Mika’s mornings were fairly early.

Her husband was naturally an early riser and would casually drink coffee while reading the newspaper. The aroma of that coffee was what woke her up.

“Good morning. Any interesting news today?”

“Morning. Nah, nothing special today.”

Exchanging casual conversation, she quickly got to work preparing breakfast. Today’s meal was bread, so it didn’t take much time. Since she was the only one who needed a lunchbox, she simply packed last night’s leftovers, and it was ready in no time.

The biggest challenge, without a doubt, was the kids.

“Wake uuup!” Once again this morning, Mika’s voice echoed through the house.

After seeing her family off one by one, she headed to Himawari Mart.

Today was warehouse day. Another new adventure was about to begin.

Since this request seemed to involve a snowy area, Mika layered a thin down vest under her coat and wore two pairs of socks.

The store manager laughed at Mika’s fluffy appearance. “The warehouse is cold, so you’ve gotta bundle up. Hehe.”

As always, the manager’s smile was soothing. With that thought, Mika opened the door.

When she arrived at Acid, only Dada was standing there, which was unusual. His normally folded wings were spread out, flapping restlessly as if he couldn’t stay still.

“What’s wrong? Did something happen?”

“Ah, Mika! There’s an emergency request. Please come to the guild!”

Mika immediately hoisted Dada onto her shoulder and ran to the guild.

Lately, she’d been walking a lot on adventures, and between that and the battles, her stamina had improved—she didn’t get out of breath as easily when running. Riding that momentum, she burst into the guild and was promptly guided to the second floor.

There, along with the Guild Master, Gatt and Zurah were already waiting.

“Ah, Mika. Thank you for coming.”

“Guild Master, I heard there’s an emergency request…?”

“Well, you see…”

Originally, today’s request was about a different mountain village where snow monsters had appeared and needed to be exterminated.

However, two days ago, a giant orc appeared in another village. The orc was indiscriminately trying to capture villagers, forcing an entire village to evacuate.

“It doesn’t stay there for very long. For the past two days, it’s appeared around noon, destroying houses and trying to capture residents… It’s a monster called an orc, nothing like you or Takky. But some are saying it might be from the same world as you. Given that it appears in the same spot, there might be an unknown door there.”

Recently, Mika’s face had become well-known, and nearby residents would often come to see her out of curiosity. One of them, after seeing the orc, started saying it was wearing clothes similar to Mika’s.

It was unclear whether the orc would appear today, but the request was for her to go and stop it if possible.

“An orc… Understood. I’ll go check it out.”

The location was a small village not too far from Acid, about a two-hour walk. They should make it by noon.

After reviewing the report detailing the map and the victims’ accounts, the four of them hurried toward the village.