Chapter 45 – To the holy city – Part two

“Hey hey. Who told you you could do this here?”

“That’s right. You’re bothering us, camping there.”

“Yes yes. We were gonna use that place. Stop being in the way and get out.”

I hear these complaints coming from people with ugly grins on their faces.

All of a sudden, adventurers are forming a semi circle near us.

“Aren’t you guards? Are you going to guard them from this far away?”

“What’s it to you? If you really want to use this place, just give us what you have to.”

I try to reason with them, and get an irrational response in return.

I look around, and don’t see anyone in any rush to stop them. Maybe they don’t want to cause trouble for themselves by getting involved. Maybe they don’t want us camping close to their group. Do they see us as parasites?

“Ah, but we’re no devils or anything. You can have this place if you pay up.”

Did they think I didn’t understand it the first time, and decide to specifically mention money?

They’re starting to say all kinds of nonsense. This isn’t good, if this keeps going like this, Hikari is going to explode on them.

Not because of the way they’re talking, but because they’re holding up dinner. I can see Hikari’s mood is getting increasingly worse because she feels like they’re in the way of her meal. Although to them she probably just looks emotionless.

“We don’t insist on staying here, so we’ll just move.”

I pat Hikari’s head, gather my things, and start walking.

Some laugh mockingly, some click their tongues, and I can feel malicious eyes on us as we walk away.

“Master, we could’ve just knocked those people down.”

“Don’t use such violent language.”

“But master, you talk like this all the time.”

“I, well… You’re a girl, so you need to be careful about that.”

“Because I’m a girl?”

“It’s not very nice I guess.”

“Hm… You’re difficult to understand.”

“Am I? I guess I am.”

Once we’re far enough away, I make camp again.

Dinner has more emphasis on meat. We’ll eat meat between two pieces of bread, and in the soup.

Hikari’s eyes shine as she watches me cook.

When dinner is ready, she joyfully starts filling her cheeks. I have to remind her to chew carefully.

“Master, it’s good.”

That makes cooking worth it. And I’m relieved that her mood has improved.

Starting tomorrow, we’ll be moving at a slower pace. Or rather, we’ll walk less.

We’re overtaken by the caravans during lunch, and let them go ahead and leave some distance between us.

We’re not in any hurry, so it’s better to avoid the stress of them starting anything else with us.

We use this free time to train.

Hikari and I have a few mock battles. Since she lost the boost of the slave mask, and I leveled up, I can now keep up with her speed.

“Master, you’ve gotten strong. No fair.”

She says while adorably puffing her cheeks.

After calming her, I start thinking about levels. The level of my (Walking) skill increases just by walking around normally, and my stats improve accordingly, but how do people of this world grow and improve?

Do they earn experience when they take down monsters, like in a video game? Do they have proficiency that grows when they do mock battles and train? It’s a mystery to me.

I can see more now that People Appraisal is at level four, but I still don’t know.

Name – (Hikari ) / Job – Special slave (Former spy) / Race – Human / Level – 27

From what I saw of the levels of the adventurers escorting those caravans, only a few were above level twenty, less than ten percent of them. As for the merchants, none went over level ten. Are they the majority or the minority? Should I go to an adventurer guild and check? But I have to take into account the blessing of skills, which means levels aren’t everything.

　◇ ◇ ◇

Two days pass, and it’s night. I check Map before I go to sleep as I always do, and see multiple monsters. There must be about thirty of them. It’s a pack of wolves, but I don’t detect a superior species among them.

“Master, I feel a bad presence.”

Hikari says after suddenly waking up.

They should be pretty far away. Her enemy detection is pretty good too.

“It looks like they’re heading towards the merchant caravans that went ahead of us.”

“I see.”

And with that, she goes back to sleep.

But they might end up coming this way.

I can see on the map that they keep attacking and retreating.

Both sides fight while neither side takes any casualties, but after about an hour, the adventurers start pushing the wolves back, and eventually the remaining wolves start running away in all directions.

The adventurers don’t go anywhere, and there’s no sign that anyone is going after the wolves. Are they prioritizing defense?

I think they’re putting themselves in danger of being attacked again if they don’t finish off the monsters.

I try not to wake up Hikari as I get up, and unsheathe my sword.

The moon is bright today, so I’m not completely in the dark, although that doesn’t mean I have good visibility.

There are two coming this way, and I get the feeling that they’re so focused on running away that they’re not paying attention to what’s in front of them.

But that’s great for me. I use Light Magic right in front of their noses, and the bright light burns their eyes and scares them. I take advantage of this to cut them down with one slash.