Chapter 27: Returning to Getting Stopped

Although they didn’t know who or what she was, there was no reason for them to stay in the forest tending to the young girl.

Loren thought that someone who knew the girl might be in the area, so he left her with Lapis and looked around, but he couldn’t find a trace of anyone. They couldn’t just leave her in the forest alone, so they decided to take her back to the city.

“I don’t really want to do this.”

“Then should we leave her?”

“That’s even worse.”

Even though the girl was around ten years old, she was a bit too big for Lapis to carry, so Loren let her carry his sack of herbs and decided to carry the girl on his back.

He was surprised at how light the unconscious girl was when he picked her up.

“She’s light, right? It’s not like she’s thin. She’s actually pretty healthy. She’s probably from a wealthy family.”

Lapis walked up next to Loren and touched the girl’s foot.

Although she was found in the forest, she was barefoot.

“She doesn’t have much muscle, and the flesh on her hands and feet aren’t hard. Either she didn’t walk around much, or was taken care of very well.”

“Rather than that, she must be insane to be barefoot inside a forest.”

“That’s true. Usually your feet would get cut up really bad.”

Even if you were careful, if you walked around barefoot you would get cuts and scrapes.

But the girl’s feet were smooth and clean with no cuts whatsoever.

Loren was curious about her feet, but what was really on his mind was the white dress she was wearing.

The dress was pure white, with no stains on it at all.

If didn’t make any sense if she had wandered in the forest.

“Well, I guess we can ask her when she wakes up.”

“I’m kind of worried that people would think we kidnapped her.”

“Well, two rough looking people are carrying around a helpless girl, so.”

“Can you not naturally include me like that?”

They continued to talk the whole way back, and when they reached the city, Lapis suggested they take the girl to the adventurer’s guild.

They looked like they would be stopped at the gate, but the soldiers in Kauffa didn’t stop people much.

“Apparently, they’re pretty lax about it, unless you obviously look like a criminal.”

“Well, even if they did mistake us for kidnappers, we don’t really have a way to talk out of it.”

“I don’t think there are people who would attempt kidnapping with a priest in their party.”

“Priests are pretty amazing, huh.”

“Nothing beats priests when it comes to social trustworthiness.”

Although Lapis puffed out her chest and bragged, it wasn’t like priests did amazing things, but instead their trust came from the fact that they served the gods.

When they reached the guild, everyone’s gazes were on Loren, who had two girls with him. But Loren stopped feeling the gazes soon enough and tilted his head.

While he was thinking that it wouldn’t be weird if adventurers like the ones in the morning showed up, Lapis reached the front desk and explained their situation, and came back with the receptionist.

“Is it correct that you found and rescued someone in the forest?”

“Yeah, that’s right. Here she is.”

Loren turned around and showed her the girl.

She stood and looked at the girl for a while, and seemed to have found something. She called over the other employees at the desk, and they ran towards them with a stretcher.

“We’ll take her from here. Is that okay?”

“Yeah. I can’t keep her here on my back forever.”

Loren gently let the girl down from his back and laid her on the stretcher.

As the employees stood up and picked up the stretcher, Loren saw their surprised faces.

As he was thinking that they were surprised at how light the girl was as well, the receptionist called him over and asked him to follow her past the receptionists’ desk.

“I’m just saying, I didn’t kidnap her.”

“I’m sure that a kidnapper wouldn’t hand over the person he kidnapped to the adventurer’s guild. It’s nothing like that, but I’d like to talk to you about something.”

“It’s okay if it’s the two of us, right?”

“Yes, with the priestess please.”

Loren felt that they weren’t going to be questioned and looked towards Lapis for her opinion.

She noticed Loren’s gaze and nodded, so Loren decided that there was no problem and followed the receptionist into a drawing room.

“Let me get straight to the point. I’d like to put a restriction on your actions.”

The receptionist told them that as soon as they entered the room and sat down.

It was so sudden that Loren couldn’t understand what she was talking about, so instead Lapis started talking to her.

“What do you mean? Is there some sort of problem with us?”

“No, it’s nothing like that. The guild is going to investigate the girl, and until we are finished, we don’t want you to move around too much.”

“Do you mean that there’s something with the girl?”

“Currently, there is nothing we can tell you about that.”

As he watched Lapis and the employee talk, Loren couldn’t help but think they were being quite unreasonable. But an authority wielding organization like the guild often did unreasonable things, so he wasn’t angry.

