At the Hero’s summons… or rather, at the request of the Holy Church, we were to cross national borders and head towards the Holy Capital Farn, located in the Fandora Theocracy to the north.
What a pain, really… Well, distance-wise, it’s only about as far as going from Melrose to Dandole, but crossing two borders and going to a land with different customs seems like it’ll be more stressful than I thought.
“Alright then, I’m counting on you, Feld.”
“Understood.”
A week after departing from the Royal Capital… we still haven’t left the Kingdom of Claydale.
Neither Aria nor I have reached level 6 in Dark Magic yet, so I’m really feeling how grateful I was for the times when we could use spatial transfer freely.
As I was thinking that, Aria, who had returned from the coachman’s seat, looked at me with a fixed gaze.
“Don’t seek a convenience that comes at the cost of your life.”
“…And could you also stop reading my mind so casually?”
My chaperone is truly excellent, isn’t she?
Dolton mentioned that Aria and Feld were acting as coachmen because things were different from our previous journey.
Apparently, the butler at Dolton’s mansion usually handles the coachman duties and lodging arrangements, but this time, since we don’t know what might happen, he’s staying behind.
So we’re taking turns as coachmen, but aside from our leader Dolton, it’s only natural that I was also excluded. I can’t even ride a horse.
By “previous journey,” it seems he meant when they delved into the large-scale dungeon on the remote island. What’s different from that time is that a scout named Viro-san became a knight of the Shadow Unit and retired from the “Rainbow Sword,” and as his replacements, Jesha the warrior and I, the Magician, joined.
The “Rainbow Sword’s” high-speed carriage, owned by Dolton, is quite spacious inside, even compared to a noble’s carriage, but having the muscle-bound Feld and Jesha in here at the same time feels oppressive. I wonder if the room temperature has risen a bit too?
Still, we can travel much faster than a normal carriage.
Being a magical tool, it can even self-propel to some extent using Magic Stones, and with its sturdiness and enormous spatial storage, it might have cost more than a royal carriage.
We’re heading to a place where we don’t know what might happen, and even if we leave the coachman butler behind, using such an expensive carriage… if things go wrong, it might end up wrecked, you know?
Miranda answered my simple question.
“In that case, he said he’d build a new one with the reward from the Elemental Dragon. Right, Dolton?”
“Well, yeah. If you have money, it’s better to use it than hoard it. Besides, our numbers have increased, so I want to have some leeway.”
Dolton added to Mira’s words.
An Elemental Dragon, huh… I’m not particularly interested, but it seems like it was quite an ordeal. Including the discovery of Elena, they apparently received enough reward money to live comfortably without working.
“If you’re going to rebuild it, could you add a washbasin?”
“…Are you planning to turn it into a house?”
That would be fine too. While we’re at it, a toilet would be nice, but is that too much of a luxury?
“Snow.”
“What is it, Aria?”
“Can’t you manage something with an application of Shadow Storage?”
“You’re asking for the impossible, you know.”
Are you telling me to research that? Magic is certainly my specialty, but I never thought I’d be asked for something so outrageous.
And also, please stop reading my mind so casually.
About two weeks after that, we arrived at the border with the neighboring Gordol Duchy.
About twenty days from the Royal Capital, I suppose? Normally it should take over a month, so it’s still fast, but I’m already getting tired of this.
Right before the border, the carriage is moving at a snail’s pace. According to what I heard at the last post town, it takes a long time for adventurers to cross the border.
From an ordinary person’s perspective, adventurers, who are Freemen without citizenship, are no different from ruffians. People who easily leave their country to earn money elsewhere aren’t even considered citizens.
In other words, because they’re suspicious, the screening process to cross the border takes time.
“Here’s our passage permit.”
“The Holy Church!?”
However, when we showed that it was a request from the Holy Church, the soldier, who had looked displeased, hurriedly cleared the way and let us pass.
The Holy Church. The largest religious sect on this continent, which came from another continent over a thousand years ago with the Mercenians.
The authority its name carries is immense, but the thought of going to its headquarters now makes me sigh.
“Hey, what kind of country is this ‘Gordol Duchy’?”
Perhaps bored like me, Jesha asked that, and Feld, who was next to him and apparently also bored, spoke as if recalling his knowledge as a former noble.
“Let’s see… It’s a nation with a small territory but many craftsmen.”
To summarize his story, it’s next to the Fandora Theocracy, so my impression is that it’s a nation that has remained without being absorbed by a major power.
It’s a small country with less than a tenth of the land and population of the great Kingdom of Claydale, but even during the era when Claydale annexed Melrose and Dandole, it wasn’t targeted by Claydale or the nearby Serlace Kingdom because it supplied specialty goods to the Theocracy.
Livestock farming and agriculture. Carpets made from high-quality wool and fragrant fruit wine made from high-quality grapes are treated as top-grade items used in Holy Church rituals.
In other words, this country has survived precisely because the Holy Church expressed disapproval at the prospect of it going to war with other nations and losing its craftsmen.
The Holy Church possesses enough “power” to keep the movements of nations in check. This means it has a vast number of believers, but when the total population grows larger, both the good and the bad also grow larger.
It’s a crude analogy, but if there are only a hundred people, the scope of both good and evil is only a hundred. But if there are a thousand, that scope also becomes a thousand.
No matter how many pure individuals there are among the Holy Church’s believers and priests, it harbors an amount of darkness equal to that purity.
…I wonder which side Hero-sama is on? I’m looking forward to finding out.
We have no particular business in the Gordol Duchy, so we’ll mostly just pass through. The only thing to do, I suppose, is to enjoy the famous fruit wine and stalls selling grilled lamb ribs.
If you head north for about three weeks, you reach its capital. From there, heading west leads to the Serlace Kingdom, and heading northeast leads to the Fandora Theocracy, so this country is also a trading point for three nations, including Claydale.
Therefore, no matter how pastoral a country it is, if the flow of people increases, scoundrels who prey on its simplicity will appear.
“Dolton, bandits.”
On our way from the capital to the Theocracy, Miranda, who was driving the carriage, stopped it and called out from the small window.
“Let the young ones take care of it.”
Hearing that, Dolton said so without even shifting from his seat, and I stopped Jesha and Aria, who were about to move.
“I’ll go. I’m bored.”
As I smiled sweetly, Aria sat back down with a sigh, but Jesha showed his dissatisfaction on his face.
“I’m bored too, you know?”
“Oh, want to come along? But I apologize in advance if I accidentally kill them all.”
When I said that without a hint of remorse, Jesha made a face as if he’d bitten into a bitter bug and glared at Aria.
“Aria…”
“Give it up.”
I’m glad you understand~♪
“Snow, you’re going out?”
When I stepped out of the carriage alone, Miranda, who was warily scanning the surroundings with her bow drawn, looked slightly taken aback.
“Try not to burn down the forest, okay?”
“Lightning rarely causes fires, so it’ll be fine.”
…Probably.
Concentrating a little to search for enemies, I certainly felt a presence that seemed to be them.
Mira judged them to be “bandits.” But…
“There’s something ‘strange’ out there.”
“Eh…”
At my murmur, Mira furrowed her brow and searched for the “presence” further away, and her expression changed slightly, as if she too had detected the strange existence.
“They’re decreasing…”
That’s right… The presence that seemed like “bandits,” which I first detected, suddenly started to diminish.
Faint screams could be heard from a distance.
“Heh…”
This might actually cure my boredom.
Is the entity that appeared friend or foe?
What Snow saw there was…