Chapter 55

The next day, Kena and the Eilene caravan set off from Helsper.

Those who joined the caravan paid a fee and were considered customers. Moreover, Kena, who had gained a mentally and emotionally supportive companion in Ops, was not just an ordinary customer. It was as if the word "restraint" had been forgotten, and the magic she cast made the caravan's journey much faster and safer.

"Hey, Kena. Isn't this a bit much?"

"Is it?"

Kena, perched on the roof of the carriage with Luka in her lap, answered Ops, who stood behind her, with a very curious expression. The scenery around them was passing by at high speed. To be honest, it was a speed that the carriage couldn't maintain. Of course, the most confused were the caravan leader Eilene and the mercenaries guarding it.

The caravan consisted of two box carriages and three covered carriages. Leading the line was a creature that was kicking up dust as it ran ahead. It was over seven meters long, with a skin made of rock, and was classified as a large lizard-type monster, a rock lizard. Needless to say, it was a summoned creature, and Ops had been "asked" by Kena to summon it. At level 350, it was the standard horse-drawn carriage puller in the game. Its role this time was to clear the way for the caravan. Few monsters could survive the impact of its charge. The caravan itself, with Kena's [Amplification] added to [March Speed Increase], moved at a gallop despite the horses appearing to be trotting. As a result, they arrived at the village three days earlier than expected, on the evening of the seventh day.

"Didn't I see something like a caterpillar being dragged by three horses along the way?"

"Was that so? I don't remember seeing it."

"…Maybe I was just imagining things, then."

Upon returning home, Kena, Ops, and Luka were warmly welcomed by the maids, and they bought the wheat that Eilene had transported. It was already getting dark, so moving the wheat to the warehouse would have to wait until the next day. However, the main roads of the village were lit by street lamps, which illuminated the night streets brightly.

"Well, I must say, this village gives me a different kind of surprise compared to the capital..."

"The roads are bright, the baths are free, and there are no shortages in defense measures. It's like a fortress..."

Eilene and Arbiter, who had dinner with Kena at Marele's inn, expressed their honest impressions. Kena, who had inadvertently fortified the village, was indeed formidable. Luka, who had eaten dinner at home, seemed tired and fell asleep immediately. Ops, having no particular reason to go out, stayed at home. Kena had gone to the inn to gather information.

"I heard there's something called a 'Combat Festival' in Felskero in about twenty days..."

"Yeah, it exists. So, are you thinking of participating?"

"If it's you, Kena, winning is a sure thing. There's even an official betting system, so you could make some money that way."

The two, who knew Kena's strength, were grinning with interest, but they were well aware that she wasn't the type to take such actions.

"Unfortunately, I don't have a taste for bullying the weak."

Kena stated firmly.

When she heard about the Combat Festival, what Kena thought of was, "In a village with few forms of entertainment, could something like a live broadcast of the Olympics from Earth be possible?" She had the necessary item, a pair of magical eyes, which could transmit images from one eye to another. While originally designed for personal communication, there were auxiliary items that could project the images on a large screen for multiple viewers. However, these auxiliary items were not something that could be created with item creation skills but were one-of-a-kind items sold in stores. Of course, such stores did not exist in this world, and Kena did not have such items. If she had to guess, the best place to find them would be the guild headquarters.

However, when she returned home and told Ops about her plan, it was immediately thwarted.

"The Cream Cheese guild headquarters?"

"They should be here, right? At the westernmost point of Helsper..."

"Nope."

"...Huh?"

With a single word, the silence dominated the room. Ops, looking up at a 45-degree angle into the void, spoke the facts in a matter-of-fact tone, like an old man telling a story. It was hard to tell if he was old, young, male, or female.

"That was... yes, the day before the Riedale broadcast was stopped. It started with Meshmouth saying, 'We want to do something flashy too,' but the members who joined in, thinking it was the last day, were also at fault. In the end, we..."

"...Wait, you don't mean..."

"We gathered the magic of all the members and used a combination spell to blow up the headquarters! Yeah, it was a beautiful fireworks display..."

"Everyone, you idiots!!!"

What's done is done. Kena realized that the members were the type to act on a whim.

Combination spells sounded impressive, but they were just a technique of multiple people casting the same spell on the same target. Normally, Kena, with the highest magic power, would be the baseline, but since she wasn't there, the elf support and healer, Tartaros, took the lead.

