Chapter 83

「Well? Our goal is to defeat the demon king, how should we go about it?」

Having stayed at the human continent’s country of Yamato, the hero and his party finally got down to business .

「…according to what I heard, it seems that everyone in the previous hero’s party except for the beastman representative and the hero himself were defeated by the demons and the monsters before they even arrived at where the demon king was . 」

That was approximately a hundred years ago .

The previous hero was not able to get revenge and died when he reached the end of his lifespan .

The current demon king should not have been one who succeeded the demon king of that time, but no one actually knew how long the lifespans of the demons were .

「From that, it just means that not only is the demon king strong, but his subordinates are as well . 」

I nodded at Hosoyama-san’s words .

「I don’t know just how strong the previous hero’s party was, but there’s no doubt that the most capable people from the three continents were assembled . 」

「They were definitely stronger than us . 」

Asahina Kyousuke-kun who was silently listening to the conversation muttered this .

These few days, we had registered with the Adventurer Guild and were taking on requests .

Though, because there was no dungeon in Yamato, not only were the request that they could take on limited, adventurers also rarely came to the country, so there was a mountain of requests for subjugating weak monsters that the noncombatant citizens could not defeat .

They had split into groups and completed every single one of them, and they could finally take a break .

However, it seems that there were no monsters around here that were strong enough to put us in life-threatening danger like that time with the Minotaur .

To put it bluntly, compared to Saran-san and Zeal-san, we were considerably weak .

We were around the same strength as the monsters on the upper levels of the Continent dungeon .

「That’s why I said that we couldn’t neglect our foundations . 」

Ueno-san folded her arms, her face appearing quite troubled .

When we saw that, everyone except Asahina Kyousuke-kun and I folded their arms and had the same look on their faces .

「We were able to raise our adventurer rankings to yellow today . But it seems like that’s as far as we’ll get, because the monsters here are too weak and there’s no dungeon here . With that being said, there’s only one thing we can do now, right?」

Certainly, we needed to take care to build our foundations, but there were many things that we needed to learn, even if we left this place .

「I’m going to miss eating Japanese food again . 」

「Maa, Tsuda will have to do his best . 」

「As expected, it’s going to be me, huh . 」

Tsuda Tomoya-kun, who was in charge of the cooking for the hero party, complained .

There were two other girls who had the cooking skill within the party, but Tomoya-kun was the one in charge of the cooking in his house, had the highest skill level, and his food tasted delicious .

So, despite the fact that he was a knight, he became somewhat like the mother of the group .

Incidentally, the last member of the hero party was Waki Daisuke-kun, whose favorite phrase was「I’m glad I’m alive」 .

He could be described as an easygoing person .

Whenever he started talking, he’d find a way to diffuse the seriousness of the conversation .

If the party was like a family, Waki-kun would be the ‘big brother’ without a doubt .

His occupation was an animal trainer .

Right now, he was taming a monkey-like animal that he met in the forest and a stray cat that he found in town .

Because monsters and humans fundamentally couldn’t understand each other, he was not able to tame them .

It seems that a human nicknamed “One Accompanied By Monsters” that could bestow names onto monsters and subordinated them appeared once every few hundred years, but they were someone who had strange tastes in keeping monsters who only harmed humans .

「I’m telling you now, I can only make things that I’ve made before, ok? Moreover, there are fewer seasonings here than over there, so the things that I can make are limited . 」

When the hero party’s shield, and the person in charge of the cooking, the youngest child Tsuda-kun pouted, Nanase-kun gave him a pat on the shoulder .

I also know that he—Nanase Rintarou-kun could hold a conversation with that uncooperative Akira as well, but his communication skills were pretty high .

In addition to that, he was a legendary person who had excitedly talked about anime with Asahina Kyousuke-kun who barely talked .

Perhaps within the party, he was the second son .

「Maa, maa, that just means that Tomoya’s cooking is that delicious . Certainly, I also understand that it’s hard to make Japanese food in this world, but is it not possible for you to create Japanese-style seasonings?」

「…maybe I can . 」

「Oh! Really!? Then please do it— . 」

「I want to try eating it too—!」

Ueno-san joined Waki-kun in requesting it of him .

In any case, they were energetic .

Sometimes, she was as bright as the sun .

The world would end before Waki-kun and Ueno-san did things seriously .

「I’m fine with anything as long as it’s spicy . 」

The one who said something that did not match the gentle look on her face was Hosoyama Shiori-san .

It seems that she liked spicy food and she always had to sprinkle all kinds of red furikake onto her food .

TN: for those who don’t know what furikake is, it’s a type of Japanese seasoning that’s meant to be sprinkled on top of cooked rice, vegetables, and fish . It’s a mixture of seaweed, dried fish, sesame seeds, sugar and salt . Other variations may include freeze-dried salmon bits, bonito, egg, powdered miso, vegetables, etc .

Over there, I didn’t know that she did this, perhaps she concealed it .

「Oi, oi, seasonings aside, what should we do from now on?」

Somehow, we managed to go back to what we were discussing before .

Everyone turned serious .

Everyone turned to look at me, wondering what I thought .

「We need weapons . 」

Leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, Asahina Kyousuke-kun muttered this .

As expected, regarding these types of things, his opinion was the most useful .

「Yes, I’m fine with the holy sword that I received at the castle, but Tsuda-kun’s sword is already worn out . 」

「We have a moderate amount of money, and it might’ve been a good thing that we got all our money ready here . 」

「Ah, then perhaps Yuuki-chan and I should get weapons to protect ourselves as well . Since we had some close calls yesterday . 」

Our basic formation was: Asahina Kyousuke-kun, Tsuda-kun, and I as the vanguards, and the rear guards were the wind magician Nanase-kun, Ueno-san, and Hosoyama-san .

However, in this situation, we were practically defenseless against enemies that came from behind .

Everyone had already acquired the Perception skill, but unfortunately, the skill level was still low .

It was so low that it didn’t seem like it was leveling up .

「Ah, that reminds me, I heard that the world’s best blacksmith was in the beastmen territory . 」

Everyone looked towards Nanase-kun .

「Ah, but it’s just a rumor? There’s no conclusive evidence, but they say that this person was the beastmen representative who survived the hero party’s excursion into the demon’s territory, or something like that . It seems that currently, he is in the port city of Ul . 」

「…if I remember correctly, the beastmen territory’s dungeon is in Ul . 」

Since Asahina Kyousuke-kun concluded the conversation with that, it was the same as our destination having already been decided .

「Alright, then let’s take tomorrow’s ship to Ul to procure weapons . If possible, I want to visit the world’s best blacksmith, but I won’t ask for the impossible . The most important thing is to find the weapon that suits you . 」

Ooh—!, everyone spiritedly raised their fists and I gave a sigh of relief when I saw them like that .

With this, we were somehow able to move forward .