Lakeside

Three days had passed since Baron Granvelle's procession—the one Allen was a part of—left Krena Village for Granvelle City.

A wrinkled old man bowed reverentially toward Captain Zenof. "Thank you so much for taking care of it right away, sir."

"Think nothing of it. Resolving the people's worries is part of our duties as knights of the realm."

Allen watched the exchange from a distance away. 'Aww, I guess I don't get to meet my grandparents after all.'

They had stopped at the village where the founding settlers of Krena Village had originally come from. In other words, this was Rodin and Theresia's home village; their parents ought to still be living here.

However, like all serfs, Allen's grandparents would be greatly limited in where they could go, and there was no reason for them to be at the Village Chief's house. Consequently, Allen had no chance to come across them.

Rodin had once told Allen that, because serfs almost never received permission to step outside their village, it was very common for those who moved to another village to never see their parents again.

'I'll come back again someday when I can travel more freely,' Allen thought to himself as he looked around for his own carriage. Of the many coaches in the procession heading back to Granvelle City, he had been riding in one that had been assigned specifically to the servants.

"You, the manservant over there. Come over."

'Huh? Me?'

Suddenly, a voice called out from above.

When Allen looked up, he saw Cecil's face peeking through the window of a carriage adorned with House Granvelle colors.

"What can I do for you, Lady Cecil?"

"I need a conversational partner. Climb into my carriage."

'Huh? I have nothing to talk with her about, though. Is she messing with me again?'

"Of course, my lady. Right away."

Allen had already taken up service, despite having yet to reach the mansion; he felt uncomfortable doing nothing while on the road. Cecil, in turn, had started involving herself with his duties, both for better and for worse. She seemed to feel no qualms about it given how close they were in age.

While he was not eager to do so, Allen had no choice but to comply with a direct order from the daughter of a noble. Although there was little difference between commoners and serfs, he very much felt the distance in social status between nobility and himself.

'Hm? Oh, this is a women-only carriage. Everyone inside is female...except for Vice-Captain Leibrand.'

As it turned out, this carriage was for Cecil and the female servants who had come along on this trip. Aside from them, however, there was also Vice-Captain Leibrand in the seat in front. In all likelihood, he was here to protect Cecil should anything happen.

When Cecil gestured toward the seat across from hers, Allen took it wordlessly, wondering what he had done to deserve this torture. Riding in these carriages was itself draining, as they shook and rattled terribly. Allen could have done without the mental pressure of his current situation adding to the physical ordeal, but all he could do was sigh inside his mind.

Before long, the carriages of the procession started moving out. A sizable crowd saw them off.

'Wow, did the entire village show up? Or is this just a portion, and their population is just that much bigger than Krena Village's?'

"What do you think? Pretty big send-off, right?" Cecil asked suddenly, her eyes still directed outside the window at the receding crowd.

"As befits House Granvelle, the family who administers this land. This is surely a reflection of just how much the people appreciate everything you do for them."

"I know, right? Heh heh!"

'I complimented you, so can you give me a cushion please?'

Cecil, who was currently sitting on top of a stack of multiple cushions, smirked happily. Allen's praise of her family seemed to be exactly what she had been actually after.

"I thought this before at the great boar hunt, but you really are levelheaded, Allen. I can scarcely believe you were a serf before," Leibrand interjected, looking impressed with the answer that Allen had given. "I think you will do well in your new station as a manservant at the mansion, regardless of your origins."

"Your praise honors me, sir."

"See? That answer's plenty impressive too. How old are you now?"

"I turned eight this year."

Cecil started. "Huh? That's the same as me!"

"It appears so, my lady," Allen replied. 'I thought we were close—so we're the exact same age?'

The fact did not really change much, but Cecil dove into her own thoughts, muttering, "So we're the same age" to herself, among other things.

The carriages then continued down the path lined sparsely with trees for several hours. The procession stopped for breaks every once in a while—Allen was ignorant of carriage travel and had no way to tell if the breaks were for young Cecil or for the horses.

At each stop, Allen tried to move to a different carriage, but Cecil kept him chained to his seat with random stories about her family.

'Okay, look, I'm not going to make notes about your "Oh, this always happens at home!" anecdotes in my grimoire!'

As Allen continued to pretend he was listening with the occasional "Mm-hm," "I see," and "Ahh" in response to the girl's utterly mundane ramblings, Cecil noticed something outside the window.

"Hold on, this area is... I think we're close to the lake my mother told me about."

"Lady Cecil, we will not be stopping there," Vice-Captain Leibrand said bluntly.

