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Chapter 166

When the Magic Academy’s long winter break began, myself, known as Dran, and my familiars named Selina and Dramina, together with the golem Lynette, got on Dramina’s carriage, and now we are on our way to return to my hometown, Bern Village.

Bern Village has prospered as a trading center with Ente Forest, and in addition with my construction of the bathing facilities, it has become a gathering place for many merchants.

The fact that fighting broke out over the summer with the army of 5,000 goblins kept many people away, but since the goblins were successfully repelled without any casualties, and due to many circumstances, there were many products that could only be found in Bern Village, so the village was even more prosperous than before, or so my parents wrote to me in their letter.

But the resilient villagers of my parents’ and grandparents’ generations, who participated in the pioneering and development project in the past, they wouldn’t miss any good opportunities to make a living, even if I hadn’t been here.

The true strength of Bern Village is its ability to develop on its own, so long as it finds a good chance for it, so even if I don’t do anything to help, it would still happen.

However, that is not to say that I am calm enough to not do anything, and I still have a strong desire to be involved in the development of my hometown. I can’t just stand by and do nothing.

Nearly four months have passed since that summer break, and myself and the other three who were riding inside the carriage as it ran over the cobblestones that were laid out between Clauze Village and Bern Village, as I reviewed my memories while wondering if the scenery of the village has changed or not since then.

Selina, with the appearance of a lamia, had to hide herself from human eyes. Dramina wanted to avoid sunlight as much as possible. And Lynette wanted to talk to the two of them, and have them tell her more about Bern Village. That’s why the three of them were inside the carriage.

However, Dramina’s carriage is a prestigious item that has been used by generations of kings from the Valkyrios Kingdom, and even though she tries her hardest to hide her coat of arms and the decorations, it still attracts the endless attention of people passing by on the road.

We might be creating a mass misunderstanding that there is some great noble from somewhere traveling incognito, hiding their true identity.

Yet the fact that I am sitting in the coachman’s seat in just my commoner’s traveling clothes probably appeared mismatched because even if this was an incognito traveler, there should have been a little more appropriate clothing for the driver, at least.

Incidentally, I am still hated by Dramina’s Sleipnir, but I know that they are sulking because to them, it feels like their one and only master has been taken away from them, so I don’t feel too bad about it.

I do think that they’ve been sulking about it for a bit too long now, but it’s probably not an issue I have to press too hard about. Besides, they do more or less follow my orders, and they seem to understand their own job.

As we received curious glances from the other carriages or travelers walking on foot that we passed by, Selina peeked her face out the window from inside the carriage and spoke to me, as I held the reins in my hands from the driver’s seat.

When Selina suddenly and cutely peeked her face out the window like that, it made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside in return.

「Dran, it seems the streets are bustling more than before, I’m glad our worries were unfounded.」

「Yeah, the fact that we repelled the goblins really holds some weight. Rumor has it that the governor-general and important people from the adventurers’ guild have come searching for the adventurers who were there at the time.

It hasn’t become too much of a big deal yet, but it’s been almost four months since then, and they still haven’t found them. Since they can’t even catch a glimpse of them, they are in doubt whether or not they ever even existed」

「Fufu, of course, there’s no way they would find them. After all, the adventurers were those people, right?」

Selina, thinking about all the trouble the governor-general and the adventurers’ guild was going through, gave a troubled smile.

Most of the adventurers who provided their assistance in the fight against the goblin army were, at the time, gods from the heavens, and their followers, who came to do business with me.

The people that the governor-general and the others are looking for are not on earth to begin with, so they will never be able to find them. Unfortunately, the road the governor-general and the adventurers’ guild are walking on will end in nothing but fruitless effort.

