Starting with overseeing work in the Church District, followed by a ground survey of the area surrounding the town and an investigation of the river to the east.

Then, helping Fiora with potion-making—January of this winter ended with me being busy with jobs that were quite different from the usual, and now it’s February.

I was still spending my time fiddling with materials or idling away in Fiora’s lab as usual, and Fiora herself, the lab’s master, had been busily coming and going to the workshop to work on the memorial monument.

What I found out in the process was that I have no talent for potion-making.

While I’m quite good at extracting magical essence from materials, the part where you have to imbue magic power while mixing takes me way too long.

A few days ago, I tried making a potion as a test, but I tripped up during the magic infusion stage…

In the end, I gave up before finishing it—a sad result.

It feels like I can do a lot of things, but always fall just a little short… kind of fitting for me, I guess.

Meanwhile, Seriana and the others have been energetically working on flushing out all the stalled information within the various administrative organizations that came up during a recent conversation.

On top of that, they’ve been having personnel dispatched from those groups to conduct not only information gathering but also something like opinion exchange meetings.

Even though some of those dispatched likely have stakes in certain interests, since the summon came from Seriana, it seems no one’s holding back.

They’re saying that based on the information gathered, they may even revise how jobs are assigned in the future, so perhaps things will change for Riana as well.

Well, the future is something for the higher-ups to handle when the time comes. For now, I should focus on what’s in front of me.

Right now, I’m at the communal cemetery near the town’s infirmary.

There, the soldiers are digging several graves for burials.

Thanks to 【Water’s Garment】 I’m fine, but even so, working outside in this cold during the day must be rough.

As I watched the soldiers from above, I noticed a group of men approaching.

They were clearly well-armed despite being in town, though I couldn’t see their faces clearly under their hoods.

They were wearing the 1st Unit’s cloaks—probably some of the officers from that unit?

I lowered the altitude of the 【Floating Orb】 to get a better look at the hooded men’s faces… and they turned out to be familiar.

“…Huh? Captain Rick, you came too?”

“Hmm… Ah, well, I am the one in charge of this operation.”

Rick responded in a disgruntled tone as he lowered his hood.

The men who had come with him also lowered theirs.

They were the executives of the 1st Unit under Rick.

“I see… Well, whatever. So, Captain Rick, are you going to do it?”

I pulled a bottle out of the pouch at my waist and showed it to him, but he shook his head.

“No, that task was given to Vice-Captain Sera by the Lady. I’m just here to observe.”

“Got it. The work should be done soon, so I’ll start once it is.”

Rick simply said “Understood,” and then withdrew with his men.

◇

Just the other day, the excavation and passage destruction work in the Church District was successfully completed.

The rubble still needs to be cleared, but after that it’s just filling and reinforcing, so the job will be finished soon.

And now…

The excavation wasn’t limited to just uncovering the passage—it involved digging across a wide area of the Church District.

Trying to dig out only the narrow, deeply embedded passageways would’ve been too difficult and dangerous.

So…

When digging such a wide area, things inevitably come up.

Namely, buried corpses.

They weren’t mutilated or anything, and were likely intended to be turned into undead. But not all corpses end up becoming undead, after all.

The ones we unearthed are no longer in danger of turning undead, but we couldn’t just rebury them on-site—so it was decided they would be interred in the town’s communal cemetery.

There was still a chance more would turn up, so the bodies were kept in a temporary storage for a while. But now that the excavation has been completed and all remains have been recovered…

Well, they’re finally being laid to rest.

I guess calling them “corpses” isn’t quite right, but Teresa turned the undead she defeated in the passage to ash, so those couldn’t be recovered… not much we can do about that.

Anyway, today we’re burying all the remains we found, and there are over thirty in total, including both adults and children.

The burial method for commoners in this country involves digging a deep pit and stacking coffins in layers.

Typically, five people are buried in one spot, so even with this number, it doesn’t take up that much space.

There’s still plenty of room for more graves, but burying this many people all at once is rare, so the soldiers had been working hard digging earlier.

Now, with that work complete, the coffins containing the bodies are being lowered into the ground.

They’re not just filled with the bodies—they also contain the soil removed during excavation, so they must be incredibly heavy.

Digging, lifting heavy things, burying them… it’s a tough job.

“Vice-Captain Sera. We’ve completed all of them.”

As I was watching the work and thinking how hard it must be, one of the soldiers called out to me.

—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

Sera ・Blessing・【Hideout】+1 【Prayer】 【Mira’s Blessing】 【Water’s Garment】

Blessed Item ・【Floating Orb】+1 【Shadow Sword】+1 【Scarlet Bee Needle】 【Fairy’s Eye】 【Lung of the Dragon】 【Amber Sword】 【Danrem’s Thread】 【Serpent’s Tail】 【Ankle Bracelet】 【Amber Shield】 【Purple Wings】 【Red Sword】 【Monkey’s Arm】 ・8 cards

Seriana ・【Range Identification】・【】・0 cards

Elena ・【】・【Green Fang】 【Amber Sword】・4 cards

Alec ・【Strong Strike】・【Red Shield】 【Fierce Horned Trumpet】・10 cards