To board the carriage bound for the Reglif territory, I arrived at the location specified by old man Lazarus.
It seemed everyone else was already there.
"Ah, Master finally came! Master, you're so late!"
Carol, who had arrived earlier at the meeting point, spotted me and immediately started complaining.
The designated time was still a little ways off, but pointing that out would be petty.
From her tone, she didn't really mean it seriously anyway.
"Sorry, sorry. I had a little errand to run."
"You must be Orun, then?"
As I approached the members of Twilight Moonbow, a middle-aged man nearby called out to me.
He was wearing a military uniform emblazoned with the Eddington Count family's crest.
This was probably the escort old man Lazarus had mentioned.
Next to the middle-aged man stood a younger man in the same uniform.
So, two escorts?
"Yes. Nice to meet you. My name is Orun Dura."
"How polite. I'm Elvis Terry. And this is my subordinate, Henry Person."
After introducing himself, Elvis introduced the young man standing nearby.
"Henry here. Nice to meet you, Orun-san."
"You've probably already heard, but the two of us will be escorting you all to the Reglif territory. Sorry it's just us two. We were originally told it was only you, so we came prepared for one."
Elvis spoke while awkwardly averting his gaze, clearly uncomfortable.
He looked apologetic, but it wasn't their fault.
The request for labyrinth investigation came from old man Lazarus just five days ago. At that point, Elvis and Henry must have already started traveling here.
They had planned to escort only me, so having a small number of guards made sense.
It must have been a shock for them to learn upon arriving in Tsutorail that the number of people to protect had increased.
Still, there was no option of leaving my disciples behind.
"No, it's no problem at all. Please take care of us on the journey."
It seemed Sophie and the others had already greeted them before I arrived, so after receiving a brief explanation from Elvis about the route to the Reglif territory, we boarded the carriage and left Tsutorail behind.
◇
"U~mi~♪ U~mi~♪ So~ ex~cit~ing~♪"
Ever since the carriage started moving, Carol's energy had been through the roof.
"Carol, we're heading to the Reglif territory for clan business. This isn't a vacation."
Rogue finally spoke up in disapproval as Carol began singing outright.
"I know that, but still~"
Carol pouted at Rogue's words.
"Hehe. Labyrinth investigations don't wrap up quickly, so we'll need to set aside rest days. On those days, there's no problem with playing around, right? Isn't that so, Orun-san?"
"Yeah. Summer's coming soon, and it's a famous tourist spot. It would be a waste to spend the whole time holed up in labyrinths."
"Really?! Yay!"
"Carol, have you ever seen the sea?"
"Hmm? Nope! That's why I wanna see it so bad! What about you, Sophie?"
"I haven't either. I'm from the east, so my homeland was the farthest place from the sea in the country. I want to see it too."
"Got it, got it! What about you, Lu-nee? Have you seen the sea?"
"I have. I saw it on the way to a labyrinth outside Tsutorail. The first time I saw the sea, I was really moved."
The three women were happily chatting away.
In contrast, Rogue's expression carried a slight shadow.
"Rogue, what's wrong?"
"Huh? Oh, no, sorry. I didn't mean to ruin the mood..."
Rogue apologized in a subdued voice.
"No one's bothered by it. And your point was correct. We're heading to the Reglif territory for the labyrinth investigation, after all."
"...Yes."
(What should I do about this?)
Ever since Luna and I conquered the 30th floor together, Rogue seemed to have been brooding over something.
He was definitely shocked by our performance, but I felt there was more to it than that.
Normally he was fine, but at certain moments he gave off an air of being downhearted.
It didn't seem like something that would resolve immediately, but it worried me.
Honestly, right now I didn't have much mental bandwidth to worry excessively about others, but that was just an excuse.
I needed to make time to talk properly with Rogue when the opportunity arose.
◇
Eight days had passed since leaving Tsutorail. So far, the weather had held steady with no major troubles, and we were progressing on schedule.
"All right, we'll camp here tonight as planned. Orun, do you have tents and such? If not, we can lend you our spares."
As the sun began to set, Elvis called out to me.
"We brought some, so we're fine. Thank you for the concern."
Long-distance travel often involved camping out, so I had properly prepared tents, sleeping bags, portable food, and so on.
"Got it. Then can you set up your own tents? We'll do a quick patrol around the area."
