Chapter 20 / Magic, Mistakes, and Miracles
"While we're here at a magic shop…"
Before the group left town the next morning, Ren wanted to know about something.
Remembering how other adventurers were able to use magic, he wanted to know if it was possible for them to learn the same. Any additional tools would be useful in fighting against their opponents and having some magic in their pockets would help increase their options in combat.
The magic shop lady was happy to help them for a fee.
Ren thought it was worth learning more about this subject matter, so he properly paid up, but the amount he saved by preemptively bringing the ore had been quickly disappearing. She brought each of them over to a crystal ball that would help determine what affinities they had for magic. It wouldn't be impossible for them to branch out to other magic, but it would take significantly longer to master even the most basic of spells outside their domain.
And as such, the crystal ball dictated the following for everyone that approached.
Naofumi's affinities rested on healing magic and supportive magic, while Raphtalia had been oriented towards light magic and darkness magic. Itsuki's affinities were of wind and earth; Ren's affinities were of support and water. Motoyasu and Sakura went up next, having the former's affinities be fire and healing while the latter only had wind. Apparently, it had to do something about the fact she was a filolial, but that type of theory was far outside of the lady's field.
Eclair was the only one that didn't check because she already knew what affinities she had, that being light and support. Despite those affinities, she admitted that she didn't know any spells, only techniques that make good use of her elemental affinity.
In terms of learning the spells themselves, the expensive option would have been to buy the corresponding crystal balls. However, they didn't exactly have the money to spend on that, so they went with the next best thing.
Books. Lots of books.
"Who needs magic anyways!? I already have plenty of ranged attacks with my bow! If I had time to start casting magic, I would have been able to fire off ten arrows in the same amount of time!"
Naofumi was subjugated to hearing Itsuki's coping as they were sitting in the back of the carriage. Sakura pulled them along with a happy song, one that Motoyasu taught her during the ride over.
Ren sighed, flipping through the pages of his magic book, trying his best to ignore the noise, but there was a limit that Ren could take. "If you're going to be loud, you could have it so you're not disturbing the people who are actually trying to learn magic here."
"How are you even trying to understand this thing?" Naofumi asked, scratching his head at his own book. "I'm not exactly sure how we're supposed to understand magic from simply reading."
He glanced over to Raphtalia, but it looked as if she was engrossed in the magic book. Naofumi wanted to ask her for help, but if she was studying to the point where even Itsuki's hadn't broken her out of her concentration, it was probably for the best that he left her alone.
"I'm just trying to understand the book by language first before figuring out how it can translate into me learning magic spells," Ren responded, noticing the worried expression on his friend. "By itself, these are difficult words to make out, so I'm just taking things one step at a time here."
"I guess you're right. Considering how Motoyasu and I have affinities for healing magic, it would certainly be worthwhile for us to figure this magic business out quickly, so that we have another accessible path for healing outside of potions."
In the background, it sounded like Motoyasu was trying to teach Sakura another song back from their world. Although it was only the melody, Sakura picked it up relatively quickly to make a soothing song sung into the skies. They looked like they were having some fun to pass the time.
The vocal symphonies from Motoyasu and Sakura were a pleasure to listen to in the background, almost like turning on the radio while studying. Those soothing songs freed themselves to the wind as the cart rumbled over the rough grounds.
-/IV/-
A few more days passed.
They only needed to stop by a few more towns before they reached the border, but they were approaching the places that were believing in the rumors about the Cardinal Heroes. Stopping by in town, they could hear some of the fear instilling themselves into the townsfolk.
Naofumi and the others could only travel around with their hoods on and luckily, Ren had some masks in his inventory for them to wear. He passed them on, explaining that he took them off the group of assassins that attacked him and Itsuki.
Eclair noticed that one of the masks had been different though, but she didn't say anything.
Right now, they were preparing to leave first thing in the morning, so Motoyasu got Sakura attached to her cart. Everyone else was getting themselves ready for another day of traveling, but Itsuki was already piling up another layer of complaints.
"This is really boring."
"What is it this time, Itsuki?" Naofumi sighed.
"We travel for a bit, stop by a town, and split some time off so that we can gain some experience points for ourselves before heading off the next day. It's been just that. I want to fight a real villain here, someone that crosses the lines of justice. Aren't we supposed to be heroes?"
