Fairy Tale Chronicles

Volume 2, Prologue

Translator: Reflet

Editor: Weasalopes

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「This is probably the entrance.」

「Yup, seems like it.」

They were in the great forest covering the southern part of Farlane. The great road connecting the large countries of Farlane and Darl ran diagonally through a tropical rainforest until it reached an area with a colder climate, the vegetation changing accordingly. This happened to be around March. As Hiroshi and the others looked at the side road leading away from this road of over 4,000 kilometers, they exclaimed to each other that this was their route. It was about half a day from the closest town of Renedo.

If one were to run for about an hour at 80 km/h from where they currently were, they would find themselves near the border of Darl next to the Sharune River. Anyone who saw the vastness of this river would find themselves marvelling at how on earth they had managed to build a bridge along this deep river with a width of one kilometer. Once you crossed this behemoth of a river and continued for about 2 days, you would finally see the forest begin to thin out. The road made a soft curve to the northeast through the river before turning southeast upon crossing the river.

Incidentally, the roads in this world were far better maintained than the unpaved roads of developing countries, but in comparison to that of advanced countries, they were still seriously bad. This big southern road was no exception. Sure, it was impressive that they even managed to work maintenance on such a magnitude of distance, but it was still not suited for a minivan. If this were just your average minivan, equipment, and control scheme, then the car as well as the people inside would probably not be having a good time of it. Having said that, with the scale being what it was, even if they were able to pave the asphalt, it was questionable for just how long they could keep that up.

So as everyone looked at this other road leading away from the wide road that could fit three cars side by side, they felt very strange about how much of a contrast it was. It hardly even felt like a road in comparison from its modest size.

「Looks like we have to walk this one out.」

「Well, I did anticipate this.」

Tatsuya and Makoto grumbled as they looked at this side road that felt more like an animal trail. It was clearly made just for those living nearby to enter and exit, as its width didn’t even allow for wagons, let alone carriages or cars. To put it even more precisely, the day anyone even attempted to carelessly bring in a trolley, the unstable ground would ensure that it was brought to a standstill.

「Well, it isn’t like we can keep on grumbling about this, so let’s hurry and get ready to go. I get the feeling that we won’t reach our destination until at least three days from now.」

Tatsuya and Makoto grudgingly nodded after hearing Haruna’s realistic observation.

「What do we need, then?」

「First we need bug repellant all over us, otherwise there are plenty of insects that will bite us in this area.」

「And unlike Wulls, there are a lotta ones that carry weird diseases.」

Hiroshi agreed with Haruna as he handed out special bug repellant to everyone. When they heard about the disease part, everyone got to rubbing in the ointment, making disgusted faces all the while.

「Now all we need are the tents ‘n mosquito nets, but now probably ain’t the time to take ’em out.」

「Hiroshi-kun, take out your compass and map.」

「Alright.」

He did as Haruna had asked, taking out a map that had a rough sketch of only the forest and road as well as a compass.

「Sensei, I’d like a hatchet or sickle.」

「Alright.」

He handed Mio a sickle. He held a handaxe (using it in place of a hatchet) as he led the way.

「Mio-chan, I think it might be good for you to tie up your hair.」

「As we go.」

Haruna suggested to Mio as she put her hair up with accustomed hand movement, and Mio followed suit with fairly accustomed movement. Even if she could enchant the sleeves and cuffs of her clothing, there wasn’t anything that could be done about the hair.

「I’ll put the car away.」

「Alright.」

Tatsuya called out before promptly stowing away the minivan into a capsule. For whatever reason, the shape of the capsule greatly resembled the design from that one manga where you gather seven balls to grant your wishes. Hiroshi had clearly made it look that way just for his amusement.

