.」

「Uh, lizard... san?」

「I am Tooge. Please don't lump a proud lizardman warrior in with lowly lizards.」

「I beg your pardon, Tooge-san. I didn't mean to bother you. ...... No, it's fine.」

Serina was probably going to ask him if he had ever attacked a human village, but there was no way that the people who would protect young girl would do that.

Especially since he quietly called himself a proud lizardman.

A short walk from there, we arrived at a lizardman settlement, which was a primitive house made of wooden planks and hay.

They were wearing quite elaborate armor, which they must have bought from a dwarf or someone else, or another race.

A lizardman kid who was playing chanbara with a wooden stick came up to us and looked curious when he saw us.

「Ohhh, who's that?」

「It's a human race.」

「You guys go over there. We have an important guest.」

「「 Ehh? 」」

「Fufu. I'm sorry, okay」

「「 Whoa, She's talking! 」」

As they were surprised by Serina's words, it seems that we're not originally able to communicate. I guess that's the privilege of being a hero of another world.

「Here it is. Come on in.」

When I entered the shack, I found another other lizardman gently caressing a sleeping human girl on her lap.

「Honey, these people are ......」

「Yeah, they say they know this girl.」

「I'm glad. I'm not sure I can raise this girl with dried meat alone.」

「I'm sure she'll need some fruit, but don't worry about that. Now, human, bring her home.」

「I will. Come on, wake up.」

「Hmm? Aaauh!」

The little girl woke up and hugged Serina with a smile.

「Fufu, I guess she prefer the human race after all.」

The lizardman's wife? says. I can't tell her apart from the male lizardman, but I don't care.

The little girl is really a little girl, and a three year old is not in my strike zone. Too bad.

「Serina, please take the child home first.」

「Okay.」

「Well then, I'd like to thank you and ask you what happened when you found her.」

I'll turn around and tell the warrior lizardman.

「Yes, of course. I was out hunting, walking through the swamp, when I saw this girl all alone. There were lizards nearby, and I couldn't leave her alone, so I brought her back to the village.」

「There was no one else nearby, was there? Not even a black magician?」

I only asked to make sure, but the lizardman warrior reacted dramatically.

「A black magician!? You can't be one of them, can you!」

「Wait! Dear!」

He put the tip of his spear to my neck, but I kept my hands up to calm him down.

「Calm down. I'm not with her. I'm the one chasing her.」

「Okay. Well, that's good, but ...... she used some fishy magic in this swamp a year ago to summon the Great Black Bird. It took half the warriors in the village to kill it. Half of them. Eight of them were fathers with young children.」

The lizardman says, his eyes grim and his fists clenched in abhorrence.

「I see. My condolences.」

「Hmm. It seems that the young girl's village was also severely damaged.」

「Oh, yeah. Apparently so. I'm an outsider adventurer, so I don't know much about it, but I heard it was shredded to pieces」

「I have one question. Why did the human race summon such a demon?」

「You'll have to ask her yourself to find out. Just to confirm, it's not a white bird, is it?」

「It's black! I can't mistake it for something else!」

「All right, all right. I'm only asking because I saw her call out a white bird.」

「A white bird. Murgh, She've been summoning them elsewhere,......, and that's dangerous. I've heard that with normal magic, when the magician is gone, the demon that was summoned also disappears. But that big bird didn't disappear for three months.」

「I see. I've already put a bounty on her head for information, but I'm officially putting her on the bounty list as a Magician who caused damage to the village. I'll take care of it when I find her.」

I looked Tooge in the eye and promised him that.

「Please do so. Four warriors left this village saying that we should go after the Magicians, but they haven't come back. If you see them, please tell them to come back. The chief said he would not hold them responsible for anything」

「I give you my word.」

「Please.」

「This is for the visit and for protecting the young girl. Take it.」

I hold out a gold coin.

But the lizardman warrior shook his head.

「I asked you to give them a message too. I can't accept that money.」

「Please accept this」

「No, I can't」

He's quite stubborn. Well, if it's a human being who caused the problem, he might not be inclined to accept it.

「I understand. Tooge, I have a favor to ask you.」

「What is it?」

「I need you to take a look around and protect the village where the child is from time to time. I'll tell the chief not to mess with you.」

「All right. Then I'll follow you to the village and find out where it is.」

「Now, here's your reward.」

A gold coin for his wife? I'll throw it to the lizardman. She caught it well.

「Do you take money from another man?」

The lizardman warrior says grumpily.

「Oh, come on, that's enough. He seems to be a pretty nice guy.」

「You cheating bastard!」

「Fufufu...」

The lizardman woman is looking at me with curious eyes.

I don't think it's possible, but don't think [Charm Lv3] is working on this lizardman woman, right?

Unlike the dog-eared tribe, the other party was not human. It was a lizardman with scales all over its body. And I can't tell the difference between a man and a woman.

I left the hut as quickly as I could to escape her gaze.