CH 25

I put a red ribbon on Noir’s neck in order to tell it apart from the other monsters. Georg-san’s femininity shone as he brought a set of sewing tools to use in the campsite.

And thus, Noir’s cuteness just levelled up.

Speaking of which, the ribbon was intended to be used by me to tie my hair later on when they grow longer.

Georg-san, my hair won’t grow longer that fast…

On that night, I shared the same tent with Amanda-san and the other female knights.

My heart was throbbing in nervousness when I thought upon the possibility that I might share the same room with Serena-san, but I was relieved when I heard I was going to be with Amanda-san.

I understood that it couldn’t be helped to think like that about Serena-san, but as expected, I guess I was weak against the way she talked.

On the other hand, Amanda-san and the other female knights had refreshing personalities, so I was much more at ease with them.

Also, we ate meals together, but where did the female knights’ normal chivalrousness go to? They gave Noir some meat and became charmed the moment it began to eat.

Perhaps Noir also thought that the people who gave it some meat were good people, as it let them spoil itself to their hearts’ content.

As expected of a kitty. It was good at inducing others to naturally spoil it.

I first thought that Noir would be drinking milk since it was a kitten, but it devoured the meat properly. There was no milk here, so I was glad.

By the way, the ingredients to the meal we had were the monsters’ meat.

It seemed that there were monsters whose flesh couldn’t be eaten without curing them first, but as for the Horn Rabbits who had a small horn growing from its forehead and monsters similar to wild boars, Fangs, who could be found in the Demon Forest, we could eat their flesh as they were.

Apparently, the meat of the meals I had in the fort were also made from the monsters’ flesh.

I was a bit surprised.

But it was impossible to keep cows in the fort, and it would be difficult to transport them from the nearby villages too. The closest one was the Demon Forest, so it would be fastest to supply the food from there.

When night fell, obviously, I slept while hugging Noir firmly.

When I woke up the next morning, for some reason, Noir was in Amanda-san’s arms…What a mystery…

Then, from the next day, we conducted the experiment of applying Cure on the monsters to see whether they would become docile afterwards.

Based on yesterday’s exploration findings, the number of monsters seemed to be increased in overall, and they also formed herds. It seemed that the knights defeated herds of goblins, werewolves, and dark panthers yesterday alone.

There wasn’t only one herd, there were multiple herds. And as expected from the king not yet appearing, their movements weren’t coordinated well.

If the appearance of the Monster King was inevitable, it would be better if we could tell the species sooner…

Argo-san was in charge of watching the camp and arrange the information this time too, while Leon-san would be moving with the same group today. At the same time Leon-san left the campsite, I felt like Serena-san’s sharp gaze was facing towards me in an instant…It would be nice if it was just my imagination, though.

A short time after they left the campsite, several goblins attacked. Of course, Leon-san defeated them with his sword. When there was only one remaining, the knights restrained its limbs.

“Yuuri, Cure.”

“Yes. Cure, target is goblin!”

A silver light similar to Heal went towards the goblin. But there was no change in the goblin’s condition.

“Release.”

As Leon-san and the others removed their restraints on the goblin, the goblin growled “Gugugugugu,” and bared its teeth as it moved towards me.

This, no matter how you looked at it, it was definitely coming to kill me.

I felt like I was about to falter from the approaching goblin, but somehow I managed to hold on.

Then, before the goblin could reach me, it was slashed by one of the knights.

I…I was quite accustomed to looking at the monsters being defeated already.

Though my heart was still thumping.

“There’s no change to the goblin…”

Leon-san glanced towards Noir who was right behind me.

Perhaps he also wanted to see whether Noir would awaken its real nature as a monster from the battle earlier.

I was slightly worried at first, but I was relieved then by looking at Noir’s usual lovely condition.

“So, the cause wasn’t Cure…? Or does it only affect the beast-type monsters…?”

Noir cried, “Nyaan,” as if to answer Leon-san’s words.

For some reason, it seemed like it understood our words, although that couldn’t be the case.

I unintentionally laughed at Leon-san and Noir’s exchange that seemed like a conversation.

“Let’s try it out a bit more.”

“Yes.”

As we left the goblins’ dead bodies as they were, I asked if we should dispose the body so that they won’t turn into Undead. Then, I was told that there were magical insects similar to earthworms that were called as [The Sweeper] in the Demon Forest. Apparently, they would eat the dead bodies completely.