「It would be great if we could set up camp somewhere along the way…」

「And if not, we’ll at least reserve some space for sleeping bags.」

「I guess that’s what we’ll do……」

The power of nature in this great forest was overwhelming for people trying to move around freely. Even if it wasn’t totally undiscovered, that didn’t change the fact that it was a place essentially unknown to humans. Also, even though they had taken a roundabout path to the southern part of the big road at the speed of 80 km/h for 8 hours every day, it had been more than 3 days before the forest began to show itself. When you also factored in the monsters that lived here, it was probably impossible to conquer the entirety of this forest with only this amount of technology.

There was no mistake about it: The construction and maintenance of this southern road was a great feat. It was hard to even visualize just how many years it would take to open up the land in this forest. From what they had seen along the way in the little inn towns that they passed by, all they had to do was look at the memorial monuments in each and every town to realize how many months and sacrifices it took in order to construct this road. The directors who got the road built were almost unmistakably people who possessed the extra skill for construction.

Being a road with much traffic, there were also three large inn towns. However, the populations did not even reach 100,000, so it wasn’t like they were contributing much more to the clearing of the land. Either way, it wasn’t hard to tell that opening the land had been no easy task, even without looking at all of those monuments.

Of course, even calling it a road with much traffic was a stretch. If you compared it with the scramble intersections in Japan’s big cities, the population density was far lower, which meant that even if you did drive a car at around 80 km/h, you most likely would not bump or crash into anyone.

It had now been two weeks since they had left Wulls, signalling the beginning of the second week in March. The Japanese had at last stepped into the intimidating realm of the great forest.

「But you know, I kind of feel used to camping in the forest……」

「Yeah, that’s because practically all of our jobs involved doing something in the mountain or forest……」

Tatsuya and Makoto grumbled as they prepared the encampment after having finally found a reasonable clearing to pitch tents. Since coming to Farlane, the two of them had always tagged along with Mio on harvest expeditions into the mountains and forests, making them well-adjusted to walking along the animal trails.

Even for Hiroshi and everyone else, the forest was typically where they would go for activities. Stones that made glass and cliffs from where iron ore could be excavated could usually be found near the rivers and mountains within the forest, and the most important item, medicine, was at its highest quality and quantity in the forest.

「I can purty much tell that people camp here from time to time.」

「And maybe because of how close it is to the road, there aren’t many brutal monsters to be seen.」

Hiroshi surveyed the surrounding vegetation and ground while Haruna noted various things on the map, compass in the other hand. Although the forest looked exceptionally green from the outside, upon stepping inward you could tell that it was much more colorful. This was essentially proof that this forest was truly showering blessing after blessing on its inhabitants, as well as probably the fact that there were many people who came into the forest because of that very reason. Then again, the forest was also merciless to intruders that became too greedy.

「What did Teres say?」

「If you travel along the largest animal trail, you’ll come out next to a river, from which you continue walking along upstream and you should eventually find a settlement, providing you have sharp eyes.」

「I’m sure she couldn’t help it, but no matter how many times I hear that explanation, it just sounds so darn sloppy.」

Makoto asked for confirmation from Haruna, who repeated the correct information. Hiroshi simply sighed at how lackadaisical it sounded. In fact, there weren’t very precise maps to be found in any country, so it really couldn’t be helped that the explanation was lackluster. So in that sense, the explanation was quite easy to understand.

「If they live in a place like this, I guess it’s reasonable to say they’re an insular society?」

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「Who knows? According to Teres, it’s more like people in the city have a complex about going outside, but that doesn’t necessarily have to mean that they don’t want other people coming in……」

「……Yeah, you’re basically picking a fight with all the archetypal elves by saying that～」

Makoto sighed and grimaced at the same time when she heard what the hired elf girl had said at the workshop. To be honest, she could somewhat tell that Teres herself seemed like a country bumpkin who had adjusted to life in the city. Even in Nora’s case, despite having nearly become someone’s slave, she was neither prejudiced against nor reluctant to associate with the human race. Finding it strange, she had talked to both of them, who had said:

「Out of every person I’ve met so far, there have been far more people who have been nice to me, so I didn’t really see it as fair to have prejudice because of one or two experiences.」

「There are plenty of bad eggs amongst the Mora as well. Besides, if all of humanity really were that bad, then I wouldn’t have even made it far past the village.」

In general, Farlane’s pastoral culture of working hard to eat was, albeit unusual for a large country, probably very beneficial for them.