They were probably checking the surroundings and setting up simple traps at the same time.
Over these past few days, I had come to understand that these two were highly capable soldiers.
Soldiers trained for human opponents operated in a completely different way from us explorers, so there was a lot to learn from their movements and demeanor.
"Understood."
"Eh? Camping outdoors?!"
Carol let out a surprised cry upon hearing my exchange with Elvis.
For the past eight days, we had stayed at inns in towns and villages along the way.
It would be ideal to do that every night, but inevitably there were days when we couldn't reach one.
I had warned them in advance that this might happen, but perhaps they still felt resistant to camping?
They probably had no experience with it before.
"Yay! I was really looking forward to sleeping outside! We've been at inns every night so far, so I thought maybe we wouldn't camp at all. We're all gonna sleep crammed together in the tent, right?! So exciting~!"
My worry had been needless for Carol.
When I glanced at Sophie and Rogue, both of them had sparkling eyes and seemed just as excited.
Come to think of it, when I first camped out with Oliver, Luna, and the others, I had felt an indescribable thrill too.
I had completely forgotten that sensation.
Luna, perhaps thinking the same thing, watched the three with a fond smile.
"Camping isn't easy, you know? You have to handle securing sleeping spots, preparing meals, everything yourselves. For tonight's meal, we'll just use portable rations, so it won't be too bad."
We moved to a slightly open area off the road. Elvis and Henry immediately went to check the perimeter.
Sophie and the others struggled a bit with setting up the tent for the first time, but with Luna and me giving instructions, we managed it in a cheerful, friendly atmosphere.
By the time the tent was up, the two men returned from their patrol, and we all ate a simple meal together.
After that, the seven of us chatted for a while before settling in to sleep.
Normally when camping, people take turns keeping watch, but Elvis and Henry said they would handle it, so we gratefully accepted.
Since we had brought a fairly large tent, there was still plenty of space even with the five of us lying down, so it wouldn't be uncomfortably cramped.
Even after entering the tent, the excited disciples didn't fall asleep right away, and the chatting continued for a while longer.
◇
Late at night, after the other four had talked themselves to sleep, I told Henry—who was on watch—that I was going for a short walk. Then I sat on a slightly larger rock a short distance away and gazed up at the moon.
"..."
Sitting quietly like this, looking up at the moon, calmed me down.
It was the perfect setting for thinking things over.
Lately, I felt like I had more time for contemplation.
That probably just meant a lot had been happening recently.
Whether that was good or bad, I didn't know.
As I sat lost in thought staring at the moon, I heard footsteps approaching from behind.
"Luna?"
"...You figured it out quickly."
"Your footsteps are distinctive."
"Impressive. I could never tell people's footsteps apart."
"Not everyone's, but right now there aren't many people here. So why did you come out?"
"I woke up a little while ago, and when I noticed you weren't there..."
"Ah. Sorry for worrying you."
"No, when I went outside, Henry-san told me you were over here. I'm the one who should apologize for interrupting your thoughts."
"It's fine. The things I'm thinking about aren't the kind that reach conclusions anyway. But I can't help thinking about them..."
Yes. Thinking about it wouldn't lead anywhere.
I could come up with various hypotheses, but I lacked any solid evidence to confirm them.
If someone called it nothing more than wild speculation, I couldn't argue.
"If you don't mind, may I hear what you're thinking about right now?"
"It's really pointless, you know?"
"That's fine. And maybe talking it out with someone else will help you see something new, instead of just brooding alone?"
Luna smiled gently as she said this.
"It might just make two people brood instead of one."
"Hehe. Then we'll deal with that when it happens."
"...All right, I'll take you up on that. It's really out there, so just listen with a grain of salt."
"Understood."
"What I've been thinking about is the six basic support spells."
"You mean the buffs, right?"
Exactly as Luna said, the six basic support spells were magic that enhanced a target's physical abilities: [Strength Up], [Vitality Up], [Magic Up], [Resist Up], [Technical Up], and [Agility Up].
"Yeah, those. What do you think about them, Luna?"
"I haven't thought about them deeply, but nowadays they're indispensable for anyone who fights, aren't they?"
"True. No argument there. Applying the six basic buffs during combat is completely normal now. But I think these six basic spells are actually magic designed to cause humanity to regress..."