It’s his girlfriend

Cal calls out to one of the girls among the Knights Hospitaler. She is wearing the same surcoat as all the others of her guild, but underneath she’s wearing a chainmail. As for her weapon, she is carrying a sword that seems a bit too large for her, but maybe she has a skill that can compensate for it. Since she is also carrying a tower shield, I would guess her to be a knight, but the shield seems mandatory for all people in her guild. So, it could still be she is a warrior. I’m not sure. I will say that she has a pretty cute face.

She walks over to us and lets Cal place his arm around her waist.

“Darx, this is my girlfriend, Rachel.” He days with a proud smile.

“No way. The actual Darx?” Rachel asks bewildered. “I thought you were just making stuff up about being his friend.”

“No, it’s true. We grew up in the same village, and we have been friends ever since we were little.” Cal says. Then he turns to me and asks, “Right, Darx?”

I am so tempted to tell Rachel that Cal and I were never friends. But he has changed his life around so much that he is basically a different person. The Cal I knew before would never have joined the Knights Hospitaler and this one has. He has really turned his life around. I would feel bad if I were to ruin his relationship with Rachel. Even if he doesn’t deserve a girl with a chest as big as the one Rachel has.

“Oh gosh. You were quite amazing at the tournament.” Rachel says, appearing quite excited to meet me. “Can I shake your hand?”

I reach out my hand and let her shake it, which makes her giggle.

“Gosh, I can’t believe my boyfriend knows an A rank.” Rachel continues. “Those are so rare. We currently have none in our guild now. They all go for the more famous guilds like Oblivion or Dark Dragon.”

Since Rachel mentions Dark Dragon, I reach for my medallion and show it to her.

Rachel giggles again, but then says, “I already knew you were with the Dark Dragons, silly. I saw you at the tournament.” Ah right. She did mention the tournament. “But it was nice to see the medallion. Dark Dragons have a lot of good clerics, so it’s rare for them to visit our guild.”

I continue talking for a while with Cal and Rachel and from that, I learned that after Rachel’s awakening, she was considered a D rank warrior, as she fought with only a sword. But upon joining the Knights Hospitaler, she was mandated to carry the standard issue tower shield, thus making it so she is a knight now.

Eventually, it gets so late that other people of their guild call them over to eat and rest. I do the same and join my own guild for food and sleep.

The next day we wake up early and continue our journey. The wagons from the camp leave the site one by one and eventually form a long caravan. I continue practicing creating ice daggers whenever I have the mana to do so. This time I experiment with making them colder, hoping that it will cause them be less prone to breaking. I try breaking one and it certainly seems sturdier. Next time we stop to eat, I throw Ari one of these improved ice daggers. She tests it the same way like she did yesterday, except this one it got stuck in the wood of our wagon. It was a success and let me know by smiling at me. Alright, at least I got the ice daggers right.

When night falls again and we set up camp once more, I try making a sword in the same way I made the ice daggers. Since a sword is bigger it takes me a little longer, but I manage to get it to work in a reasonable amount of time. I hold up the ice sword and give it a few swings. This is going to be great.

Suddenly, Leona gets up and draws her sword on me. “There’s only one way to figure out whether this news sword of yours is as good as you think it is.” She says. I smirk at her and accept her challenge.

As Leona and I spar, I notice her steel sword chipping into my ice sword and taking little bites from it. Eventually, she manages to chip away enough from my ice sword that it breaks and I am left with only half a sword. I may have gotten close, but I am not there yet. I need to find a way to make the ice even harder.

The next day, in the afternoon, we finally arrive at one of the affected villages. It is a village close to a forest and the fields between the forest and the villages are littered with the bodies of dead monsters. There are also several Royal Guards here. Soldiers under the queen’s direct command who arrived here ahead of us and defended this village from monster attacks. It is the reason why so many of the royal guards are wounded.

The Knights Hospitaler are the first to check up on the wounded. Amelia and Sophie also make their rounds and use their magic to heal whomever they can. The rest of us are just walking around the village, taking in what has happened here. Apparently, this is one of the villages the refugees passed by on their way to the capital. A lot of them are wounded as well, not to mention hungry.

As we are walking among the refugees, a little girl suddenly runs up to Ryul and hugs his leg while yelling, “Big brother!”

I recognize her. It is the little sister of his that I helped save from a giant rat a couple months ago. Before Ryul and I had become adventurers. Ryul gets on his knees and gives her a big hug. It is obvious that he is happy she is safe. Shortly after his other two sisters and his dad show up as well. I felt it would be best for me to let him enjoy his family reunion in private and moved on.

