Chapter 184: Laila’s Great Adventure IV

The story goes back a long way, to shortly before Aldo came to the elven village.

As expected, being kept in prison was beginning to wear me down.

The Mana-Eating Collar constantly consumed my mana, and it never recovered past 10%.

Even worse than living in a prison was being constantly drained of mana.

The amount of time I could stay awake was gradually decreasing. I didn’t have much of an appetite either.

Unless help came, I would probably keep growing weaker until I died.

But no one would come to help. I knew that better than anyone.

Maybe dying would be easier… but whenever I thought of you, Aldo, I couldn’t bring myself to give up…

While I was wondering if I could somehow escape, Listea brought me the day’s meal.

“Auntie… are you okay?”

The first thing he said was that he was worried… I guess my face was so pale that the child was worried about me.

“Yeah, I’m okay. Thank you for today too.”

“Well, this is all we have, but eat it and cheer up.”

What Listea had brought me was a soup of roasted beans with nothing else in it.

The food was getting poorer day by day. This amount had to last the whole day.

At least my lack of appetite was a relief…

“Listea, how are things with the insects?”

“I can’t tell you the details, but the number of adults is dropping fast…”

“I see. You’ve sent requests for help to the elves’ home country and to Sandra, right?”

“Yeah. But he said it takes time for help to get here from the elves’ country. And it seems the city of Sandra is being attacked by insects the same way.”

“So rescue will be difficult…”

“Yeah. An adult told me that this town won’t last much longer…”

“…”

“Auntie, if there’s anything I can do, please tell me. You haven’t done anything wrong, Auntie… you helped me…”

Listea spoke to me with determined eyes.

Perhaps Listea, small as he was, understood that this village would be swallowed up by the insects in the not-too-distant future.

It might not mean anything now, but my one last wish was… Aldo, I wanted to die standing next to you.

“Listea, I want two ‘rejuvenation elixirs.'”

“The rejuvenation elixir… I really shouldn’t say this, but it’s a secret medicine that Grandpa doesn’t use. I’m sure it’s hidden on a shelf at home.”

“Even if I die, I want to die looking younger…”

“…I understand, Auntie.”

Since Listea was an elf too, he’d probably been taught about the secret medicine first thing.

Apparently, he was going to grant my wish, one he normally would never have granted.

Listea walked out of the cell with steady steps.

As for me, after I finished eating, my body felt tired and sleepy from the exhaustion of my magical energy.

Even though I was sleeping so much that I got headaches from oversleeping, my body needed sleep, probably to recover its mana…

Just as I was about to lose consciousness, Listea returned to the prison.

“Auntie, here…”

Listea’s hands were clutching two items identical to the “rejuvenation elixir” I had once obtained from the elven ruins.

I pushed my sleepiness aside and received the “rejuvenation elixirs.”

“Finally, I can finally stand next to you, Aldo… Thank you, Listea…”

Large tears fell from my eyes, leaving stains on the floor.

After a while, Listea saw that I had calmed down and started talking to me.

“Auntie, they might get taken away from you, so you’d better use them right away.”

“Yes, I understand.”

I must have been 31 years old by then. I swallowed one whole elixir and seven-tenths of the other.

I kept the rest hidden in my pocket to give to Aldo’s first wife.

If a miracle happened and I managed to escape from this predicament, I would go see Aldo.

I fell asleep in such a blissful mood that the pain of my mana being drained didn’t matter.

I wonder how long I slept… When I looked at my hands, they looked like a child’s.

I jumped up with joy.

My clothes were so baggy that I stepped on the hem and almost fell.

“Aldo, I want to see you…”

Thinking clearly for the first time in a while, I once again put my feelings for Aldo into words.

Huh? Thinking clearly?

I couldn’t help but check the amount of mana inside me, and found that almost half of it remained.

Maybe the magic tool didn’t work properly on my smaller body?

Taking my chance, I used Wind Cutter to smash the Mana-Eating Collar.

Now I was free, but the problem was that there were insects outside the building and I couldn’t escape…

Besides, I had less than half of my mana left. If the elves found me, I would immediately be fitted with a new Mana-Eating Collar and sent back to prison.

No, an escapee might even be killed for being too much trouble to manage.

Even if I wanted to escape from this house, I first had to sleep and recover my mana.

This village chief’s house also served as the lord’s mansion, and it was the house I’d been allowed to live in for two years.

I had been to most of its rooms over those two years.

Because of my size, how easy it was to hide, and the four hours of sleep I needed to recover my magic, I chose the third-floor storeroom.

I decided to escape to the room where clothes were mainly kept.

I cut the bars of the prison cell with Wind Cutter.

I succeeded in making a gap large enough to get out in just five minutes.

