A while later, the petite Mage who was out of breath because she was not used to running arrived at the “Abundant Harvest Pavilion” and ran straight to the table where her companions were seated while waiting for breakfast.
“Zachs, a lot of ants are coming!”
“Hn? Like the ones from yesterday?”
“W-we have to run! We can’t take them on!”
“Wait, calm down, Eina.”
The fair-skinned warrior handed their companion a cup of water and calmed her enough to ask about the situation. Meanwhile, Muriel and her party were at the next table waiting for breakfast too when they overheard everything and roughly grasped the situation. Muriel beckoned to the girl who was still trying to catch her breath.
“Ms. Eina, around how many Valley Ants were there?
“Ah, Ms. Muriel… It’s just as you said, there were more than a hundred of them.”
“Nngh, from which direction did they come from?”
“They were coming from the northern plains. From what I could see from my vision magic, I’d say they were at least 4 kilometers away from the village.”
As the Mage finally calmed down and recounted what she saw, the fair-skinned Warrior became agitated this time when she heard how many enemies there were.
“A hundred giant ants are coming, you say!?”
“Yeah. I guess the only choice for us is to run… but…”
The thin man dressed in priestly garb who was supposedly sent on training by the Holy Church gripped his staff and stood from his chair.
“The Adventurer’s rule states that we are to protect people in times of crisis.”
“Yes, we know that, but we can only protect them to the best of our abilities you know?”
The rugged-looking warrior and the priest exchanged glances for a while and when it seemed like they were disagreeing on the matter at hand, Mirea interjected from the side.
“But still, wouldn’t it be awkward to just leave them? If we ran away without doing anything, everyone would laugh at us at the guild in Warren… Also, I don’t think we’d be receiving quests for a while if we did that either.”
The Adventurer profession is based on a trust-first basis, so if the guild suspects one of their members, then the number of quests they can accept will be decreased. Moreover, if there comes a time where an Adventurer saves someone during a quest, a reward for the deed will be given by the guild, so nobody could say that they’ve worked for nothing.
“Tsk, guess we have no choice… Ms. Landlady, we’re canceling our order.”
“Even if you don’t say it, we’re already in the middle of preparing to evacuate, so we can’t serve you now.”
“Sorry, but please have your breakfast somewhere else.”
Ares sighed as he glanced at the inn owners who were busily gathering their condiments and ingredients while listening in on their conversation and sat up from his chair.
“I guess we have some work to do before we get any breakfast huh, Muriel?”
“Urhh~, first we have to assess the situation and instruct the people to evacuate.”
The red-haired mage drank the water from her cup as she groaned cutely. Then, using her staff made of evergreen oak, she stood up and followed Zachs and the others who were waiting outside the inn.
By that time, several village people had already noticed the large swarm of approaching Valley Ants and were beginning to panic, while the local guards of Grau village gathered in the village square.
When the Adventurers rushed towards the guards in the square who were clad in equipment that was not of good quality, the village chief also hurriedly ran towards them at the same time.
“Mr. Rechte, please decide quickly, we can’t fight them all off!”
“The giant ant swarm will be here in about ten minutes, let’s abandon the village and escape!”
“… Please sound the alarm to evacuate the village.”
“But where should we evacuate?”
The red-haired mage took the opportunity to cut into the conversation as the village chief took a moment to think about the head of the local guard’s question.
“U-umm, I think it would be best if you evacuated to Warren city.”
“That’s… Do you mean we have abandoned the village for a long period, Ms. Mage?”
“Yes, a temporary evacuation is not possible.”
“So we have no choice but to rely on the lord of the territory, huh…”
Even if you temporarily escape danger, by the time you return, the Valley Ants would have already eaten the supplies stocked for the winter, and surviving till the next spring will be difficult. With this thought in mind, Muriel continued,
“We should escape while the Valley Ants are still distracted with the livestock and stockpiles.”
“Understood… Adventurers, can you help us escape?”
The village chief bowed deeply to the eight Adventurers, and Ares, the chestnut-haired Swordsman, and Zachs, the representative for the other group both nodded in agreement. Meanwhile, Mirea, who was silent since earlier, called out in a powerful voice:
“Alright, there’s no time to lose! Sound the alarms!”
“Y-yes!!”
“As for the other members, please lead the villagers to evacuate the western side of the village!”
“U-understood!!”
The local guards, who were rushed by her uncharacteristically polite orders, began to move at once, and one of the men who couldn’t believe that he was going to ring the alarm to “abandon the village”, rhythmically pounded on the bell.
“A-are we really going to abandon the village?”
“N-no way…”
“This is a life-threatening situation, we should run too, dear.”
“W-wait a minute, all the valuables are…”
The local guards called out to the people who started moving when the bell rang and urged them to escape to the western side of the village and to head to the city of Warren to evacuate.
The mothers carrying their children were the first to move, followed by the other villagers who were rushing to escape when the first group of Valley Ants entered Grau village from the northern side.
“… We’re lucky there’s a farm in the direction they’re heading from.”
“Yeah, it will buy us some time, but poor things…”
As she responded to Zach’s muttering, Muriel shook her head and felt that it was deceitful to feel pity towards the livestock who were destined to be eaten anyway, and checked on Mirea who was coming down from the roof of a small church facing the western side of the village.
“How is it, are there still any people evacuating?”
“Well, only the livestock are being attacked, so we should run too.”
Mirea smoothly dodged Riberto’s question.
From what I saw earlier, the ants were beginning to damage the livestock, so I wasn’t completely lying. But I’m still seeing some stragglers. I guess it took them a while to prepare to escape… What should we do?
(But an Adventurer must save as many lives as possible…)
I know it’s too dangerous to help, but unless they’re lucky, those villagers will fall prey to the giant ants. If we disclose everything to the villagers, they would tend to choose to act recklessly, but if we don’t, I’d only feel guilty that we’d abandoned them.
Besides, if we do that, we’ll just waste time arguing, and all of us will be in danger, so it’s better to just keep it to ourselves even if it’s going to gnaw at me later.
After lightly pressing her chest, Mirea changed her mood and followed her friends who were among the last ones to escape from Grau village.
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