「Well in any case, even if we wander a bit, we should be able to get back. We just need to pay heed to any monsters and then proceed at our own leisure.」

「Yep. We still have more food than we can eat, and if anything goes wrong we can simply have everyone at the workshop send us food and water.」

Everyone laughed in response to what Haruna said because they knew just how handy shared enchantments were, and they were ready to use it to the fullest. Even for returning, they could simply use either a teleportation stone or long-distance magic, so being lost for a week or two wouldn’t put them in a pinch at all.

Humans are beings that can deal with some inconvenience in a relatively composed manner, providing that they have plenty of food and not too many insecurities. This particular group didn’t even have any particular limitations over their journey. Half a year (in this world’s time) had elapsed since Tatsuya and the others had been thrown into this world. There was no point in getting concerned now that they had been here this long. Small adventures like this one should be enjoyed to the fullest.

Right now, they were all of that opinion. Of course, it went without saying that stepping foot into the southern tropical rainforest to search for elf villages (of which the location is unknown to most people) would not qualify as a “small” adventure in any sense of the word.

The lack of common sense amongst Hiroshi and his group was truly astounding.

「Caterpillar caterpillar～」

「I got mahself some gaudy fruit!」

「I pulled out some herbs with suspicious coloring.」

It was the third day since entering the forest. The Japanese people had thoroughly adjusted to life there. Despite having not yet gone to the river mentioned by Teres, no one seemed to really care.

Furthermore, they all had the skill Wanderlust, which when combined with their knowledge of the forest enabled them to travel a staggering 50 kilometers per day on foot. If they were to walk straight north for ten days, that was the kind of speed that could get them near the southern edge of Spirit Spire Mountain.

「Wow, I’m impressed that you all thought about eating this.」

「But Bro, yer doin’ the same thing.」

「Yeah, but I’m not exactly used to this. I just gave in is all.」

Tatsuya replied with a strained face as he looked at the odd-looking food ingredient. Although it certainly didn’t look that way, the ingredients they were gathering happened to be safe as well as tasty. The majority of oddly-colored foodstuff were that way so as to ward off potential predators- their way of evolving, apparently.

Among them were types that were harmless to humans but extremely poisonous to the herbivorous creatures and insects in these parts, so it was easy to tell that even a parallel universe like this one had its version of the struggle for existence.

「But you know, when I look at all these ingredients, it really reminds me that we’re in another world.」

「Ya just now realized this? Man, I thought ya would’ve picked up on it all the times ya ate them wyverns.」

「Well sure, you have a point, but…At least that was clearly some giant lizard, whereas the stuff around here just screams poison. Get what I mean?」

「I do get what yer tryin’ ta say, but……」

Hiroshi returned a wry smile as he brought out water with magic, extracting the lye from the oddly-colored herbs. If there were the same foods that had been in the game, then it was reasonable to expect to encounter more things like this.

If there were one refined ingredient in particular that struck him as remarkable, it would have to be the smack-dabbingly delicious hedoro or kohltaar, which both looked as if they would do a number on your body if you swallowed them but were in actuality so tasty that you actually wondered if there were anything superior in this world. They happened to contain a substance on their own that could extinguish any disease status condition, but they were also ingredients for a seriously phenomenal restorative item known as Soma of the Gods, so there was rarely an opportunity to eat these on their own.

「Hey, I got a snake!」

As they were jabbering on about various things while preparing dinner, Makoto dragged in a snake whose length was practically equal to her height. It wasn’t especially large around the torso, but it was probably enough to net them five suppers and five breakfasts.

「Ooo, that’s a darn good meal if I ever saw one!」

「Kabayaki kabayaki!」

「Gotta make some sauce.」

It was the kind of snake associated with parasites, so they had to cook it thoroughly. That was precisely why Haruna was carefully disassembling it.