"I didn't say anything yet! And why not?!"

'Hm? What's this? We're coming up on a lake?'

Cecil tried to make her case. She had really wanted to watch the great boar hunt too, but her father refused because it was dangerous. Since she had so magnanimously backed down and had been such a good girl, she argued, this time her wish ought to be granted.

According to Cecil's mother, very beautiful yellow flowers bloomed beside this lake. Cecil wanted to bring one of those flowers home.

"I'm sorry, my lady, but we cannot stop here. There have been reports of orcs wandering in this area, and Captain Zenof is off vanquishing them as we speak. Our highest priority is keeping you safe, my lady."

After a short pause, Cecil said, "All right. I understand." Having seen that Leibrand had no intention of changing his mind, she gave up her protest.

'Orcs, huh. I've never seen one of those before, but they've gotta be strong, right? If I remember correctly, they're Rank C monsters.'

The only monsters that Allen had seen so far were great boars, albaherons, and horned rabbits. 'I've barely left home and I'm already hearing of more monsters. This really is a fantasy world.'

However, orcs were a famous monster. Rodin had even mentioned them to Allen before. They would attack human settlements at times, and it was not entirely unheard of for them to wipe out an entire village.

"Do they really have to be killed?" Allen asked.

Leibrand nodded. "They do. Orcs are dangerous in that, if left alone, they would build their own settlements. For all we know, there might already be an orc village somewhere nearby."

Earlier on, the chief of the village they just stopped at had come to Lord Granvelle and Captain Zenof with eyewitness reports of wandering orcs from traveling merchants passing through.

Lord Granvelle had taken the news seriously and asked for a more accurate description of the location where the orcs had been spotted. Then he had dispatched Zenof, together with half of the knights who had originally planned to join the great boar hunts, to kill those orcs.

Because of this, the Granvelle family was now hurrying home with the strength of their entourage cut in half. Naturally, a detour to some lake was out of the question.

'Orcs... I've heard that there's an Adventurer's Guild in Granvelle City. When I'm allowed to move around freely inside town, I definitely want to go check it out. Might even learn a few things about other monsters there.'

Allen made notes about what he just heard about orcs in his grimoire and added a new entry under his to-do list. He was so occupied with planning what to do in the future that he failed to notice the brooding scowl that had come over Cecil's face.

***

Half a day passed, and the procession had now stopped for the night. On nights when there were no villages nearby, the group would camp out in the open, bringing the carriages around to encircle the camping ground as a makeshift barrier.

The following morning broke with an incident. One of the female servants cried out without warning, her face pale, "Lady Cecil is missing!"

"What?! That can't be! How did this happen?!" Lord Granvelle grabbed the woman and pressed her for details.

Apparently, when the servant had gone to call Cecil for breakfast, she had said she did not feel like breakfast and would wait in the carriage instead. The servant had left her to inform the Baron, then had her own breakfast. When she returned to the carriage, however, Cecil was gone.

Allen stood up. "My lord, I believe chances are high that Lady Cecil has gone to the lake to pick some flowers. I strongly recommend going after her as soon as possible."

"...Tell me more."

Since time was of the essence, Allen kept his explanation brief. He described how, during their carriage ride yesterday, Cecil had spoken of wanting to bring a flower home as a souvenir for her mother.

"Why did you not report this to me, Vice-Captain Leibrand?!"

"I-I am very sorry, my lord!"

"Forget it. Immediately set up a perimeter and search for her!"

The lake was directly west of the camp's location. As such, the knights split into three groups: one that headed west to the lake, and two that went north and south in case Cecil, who presumably did not know the exact location of the lake, wandered off course.

Allen approached Lord Granvelle. "My lord, please allow me to also search for Lady Cecil. I cannot merely turn a blind eye, not after having been involved with her care during this trip."

"Hm? Very well."

'All right, I got permission.'

Normally, an eight-year-old child requesting to go out into the wild to search for someone would be shot down on the spot. However, desperate times called for desperate measures—there were wandering orcs around, and Cecil had gone missing. The Feudal Lord almost reflexively agreed to Allen's request. Immediately after getting the go-ahead, Allen made a beeline for the lake.

'I'm so glad I didn't change my card distribution yet!'

Before leaving his village, Allen had said farewell to Krena with one final play knight session. In preparation for that match, he had adopted a build focused on Agility. Thanks to this, he was now capable of running at almost superhuman speeds. Soon enough, the sparse trees in his surroundings gave way to a wide, open field.

