An Adventurer Mom, Who Awakened [Housewife] Skill Through a Login Bonus, Is Making the Most of Her Adventurer Life With the Weekly Flyers She Gets! - Chapter 76

Kachua and her group’s hot spring tour was already nearing its end.

“It was pretty good, wasn’t it, the hot spring?”

“Let’s come again next time.”

Having completely fallen in love with the hot spring, Kachua and the others were already planning when to come again.

“We’ll be waiting for you, kero.”

It seemed that Gamma Team was about to fall right into Amakichi’s scheme.

At that moment—

“Excuse me, could I have a word with you?”

Just as Kachua and the others came out of the ninth bath, someone called out to them.

When they turned around, standing there was a group of unfamiliar men.

Most of the detox hot spring village’s guests were animals or people in the form of animals, so this was the first time Kachua and her group had seen actual humans here.

Being suddenly stopped by more than ten men at once, Kachua and her companions were startled.

It was already surprising to meet humans, but what was even more shocking was that eight of the men looked so alike they could have been the same person.

“Eh? Who are you all?”

One of the eight identical men spoke.

“We are the『Friendly Family Group』.”

“We work as adventurers together as a family.”

“We’re brothers—three of us are triplets, and the five below are quintuplets,” said the triplets as they introduced themselves.

“「「「「「Nice to meet you!」」」」」”

The younger brothers greeted them in perfect unison.

The rest of the men, seven in total, formed another group.

These were all bespectacled men.

Their builds were also similar, all rather slender in appearance.

“And who are you all?” Ann asked, and one of the men answered on behalf of the group.

“We are called the『Silver Dawn Corps』. We’re dungeon researchers from Loa Academy, and we came here for fieldwork.”

“Ah, I see.”

“As you can see, we’re not exactly strong fighters, but we explore using inventions of our own creation.”

“There really are all kinds of teams out there, huh,” Kachua said, impressed.

“Um, so, everyone… did you need something from us?”

When Og asked them that,

“Do you all know about the missing person case that happened in this hot spring village?”

The bespectacled man from the『Silver Dawn Corps』 asked Kachua and her group back in a grave tone.

“Ah, yes, we heard about it.”

“It’s such a scary and mysterious incident,” said Kachua, and Laura nodded in agreement.

“Yeah.”

“We’re from the team that had one of its members go missing” said the『Friendly Family Group』.

“Eh? Really?”

“Yeah, that’s right. For the past month, we’ve been searching for our teammate who disappeared.”

“We came to ask you all for a favor.”

“Would you at least hear us out?”

They all bowed their heads together, earnestly appealing to Kachua and her companions.

＊＊＊

Kachua and her companions moved to a nearby teahouse.

It was a café styled after the Eastern region and its most popular menu item was a set of gyokuro tea and three-colored dango.

Everyone decided to order that.

Since dango was considered a relatively healthy kind of confectionery, Ann could eat it without worry.

It was a flavor she hadn’t often tried before, but it turned out to be surprisingly delicious.

“This bitter tea goes really well with the sweet treats.”

“Yeah.”

“Well then.”

After finishing their tea and sweets, one of the men from the『Silver Dawn Corps』began to speak calmly.

“Since right after the missing person incident, we’ve been staying in this Detox Hot Spring Village and have searched every corner of it.”

“For a whole month?”

“Yeah. The master of the hot springs here—the owner, a toad named Gama—has been very cooperative. He’s even had his subordinate frogs help us in the search,” said one of the brothers from the『Friendly Family Group』.

“Even so, we still haven’t found the missing person, or even a single clue.”

They all let out a collective sigh.

It was exactly the same story as what the frog girls had told them earlier.

“…Then, does that mean the missing person isn’t in this hot spring village?” Laura asked.

Unexpectedly, the members of the『Silver Dawn Corps』shook their heads in denial.

“That’s not necessarily the case.”

“Eh? What do you mean?”

“Do you know of an informant who’s said to know everything there is to know about dungeons? He’s a regular guest at this hot spring village. While we continued searching inside the village, we also asked him to check outside for any sightings of someone resembling the missing person” said the『Friendly Family Group』, their expressions pained.

“We even asked him to check if any similar corpses had turned up.”

“But the reply we got was that there were neither.”

That was good news, but it also meant there wasn’t a single lead.

Adjusting his glasses with a small motion, a member of the『Silver Dawn Corps』said,

“The conclusion we’ve drawn from this is that the likelihood our missing companion is still somewhere within this hot spring village is very high.”

“But everyone, didn’t you just say you’ve already searched every corner of the place?” Rick asked.

“Well, to be precise, that’s not entirely true. There’s one place we couldn’t search.”

“The location where our comrade went missing—the women’s bath of the Tenth Spring.”

