“Ah... so that’s how it is.” After listening a little to the woman named Karin, Caro fell into thought. “But with your strength, Miss Karin, wouldn’t it be easy for you to join another squad? Like the Moonshadow Squad, for example, the one famous for agility. They’d definitely welcome you, right?”

Karin’s situation was still a little different from Arnold’s. After all, Karin hadn’t been struck from the Adventurers’ Guild. She’d only been removed because of the team’s composition. If the Demonhunt Squad wanted to keep up the same level of subjugation as before, then they had to make up for the gap on the front line. It was a very simple fact.

Obviously, the woman named Cassipero was the kind of person who put efficiency above all else. The kind who’d do anything to reach her goal. Feelings didn’t matter that much to her.

That was Caro’s guess. In a way, it was a rather rude guess.

After all, because of Arnold, Caro already didn’t have a good impression of someone like Cassipero. So judging her like this was only natural. She was biased from the start. A fair evaluation was impossible.

“For now... I think I should calm down.” Just like her appearance suggested, she wasn’t the type who was good with words. “Ice queen beauty” was probably the most fitting description. It even seemed like she carefully weighed every word before speaking.

But then again, when Arnold got kicked out, this woman had nodded along too, hadn’t she?

To be fair, seeing this beauty look so conflicted felt pretty satisfying to Caro. It really captured the true spirit of the kicked-from-the-party genre. Well, no need to mock her outright. Caro didn’t want to get treated like some extra and instantly one-shot.

Still, as Arnold’s bro, she ought to say a few pointed things here. Even if it wasn’t exactly nice...

“Even if you say that, Miss Karin, calming down doesn’t really have anything to do with coming to find Arnold, does it?” The girl’s eyelashes trembled slightly, showing she wasn’t nearly as calm as she looked. “If I had to say it, an adventurer at your level really shouldn’t stay around a guy like Arnold, someone who got removed from the Adventurers’ Guild, for too long. It might even make it harder for you to find work. Sure, the kingdom withdrew the warrant on Arnold, but nobody talks about the Dragon Slayer anymore. Now he’s the False Hero. His reputation has definitely dropped.”

Caro laid out the facts. “An adventurer with a good reputation like you, if you get close to Arnold, your own reputation will drop too. And for adventurers, reputation matters a lot, right?”

“...”

Karin fell silent.

There was no arguing with it, because that was simply the truth. The girl in front of her only worked at a cake shop, but she was smart. Smart enough to see through many things in this world. She even put on a friendly face and spoke as if she were thinking from Karin’s perspective, as if she were genuinely concerned for her.

Even though it sounded so humiliating.

Was she speaking up for Arnold?

No matter where that man went, someone would always be drawn to him. Someone would always stand firmly by his side.

Except for the people who had spent every day with him.

Karin really did feel humiliated. But at this point, even if people threw stones at her, all she could do was accept it. Because it was true.

She had acted on ugly feelings and done something she never should have done. Then she was punished for it. Everything was only natural. The ideal she longed for, the thing she wanted to become—

What exactly was this girl’s relationship with Arnold now? They looked awfully close.

“May I ask... where is Arnold?”

After only a brief moment of thought, she still shamelessly asked the question. Even she herself felt unbearably ashamed. She felt she had no shame left at all. Ignoring the girl’s sarcasm, ignoring what she herself had done before, she still wanted to see that man...

Caro couldn’t help taking two steps back. The woman in front of her was seriously something else. A sudden realization hit her.

So this was what they called a crematorium-chasing-her-husband plot?

When he was there, she didn’t cherish him. Now that he was gone, she was willing to lower her noble head just to get information about the man she liked. And when they really met again, she’d probably still be unable to face her feelings honestly...

Though, well, she mostly had it coming.

It almost made Caro a little jealous of Arnold.

What a popular man.

Guys like him were basically human-shaped mobile temptation machines...

Still, since the other side had already gone this far, there was no point in keeping up appearances. In the end, this was Arnold’s business. As a friend, there was only so much she could interfere with. Speaking up for him a little was already the limit. Doing more than that would be rude. This was her friend’s private life.

Sure, she was curious about how Arnold would react, or what would happen to the girl in front of her. But at this point, the only thing she could do was...

“He’s inside the maze created by the Ancient Spirit Tree. I heard your squad was the one that dealt with it. Do you know anything?”

Karin had been the last member to join that squad, but even so, she had heard a little about it. Right after that, it was as if she understood something, yet she still had to stare at Caro again.

