Chapter 3: Mission briefing

It was the morning after their arrival in the village. Bell and Lefiya were sitting across each other as they ate the breakfast served on the table. After a while, the latter finally noticed that her companion seemed didn't seem to be eating much, in fact, he seemed to be preoccupied with something... Something apparently related to her since he kept stealing glances at her. Inwardly cursing her inability to ignore him, she decided to ask,

"You've been staring at me for the last 15 minutes. If you got something to say, out with it, already."

Bell's eyes widened as he apparently didn't expect that she'd noticed. However, before he could speak, Lefiya immediately added,

"Don't get me wrong. I just don't want anything to jeopardize this mission. I learned that it's better to air any problem between party members before it causes problems during the mission."

Bell nodded before finally speaking almost in a whisper as if afraid that someone might overhear him,

"Were you... having a nightmare last night...?"

Lefiya's hand paused for a brief moment as she was about to put some potato into her mouth but soon continued eating before asking almost nonchalantly,

"What makes you think so?"

Bell scratched his cheek nervously as he answered her,

"Well... I kind of... heard you moving around... and you keep muttering something..."

The elf raised her eyes toward the boy to glare at him as she commented,

"... You're gross, you know that? Seriously, who listened to someone else sleeping?"

"I... I wasn't trying to listen in, I swear. It's just..."

"Whatever... you got it wrong, anyway. I was simply not used to the bed, nothing serious."

"I... I see..."

"Finish your food, we need to see the mayor after this. The sooner we finish this quest the faster I can go back to Orario..."

For a moment, Bell thought that she was about to add "and away from you" but it never came. For some reason, the absence of that phrase gave him a sense of relief as that means she didn't really hate him that much. It wasn't much of a silver lining but considering their already rocky relationship, one-sidedly at least, he'd take whatever he could get.

Seeing that the elf across him didn't seem intent on continuing the talk, quite the opposite in fact as she seemed to increase her eating speed. The white-haired boy decided to follow her example as he ate his breakfast. Both of them finished nearly at the same time and thanked the bartender before leaving the inn.

Having been told where to find the mayor's house, they had little problem finding it. Bell knocked on the door and waited for a few minutes before the door opened. Amiddle-agedd human woman appeared through the opening and asked gently,

"You twodon'tt look familiar... is there anything I can help you with?"

"My name is Bell Cranel, she is Miss Lefiya Viridis. We came from Orario at the request of the guild. Is the mayor available?"

"Please wait for a minute..."

"Of course."

The woman disappeared from the door and the two adventurers assumed that she went to ask the mayor for confirmation. Before long, the door opened once again and the woman stood aside as she spoke,

"Please enter. My husband is waiting for you in his study, it's the second door on the right."

They both nodded in affirmation as they entered the house and headed straight for the aforementioned door. Bell once again knocked on the door which a man inside quickly responded by allowing them to enter.

Once they entered the room, they immediately noticed the grey-haired middle-aged man sitting behind the office table. The man gestured toward the seats across the table as he spoke,

"Please, sit down."

They thanked the man as they sat down and the conversation began,

"My name is Sian Berk. Ral had already informed me that you had arrived last night, I apologize that I had been unable to meet you immediately."

"We understand, please don't mind it."

Sian smiled in gratitude before continuing,

"Well, I believe that we'd better go straight to the request, yes? As you no doubt have read from the request form, our village has been experiencing a sharp increase in monster encounters. So far, the encounters have been limited to outside of the village but based on the trend, it has been progressively getting closer to the village."

Lefiya raised her hand to indicate that she had an inquiry which Sian immediately granted,

"I'm sorry but... if the monsters have been getting nearer to the village, how come there were adventurers in this village? I mean... we didn't see any of them when we arrived..."

Sian nodded in understanding as he explained,

"That has been the question which we have been wondering as well. The monsters seemed to have no problem with letting people come into the village... but they would attack anyone who tries to leave. It was an extremely peculiar action which we have no explanation to... every single adventurer who we invited had also echoed our thought that it was extremely unusual."

"That certainly is curious... is there anything in this village that may possess significance to monsters?"

"Not that I know of… this is a small village, we tend to get by with the earth's bounty. Hunting and foraging had been our primary methods of survival. With the monsters attacking people who went out of the village for any reason, they were severely wounding our lifeline."

Both adventurers nodded before Bell decided to ask,

"Do you know what monsters had been sighted?"

The mayor nodded as he took out a folder from the drawer below his desk and handed it to the boy,

"One of the first adventurers who came to help told us to keep records of the monsters. We have been updating this ever since… the monsters that were recognized would have their name and levels noted while those that aren't would at least have some physical description and approximate difficulty level."

Bell and Lefiya nodded as they carefully perused the folder, it was clear that it was made over a long period of time. However, as they flipped further back, they noticed that the monsters had continually gotten stronger. At first, there had only been goblins and wolves, then kobolds made an appearance, hounds and warshadows also began to show up.

It was a very concerning trend as they couldn't help thinking that if the source of the problem wasn't fixed soon, they might even be finding level 4 or even level 5 monsters showing up and that would spell disaster for the village. Neither of them had any confidence in being able to defeat monsters that possessed equal strength to the upper-rank adventurers in Orario.

Finally, they closed the folder and exchanged glances before Bell asked the mayor,

"Can we take this document with us? We wish to read about them in more detail, probably there were hints to be found from them."

"Please, by all means. Right now, you two are our only hope… our supplies might last us for another few weeks but no further, without the ability to even leave the village, our doom would merely matter of time…."

Bell and Lefiya nodded as they stood up. The former couldn't help making a promise,

"We promise, we'll do our best to get to the bottom of this…."

"Thank you, adventurers. If there is anything that I can help to solve this problem, don't hesitate to tell me. I'll do everything I can to help."

"Understood, then... we'll be off for now. If we found any clue to the situation, we'll be consulting you."

As the two adventurers left, Sian leaned against his chair before sighing tiredly. Soon, his wife entered the study and asked him,

"How was it?"

"They were polite and clearly willing to do their best to help. Though..."

"Hmm?"

"Ah, it's nothing... it's just that I never find an elf like Miss Viridis before."

"Oh?"

"Not in the bad way, I assure you. It's just that most elves I met before tend to be standoff-ish, putting it nicely, they're prideful and putting it badly, they're arrogant... Miss Viridis is... rather tolerant in comparison. She remained polite during the whole meeting..."

"Why do I sense a "but" coming?"

"Well... I wonder if there is something going on between her and the boy she came with. Their rerlationship seemed rather... unique. They were close but not exactly friendly yet not exactly antagonistic either..."

"Is that so..."

"Well... forget it. As long as they can solve the problem we're facing right now, I'm not really in position to complain about anything."