Thereafter of An Exiled Magician - CH 76

“A-lright. Let’s begin our exploration-.”

“””””Roger.”””””

We had arrived at a new area today.

Well, this area is right beside the previous one so it doesn’t change visually at all.

In the shallow regions of the Demon Forest, fields of forest generally continued on, with wolf and deer-like monsters.

I’ve been training in a relatively cleared area of the forest ever since I was born, so one of the first places I went to was a volcanic field, but something like that is quite far ahead.

Despite looking like a forest from the outside, it houses a volcanic field inside it which makes you wonder what’s going on, but that’s still a mystery to me.

It became a pretty normal place as the forest was slowly cut open.

“We’re not going to fight today right?”

“Yeah. Today’s only exploration. Reno too, come back immediately if you spot any monsters okay?”

“Okay!”

Reno disappears into the forest.

Well, a blackwolf isn’t all that different from a greywolf in terms of speed, so she should be fine.

“Shall we go as well?”

With Aria and the others, I crossed the part where concentration of magic power, which also looked like a thin membrane, switched.

***

“Mm?”

“? Lain, what’s wrong?”

“No, it’s nothing special…”

I had been observing Reno’s state since a long time ago, but it had become weird.

She would usually spin around us like a satellite searching for enemies, but today her search extended in one direction like an ellipse, and didn’t change at all.

“I’ll go check on her. Wait for me here. I’ll grab her and bring her back.”

“Okay… Don’t go too far.”

“Of course. I’m only going where Reno is. I won’t any go further than a second’s distance.”

“…Thanks.”

Aria sees me off with an uneasy expression.

Well, we won’t be encountering any blackwolves today, I think.

I haven’t explained this to the five, but if I don’t erase my presence then monsters wouldn’t come attacking.

Perhaps wolf-type monsters are proficient at detecting signs of people.

Right after I came here, the blackwolf (Large) that attacked the village, aimed for the gap when I was away from it, probably.

No, it wasn’t until I came here that I knew that wolf-type monsters had such characteristics because I rarely fought them at my previous place.

The ones I fought during my time as an anti-demon aristocrat were crocodiles, bears, elephants, and other strong monsters after all-.

Well, such things also happened, and now that I’m not hiding my presence, we surely won’t be seeing any blackwolves.

Since this is how I’m treating my presence today, It’s out of question whether a moron shows up on Reno’s radar or not.

“Then, I’ll be going for a bit.”

“Be careful.”

“Yeah~”

I set out at full-pace to where Reno was.

***

“So, why did you do such a thing?”

“…”

After catching Reno, we came out of the forest at once.

As I tried catching her, Reno tried escaping from me a bit.

It would seem, like she had a reason to follow such an abnormal search route.

Which is why she tried escaping from me as she thought I’d get mad at her, when I chased her at full speed.

Once caught, Reno shrunk like a borrowed cat.

It might have been my failure to hold her under my arm, thinking she might escape.

If she’s willing to explain though, I have no reason to get angry at her.

No one’s thinking Reno took this action meaninglessly.

It may be easy to misunderstand since she’s always frolicking around, but Reno is about as bright as Sui.

Everyone sat on the table and asked her questions while phrasing it so as to not blame her, but Reno remained quiet.

“Reno, if you don’t explain then we won’t understand, right?”

“…”

“Haa. Shall we forget about exploring deep in the Demon Forest?”

“!!”

Reno raised her face in a surprised manner.

“W-, why?”

“If you’re going to continue doing dangerous things, it might be better to refrain from exploring. We can’t delve into a risky place with a selfish teammate.”

Reno once again turns her face down.

Milia kindly rubs her head.

“No one thinks Reno did this as a sort of prank. Why you thought of doing such a thing, won’t you share with us?”

“…I wanted to, find the ruins.”

Reno muttered with a terrified voice.