After dinner, sleep.
The next morning, an inn employee came to the special suite where we were staying and knocked on the door.
Knock, knock.
I did not hear it, but Luna, who had been sleeping in my arms, reacted by tapping my face with her forepaw.
Four times in one breath.
Kit. Ty. Paw. Punch.
The pattering sensation did not feel bad at all.
I wanted to feel it one more time, so I deliberately pretended I could not wake up and dawdled.
“Mmm.”
Had it been obvious that I wanted her to hit me more?
This time, Luna openly put strength into it and struck my forehead.
KIT! TY! PAW! PUNCH!
Each time she hit me, there was a thwacking sound. It felt like getting flicked in the forehead by someone with thick forearms.
My skull rang so hard I was really about to fall asleep again.
Though in that case, it would be more accurate to call it fainting rather than sleep.
When I opened my eyes, golden pupils were looking down at me from close range.
I grabbed Luna with both hands, moved her to the side, slid down beside the bed, and tossed out a joke.
“Now that I’m up, I guess I should go dig potatoes out of the litter box first.”
Luna returned to human form and looked at me with eyes that said I was pathetic.
“Should I wake you with a Ghost Tiger foreleg starting tomorrow?”
“Haha, please spare me that much.”
Trading joke for joke, I headed for the door, then opened it and greeted the inn employee.
The inn employee pushed a cart loaded with food into the room and conveyed Larsson’s message.
“The owner is waiting in his office and asks to see you after your meal.”
Breakfast consisted of assorted beans roasted without oil, egg-drop soup, and an omelet with shredded chicken breast mixed in.
And for Luna, there was pine-needle tea brewed for more than thirty minutes.
Like someone from the Alhen Region, Luna used thoroughly brewed tea as a substitute for breakfast and spoke to me.
“Since they said they would provide it for free, why did you not order something expensive?”
I knew.
Last night, an employee had come and shown me the menu, asking whether I would eat breakfast and, if so, what I would like.
There had been several expensive sets made with high-quality ingredients that suited breakfast, but I had deliberately ordered this.
‘Please bring us the home-style breakfast the people of this region always eat.’
I blew on the egg soup and drank it little by little as I spoke.
“Special things you can get by paying money can be found anywhere.”
“If you are going to discuss such a heavy topic, should I order some alcohol to drink with it?”
“I am not trying to say anything profound. Since I came all the way here, I just want to feel the local atmosphere soaking into my body.”
If going around a polished tourist course was like dating someone dressed up splendidly and then parting ways, then experiencing something close to the daily life of locals could be compared to a home date where both people saw each other barefaced.
The former was not bad either, but for the moment, I was more drawn to the latter.
I was simply acting according to whichever appealed more to me, nothing more and nothing less.
Luna listened to me calmly expound on my preferences, then poured cold water on it in an indifferent tone.
“So being woken up by me hitting you in the morning is also part of your preferences.”
She was as good at hitting people with her mouth as she was with kitty-paw punches.
However, I did not bother denying it.
Deliberately.
***
After breakfast, we went to Larsson’s office, where Larsson and some woman were waiting.
The first impression I received upon seeing the woman was “large.”
I was a little under 180 centimeters tall, and she was slightly taller than me.
Her hair was blue, and her eyes were so narrow they were practically slits, making it hard to distinguish the color of her pupils.
Her hairstyle had her short hair gathered and tied back, with a little of the hair in front of both sideburns left hanging down.
In appearance, she looked to be in her mid-to-late twenties, but she carried the kind of atmosphere that only someone with deep experience would give off.
She wore typical hunter’s clothing, and as for weapons, all she had was one dagger hanging from a holder at her waist.
Larsson introduced the woman to me.
“You have arrived, Mr. Seong-jin. Let me introduce this friend first. This is Grenda, who will escort you to the locations that need purification.”
The woman named Grenda wore a warm smile, placed her right hand on her chest, and bent her upper body about fifteen degrees.
“I’m Grenda. I’ll be in your care for the next few days.”
“Despite how she looks, she is the most skilled hunter around Volter Mountain. She is mainly in charge of steadily clearing out monsters so they cannot approach the water veins that have not yet been contaminated.”
It was the same as Nadan’s work as a forest keeper.
Only the location had changed from a forest to the foothills of a hot spring area.
After several water sources were contaminated, the village chiefs and local notables of each village to the east, west, south, and north of Volter Mountain discussed the matter and decided to recruit capable people and sign them to exclusive contracts.
To protect the water sources that had not yet been contaminated.
They had been consistently recruiting capable people for a long time, but everyone had been unsatisfactory. Then, a few days ago, a high-level hunter applied, allowing them to finally breathe a little easier.
That was Grenda.
This woman named Grenda had produced results beyond everyone else as soon as she was hired, and in the blink of an eye, she had become the ace of the Omoreo Region.
I shook hands with Grenda.
“I will be in your care as well.”
“May we depart right away?”
“I do not mind, but while we leave, there is something I would like to discuss regarding today’s route.”
“Ah, I heard about that. You want to stop by each of the paid hot springs in the east, west, south, and north, yes? I have planned the route with that in mind, so you only need to follow me.”
Stopping by a water source, returning to the southern village, and then going to another village to visit a hot spring would waste too much movement.
So the most ideal plan would be to stop by a water source, perform the purification work, then head straight to another village and stay overnight in the village we arrived at.
Of course, that was only if the water sources were located in places where an efficient route could be made.