That was Eclair's first thing to hear once she came out of the inn and she crossed her arms while she frowned. "We should be fortunate to not have crossed paths with any danger or threat to our identities and position for this long. We've been keeping our heads down as much as possible, so I'd highly advise against going out of our way to fight this supposed villain."
"We've been able to get stronger steadily, so there isn't much of a problem here," Raphtalia responded, tapping the pummel of her sword. "The time we've spent on the carriage also gave us a lot of time to get better at learning our magic."
"How are you progressing on that, by the way?" Naofumi asked.
"I've been able to light sparks out!" Raphtalia excitedly pumped her arms.
"The most progress out of all of us. You would expect Motoyasu to be able to get something done, considering how much he was bolstering his study habits before, but no, he's off in his own thoughts alongside her precious daughter."
Ren sighed, leering over his shoulder to see Motoyasu finishing up the reins on Sakura's filolial form, making sure it's as comfortable as it could be while he had a big smile on his face.
"He's been a lot brighter these days, so just leave him for that," Itsuki said, still rolling a bit on the cart. "Though, the way that Motoyasu looks at Sakura sometimes does scare me. It's like he would murder anyone who got in the way of his time with Sakura or something."
Naofumi, trying to get the topic away from there as soon as possible, turned over to Raphtalia.
"Oh, so you made some good progress, Raphtalia!" He anxiously scratched the back of his head. "I still can't exactly grasp what I'm trying to do here…"
"Don't worry, Master Naofumi," she softly smiled. "I'm sure you'll get it eventually."
"You want to start learning the language now, Itsuki?" Ren snidely asked. "You might get some cool spells for yourself."
"Over my dead body."
"At least it was worth a try," Naofumi wryly chuckled. "Itsuki's the only one that can learn wind affinity spells and earth affinity spells easily, so I thought we would be able to get some coverage there."
Itsuki slumped down as Ren hopped onto the carriage, stepping over his childhood friend to grab a seat at the front. He already tried to make himself comfortable, kicking up his leg to rest on top of the other while pulling out his magic book again.
"Look, I know we can't spare time here with needless encounters, but couldn't we try to be heroes for a single moment? It's always studying when we're traveling and when we're in town, it's always just a restock or waiting around for people to get their turns at grinding!"
Itsuki swung himself back up onto his rear.
"Maybe if a town we're passing through has a bit of a bandit problem, we can stop it ourselves! That they're the ones controlling the town, terrorizing the people with their injust taxes and demands!"
"If that was the case," Eclair replied formally, "a report would be sent immediately to the capital and the knights would be sent out to deal with that problem swiftly. In my time of service, I've only heard of one occasion when that instance had occurred, but it lasted for only a week until the knights were able to subjugate the group. The Queen will not have such things be tolerated until her reign."
"And besides, wouldn't that be counterintuitive to keeping our heads down?" Ren asked. "We're looking to drop the amount of eyes on us, rather than to gain more attention."
"We do it in secret! It's just that easy! We've got the power to just slaughter through all of them! None of them could stand a chance against four heroes!"
"Could you not word it as if you're going to non-discriminately murder all the bandits?" Naofumi groaned, keeping an eye closed. "It's one thing to attack in self-defense, but I don't want any of my friends becoming murderers like that."
Ren flipped the page quietly.
"Alright, we're all done here." Motoyasu walked over to check up on everyone else. "Do we have anything left to stock up on?"
Naofumi glanced quickly into his inventory, making a mental check of everything that they have. They even had a few random crates in the back of the cart to help sell the fact that they were merchants, but they were all filled with very cheap stuff.
"Nope, we're all good here."
Itsuki got up from his place on the wooden planks and grabbed a seat across from Ren while Eclair and Motoyasu made their way to the front. Naofumi was about to hop on with Raphtalia before they overheard a call.
"Hey, uhm, excuse me!? Please hold on a moment!"
Naofumi and Motoyasu saw a young man who was trying to run up. He wasn't dressed too well, but he looked like he was desperate to get their attention. It was probably better if they ignored him and had sent him on their way, but Naofumi's good conscience wouldn't allow for that to happen.
"You folks are adventurers, right?"
Naofumi nodded. "What about it?"
"I've been trying to find people like you! Could you please listen to my request?"