Kena's explosive fire magic, second only to hers, was multiplied by 2 to the 18th power, creating a beautiful arch of fire that obliterated the headquarters. In the last month, with the destruction of buildings feature version 1.03, many guilds did similar things. Kena thought it would be nice if someone considered the possibility of using it later. Of course, no one would believe that the game world could affect another world.

Kena, with a soulless face, collapsed on the table. Ops, with his arms crossed, nodded and said, "Hmm," then added, "By the way..."

"Before that, we collected unnecessary items from the guild. Maybe the item you're looking for is among them. We just piled them up in the warehouse without making a list."

"Really!!"

Kena immediately perked up, leaned over the table, and confronted Ops. "Let's go, let's go, let's go right now," she urged, but Ops looked at her with a bemused expression and pointed outside. As expected, it was the middle of the night, with a beautiful blue moon floating in the sky.

"For now, let's rest tonight and try again tomorrow."

"Oh, right, that's true..."

She had forgotten in her excitement.

The next day, Kena woke up early like a child waiting for a field trip. She woke up Ops, who was still sleeping, and quickly finished breakfast and other morning routines, urging, "Let's go, let's go, let's go!"

"You have the Nine Rings, right? That should do it."

"You went to Nine's place!?"

As a self-proclaimed production specialist, Nine had the most items among the Skill Masters. The item boxes in the Guardian's Tower weren't enough, so he even paid to increase the number, often complaining that it still wasn't enough.

"He also made a lot of things he usually wouldn't, and released them. The prices of rare items fluctuated a lot."

Ops, remembering the players' reactions, spoke with enthusiasm. Kena, with a wry smile, mused, "Everyone was manipulated by the Skill Masters until the end." If Tartharos were here, he would have said, "You're no different!"

Kena pulled out the ring, told Luka, who had woken up to see her off, that she was leaving, and entrusted the rest to Roxine and the others. She recited the keyword and disappeared from the spot with Ops.

The scene in front of her changed from a peaceful countryside to a high-rise building and a statue of a goddess, with a row of cameras behind her. In the center, on a lotus pedestal floating slightly above the floor, sat a golden Buddha statue. The lotus pedestal, which had moved silently through the air, stopped in front of Kena and Ops, and the Buddha statue, with its hands clasped in front of its chest, bowed deeply.

"This is Ops-sama, thank you for coming. What can I do for you this time?"

"I've come to check on something I left here. This is Kena, the new owner of the ring, Skill Master No. 3. I apologize for not informing you earlier."

"Why are you so rude, you know... And, I'm sorry."

Kena, who was taken aback by Ops's arrogant attitude, gave a light bow to the Buddha statue, which bowed even deeper, saying, "This is very considerate of you, me." To avoid an endless loop of bowing, Ops cut the conversation short and opened the door marked "No Entry for Non-Staff" with the ring.

Kena, who followed him into the room, was dismayed by what she saw.

"Wow, what is this..."

If this were Kena's tower, the item boxes embedded in the floor would have covered the entire floor and even stuck to the walls. There were about fifty of them, which would have cost over 10,000 yen in additional fees. The dedication of a shut-in was truly formidable.

"...Hmm, this is it."

Ops, who had been checking each one, pulled out a long, radio-like object from a box on the floor. It had a circular indentation in the center, the large-screen projection device Kena had requested.

"Good, good, this is it. Thank you, Ops."

"...If you were always this honest, you'd be cute..."

"Huh? Did you say something?"

"Nothing."

Ops, who was trying to brush it off, thought this subtle dynamic was fitting for their current relationship, given their past as master and servant.

Once they moved back outside, they did so because the Guardian's Tower, except for certain areas, had a magic-nullifying spell in the main room. Usually, one would be sent outside by the tower's guardian to avoid the complex maze, but since this tower (facility) was simply placed on a giant turtle's back, they just needed to step outside.

"Wait a minute..."

Kena's mutter was justified, as something was off. The landscape wasn't moving. The giant turtle, after the Otarok Quest city invasion, was supposed to leave the city and return to its original course after the winner of the quiz fulfilled the conditions. However, it had entered the city and approached the castle too closely, leaving no room to turn around. It could have done so, but it would have destroyed a significant portion of the city. The guardian, not wanting to do that, had no choice but to stop at a slightly turned point behind the castle.

"Couldn't it just back up?"

