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Chapter 374

The person who exited the carriage didn’t make any particular gesture. All she did was call out asking for Rei.

Desipte this simple action, it attracted the attention of all the villagers who had gathered around her.

Elena had a beautiful and dignified aura. It wasn’t unusual for her to gather the minds of people in her surroundings. But right now, she was radiating the aura of a girl who had become a young woman. The moment she saw Rei, she had a beautiful smile on her lips.

Anyone who saw that smile wouldn’t have been able to recognise her as the same Elena that was the General Princess. People who knew Elena as the General Princess might even have thought she was someone else.

Of course, it wasn’t that Elena never smiled. However, her smile as the General Princess was usually one that brought fear, confusion and awe to the enemy while having the opposite effect on her allies.

But the smile that was on Elena’s face right now was so different that it couldn’t be considered the same smile.

「……Ah, ahh. It’s been a while. The message that I had arrived was only sent to Anesis yesterday, you arrived quite quickly.」

Even Rei, who had interacted with Elena many times before, was momentarily taken aback by her smile. However he quickly recovered and called out to her.

「Yes. After all, I had previously agreed to go to the Labyrinth City with you. I made my preparations to be able to leave as soon as I got your message. How are your preparations coming along? I would like to leave as soon as we ccan.」

「I have no problems with that. We can leave right now.」

Rei had almost all his belongings stored inside the Misty Ring, so he rarely need to prepare anything when travelling.

If he had to prepare anything, it would be just to buy items that he didn’t already have in the Misty Ring. But in a rural area like this, there wasn’t anything in particular for him to replenish. At best, there would only be food.

「Gurururu~?」

「Kyi!」

Next to Rei and Elena, Set and Yellow gave some cries as they started to converse with each other.

Set turned his head around to reply to Yellow, who was riding on his back.

For some reason, they were able to communicate with each other despite being different species.

(Or, maybe they could be considered the same species since they were both created with magic?)

While smiling at the exchange going on beside him, which warmed his heart just by watching, Rei suddenly asked a question about something that had caught his attention.

「Are you by yourself this time Elena?」

「Hm? What do you mean?」

「No, I mean, normally Ara would have come out with you. But you were the only one who came out the carriage.」

「Yes. As Ara is the knight commander, she can’t leave Anesis unattended. Unfortuantely, she had to stay behind.」

「……What about your escort knights?」

Didn’t they have to follow Elena, who was the target that the escort knights were supposed protect? Elena nodded without hesitation at Rei’s question.

「They’ve remained behind to protect the city. And……well, there are various circumstances.」

Elena couldn’t say that she just wanted to enjoy a trip with Rei in front of the villagers, so she just waved it off.

「However, while not a replacement, my carriage driver is also skilled. Tufal, this is Rei, who will be travelling with me to the Labyrinth City.」

At Elena’s words, an older man in his 40’s or 50’s got down from the carriage and bowed his head.

「Nice to meet you, Rei-sama. I am Tufal, serving Duke Kerebel. I will be accompanying you and ojou-sama. I will do my best to make the trip as comfortable as possible for the two of you, I will be in your care.」

Saying that, he gave a graceful bow.

His gesture looked like something closer to a butler than a carriage driver.

(I guess that should have been expected from one of Duke Kerebel’s carriage drivers.)

Nodding in admiration, Rei also spoke up.

「Nice to meet you as well. This will be the first time I visit the Labyrinth City, so it is reassuring to have a professional guide. Also……Set.」

「Guru~?」

At Rei’s call, Set, who had been conversing with Yellow in kyi kyi’s and guru guru’s, turned to look over.

「This is Tufal, he will be driving us to the Labyrinth City.」

「Gururu~」

Set gave a cry as a way of saying hello.

Tufal’s eyes widened in surprise when he saw Set do that.

He hadn’t expected the Griffon to greet him so naturally.

But, as a carriage driver of Duke Kerebel, he didn’t get too flustered.

「This is……nice to meet you, Set-sama.」

Tufal gave a graceful bow, saying Set-sama instead of Set, realising in his brief exchange that Rei considered Set an equal, before turning towards Elena.

「Ojou-sama, what are your plans for the rest of the day? Personally, I would like to stay the night here.」

「……No, let’s get going. It will only take 10 days to get to the Labyrinth City, even in a regular carriage. With this carriage, which is a magic item, and our horses, which are warhorses, it should be considerably shorter. Considering we want to enter the dungeon, I want to get there a little faster. I only have 3 months……」

「I understand. That is what ojou-sama said. What about you, Rei-sama?」

「As I said before, I don’t mind. I have a magic tent I can use to stay during the night.」

「Oh, you have a magic tent as well?」

Elena nodded in admiration at Rei’s response.

「It’s not that surprising right? You also used one during the war, didn’t you?」

「I did use one during the war, but it doesn’t belong to me. It’s something that belongs to the Duke Kerebel family.」

To be exact, it was something she had borrowed from her father.

And since it had been borrowed, it needed to be returned once the war was over and was no longer in Elena’s possession.

「If you have a magic tent, I don’t see a problem with setting up camp. ……As for me……」

Elena muddled her way through her words near the end.

Elena really wanted to say that she wanted to stay in the carriage overnight with Rei, but she was too embarrassed to say it.

Seeing that, Tufal spoke with a smile.