Instead of seeing us off far, Larsson bowed his upper body about twenty degrees as he sent me off.
“I feel deeply apologetic that I am entrusting work to someone who came from so far away. I will think about whether there is anything else I can give you in addition to the promised compensation, so please take care and return safely.”
I already thought the promised compensation was generous enough, yet he was saying he would keep an additional bonus in mind.
Behind me, Luna had been quietly poking my back with her index finger for a while now.
I already knew what Luna wanted to say.
‘It must be hard enough that the promised reward does not feel generous.’
There was a sense that Larsson had not told me everything about this request.
If I was going to refuse, now was the last moment.
She was probably warning me because she was worried I would suffer.
So what if it was dangerous? So what if it was difficult?
I placed my right arm behind my waist as if clasping my hands behind my back and raised my thumb.
‘It’s fine. If something happens, you’ll protect me, won’t you?’
Did my boundless trust in Luna get through?
Luna no longer poked my back.
Under Larsson’s send-off, we left the inn.
Only after we had reached a place far enough that the village looked small did I ask Grenda the question I had refrained from asking in front of Larsson.
“Should I take the fact that the local ace is escorting us to mean we must go deep into a dangerous area?”
Grenda smiled warmly with her eyes.
“I will take care of the monster hunting, so you can relax and simply follow.”
“I cannot enter a dangerous area without prior information.”
“You are more cautious than you look.”
“What did I look like?”
“I thought you would be a little more hot-blooded, like someone in his early twenties.”
“For reference, I am thirty-seven.”
Grenda quietly examined my face slowly, then tilted her head and asked softly.
“That is a joke, right?”
“Everyone says the same thing.”
Suddenly, I remembered how people said that when East Asians traveled to the West, they were seen as much younger than their actual age.
The same formula kept applying here as well.
Grenda added a response with a nasal “Hmm~,” as if she were dealing with an interesting creature.
“I thought you were much younger than me, but you were only a little younger.”
“Older? I actually thought you were younger, Ms. Grenda.”
“I am thirty-eight this year. And I am still alone.”
“You must not have met anyone you liked until now.”
“Hehe, flattering me will not get you anything.”
“That was my honest impression, so it is disappointing that you do not believe me.”
Grenda gently curled her fist, placed it against her mouth, and laughed quietly.
A beauty who radiated tolerance.
I understood why she had not had a partner until now.
Even to my untrained eye, she had no openings.
From her gait, which was as undisturbed as that of a master, to her broad, embracing atmosphere that seemed to force the other person to act spoiled toward her.
She was perfect to work with while keeping a safe distance, but the impression was strong that once one entered her private territory, she would be too much to handle.
Having decided roughly how much distance I should keep from Grenda, I moved half a step to the side as I walked.
“May I ask your level, Ms. Grenda?”
“Oh my, you can call me big sis instead of Ms. Grenda.”
“Ms. Grenda.”
“Hehe, I am joking. You asked my level, yes? I recently became level 70.”
A level 70 expert.
She was higher than Nadan.
Since Larsson had personally introduced her and assigned her as my escort, there was no room to doubt her skills.
I knew that in my head, but there was something that had been bothering me for a while.
I swept a sidelong glance over Grenda’s waist.
No matter how I looked, I could not see any equipment aside from one dagger.
As I slowly withdrew my gaze, my eyes met Grenda’s.
Had I been caught looking? I hoped she would not misunderstand.
Fortunately, the situation I worried about did not occur.
Grenda smiled and patted her empty belt with her palm.
“Are you curious about what my specialty is?”
“You have only one dagger as equipment.”
“My specialty is quite unusual. It is hard to explain in words, so when monsters appear, I will show you directly.”
It had already been an hour since we left the village.
We had left the gentle ridgeline and had just entered a highland region full only of rocks and gravel.
Rocks of various sizes were placed freely everywhere, making it impossible for our sight to stretch very far.
I stopped walking and loaded an arrow onto the Deros Bow.
“There is no need to wait. It seems we can see it right now.”
Skill activation, Stabilizer.
Luna also prepared her bow at the same timing as me and nocked an arrow to the string.
One or two monsters crawled out from each of the irregularly scattered rocks.
The forms of the monsters that appeared were closer to lumps of filth than living creatures.
Their bodies were about the size of a sack of rice, sticky and full of moisture.
Like mud scooped up from the bottom of a swamp.
Mud-like mucus kept flowing down their surfaces, making them look like the soft-cooked omelet I had eaten that morning.
Though those things looked utterly inedible.
Grenda placed her index finger to her lips and calmly took on the role of guide.
“Poison Slimes. Their level is 30. Around here, they are monsters at the lower end of the food chain.”
“How should we deal with them?”
Unlike the monsters of Cat Forest, whose vital points could be clearly guessed, Poison Slimes had no vital points I could identify at all from the outside.
Grenda, who entered monster-infested areas as part of her daily life, should know the Poison Slime’s vital point.
If she told me the vital point, I would immediately pierce it with an arrow.
But Grenda shook her head and stepped forward alone.
“Oh my, have you already forgotten? I told you that I would handle monster subjugation, and you only needed to follow.”
There were roughly more than twenty Poison Slimes that had appeared before us.
Even at level 70, would that not be a burdensome number to face all at once?
As if answering my question, Grenda let both arms hang diagonally and recited in a low voice.
Her specialty, which she had said she would show me directly earlier.
“Shadow Knock.”