h.e.l.lo everyone. Here’s another chapter of second summon. For those who don’t read any of the other novels I’m translating here, merry belated christmas! I’ve been noticing that j.a.panese authors oftentimes go both past tense and present tense, often past tense for actions, summaries and such and present tense for thoughts, speech and/or explanations. Sometimes it makes for a difficult translation if I go with the usual single tense storywriting english people use, maybe I should try keeping the tenses like it is on the raw and see if it reads well. What do you guys think?

Anyways, enjoy your read~

Tl: Jun

ED: Jun

Chapter 20 Young girl Amelle's request

Being in a good mood because I got back my guild card, I kept the amazed Levia company and tried out some of the foods at the stalls. Even though I say that, it's mostly seafood I can buy. So I have eaten three different kinds of fish if I include the skewer grilled fish I'm eating right now.

"Personally I would like to eat them fried though……"

"I'll make as many as you want later, so stay with me today."

She usually lives in the sea…… More like as the one who's controlling the sea, she may have already gotten tired of eating fish and the like. That's why she's tryies new methods of cooking and is charmed by the fried white fish. I do feel happy when I'm told they want to eat my cooking, but can't can't she just accompany my splurge out of good mood?

"So this fish doesn't have any bones…… As expected of the other world――――――hm?"

Just as I became surprised to the fact there are no bones in the fish I'm eating, I feel a gaze behind me for an instant. The gaze was different from that of hostility or grudge towards me for taking along a beautiful girl. Looks like Levia has also noticed it and is asking for my decision. Since it disappeared for an instant, it could end with just receiving a glance from a person hanging out in the street, but it's clear afterwards that the person is following us. But just like before, there's no hostility and there's also no indication they're in a hurry in starting a conversation. It looks like the person is at a loss at what to do.

At any rate, I don't like them following us, so I convey "To the alley" to Levia through eye contact. She understood and goes along and I went into an empty alley between shops.

"――――――Who’re you?"　　

I continue walking through the alley for a little while and once I have confirmed that their presence reached the place, I call out with my voice. The box stacked in the corner moves with a jump and while I am a little on guard from the shadow, a single young girl appeared. She sports easy to move adventurer's clothes and a shortcut black hair. She's about Ruri's age, but her body is st.u.r.dier than Ruri's.

"You got some business with us?"

" …… I'm sorry for acting like I'm following you."

The young girl first of all apologized meekly to my questioning. Then when she finished speaking, she simultaneously speaks while she lowers her head with all her strength.

"But …… there is something I wanted to request of you at any cost, won’t you please listen to me?"

After hearing that, Levia looked at me, seemingly wanting to say "what shall we do?" The voice of the girl sounded extremely sad. I feel like it was also filled with the determination to hang onto anything.

…… At any rate, I don't know if I want to try and hear her out.

"First of all, let's hear what you want to say, whether we take the request or not will come after that."

"Ah, thank you very much!"

With a poof the girl raises her head and begins speaking about the contents of the request while getting teary eyed from joy.

"――――――A group of lizardmen?"

"Yes …… They are attacking our village."

Without changing locations, Levia and I sat down on a suitable box and listened to her story.

This girl says she seems to be called Amelle.(アーメル;aameru) She comes from a village deep in the forest and it seems she had just left that village a few days ago. As an adventurer, she is hunting down monsters around the village and because of that, she says she had acquired some level of ability and she's seems to be C rank adventurer if we go by ranks. She is past an apprentice adventurer and should now be at the level of being able to challenge even subjugation requests without problems. Attached to her belt is a short sword that's used to a degree that corresponds to her rank.

Thus the request in question appears to be a wish to subjugate the monsters that attacks the village. Amelle said that her village is near a dragon's nest. The dragon's nest is as the name implies; a nest built for dragons to live in. Basically it's a cave and the hole of the cave is huge enough for a large creature like a dragon to enter.

Even the worst of these so-called dragon species possess the strength equivalent to an S rank monster. Even if they only fly in the sky and breathe fire, they can become quite a threat. A monster born from those dragons are called Lizardman.

The B rank monster Lizardman are born with the role of protecting the dragon's nest whenever the dragon leaves it. The dragons have the habit to h.o.a.rd expensive objects such as gems in their own nest, so there are many people who consider invading it. But the half hearted adventurers can't win against Lizardmen, so it isn't that easy getting their hands on the treasures within its nest. The problem is when the not so half hearted adventurers turn up. Those guys would subjugate the lizardmen and sweep away the treasures just like that. If it's done that way, the dragon who tried to move its treasure to a new nest will catch the disastrous scene and it would rage and rampage. Like that, the damage left by it will be considerably large, so invading a dragon's nest is basically made forbidden.

A group of lizardmen――――――Some people must have noticed from the explanation right now. It's because those guys grouping up is something strange. Born as guardians of the dragon's nest, the lizardmen won't move out of the nest as long as nothing serious occurred. Amelle says that those lizardmen, who aren't supposed to move around, attacked and in a group no less.

"I thought it was impossible as well…… but they really came attacking!"

" …… Do you know something like where they appear in the attack?"