The feces that the magical insects produced would become fertilizer to the forest, which was why there were lots of trees growing in the Demon Forest. I see~.

As we went further inside, we found a herd of rat monsters, War Rats, whose size was a little bit smaller than Noir. They still hadn’t noticed our presence, so I tried to hurl Cure from a distance.

“Cure, target is the War Rat before me!”

At the same time as I chanted, the herd of the War Rats noticed our presence. Then, the War Rat that I hit with my Cure had its red eyes turned towards us along with its friends simultaneously. War Rats’ black eyes turning red indicated that they were about to fight, which meant…

Ah~. It failed, it seemed like there was no effect at all.

Leon-san and the knights fought the War Rats that were headed towards us. I also chanted Wind Arrows to the War Rats.

Then, at that time.

Suddenly, a black shadow slipped by my feet.

“Noir?!”

Noir bared its fangs to a War Rat’s throat, then it successively defeated the War Rats. That figure of its was indeed a monster’s, despite it being small…

Eh…? But cats hunted rats and ate them, right?

Which meant, it feigned ignorance when it faced the goblins, but since we were facing rats this time, it ran after them?

Noir was a cat monster, so could it be that it liked hunting rat monsters?

In other words, it fed on the War Rats? They were its food?!

Rather than getting surprised due to seeing Noir’s monster instinct, I was thinking about how cats were supposed to hunt down the rats after all. And in no time, the herd of the War Rats was exterminated.

Eh. Since when?!

Noir was…Ah, it was licking its fur…

For a while, Noir seemed to show its satisfaction upon making its body clean. Then, it approached my feet as if it was asking for some praises.

“Nyaa~. Grogrogro. Nyaa.”

T…this, I should praise it well.

“You did well, Noir. Good child, good child.”

As I raised it up and stroked its fur, suddenly, it raised a cry, “Nyaa!”

Really, it seemed as if it could understand my words.

After that, even if Noir was only as big as a kitten, it contributed greatly by defeating monsters bigger than itself.

Ehh? …Could it be that Noir was more contributive than myself?!

In the end, I tried to apply Cure whenever we encountered monsters, but none of them turned tame just like Noir.

Could it be that something else other than Cure was needed?

When we returned to the fort in the noon, we also heard Frank-san’s story, and as expected, it seemed that there was no effect at all.

But I was told that perhaps it might succeed if we kept challenging in various situations, so we would keep hurling Cure from now on.

“There might be some certain compatibilities with the monsters.”

I recalled how there were circumstances in which humans became friends with monsters in a certain national-setting RPG1 that I played.

It was quite hard to become friends with a certain silver-colored stray, though.2

“If it isn’t compatible, it won’t turn tame, then?”

“Might be.”

“Which means, we should try hitting several of them…?”

I wonder about that? But that might be possible.

“Well, this has never happened before, so it couldn’t be helped that we couldn’t understand everything so quickly. We have to be patient, huh? Fortunately, we do not lack the number of monsters to try it on. Wahhahha.”

Frank-san heartily laughed as he treated the knights who returned. I was also helping him out, and I was relieved upon seeing none of the knights suffering any serious injury.

The priest in the Izel fort was just Frank-san, and I wondered if we would just use HP Potion in case of trivial injuries, but from the talk I heard, this world’s potions didn’t have a good efficacy. It seemed that they would just randomly recover a small amount of HP.

In comparison, it was also a bit pricey, so not a lot of people used them.

Of course, there were HP Potions with high efficiency, but it was more pricey. Therefore, the general treatment for light injuries in this world would be to pulverize the medicinal plants and smear them on the affected parts, before covering the injuries with bandage.

MP Potion also had the same effect, but since the magical herbs that became its ingredients only grew in the Demon Empire, its price was even more expensive.

I see~. If that’s the case, we wouldn’t be able to just drink the Potions that easily.

In addition, our MP would immediately diminish if we gradually used Heal to treat trivial injuries.

The potions that I brought, be it HP or MP, each of them would heal 30 points, while High Potions would heal 50 points each. As expected of the specification from the game. If I were to make the potions in this world from hereon, I wonder if they would have the same specifications? Or would the recovery rate be at random?

Next time, I should try it when there’s time.