Piyo’s curiosity caused a little mishap.
Thanks to an early morning slime attack, everyone lost a piece of clothing. Piyo, the source of the problem, was punched by Nina.
“Waaah, I didn’t know!”
“Honestly, thanks to you, we’ve had a terrible time.”
With Piyo, tears welling up as she rubbed the bump on her head, we proceeded into the forest. However, the path gradually narrowed and turned into a rough road with many rocks and tree roots.
This situation was not good, as Philiana was pulling the cart. Moreover, the village was nowhere in sight, and even as night fell, there was no sign of reaching it.
“Could it be that we’re lost?”
“Hmm, that’s a possibility. I’ve been checking the compass constantly, but it can’t be helped in a forest where I don’t know the land. Let’s rest here for today.”
As Sharin said, moving recklessly would only lead to getting more lost. Tomorrow, let’s have Piyo look from the sky.
We searched for a place to settle down and lit a fire. Piyo and Pauline were eating cookies that Stanley had given them. Just as we were about to grill sausages for dinner, Sharin, who was next to me, perked up her ears and suddenly stood up. Seeing the unusual situation, we all went on high alert.
“What’s wrong?”
“There’s someone over there.”
I looked in the direction Sharin was pointing, but the bonfire’s light only reached our feet, and beyond that, darkness stretched out.
After staring for a while, two men emerged from the darkness. Black feathers and long tails; they resembled the guys who attacked us when we chased after the stolen wine before.
Seeing them clearly now, unlike Piyo, who has only one thumb on her wing, they had four fingers and their feet were shaped differently. Piyo’s toes have deformed like hands to grip trees, but theirs are flat, like ours. They seemed like a similar race but were completely different. Seeing our forms, the men started to grin.
“Hehehe, c’mon, don’t make such scary faces. We’re not weirdos or anything. Just local thugs.”
“What, you call yourselves that?”
Saying that, they laughed again.
“Hey you guys, are you adventurers? You sure have a lot of girls with you. Are you… involved in that kind of thing?”
“C’mon, why don’t you come play? Our village is just right over there.”
“Who are you?”
At my question, the two frowned.
“Hah? I told you, we live around here. What about you, who are you?”
As he said that, one of the men approached Nina and tried to put his arm around her waist.
“Don’t come near me!”
Nina drew her sword and took a step back.
“Put that dangerous thing away. I was just trying to get a little closer.”
“But I kind of like strong-willed girls. I might like to train you.”
The two were getting carried away with their own unsettling conversation. I couldn’t move rashly without knowing how serious they were or what race they were. I gently picked up the dagger I had put down.
