They didn’t run into any problems while exploring.
As Ritz said earlier, the only monsters they encountered were goblins, and they were quickly taken care by him and his party.
The goblins’ corpses were laying strewn along the ground, with one ear missing.
Loren was worried that they would beco undead, but there was no way for them to bury them inside the ruins, and if they were to burn them, the smoke would fill up the corridor.
They had no choice but to leave them as is.
“Even if they do beco undead, they’re only goblins so it shouldn’t be that big of a deal.”
Although Ritz answered Loren’s worries, Loren did not want to et ghosts or undead goblins.
Putting that aside, thanks to all the goblins that showed up, the sack on Loren’s waist was now full.
It wasn’t much at first, but as the number of ears increased, the goblins’ blood started seeping into the sack, and started giving off an awful stench.
As much as Loren wanted to throw it away, he couldn’t, because it was given to him by Ritz and his party.
He couldn’t handle it roughly either, because it could be traded in for money.
Loren wondered if no one else was bothered by the sll, so he looked around, but no one seed bothered by it except for Lapis.
She was grimacing, and because she was trying not to breathe through her nose, Loren could hear her heavy breathing.
“It’s not like I’m getting aroused or anything.”
“I know. You don’t have to tell .”
Even if she didn’t say it, there was no way Lapis could be in the mood, anyway.
Nim, who was watching the two of them with a smile, suddenly beca serious and let out a warning so everyone could hear.
“Wait. Sothing’s wrong.”
Ritz and his party responded instantly.
Ritz, the warrior, raised his shield, and Jack, the thief, scanned their surroundings.
Quartz, the magician, raised his staff and looked around.
“Nim, what is it?”
“The sll of the air changed. I sll blood other than goblin’s blood in the air.”
At Nim’s words, Loren sniffed but the only thing he could sll was the goblin’s blood coming from the sack, and couldn’t sll what Nim was talking about.
Loren was surprised that Nim was able to detect a different sll, despite being right next to him with goblin stench covering up all the other slls in the area.
“Blood slls like iron, but is there really a difference between the sll of human blood and goblin blood?”
Lapis asked Loren with an unamused voice, but there was no way that Loren knew the answer to that.
“I won’t tell you guys to stop talking, but from here on out we should be careful. When it cos to sight and hearing, Nim’s is the sharpest.”
“Her figure is sharp too…Oww!?”
Jack, who said one thing too many, received a kick on the back from Nim.
Although Jack had the larger body and looked stronger than Nim, she must have put in quite a bit of strength into that kick, as Jack fell face first onto the ground.
“Stop ssing around…I just said we need to be careful.”
“Co on, it’s getting too serious here. If we don’t relax it’s not good for our ntalities.”
Jack laughed and rubbed his back as he stood up, looking around the area, while Ritz just looked at him, exasperated.
“From what I can see, there’s nothing like what Nim said around here. Which ans it’s a bit ahead from here.”
“Whatever. Let’s go.”
Ritz, who decided that it was a waste of ti trying to deal with Jack, gave the order, frustrated that he wasn’t apologetic at all,
Although they would slow down, everyone agreed that it was better than becoming like what Nim sensed, or fighting with whatever caused it without preparation.
“The young lady can’t move yet?”
While moving slowly through the corridor, Ritz asked Loren.
Loren looked behind at Lapis, who tried raising her arms up and down, and shook her head.
“I’m sorry, it’s going to take a bit more ti.”
“I thought you weren’t able to stand? Your arms should be fine.”
“I know this is embarrassing, but my whole body seems to have frozen from all the fear and tension…”
Ritz let out a bored expression at Lapis’ excuses, but then said to Loren.
“I don’t know where you found her, but wouldn’t it be better for both of you if you took her back to her church?”
“That’s sothing for her to decide. I can’t really say anything about it.”
Loren thought that they weren’t close enough for him to say anything about what she should do, but didn’t feel like explaining that to Ritz.
He knew that he didn’t have a way with words, and there was a chance that he would say sothing that he didn’t need to.
Loren didn’t have any thoughts about Lapis’ true colors, but most people didn’t think the sa way he did, and he wasn’t sure how Ritz and the others would react if they found out.
So Loren decided that there was a need for them to keep it a secret, and if he was going to do that, he shouldn’t talk much.
“Hey, look at that.”
While Loren was thinking such thoughts, Jack, who was looking around, raised his voice.
Loren stopped thinking and looked toward the direction Jack was pointing, and what caught his eyes was sothing on the ground a distance ahead of them.
Loren wasn’t sure what it was at first.
It was a distance where he could just make out that there was sothing on the ground, but maybe because her job was a hunter, or maybe because it was because she was an elf, Nim was able to make out what it was, and muttered under her breath, trying to keep sothing in.
“Armor…Bloody.”