「I gotcha a fire goin’.」

「Thanks.」

When it came to kabayaki, rather than cooking it on a steel plate, it was better to directly expose it to the flame over a net. At least, that was Hiroshi’s insistence, as he had already started a fire in the earthen charcoal brazier, so there wasn’t any use arguing with him. Actually, no one bothered to comment on anything he did by this point.

「Meanwhile, I’mma roast the caterpillar with this here steel plate.」

「And boil the herbs?」

「Yeah, or otherwise we could stew them together with the fruit.」

The three of them talked as they steadily progressed with cooking. This time around, the two eldest members of the group weren’t able to tag along with the conversation, as they did not cook.

「Man, this scent is intoxicating……」

「Yeah, kabayaki is one of those things that tastes great as a donburi……」

As soon as Makoto spoke, the people working on the meal stopped momentarily.

「What now? Cook the rice?」

「I only ate it once with Elle after the hot springs on my way back from guard duty, so there ain’t nothin’ wrong with havin’ it this once.」

「Donburi…that kinda sounds good right now……」

Once the idea of donburi got into her head, there was no going back. Haruna quickly thrust the roasted kabayaki into the food supply shed before immediately starting on the rice. Hiroshi began roasting the remaining kabayaki for her to thrust that into storage as well. Meanwhile, alongside the herb/fruit stew, Mio took out her prized wheat bran and wakame to make red miso soup.

After the most time consuming process of cooking the rice was over, all of the food was stocked and ready to be devoured by starving beasts who were waiting to pounce at any minute. It was quite the spectacle.

「Is it about ready?」

As they couldn’t cook the rice in the conventional rice cooker, the one doing the cooking had to determine whether it was finished or not. With that being said, Haruna had already maxed out her cooking skill, so it was safe to say there were no oversights. The minute she lifted the lid of the earthenware pot, there was an aroma that would likely arouse the appetite of the vast majority of Japanese people, alongside the emergence of white, erect, freshly-cooked rice.

「I can’t endure this any longer!」

「Haruna, quickly!」

「Okidokie. Wait just a minute.」

Haruna quickly piled on enough rice for everyone onto the donburi, and before you knew it, everything was set out and ready. She was followed by Hiroshi, who set the snake kabayaki on the rice, and then Mio poured plenty of sauce over that as well. It didn’t even take a minute for all the trays to be filled.

「More precisely, it’s a donburi special, I’d say……」

「The places where we eat, the ingredients used, I’m sure there are a lot of strange things to comment on, but who even cares about the particulars……」

Tatsuya and Makoto stared at their trays with impressed faces, chopsticks in hand. There were a variety of bizarre things on their plates, such as caterpillars instead of pickles, richly colored stewed vegetable leaves, etc. Some might even point out that donburi specials have nothing to do with small bowl stews, instead containing mini udon or mini soba.

Still, as they were in an alternate world, eating red miso soup with donburi wasn’t anything in comparison to that.

「Yum……」

「The sauce is fantastic……」

「I personally think that the kabayaki was well done, but what do you all think?」

「Heck yeah, the kabayaki is great. Different from eel or conger, but this is tasty in and of itself.」

As often is for the taste of reptile, the snake that was prepared this time tasted close to what chicken was like. So you might be tempted to envision chicken instead of eel for kabayaki, but kabayaki is after all kabayaki. Nothing would ever change the fact that putting it on rice and eating it made for a great meal.

「Wow, caterpillars make a darn skippy palate cleanser, y’all.」

「This type is a bit crunchy.」

Hiroshi and Mio commented on the overall balance as they ate the crunchy caterpillar like it was a pickled daikon radish. The next moment, the donburi, stew, and miso soup was all eaten up.

「That was delicious.」

All of them practically finished eating at the same time, and they all exclaimed the same thing.