"We don't have the time to be distracted by things like this," Ren whispered, creeping up behind Naofumi. "Just tell him that we're busy with a guild request right now."
"I mean, it wouldn't hurt to listen," Motoyasu said. "If it's something we can take care of along the way, why shouldn't we spare some time?"
Naofumi already decided that he was going to hear the man out, so he turned back to the young man to listen, much to Ren's displeasure. "Alright, what's the problem?"
"I'm from a village in the south called Lerno and I was sent out to try to find some adventurers to help out with a severe problem we have. We've been trying many things to solve it, but nothing's been working, so we thought that adventurers might have a better time fixing the problem."
"And this problem would be…?"
"There's a plant infestation in my village."
"Then use some weed-killer, and your problem is solved," Ren answered tiredly. "I don't see why you need adventurers to help out on that."
"Do you not think we would have already solved the problem if weed-killer was the simple solution here?" the man sighed, exhausted from just thinking about it. "If it weren't for the fact that the Cardinal Heroes had gone rogue, we would have been asking the capital for assistance. Perhaps if they weren't planning on going rogue, none of this would have happened. Maybe the help he gave to us was a hint to what's to come to Melromarc."
Raphtalia frowned, tilting her head. "Excuse me, but what do you mean by that?"
"It was the Spear Hero who caused our village to be consumed by vines."
Everyone resisted the urge to immediately look at Motoyasu as he widened his eyes. Motoyasu's first thought had been if someone had been trying to impersonate his identity, but under these circumstances, he wouldn't know who in their right mind would have done such a thing.
"We should have known the Spear Hero was evil when he gave to us the seed that was sealed away, giving us what we needed to solve our famine, but granting our wish in the worst way possible. It's probably malicious compliance at its finest."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute here…"
Stepping up from his sheer surprise, Motoyasu was stammering, trying to keep himself in check from revealing his identity. With those hints alone, Motoyasu realized that this man was from the village he helped out on a guild request, but he had thought it was just a one-and-done deal for their problems.
"What exactly happened there!?"
"It started about a little while ago when our village was suffering from a famine. The Spear Hero had allegedly taken up one of our guild requests to transport emergency rations to our village from the capital, but he went one step further and unsealed the seed from the nearby dungeon. The village chief knew that it was dangerous, which was why it was sealed in the first place, but the Spear Hero went ahead and gave it to us. It lured us into a false sense of security, thinking that since the hero was the one suggesting it, there weren't any problems with the seed."
Motoyasu could feel somebody's piercing glares striking his back.
"We were saved for about two weeks, but the plant just kept growing and growing. Soon after, it grew so much that it ran many people out of their homes. Most of the villagers are living in the outskirts since most of the centralized area has been deemed unlivable. It was even causing mutations, creating monsters that roam around, and spreading parasitic diseases, making us suffer more."
The villager's hand clenched itself into a fist.
"That's why we're starting to be desperate."
Naofumi's eyes slowly panned back to the villager.
"We'll see what we can do," Naofumi calmly answered.
"Hey, wait a minute! Isn't this town to the south!?" Ren exclaimed. "That's literally in the opposite direction that we need to be head—"
"I said that we're going to check it out."
Naofumi's calmness of utter exasperation made Ren shrink back down.
"An attempt is better than nothing! We can pay you for any efforts that you put into the problem, if you manage to push it back! I can guide you over to the village if you—"
"That won't be a problem." Naofumi smiled, but it might have been the scariest thing to see from Motoyasu's perspective. "I have a feeling we'll be able to figure out where it is."
"Thank you, adventurers! I'll be off, trying to find other solutions, so please do not wait for me. Tell the village chief that you were sent there to help with the plant infestation."
As the man went off, the atmosphere suddenly changed as everyone let their inner irritation outwards by glaring at Motoyasu. He tried to avoid any eye contact, but the sheer amount of pressure on his shoulders was still noticeable, making him sweat underneath the tension.
"Mind explaining yourself?" Naofumi asked.
"Look, I thought that the seed might have been the solution to their problems!" Motoyasu raised his hands immediately in surrender. "It was the answer in Emerald Online and the questline just fitted so perfectly, I thought that was something I needed to do. The road was paved by good intentions!"
