Several minutes after leaving the Village Head’s house,

I returned to the inn and we started to have dinner with Gantt-san’s family.

[Ahhh, Maria-san’s cooking is as delicious as ever.]

[Gahaha, that’s right, that’s right. That’s because Maria’s cooking is the best in the world!]

Listening to Gantt-san’s praise,

Maria-san face started to take on a shade of red, but she looked happy.

The both of them were close as ever.

While I was thinking that,

Mari who was sitting next to me started to tug on my sleeves.

[Nee~ Nee~ Yuuma-san. This is the dish that I made, here have some.]

[ooh, which one?.]

I took a bite out of the dish that Mari made.

Yep, it's delicious!

As expected, it was not as good as Maria-san’s, but it was still quite delicious.

When I told Mari that it was delicious, Mari did a guts pose.[1]

[Ah come to think of it Yuuma, are you seriously going to go alone to subjugate the Guros Rabbitsu tomorrow?]

[Yes. Well, to be exact, it is two of us; s.h.i.+ngu and myself, but]

As I said that, Gantt-san looked a little meek.

[s.h.i.+ngu, huh. As I thought, he is still obsessed with the Guros Rabbitsu. Well, it's not like it wasn't expected, after all, it was the Guros Rabbitsu which took Jirugu away…...]

While Gantt-san was saying that,

He had quite the troubled expression on his face.

[Gantt-san was an acquaintance of Jirugu?]

[Hmm? Ahh, Yes Jirugu and I were childhood friends.

We used to fool around together quite a bit back then since we were quite close. Thinking back now, I should have handled things more carefully.

It's nothing but an excuse since I was also around when Jirugu died.

But by the time I had noticed it, it was already too late. It was cruel of me.

As an adult, I had the obligation to help out as well, but by the time I realized, s.h.i.+ngu had already become all alone.]

That means it couldn’t be helped.

Because by the time you knew it, your childhood friend had already died huh….

I continued to look at Gantt-san who had such a depressed expression on his face.

Both Maria-san and Mari were looking worriedly at Gantt-san.

Gantt-san noticed the stares.

[Oops, sorry for telling such a dark story during the meal.

Yuuma, Maria and Mari, I'm sorry for worrying you.

Alright, let's get our spirits back and continue with the meal.]

Gantt-san said to make the gloomy atmosphere a little livelier.

And so I started to talk with a smile as usual.

But when I looked again, he had quite the painful expression.

Tens of minutes later,

Dinner was done, Maria-san was was.h.i.+ng the dishes and Mari had returned to her room.

I also stood up to return to my room so that I could get some sleep.

Then Gantt-san who was sitting in front of me suddenly had a serious expression on his face,

[Hey, Yuuma. It’s not something that I have the right to request of you, but tomorrow, please take care of s.h.i.+ngu.]

Saying so, Gantt-san bowed his head to me.

for a while now, people seem to be asking for the same thing.

[Understood. I promise to protect s.h.i.+ngu as much as possible.]

As much as I possibly can.

It might be rude, but I definitely can’t promise to make sure he lives.

[Thanks a lot, Yuuma. Honestly, I would really like to go with you, but the strength in my body is not enough to be able to accompany you…...]

Although it’s rude, it’s true.

I don’t really wish to use my Skill Sign isolation this time as much as possible.

In a situation where I would have to fight the Guros Rabbitsu while protecting both s.h.i.+ngu and Gantt-san, I would be highly unlikely to be able to do so.

Oops, before that, I've completely forgotten to ask Gantt-san something.

[Gantt-san, how do the Guros Rabbitsu look like? Actually, I wanted to ask Zonga-san, but various things came up and I, therefore, hesitated to ask him.]

To my question,

[Ahh so it seems that Yuuma did not know about Guros Rabbitsu. I see, then I shall explain it briefly, it looks like a Rabbitsu but it's huge.]

It’s just the body which is huge?

I still can’t seem to find it to be very strong…..

[Huhu, don’t think that it’s weak just because of that. but, it is certainly true that its figure is really huge. None of them are less than 5 Meters.]

{EN: imagining a 5-meter tall fanged rabbit…they're scarier than I thought}

5 Meters, you say?

If what you are saying is true then it is even larger than the Cyclops that I had fought before.

[Besides having such a huge figure, it can also move at abnormal speeds.

it was because of this that we were never able to hit it with our attacks…….]

So that’s why they were unable to catch it in the forest.

However, I can now understand from this story that it seems to be quite the puissant enemy.

It’s certainly a bad match for s.h.i.+ngu who wishes to kill this foe, and in some cases, I might need to speed up. If possible, I would like s.h.i.+ngu to take down this enemy…….

[Gantt-san, thank you very much for the information. I now understand that the Guros Rabbitsu is stronger than I expected. I will make sure to be careful and not do anything dangerous.]

Ok then, I shall excuse myself for today.

So I said to Gantt-san and went back to my room to sleep.

Maria-san was kind enough to give me the same room which I had used a few weeks ago.

I entered my room and lay down on my bed as I did before.

Yup, it’s still the same bed as before.

[Haa~, a lot of things happened today.]

Never did I expect that I would be coming back to Barris Village so soon.

Even though it hasn’t been long since I came back from the Golem Mountain Range.

I wonder if I did a bad thing, I should probably make it up to Sari next time.

But still, this request that I accepted blithely, has become quite an important request.

There's the thing that both Gantt-san and Zonga-san asked for, and that was to protect s.h.i.+ngu properly tomorrow. Ahh, I did not expect that I would be babysitting children.

But, I can’t seem to understand why.

Why did accept the request to protect s.h.i.+ngu, to protect such a child? It's not that I don’t like children, but I can’t understand why I would accept the request.

Then, when I was thinking about such a thing, only one answer came to my mind.

[I get it now, so that was why…..]

It might be a half-hearted answer, but this could be the only possible reason.

It was because we are similar.

Although our circ.u.mstances are quite different, the current s.h.i.+ngu does remind me of my past self…..

Since I feel that way, I definitely won't abandon s.h.i.+ngu.

Haa, it was such a simple reason.

While I was pondering that in my mind,

I heard a guuguu sound by the bed, but before I noticed it I was already asleep.

{TL: This s.h.i.+ngu character would have been more interesting if it was loli, then we could have had some fun scenes.}

{EN: Seriously mete you LOLICON… The readers don't need to know that you're a LOLICON, knowing that you're a LOLICON could put some readers off you know… some might even be tempted to call the police just for safety's sake if they found out you were a LOLICON}

[1] EN: this pose:

or or

…well something like those….