Of course, a child’s size helped with that too…

I had been worried, but my magical skill, both in mana manipulation and in transforming magic, was the same as before I was rejuvenated.

I broke out of the prison, quickly moved to the third floor, and snuck into the storeroom.

I immediately started looking for clothes that fit my current body.

Having lived here for two years, I had no trouble wearing ordinary elven clothes.

Now I had to recover my mana…

I opened the Storage case in the dresser, made room for one child, and snuck in there.

I was a little hungry, but I couldn’t afford to be picky.

I slowly fell asleep.

It was summer, and I crawled out of the Storage case because of the peculiar heat.

When I checked my mana first thing, it was full.

“It would be perfect if I could escape from here…”

I’d heard that we were being attacked by insects, but what kind of insects? Depending on that, I might not be able to escape.

I decided to rely on Listea to gather information.

I’d heard that the children were being herded into the back of the building.

I covered my ears with a hood and moved to the back of the building so the elves wouldn’t see me, and so that even if they did, I would look like an elven child.

Fortunately, the adults were so desperate that they didn’t pay any attention to me.

I snuck into the room where the children were gathered and quietly called out to Listea.

“Listea, are you doing a little better?”

Listea turned around, looked at me suspiciously, and then raised his voice as if he’d noticed something.

“Auntie?”

“Shh! Quiet.”

When I said that, Listea seemed to remember, and kept his mouth shut, trying to be careful.

“Listea, I’d like some information…”

When I said that, he ran to the corner of the room and started beckoning me.

I didn’t really understand what Listea was doing, but when I reached the spot he’d beckoned me to, I immediately understood why.

Part of the corner of the room had collapsed, letting you see the scene outside.

“Listea, what happened to cause this hole?”

“It’s been getting bigger little by little since yesterday… but I can see outside from here.”

“You can certainly see outside, but… did you tell the adults?”

“Yeah. It’s just that everyone seems busy, and no one’s come. They said they’ll fix it later.”

“I see…”

I had a bad feeling, so I stayed by the children, watching the hole in the wall grow bigger.

While I was with the children, I looked outside and realized that the enemy was Mantises.

They should be C-to-D-rank monsters by the adventurer’s guild’s standards.

To me, they were nothing but small fry.

The reason the elves were having such a hard time against these small fry was probably the sheer number of Mantises I could see just by looking through the hole.

Apparently, help had come from somewhere, but even a few reinforcements would be of no use against this many.

Although I couldn’t see it well from the hole, it seemed that some fierce warriors had come out of the mansion and were defeating a group of Mantises with close-range attacks.

From my point of view, it was crazy to challenge a horde like that at close range.

As I was thinking about what to do next, a Mantis finally noticed the hole and tried to break down the wall.

Perhaps because the thought “The elves will find me if I do anything noticeable” crossed my mind, I hesitated for a moment and let the Mantis break through the wall.

The Mantis looked around and aimed at the nearest child.

It was Listea… He happened to be near the wall when the Mantis targeted him.

“Listea! Crouch!”

When I yelled that, Listea crouched down on the spot.

The Mantis raised the sickle on its right arm to attack Listea and cried out happily… However, the Mantis’s sickle never swung down. My Wind Cutter hit, and the Mantis’s head fell off.

It was a close call, but I was a fraction faster than it was.

Listea looked from the Mantis to me and back, then started running towards me.

“Auntie…”

Listea clung to me, though I was now shorter than him, and started crying.

Right away, an adult came and repaired the wall, drawn by the sound of it being broken.

I noticed that there were several humans too, but they were all wearing strange masks, so I didn’t think there was anything suspicious about them.

The elven adults looked at me suspiciously because they weren’t used to seeing me, but I guess that wasn’t the point.

I took a quick look around, but no one did anything, so I went back to my spot.

And I met my soulmate again.

At that time, I didn’t realize at all that the masked child was Aldo-kyun☆… Ahem. That it was you, Aldo.

Aldo-kun tried to talk to me, but I answered him bluntly.

Later, when I heard about this from Ashera, Aldo’s first wife, I didn’t know what to do.

“What should I do?” Aldo, I’d been thinking about what kind of dramatic performance I should put on for my reunion with you…

The “Reunion Production Notes” should have been in the second notebook. Incidentally, there are many other kinds of notebooks too, like the “Confession Notes” and the “Future Baby-Making Notes♡.”

A long-awaited reunion… Aldo appearing in my moment of need, and me being protected… I think we could have made it the best reunion ever…

I hate those Mantis monsters more than ever. If only it hadn’t broken through that wall and come in…

I know it’s a completely misplaced grudge, but I’m serious.

Before I knew it, Ashera had disappeared from in front of me, and when I stumbled back into the house at a loss, Rafina was waiting for me with a wicked look on her face.

That day, I learned that there are people in this world you should never show your weaknesses to…