Chapter 20 – The Stagnant Water Was Starving.

“For a simple house, it can be called a mansion?”

“That’s right. I think this can be compared to the mansions of most nobles.”

Raman led us to a rather large mansion located close to the center of the village. As Tiaran and Lucia are giving their own opinions, there are two people who have particularly bad expressions.

“But can you guess why Newbie and Raina were acting like that earlier?”

“Isn’t it her fault that she came in that carriage in the first place?!”

Lucia was almost shaken when she realized why the carriage pulled by a horse called Gold Pucker was so infamous.

“So you’re fine, right?”

After hearing Tiaran’s words, Lucia looked at their expressions again and tilted her head. Only then did she realize something was strange, so she approached Asta and asked.

“Asta? What’s wrong? You look so bad.”

“Ugh, not really. I’m fine.”

She shook her head in response to Lucia’s question.

“Did you see it? I heard there was something.”

“I see… Ah!”

Seeing Lucia’s admiration as if she had realized something, Tia Ran poked her waist with a finger.

“Heeeeet?! What are you doing?!”

“Don’t just know about yourself, let’s learn about it too. Let’s find out what the problem is, so we can help.”

Lucia’s face turned bright red, and she protested, but she only groaned as he calmly shrugged his shoulders and spoke to her.

“Ugh, Asta somehow likes this kind of person.”

She muttered and continued her words with a sigh.

“Well, I don’t know much about Reina, but I have a guess about Asta.”

Lucia decided to summarize her story in a way that would not cause any problems, whisper it to Tiaran, and explain Asta’s situation. The contents were like this.

She was originally a girl who lived an ordinary life in a similar village, although not quite like Arunel, before she was noticed by her teacher and started doing this. She said something had happened to her back then.

‘The story is somewhat predictable. Now?’

What I don’t understand even more is that if it’s a story that doesn’t really matter right now, there’s no reason to look so bad, right? He was contemplating whether to ask Asta about the details.

“Whoa! Whoa! You’ve been waiting a long time, right? Come on in!”

Raman, who had gone into the mansion first and made them stand in the yard saying he had something to prepare, opened the door again and came out. The interior of the mansion we entered.

‘It seems a little old?’

As soon as Tiaran entered her, she turned her head to see a spider spinning a web in a corner of her, making eye contact with her and winking.

‘The spiders of this world can’t adapt.’

There were many times when I wondered why it wasn’t a monster. Anyway, paying such close attention to spider webs is usually a job that should be handled by servants hired at a mansion.

‘If you look at what’s not there, it looks like there’s no maid… Huh?’

“Hello, customer.”

Surprisingly, as soon as she followed Raman’s guidance, she could see a maid politely greeting her at a long table. It wasn’t a strange thing. Even if you’re not a noble, if you want to live in a mansion like this and manage it, you’re bound to hire at least one of her maids.

‘I’m not lazy. ‘Do you feel sick?’

I thought he was lazy, but when I saw him with a flushed face and hot breath, I thought he wasn’t in very good shape.

“Ugh! Max! I told you to stay in your room because a guest was coming? Didn’t you?!”

Somehow, Raman stomped over to her, lifted the hem of her skirt without hesitation, and shouted. Lucia was also taken aback by the bold appearance, but seemed to understand what she saw next.

“You were in, right?”

“Go back to your room!”

That’s because the one who peeked his head out from underneath was a boy who looked like Raman, whose height barely reached his waist. In the end, he ran to the second floor and saw Max disappearing, and spoke with an awkward smile.

“Haha, sorry. My younger brother is so naughty.”

“Well, that could be possible.”

“It’s a little bit, but it’s a child.”

“…”

Asta was still dazed, but they could understand. Children of that age were so out of control that it was natural for them to bully her maid who couldn’t take care of herself.

“Younger brother? Raman, did you have a younger brother? But you never talked about it before!”

However, it was Raina, not them, who was unconvinced. Even though she was his fiancé, she seemed to have never heard of his younger brother.

“Oh, that’s right. Think about it! Raina! How old are my parents? Isn’t it okay to tell them openly?”

“Ha, you could have told me.”

“Sorry, we had kids so suddenly that we didn’t even have time to talk about it.”

Fortunately, it seemed to have been resolved well, so they were finally able to sit down at the table and talk about the request.

“To sum up, it seems like a new, strong monster has settled in the rainforest behind the village, right?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

Raman explained that at some point, the number of animals coming down and damaging the surrounding farmlands increased, and monsters were also coming to the village, so they were unable to farm properly and ended up hiding inside the fence.

