Chapter 108: That’s a bad joke. There’s no way I’d use Leonization

"But was there a cafe nearby? I thought this area was all taverns and food shops."

"Nearby there’s a restaurant called Paradiso. You don’t know it?"

He knew it, so Kazui nodded.

Paradiso was a shop he had visited with Yuri before.

"The basement there is a cafe called Paradiso Sotterraneo."

"I see. I didn’t know."

Actually, when Kazui had visited with Yuri, Paradiso Sotterraneo had not opened yet.

That was why he had not known Paradiso Sotterraneo.

"They don’t even put out a sign."

Incidentally, after Paradiso Sotterraneo opened, Kazui had passed nearby but had not noticed its existence.

That was because, just as Monica said, there was no sign.

"They’re open this late at night?"

"They’re open at night too, so when I come here I sometimes eat and drink there while I’m at it... it’s a shop that does meals too."

"Is the food you eat after peeking good?"

"No, so it’s not peeking! I just happen to see it sometimes!"

While exchanging small talk, Kazui and Monica kept walking toward Stone Sphere Park’s main gate.

"Our relationship will stay the same as always... nothing in particular will change."

A little while ago Kazui had said those words, and Monica had agreed with them.

But until just a little while ago, the two of them had not been in a relationship of going to a shop together to eat and drink.

Unlike Kazui’s words that their relationship would "stay the same as always... nothing in particular will change," their relationship had already started to change.

Even while continuing a conversation like an argument, the air drifting between them had changed to a familiar feeling.

To the other people in the park, they only looked like a couple...

—-

At a time of day still early for the sun to start sinking, a single automobile ran along a road in the forest spreading under a clear blue sky.

Even called a road it was not paved. Some trees had been cut and the like so that enough width for an automobile to pass was secured, and the road surface condition was bad.

In the forest north of Aquila there were places where various things Aquila’s residents needed could be gathered.

Roads connecting those places and Aquila stretched radially from Aquila’s north side.

The automobile running on the road was a khaki small truck with a long hood.

To Kazui and Yuri it looked like the military trucks used during the Second World War that they had seen in movies and the like.

Several baskets were loaded on the truck bed.

Inside the baskets a large amount of small fruits like pearls... Pearl Berries were stored.

Four people were riding on the truck bed. Two of them were in coverall-like work clothes and sitting near the baskets.

Those two were the workers who had gathered the Pearl Berries in the baskets.

The remaining two were standing behind the driver’s cabin.

They gripped the handrail on the back of the cabin, supported their bodies on the swaying truck bed, and watched their surroundings.

Humans who entered the forest could be attacked by dangerous monsters.

They were sometimes attacked by human robbers and the like as well, but for humans who entered the forest, the existence they should be most wary of was monsters.

The area the truck was running through was a place where monsters did not appear much.

Even when they appeared, most were monsters called Privates, treated as the weakest among monsters, with only one sun mark.

Even if they were the weakest among monsters, for humans who were not adventurers they were dangerous existences they could not contend with.

That was why when moving through the forest, ordinary residents of Aquila normally hired adventurers as escorts.

When moving through places where powerful monsters with many sun marks appeared, you needed to pay a fair amount of money and hire high-level adventurers.

But when moving through places where only the weakest monsters appeared, they also hired low-level adventurers who could be hired cheaply.

For example, adventurers in the lowest-level category, trainee adventurers and the like...

For trainee adventurers, most of their work was escort in relatively safe parts of the forest.

The two watching their surroundings on this truck bed were the trainee adventurers hired as escorts, Kazui and Yuri.

"...Must be nice, Kazu. Easy for you."

Standing on the truck bed and watching the rear, Yuri in combat clothes kept complaining with half-lidded eyes.

"This time you barely even did any work."

"I’m watching properly."

Watching the front, Kazui in a martial arts uniform answered Yuri in combat clothes standing on his right.

"You’re only watching! I’m not just watching. I’m keeping a defensive barrier... up the whole time."

Just as Yuri said, around the truck a defensive barrier like a thin, transparent membrane so faint it was hard to see was deployed.

It was a defensive barrier Yuri had deployed using the most basic magic skill for defensive barriers... Common Shield.

Incidentally, a defensive barrier deployed in a form that created a closed space was a defensive barrier field.

However, because a defensive barrier field was composed of defensive barriers, calling a defensive barrier field a defensive barrier was not wrong, and there were adventurers who did not use the words defensive barrier field.

A defensive barrier that did not create a closed space was a defensive barrier, but a defensive barrier that created a closed space was often called a defensive barrier field, and sometimes called a defensive barrier... that kind of thing.

"It can’t be helped. Monsters aren’t attacking."

With his right hand that was not gripping the handrail, Kazui played with a lock of wavy hair like a cat ear and murmured awkwardly.

Just as Kazui said, in this escort job they had not been attacked by monsters even once yet.

The day after he got involved with Monica, Kazui and Yuri had gone to the Guild hall and looked for work even trainees like them could do.

Then there had been a recruitment for this job, escorting Pearl Berry gathering, so the two of them applied and took it.

Work that even trainee adventurers could apply for basically had low pay.

But in the case of escort work, even if the pay was low, magic stones and the like obtained from monsters defeated during the escort became the adventurers’ share.

In other words, if the number of monsters defeated was high, even if the pay was low you could sell magic stones and the like to the Guild and earn.

Even low-pay work aimed at trainee adventurers could actually earn more than ordinary work.

Having taken the job, the two of them boarded a truck with the contractor and workers introduced by the Guild and left Aquila.

They kept running on an unpaved road in the forest in the truck.

Kazui and the others took about an hour to move to the Pearl Berry habitat in the forest.

Over about two hours, the contractor who was also the truck driver and the two workers gathered Pearl Berries.

After that they finished gathering the needed amount of Pearl Berries, so the group set out on the return to Aquila by truck.

From leaving Aquila until now, an attack by monsters had not happened even once.

Yuri, in charge of defense, had been in a state of almost continuously using Common Shield.

But Kazui, in charge of interception, had only been watching.

Because he had been using a skill continuously for a long time, Yuri had consumed a fair amount of mana and fatigue on his mind had accumulated.

From that Yuri’s view, looking at Kazui who had barely used Aura either made him want to let at least one complaint slip.

"You should acquire Common Shield too, Kazu. Then we could even split the work."

With an exasperated face, Kazui asked Yuri.

"You... you know I can’t acquire skills just as I aim for, right?"

So other people would not hear, Yuri whispered by Kazui’s ear.

"If you use Leonization and do it with me four times... I think you can copy Common Shield."

Yuri owned five skills, and one had already been copied by Kazui.

The same skill was not copied, so if Kazui had sex with Yuri four times he would indeed be able to copy Common Shield.

"That’s a bad joke. There’s no way I’d use Leonization."

Kazui also whispered by Yuri’s ear in a low voice.

"If you don’t use it your level... will stay hard to raise, and you might get driven into a crisis, so you’ll end up using it anyway."

"I won’t."

After declaring that, Kazui’s expression tightened.

He felt something off about what came into his vision and grew wary.