「Even so, we can’t really tell them the truth. They’ll give up eventually. Fumu, from what I can see, there are adventurers and mercenaries that look like guards walking around here and there.」

「Bandits and such won’t appear very often anymore, huh. The only scary things left are the beasts out in the fields, right?」

「Bandit hunting used to happen pretty often in the past. It is said that bandits were afraid of Bern Village because it was a dangerous place for them. Every village has that side to them, but it’s even more pronounced with my hometown」

「There are many former soldiers and knights who used to serve Christina’s grandfather, as well as retired mercenaries, after all.」

「There might be people with even more dangerous backgrounds that I don’t know about. There’s an unspoken rule that you shouldn’t investigate someone else’s past, so there hasn’t been any chances to ask them」

「Don’t your father and mother have that kind of background as well?」

「I’m not sure. From what I’ve heard, my family has been farmers for generations, but it’s possible they’re hiding their backgrounds from me, since they think it might be too early for me to hear about it, as their son」

Since they participated in the pioneering project, they must have come a long way from their original birth place.

Truth be told, I’ve never been that interested in where my parents came from.

Regardless of where they were born, I owe them a great debt for giving me life as a human, and knowing the truth would never change the love I have for them.

It’s another thing if they want to come clean and talk to me about it, but as for me, I have no particular reason to ask them about it.

Putting aside talk of my parents’ origins, when the cobblestone was being laid down on the road, the stone statues that were constructed on both sides of the road were exposed to the wind and rain, but they don’t seem to have been damaged at all, and sometimes, the people traveling on the road would stop and pray to them, or simply look at them curiously.

I created this group of statues because I thought they would help as a possible tourist attraction, but now it has become well known to the people around these parts, and has been nicknamed the “Stone Statue Highway.”

Because I got a little carried away and made too much of them, they emit a little bit of a mysterious and divine aura, and they are more than sufficient as wards against evil spirits.

Each and every one of them are Living Statues that can start moving and operating on their own in times of emergency, but they haven’t spotted any abnormalities today either. I’m glad that their days as simple stone statues will continue.

There are also many accommodations constructed along the road, with two different types: those that are managed for a period of time by people dispatched from Bern or Clauze Village, and those that are simple shelters with a fireplace and sleeping areas to keep out of the wind and rain.

These accommodations were constructed with the aim to be about a day’s distance between each other for a person traveling on foot, but thanks to the speed of the horse drawn carriage we were using, we passed by several of these accommodations.

When we arrived at a manned lodging place at the halfway point to Bern Village, we could see many people there, who were either headed for Bern Village, or for Clauze Village.

The Sleipnir demon horses are much faster than normal horses even when at their walking speed, so we left behind the other travelers in no time, and arrived at the south gates of Bern Village.

Just like the road from Clauze Village until Bern Village has become famous for the stone statues created by Dran, the defensive walls that surround Bern Village have also become another tourist attraction.

The Black Roses that Diadora had set up as a defensive barrier around the village in the summer during the goblin army invasion were still blooming vibrantly.

Sometimes mages or merchants who knew their worth, or curious tourists would come to pick them, but the roses themselves would move of their own accord and strike people with a sharp blow, so these Black Roses were slightly dangerous.

This defensive wall intertwined with the Black Roses is a clear example of the deep relationship between Bern Village and Ente Forest, and the number of people who refer to Bern Village as the “Village of Black Roses” is gradually increasing.

Compared to half a year ago, the number of passersby has increased dramatically, and there were many more people gathered at the south gate. The two young men who were guarding the gate were each accompanied by two of Dran’s battle golems at their sides.

At the sight of the Black Roses wrapping around the entire defensive wall, as well as all the battle golems, first time visitors to the village would often unconsciously stop in their tracks and gaze around at everything.

This was a sight that was rarely even seen in cities, let alone ordinary villages in remote regions, so it was only natural that people would stop to take a look.

The young men working as guards at the gate noticed the carriage, as it was the most refined and prestigious looking one of all the carriages that had passed through until now, and then they noticed that the one sitting in the coachman’s seat was Dran, and they waved their hands at him.

「Hey, Dran, welcome back. Look at that, you’ve come back with even more pretty girls」

「Clearly he’s been blessed by fate, it seems」

Dran and the others passed through the gate the same way the other travelers did, and their eyes happily scrunched up from seeing that the inside of the village wasn’t just filled with the villagers, but also plenty of people visiting from outside too. While exchanging greetings with the villagers they knew, their horses continued to trot along, heading for Selina’s house.

In the central plaza of the village along the way, the merchants who have obtained permission from the village chief to sell have opened up street stalls, creating a bustling atmosphere for tourists to stop by.