said about having strong unity seemed to be true. But, was it alright that you took off your eyes from me?

「Gih!?」

I entwined the all-purpose type pendulum around the neck of Sareema who looked away for a moment. Sareema’s eyes opened wide as she got strongly pulled in. She saw the way I held my knife far to the back.

「──Thrust──」

*Zan!* The Battle Technique that I unleashed lopped off Sareema’s head.

To kill a vampire, you either crushed the magic stone in their heart or destroyed their head. Even though she had the form of a little girl, I didn’t believe in giving any mercy to “enemy”. Even so a vampire with adult appearance would be a threat, but as expected there was a limit with the status of a child.

「GUAAAAAAAAAAAAH!」

Naamarud who was blown away by the old woman was flying toward my direction.

I squinted so my eyes wouldn’t be hurt by the sand while putting my arm around Naamarud’s neck from behind. I snapped his neck. At the same time the old woman also attacked me.

So she is next....really, just what the deal with this old woman?

「──Shadow──」

I dodged by using a shadow illusion as bait. But, in contrast to the enormous combat strength I saw with Appraisal, that attack’s speed was still within the limit to what I could follow with my eyes.

The attack strength was low and even Naamarud who got blown away was still alive then, so perhaps, the old woman’s skill in close quarter combat was only Body Strengthening and Martial Art? I assumed that the old woman’s immense combat strength came from her sorcery and took out all-purpose type and sickly type pendulums from the Storage.

Most likely I wouldn’t have any chance to win if the old woman used sorcery. I’d finish this before she used sorcery.

「Haaaaa....」

I expelled the heat from fighting the assassins together with my breath while increasing the killing intent inside me.

I erased the matters of the assassins and also the mission from inside my head.

In this moment, I removed all attention to other things and released all of my killing intent solely to kill the old woman.

「Hihi!」

The old woman’s eyes goggled glaringly at my heightened killing intent. In respond she made vast amount of mana to overflow from her whole body.

I too heightened the mana in my whole body and crouched down like a cat. Then I kicked on the ground and rushed forward while throwing my two pendulums. The old woman also unleashed her mana and met the attack.

The battle would be decided in an instant──with our respective stamina, the one whose attack hit first would take their opponent’s life.

But──

.

「Wait wait-!! Stop, stopp!!」

A familiar voice and a knife that came flying at the same time made the old woman and I dodged each other’s body and the blade. We passed each other and rolled on the ground to take distance.

....This voice.

「....Viro?」

That man who came running from the highway ahead and forcefully interrupted using that knife screamed seeing the old woman and me trying to killing each other.

「You two, why are fellow teammates trying to kill each other huh-!?」

Teammate? What was that about?

Viro who interrupted our battle yelled with a tired voice. Then that old woman apparition started laughing normally like a human.

「Hi hi hi, you’re late, Viro boy.」

「Stop calling me “boy”, granny. Geez....well, anyway」

Viro complained to the old woman in exasperation, but seeing the old woman and I had stopped fighting, he suddenly threw a knife to somewhere.

「──tsu!」

In that moment, Tahir who had gotten beaten up by the old woman and stopped moving leaped up on his feet and started running away immediately. ....So he was still alive.

The corner of Viro’s lips slightly curled up seeing that. He unsheathed his favorite mythril short sword from his waist and rushed forward from his spot.

「If you think you can run away from me──」

*Hyun!*

A black blade flew past his side. The sickle type pendulum left a deep gash from the blind spot on the neck of Tahir whose attention was diverted by Viro and the old woman. A lot of blood spurted out and he collapsed.

I pulled back the pendulum to my hand to remove the blood on it before turning to face Viro who was frozen on the spot with his short sword still held up in fighting stance.

「Viro....explain.」

「Aria, really you....」

Again? Was it another troublesome thing from Viro-? I didn’t think that I would be able to get away from this old woman, so I resolved myself to meet her attack head on but, if the battle continued like that, I would be the one who most likely got killed.

This old woman was a teammate? In that case this old woman, was the party’s sorcerer who had retired? ....I was amazed that I was able to survive against a rank 5 sorcerer like that.

Perhaps my feeling was oozing out from my expression. Viro averted her gaze from my unblinking stare with a guilty look.

「Well, that....you know, this “granny” is my comrade.」

「I never heard about your comrade being nonhuman.」

「She isn’t nonhuman-. She really look monstrous but she’s a human. But, she has gotten a bit senile you see..... Even while we were staying in an inn at the town, every day she would yell that she felt a suspicious presence and suddenly ran out to somewhere....」

「Who’re you calling me senile you lad-! I’m still just 99 years old-!」

「That’s what you have been saying since ten years ago-!」

「........」

Is she really human....? A rank 5 sorcerer who could also fight in hand-to-hand combat with me, it would be extremely dangerous if that kind of person turned senile.

