Night.
After fleeing for so long, our group had temporarily taken shelter at the foot of a mountain to rest.
"I really want to take a bath..."
" too, ow..."
"Please bear with it a little longer. When we're safe, I'll help everyone with water magic."
Sigrdrífa and Carol Cat sat resting on stones to recover. With the adventurers' assistance, our escape hadn't encountered large-scale obstacles, but it had still been full of twists and turns.
Elves were a race that loved cleanliness. Sigrdrífa was covered in sweat but couldn't get clean, and her obsidian-like pupils were beginning to lose their luster.
We still hadn't escaped danger. Although many adventurers had sided with us, the total number of adventurers was simply too great. Using guerilla tactics, they kept harassing us continuously, leaving us no ti to rest.
We also lacked ti to prepare dinner. While I could eat raw food while traveling, eating alone wasn't sothing a maid should do. Taking advantage of this hard-won rest, I prepared a al using the provisions in my storage space.
"Lily, here."
"..."
Lily looked at the listless Sigrdrífa, her lips moving slightly as if she wanted to say sothing.
Her mood wasn't much higher than Sigrdrífa's. During the escape, Sigrdrífa had been carrying Lily the whole ti while also using the elven blessing of nature's protection, which had consud quite a bit of her energy.
"Anna-neesan, I…”
"We didn't work so hard until now just to see Lily looking sad, you know?"
I said softly, answering before Lily could bla herself.
Though young, Lily wasn't the type of brat who took full advantage of being a child. When she had unknowingly received Duke Borgia's help, Lily had sworn to repay him.
She must feel very guilty because she couldn't help. It was completely unrealistic to expect a child to be useful in this situation, but Lily probably felt this was all her responsibility and felt ashad because of it.
Lily's eyes widened in surprise, but after a mont she still accepted my sandwich and began eating it in small bites.
Despite our difficult circumstances, Lily finally mustered all her strength to cheer up.
I gently patted Lily's little head, though I was actually worried too.
Where would we go now?
The sound of hoofbeats ca from the distance. Baron Trafalgar rode hard, using the coordinates Carol Cat had provided to et up with us.
"Is everyone safe?"
"Thanks to your kind words, Baron Trafalgar."
"Sorry, we can't go to Baron Hurst's territory... Sigh, I'm partly responsible for this ss too."
Trafalgar sighed in frustration. I knew it wasn't Baron Trafalgar's fault—who could have predicted that Uncle François would ambush us there?
"ow... this might kill the mood to say this now... but I don't have much ti left, ow..."
Carol Cat awkwardly raised her hand like a student who had made a mistake facing a teacher.
"I've been playing the ga too long today..."
Carol Cat had probably been scolded by her family. I felt deeply apologetic about this. Carol Cat had spent almost the entire day in the ga world, but adventurers' ti was ultimately limited.
"You're logging off?"
"ow... I can play a little longer... but if I stay any later, I'll really get scolded, ow..."
Even Trafalgar didn't banter with Carol Cat this ti. He was similarly holding his head, thinking of what to do.
Carol Cat smiled optimistically: "It's okay, ow~ If I run out of ti, Anna can just leave behind, ow~"
"Carol Cat… I won't abandon you."
"It's fine! I'm an adventurer, so I can revive if I die. After reviving, I'll just go find Anna again, ow."
If we didn't leave Carol Cat behind when she logged out, and we really encountered adventurers hunting Lily, with carrying Carol Cat and Sigrdrífa carrying Lily, the battle would be exceptionally difficult.
We had encountered unfriendly adventurers along the way, and I had managed to escape danger smoothly, but with one more non-combatant...
The situation was very unfavorable for us.
All players were converging on Hurst. We hadn't broken out of the encirclent net. Once we encountered adventurers hunting Lily without any adventurers supporting us, we'd have to spend considerable ti getting away, or even take necessary detours.
"How about we pick a direction and break through?"
"Fight straight through when we encounter enemies instead of going around, ow?"
After finishing her supplies, Sigrdrífa offered her opinion. As they say, the shortest distance between two points is a straight line... We'd had to make many unavoidable detours along the way. If not for my high-level [Geography] skill ensuring we kept moving away from Baron Hurst's territory, we might even have ended up going in circles.
Sigrdrífa suggested forcing a concentrated breakthrough instead of detouring around, which would undoubtedly be more efficient.
"The feasibility is low."
Trafalgar was the first to object. He opened his quest panel and shared the information with us.
"ow?! The rewards have changed?"
The information Trafalgar provided was about the ti-limited quest rewards. Compared to the information shared with us this morning, Duke Borgia had nearly doubled the rewards.
"You didn't notice?"
"We've been busy hiding and dodging..."
"Right. Anyway, the news I got is that quite a few guilds have decided to continue hunting Amaryllis. Besides the written rewards, Duke Borgia has made other promises. The adventurers we'll face next might include well-organized guilds."
"They don't want Anna's heart anymore, ow?"
"I understand their thinking. Small and dium-sized guilds don't have much chance of getting exclusive NPCs anyway. For guilds mainly active in the Kingdom of Michel, Duke Borgia's benefits are more substantial. Plus, he indicated that all participating guilds would receive so baseline reward—definitely not a losing proposition."
Duke Borgia was sparing no expense, Trafalgar said.
As if to confirm Trafalgar's warning, Sigrdrífa also received bad news from nature.
"Tch... A large group of adventurers is coming..."
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