"You went ahead and assumed it was exactly like your game?" Naofumi's eyes narrowed. "You didn't think about trying to ask around as to why such a seed was sealed in the first place?"
"Well, if you phrase it like that, you make me sound like an idiot."
"We're not exactly calling you a genius here," Itsuki sighed.
"Either way, we'll have to at least investigate this issue," Eclair said, crossing her arms. "If Sir Motoyasu was truly the one to cause this misfortune to the villagers, we need to help them out."
"Why can't we just leave them to their problems?" Ren groaned. "Motoyasu may have caused it, but we have better things to do than to be playing clean-up for his screw-ups."
"Only the more reason to go south and help out," Naofumi answered.
"I'm sure Mister Motoyasu doesn't want to leave them like that after discovering what happened." Raphtalia looked over at Motoyasu's direction, hearing a heavy sigh emerging out. "Of course, I think we should leave the decision up to him to decide what we should do."
"So what will it be, Sir Motoyasu?"
The guilt of leaving the village to fend for themselves burdened Motoyasu's thoughts, but Ren was right in his reasoning. Although it looked selfish at first, it was better to make sure they could solve their current predicament through the Queen if possible. However, he hesitated to consider that.
"What's taking so longgg?"
Sakura had been ready to move out for a while now. Being left out of the loop, she sluggishly poked her head out from the front to see what the hold-up was all about. They tried to have Sakura not speak much in public while she was in her filolial form or else they risked more attention drawn towards them, so Motoyasu quickly ran back.
"Don't worry, Sakura. We'll be off in just a moment."
His hand stroked along Sakura's head as she leaned into his palm.
"I think…" Motoyasu sighed, glancing back at his friends. "I think we're going to have to make a quick trip down to that village. If I did something wrong, then I have to fix my mistake there."
"Do what you want," Ren grunted, digging his nose into the magic book. "I suppose it's not as if we were guaranteed to meet the queen in the first place if we kept up our pace."
"Good call," Naofumi said. "Do you still remember the directions?"
"I do. We'll be arriving within a day or two."
"Alright, then I guess we're making a quick detour to Lerno."
Everyone got onto the carriage and Sakura pulled it away.
-/IV/-
"That's some plant you handed off to the villagers, Motoyasu."
"I… I didn't think it could have gotten that bad. I was trying to help…"
They were arriving close to Lerno, but even in the distance, the group could already see the acclaimed infestation that was taking over the buildings and the streets. As everyone in the cart looked outside, they were starting to get a better grasp of the situation. The vines weren't simply stagnant, but they were moving, threatening to consume the rest of the village in its wake.
"This is the thing that's causing mutations? What a crazy sight," Itsuki gasped.
"It looks like it destroyed many of their buildings," Raphtalia pointed out. "The vines aren't simply stopping from covering the buildings, but they're breaking right into the windows to sprout inside as well. No matter where I look, it's just vines and greenery."
Naofumi couldn't shake off the fact that it looked almost like a post-apocalyptic setting. He could tell that Motoyasu was feeling bad about all of this happening, since he was mostly silent on the way to Lerno. He wanted to reach out to Motoyasu to see how he was holding up, until Sakura suddenly stopped.
"There's a fruit above meee…"
Sakura glanced up, showing curiosity for the particular item.
"You want to try it, Sakura?" Motoyasu softly asked.
"Can Sakura try it?"
"Yeah, just give me a second." Motoyasu stood up from the driver's seat, extending his spear outwards. With precision, he cut off the stem that attached the fruit to the vine and caught its fall with the palm of his hand. He handed it off to Sakura who gobbled it up in no time. "How does it taste?"
"Yummyyy…"
"I'll grab you some more if you want—"
"Sir Motoyasu, I'd advise you to focus a bit here."
"Right. My bad."
"But Sakura wants more fruit, Daddy."
"I'll get you more of these fruits once we're here, Sakura. I promise, alright? So just be a good girl and wait for a bit. We won't take long and then I'll give you as much fruit as you want!"
"Okayyy…"
He wasn't sure if Sakura had been acting like that intentionally, although he would guess that she wasn't, but he was appreciative of how much Sakura was helping in lifting Motoyasu's moods recently.
"Should we find the settlement first?" Raphtalia asked. "It might be a good idea to check up on the villagers first before doing anything concerning the monsters here."
