As it turned out, Scar was right.
If one or two bandit groups attacking us was a coincidence, then five of them attacking over the course of the trip was too much of a coincidence.
It was clear that there was someone behind them who had commanded them to attack us.
It really was a good thing that Scar was here with us.
Scar had not been lying about his ability to fight. He was only a bit weaker than Shaka, but that more than allowed him to rampage among these bandits who were untrained fighters.
While Shaka fought as a warrior, attacking head on, Scar was more of a rogue.
He pulled out daggers that he used to fight with, but at the same time, he stayed in the back and threw out hidden weapons at the bandits that came close.
By the time that the bandits realized that there were hidden weapons coming at them, they had already been stabbed by them.
If Scar hadn't been with us, it definitely would have been much harder for us to take down all these bandits.
Traveling like this, we arrived back in my territory after around a week and a half.
We might have been able to reach it sooner, but we had to bring those bandits to different towns to lock them up.
We could have just left the bandits for dead, but there were Shadow Garden outposts in these towns that we could leave the bandits in. They would interrogate these bandits and see who instigated them.
Once that information was squeezed out of them, Boss Bunny would take care of the rest.
When we arrived on the edge of my territory, I found that there was a group waiting there for us. However, unlike the previous groups that had stopped us, this one was friendly.
It was Cecilia and her knights.
They were here to escort us back into the town.
I'm sure that this was Baroness Rose…no Viscountess Rose's idea after she had received reports about the attacks during our trip. I had made sure to tell her everything since I knew that it would be worse if she found out about it later.
This was something that was impossible to hide, so why cause trouble for myself by trying to hide it?
As soon as she saw our group, Cecilia dismounted from her horse and came over to the carriage that I was riding in.
Shaka and Scar had also been in that carriage, but seeing the way that she glared at them, they tactfully went out. As they were leaving, they looked at me with meaningful smiles.
Scar also said, "Don't have too much fun, we'll be arriving in town soon."
If there was something beside me, I definitely would have thrown it at him.
However, before I could say anything, Cecilia had already come to my side.
She grabbed my shoulders which made me jolt since she had used quite a bit of strength. Then I was trying to say, "What's wro…"
Before I could say this, I felt her strength pushing my body again.
She turned me back and forth and looked all over my body, as if she was trying to see if there was anything wrong.
All I could do was let her do what she wanted with me.
This was also how she had reacted when I had come back from Alandal City last time.
It seemed like she really did care about me quite a bit with how she was acting, so I had no choice but to play along.
Though it would be a lie to say that there wasn't a warm feeling that filled my heart.
At least that was what the case was until she pushed me down onto the seat.
She didn't push me down to do 'that', but rather to check my legs, my feet, my entire lower half.
Only when she was done checking every single bit of me did she finally let out a sigh of relief.
I wanted to say something, but she came forward to take me in her arms before I could say anything. Her arms tightly wrapped around me, hugging me close to her as if I would disappear if she let go.
I couldn't help revealing a faint smile seeing this, but I also hugged her as best I could. Though that was hard since she was in full armour and it was hard for me to wrap my arms around her.
The two of us just stayed like this for a bit before Cecilia slowly moved away. She looked at me and said, "I'm glad that you're home safe."
I nodded and said, "I'm home."
The two of us just sat there in silence in the carriage for a bit, just enjoying each other's comfort while traveling back to town.
When we arrived, I found that there was a crowd that had gathered at the gate waiting for us.
The one at the head of the crowd was naturally Rose.
She did the same thing as Cecilia and rushed into the carriage before checking every single part of my body.
I was just glad that she decided to do it in the carriage instead of doing it outside since it would have really been awkward if she did it in front of everyone.
When she was done, she also hugged me just like Cecilia had done.
We held each other for a while before she finally let go and said, "Welcome home."
"I'm home." I said in a soft voice.
It really was good to have a place to call home and people to welcome you back.
I had also expected Haley to come, but it turned out that she had been called to her store because of an emergency, so she would meet us at the manor later.
It couldn't be helped since I knew how much she cared about her business and this was what I had expected when I had taken her as one of my women.
After filling me in on everything, we walked out of the carriage.
But as soon as we came out, there was a familiar voice that said, "You really are something, keeping your guest waiting for this long. You said that you were heading back to your town right away, so I had timed it so I would arrive some time after, but then it turned out you had gone to the capital. Are you just avoiding me on purpose?"
I couldn't help knitting my brows when I heard this voice, but then they relaxed and my eyes opened wide in shock when I looked in the direction of this voice.
That was because there was a head of blue hair that I would have recognized anywhere.
It was just that I had no idea what it was doing in my town.
After all, the owner of this head of beautiful blue hair was Veronica, the daughter of Duke Beauchamp, the city lord of Bright Water City.
I never thought that we would meet again so soon after parting…
But just what was she doing here?
Why did she suddenly show up in my town?