Thinking that it was nothing compared to what leaders of mercenary groups did, and Loren asked the employee something important the popped up in his mind.

“How long is it going to last, and how much are we going to be restricted.”

“I’m not sure about the exact period, but I believe it’s going to be a few days. For the restriction, we don’t want you to leave the city, and if possible, stay at the inn that we tell you to.”

“That sounds pretty serious.”

The restrictions were loose, but it was pretty much the same thing as being contained and arrested.

It wasn’t something he could just agree to.

No matter how much authority the guild had, Loren wasn’t going to do something that he didn’t want to and showed his irritation. The employee tensed as she felt pressure coming from him, but wasn’t going to back off. She clenched her teeth and continued slowly, trying not to let her voice tremble.

“We’ll ready rooms at the inn <>*, on the main street.”

“I don’t know which one your talking about.”

Loren wasn’t familiar with this city.

In fact, he wasn’t familiar with any city due to moving around a lot when he was a mercenary, but he still didn’t know anything about the city he was staying in.

He didn’t have a chance to gather information on the city, so even though the employee gave him the name of the inn, he had no idea what kind of place it was.

“It’s one of the best inns in the city. It’s really fancy and expensive as well.”

“Of course, we will pay for the rooms and the food. And if you want to go and entertain yourselves, just put it on the guild’s tab, and we will pay for that as well.”

“That’s really gracious of you.”

“Are adventurers easily persuaded by this kind of thing?”

The guild was going to pay for everything.

Lapis acted very surprised, and Loren snorted.

“What do you mean?”

“It sounds too good to be true. Between mercenaries, it’s common sense not to take jobs that pay really well.”

If they said they would pay for rooms at an ordinary inn, Loren was planning on listening a bit longer, but saying that they would let them stay in a good inn as well as pay for their food and entertainment was just too suspicious.

“Wouldn’t it be more humane to act as if you didn’t notice that?”

“You’re the last person I want to listen to talking about how to be human…”

“I’d like to firmly protest about how you’re treating me.”

Loren raised his hand and stopped Lapis, who was about to argue with a sullen expression, and asked another question to the employee, being careful not to raise his voice.

“Anyways, about the girl that we brought here. What is there to her.?”

“That’s what we’re going to investigate.”

The employee didn’t give him an exact answer, and from that Loren understood that he didn’t turn the conversation the right way.

Loren was thinking that being loyal to your job was indeed a virtue, but he didn’t like the fact that they were keeping things from him. Lapis started to talk this time instead of him.

“You do realize that we’re not satisfied with that answer, right?”

“That’s…”

“Just tell us this then. What do you think the chances are that this will work against us?”

Lapis looked straight at the employee, and she silently looked away from her, eyes wandering.

Lapis didn’t seem like she was going to go on and silently waited for the employee to answer.

After thinking for a long time, the employee sighed, knowing that Loren and Lapis wouldn’t accept the guild’s suggestion at this rate. She looked at them and opened her mouth.

“I believe that there’s very little chance of that. A few people in the guild have seen the girl before, but the only way we can make sure who she really is, is either when she wakes up or after a few days of investigation.”

“Loren, this means that the girl is from a faraway city, and high status as well.”

The employee didn’t even bother saying if Lapis was correct or not.

Instead, she smiled at them, but it looked forced and unnatural, so Loren guessed that Lapis was right.

“I see. So until you find out who she really is and make sure we’re unrelated to her, you want us where you can see us.”

“I can’t confirm.”

“Loren, I think it’s fine to accept their offer. Once they find out that we had nothing to do with the girl being in the forest we’re free to go. For the next few days we can live and have fun off of the guild’s money.”

The employee was at a loss of words at Lapis’ easy going manner, her smile twitching.

While hoping that the she wouldn’t be too stressed out, Loren told her that he accepted the guild’s offer.

“So, you’re going to prepare the rooms and the money, right?”

“I’ll arrange it immediately. A room for… two is okay, right?”

For some reason she looked like she wanted to get a blow in somehow.

“I don’t mind.”

“Hey, miss priestess, watch what you’re saying. We’ll be getting two separate rooms, of course. If you can’t accept that, the none of this ever happened, got it?”

Loren’s words rang out clearly as he looked at both of them with a serious face.

Although for different reasons, both Lapis and the employee sighed.

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