What happened with Barbara afterward, Rowan didn't know.
But the next day, he was very clearly grabbed by Jean and properly thanked.
Because she also felt Barbara's condition had been off.
Back then, Barbara had always admired her sister Jean, which was why the way she spoke and acted became highly similar to Jean.
Jean had returned to normal under Rowan and Seamus's guidance.
But Barbara hadn't changed.
If Rowan hadn't helped solve Albert's issue today, Jean didn't dare imagine what she, as Barbara's older sister, would do if the kind of situation Rowan described actually happened.
Jean knew that it was precisely because she was already Rowan's woman that he'd bothered to patiently persuade Barbara to quickly fix that habit.
Otherwise, with Rowan's personality, there'd be no need for him to say that much.
You could tell just from how he went out to drink and eat whenever he had nothing to do.
If he had free time, he could go adventuring, go eat, barbecue, play with Klee—anything.
There was no reason to waste an entire morning persuading Barbara.
To properly thank Rowan, Jean put in quite a bit of effort.
The price was that her stockings tore.
So Rowan ended up receiving a lot of Jean's glares.
"Brother Rowan, hurry!"
"Klee's treasure is gone!"
This morning, Klee rushed into his bedroom in a panic.
Istaroth got badly startled—after all, what they were doing was a bit… not suitable for kids.
Luckily, Rowan reacted quickly. He yanked up the blanket and covered Istaroth.
After coaxing Klee into leaving, he finally let Istaroth out.
As a result, Istaroth got tossed around pretty badly.
Then Rowan got kicked out, and Klee grabbed him and dragged him to Whispering Woods.
On the way, Klee explained what had happened.
Because Jean hadn't had much time to accompany Klee in the past, Klee had made quite a lot of bombs.
And since Jean would occasionally check Klee's little backpack to see if she'd hidden a large amount of bombs—
Little Klee had a brilliant idea and hid her bombs inside Whispering Woods.
But this little cutie did something incredibly ridiculous.
She put up a sign right where she buried the "treasure chest."
That was basically announcing "treasure buried here," wasn't it?
It would be strange if her chest didn't get stolen.
Rowan had warned her before, but Klee never took it seriously.
And now look—today it was gone.
Now she knew to panic.
Why didn't she store it properly before?
Rowan had already told Jean that going forward, there was no need to restrict Klee's bombs anymore.
If Klee wanted to blow up fish or just blow things up, she could go to Stormterror's Lair and find Albedo.
Stormterror's Lair was extremely rich in mineral deposits and badly needed blasting work.
A demolition master as capable as Klee—Albedo naturally wouldn't let that go unused.
So, Klee had just come back and wanted to stockpile some supplies… and they vanished.
It wasn't that Albedo didn't provide materials to her.
It was that she wanted to secretly blow up fish.
But Albedo knew very well how strong Klee's bombs were, so he always gave her a measured amount.
Basically, once she finished blowing things up, she wouldn't have leftover gunpowder.
But she still wanted to eat炸鱼, so…
In short, Klee's bombs being gone was completely her own fault.
"Huh?"
Just as Klee dragged Rowan into Whispering Woods, familiar figures came running toward them.
Paimon and Lumine—those two were scrambling out of the deeper part of the forest, looking utterly disheveled.
You could even vaguely hear furious hilichurl noises coming from deep inside.
"Run! There's a Rockarmored Hilichurl King behind us!"
Seeing Rowan, Lumine and Paimon shouted urgently.
Right behind them, a huge hilichurl was charging over, running with a swaggering, lawless gait.
This kind of hilichurl had a pair of horns on its head—if you didn't know better, you'd think it was a minotaur.
This was a Hilichurl King, a king among hilichurls.
And also the strongest among them.
In the game so far, three elemental types of Hilichurl Kings had appeared.
One was the Rockarmored Hilichurl King in front of them—its whole body wrapped in Geo.
One was the Frostarmored Hilichurl King that lived in extremely cold regions—an Cryo Hilichurl King.
And the last was the Thunderhelm Hilichurl King that lived where Electro was extremely concentrated—an Electro Hilichurl King.
Normally, Hilichurl Kings would only appear in nations corresponding to their element.
But it wasn't absolute—among them, the Rockarmored one was the odd case.
As long as a place had rich Geo energy, it could appear.
So you could say it was the most common and most widely distributed Hilichurl King.
Basically, every nation had this thing somewhere.
Meanwhile, the Frostarmored one had only shown up on Dragonspine so far, and in the future it would likely be common in Snezhnaya.
And the Thunderhelm one was similar—currently more common in Inazuma.
But hadn't the Knights of Favonius already cleared out a lot of these?
How did these two manage to provoke one?
"Wait, how did you even provoke that thing?"
"Doesn't its ley line respawn take a while?"
The stronger the creature, the slower it respawned through the ley lines.
For example, world bosses like the Anemo Hypostasis and Electro Hypostasis.
After being cleared, they usually needed about a week to revive—stronger ones could even take a month.
And every respawn happened in a fixed location. They weren't like ordinary hilichurls and slimes that could appear anywhere.
Especially world bosses—they were basically fixed to specific areas.
For something like a Hilichurl King—something even a normal Vision holder might not be able to beat, requiring multiple people to team up—
It should take at least two or three days to revive.
Did these two just happen to pass by its respawn spot right as it revived?
And then got treated as invaders and chased?
Paimon zipped behind Rowan without even slowing down.
"How would I know?! We were just passing by!"
"We didn't do anything and it chased us like we killed its dad!"
"Who did we offend?!"
Paimon looked like she was about to cry.
They were just passing through!
Was it really necessary to chase them like this?
Who did they even provoke?!
Lumine was also extremely frustrated, but the urgent priority was still running.
Her current power was barely a fraction of what it used to be—she couldn't beat this thing at all.
What a rotten day!
(End of Chapter)
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