Chapter 34

Under the onslaught of the bees, the bandits fell into total chaos, their formation shattered.

I figured I could take my time drawing a magic circle now, or perhaps we should just take this chance to make a run for it.

However, there was no need for either.

Senior Tototo approached with slow, deliberate steps.

It might have been my imagination, but her twin-tails seemed to be angled upward sharply. To put it bluntly, she was radiating a heavy, menacing aura.

“You punks… don’t you dare mess with me!”

Then, using language that sounded quite thuggish and a voice laced with a terrifying edge, she delivered a powerful kick to one of the bandits. The force of the strike sent him flying into a tree.

“Whoa… that looked incredibly powerful…”

“You think you can pick a fight with me and win? In the Elf street-racing scene, I was part of the strongest ‘Ladies’ crew around! I’m not gonna lose to half-baked guys like you!”

She continued to systematically take down the bandits with a barrage of kicks. Come to think of it, she didn’t use a single bit of Dark Magic. She defeated them all through purely physical attacks.

“Sorry, Franz-kun. I wanted to see what you could do, so I just stayed still for a bit. Tee-hee!”

Senior said this with a forced cuteness. Her tone and voice were obviously different from when she was kicking the living daylights out of the enemies.

“Senior, you’re actually quite terrifying…”

“Well, when you’re a Speedster, you end up brawling with other teams about once every two days, so it was a rough life. At our peak, I think my friend and I had about five hundred people under us.”

That’s at the level where the government would send a subjugation force…

“I watched from the side, and it was truly a haunting sight,”

Cerulia remarked, looking like she had witnessed something incredible. Then, she immediately turned to me.

“But Master, you were wonderful to worry about me so much! I’ve fallen for you even more!”

She gave me a light kiss on the cheek. This kind of brief kiss feels really nice too… like a scene from a youth drama.

With that, things finally settled down. I wondered what would happen for a moment, but then I noticed Senior Tototo staring off toward a part of the forest where nothing was visible.

For a second, I thought more bandits were coming, but that wasn’t it.

“Look, you didn’t have to come all this way out.”

Senior was talking in her old Speedster slang, addressing the empty forest.

“I’ll be back. If it weren’t for you, the ‘me’ today wouldn’t exist. You’re the one who raised me. Nothing was a waste. I’ll keep carrying cargo, carrying your life with me. So just watch over me from there.”

Everyone is living their own life. It’s an obvious thing in a way, but I realized it anew just now. There are no soulless “mobs” in this world.

“If it weren’t for her friend’s accident, Senior Tototo’s life would have been entirely different,” Cerulia whispered beside me.

“But we cannot live the life where the friend survived. We can only live this one-time life we have.”

“True.”

“That is why I want to cherish my encounter with you, Master.”

Cerulia rested her head on my shoulder. I gently reached out my arm toward her while watching Senior’s back.

●

We used the “Physical Weakening” Dark Magic to immobilize the bandits and turned them over to the police. Delivering the cargo would be a bit late, but since this transport also served as my practice for driving the dragon skeleton, the schedule apparently had some buffer time. Since I had been driving at such a high pace earlier, we would likely be able to make up for the delay.

The Tensho-go arrived safely at the distribution yard on the outskirts of Suman within the allotted time.

By the time we finished unloading the cargo, evening had set in. Senior Tototo announced, “This is on me! Eat as much as you want!” and treated us to an all-out feast at a tavern in the port town.

Being a port town, the abundance of seafood dishes was a fresh experience.

“I’ve never eaten grilled fish this delicious! I don’t even know the name of this fish, though!”

“That fish is called ‘Sea Bream.’ I don’t know much about it either. It’s not eaten much in the Capital, but there’s a dish called ‘Bream Rice’ where you cook rice with grilled sea bream meat, and that’s even better.”

Following her suggestion, I ordered the Bream Rice, and it was genuinely incredible.

“This is great! It feels like the kind of dish you eat to finish off a meal, though.”

“There are no rules for drinking. Just keep eating and drinking!”

Cerulia isn’t a big eater, but she sampled a bit of every dish, moving her mouth with a smile and saying, “This is very delicious.”

“Also, that long, thin ‘Swordfish’ is great when grilled. I think you can still handle more, so shall we order that too?”

This fish had silver-glowing meat seasoned with salt. Compared to the sea bream, it was fluffier. It seemed like it would go perfectly with alcohol. We also had a hearty dish where a large seashell was used as a plate; the essence of the shellfish remained right in the shell-plate. The deep-fried squid was also a great accompaniment to the drinks.

“There really are a lot of types of alcohol here.”

“I hear this area has great spring water, so brewing is flourishing. Transporting that alcohol to the Capital is a major role for the dragon skeletons. You see, alcohol is a liquid, so mass transport is quite a task.”

I see. Logistics are changing thanks to the dragon skeletons.

“I’m sure the Tensho-go once flew through the skies as a dragon like he owned the place. Then some necromancer was the first to utilize his remains. Through various hands, it ended up here, supporting the country’s logistics.”

Even dragons have a history.

I thoroughly enjoyed the local cuisine—one of the true joys of a business trip. However, my drunkenness suddenly cleared.

“Come to think of it, where are we staying tonight?”

We hadn’t decided on an inn yet. It was a town, so I doubted there would be no vacancies at all, but not having a place secured beforehand felt a bit reckless. It would be a hassle if everywhere was full.

“Don’t worry about that,” Senior Tototo said, her face flushed from the alcohol.

“There’s a company dorm here where I live, so you can stay there.”

I wondered if it was okay for me to stay in a female employees’ dormitory, but since Cerulia was with me, I figured it would be fine.