RAW:
TL: MbypobjzfSisjnq

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10 days had pa.s.sed since I was summoned by the King. As per Wanzardt-san"s advice, I haven"t stepped my foot on the royal capital"s soil in these 10 days. Loitering around the royal capital around these times would only bring unnecessary problem anyway.

That being said, I couldn"t continue my work as a contract worker, despite it being my main source of income. Regarding food source, it was currently limited to what I could gather from the forest.

And so, I asked Wanzardt-san for a favor.

He agreed to bring any contracts he deemed suitable for me, but since he had to bring it all the way here, I told him about the location of the teleportation magic square in the royal capital.

Of course, the magic square itself was useless without a certain amount of mana, but Rey-sama had tweaked it a bit so it can be activated as long as a condition was fulfilled.

That said condition was spirits.

Spirits are literally everywhere, but they prefer staying at one place, so their range of activity wasn"t actually that large. But if they took a liking to someone, they would follow that said person everywhere. For example, the spirits that used to live in the royal castle came along with me to the Beast Fang Forest.

But that being said, their amount of interest towards humans that couldn"t see them was basically nonexistent. I hadn"t seen anyone being followed by spirits except for Rey-sama and I.

One condition that Rey-sama added was 『Someone that is being followed by a certain number of spirits』.

That condition applied to Rey-sama, Av, and of course, me. We also asked some spirits to accompany Cryhart-san, Tonic-san, and Arami-san so they could also use the teleportation magic square. Of course, Wanzardt-san was also the same.

And so, thanks to the help of the spirits, Wanzardt-san reached my hut safely.

「No matter how many times I"ve seen it, I still couldn"t believe it」

He muttered as he sat on the sofa in the living room. One of his hand was stroking Beryl, who was chilling right next to him on the sofa while his other one was reaching for another cookie. Beyond his gaze was the monsters that live in this forest, relaxing in their own favorite spot. They always hang around the hut and asks for more sweets to munch on.

Now that the snack time had ended, it was time for their afternoon nap.

「Feeding monsters and actually taming them… Also a never-seen-before barrier around the hut… I still can"t believe I"m in the Beast Fang Forest」

「If you really can"t believe your own eyes, why don"t you take a walk outside? If you take any wolf from Lapis" pack, there shouldn"t be any monsters that attack you」

「Nope. I"ll gladly turn down ya offer. I still value me own life. Thank you very much」

「It"s actually not as dangerous as what people say. Well, sometimes we do encounter some dangerous monsters, but for most of the time, the monsters here aren"t actually that aggressive」

「I"m starting to get more and more concerned for la.s.sie"s common sense…… Well anyway, I brought the contracts as promised. Here, what"cha think about this one?」

「Thank you very much. Hmm, 『Capture bandits near the Laketop Shrine』, is it? ……Wanzardt-san, can you tell me more about this shrine?」

「It"s this huge lake inside this forest about north from here. Shouldn"t take la.s.sie more than 3 days to reach that place. There"s a shrine right in the middle of this lake. We call that the 『Laketop Shrine』. We don"t know for which deity this shrine was built for, but our country had protected that shrine since a long time ago. There"s pro"lly some sort of national cla.s.s treasure or old magic tome hidden there, but with a barrier surrounding it, no one can actually get closer and take a quick peek」

「If the it"s being protected by a barrier, how can the thieves enter the shrine?」

「Actually, we noticed that the barrier starting to become weakened quite recently. We predicted that it won"t be that long before the barrier just go poof and vanish. There must be some thieves that weaken the barrier, don"tcha think so?」

「I see…」

「The contract difficulty is B. If la.s.sie can finish this one, I can raise your contract level to B rank. So?」

「I"ll take it」

「Ou, go for it, la.s.sie」

I started my preparation right after seeing Wanzardt-san leave with some cookies as souvenir.

「3 days, huh……? Maybe I can get there in a day and a half if I ride Lapis…」

Lapis answered with a bark. ……
But, Ruby"s beady eyes seemed trying to tell me something.

「Aww, Ruby, do you want to come as well?」

She gave me a huge nod.

「With you coming with use, someone is bound to do the housekeeping instead」

I was thinking of putting Ruby and Beryl in charge while we"re gone, but since Ruby really insisted in coming with us…

Besides, I couldn"t bear looking at her sulking like that.
I had to be a heartless monster to ignore her like that.

「Fine I get it. Let"s ask Beryl, Amethyst, and Nigi to housesit. Lapis, Ruby, Jet, you guys come with me to this shrine」

Ruby"s eyes shined.
Figuratively, of course.

Her tail wag didn"t show any sign of slowing down.

Meanwhile, the house sitters were voicing their dissatisfaction.

If it"s a day and a night trip, I didn"t exactly mind taking all of them with me, but with this contract, I didn"t know when I could go back. Having a house sitter is very important for security, especially in a place where people don"t approach very often.

「I"ll bring you guys next time, ok?」

I patted their heads to at least calm them down.

「Thank you for your understanding. Well, shall we leave tomorrow morning?」

I pondered about what I should brought while checking on my bow and arrow stock. I still had some dried meat. Probably some…

「Ah whatever… Meanwhile, let"s get us some dinner first」

I hopped outside and rode on Lapis. The other 4 will howl when they finally found their trophies, so until then, I just trotted along on lapis around the forest.

「A shrine right in the middle of the lake. Sounds kind of fun, right, Lapis?」

Lapis barked as a response, which I proceed by burying my face right into her fur. There were still many things that I had never seen in this world. Before the time everyone comes back, it might be a good idea to travel around the world.

I smiled after reminding myself to stop my running imagination.
It would be fun if that kind of 『Future』 really did happen, though.