Chapter 32: Unexpected Words

Then, for the sake of completely destroying the vampire vines down to their roots, Vivian led Shien and the rest into the area blackened by fire magic to completely rip all the roots of the vampire vines out from within the ground.

Vampire Vines' roots won't move like the rest of their bodies. Instead, they're no different from any other plant. They won't entangle others, they only consume the blood absorbed by the dirt and mud and then spread their seeds to reproduce. Plus, they don't bury themselves very deeply, so Shien and the others could use their own weapons as tools and quickly dug out all the roots.

Following that, the group under Vivian's direction gathered up all the roots in one place and had Melika once again release a large fire magic. When the roots were all burnt away, their job was finally considered to be successfully completely.

"The guild will send people here to do the confirmations later on, so for now, we'll be heading towards our next quest location – The Mangir mountain range."

Under Vivian's direction, the group thus set off.

This time, there was no obstructions on the road, nor was there any kind of event.

If something had to be said, it's that since Shien purposefully kept his distance, or perhaps it's due to him keeping a low profile, the inside of the carriage was no longer so gloomy.

After the work just a while ago, Melika's tight expression seemed to have softened, and she started to speak up more. Thus, even Diere and Lumia could no longer maintain their silence, so they'd more or less have some conversations, which made the air a bit calmer.

Naturally, this doesn't include Shien at all.

Shien just ignored the actions of the three girls and watched the scenery pass by outside through the window on his own. In his mind, all that he was thinking about is the matter of magic.

Under that kind of circumstances, the carriage reached the Mangir mountain range late in the day.

"Alright, we're here."

Vivian stopped the carriage at the foot of the mountain and, while calling Shien and the rest to come out, made sure to feed the horse water and salt.

As Shien got off the carriage, he looked to the distance where a mountain range was.

That would be the Mangir mountain range.

"Although we don't need to go in too deeply, since the sun is about to set, it's definitely unsuitable to go into the mountains now. Therefore, we'll be camping here at the foot of the mountain."

That was Vivian's plan.

"Camp?"

Shien reacted a that.

"Indeed." Vivian looked towards Shien and patiently explained, "Night is when most of the more dangerous demonic beasts are active. In addition, the temperature of the mountains at night is very low, so it's best not to do any adventuring at that time. This way we can avoid the most chances of something unexpected happening."

Shien instantly fell silent.

That's because he was reminded of how he ended up spending the nights during his ten days in the forest of demonic beasts.

"Indeed. Camp is good. Camp is the best. I love camping!"

By the time he came back to himself, he spoke those words without a hint of doubt.

"???"

Seeing how Shien seemed to completely change his attitude, Vivian was now the one who was confused.

At this time, Diere and the others also finally got down from the carriage.

"Are we camping big sis Vivian?"

Lumia weakly asked that question while giving Shien a glance with a timid expression once more appearing on her face.

"There's should be an inn near the foot of the mountain, so can't we stay there?"

Mekila also gave her opinion and, just like with Lumia, gave Shien a glance along with the returning nervous expression.

As for Diere, she didn't say a word. She just raised her head a little and seemed to have also given Shien a glance from under her hood.

"???"

This time, it was Shien's turn to be confused.

Of course, the situation itself showed that it wasn't Shien's side that had a problem but the girls'.

Why did all of them give a glance over here when they heard the word camp?

Are they afraid of getting attack at night or something?

Shien was going to open his mouth to shoot back with those words.

However, Vivian seemed to have also detected that something was wrong, and hurriedly stopped everyone.

"The nearest inn to this place would take us until midnight to reach by carriage, and the moment we get up tomorrow, we'd have to come back to this place, which will waste a great deal of time. If we ended up missing the active time for the spring, then we'd have to waste another day of time. Given that consideration, let's instead just set camp here for the night."

After she finished speaking, Vivian retried their luggage from the carriage and handed several black sheets of cloth over to Diere and the others.

"You guys set up the tents while I feed the horse, alright?"

Vivian didn't give Diere and the rest the change to refuse at all.

"Vivian."

Diere spoke up with a voice carrying a rare tone of reproach, as if she was dissatisfied with Vivian's decision.

However, Vivian just looked at Diere unflinchingly.

"I think you should understand right?" Vivian faced Diere with an unusually serious expression, "He didn't do anything wrong."

Diere instantly went silent.

Not just Diere, but even Lumia and Melika could no longer say anything.

The three of them once more looked towards Shien, but they were no longer as rude as before. Lumia even showed a hint of apology in her gaze.

Afterwards, the three took the sheets and walked off to the side in silence to set up the tents.

As an aside, those sheets were actually magic items. Just by injecting magic power in them, they'll balloon up and unfold on their own to become tents.

Therefore, there was no issue with setting up the tents even without a man like Shien helping.

As for Shien, after he watched Diere and the other two leave, he looked at Vivian again.

"Sorry, we've shown you something unpleasant." Vivian instantly said in an apologetic tone, "In the past, we've had several male adventurers that the guild arranged to join our party, and among them, there were people who took advantage of times where we camped to…"

As he heard that, Shien basically understood what was going on.

"No wonder they're so cautious towards me."

Shien muttered out loud.

"I really am sorry." Vivian apologized once more and, with a sigh, spoke depressingly, "Although it wasn't our intent, but, from various points of view, we've received a great deal of attention from men and male adventurers. Plus, since we ourselves are adventurers, some unavoidable issues really can't be helped."

"That's why I ended up assembling this party and gathered up all the female adventurers who much end up having these kind of troubles in the hope of at least keeping some of those people honest."

Vivian was basically being very honest here, to have even said that kind of things out loud.

"It's not like I can't understand that." Shien shrugged, "But, to have me join this party anyway. Be it you or the guild, aren't you being a bit too careless?"

"Perhaps." Vivian didn't deny that but instead smiled, "However, we've naturally considered all the pros and cons. In the end, the fact that we still made this decision just proves that you have that much value."

"Value… Was it?" Shien only then fully focused on Vivian, and then, as if he was just joking around, "What kind of value could I have? Do you think I'm the Hero or something?"

"Hero?" Vivian was momentarily stunned before half laughing, "If you were the Hero, then we'd have some major headaches."

With those words, Shien was also stunned.

"Why?" Shien asked surprised, "Do you not want to see the Hero appear and defeat the Demon King?"

Those words once again stunned Vivian.

And then…

"Wasn't the Demon King defeated a long time ago though?"

When those words rang out, the air stilled.

Shien's expression completely froze on his face and his pupils dilated, unable to hide his surprised expression.