“The Tenth Spring is the only one in the village that’s divided into men’s and women’s baths. According to an old tradition passed down among the hot spring frogs who live here, the women’s bath is strictly off-limits to men, and conversely, the men’s bath is off-limits to women.”

“They say that anyone of the opposite sex who enters will bring calamity upon themselves.”

“In other words, we can’t enter the women’s bath of the Tenth Spring” they explained.

“I see, so that’s why you approached us” Kachua said.

“Yeah, exactly. Could you go into the women’s bath of the Tenth Spring and investigate it for us?”

“Please!”

They all bowed their heads deeply at once.

“No. It’s too dangerous,” Bernhardt said, his expression tense as he refused.

“Even if you men can’t enter, couldn’t you just ask the hot spring master, Gama, to have some of the female frogs search instead?”

Bernhardt offered a surprisingly sharp suggestion.

“Of course, we already asked them. But the missing person wasn’t found.”

“In fact, before you arrived, we also requested the help of an all-female adventurer party called the『Cool Girls』. They searched too, but even then, nothing was found.”

Laura and Kachua looked at each other.

“…Then, as unfortunate as it is, wouldn’t it be pointless for us to search as well?”

“Yeah.”

“No, it’s true that nothing was found, but there are still some things we did learn,” said a member of the『Silver Dawn Corps』.

“Things you learned?”

“Yes, and something particularly important. We discovered that not everyone who enters the Tenth Spring goes missing.”

“???”

The『Silver Dawn Corps』had suddenly started saying something complicated.

“There seems to be a specific condition required for someone to go missing.”

“A condition?”

“Let’s assume that only humans go missing. The frog girls, being frogs, wouldn’t disappear.”

“Well, that does make sense.”

“But if that’s the case, what about that party you mentioned, the『Cool Girls』? They’re all human women, right?”

When Rick asked that, one of the brothers from the 『Friendly Family Group』interjected, saying, “About that…”

“There was one key difference between the situation when the women of the『Cool Girls』went missing and when the members of our teams disappeared” said one of the men.

“A difference?”

“First, the one who went missing from our team was our only female member. Since we men couldn’t enter the women’s bath, we were at a loss for what to do. Hearing about our predicament, the female member of the『Friendly Family Group』offered to go into the Tenth Spring for us.”

“The one who was taken from our team… was our mother.”

“Eh, your mother?”

“All of us children are boys, so she was the only woman in our team.”

“We tried to stop her, told her it was dangerous.”

“But she wouldn’t listen. She said she was going.”

“Yeah, that’s just how she is—Mom can’t ignore someone in trouble…”

The tough mother who had raised eight children was a kind and bold woman.

“The『Cool Girls』were an all-female party, so they always stayed together inside the Tenth Spring and were never alone at any point.”

“In other words, we believe the disappearances happen when a human woman enters the Tenth Spring alone.”

“Then that’s all the more reason we can’t cooperate. It’s too dangerous,” Bernhardt said firmly, refusing without hesitation.

The members of the『Silver Dawn Corps』seemed to have anticipated Bernhardt’s response to some extent.

“That’s a perfectly reasonable decision. However, please—we’re begging you. We may only be guessing, or maybe it’s just our hope, but we believe the missing person is still alive.”

The member of the『Silver Dawn Corps』pressed on with desperate sincerity.

“Eh, she’s alive?”

It was hard to believe. The disappearance had happened a month ago—under normal circumstances, it wouldn’t be strange if she were already dead.

Yet members of both teams nodded.

“We’re family. Maybe that’s why, but somehow we can feel it—we know that Mom is still alive. We can also feel that her life’s light is slowly fading away. Please, all we ask is that you go take a look inside the Tenth Spring!”

“We told you before, didn’t we? Our main occupation is dungeon research at Loa Academy. Each of us wears a transmitter that lets us sense each other’s location,” said one of the members of the『Silver Dawn Corps』, showing them a ring.

“This is the same type of transmitter that she has. And this here is the receiver.”

The receiver looked like a transparent plate, and on it, complicated symbols and numbers were displayed.

Kachua and the others couldn’t make sense of it, but for the members of the『Silver Dawn Corps』,the data shown on that device seemed to be an important clue.

“Following the signal from this ring, she should still be somewhere inside.”

“Can’t you use that ring to locate her precisely?” Rick asked curiously.

“It can scan over a wide range, but it’s still in the prototype stage, so we can’t pinpoint the exact location” he said with a bitter expression, shaking his head.

“The ring has a function that causes the receiver to glow red the moment the wearer’s heart stops. Right now, the receiver’s light is blue—that means she’s still alive.”

“This might be our last chance to save her while she’s still breathing. Please, will you help us?”

“Please!”

They all pleaded earnestly with the Gamma Team.