The Traveling Hero Won’t Let the Innkeeper’s Son Escape

“...Can you even carry anything?”

“Are you worried about me? Thanks, Bard.”

“I-I’m not worried!”

Ruth laughed at Bard’s tsundere^[1] retort as both of them entered the storehouse together. It looked like it was Bard’s first time inside the storehouse as he looked around his surroundings with slight excitement written over his face. The floor of the storehouse was built higher than Ruth’s waist. It was one of those types of elevated buildings where it was necessary to use the stairs to enter. The inside of the storehouse was two times bigger than an ordinary household and, when it was required, it was used to store ingredients and general goods (this was also proposed by Alec). Of course, there was also the extra food supply for the demon hunt.

Ruth placed the wagon that was outside of the storehouse closer to the entrance and began to gather up the ingredients on the list. Like what Sara mentioned, it had flour, vegetables, beans, mushroom, meat, and even various seasonings. The food supply has been rapidly decreasing because of the extra number of knights.

Ruth returned to the wagon with four bags of flour in his arms. Bard, who was sitting near the entrance, had a surprised look on his face.

“Bard, what’s wrong?”

“You...is that easy to carry?”

“Hmm, not really. I don’t think it’s that easy.”

While Ruth said that, he easily moved around Bard and walked down the stairs to drop off the bags of flour onto the wagon. Due to the impact of setting down the bags all at once, the wagon released a high-pitch screech as if it was about to break. And so, Ruth hurriedly restacked the bags of flour. As he was doing that, Bard approached him with a strange look on his face.

“Bard, it’s dangerous.”

“Shaddup.”

Bard brushed off Ruth’s warning and attempted to lift the bag of flour that was on the wagon, but-- his hand slipped and he fell backward.

“Wait-- Bard!?”

“W-What the heck.”

Bard ignored the surprise on Ruth’s face when he fell to the ground and stood up again. This time, he firmly grabbed onto the bag of flour and attempted to lift it again. However, he couldn’t possibly pick it up with the strength of his eight-year-old body and he only slightly lifted the ends of the bag before immediately dropping it back down.

He then glared at Ruth with an angry expression.

“Wh…what the heck, it’s super heavy!”

“That’s what I said earlier.”

“You, you lifted four bags of these!?”

“Well...I did carry them over.”

“...”

Bard stared at Ruth with his eyes wide open in amazement. Ruth, who couldn’t handle Bard’s gaze of complete disbelief, went back into the storehouse. While checking the list, he loaded up another four bags of flour before returning into the storehouse for the mushroom and beans. When he came out, he met eyes with Bard, who was sitting on top of a nearby rock.

“Bard? What’s up?”

“...Nothing.”

Bard huffed out a ‘humph’ and looked away, but Ruth stared at him as he walked down the stairs.

(Maybe it would have been better if I pretended not to notice…)

Seeing how much Bard didn’t want Ruth to see that he was observing him, Ruth pretended that he saw nothing.

For the time being, he set the beans and the bag of mushrooms on top of the stair steps by the hand truck before making another trip into the storehouse. When he returned with a heavy bag of vegetables, he saw Bard putting the jar of beans on top of the bag of mushrooms that were in the wagon.

“Wait, Bard. You can’t put the jar on top of the mushrooms.”

Bard looked surprised after hearing Ruth’s frantic voice, but his hands stopped. However, his facial expression soon turned into an expression of discontent.

“...What is it.”

“Mushrooms are lightweight and can easily deform, so you have to put it at the very top if possible. On the other hand, the beans in the jar are heavy so it’ll mess up the balance in the wagon if you don’t put them at the bottom.”

“...”

Although Bard had a dejected look on his face, he seemed to understand the reasoning behind it and didn’t retort against Ruth. However, based on the sight of Bard sitting on the rock and hugging his knees, it looks like Ruth made him upset. It must be because he still got a warning even though he even went out of his way to help out. Ruth felt bad for wasting Bard’s rare act of goodwill.

