“They’re going back west because there’s no food for them over here, huh? I know they’re migratory monsters anyway, but going over mountains is pretty intense... And along the man-made roads, no less.”
It didn’t matter to the cotton sheep who had made the roads, of course. They were just taking whichever path was easiest for them.
“This group shouldn’t be as big as the herds in the west, and they’re probably not influenced by the movements of the cotton sheep on this side. The question is if we’ll be able to follow them.”
Kuntz raised his hand. “My father’s a professional earth mage, so I think I can do some emergency restoration of the roads. Sara and Haruto should be able to help too.”
“Huh? Me?” Sara almost tripped when Kuntz named her.
“You made bricks back with the continental tortoise, right? It’s the same thing here.”
“Oh yeah, making blocks with earth magic in molds.”
She remembered practicing in the capital.
“It was easy to make them when the mold was touching the ground, right?”
Sara tapped her temple, recalling, and Haruto burst out laughing.
“We did a little more than making blocks with molds. Who was it who made those giant walls to stop the continental tortoise, huh?”
“Oh.”
It was Sara and Haruto. Kuntz had named them because he knew they’d made those giant walls together.
“I made a mold with my barrier and you filled it in one go. Want to try it?”
“Should we do it?”
They could create a path that went as far as they could see. They both held out their arms, and Sara began preparing her barrier.
“Wait, wait, wait. Wait a second, you guys.”
Sara turned back to Kuntz, deflating at the panic in his voice.
“Roads—especially mountain ones—are made by professionals with careful consideration for the angle of the slope and the way rainwater flows down them and things like that. Let’s be careful here.”
“Oh.”
Kuntz was just as knowledgeable as she would expect him to be with a professional for a father.
“There should be a regular transport service that goes through the mountains. I wonder what happened to them...” Ann stretched up, looking at the mountain path worriedly. “Has somebody reported this to Ed? I wonder if I should go back...”
If the mountain path was too damaged for people and carriages to pass through it, it was a big problem.
“What should we do...?”
Sara felt bad for Ann, encountering something like this when she’d set out for the capital with hope in her heart.
“Calm down, Ann,” Elm chided. “We take stock of the situation and do what we need to do. That’s all there is to it.”
This was just the sort of situation where it helped to have a coolheaded adult with you.
“We didn’t pass any carriages on the way here that looked like they were coming from the capital. Which means there’s a chance they’re stranded somewhere. If they’re just stranded, that’s not too bad, but it’ll be trouble if they’ve gotten caught up in the cotton sheep herd...”
There was nothing they could do for them if that was the case. The situation had gotten rather dire all of a sudden.
Allen stood. “I’ll go back as a messenger. I’m the fastest person here.”
Haruto stood as well. “I’ll head up the mountain and see what’s going on up there. I’m good at physical strengthening and I can use Sara’s barrier too. I’ve got protection cases with me as well.”
Everyone was quick to act in this group.
“That’s right, if they’ve got protection cases, they should be safe from the cotton sheep!”
Sara breathed a sigh of relief. Any mountain travelers might be safe if they had protection cases with them.
That was when they heard a voice calling to them from the mountain path.
“Heeey! Heeey!”
A few people traveling on foot were waving their arms at them.
“Our carriages were totaled! There’s people back there who couldn’t come with us! Please help!”
While Ann and the three boys ran off, Elm stayed behind, crossing his arms in thought. Sara observed the group coming toward them from a distance to see if any of them were hurt, and when she didn’t see any injuries, she waited beside Elm. She could wait for a real emergency before acting.
“Maybe we should send Allen back as a messenger. Either way, it seems Ann’s trip to the capital will have to be postponed.”
Sara gasped and looked up at Elm. Until then, they’d been planning to continue on to the capital while fixing the mountain road as they went, but now that they knew that people were in trouble and that the mail had been interrupted, the situation had become much more serious, involving all of Gardenia. They couldn’t just leave with all this going on.
Sara crossed her arms like Elm and considered things. If they reported this to Ed, what would Gardenia do in response? The cotton sheep had likely passed over to the west, so repairing the roads would be Gardenia’s first priority. But they wouldn’t need Ann to do that.
Sara and Haruto had definitely been useful in creating walls to stop the continental tortoise, but just like Kuntz said, it would take professionals to repair the roads. The most Sara and Haruto could do would be to make a large number of bricks or something. Of course, the repairs would probably go quicker if they did help, but was it their job to speed up something the people around here could accomplish on their own? Sara was an apothecary and Haruto was a Hunter. It might have seemed cold, but it would probably make the most sense for them to just go to the capital after doing the bare minimum to help.
“Elm, can I ask you something?”
Sara told Elm what she’d just been considering.
“I dunno. At this rate, it’ll be hard to get even one carriage across, let alone two.”
True, it would probably be hard to get the carriages over the mountains with just the emergency repairs Kuntz had suggested.
Sara watched her friends coming back down the mountain toward them. She didn’t know how far the group of travelers had come, but some of them were exhausted, so Allen and Kuntz were carrying them on their backs while the other two encouraged the rest on.
If they asked her to help since Gardenia was in trouble, the usual Sara would have a hard time saying no, regardless of how she felt. And there was nothing wrong with helping. But she didn’t really feel like this was a situation that called for an Invited’s power.
What was the goal of this journey again? It was to go pick up Ann and take her to the capital. And to support her in her journey to become a knight.
“Let’s leave the carriages. We can just walk. Like we did on the way to Gardenia.”
“What about the servants and luggage?”
“We’ll leave them behind. Or rather, let’s have them transport the people coming down the mountain to the lord’s mansion in the carriages. We can ask them to explain things to Ed too.”
“And we can just head to the capital on foot, with what we have on us.”
Sara had made her proposal. Now she just had to do what she could in their current situation.
She asked the servants to help her and laid out bedding, pulling out tables and chairs so that the travelers could rest. She didn’t forget to set out food and drinks as well, of course.
It turned out the people Allen and Kuntz had on their backs were the drivers in charge of the regular carriage service through the mountains.
“We were on our way across the mountains like usual when a herd of cotton sheep came out of nowhere. We had no idea what to do...”
They explained the situation, sitting down and gratefully drinking some tea. Apparently, they’d sensed something strange and sent some people ahead to scout, and when they’d spotted the cotton sheep, they’d pulled the carriages over and hidden their passengers in the mountains.
“Our passengers were safe then, but there was nothing we could do about the carriages. Fortunately, we were able to pull some protection cases out of the luggage and set them up to keep everyone safe, but the carriages wouldn’t fit.”
For how panicked they said they were, they seemed to have been able to take action pretty calmly. They even had the tenacity to come looking for help on foot.
“There’s just one road, so we took everyone who could walk since there’s no way to get lost, but an old woman with bad legs and her daughter stayed behind. Of course, we left them with food and the protection cases.”
“Do you know where they are?”
“Half a day’s walk back. About halfway to the peak from here. There’s only one road, so you shouldn’t be able to get lost up there.”
Haruto stood again after hearing what they had to say. “I’ll go.”
“Wait.” Sara stopped him. “Wait just a second. Let’s make a plan and make sure we’re moving effectively.”
It was nice that he was so proactive, but he could take a second to wait for now.