Chapter 397 – The Stone Statue, Again

Hearing Steff’s explanation, Belda relaxed a little.

「Even though I was petrified, you kept more damage from occurring in Elkay. Thank you.」

「It was because of all of our effort.」

「No, you had a big effect on the outcome. I’ll have to compensate you somehow.」

Then Belda also instructed both the adventurers and the local citizens caught up in it.

She needed to find what damages had been done to the community. And also where and why the stone statue had appeared.

After that was settled, Belda came back over to us.

「We were very fortunate to have a healer like you at hand, Miss Yureena.」

「Well, glad to be of service.」

Belda had no idea that we had come through a transport circle to be here.

She thought that Yureena just happened to be residing here when it happened.

「Are you here working for the church in Elkay?」

「Yeah, I guess you could say that.」

Yureena looked a little confused and gazed at me for help.

Before I said anything, Belda noticed Cruz.

She still had her lion mask on. No way she’d know it was Cruz.

「And this person is?」

「Um…a friend of Timi.」

Before Cruz said anything, I told Belda, and Cruz naturally added,

「Yeah! That’s the ticket! Timi’s good friend.」

Cruz said with a smile…but though I could feel her smiling though the mask…the mask was still on her face.

This was the first time the two girls met Belda, after all.

However, I knew they had met her over and over after we defeated the Demon Lord.

I knew that if she took off that mask, Belda would know exactly who she was.

I could see that Belda was starting to suspect something.

「You…there’s no way that…」

Belda was about to ask something more from Cruz when I quickly interrupted with,

「Hey, so where did the stone statue come from, anyway?」

「Ah, right over there, they said.」

She pointed over to the statue that Kay showed us a few days ago.

The statue had started moving on its own somehow.

It was just a statue at the time, though. But the shape was definitely the same.

The height back then was the same as a tall human and it was metal, not in the shape of a human or beast.

It was like a strange melted looking pyramid.

「I think we can assume that it was some kind of magically imbued statue.」

「Vi-Vi, do you know something about it?」

「No idea, the only time I saw it was when Kay showed it to us.」

I had no idea what it was back then either.

It didn’t seem to have been a magical tool, nor was there any magical circle placed on it.

「It was a really cool looking statue.」

「Cr…I mean…I think so too.」

「Yeah.」

I made sure not to reveal that Cruz was the lion-masked mystery that Belda was suspicious about.

We decided to go and check out the place of the statue that Kay had told us about.

Cruz followed us and check it out as well.

On the other hand Moofy stayed and sniffed around the destroyed stone statue.

「Someone really went out of their way to hide the magic in this strange statue. There has to be some strange magical force in it.」

「Yeah, there’s no way there’s a magical circle done around this strange pyramid, but maybe there’s some strange magical force hidden inside of it.」

We said, and Vi-Vi approached the strange pyramid. I could see some very faint magical force in the statue now.

There was no connection to the portal, I guessed, and I didn’t sense any connection either.

「Hm? Something really feels bad about this thing though.」

「Yeah. This magic circle connected to the portal might be bigger than Elkay itself.」

If the circle was this big, it could take even an expert like Vi-Vi a long time to discover how everything was connected.

「Moo moo!」

Just then, we could hear Moofy mooing very loudly.

All the pieces of the stone statue reformed again, and within an instant were back to their original huge shape.

――ＯＯＯＯＯＯＯＯ

「What?! It’s moving again!」「Gaaaaa!」

I could also hear Belda and Jearl shouting too. I saw her take out her sword while Jearl prepared to attack.

Belda and Jearl reacted quickly, just as you’d expect.

「Moo moo!」

Moofy was small-sized, but still charged right into the statue.

Even that was enough to nearly knock the statue over.

「Leave it to me!」

Cruz said, and the statue was sliced up into pieces again.

But as they fell, they reformed back into their original shape.

「This thing won’t die!」「Mooo!」

Seems that whatever made this statue move wasn’t actually inside the statue.

It might have been this huge interconnected magical circle that we discovered before.

If that was the case, unless we reduced it to dust, it would keep attacking.

「What do we do Al?」

「Didn’t want to go this far, but, oh well.」

「Okay!」

I didn’t want to use heavy magic in the town, but this stupid statue kept coming back to life.

「Go find an enemy somewhere else.」

I used gravity magic to lighten the statue and then a barrier to slam it into the sky.

――ＯＯＯＯＯＯｏｏｏ……

And so the statue flew into the sky far away from Elkay.