"When I think about the direction they appeared, it looked like they came from the dragon's nest near the village. But that nest should have been deserted because the dragon died so……"

In the case that the dragon died, it's said that in addition to the Lizardmen not being born, they will also leave the nest, so in the nest only treasure remains. The adventurer who come across that is incredibly lucky and just like that he could rise to the top as a multi-millionaire――――――In rare cases there are parties who would subjugate the dragon and s.n.a.t.c.h the treasure. Like me…… well, I probably can't say that's subjugation though.

"Lizardmen who came from a dead dragon's nest…… is it?"

"What does that mean?"

Levia asks a question, but I myself can't answer that. First of all, it never happened before. But I didn't particularly live that long ago, so even if I say it never happened before, I can't say if that's really true. At least I've never heard of such a case. Even so, if you think about it normally, something like that is impossible. If it's true that something like groups of lizardmen springing forth from the nest when the dragon died, many villages should have without a doubt been destroyed up until now. If it comes to that, then naturally the subjugations of dragons will be restricted. Since that's not happening, it means that it's never happened before.

"How is the current state of the village? It ain't supposed to be easy to stop something like a group of B-rank monsters."

"Right now we have blocked the Lizardmen's route and only people with enough strength are holding them back."

So a strategy not involving group battles. They could surely continue protecting the village by taking turns.

"We also have a soldier with strength comparable to A rank adventurers, so whenever that person fights, many lizardmen are killed, but…… the number of lizardmen just won't decrease."

" …… So there's no end to them?"

A game I played before also had that kind of element …… A place where you keep fighting opponents for as long as you stay there. In the game they will stop appearing if you finish some objective, but――――――

"I …… think there is something in that dragon's nest. If we can get rid of that……"

"You're entrusting us with the role of getting rid of that thing, is that what you're saying right?"

"Yes …… It's because I heard that you were an SSS rank adventurer…… Won't you be able to do this request?"

If you're talking about a group of B rank monsters, you won't be able to put a dent on them for sure if you're not an S rank I guess. Whereas charging into the dragon's nest overgrown with lizardmen would end up with you being chopped up by their sharp talons.

At first I even thought that Armelle is going to trick us, but this girl's eyes itself are very serious, showing no intention to lie. I do understand it's true, yet if I abandon her here, the food from then on will become bad like that time I felt with Ruri.

I crossed my arms and thought about it. I've already decided my answer is "I'll help," but…… I'm also curious about this phenomenon myself. But I also have to go to the beastmen continent you know…… well, I don't think it's a problem if it's just a few days though.

"Please…… If this goes on the village won't be able to make honey liquor……"*

"Wait, what did you say!? Honey liquor!? Your village makes them!?"

"Huh? Ah…… yes, they do make them."

Honey liquor, as its name implies, is alcohol made from honey. It's also the first alcoholic drink I enjoyed in this world. Back then when I was summoned here, I was more or less an adult here and that increased the necessity of coming in contact with alcohol. There were many recommending grain wine and Tia Maria and each time I tried drinking those, but I end up unable to finish most of them due to my undeveloped tongue. At that time, the beverage I was holding by coincidence was the honey liquor. First of all, the sweet taste stood out at the beginning at least. But it's not heavy and the aftertaste is refres.h.i.+ng and easy to drink. The faint yellow liquid has an exquisite amount of honey dissolved to the point that it displays the ease of drinking it.

Come to think of it, I haven't drunk any honey liquor since I came here. I can't let this situation stop the production of honey liquor. At that point, the little bit of hesitation I had disappeared in an instant.

"I'm gonna help you for sure, Amelle. Leave your village to me."

"Re- really!? Ah, no I mean――――――Will you really help us?"

Beside me, Levia glares at me as if saying "That is at best a trivial reason to go there don't you think?", I ignored that and Amelle and I held each other's hands.

"Then once again――――――I'm Setsu. Nice to meet you. As you already know, my rank is SSS."

"*sigh* …… I am Levia. I didn't register as an adventurer so this isn't exact, but I believe my ability is no less than S rank."

"Ah, I'm Amelle! I'm pleased to be working with you! Mister Setsu, miss Levia!"

Since we couldn't introduce ourselves before, we did a proper self introduction. In addition, Armelle introduced herself once again. She once again heard our ranks and seems to be grateful for that, but Levia frowned from "miss" being added to her name. Just let her. I mean, you also allowed Ruri to do it too. Well, Ruri's polite speech being the cause is something I clearly understand, but Armelle's polite speech felt forced here and there. I guess that might have bothered her.

"Then, shall we let you lead the way? To that village or something――――――"

"Okay!"

Amelle replies with a wide smile and with her in the front, we leave this place. We were fine if we leave right away, but she said she wanted to do some preparation so we ended up going along with her to do some shopping. I wonder; when was the last time I used things like a healing potion…… I already can't remember it, you know. By the way, I have potions with a name like highest grade healing potion in my magic bag. Shall I give one to Levia and Amelle just in case?

Just as I was at the point handing the highest grade potion to Amelle, who finished her preparation as an adventurer, her legs gave out and she couldn't move for a little while. Is there something else she should be tell――――――

Wait, could it be that the highest grade potion is actually expensive?

T.N.

* I translated it as honey liquor,(ハチミツ酒) but should I go with that or mead, the actual name of alcohol made of honey? I refuse to call it honey sake because sake could mean anything that’s alcohol. At least the kanji 酒 means alcohol. It could also mean Sake too, but what we call Sake is made from rice.