"I'd advise against it," Ren replied. "We already know what the source of the problem is, added with where the source of the problem would be. All we have to do is head into the heart of the village, kill any monster that jumps at us, and stop the problem at its roots."
"Pun unintended?"
"Shut up, Itsuki," Ren groaned.
"That does sound to be the best idea," Eclair nodded. "We can minimize the amount of interactions we have with them, decreasing our chances of being recognized. Besides, it's not as if we were originally coming here to this village for the rewards."
"Then I suppose we'll head straight into the—"
A shirek came from inside the village and disrupted Naofumi's sentence, causing everyone's attention to divert.
"I guess either way, we're heading into the village first!"
"Alright! Sakura! Follow that scream!"
"Okayyy…!"
Sakura pulled the cart into the village as the vines started to get thicker and more abundant, but they didn't have to travel for long to find the people who were in trouble.
Two adventurers were down for the count, while the last one was being dragged along by the plants. With its vines wrapped tightly around their ankles, they were screaming for someone to come help them. Itsuki immediately jumped off the moving cart and started shooting the vines to stop it, while Ren hopped off to close the gap and launch a quick slash to sever the vine's grip.
Other wriggling vines started approaching Ren, but no matter how fast they started to move, he was able to dodge their assault and fend off against it. Itsuki provided more than enough support, sniping down some of the vines before they even got close.
"Raphtalia! We're heading out to get those guys out!" Naofumi commanded. "Motoyasu, Sakura! Get us closer to them!"
Everyone nodded as Sakura pulled the cart closer to the adventurers.
Eclair leapt off to give Ren a hand in fending off the vines to buy more time for the adventurers to get on their feet. He was already pulling their attention, as more vines tried to grab him, but they were starting to pull some of their attacks over to Itsuki. Eclair shifted gears once she noticed and started defending him, making sure he could launch his arrows safely.
Naofumi and Raphtalia came over to the conscious adventurer.
"Oh, thank goodness." The adventurer gasped for air. "I'm guessing the village chief sent you guys out to help us."
"Actually, we were simply passing by when we noticed this incident here. We were trying to figure out what was happening when we crossed paths with you."
"Well, it doesn't matter. We still bit off more than we can chew. We thought that since it was just some stupid plants, it would be some easy experience points, but that was far from the true." The adventurer tried to stand up, but they grunted as they tried to stand up. The ankle that the vine grabbed had a slight twist in it and the pain showed in the grit of their teeth. "Gr-grah…"
"Don't put any pressure onto your ankle. The vines severely injured you, so you need to take care of your movements." The best thing he could do for an injury like that was a cast. He had random material in his inventory that could help them out, so he pretended to go over to the cart to allegedly pick them up before heading back. "Stay still. The ankle needs to heal up, so don't try to walk it in."
"Th-thanks…"
He wrapped the bandages around the foot before using the wood and the rope to make sure it was protected. It was certainly primitive compared to his world, but it was the best thing he could think of right now. He had some spare painkillers he crafted offhandedly, so he provided them as well, trying to let their pain ease for the moment.
As for the bruises and wounds they sustained, Naofumi was only able to offer a health potion, thinking that their health points needed to at least be restored to a decent size. More bandages were wrapped around the parts that needed them, but in the middle of treatment, the adventurer held out their hand to stop Naofumi.
"Could you help out with the others first?" The adventurer winced in pain, as they glanced over to their fallen teammates. "They're alive, but please get them out of here quickly. I can tolerate the pain right now, thanks to you."
"We can bring them onto the cart if that's needed," Motoyasu suggested behind them.
"Master Naofumi," Raphtalia said, "let's try to get him over before tending to the others."
With Naofumi and Raphtalia lifting the adventurer's arms over their shoulders, they carried him over to the backside of the cart. Motoyasu hopped off to check on the other adventurers in the meantime, checking on their condition. They were barely breathing, but that wasn't the obvious problem.
"This is… the parasitic infection that they were talking about…?"
Some of their body parts were already in the midst of transformation to leaves and roots. Their faces, while unconscious, were squirming with pain. Motoyasu hesitated as to what they could do, but Naofumi and Raphtalia returned quickly to assess the problem.
"Would potions even work on these people?" Raphtalia asked, concerned.
"There's only one way to find out. Could you hold one of them up, Motoyasu?"