Arnold had even told this girl about something like that?

Complicated emotions churned inside her, because this was Arnold. If he hadn’t been found out, he would never have told someone weak and fragile like this what had happened. He would’ve handled it on his own, then acted like nothing had happened, looking at you with that bright smile of his.

But he had told this girl.

“He also said the Ancient Spirit Tree might undergo some kind of huge change. And he said he didn’t know how strong it really was... Honestly, I’m a little worried too. So, um... you were his former teammate, right? And now you kind of count as fellow sufferers too. So... this...”

In this kind of story, seeing this girl show a look of despair would probably feel pretty satisfying. But then again, the woman named Karin really was an incredible beauty.

Just talking about her figure alone, she was already way ahead. She didn’t lose at all compared to the Vanrin sisters. If anything, this cold and aloof character type was better in a certain sense... A woman like this was the type who, once tamed, would be more obedient than a puppy.

No, no, no. Comparing them like that was a little rude to the Vanrin sisters. After all, they had the sister-pair bonus, plus the contrast of one being domineering and the other delicate and pitiful. That gave them a lot of extra points in this area...

After seriously thinking over this issue, Caro decided to take matters into her own hands and help this girl get a chance.

If she had to give a reason, it was because she liked this kind of development.

This was what you called classic. This was what you called the royal road. This kind of development was the most orthodox part of stories like this. A tried-and-true trope that had endured for decades.

“If you can go help him out, I think you’ll get a chance to have a real talk with him~”

Karin’s expression froze in shock for a moment. She hadn’t expected the girl in front of her to say something like that. For an instant, she was deeply moved. Then she nodded.

“Though my strength may not be enough... I’ll do everything I can.”

“Then I’m counting on you. Also, at least buy a couple loaves of bread!”

Watching the figure in front of her disappear, Caro angrily stomped the ground. Didn’t that just turn into idle chatting? What if the boss started suspecting she was slacking off? Even if she really was slacking off, the least Karin could’ve done was buy two loaves so it looked like she’d been making a sales pitch...

That’s adventurers for you! A bunch of people who live with blades and blood. They do everything on impulse. What decent person even becomes an adventurer?

Though personally, Caro thought the job seemed pretty fun.

“Caro, did that customer just leave? She didn’t buy anything?”

Caro’s face darkened. That was exactly why she’d told her to buy two loaves...

Caro put on a heartbroken expression. “That was... his ex-wife!”

“...?” Lasi froze.

Caro wiped at tears that didn’t exist at the corners of her eyes. “His ex-wife came here just now and asked me where he went. She said she felt like things weren’t over between them yet. She even said someone like me wasn’t good enough for him...”

“...Something like that actually happened?!”

And so, Caro received a slice of consolation cake.

Compared to the fancy, overdecorated stuff from her old world, Boss Lasi’s baking was a lot less flashy. But the cake she made had a rich, mellow fragrance. It was a little heavy, but it really was delicious.

Making up a story like this to scam food and drinks probably wasn’t great, but then again, weren’t Bards exactly that kind of creature? If she didn’t make up stories, lunch would just be plain bread. And sure, bread was nice too, but cake really fit the role of dessert better!

Inside her heart, Caro lowered her moral bottom line a little more. She found this trick pretty useful. So what story should she make up tomorrow? Say Arnold had really abandoned her and remarried his ex-wife? That wasn’t impossible, but if Arnold came looking for her afterward, the boss lady would probably beat him up. And then that guy would definitely come make trouble for her.

Tch!

She needed a new excuse.

...

“I’ve got a subtle bad feeling.”

After killing two more treants, Arnold said that to Lucy on his shoulder.

Lucy looked at him in confusion. “Is it that person you sensed earlier and wanted to shake off?”

“It’s not Karin. I don’t know what she came for, but with her combat strength, she really would be a huge help. It’d be better if the two of us split up and act separately. She looked like she had something to say, but for now, I’m still not composed enough to have a calm conversation with them. That’s also why I didn’t go find them first.”

Lucy’s expression turned very serious. “You have a skill called Surging Heart, right? That thing reacts to a lot of things. If it’s giving you a warning, then something really big must’ve happened here. It might even threaten you.”

At that, Arnold rubbed his chin with a troubled look. “It is Surging Heart, but... it doesn’t feel like that kind of warning. It feels more like a harmless but embarrassing kind of premonition. Not danger. Just... a weird feeling.”

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know either.”