Half-Dragon Slave Life Ch. 46

Author: Kaburagi Haruka

Translator: ShiroiKaze/Soyokaze Translations

Chapter 46: Inquiry

Translated by Soyokaze Translations: soyokazetranslation . Com

Having been invited to the village chief’s house, Master asked about the situation while tea was being served to us in the living room.

By the way, the village chief seems to be getting dressed up right now. Welcoming the promising new adventurer got him in high spirits apparently.

The living room has a variety of decorations, but few of them are showy, and on the whole it’s in good taste.

It’s all wood-carved folk crafts and simple braided items.

Most likely they’re ornaments made by the villagers that he wanted to show pride in. His character is on full display.

Making us wait by getting ready is almost certainly because he wanted to make a good impression when he heard Kevin is visiting.

More importantly—

“Why did you purposely bully Kevin earlier?”

“Hm?”

Harassing Kevin like that shouldn’t have been necessary. But he meaninglessly offered Kevin up and fanned the flames.

Master’s hand, carrying his tea to his lips, stopped as he looked my way. Almost like he’s saying he would never have imagined it.

“Ooh, that. This case probably has something unusual to it. Special happenings are afoot.”

“Yeah. Something’s weird.”

“Which means we’ll have to get information about it from them. To do that, we should show them how good a position we have, even just a bit of it. So I pushed Kevin to the front as our representative to put us in superior standing.”

He thought of setting Kevin’s widespread fame forward to make the later inquiry easier then.

“At the very least we’ve got the village chief talking with us this way. He’s even getting ready in a hurry for us.”

“I think he’ll at least listen to us, looking at this room.”

No matter how much I look around, there’s not a single expensive article in the room. He’s putting hardship on himself for the villagers, and set up the place to ease visitors with a concentration of many ornaments.

I’m sure he’s of good character.

“That’s surprising.”

“What is?”

Returning his tea to the table, Master points directly at me.

He seems to have a satisfied look on him.

“Those questions. Before you wouldn’t have held doubts like that, would you? If I told you to do it, you’d listen without a second thought.”

“Is that so?”

“It is.”

Really? I did have my hands full with my own issues before, and I probably just left everything else to Master.

As I was slipping into thought, the door to the living room opened.

In walked a slender, balding, mature man.

When I think of village chiefs, either a fat, bald middle-aged guy, or a hunched over elder comes to mind, but he had the very image of a hard working guy.

“I apologize for the wait. Well, I never expected the “Disaster Beast Killer” Kevin would make an appearance.”

“Not at all, we apologize for the sudden uninvited visit.”

“Well, and you are?”

The only men among us are Master and Kevin. And Master is plainly not built for battle with his delicate figure.

In contrast, Kevin is built enough to put adults to shame, so ‘which one is the hero?’ could probably be told at a glance.

And yet the one to first speak was the teenager, so his confusion is justifiable.

“Pardon me. I am Kevin’s attendant, Rimuru. As you can see, I am little more than a novice with an ability to speak, but I make myself useful to Kevin at such junctions as this.”

“I see, a pleasure to meet you. I am Coelho, and I act as this village’s leader. Thank you for coming on such a long journey for us.”

“Of course. Now without delay…”

“Yes, indeed. Oh, the tea must have gotten cold. I’ll have more brought right away.”

Seeing that Master’s cup is empty, he immediately instructs more be brought. Rather than considerate, he seems more of the worrying type?

Or maybe there’s a difficult topic at hand.

“Not at all. More importantly, about the bone wolves?”

“Yes, we’ve been exceedingly troubled with the matter. We have many injured, and we would appreciate if you could quickly eradicate them.”

“Bone wolves hardly ever appear alone. According to the quest, there are four?”

“Eh, yes. At least from what we saw, there are four.”

“We did hear beforehand, but that is certainly a lot…”

Hearing it again, there really are many of them. Even if undead do normally appear in groups—

“It’s no trivial matter when so many undead appear, you know?”

“Yes, I am quite shocked. As to why… I am not completely clueless.”

“Meaning?”

Coelho’s gaze then wavers a bit. He’s probably considering whether it’s a matter he should talk about or not.

Seeing his current state, Master pursues the subject.

“Be honest, please. Hiding anything may put Kevin’s life at risk. Should any harm come one such as he, the guild will likely not keep quiet… You may also face obstacles in the future.”

If Kevin is defeated, or gets injured, the next people to take the quest will undoubtedly think twice about it.

A quest where the Disaster Beast Killer even faced defeat would only get taken on by other hero-class adventurers.

And people like that can’t be found just lying around all over the place, so the village would continue getting raided by bone wolves in the meantime.

Of course, by the look of things, the village wouldn’t stand long. They’d probably get wiped out in a few days.

“No please! … Well, I suppose you’re right.”

He takes a sip of his tea, then looks this way.

Though the hero’s assistants, we’re clearly frail women. More than half of us are children.

“I will say this upfront; we do want you to take this quest. But if you deem it impossible, please turn it down. I cannot bring myself to put such young lives in harms way.”

“That’s how dangerous it is?”

“… Yes. I believe it was about a month ago. In the forest outside the village, we got a report of a giant figure being spotted.”

“A giant…?”

“Yes. According to the story, its head reached above the largest trees, so rest of it must be proportionally large. I believe it may exceed twenty meters.”

