Me, the Weakest Member of the Hero’s Party? I’m the Villain Though? - Chapter 48
“That’s why I told you not to look. Are you all right? You’ll feel a bit better once you throw up.”
Elonen patted my back with concern, but that only made my nausea worse. In the end, I turned and vomited.
“Pathetic.”
I looked up at the sudden voice and saw Gerard standing there. He handed something to me, and I took it before I knew what I was doing.
“It’s an herbal remedy. If you rub it under your nose, it’ll make it easier to breathe.”
Clicking his tongue, Gerard said this without even looking back, then returned to Kyle.
“He’s right. If you keep breathing in the smell, you might keep throwing up, so you’d better use it.”
I didn’t really want to, but with the stench and the urge to vomit, it was hard to keep it together. In a hurry, I scooped up the thick liquid with my finger and smeared it under my nose. Thanks to the sharp scent of mint, I was at least able to breathe again.
“It looks like he was a mercenary.”
Kyle, who had already lowered the body to the ground, spoke up. Boldly, he rifled through the corpse’s pockets.
“Here. This is a mercenary badge. Judging by the copper badge, he must have been a rank 3 mercenary.”
Kyle held up what he’d found in the dead man’s pocket for us to see.
A mercenary badge was an identification issued to those registered with the mercenary guild. Third rank was the lowest of the ranks.
“Why would a mercenary hang himself out here?”
“Someone probably killed him and strung him up.”
Gerard replied bluntly as he pulled out his staff.
It seemed he was also starting to realize this wasn’t just an ordinary extermination mission.
“Everyone, be careful. We don’t know what’s ahead.”
I wanted to suggest we head back. Kakaros must have sensed it too, but the further we went into the depths of the forest, the thicker the miasma became.
It was clear there was a very powerful, upper-ranking monster lurking in these woods.
“How about taking this mercenary badge back and telling the lord? We can report that something dangerous is in the forest.”
But Kyle brushed off my suggestion without a second thought.
“If there’s something dangerous, it’s our job to deal with it. That’s why we came all the way here.”
Hearing that, I remembered Gerard complaining about how tiring it was to keep chasing after the hero.
It had only been four days since I started traveling with Kyle, but I was starting to understand why he’d said that.
“Let’s go, Kakaros.”
Kyle urged Kakaros to keep moving, and I had no choice but to follow the rest of the party.
And as it turned out, that gruesome discovery wasn’t the only one.
“This must be the fifth one.”
Elonen muttered as he looked at another mercenary hanging from a tree. With a grim face, Kyle lowered the body and searched for a mercenary badge.
Sure enough, another copper badge, another rank 3 mercenary.
“Looks like a whole mercenary band got wiped out here.”
Elonen said with a look of pity.
He was right, something was strange. It didn’t make sense for a mercenary band to just suddenly get massacred here.
“Did the lord ever say anything about hiring a mercenary band?”
Gerard, leaning against a nearby tree, asked Kyle. I’d been there too, but Tallin had never mentioned a mercenary band.
“All he talked about was being troubled by rats getting into the warehouse…. Oh, but he did say they attack people.”
Kyle’s words brought Tallin’s voice back to mind.
“That’s right. Every time these things attack, they take food as if they’re shopping for groceries. I’ve tried all sorts of ways to stop them. But these things even attack people…”
“Yeah. He said he tried all sorts of things to stop them too.”
Thinking back, it was suspicious from the start. For rats big enough to make holes that large, asking us just to ‘get rid of the rats’ was strange from the very beginning.
“That lord must be hiding something from us.”
Gerard muttered, crossing his arms.
Gradually, the sense of unease I’d felt when we first met the innkeeper at the village entrance began to seem less like a simple hunch.
At that moment, I felt a faint vibration in my pocket. I reached for it absentmindedly, then froze.
The magic stone I’d taken from the monster that attacked the innkeeper was vibrating.
“What’s wrong? Are you feeling unwell?”
Maybe I looked too serious, because Elonen once again asked with concern. I almost brought up the magic stone, but then hesitated.
If that stone really was connected to me, I wasn’t ready to tell the party just yet.
“My stomach’s starting to hurt. Can we rest for a moment before going on?”