「Despite her look, her skill is the real deal-. She retired because sometimes she would act senile like this but, if it’s just a matter of strength then you don’t need to worry at all.」

「My name is Samantha Samantha, little girl-!」

「....I see.」

How could I not worry after seeing this? The old woman──Samantha introduced herself normally as though she had forgotten that we had just tried kill each other not a minute ago.

Even so I sheathed my knife and lowered my vigilance level from “eliminate immediately” to “caution required”. According to that woman’s “knowledge”, something like senility was something that the person afflicted couldn’t do anything about. It wasn’t logical to keep harboring resentment toward her.

Certainly there would be no problem in battle if we had someone this strong with us.

「You can call me Aria. I never expected of meeting you here but, Viro, what’s our plan from here?」

「Let’s see....I planned to stay in the inn town nearby for a night but, there won’t be any inn open at this time so I guess we’ll just head to our next destination....」

「The duke territory’s capital?」

「That place is just the rendezvous location. We will stop by there midway but, our “target” is in a baron’s territory along the border.」

「Roger.」

I tightened my grip on the pendulum in my hand when Viro said that.

That guy....”Grave” was there.

I couldn’t do anything at all when I fought him before. I just barely escaped alive by making an all or nothing gamble.

Even now there was still a gap of almost double in our combat strength, but I too wasn’t still the same like in the past, and right now Viro and Samantha would accompany me.

If possible....I wanted to deal with him by myself but, killing him was a greater priority than my personal feeling.

「Then let’s go, Aria, Samantha. I want to arrive at the town tomorrow.」

「Travelling throughout the night like this, just what do you think an old person is-」

「It was you granny who ran out of the inn on your own!」

「........」

....I felt a bit anxious.

.

Samantha who had worked as adventurer for long (almost a century) naturally had the Night Vision skill. Even on highway at night like this, our travel was shockingly fast because everyone could use Body Strengthening level 4.

「Come to think of it, why can Samantha use Body Strengthening even though she’s a sorcerer? She doesn’t has close combat skills right?」

「Good question there, little girl-!!」

When I tried asking what was in my mind while running, both Viro and I were naturally erasing our presences but, Samantha paid no mind to that and answered with a loud voice that could be heard by the next three neighbors if we were in town.

「A sorcerer’s natural enemy is light warrior who can move fast-! That’s why a sorcerer who has reached a certain level of strength will naturally learn Body Strengthening in order to perform “Thought Acceleration”!」

「Hee....」

Master could also fight in close quarter even though she was a sorcerer might also be because of that.

「Granny, even I didn’t know that.」

「Young’un these days aren’t studying enough-! Well, the current young sorcerers all only care about making their sorcery’s power greater and almost none of them bother to learn Body Strengthening-! You two remember this-, be careful if you encounter a sorcerer who can use Body Strengthening in this era!」

「Got it.」

I see....story from adventurer who was skilled in fighting could be used as reference.

「For now granny, keep your voice down a little. You will attract monster like that-」

「What did you say boy-, it’s time to eat-!!」

「You just eat dinner in the inn two hours ago right-!?」

「........」

....Would we really be fine?

We finished our meal with only portable food that had insipid taste and hurried on with our travel. At noon the next day, we arrived in the biggest city of this region where the castle of Duke Helton was located.

Samantha and I rented a room in an inn for one night, while Viro said that he would go to the adventurer guild to obtain information.

「Aria, stay in the inn together with the granny. Samantha is famous despite her look, and not to mention you yourself. It’ll be troublesome to bring this granny when she’s like this to the adventurer guild. Also the granny can suddenly turn senile even when in the middle of normal conversation so be careful.」

「Roger.」

It felt like it would only be troublesome even if I went to the adventurer guild, so I pushed everything related to the guild to Viro.

The inn that Viro chose was a high class inn that cost three silver coins per night. It was befitting a first class adventurer like him.

I thought that I would need to take care of Samantha but, she was still an adventurer despite her old age. And this was a high class inn, so the staffs here could fulfill most requests if I asked them. So I wouldn’t need to do anything much.

*Bamm!!*

「Little girl-! Food, we’re going to eat-!」

Not even several seconds had passed after we entered inside the room that Samantha who should be in the neighboring room kicked open the door and rushed into my room.

「I heard that you already ate yesterday.」

「Cruel daughter-in-law, there’s a cruel daughter-in-law here!」

I don’t remember ever becoming your daughter-in-law.

「Samantha. You want to eat three times a day even though you’re an adventurer? Then follow me. If you want to eat proper food, there should be a restaurant at the first floor.」

「O, ou.」

For some reason Samantha hesitated for a bit when I said that dispassionately. She accompanied me to the first floor and the inn’s staff led us to a table with six people capacity.