“What kind of monsters mainly came down?”

“Uh, that. Goblin and slime? I think it was mostly those types.”

“Hmm, it would be hard to guess the strength of the monsters in the forest with just that.”

‘Mmmm! I’m proud.’

It so happened that before she came here, I had taught her what she needed to know about the level of monsters in the forest. In fact, Lucia blushed and gave him a tingling look as if Tiaran was giving her such a look. I tried glaring.

‘The newbie is doing well. Our newbie.’

“…”

The problem was Asta. Because I was still staring into space with blurry eyes, wondering what I was thinking about. In the end, he decided to find another way.

“If that’s the end of the information, let’s ask someone else.”

“Yes, yes?!”

“I see. Someone else might know something more, right?”

Raman was surprised when Tiaran suddenly intervened and spoke, but Lucia agreed with his opinion and stood up first.

“B-but I’m still preparing dinner…!”

“We don’t usually eat breakfast. And I appreciate the sincerity of the banquet, but I’m canceling it. I hate noise here. Come on, let’s go! We’re newbies!”

“Hey?! Wait! I can walk alone!”

Tiaran then picked up Asta, who was dazed. She struggled and spoke, but he snorted.

“You look pretty good. I don’t know what’s going on, but come to your senses, newbie. Let’s only think about fun things for now.”

“… Yeah, okay.”

Asta then realized that this was something he did out of concern for himself and stopped struggling. As they left the mansion by themselves, Reina followed them out belatedly.

“Ah! Mr. Tiaran! In that case, I will guide you!”

“Huh? Even you?”

“Yes, I also want to hear what happened in the village.”

Looking at the village, I still see a quiet street.

“Where should I start looking?”

“That’s the outskirts.”

Lucia seemed worried, but Tiaran said without hesitation that she should look around the outskirts.

“Is there any reason to look into the outskirts first?”

“Of course, people who live close to the wooden fence will have a better idea of ​​what kind of monster has descended on the village, right?”

Usually, the people living near the outskirts of a village were the most sensitive to monsters coming from outside.

“Aha! I guess that’s what it feels like.”

“Then how about splitting into two teams?”

As Lucia opened her notebook and wrote down his story, she suddenly interrupted and spoke.

“Huh? Two teams. How are you going to divide them?”

“Um, no. I think it’s a better opinion than I thought.”

Even though there are four people now, Raina is probably out of full strength, so it’s safe to say there are three. Surprisingly, it was Lucia who agreed with her opinion.

“Reina is from this village, so she must know the way, right?”

“Yes, so it would be quicker for me to guide Mr. Tiaran.”

“Then, if Asta and I check the other side, we can cut the investigation time in half!”

Tiaran wanted to say something, but she was left speechless when she saw Lucia’s eyes sparkling and her expression looking expectant.

“Yes, yes. Just efficient.”

“Hehe! I can do something like this too!”

“Yes, I’m just looking for news anyway.”

In his eyes, the bright yellow chicks seemed to be puffing out their chests and chirping to tell him not to worry, asking how they were doing. He had no choice but to finish the investigation and decided to meet again at this location and sent Lucia and Asta to the other side.

‘… I’m just worried.’

Asta seemed to have perked up a bit, so if she hadn’t been so upset, she would have asked us all to look around together.

“It looks like you became friends with them quickly.”

“Huh? Well, I was reluctant at first too. But they were completely newbies, so I couldn’t help but become attached to them.”

Well, considering how miserable the survival rate is for newbies in this industry. Even though I was stronger than I thought, I couldn’t help but be worried.

“Haha! It’s amazing that Tiaran thinks of them that way.”

“How amazing. Newbies are newbies anyway.”

They visited houses on the outskirts with Raina, but they were unable to get any harvest.

“No, what are you doing? I knock on the door and no one says anything!?”

Even though he thought he was away from home, his keen senses could tell that there were people inside. However, no one responded.

“Reina, is this really such a desolate neighborhood?”

“No. They were definitely the ones who always welcomed me kindly.”

She had no choice but to go to another house and knock on the door, but again there was no answer or sound.

“Is everyone being chased by private lenders?”

“…!”

At that moment, he realized that a sound was coming from the window on the side of the house and approached.

“Hey! Let’s see what’s so funny that even customers ignore it!”

When I looked inside through the window. He could see that there was a reason for that.

“Daddy ♡ Daddy ♡”

“Gasp! Gaph!”

I saw a huge man crushing a girl who was less than half his size and shaking his waist.

“Oh my…”

I didn’t know it would be like this.