「But you know, it feels kinda strange.」

「Yeah, cause ya can’t usually get no donburi if ya camp out in places like these.」

Hiroshi made a mercilessly sarcastic comment.

「Okay, so we just ate a staggering amount of rice. Any idea as to how we’ll replenish stock?」

「Yeah, this season’s not well-suited for it. Guess we gotta wait another half year!」

Tatsuya had no choice but to agree with Hiroshi’s statement. Quite honestly, this was the time of year in which rice planting had not yet begun. Cherry blossoms would be blooming in Japan about now. Unless you somehow cheated in some special way, you definitely could not get your hands on new rice at this time.

「Haven’t even eaten half of our supply, so don’t worry about it just yet.」

「You say that, but…I get the feeling that we eat quite a bit every time we cook some, and since it’s not easy to get our hands on it too often, I kinda do feel concerned, y’know?」

「Tatsu, you’re the type of person who keeps elixirs on hand but never uses them.」

「Well excuse me!」

Tatsuya made a sullen face as he responded to Mio’s interjection. Then again, it was true that it was a typical Japanese thing to preserve food in case of not being able to replenish stock later on due to scarcity or pricing.

「Well, I’m sure that we can figure out a way to extend the time we eat rice until we git some more.」

「If you say so……」

Tatsuya was quite the worrywart. He was okay with eating things right away if they didn’t have any to start out with, but whenever it was difficult to get any in the first place, he was always on the defensive.

「Well anyhoo, there ain’t no point in fiercely protectin’ some grains o’rice, so I say we just chow down whenever we feel like it.」

「……Yeah, I know what you’re saying, it’s just…」

「Yeah, I do think it’s a bit rash to just eat whenever…」

Hiroshi and the older members of the team simply couldn’t see eye to eye. They didn’t know, however, that if they were to have the newbies at the workshop prepare some more rice, there was some new information that could blow away all of their worries.

「I’d better cut my hair soon～」

「Same. Maybe I’ll get a trim.」

Makoto and Haruna chatted while they enjoyed the outdoor bath. What with Hiroshi’s personality and all, they didn’t have any concern of being peeked at, so they were quite languid.

Furthermore, this large, portable bath had actually been madly requested by the girls from Hiroshi, and it came complete with a space to change as long as there was enough room to pitch a tent. The existence of this bath was probably the greatest reason as to why the Japanese people were adapting to life in this forest.

「Upon closer inspection, haven’t you gotten a bit bigger, Mio?」

「Mako, when say “big”, what area in specific do you mean?」

「In addition to your height increasing a bit, I also feel like your physique is different from when your body was even all around.」

「If that’s the case, then that does make me a bit happy.」

Mio indeed looked happy at Makoto’s assessment. In actuality, while it could not be denied that in terms of physical growth she was half Aearis’s circumference, it was doubtful that anyone who saw Mio would still think her to have a child’s physique. Having finally been freed from her bedridden hemiplegia, the initial frail physique had been done away with, and it was now clear to anyone that she had the body of a normal, healthy person.

Albeit slowly, Mio had finally grown to a level that was no longer frail or childlike, exuding some eroticism for once. However, there was still much to be desired from her physique in comparison to Haruna’s more glamorous body type. Indeed, in total, most people would flock to Haruna’s side.

「But I don’t pop out like you do, Haru……」

「Well not even Elle has gotten to that point, and even Mora is on the large side but still not quite there. I don’t think you need to fret about that. I mean, look at me.」

「Well even you aren’t too bad yourself, Makoto-san……」

「It’s okay, you don’t need to comfort me. In the end, I’m just a meager-chested girl who loses magnificently to even the elves……」

Ignoring Haruna’s heartfelt thoughts, Makoto had sunk into a spiral of self-depreciation. In actuality, the elves in question did not happen to have much interest in appearance or physique in their value system. Furthermore, it was not actually a proven fact that elves had meager breasts. It was just that the elves in Wulls or Kalsus they had met tended to be in said category. They hadn’t met all the elves in the city, so who could say for sure that was all they had?