「Then, let’s finish any business we have left before we leave. Ojou-sama, I believe you have a letter?」

「Hm? Oh, yes. That’s right. ……Rei, I’m sorry, I have some business to attend to in the village, so please wait for a bit.」

「Don’t worry about it, I have to head back as well. I have to thank the owner of the bar who let me stay over last night.」

Elena perked up when she heard the words ‘bar owner’.

She must have remembered the face of the knight who used to serve in her escort knights. And, above all, he was the person she needed to hand a letter over to.

「Is that so. That’s the man I’m looking for as well. Then, I’ll accompany you to the bar. Tufal, I’ll be right back so you can wait here.」

「Very well. Take care.」

Tufal gave a graceful bow as he saw Rei and Elena off.

His bow was so elegant that even the villagers who had gathered around them gave a sigh of admiration.

「Hm? Oh, you’re back……speak of the devil, it’s Elena-sama. You got here fast.」

When Rei and Elena entered the bar, the owner’s eyes went wide in surprise.

It had only been yesterday afternoon when he had released the bird to carry the message that Rei had arrived, so he hadn’t expected Elena to show up by evening the next day.

To do that, Elena would have had to leave Anesis early this morning, and he knew that it would have been difficult for her to do so due to her position as the General Princess.

If the owner had misjudged anything, it would have been the determination of a girl in love. Moreover, since she had previously agreed to travel with Rei around this time of the year, it wasn’t hard for her to get as much of her work done beforehand as possible.

That said, it wasn’t hard for her to finish her work ahead of time, but she was only able to leave because of Ara and Machen, who would be acting on her behalf while she was away.

「After all, the person I was waiting for is here, so I thought I’d just come over to say hello.」

「What do you mean? ……Wait, you’re not leaving the village now, are you?」

「Yeah. That’s Elena’s plan.」

Rei glanced over at Elena beside him.

However, Elena didn’t seem to notice his glance as she handed over a letter she had been carrying to the bar owner.

「There are new orders from the other side.」

「-!? ……Roger that.」

A short, concise exchange.

Both Elena and the man probably only needed to say that much because they knew what they were talking about.

It wasn’t that Rei wasn’t interested, but he didn’t want to be dragged over to Duke Kerebel’s side, so he didn’t pursue the topic.

（I guess I’ll have to deal with that eventually, given my relationship with Elena……）

Even though Rei was an adventurer, he knew that he was considered to be part of Margrave Daska’s faction, who was the leader of the Neutral faction. On the other hand, Elena was the daughter of Duke Kerebel, the leader of the Aristocratic faction. Furthermore, she was also known to neighbouring countries as the General Princess, a symbol of the nobility.

The Neutral and Aristocratic factions were opposed to each other. During the spring war with the Bestir Empire, they had fought together to oppose the Royalist faction, but it was clear that it was only a temporary alliance.

(In addition, the nobles in the Aristocratic faction tend to have a strange sense of pride.)

The faces of the nobles he had met so far passed through Rei’s mind. There weren’t many he had directly talked with, but it was rare to find someone like Elena, who was willing to use casual speech with dealing with adventurers.

(When I first met Ara, she came at me slashing with a sword.)

He recalled the time he was attacked with a long sword with a smile.

As Rei thought about that, in a way escaping from reality, the conversation between Elena and the bar owner eventually ended as they went over to Rei.

「Elena-sama, Rei as well. Please wait a bit……5 minutes at least. If you’re not staying in the village, at least bring some food with you. I’ll prepare something to eat.」

The man’s words brought to mind the almost exclusively meat meal he had been served for breakfast. However, Rei decided that if it was just preserved foods like sausages, bacon or ham, they could eat it bit by bit before reaching the Labyrinth City as he had the Misty Ring.

「Fufu, that man hasn’t changed.」

Elena murmured softly as the man left.

「Ara told me that he used to be an escort knight, were you close?」

「Rather than close……he was more well known for being an eccentric. That was why he ended up living in this village here after leaving the escort knights.」

「……」

At Elena’s words that indicated there was a story behind it, Rei almost asked about it but caught himself immediately.

For now, he had no intention of delving further into the Kerebel Duchy’s secrets and it was unlikely that Elena would willingly share those secrets so easily either.

「……Mm, take this with you for now. This is my homemade sausage, I’m pretty proud of it.」

At the same time that Rei went silent, the bar owner came back from the back of the bar. In his hands were a pile of sausages about 10kg in weight. The sausages seemed to have been smoked and were still connected to each other, uncut.

「I had wondered if you had made them yourself. It was definitely delicious.」

Rei muttered to himself as he remembered the taste of the sausages he had for breakfast.

「Yeah, there are no butchers in this village. Everything is basically done ourselves, including preserving food.」

「These sausages definitely look delicious as far as I can tell. ……Rei, please.」

「Okay.」

Nodding at Elena’s words, he touched the chain of sausages and stored them into the Misty Ring.

Although he was somewhat surprised to see the sausages disappear in front of his eyes, the man nodded without saying anything in particular.

「Well then, now that I’ve taken care of all my business, we’d better get going. Thank you for all your help.」

「No, no, I should get back to work as well. Please take care Elena-sama. ……You too Rei.」

「Sure, thanks.」

Briefly saying their thanks, Rei and Elena left the bar and went back to the village entrance, joining with Set and Yellow, who had been conversing with each other near Tufal and the carriage.