The Weakest Tamer Began a Journey to Pick up Trash - Volume 5 - Chapter 272

Chapter 272:

Deep into the Forest

“It’s not letting up, is it?”

This was the third rainy day in a row. We spent the whole time sitting on the sofa, looking through our window and watching the constant rain fall. It was also bitterly cold, and although we hadn’t heard any details, we knew that people had died. I let out another sigh.

“Puuu?”

As I sat looking out the window, I suddenly felt a weight on my lap. I looked down to see Sora sitting there and staring up at me.

“Pu! Puuu.” Sora stretched up its body to look me in the eye. It was worried about me.

“I know, Sora. There’s nothing we can do about it.”

We had just heard the news that someone had frozen to death. In my head, I knew I couldn’t have done anything to help, but my heart ached a little. “We did everything we could. Right, Sora?”

“Pu! Pu, puuu.”

Mrrrow.

“Te! Ryu, ryuuu.”

I was a little surprised to hear everyone else chime in after Sora. I must have been in such a daze that I hadn’t even noticed them come up to me.

“Thanks, guys.”

They were right. I’d done everything I could to help, so there was no use moping about it. I heard the door click open and saw Druid come in with some hot drinks.

“Hanging in there? Here, this’ll help.”

I thanked Druid and took the drink. He noticed I was getting depressed. I feel so pathetic. I took a sip, and a refreshing sweet warmth filled my mouth. “This is good.”

“Glad you like it.”

I hate worrying him. Okay! I’m okay now. I nodded slowly, and he patted my head. Everyone’s love warmed my heart.

“Dola says the rain is supposed to take a break tomorrow.”

“Oh, good.”

“We won’t be able to go hunting unless it snows, though.”

“Hunting?”

“Remember? We wanted to go hunt those rare monsters that only come out in winter.”

“Oh!”

That’s right, we did make that promise. But doesn’t it need to snow for us to do that?

“Those monsters only show up when it’s snowing. No matter how cold it is, they won’t come out in the rain.”

Oh, that’s too bad. Well, winter has only just begun. It can’t ­possibly rain the whole time. But if something strange was going on, maybe it would just keep raining unless we could do something to change it.

“I sure wish it would stop raining,” I said.

“Me, too.”

“The sun is shining!”

We stepped outside the inn and looked up at the sky. Seeing the sun after so long was such a relief, although it was still bitterly cold.

“I never thought I’d feel this blessed to see the sun,” Druid murmured in awe beside me. He was right: Without the days of rain and cold, we wouldn’t have been so impatient for the sun. “Well, let’s get going.”

“Sure.”

Our plan for the day was to deliver the magic stones Flame had regenerated a few days earlier to Rose. After that, we were going to the forest. Our reason for doing this was that Ciel had been behaving strangely since around noon the previous day. It would shiver out of nowhere, stare out the window, and then shiver again. It would repeat that same behavior about once an hour. And though it could technically return to its true form in our room at the inn, that wasn’t really possible because its magic powers might leak out of the room. A whole day had passed with Ciel in that condition, so we wanted to make sure it was okay by taking it to the forest where it could turn into its true form. I asked Ciel if it was wounded or sick, but it didn’t seem to have a problem there. Druid said it couldn’t be a serious problem since Flame and Sora weren’t concerned, but I knew my worries wouldn’t disappear until I found out what was wrong.

Rose’s shop was open that day and she had a few customers. We said hello and gave her the magic stones.

“Thanks, hon. Wanna stay for tea?”

“No thanks. We have somewhere we need to go today, but we’ll come back soon.”

“Take care of yourselves, ya hear?”

“We will, thank you.”

This time, we didn’t stick around to visit after handing off the magic stones. Rose and Delos were surprised by how busy we looked. Once we found out what was wrong with Ciel, we’d have to explain the situation to them.

We greeted the gatekeeper and took a look at the outskirts of the forest. We didn’t see any dangerous monsters, which was a relief.

“Please come back the minute you feel the weather turning bad, okay?”

