One year had passed.
It became a year in no time at all.
At this point in time the reports of discoveries become quite varied and confusing, as well as more infrequent than before.
There are those that were found to be roughly in the middle of the Milis continent and the central southern continent.
There are still some villagers who have still not yet been found, and others are still trapped as slaves.
To this degree, the liberation of the slaves was proceeding according to plan.
The first priority is to secure custody of them, even if it required using brute force.
I also realized that this is an abomination to many of the nobles, so much so that they can't turn a blind eye towards us.
The situation worsened due to the fact that many of our members were attacked and either killed or seriously injured.
There are even some members who blamed me for it.
We could have done better, not to mention I didn't expect us to be in such a situation.
Even so, my attitude did not change.
It's too late to afford a change.
Recently, more reports of discovery of refugees' deaths have come up.
They weren't that recent or ambiguous.
There have been many death reports since the beginning.
To be frank, the reports of death were more overwhelming than those of survivors.
Eto, Chloe, Rawls, Bonnie, Lane, Marion, Montie...
Every single time I hear the death report of an acquaintance, my spine goes cold.
There were some who broke down from the reports.
There were also those who we were one step behind from preventing their suicide.
There were others who ended up blaming me, asking why didn't I look into that place sooner.
Each and every time, I grew into an even more desolate mood.
Then, as time flows by, even the death reports became ambiguous.
The person might be dead.
A corpse of that looked like that person might have been found.
In the depths of the forest, someone could have seen someone who looks like that person.
When I thought about it more clearly, the actions we have taken have ended up as vain effort for way too many.
Information about my family still did not come up.
I thought that I might have failed.
We should have looked into the magic continent and the northern part of the central continent.
If they had become slaves in those places, then they might still be alive.
What could have been put off should have been put off.
The first choice should have been to search within those dangerous places.
No, impossible.
Most members of the search team were not suited to fighting.
The majority of them were the original town's farmers.
Some of them were adventurers but they were too few in number and of those that I had known, I had sent them to suitable places.
For the rest of the members of the Fedoa Region's Search Group, if they were to be sent to the northern part of the Magic continent, the Central Continent, and the Begaritto Continent, they wouldn't be able to stand in the midst of battle.
Those sent to rescue would need rescuing.
Therefore, my choice was not wrong.
Thanks to the decisions I had made, I was able to save thousands of refugees.
Or perhaps, if I was able to make contact with those of "Fangs of the Black Wolf", I would have been able to search the Begaritto Continent and the Magic Continent as well.
Unfortunately, I was only able to get in touch with a single person.
Also, that one person whom after I had made contact with once, I no longer knew where he was or what he was doing.
I do not think that they were cold-hearted guys.
The relationship between us was bad originally, and I also had a big fight with them during our parting.
It was the worst farewell ever.
It would not be strange even if they were to still have a grudge against me.
Why in the past did I make that kind of farewell?
I know, it was because I was a kid.