No, I'm glad you're okay. None of you were hit, were you?
We're not going to get beaten that easily. Well, they tore the fort to pieces.

　The members of the Red Cat 《Akaneko》 who were around Nia's argument laughed.
　I called Nia immediately after that and she was easily contacted. After hearing the location of our current location, we hurriedly arrived at the [Gate], but Nia, Deputy Chief Est-san, his aide Yuri, Yuni and everyone else were in good spirits, and I was a bit overwhelmed. No, I'm really glad we're safe, though.
　This was in the forest much further north from Nia and the others' abandoned fort. Dense and flourishing trees surround the area. It's a good place to hide.
　Nia and her friends' abandoned fort was suddenly attacked by several giants yesterday. It seems that the giants were manipulated, and those who were leading them also fired cannons from behind.

''Titans?''
'It's a troll. They have an ugly appearance and monstrous power, and possess high regenerative abilities, but they are demons like monkeys with quite low intelligence. They shouldn't be around here but it's possible that there was probably a demon user on the other side.

　My question was answered by Deputy Chief Est.
　Trolls, huh? I've never seen one before, but I wonder if they are different from the Oga tribe?　The Oga guy in our Order is like a good-natured, powerful guy.

'Trolls and oogas are completely different. Trolls are much bigger than trolls, and Ooga are demons, but trolls are demons. That's disrespectful to the Owga tribe.

　Sakura explains with a slight frown. No, I'm sorry, but I was wondering if it's okay to lump the demons of this world with the demons of our world.
　Sakura is the princess of the Demon Kingdom Xenoas, the land of the demon race. I guess I wasn't attentive enough.

"You're telling me there was someone controlling that troll?
Yeah, that's him. He's the one with all these tattoos all over his body, maybe he's a Jeera.
Jeera....
They are a small tribe that lives in the country to the northeast of here, in the ice country of Zardonia. I've heard that there are those who have the ability to control demons and use their power to become mercenaries. The trolls are originally demons that live in the cold regions, so there is a high probability of that happening.

　Even in the underworld, where science is more advanced than in the surface world, there are also such suspicious magicians in this world. If it were the surface world, they would be found in the Great Sea of Trees.

But why would a tribe like that attack Nia and the others?　What did you do to deserve it?
There's a lot of things I could do to hurt you. Some nobleman from the Kingdom of Strain is probably behind this. Most likely they wanted to rob us for the treasure we collected.　If we crush them without reporting them to the state, we can make them pay for everything ourselves.

　Nia and her friends are righteous bandits. They mainly attack unscrupulous merchants and corrupt aristocrats who line their pockets and rob them of their money and goods. However, 70% of that money is shared with the underprivileged and orphanages, so not much treasure is left over.
　It's easy to believe that the thieves are hoarding things that can be discovered with a little research, or perhaps this kind of raid is common.

"But it's amazing that you all managed to escape unharmed.
'While me and Rouge were distracting them, Esto was distracting them all. He blew up a couple of trolls and escaped. I paid a bit of a price for that, though.

　Nia replied to Su's words and turned her gaze to the golem standing next to her, the red body rouge.
　Blood Rouge, the crown of 'red'. The price of the ability is the contractor's living blood. That price gives Rouge an invincible destructive power and the power of fire. Using that power, it wouldn't be difficult to defeat trolls.
　I mean, how dare they attack against the 'crown'?

'No, there were quite a few of them. As expected, it was a disadvantage to fight with rouge alone. And since we are in the middle of a forest, we can't just scatter the flames.

　I heard that there were six trolls alone. Without the ability to use the power of fire, that's indeed a painful one. I can't keep paying the price of rouge for too long.

''Oh well. I don't want to fall down from shedding too much blood, so I quickly ran away from the scene. It's not like they were after us for the money we raised. I'm sorry, but I have all of my treasures inside of this thing, so all of their efforts were for naught!

　Nia smiles a person's bad smile and gives the phone with the [Storage] app a small shake in her hand. Even with the remaining thirty percent of the money, there seems to be a good amount of it.
　The raiders must have been frustrated. Maybe it was eighty percent of the fort or the fact that it had been destroyed to that extent.

I'm glad to see you're safe, but what are you going to do now?　You're moving to the Holy King's City hideout?
''No, it seems that the Knights of the Holy King's Capital have found out about that place, so we've decided to discard it. For a while, we'll split up and hide out in a few people each. The only people left here are Nia's entourage.
"Reluctantly, I'm going into hiding for a while. I'll get revenge on those guys one day, I promise.

　Est-san was right, there are nearly a hundred red cats. They won't be able to escape if they're lined up in a tight group.
　More than a dozen members have already gone into hiding in various places, and there are only a little over ten of them here, including Nia and the others. It is certainly easy to hide out with this number of people, isn't it?

It's going to be a while before we all get separated. We want a safe place to live.
It's the fate of the outlaw. I don't have a choice.

　Nia's entourage, Yuri and Yuni, smiled bitterly and lightly talked to each other.

Then everyone should come to Brunhild. There is plenty of land available and plenty of work to be done.

　Everyone scowled for a moment at Sue's words, but eventually Nia's eyes lit up. Mmmm. That's unnecessary.

''So that's how it works!　If we go to the other side, we won't be hunted, and it's the perfect place to hide for now.　And in the story of Winter's Night, the two worlds are going to be put together anyway, right?　I don't care if we get there first!　Na!
No, umm...
'What? Even the "black" guy is going to your country, right?　We'd be happy to go, too.
''No, even if it were, what about the king of a country inviting a group of thieves into his country?　So I thought...

　I understand that Nia and the others are righteous bandits, so they're not robbing people recklessly, but....... From the standpoint........
　As I continued to worry, Yumina next to me pulled my sleeve.