「Samantha, what do you want to eat?」

「Let’s see....meat, I want lamb meat-!」

「Roger.」

I asked her what she liked and called the waitress to place our order.

「Lamb meat dish. One whole lamb.」

「Y-you want one whole lamb!?」

「She keep complaining that she’s hungry every time. Besides we’re adventurers so there won’t be any problem.」

Viro was a man who ate meat right from the morning even when recovering from injury. His adventurer teammate surely wouldn’t complain if she was also given similar thing.

The surrounding customers fell silent seeing an old woman and a child silently swallowing down “meats” that kept getting brought in one after another without really holding any conversation. Viro returned from the adventurer guild when around two hours had passed with such bizarre atmosphere filling the room.

「What, with this amount of meat....」

「Samantha said that she want to eat.」

「This little girl is a cruel daughter-in-law!」

Viro tilted his head seeing Samantha who had gotten somehow more chubby and greasy compared to when we just arrived to this inn.

「....I don’t really get it but, well, forget it. Waitress, give me ale. I’ll make my report for now.」

Viro sat down and ate the meat without asking while he started talking about the information that he got from the guild.

His talk was hard to understand because he was using the jargon of underworld but, in short this was what he said.

After failing to kill me, Grave left the organization of Sera and others and covered his track.

It seemed he stayed quiet for a while after that, but one day assassination incidents started occurring. The targets of these assassinations were nobles from the “noble faction”, a faction that tried to weaken the power of the royal family and draw in the force from other countries.

Three nobles had gotten murdered until now. One of them, a count was particularly someone who claimed that the crown prince’s fiancée should be a princess from other country. This count was rumored to have a deep relationship with the neighboring country.

The count was one of the key people of the noble faction, so the noble faction claimed the royal family faction was involved with his murder. They started demanding that the royal family’s sword which was the royal guards and the black ops had to be scaled down in order to reduce the threat they posed to the nation, and not only that, they also started saying that the royal family should take a princess of the neighboring country as wife even if the rule had to be changed to allow that.

But, there was no way those demands could be accepted with the current state of affairs. The leader of black ops who was suspected unjustifiedly like that investigated the case and finally determined that the culprit was Grave.

According to the black ops’s investigation, it seemed that Grave was targeting noble houses that were the enemy of the royal family. After investigating several noble territories and narrowed down the possibility, the black ops obtained information that a person who seemed to be Grave was hiding in this Helton territory.

The two margraves that originally could possibly become the leader of the “noble faction” were in the “royal family faction” instead. In contrast, Duke Helton who should be in the royal family faction was now known as an anti royal family faction, partly because the interests that originally he should be able to obtain were snatched away by the margrave houses.

「Grave is waiting for the duke to leave his castle and go outside. There’s information that a troublesome monster has appeared in a baron’s territory near the border. It looks like ordinary adventurer or knight is unable to defeat it. Well, in short, the duke might go out and lead the subjugation force personally in order to gain popularity.」

It seemed the possibility was high that Grave was targeting for that opportunity to assassinate the duke.

Thinking normally, targeting a duke who was being protected by more than a hundred knights would be suicide. Nobody would seriously attempt that thinking that it would be foolish, but if it was that Grave, he would surely think that it would be better to aim for this opportunity rather than when the duke was staying in the castle.

The duke’s side too was unable to constantly be in a state of high alert against an opponent who they didn’t know when would attack. If the situation was like that, I was sure that if it was Grave, he would surely do it. There was no reason for that surety. I was simply thinking that if it was me, I would also “do that”.

And then even if we informed Duke Helton that there was a danger of assassination, he surely wouldn’t cancel the subjugation just because he feared one person.

「We’re going to depart tomorrow morning to that baron territory. What we’re going to do is taking down Grave before the duke arrive at the destination.」

「Hi hi hi, there’s no need to wait until tomorrow morning, we can just go now-! Now, boy, little girl, you two should also prepare-!」

*Pan-*

Samantha looked like she would rush out immediately. I hit the table and stopped her.

「Not yet. We haven’t finished the meats yet.」

「「........」」

Adventurer had to eat when they could. Viro also taught me that, and I had also learned that lesson when I lived in the wild at the start and at the forest where those orcs lived.

Eat when you can. Endure when you can’t eat. That was why leaving food uneaten was unforgivable. When I stared fixedly to the two with such insistence, the two slowly sat back down and the three of us started eating the meats again silently.

The next day, we departed from the territory capital of Duke Helton early in the morning and headed toward the baron’s territory where Grave was hiding.

I would end up having an “encounter” in that place.