'Okay, there's the lake. And those are probably the flowers Cecil was talking about. But she's not over there. Where is she, then?'

Even though he had a clear, unobstructed view of the area, Allen did not see Cecil's figure anywhere. All he saw was an open meadow of yellow flowers in full bloom.

'If only I could spot her footsteps... I did just run quite a bit. Did I overtake her, maybe?'

Allen quickly concluded that it would be too difficult to find Cecil's small footprints within such a large area, so he decided to take a different approach.

After picking three flowers and throwing them into Storage, he turned back.

'If I'd known this would happen, I would've spent more time analyzing Hawkins's Ability beforehand.'

There had been very limited opportunities for Allen to look into the Abilities of his Rank E and F Summons while he was living in Krena Village.

Due to this, there was not much Allen felt he could do right now to contribute to the search. He knew that Bird E's was "Hawk Eye," and suspected it was meant for scouting purposes, but he had no idea how to actually use it.

He was now running back to the camp, taking a slightly different path just in case he actually had overtaken Cecil. He was just about to call forth a Bird E Summon anyway when he spotted a glimpse of cloth with a familiar design behind a large tree. It was the dress that Cecil had been wearing.

'Found her!'

Allen rushed over and found Cecil quivering violently. He reassured her, "It's all—"

"N-No!"

'Huh? "No" what? What's goi— Wait, what's this smell?'

A foul odor assaulted Allen's nose. He turned to see where it was coming from and noticed a humanoid figure sitting with its back against a tree a slight distance away.

'Yep, that's an orc all right.'

The creature had a pig-like face and was wearing a poor attempt at clothing made from animal hide. There was a giant spear on the ground close to its hand. The orc seemed to be deep in sleep at the moment.

All the pieces fell together in Allen's mind. Cecil had likely spotted the sleeping orc when she was on her way to the lake to pick a flower. She was so frightened that her knees gave way; she was now hiding and holding her breath, terrified of being discovered.

"Lady Cecil," Allen murmured in a voice low enough only Cecil could hear.

"Wh-What?"

"Vice-Captain Leibrand and the knights will be along soon. Please get onto my back so I can bring you away from here."

'Fighting the orc myself is not an option. It's a Rank C monster, and Cecil's here.'

The only monsters Allen had experience fighting and killing by himself were albaherons. This was an entirely new enemy, and fighting it using untested Summons was far too great a risk.

Allen crouched down, his back facing Cecil. She snaked her arms around his neck and grabbed on. He walked slowly and carefully, using the trees as shields before they finally got far enough away from the orc.

Cecil whispered into Allen's ear, "Allen, I still want a flower. Mother said she really wanted to see one again."

Allen picked up on the tremble in Cecil's voice. Apparently she was quite serious about wanting a flower. He swallowed back the exasperated reply that was about to roll off his tongue, and instead wordlessly reached into Storage—at an angle out of Cecil's sight, of course—to retrieve the three flowers that he had picked earlier.

"Lady Cecil, I already gathered three of them for you. Would these suffice?"

"What?! How did you...?! So these are the flowers mother wanted to see..."

Cecil slowly reached out for the three flowers and fell silent. Before long, the sound of hooves approached them. It turned out to be Vice-Captain Leibrand with several knights in tow.

Leibrand cried out, "Lady Cecil!"

"Lady Cecil is safe and sound," Allen replied before pointing to the direction he had come from. "However, there is an orc a slight distance that way. It's sleeping right now, but be careful."

"Mm, understood." Leibrand directed one of the knights to let Allen and Cecil onto his horse and to bring them back to the carriages. After that, he and the other knights went off to kill the orc.

'The knights really are strong. I can't even imagine how someone would go about fighting that monster. Even when sitting down, I could tell it was bigger than a normal human.'

Before long, they were back in view of the carriages. The moment she dismounted the knight's horse, Cecil dashed off to her father, the flowers clutched in her hand. Allen thought the Baron could have been a bit stricter with his daughter, but the man simply looked relieved to see his daughter back safe and sound. He gave her his undivided attention as she excitedly started recounting everything that had happened.

Eventually, Leibrand and his subordinates returned. As they had originally gathered to hunt great boars, they naturally had no trouble taking care of a single orc.

The incident was finally over, and the procession resumed its journey toward Granvelle City. Cecil had ordered Allen to ride in her carriage for the remainder of the trip. She had grown even less reserved with him, talking at him nonstop until they reached the mansion.

A small bud of worry blossomed in Allen's heart as he thought about his fast approaching life as a manservant.