“We will, thank you. Have a nice day.”

“Be safe out there.”

Then we headed for the forest. We needed to keep our eyes open today, since the sunny weather had drawn the adventurers out into the forest, too.

“We’ve gone pretty deep into the woods today,” Druid said.

I stopped walking and searched the area for auras. I sensed some adventurer-like presences in the distance, but they wouldn’t be a problem. I prayed that none of them had Rose’s shadow skill and let everyone out of the bag.

“Pu! Pu, puuu,” Sora happily leaped out and bounced around in a circle. Ciel flew out right behind it, returned to its true form, and did some stretching exercises. I took a good look at Ciel in adandara form, and it looked like everything was okay. It was running around happily. Had it just been getting jittery from being cooped up inside all that time? Lastly, Flame bounced out of the bag.

“You’ve gotten really good at that, Flame.”

It was able to jump out of the bag by itself now, meaning it had probably gotten stronger. But the stain on its chest really worried me. I had Druid measure it and we found out it had grown a little, though only slightly.

Mrrrow.

I looked toward the sound of Ciel’s voice and noticed it was squinting deep into the forest. Then I noticed Sora and Flame were also looking at something. The trio glanced at me.

“Mr. Druid, is it okay?”

“Er, is what okay?”

“If we go see what they’re looking at over there.”

“Ha ha ha. It’s just another day in my life now.”

“Huh? What was that?” His voice was too quiet for me to hear what he had said.

Druid shook his head and said, “It’s nothing. Let’s go.”

“Thanks. Okay, guys, come on!”

This is exciting. I haven’t been on an adventure in a while. Being in the forest really makes me crave it, though. Sora bounced in the lead, followed by Druid, myself, and Ciel. Druid was carrying Flame.

After walking for a while, we came upon a field of snow blooms. There was an incredible number of them, fluttering in the wind. The sight was so breathtaking. The flowers that ­heralded disaster were tantalizingly beautiful.

“I’ve never heard of these blooming in fields before.” Druid sounded bewildered. And no wonder, the more snow blooms that flowered, the harsher winter would be.

“Pu! Pu, puuu.”

I let myself get too distracted by the flowers and got separated from Sora. I ran to catch up with it and found myself at a rocky slope.

“Is this where people hunted for magic stones?” Druid asked, pointing with his finger.

I looked where he was gesturing and saw a caved-in section of the boulders. When I got closer, I saw that it had indeed collapsed in on itself. There was no telling what was inside.

“Pu! Pu, puuu.”

Mrrrow.

I looked to see Sora and Ciel indicating a big hole in a boulder. “They’re saying we can go in through there.”

“Apparently. I guess that means this isn’t a cave that collapsed and is no longer safe to enter?” Druid peered inside the mouth of the little cave and made a puzzled face. “I think this hole is newly made.”

Wow, he can really tell that just by looking? I examined it, but I couldn’t even tell what I was supposed to be looking for. We ­followed Sora and Ciel into the cave.

“Don’t you think maybe this is one of the collapsed caves Dola told us about?” Druid asked, pointing at the wall. I looked and saw it was embedded with magic stones—many of them, in fact.

“If it is, does that mean people could have been coming here to collect magic stones after all?”

“Judging by the cave mouth, I don’t think it was open until just a few days ago.”

That made sense.

Then Sora started bouncing excitedly in place. I approached it out of curiosity and found several of Snakey’s black orb babies. “Oh! Hello, little ones. Do you think this is also Snakey’s sacred ground?”

“Probably not—it’s too close to the village. If this were its sacred ground, there would be a lot more eyewitness reports about it.”

Huh. Yeah, I guess it is too close to Hatow. It’s only about an hour’s walk away. “Hi there, little ones. We’ve met before. Do you remember us?”

“Are these the same orbs we met before?” Druid asked.

That made me wonder. Were they the same ones? “I’m not sure, but I have a feeling they are.”

Druid laughed in reply, but it just wasn’t possible to tell the little black orb creatures apart. Their eyes and bodies were all the same jet-black color.