So about as big as Yig’s real form? That is pretty big though.

“I didn’t believe it at first either, but…”

“Certainly, being told ‘I suddenly saw a giant figure’ would be hard to believe.”

“Indeed. But when you hear footsteps loud enough to shake the earth, that’s a different story.”

“It got close enough to the village that you could hear its footsteps?”

“It did. However, it did not do any damage at the time. But then after a while… I suppose it was about five days ago. Bone wolves suddenly raided the village.”

“I’m surprised you held out.”

Such a small village lasting through an attack by four bone wolves is, itself, practically a miracle.

Coelho wipes the sweat from his brow with a towel while shuddering.

“I still think it really was a miracle. In preparation for a giant something we dug ditches, and constructed fences. Those efforts bore fruit.”

“I see. It’s because you were preparing for an unknown danger. A wise decision.”

“Not at all… Anyway, damage was done, and we had no way to manage the situation. We contacted the guild immediately and put in an extermination request.”

Bone wolves five days ago. Put out the quest the next day, and it takes two days for it to reach the capital and the quest to be put up. Then two days passed since we took it up.

We practically arrived as quick as possible then.

“But was there no second attack in those five days? I’ve gotta say, it would have been dangerous the next time they came.”

“Yes… they came again once two days ago, but luckily there’s a former adventurer in this village.”

“Oh? You put out a quest even though there’s a former adventurer here?”

You’re saying you put out a quest even though there’s a former adventurer here?

Master seemed to have the same question as me.

“Ah, wait! Please don’t be upset. He was an adventurer, but… he wasn’t particularly high rank, and was treated as a slave. He tells us he never did any real adventuring.”

“Slave…”

Master knit his brows at that one word.

An adventurer’s slave. That often indicates a disposable meat shield.

The former adventurer villager must have piled on those experiences and become unusable. But luckily he kept his life, and made it to this village.

“No, he apparently didn’t get treated so harshly. At most he had to deal with goblins in battle it seems.”

The magic beasts known as goblins can be found across the continent. They reproduce quickly, and grow fast.

But they’re incredibly weak in battle, enough that any old villager could probably defeat one.

They’re almost like cockroaches in how they multiply, and get exterminated. Which is why they never face extinction, nor pose a serious threat. That’s what kind of monster they are.

Even at a low rank, an armed adventurer’s slave would be able to take one down without issue.

“We should probably hear his story a bit. Is that all right?”

“Yeah, I’ll contact him.”

“Bone wolves are undead. Of course they often act at night. If we hear his story now, they might attack while we’re talking, so we’ll hear it tomorrow morning.”

“That should be fine. He’s a kind soul at his core.”

We entered the village at dusk, enjoyed some tea, and listened to the village chief. At this point the sun has mostly set. When it gets dark we have no idea when a raid may occur, so we should be ready.

“We’ll be guarding the village today. Could we see a map if you have one?”

“Yes. The villagers don’t need one anyway, so it’s a bit rough but…”

“It’ll be plenty.”

Coelho pulls a sheet of paper from a cabinet, and hands it to Master.

The paper looks rather new, but the edges are rough from use.

“May we have this?”

“I don’t mind. I have extras.”

“Then we’ll take a quick nap. Could you show us to some lodgings?”

“Aah, could I ask that you sleep here if you don’t mind?”

Sleep is what he says, but we’ll be keeping watch in the area all night, so we’ll be dozing off at most.

Then there’s dinner I guess. I’d like to eat something good. Not our preserved food.

“My wife will get a chance to show her skills off. Plus this house is near the center of the village. You’ll be able to run to the enemy no matter where they appear.”

“Would that be all right? Our group is, well, quite rowdy, has no restraint, is relentless, ignores boundaries, and eats a lot just so you know?”

He glances my way. There better not be any meaning in that look.

“Master Rimuru, why did you just look at me?”

“You eat a lot, don’t you?”

“Well sure, but…”

“Haha, it’s no problem. We’d actually be glad for the liveliness. We’re a village in the woods after all. And with the current situation, the mood has sunk, so we’d be grateful for the change.”

“In that case, I won’t worry about it.”

Coelho then braces himself, and asks us again.

“So with all that, will you take up our bone wolf elimination request?”

“Yes, for now we’ve got no problem with that. The giant figure though… that will depend on some investigation.”

“That’s plenty. The bone wolves are the ones doing damage anyway. Well then, we’ll be counting on you.”

“Leave it to us.”

His outstretched hand is tightly grasped by Master.

And then he suddenly smiled bitterly as if he remembered something.

“Well, you looked so young, to be honest I was worried, but… from talking to you, you’ve got a good head on your shoulders. Guess I should expect that from the much talked about hero’s attendant.”

“I’m humbled by your praise. Kevin actually doesn’t handle discussions like this well.”

“Hahaha, I suppose even the “Disaster Beast Killer” can’t do everything.”

“Mmhm, that’s about right.”

“Hey, hey, Boss. Do they have a bath?”

Translated by Soyokaze Translations: soyokazetranslation . Com

Then Yig makes her voice heard.

Wait… you were here?

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Translator’s random comment: As I write this, Kevin and Rimuru are meeting for the first time in the manga. Poor Kevin has no idea what’s in store for him…

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