With Motoyasu doing as told, Naofumi pulled out one of the potions from his inventory. He had been working on some varieties for themselves and this one had been some restorative medicine types. It wasn't necessary health potions, but for situations like this where someone looked as if they're energy was taken from them, it might be what the doctor would order.
He fed them the medicine and although they looked as if they were less in pain, the parasitic features were still present. At the very least, it appeared that their breathing was stabilized now, but Naofumi was still concerned about the infections.
"Is there anything else you've been making that could help with the problem?" Raphtalia asked.
"I'm trying to see here…"
His first thought had been some weed-killer, considering how that was the normal way to get rid of plants, but he wasn't sure if that would hurt the adventurers in any manner. He did unlock a recipe for the item a while ago from a shield, but he never had a reason to ever craft it.
Well, he'd miss all the shots that he'll never take… or something like that.
He sat down to the sound of Ren, Itsuki and Eclair, cutting up the attacking vines in the background to protect the site, as he pulled out his little workshop from his inventory in order to start hand making the weed killer. Although his shield had a function where he could automatically craft it, he wasn't sure if it would produce the quality that was required to fix this problem. He noticed that the feature would always provide him with results that were worse than what he could have received if he had done it by hand.
Once Naofumi was finished with the weed killer, he applied it onto the affected parts of the adventurers. Everyone held their breaths, but Naofumi got concerned when their faces started to twist in pain. However, it was only momentarily as the leaves started to wither and the transformations began to reverse. They were still knocked unconscious, but they were saved.
Naofumi and Raphtalia carried both of the adventurers back to cart, prompting others to retreat. Once they were all back, Sakura turned the cart around and they drove themselves over to where the settlement was. The conscious adventurer pointed out the direction, located on the outskirts of the village, as Motoyasu wore his mask on.
"Thanks for your help," they said, exhaling their relief. "I don't think we would have survived if you didn't come along."
"Your guys were lucky that we came by when we did," Ren scoffed.
"You should take the time to let everyone rest up," Naofumi explained. "Experience points might be great to have, but it won't do you much if you're dead."
"Yeah, I'm starting to understand that a lot here, but seriously, you're a savior!" The adventurer's voice had been loud enough that it was starting to pull the attention of the residing villagers. "To think that you were able to cure that parasitic infection from my teammates! I thought they were done for, but here you come to save them like it was nothing! You're like a saint!"
"A saint?" Naofumi stammered. "I wouldn't put it like that, but—"
"Excuse me for overhearing…"
A man walked up to the group. He was well-dressed, so it seemed like he was the person in charge of the village or so to say, he was the village chief. He took a good look at Naofumi before glancing over to the adventurers that he had supposedly cured.
"You said that your comrades were infected by the plants?"
"Yeah, and from what I've seen from the settlement camp here, I honestly thought they were goners, but here, this guy and his team comes along and gets rid of the infection like it was nothing, all while fighting off the monsters like it was nothing! They're incredible!"
Murmurs of the other villagers started to arise as attention showered onto them. No matter where Naofumi looked, it was all filled with a hopeful gaze onto them. So much for not gaining any attention; the original plan had been to simply drop them off quickly here before returning back to the village to stop the mutations, but it seemed like they suddenly became the center of the spotlight.
"If that's the case," the village chief said, turning to Naofumi, "I'd like to ask for assistance."
"Assistance?"
"We have a tent filled with people affected by the parasitic infection. I expect that it would have the same effects as what those two must have experienced." The man's voice sounded desperate and it showed through his actions as he bowed his head down to them. "Please, I'd like for you to save them. We will pay you anything, as long as you can tend to their suffering."
"I can't promise it'll have a guaranteed result since I just threw it together on the spot, but…"
Naofumi grimaced, looking back to his friends.
Knowing that there were people that needed help to which he could provide, Naofumi didn't want to leave them in that state despite what they originally set out to do. And besides, this was probably a good way to get some more money into their wallets if they were offering payment.
He sighed.
"Please take me to them."
"Immediately!"
Naofumi turned over to the others.
"You guys don't mind if we take the time for this?"
"It's not as if we've got any say in the matter now," Ren shrugged.
"Well, we should help them out as much as we can," Raphtalia responded.