I decide to walk around the village some more, surveying the damage that has been done. There are a few buildings that got damaged, but it’s really rather minimal. The majority of the damage is on the farm fields. Patches of wheat that got burned. Some craters in the ground that have now filled up with water. Even spots where spikes are coming out of the ground. I would assume most of that was done by royal guard mages in their pursuit to kill the attacking monsters. It makes me think of the farms in Merton. Back then, I never really worried the fields being damaged like this. Then again, we didn’t have an earth mage around. The only mage was Alice and she limited herself only to fire and was careful enough to never use fire close to the fields.

As I watch over these fields, I notice some villagers cleaning up the bodies of the monsters. They are lifting them on carts and transporting them off the field. To a large hole on the side, like a mass grave for monsters. I am wondering if they are getting any valuables out of them. Kiara taught me to always look for anything that can be used. Whether it are hides, leather, alchemical ingredients, or even meat. Maybe these villagers simply didn’t know.

As I am watching the villagers work, I hear two people walking up to me from behind. I turn to look at them and notice they are women from the Royal Guard. One of them has pink hair and seems oddly familiar, like I’ve seen her before but I can’t quite tell from where. The other one however, the redhead, I remember very well.

“Wendy. You’re here too?” I smile at her.

“Well yeah, I’m with the Royal guard. If the queen tells me to protect the nation, I need to go save the kingdom now, don’t I?” She replies, after which she gives me a friendly hug. “It is good to see you again, Darx.”

“I need to thank you again for helping me get into the tournament.” I tell Wendy. “If it wasn’t for you, I would not even have been able to participate.”

“Hmm, yeah. You did get a rank up at the end of the tournament.” Wendy ponders playfully. “Any chance that means you owe me a favor now?”

I allowed myself to smile at her joke and said, “I don’t think it works like that.”

“Relax, I was just joking.” Wendy smiles. “It was good that you got a rank upgrade. You deserve it. It will for sure help you at cleaning up the remaining monsters.” Wendy then turns to her friend and introduces me to her. “You remember Lilith, don’t you?”

As soon as Wendy mentions Lilith’s name, I start remembering her. I point at Lilith and say, “Hey yeah. You once spent a day mentoring us at the castle, didn’t you?”

“I remember you too, cutie.” Lilith smiles. “Too bad only one of you ended up choosing the Royal Guard. Wendy and I have been pretty close friends since then. Imagine you had chosen to be with the Royal guard as well. We could have had a few threesomes between us.”

The way Lilith is talking makes me a little nervous. I already have 2 girlfriends now. that’s one more then most guys get to have. I am already luckier then most. Lilith now making jokes about me getting it on with another 2 girls is maybe too much of a good thing.

“Eh, that’s very … uhm … I’m very flatter you think that way, Lilith. But I’m afraid my mind is too occupied at finding my mother now. I was hoping she had escaped the monster attack, but I haven’t seen her among the refugees here.”

“Sure, no problem, Darx.” Wendy says. “What does she look like.”

I tell them my mother’s name and describe her looks, including what her armor, sword and shield look like.

“A female fighter with black hair?” Wendy ponders. “There might have been one, but I’m not sure.”

Suddenly, Lilith snaps her finger and says, “I remember. 2 days ago, there was a big attack. We are still cleaning up some of the monsters we slew that day. She must have been the milf that was defending against a giant mantis.”

“Yeah, I remember now.” Wendy continues. “The mantis had broken through our lines but she had this one skill which made her shield glow blue, and this other skill that made her sword shine white, right?”

Yes, those are some of my mother’s skills. Thank the goddess. She is still alive. I sigh in relief and feel so much more relaxed. My mother is safe.

“What happened then?” I ask hopeful. “Where is she now?”

“She went into the forest to hunt down the source of the monster attacks.” Wendy said as she points at the forest on the other side of the fields. “We haven’t seen her since, but we also haven’t had any more monster attacks.

“Wait, alone?” I ask with renewed fear.

“Don’t worry, some high-level adventurers from Oblivion went with her.” Lilith reassured me. “There was even an S rank among them. I’m sure she’ll be fine.”

An S rank? And from Oblivion? I am so hoping Lilith is talking about Agnes, but I am already fearing the worst.

I turn to Lilith with a worried glance and ask, “Was it Kase?”

“It was.” Wendy answered with a scowl on her face. “I don’t like it either. The guy is an ass.”

“Still, if you’re going to explore what caused so many monsters to go on a rampage, it’s better to have an S rank with you than not.” Lilith replies.

From a rational perspective, Lilith is right. But she doesn’t know Kase like I do. Kase tried to turn Amelia against me. She is my childhood friend and he knew that, but he didn’t care. During the tournament, he tried to get her to betray me and if we didn’t have that fallout 8 months earlier, she might have actually done it. Him being alone with my mother makes me even more worried than the idea of her being on her own against a horde of monsters.

Before I have time to think of all the ways Kase being with my mother can be bad, I suddenly start hearing screams from the fields.