“...Bard, if you would like, could you help me with carrying the ingredients?”

“...But I can’t carry anything heavy.”

“It’s fine, I can carry the heavy ones. More importantly, there’s so much that it’ll probably take me a while to do it alone so… I would be more than happy if you helped out. Plus, if Bard is here helping me out, then I think we could finish it quicker.”

“......Fine.”

Considering Bard’s usual attitude, this seems like a proposition he would reject but he had a surprisingly normal reaction over it. He was still sulking, but it didn’t seem like he was in a bad mood. When Ruth breathed a sigh of relief, Bard glanced at him and gave him another glare.

“What.”

“Nothing. I’m just happy that you’re helping out. Thank you, Bard.”

“It’s no big deal… I just think Big brother Alec would’ve helped out too. That’s it!”

Because of his embarrassment, Bard brought up Alec. As Ruth smiled bitterly to himself in secret, they both went back into the storehouse. This time, they gathered and sorted the packages out between the two of them.

After a while, all of the packages were placed near the wagon and they began to stack it.

“Bard, those vegetables can get damaged so put them on the top and put the potatoes on the bottom.”

“...Okay. What about this jar?”

“Put it in the bottom corner.”

“Okay.”

Both of them continued working and Bard’s sharp tongue gradually disappeared as he began to honestly respond to Ruth’s words. He first stopped glaring at him and now he even called out to Ruth when he was about to carry something heavy. Ruth felt a bit overjoyed seeing how Bard has gotten used to him.

“Ruth, what about this light bag?”

“Aah, let’s put the consorré^[2] at the very top.”

“Consorré?”

Bard tilted his neck to the side and Ruth opened up the large cushion-like bag he was holding towards him. Inside were thin flakes that were the size of someone's palm.

“Ah, it smells good...I used to smell this during dinnertime in the orphanage.”

“Consorré is a type of seasoning for cooking and a hole can easily rip through this thin bag.”

“But it looks like wood chips.”

“Well, it is wood chips.”

“It is?”

Consorré is a small piece from the bark of the consourre tree. However, when the tree bark is mixed into dishes, the flavor mysteriously becomes much deeper and richer. If he had to say, it was similar to dashi^[3] stock. The only drawback is that the taste of consorré itself isn’t that good so only a small amount is used as flavoring. But since it is cheap, the villagers often use it.

Marking the end of their task, the large bag of consorré was stacked at the very top. They were relieved that all the ingredients that were asked for were all securely attached to the wagon.

“Ruth, can you move this?”

“I got it.”

Ruth held onto the iron section of the wagon found in front of it and pushed it forward. The wheels made a slightly dull sound, but it wasn’t to the point where it wouldn’t move.

“I’ll do it too.”

“Huh?”

“If I said I’ll do it, then I’ll do it.”

Bard's willingness to help out was probably gauged at its peak and he stood beside Ruth and grabbed the iron part of the wagon. However, Ruth realized that because Bard’s grasp was fairly weak, the wagon became lopsided and the balance was lost. Ruth forcibly moved the wagon where the wheels are parallel to each other hastily, but because of the strange power shift, the tires made a screeching sound.

“Bard. Be careful, it’s pretty heavy.”

“I also helped out with loading up the ingredients so I can hold this up too.”

“...Oh well.”

Ruth bitterly smiled as he also gave his approval to Bard, who was pouting and hell-bent on doing it. To be frank, it made things more unnecessarily difficult when he’s helping out, but Ruth couldn’t bear to reject him because of the pure happiness he felt from Bard’s considerate actions.

1. I'm sure I don't need to explain what tsundere means, but yeah I just decided to leave it like that.
2. Is this wordplay on consummé? Yeah.
3. Dashi is a Japanese soup stock that is made from fish and kelp.

MARY: I'm back!!!!!! o/ Finals are basically over so now I can finally concentrate on tling!! Thank you all for being so patient. Please support the author by buying the novels here and let me know if you see any mistakes!

Bard is now my new son. He's so cute in this chapter >< !! He's trying his best!