However, the city had a slum-like town on the ground, which would likely be destroyed if the turtle backed up. The guardian, who had told Kena this when she returned to the room, was responding to Ops's inquiry about the players. Kena's criticism was naturally directed at Ops, who was nowhere to be seen, having been behind her.

"...Where did Ops go?"

"Ops-sama just flew off with the equipment, didn't he?"

"......What?"

"Ops-sama just flew off with the equipment, didn't he?"

"Ugh, you just left the problem to me, didn't you!!"

Kena shouted into the air from atop the turtle's head. Reflecting on it, she realized that such unreasonable requests were a common occurrence. Stopping 1,200 people from the Purple Nation for four hours during a war (a strategy that later won a top ranking in a player survey) or asking a client to stay while she built a dungeon, these were all unreasonable memories that surfaced and disappeared. What welled up inside her was the ease with which she accepted such requests. She remembered being told by the guild members, "Kena is too lenient with Ops." At the time, she had thought, "Is that so?" but now she understood. They had once been master and servant, which explained why she felt this way. She suspected that the former Ops had used their relationship as an excuse not to ask her for things, but now he was being demanding. While this was partly her own assumption, it felt right, so she just smiled wryly and let it go.

"I'll punch him when I get back, but what should I do now?"

To move this mountain-like creature, the options were limited. Using a large-scale spell could reveal Kena's existence to the queen of this country. It might even be part of Ops's plan.

Kena selected [Area Transfer] from [Magic Skills]. This was a skill she rarely used outside of the quest to rescue a curious baby dragon (a dragon that existed only in quests, not in the game) trapped in a dungeon. The spell could move the user and any object larger than five meters square to a random location. The quest ended when the baby dragon was escorted back to its parent. In Kena's case, she was transported from the Blue Nation to the adjacent Red Nation, making the return trip easy. Ops, on the other hand, was sent to the Black Nation, making the quest much more difficult. This was a good topic of conversation among those who had completed the quest.

Moving to a distant location was fine, but the main concern was whether it would land in a city or village. In the game, there was no risk of that happening, but in reality, it was a possibility. She added a floating spell to the shortened incantation and was about to transfer when she caught the eye of a woman through the castle window. Thinking it might be a bad idea, she was about to activate the spell when the woman opened the window and flew over to Kena.

"Huh? Flight magic!?"

"Yes, I'm a High Elf."

The woman, dressed in a flowing purple dress, had long black hair with a blue strand in the front, and exuded a regal air. She was a High Elf, like Kena, with pointed ears. She landed gracefully in front of Kena, placed her hand on her chest, and bowed slightly, looking at her with golden eyes.

"It's been a while, Aunt. It's been about two hundred years, hasn't it?"

Kena had met this woman once before, who looked exactly like a junior member from her former community who used to cling to her, calling her "sister, sister." At that time, the junior member had already left the community. This encounter was probably orchestrated by Ops, or part of his plan, or just a coincidence. Kena decided to punch Ops twice when she got back and turned to face her second niece.

"I'm sorry for causing a commotion in your garden, Saharashade. I'll move it right away."

"Moving it? I don't understand. Since we've met, let's have tea together. It's a rare opportunity."

After some thought, Kena decided to accept the offer, as it would be unnatural to refuse after the encounter. She had also turned down a messenger from the other side before. She thought, "It's an invitation, so it's fine."

"...By the way, is it normal for a queen to jump out of a window?"

"I apologize for my lack of decorum. I saw you and thought it was an emergency..."

Looking at the window, Kena saw a maid looking worried. She wondered if she would have to intrude from there. The niece, seemingly aware of her thoughts, said, "Please, this way," and led her to another window. Kena thought, "If she's Sahana's daughter, this kind of behavior is not surprising."

The room beyond the window had a sturdy desk with a pile of documents, a sofa and table set. It seemed to be an office. The view from the window was the side of the giant turtle. Kena thought she needed to move it quickly. A maid bowed respectfully and served tea to Kena, the intruder, without suspicion, as instructed by the queen.

(I always end up dealing with Ops's mistakes...)

'As I have said many times before...'

Kena thanked the maid, who looked surprised. The orange liquid, which was steaming, tasted like real tea. She remembered that tea in the game had a slight effect of increasing mental strength and tried to [Identify] the contents of the teacup, but nothing appeared. Saharashade, chuck