Even after finding out what it was, Ritz and the party didn’t cease to be cautious.
As much as they wanted to rush in and examine it, they were careful to look for traps or whatever left the bloody armor on the ground, and after taking a good amount of ti to make sure there were no dangers, they walked closer to the thing lying on the ground.
“It’s armor all right. Leather armor. But this doesn’t tell us anything.”
Ritz went close and leaned over to look at it more closely, but soon gave up trying to gain any sort of information.
As Ni said, it was leather armor covered in blood, but it in such a shape that they could barely recognize that it used to be armor, and there was nothing that let them know who’s it was.
“One thing’s for certain. The wearer is definitely dead.”
Even Loren could tell that the amount of blood was from a fatal wound, and there was blood all over the floor as well.
If all that blood was from one person, there was no way he would be alive.
“The only people who ca other than us was the party we’re competing against, but maybe they fell down here too?”
“Was there anyone who was wearing leather armor in their party?”
At Quartz’s words, Ritz and Jack both crossed their arms and started thinking deeply.
Nim, who was standing next to Loren, who thought that they must have forgot who was in the other party, spoke up with a cold glare at the n, who still couldn’t rember.
“Ritz and Jack are too careless. Quartz is going senile.”
“I’m not senile!”
“Then hurry up and rember. Who had leather armor in the other party?”
“Ugh”
Quartz let out a small groan, but it wasn’t easy trying to recall sothing he had already forgotten.
“Just give up and accept the fact you’re going senile.”
“I’m not senile, I’m not. I’ll rember soon enough.”
Quartz started gritting his teeth and tried to rember as hard as he could.
Around him, Ritz and Jack were growling, not able to rember at all either. Nim ignored all of them and told Loren.
“What do you think?”
“? Not your party?”
“We should let them think for a bit. They might rember eventually.”
Nim, who completely cut off the other three, gave the information to Loren, who was thinking if it was okay for her to do that to her party.
“If the armor was from soone in the competing party, the person wearing it was a thief.”
“Looks like it.”
“That’s not the problem. I want your opinion on the next thing.”
Magicians usually didn’t wear armor, but instead wore robes made of cloth, and priests wore equipnt made of cloth as well, and sotis wore chain mail under it.
When it ca to defense as well as being able to move quickly, it was usually equipnt for thieves or warriors, but the leather armor didn’t have any reinforcents to make it sturdier and was quite light.
Based on this, Loren could tell that it belonged to a thief even without having seen the other party.
But that wasn’t what Nim was worried about.
“If we’re to continue with the theory that it’s one of the mbers from the other party. Their thief was a woman.”
“Huh?”
Loren wasn’t sure what that signified, but Lapis, who was listening on his back, seed to find sothing wrong.
“From what I saw, the only monsters that ca out in these ruins are goblins.”
“What about that?”
“Goblins don’t usually kill won. It’s because they can use them for other things. But if the wearer of this armor was a woman, it ans she was killed. That’s what’s strange.”
Loren looked again at the remains of the armor on the ground.
In its current state, it was hard to tell if it was armor made for a woman.
But if it was like Nim said and the wearer was a woman, it was weird that she was killed on the spot, as Lapis just said.
“It’s not like sothing hit her and killed her?”
“It’s not impossible. But there’s too much blood.”
Loren agreed with Nim.
Even if sothing like an arrow had killed her, it was hard to think that goblins’ weapons could make a wound that caused so much bleeding.
“There’s too much blood. It’s likely that she was taken apart on the spot.”
“That would be unusual for goblins. If their prey was alive, they would prioritize their entertainnt and take it to their nest.”
“Then I guess there might be sothing other than goblins here.”
“That’s what it cos down to.”
After being silent for a mont to collect her thoughts, Nim asked Loren.
“The crack where we t you two. Do you rember the way back?”
“Yeah. It was mostly a straight tunnel, anyway.”
“Okay. Ritz.”
Ritz stopped thinking and turned toward Nim.
After waiting for him to completely turn his attention to them, Nim suggested to Ritz.
“Sothing’s weird. We should go out and restart.”
“Wait a second. I feel that sothing’s wrong as well, but we don’t know for sure if these remains are from the other party. We need a clear reason to retreat.”
“It won’t look well if we say we ca back because we found bloody armor. It’s a different story if we found their identification tags, though.”
Nim scanned the area with her eyes, but there was nothing of the sort laying on the ground.
“We can be extra cautious, but retreating is out of the question. It’ll affect our jobs in the future.”
“It’s okay if that’s what Ritz decides, but…”
“I know. We’ll head back if we find things like tags.”
“Then it’s fine.”
Nim stopped being persistent as Ritz presented the conditions for retreat.
Loren, who had no choice but to follow Ritz regardless of whether he agreed with his decision, stayed silent and nodded.
Reviews
All reviews (0)