Sakura pulled the cart over, following the chief down the makeshift road. There was a large tent at the end of their path and Raphtalia jumped off the cart to enter inside along with Naofumi. The Shield Hero took a deep breath before entering with the chief.
There were more people than Naofumi was expecting and considering he only had one more extra weed killer, there was some work cut out for him.
"Who might these people be?" one of the villagers tending to the sick asked the chief.
"They're the ones that may be able to save everyone here!" the chief excitedly responded. "They've already rescued some of the adventurers that were suffering from the infection on the site, so they're going to do the same for the others!"
"Is that the truth?"
Naofumi noticed that there was a young boy near the entrance of the tent. He decided to use his remaining weed-killer on him to make sure it wasn't just a fluke of nature. His troubled breaths and transformed body parts were the same symptoms as before, so Naofumi repeated the process.
He had the young boy swallow some of the restorative medicine with Raphtalia's help, followed closely by the application of the weed killer once his breathing was regulated to some degree. Some of the nursing villagers came over to watch Naofumi at work, holding their breath as they watched the transformation undo itself with wilting leaves, letting the arms return back to normal.
"He did it… He truly did it…"
"What type of magic is this!?"
"It's no magic! It's a miracle!"
"Th-this man is truly a saint!"
"Give me a head-count of all the patients you have here." Naofumi stood up from his place along with Raphtalia. "I'll need to make more medicine in order to administer them properly and it's better if I know how many people are being affected by the infection."
"Right away!"
The nursing villagers scrambled to count up the people inside the tent as Naofumi walked outside in order to prepare for what was probably going to feel like a long day of compounding. He asked for the cart to stay nearby, such that he had a place to hide the fact that he was pulling all the materials out from his inventory, but Itsuki suggested just immediately pouring them all out into one of the empty crates while they didn't have any eyes on them.
Like a waterfall, Naofumi dropped them in as Itsuki said, just as the village chief came out with the head-count. The number was plentiful and seemingly overwhelming, but Naofumi felt like it could be done, but the chief wanted to discuss payment before starting.
"Should we set the prices to market price?" Raphtalia asked.
"Supply and demand says we should be fine setting the price a bit higher."
"No, we'll leave it as is." Naofumi declined Ren's recommendation. "There's no point in marking them higher if that hurts the villagers. They might have some good money from the weeks that they spent in harmony with the seed, selling off the excess fruits and vegetables, but they'll probably have to redeposit all of it back into restructuring their homes."
"I mean, we'll still be getting a good amount of money from this," Motoyasu added on. "They ordered quite the amount of medicine and weed killers."
"I don't know how I feel about us profiting off of a situation that Sir Motoyasu caused…" Eclair narrowed her eyes, slightly judging the rest of the heroes.
"Wouldn't it be suspicious if we suddenly said we'd be doing it for free?" Ren asked. "Of course, they would be grateful, but you'll always have those few people that think that there's something else to the story there, giving out so much medicine while asking for nothing in return."
"In a perfect world, we would do that, but we need to consider our own circumstances here," Naofumi said. He pulled over the crate and settled down his workspace inside of the cart. "I don't suppose anyone else knows how to make these weed killers by hand, right?"
"We have them on auto-craft," Itsuki answered.
"There wasn't any real point, so far, to us to learn crafting and compounding by hand," Motoyasu followed up, groaning a bit in regret. "Now that we're depending on it for some money, maybe it would have been a good idea in retrospect."
"I can try to learn, if you need extra help, Master Naofumi." Raphtalia sat down next to Naofumi, trying to learn by watching. It might take slightly longer to start off, but if Raphtalia could get the hang of it quickly, he wouldn't be opposed to the assistance.
"Alright, if you can grind up the grass and hand them over to me, I can start doing…"
As Naofumi taught Raphtalia his methods, the atmosphere around the large tent was growing hopeful as the painful sorrows of the people transformed into wishful thoughts. They all kept their distance from Naofumi, but they were all paying attention to him.
Alongside a few more villagers, the village chief returned to them after speaking a bit with the adventurers that were saved and he approached the group with something on his mind.
"Those adventurers said that you were able to easily fight back against those plant mutations."
"What about it?" Ren replied.