''Fuyao-san. Nia-san is a 'red' crown bearer. How about inviting her to be a test person for Overgear like Norn-san?
Hmm. Well, is that...?

　I'm sure the Dr. and the Elka engineer will be pleased. The more data, the better.

"I don't know, but I'll go along with it. And I'm not doing any work for you in your country, okay?
Are you sure?
Bandits don't lie. It's because they have to have faith. I won't betray my debt.

　In Nia's eyes, which are pointed straight at me, I can see a firm belief. Well, Elka, you took the Norn sisters with you, so I guess it's too late now.......

''All right. For now, it's hard to carry all these people at once, so we'll jump in several parts.
I don't know. I don't know, but I'll take care of you.

　I wonder if he's really all right. We're only relying on Deputy Chief Est-san.
　If it's true, we should go through the dimensional gate on Dracliff Island instead of [Cross Space Transference], but that place is connected to the Gardens of Babylon.
　Next time, I'll have the doctor install a dimensional gate on the ground as well.




　After going through a few [different space transitions], I took all the Red Cat [Akaneko] and the others to Brunhild.
　Rather than going out of town, we transferred to a place a bit out of the way because we wanted to give them a little look at the country.
　In the meantime, I'll put translation magic on all of them and make sure they don't have trouble with the language. I'll let you learn the letters yourself.
　After walking down the street and entering the castle town, they were still surprised to find all sorts of things that were different from their own world.

'Hee-ka, hello!
'Yes, hello. Don't go too far!
Yes!

　The children ran to greet him. In their hands were kid gloves and bats.

''Well you're really being a king, aren't you?
Well, sort of. I leave most of this up to my good subjects.

　I replied to Nia's words with a wry smile. It's because we have good people here. The Four Heavenly Kings of Takeda and everyone else in the knightly order.

Everyone in town seems to be having a good time.
They sell all kinds of stuff, and there are all kinds of people.
'This country is sandwiched between two big countries, Belfast and Regulus, and people come and go a lot. All kinds of people come here.

　While talking to Yuni and Yuri, we arrived at the inn "Silver Moon". It would have been fine to go to the castle, but I thought it was a bad idea to welcome them there, even if they were righteous bandits.

Oh, it's a good-looking inn!

　Nia murmured as she looked at the exterior of the Silver Moon. I'm glad you like it. It's a good thing that you don't like it, though, because there's no other place to stay in this country other than the Silver Moon. There's only the second "Ginsuki" and the new third one that was recently opened.
　I enter the store and call out to the manager, Mika, who was at the counter.

Oh, welcome. You brought a customer with you?
'Yes. There are twelve of us, but can we stay the night?　Long term.
'We can get away with one room for two. The merchants just left this morning. So sign here.

　All the members of the Red Cat write their signatures on the inn book that Mika-san sent out.
　In front of me, who was watching it from the side, the person who casually came down from the stairs leading up to the second floor looked at us and let out a disgusted voice, "Gee".

''Why are you red cats here........of course you brought them here....
"Guess right.
Master, may you hear me...

　Not even trying to hide their disgusted expressions, Norn and his attendant, Noir, the crown of 'Black', were standing on the stairs. Elfrau-san, an anthropomorphic golem in a maid's outfit, is also with them.
　Nia found Norn like that and called out to him.

''Oh, that's 'black'!　You're still small, man. Are you staying here too?
'Why are you here if you're not a guest? Are you still an idiot?
You're a really foul-mouthed little guy.
Unlike some people, he has his brains in his head.

　Don't stare at each other, don't stare at each other. Have these guys ever been this close?　He said before that the uni was a rival or something.
　I call out to Norn to lighten the mood.

'Going out?'
'The dungeon. They told me yesterday that there was a bicorn in 'Amaterasu'. It's going to sell for a lot of money, right?

　A bicorn ... oh, a two-horned black horse. It's true that horns can be sold at a high price. A dagger made from that horn is said to have the power of the dark attribute.
　Norn often hides in dungeons to earn money. But it's not every day, but apparently about once a week.

''How high is your rank now?''
I'll stay blue. You don't need to rank up to make money.

　Basically, you don't earn much in the way of rank-up points in dungeons. It's because they aren't even requested by the guild in the first place. It's just adventurers who charge into dungeons on their own to get materials and sell them.
　If you want to improve your rank, it's best to keep up with the proper requests, but Brunhild is pretty peaceful and there aren't many requests for defeats.
　When powerful monsters appear in a dungeon, you'll be asked to take them out, but the sooner you do, the better. It's not something that comes out very often.
　There are also requests to collect these materials, but even these requests don't get high marks.
　Therefore Brunhild is a place where adventurers can earn money, although it's hard to rank up. Of course, it's also a great place to hone your fighting skills.
　It's quite an amazing thing to be ranked blue in such a short period of time without even taking a rank-up test in Brunhild.
　Nia and the others asked me to explain the Adventurer's Guild and the dungeons, so I'll talk about it in detail.
　By the way, Norn and the others went quickly in the meantime. It looks like they don't want to get involved.

The dungeon........in other words, you can earn money by defeating monsters and demons in that underground labyrinth, right?
Sounds like fun!　We'll make some money at it for a while, too!
"Wait a minute!　As I've told Norn, don't use the power of the 'crown' in the dungeon!

　It would be a disaster if it collapsed. In the meantime, I'll give Est-san a few pendants with the transference ability for emergency evacuation that I also gave to Norn.
　Afterwards, we had a light meal at the 'Silver Moon' and then took the Red Cat 《Akaneko》 and the others to the Adventurer's Guild. I'm a little uneasy, but Est-san is there, so I think it'll be fine. ........I'd like to think.