Kerry’s group had woken up in an inn in Connaître, about three days south of the Great Liebe Forest going at Hakuma’s speed.

“What did Boss say?” asked Riley.

“Right. She’s fine, she wants us to stay in this town and check out their defense for the invasion,” Kerry responded after seeing that the friend chat had ended.

They had arrived at this town the night before, but they only stayed for one night and checked out in the morning, earlier that same day. Since they had traveled for an entire day and didn’t find another town or village, they had planned to camp out along the road, taking turns to keep watch. During that time, everyone suddenly died, then they all awoke once again in this inn.

“Good thing no one else was staying in this room. If someone had been, maybe we wouldn’t have been able to revive here. Would we have gone all the way back to Liebe then?”

“Anyway, I’ll go tell the landlady we wanna stay a few more nights. If she’s still awake, at least,” Riley said, heading downstairs.

The woman would probably be shocked to see the group who had headed off in the wee hours of the morning suddenly come down from the second floor, but there was nothing they could do about it. Fortunately, they had brought along a lot of cash for their travels, so they could buy her silence. Money makes the world go ’round.

“More importantly, is the Boss really all right?”

“Yeah… From the way she talked, she didn’t seem to be really depressed or anything, at least it didn’t feel that way… But even if she were, I bet she wouldn’t show anyone anyway…especially not us…”

Kerry remembered how Boss had looked when she first met her, how she had oozed confidence from her very pores. Boss’s appearance had changed quite a bit since then, but the way she sometimes got that look of mischief on her face hadn’t changed at all. The things Boss did were all completely beyond the catgirls’ imaginations. Recently, they had finally been able to touch on what her goals were and how she wanted to accomplish them, but at the very start they had no idea what she had been trying to do.

Meeting Boss had dramatically changed Kerry and the girls’ lives. Back then, just as she had told them, if they had kept on doing things the same way they always had, in some not-so-far-off future, someone would have ended up taking everything from them, including their lives.

At that time, Kerry had said to Rare, “I want you to become our leader.” Her plea had changed everything.

And there were people out there who had hurt their leader. Those people had to pay.

“But who in the world could’ve… If we ask, Boss probably wouldn’t tell us.”

Remy was right. She was the boss, after all; she might already be on her way to settle the score herself.

“I’m so mad I could explode… but there’s nothing we can do about it right now. All we can do is what Boss asked and keep an eye on this town.”

“Yeah… If we learn anything from how they defend themselves, it could come in handy one day for killing the guys who beat up Boss.”

They resented having to help out the forces of humanity, who had antagonized their leader, but they just had to hold it in while reminding themselves that this would help her.

Riley entered the room. “I’m back. It was kind of a letdown how normal her reaction was. I guess it happens a lot nowadays, people appearing from their rooms even after they’ve checked out. So they’ve stopped booking rooms for a day after someone checks out.”

The girls would have also found it pretty weird if they hadn’t been dropped into the exact same predicament.

“They must be also followers… No, probably players like Boss is. Meaning lots of players stay in this inn, you think?”

“Probably, yeah.”

So now, it must have seemed as though Kerry’s group, who had died and come back to this inn, were also players.

“…Well, we gotta help protect this town anyway. Been a while since I pretended to be a player.”

“You might be fine, Kerry, but we haven’t done it before.”

“It’ll be all right if you just stay quiet, Marion. You never liked talking to strangers anyway.”

And so, Kerry’s group was going to participate in Connaître’s invasion event.

＊

<So yeah, we’ll be defending this town. What’ll you guys do?>

<Let me think… We probably shouldn’t join the invasion, should we?>

<Boss didn’t say anything about what you guys should do, Hakuma, but… The original plan was to head for the volcano so Boss could [Summon] us at any moment. We need to check the humans’ defenses, so that’s why we’re staying here, but wouldn’t it be fine if you just go on ahead to the volcano?>

<Hmm, yeah, I suppose so. All right, leave it to us.>

<Good luck.>

When they had stopped in this town, Kerry and the other girls found the inn, but Hakuma and Ginka, being giant wolves, couldn’t very well accompany them. The two of them made camp a bit off the road and rested there. That temporary bed ended up becoming their spawn point, perhaps because there weren’t any hostile enemies nearby.

After the friend chat ended, Hakuma loped off, accompanied by Ginka. The luggage they carried wasn’t all that heavy, so they were able to run without trouble. At this pace, they would soon reach the volcano. The more territories their forces controlled, the more power their master would gain. And if all they needed to do to accomplish that was run, then they would run.

＊

“As planned, Hakuma and Ginka are headed to the volcano. And as ordered, we’ll protect this town.”

“Got it. We ended up leaving this morning without seeing, but what’s attacking this town anyway?”

From the state of the town, the invasion didn’t seem to be terribly disruptive. At the very least, nothing appeared to have breached the outer wall yet. From speaking with the landlady earlier, they gleaned that there were a lot of players here, so the unexceptional town guard was probably able to cooperate with them to withstand the attacks. Or perhaps there just wasn’t a monster here strong enough to destroy the outer wall or the gate in the first place.

“I wonder. We could probably find out if we head to the sellsword guild. I don’t think it’s anything bad, though.”

“But at the very least no one else can get through from outside the town… Merchants in particular shouldn’t be able to trade goods right now.”

Remy was absolutely right. In the past, the catkin girls would never have thought about stuff like that. They just had a vague awareness that “somewhere in town” they should be able to sell their stuff. But things were different now. Every town had something they specialized in, which they would use to trade with other towns, and from there items would be sold to people who wanted them. This led to prices rising beyond the base material value. Apparently, this was how an economy worked. Since Remy had managed a shop back in Erfahren, she was particularly keen on these matters.

“So basically, here’s what’s going on. Whatever the enemies are, with the players here, no one’s worried about the defenses. But players aren’t particularly interested in the fate of the town itself. That’s why, even though the flow of goods has stopped, none of them are looking to proactively go out and take down the monster chief. Based on what we heard from the Boss, we were originally supposed to leave the forest and… umm, maybe wait a day? For ten days after that, there’s something called an ‘event,’ and everyone gets more XP during it. So that’s why the players might want to leave the chief alive for that entire time.”

This strategy certainly went against the town’s best interests. However, since Kerry and the girls had nothing to do with the town either, they didn’t particularly care one way or the other.

“If we’re going to pretend to be players, then we can do the same thing they do, right? Just kill the weaklings who come attacking while checking out how strong the players are.”

“That should be good, but… Yeah, I want Riley to take on a special mission, you good with that?”

“Sure, what is it?”

“While the players are screwing around with the small fries, make your way outta the town and lay eyes on the chief. Until we get new orders, maybe after the event’s over or whenever Boss has some free time on her hands, I dunno, but it ain’t a bad idea to gather as much info as we can on everything around here.”

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