「Ah, right, I forgot.」

「Hm?」

「I can’t exactly talk about something like this in front of Hiroshi, but it’s about that time.」

「……Ah～. Did you have it pretty bad?」

「No, not exactly.」

The three of them spoke in low voices to discuss something a little too graphic for men to hear.

「What about you, Makoto-san?」

「It ended before I even came into the forest.」

「I couldn’t tell at all.」

「Well yeah, because it’s not a big issue in my case. Just a little bit and that was that.」

Everyone had agreed on not going into detail about private affairs, especially since Hiroshi was concerned. As a result, there hadn’t been much of an opportunity to share said information, quite possibly because they had never had big problems when living in the workshop.

「And you, Mio?」

「My cycle is fairly uncertain. Same with the severity.」

「So…?」

「I never know when it’ll arrive.」

「But it does in fact come around?」

This was a fairly important thing, so Haruna and Makoto looked at her with serious expressions. After Makoto had asked that question, Mio silently nodded. This physical phenomenon unique to woman created a variety of effects during any given cycle. Besides, this also related to potentially bearing children in the future, so even if it was impossible to discuss in front of males, they couldn’t simply avoid the subject out of embarrassment.

「At any rate, I’m so glad you made those for us.」

「Yeah, we can’t after all rely on Hiroshi too much for things like this.」

「If we pushed the job onto Sensei, that would truly be the end of him.」

「Yeah, cause Hiroshi-kun already had quite the handful with undergarments.」

After meeting up, Mio had been in charge of producing menstruation-related items. Unlike Hiroshi, who did not notice the small details, Tatsuya seemed to somewhat have an idea of what was going on, as he already had a wife, but she figured it was a good manner at times like these to not mention anything.

Still, Tatsuya was truly a good man, being attentive at times like these in more ways than one. It was no surprise at all to hear that he had a wife.

「So everything seems to be fine for now, although I’m not sure how well we can deal with it.」

「Got it. Well, I’ll look out for you, so don’t worry. Nothing major has occurred so far.」

「Please do.」

「So, Mako. Who do you think comes first in terms of attributes- Sensei, or Tatsuya?」

「Attributes?」

「Mio, I don’t recall you being interested in this sort of thing. Why ask this all of a sudden? And hey, you’re not even out of middle school yet!」

Finishing their more personal conversation, it was now time for girls’ talk. Mio had originally brought up this topic in order to mess with Makoto, and the conversation eventually went all over the place, making Haruna feel dizzy as she struggled to keep up. Much as always, the girls were taking their time in the bath.

「So Hiro. What’s it like recently?」

「Whaddya mean?」

As the girls were bathing, Hiroshi and Tatsuya were chatting while working on things like tool maintenance and medicine preparation, trying their best to ignore how uncomfortable and bored they were.

「Are you used to women now? That’s what I mean.」

「A little mixed, I’d say. As long as I have ’nuff room ’round the house like the workshop, it ain’t really an issue. I don’t have no issue with lettin’ our current members ride in the passenger seat or rear seat of carriages, minivans, etc.」

If you flipped that around, it also meant that any other people were a no-go. On their last mission of being escorts, Makoto and Haruna had been riding on horses outside, while Mio had been on standby in another carriage. Most importantly, there was the tension accompanied by their mission, so even inside the carriage it was doubtful that it would have been an issue.

But this time around, it was more of a carefree drive. He wasn’t being particularly careful as they were moving. Tatsuya and Makoto were the only ones with licenses, switching places every two hours in the backseat, whereas Hiroshi had remained in the back, maintaining his distance. They were close to what you would refer to as bosom buddies, and the frequent, low-tension act of changing seats did a great job at ensuring that no one felt stressed out.

