“Oh, if you two came from the capital, did you see it? The continental tortoise.”
“Of course. We’re messengers, more or less.”
That was true, wasn’t it?
“Same here. Anyone with halfway decent skills as a Hunter who’s quick on their feet is out here on watch. If we see the continental tortoise, we run to the next messenger, then that one runs to the next one, and so forth.”
“Wow! Vince thought of that, didn’t he?”
“Yep.”
Even if you weren’t the best at physical strengthening, if it was only short distances people were covering, they could just run as fast as they could until they made it. It was smart planning.
“Anyone who can use magic is helping with the walls, whether or not they’re from the Hunter’s Guild, and the veteran Hunters are watching out in the eastern meadow on the way to the Dark Mountain. Everyone in Rosa is helping out in some way. I’ve gotta do my part too.”
The Hunter had stars in his eyes and clearly wanted to hear about the continental tortoise from them, but Sara and Haruto had to hurry themselves, so he’d have to settle for waiting and seeing it himself.
Without thinking, Sara reached into her storage pouch and took out one of her homemade lunches, handing it over to him. “Here, have this, and do your best. You should see the continental tortoise in another three days or so.”
“Man, I can’t decide if that’s soon or not. Thanks for the warm lunch.”
They looked forward to seeing the rest of the messengers on their way to Rosa. Before they knew it, the town was right in front of their eyes. Rosa’s tall walls stood out at a distance, but there were new walls at a diagonal slant outside the town now, making it look like some sort of historical site.
“It’s just like the capital.”
And unlike the capital, where they only had the foundations laid out, the walls here were almost completed. In fact, the only way they could tell that they weren’t completed was because there were so many people wandering around them, clearly still working on them.
“Bradley based the walls in the capital on these ones. Of course they look the same.”
Sara turned around. When she’d seen it, the continental tortoise had been east of the road, but if it kept heading straight toward the Dark Mountain, it was going to graze Rosa. She turned back toward Rosa and found that the stands usually outside of town were still there, serving the people working on the walls now.
“I wonder what happened to the people living in tents outside the walls.”
They continued forward and people called out to them as they got closer just like the first messenger had. It felt a little strange.
“Hey! Haruto! And Sara! What happened to Allen?!”
Bradley’s voice came from Rosa. He didn’t seem the type to raise his voice, so he must have been anxious for Haruto to arrive. Sara figured it’d be pretty hard to be the only one in charge of the walls to stop the continental tortoise.
“Allen’s fine! He’s with Nelly and the continental tortoise!” Haruto answered as he ran over to Bradley. Sara took her time, looking over the food stands with nostalgia. There was the bread and soup she and Allen had often bought.
“Hey, Sara. Long time no see.”
She heard a nostalgic voice next.
“Vince!”
She turned around and found Vince standing next to Bradley and Haruto, looking somewhat casual like he always did.
“Well, aren’t you a pretty little thing now? And you were just a little shrimp this high when you were here in Rosa.” Vince held his hand up at a height Sara had been once—back when she was five.
“You let a little kid like that work in the Guild, Vince?” she retorted.
“You got me there.”
Vince looked thrilled to see her, like an uncle who was seeing his niece growing up. And Sara was so happy to see him that she felt like crying, but this wasn’t the time for a teary reunion.
“Nelly and Allen are on their way, but the knights only sent a few people to keep an eye on things. Think we’ll manage?”
“You managed in the capital with just three Invited there, right?”
“I guess we did. We’ll do what we can.”
She’d come because she was worried about Rosa, but with three Invited here, something pretty serious would have to happen for anything bad to occur.
“I hear you got the continental tortoise to change its course before it hit the capital, so you avoided the worst-case scenario, right? And...” Vince jerked his chin in the direction of the stands with a grin. “We had more earth magic artisans than I thought working at the stands. Turns out most of ’em make their disposable dishes themselves.”
“So you don’t import those from the capital.”
“Nope. Those guys’ve been churning out blocks and stackin’ ’em up. We did have about two weeks to work on this, after all. Then Bradley strengthened the walls we got done, so we’re more or less ready, I think.”
Sara felt her shoulders relaxing.
“I’m thinking we’ll wait until we can see it and add more walls if we need to based on its current trajectory,” Bradley added. “What do you think?”
“I think it’ll be easier if we start with a watchtower,” Haruto suggested.
The plan was moving on without her, but Sara was still curious about something.
“Umm, what happened to Kuntz?”
He hadn’t been with Nelly, so she’d been expecting to run into him when she found Bradley.
“Ah, that one?” Vince said with a bit of a smirk for some reason. “He said he got some repellent from Chris and handed it over all serious-like. Then when he was talking about how he’d never run that fast before and he was completely wiped out, Jay kidnapped him.”
“Kidnapped?”