"I know you're already working hard to provide healing for the infected, but I'd like to ask your group for help on one more thing." The villagers nearby got on their knees, begging as the chief bowed his head to them. Needless to say, it made Ren a bit uncomfortable, causing him to cast glances over to his friends. "Could you please save our village?"
"So far for doing this in secret…" Ren muttered.
Eclair turned to the villagers, placing a hand on her chest. "Do not worry. We'll be doing our best to see that the situation will be resolved here."
"Oh, thank you, our saviors!"
"Hold on a minute. Do you think we'll be doing all of this for free?"
"Sir Ren?"
"We might as well act like adventurers here and if they already know we're helping, we should roll with it," he whispered back to Eclair. "We should be expecting upfront payment for the troubles we'll be going through. Besides, it might be easy for us to deal with the vines and monsters, but it's another story in terminating the source of the problem."
"We're already profiting off the medicine. There's no need to have additional profits here."
"Then let's go for a bit more while we're ahead."
Eclair felt a headache coming on.
"Isn't the saying to quit while we're ahead?" Itsuki echoed in the background.
"How about you quit it instead?"
The villagers started to scramble for money to provide to them. At the end of it all, it was quite the amount, even more than how much they were paying Naofumi for the medicine and weed killers. Getting this resolution meant significantly well to the villagers and they were willing to go broke to have this cycle of suffering wrapped up in a docile conclusion.
Ren moved over to speak with Naofumi who had been reaching halfway to the amount needed for the patients. He planned that the others would move out to the village in order to seek a way to destroy the plants while Naofumi and Raphtalia stayed here in order to make sure everyone was healthy, or on track to be healthy.
"Good luck, you guys."
Sakura didn't want to leave the cart behind for Naofumi and Raphtalia, but she didn't want to leave Motoyasu's side even more. Considering how it was probably a bad idea for Motoyasu to stay around those parts, she made her decision to join the group in determining the vines.
"Maybe with the money we have here, we could get a crystal ball for me?"
"We're going to get no crystal balls with this money, just to spite you."
"C'mon, Ren! Don't be like that!"
Everyone else other than Naofumi and Raphtalia went off into the heart of Lerno.
[SKIT 089 : Unsettling Song]
[Eclair] : "I never thought that filolials liked to sing."
[Raphtalia] : "I'm sure that's something that Sakura personally likes as well."
[Eclair] : "Sir Motoyasu did teach her quite the amount of songs while on the road."
[Raphtalia] : "They're very soothing to listen to, so I don't mind it. Far from it, actually."
[Sakura] : "You like the songs Daddy taught Sakura? Do you want to hear the newest one Sakura learnt?"
[Raphtalia] : "Sure, feel free!"
[Sakura] : "Ahem."
[Sakura] : "Kagome... Kagome..."
[Sakura] : "Kago no naka no tori wa..."
[Raphtalia] : "This song..."
[Eclair] : "Yes, it certainly has a different atmosphere to it..."
[Ren] : "Wh-Who's singing that!?"
[Ren] : "Motoyasu! Why did you teach her such a creepy song!?"
[SKIT 090 : Overprotectiveness]
[Sakura] : "..."
[Motoyasu] : "Something on your mind, Sakura? You've been watching Ren and the others fight the vines for a bit."
[Sakura] : "Sakura wants to do that."
[Sakura] : "Sakura wants to fight."
[Motoyasu] : "Wh-what...? No, don't be silly! There's no need for you to fight those monsters, Sakura!"
[Sakura] : "Sakura can fight too."
[Motoyasu] : "What if you get hurt!?"
[Sakura] : "The enemies that everyone else fight look very weak. Sakura can probably kick them and they would go flying like it was nothing."
[Motoyasu] : "Th-that's not the only issue here."
[Motoyasu] : "Don't you want to conserve your energy for pulling the cart?"
[Sakura] : "Sakura has lots of energy for both."
[Motoyasu] : "But, uhm... Oh, what will happen to the cart if we don't keep an eye on it? No one looking after it if you run out and fight alongside them. I bet Ren would complain the most, since we used up a lot of money to buy the carriage."
[Sakura] : "So it's stupid Ren's fault."
[Motoyasu] : "That's not what I—"
[Sakura] : "Hmmph. Sakura didn't want to fight alongside stupid Ren in the first place."
[Motoyasu] : (... Sorry, Ren. You're going to have to take the hit here for me.)