「Then how okay are you with coming into contact with women?」

「Mmm. If it’s when we do things like shake hands or exchange money, it’s fine.」

「I’d say that sounds a lot better than before, wouldn’t you?」

「Well, I never had too much of an issue with that even when I got here, but I guess ya can say that it’s a start for me to be able to not flinch when directly facin’ people. I still don’t like them crowds, but a normal day in Wulls ain’t nothin’.」

Tatsuya meant what he said, even if Hiroshi himself wasn’t as certain. If you were to compare this to the time in which he would have a panic attack every time he saw a female (regardless of family or age) and had to get the special privilege of accelerating time in the VR world to the limit his brain could handle, using the remaining time for counseling, it was phenomenal to hear that he no longer had to put himself on guard for every social encounter.

He had not yet reached the point where there were no more hindrances in everyday life. In fact, this little change was nearly meaningless in the fabric of daily life. However, the fact that some progress had finally manifested itself in this two year long phobia was without a doubt a groundbreaking event.

「But wow, this forest is already crazy enough, but that large southern road is something else. How many days would that normally take?」

「I dunno, but if yer usin’ a coach ‘n the like, yer lookin’ at maybe more than a month, I’d say.」

「And if it were a golem version then maybe it’d take slightly less longer, eh?」

The contents of the casual conversation shifted to the southern road they had plowed along three days ago. You would usually expect a conversation relating to their type of women, but Tatsuya already had a wife and was not looking for anyone, and Hiroshi swore by 2-D women as long as they did not attack men, so no matter what, there was no way to start a conversation on that matter. Sure, maybe a conversation about sexual desires, but none of those ones lasted more than a short answer, so there was no sense in discussing anything regarding the opposite sex.

「Yeah, that there golem car has quite the speed.」

「About 60km/h?」

「Yup, sounds about right.」

Transportation in this world was a lot quicker than the typical fantasy world. Maybe not for people riding in carriages, but wagons with luggage had plenty of suspension that they used, so caravans actually moved at a fairly high speed. The only people who moved slowly by foot were poor adventurers who could not raise horses or find sufficient funds for stagecoaches.

Maybe not in the city, but when they were on the road, everyone would always move at merciless speeds. With such speed, the value of the southern road was probably very high.

「But ya definitely can’t git faster ‘n 80 km/h with current human tech.」

「Well yeah. Golem carriages are what everyone wants after all.」

「Plus that minivan of ours is mighty tasty to everyone who saw it.」

「Aren’t golem carriages practically inexpensive to maintain?」

「I dunno, I think it depends. Cause what we’re usin’ are dynamic crystals ‘n good auto magic refills, plus it also has auto repair, collision avoidance and an inertia regulation barrier, so we’re doin’ fine, but I bet them cheap golems require frequent maintenance on their axles ‘n whatnot.」

With that being said, just by having the perk of not having to take care of the golem like you would a horse made everything much better. If a skilled craftsman made golems that could last decades and still not break, it was very understandable why someone would want a golem at some point.

You could even say that golem riders were the champions of all land riders.

「So what was all this talk about current human tech? Are you referring to monsters?」

「Sure am. Welp, there’re hardly any around, but I’ve heard of monsters that can carry people at speeds up to 200 km/h, or people that control dragons that can soar over this road in just a day.」

「Wow, that’s crazy……」

It was true that if you rode on a wyvern, they could probably reach the other side of the road from anywhere between 8 and 10 hours with time to spare. With that being said, unfortunately, not a single member of their team had any skills for taming. Maybe something could be done for airplanes or helicopters, but if not, then they would likely not be moving through the sky anytime soon. There was a great risk in using flight magic.

「You think we could see the elven settlement from the sky?」

「Not like they’re hidin’ nothin’, so I betcha could depending on the scale.」

「I wonder what the elf villages over here are like.」

「After seein’ Teres, I don’t really feel like the image we have in our heads or our expectations are gonna be met. Might be real disappointing.」

As they gazed up at the stars peeking out from the silhouettes of the trees, they waited for the girls to finish with their bath. Despite saying that they would probably be disappointed, that did not change the fact that everyone’s expectations were in fact increasing at the prospect of finally being able to see an elven village.