A few weeks later since Pan's supposed execution.
The town did undergo a drastic change as more Knights roamed the village, as if they're on a look out.
Thankfully, Maria Bakery was reopened but Pan is no longer there to support it with her skills. But she left a list of recipes and tutorials that will help Clara's employees.
For now, our focus shifts to Pan, now under the alias of "Ibarra Crisostomo."
It was another morning and Ibarra rises from her bed to check herself in the mirror.
With food dye, Pan made her Ibarra disguise have short black hair. She still wore a black vest and white uniform but she added black gloves to conceal her a bit more.
A fedora hat was added to the disguise, as a way to hide her eyes from any one trying to make eye contact.
Pan's disguise was a Novelist, something she hadn't done before but she's doing her best to try it out. Since she can make clones of herself, she let's one write the stories for her.
"Ah... Another day for Ibarra." Ibarra says before approaching the table and gathering her things.
"Another adventure as well." Ibarra then looks to her room, seeing her clone writing.
"Feels so damn lonely without Clara and Crispina..." Ibarra sighs before heading to the door.
"Well, let's get on going..." Ibarra then opens the door to the village streets.
Like as planned, Pan lived at the other side of the village as Ibarra, this side of the village was livelier as it was near a bazaar.
Ibarra sneaks on through the crowd, making her way to the bazaar so she can pick up a few things.
It was everything she needs for baking, even though she doesn't need to eat, there's still some sort of mana regeneration when she consumes food.
Ibarra then heads to the Adventurer's Guild, where she plans to do her daily work. This was her only way of income now that she's cut off from the Marias.
"Hey there, Ibarra. Looking swell today." An adventurer says to Ibarra as she came in.
"Nothing changed, bud." Ibarra tipped her hat to him.
"Miss Crisostomo, are you perhaps interested in joining our party?" A Young Mage asked alongside a group of other young adventurer.
"Sorry, sweetheart. But I go solo." Ibarra smiled softly before walking towards the receptionist.
The young mage and her friends squealed silently at Ibarra's nonchalant yet attractive facade.
As Ibarra approached the receptionist, he leans against the counter and looks around.
"What kind of quests do we have today?" She asked.
The receptionist walks to her and opens up a book, it had numerous requests from the village.
"Take a look on what we got." The receptionist says.
Ibarra then flips the pages as she thinks of what she should do.
"Progress has been slow these past few days... There's no clues of this 'princess' around. More importantly, Knights are frequent so I have a slim chance to find anything about her." Ibarra thought before placing the book down and pointing at a quest.
"I'll take this goblin extermination quest." Ibarra nodded.
"Great, you already know the protocol, Miss Crisostomo." The receptionist says.
"Mhm." Ibarra then takes out her Adventurer's Card and stamps it on the quest, imprinting her name and face on it.
"See you then." Ibarra tipped her hat before walking off.
Ibarra has done numerous questing before, her rank went up from F to D in no time. She mostly took monster slaying quests as a way to get stronger.
Though for today, she intends to take it slow and just use this quest to get some change.
A goblin slaying quest is easy but it seems like today was a tad bit different.
As Ibarra arrives at the location where a goblin camp lays, she waits under a tree to spring her attack.
She makes herself a sandwich just by making dough and cooking it with her fire magic.
"Hmm... The quest said that the goblins are at this place, but I can't really sense them." Ibarra says as she chewed on her sandwich.
Suddenly, she hears something cutting in the air and tilts her head.
An arrow then strikes the trunk of the tree behind her, she glances at the arrow before looking forward.
"They're waiting for me." Ibarra says before standing up and absorbing her sandwich.
Then a horde of goblin jumped out of the bushes, lead by a powerful hobgoblin.
"Oh, sick! I can go a little hard today." Ibarra says before holding her fedora.
"Child of Man: Masa..." Ibarra's body then turns into dough before she disappears after an explosion.
She then appears in front of a group of goblins, ready to swing her fists.
"Doughnut shot!" Ibarra's fist pierced through a Goblin's torso, making a literal donut out of it.
The Goblins were intimidated by her speed, they didn't even see her move.
Ibarra didn't stop as she dashes forward to prepare her arm for a swipe.
"Baguette Slash!" Ibarra slams her entire arm onto another group of Goblins, their weak bodies splattered against the wall.
Ibarra eventually got all the goblins, leaving the hobgoblin as her last opponent.
"Okay, big guy. I won't use my Bullet Style on you." Ibarra then extinguishes her flames and goes full dough mode.
The Hobgoblin takes a swing at Ibarra, their rusty greatsword about to slam against her body.
But she catches it with her arm, the blade digging inside the dough and trapping it. The hobgoblin was utterly confused.
"Alright, here it goes." Ibarra smirked as her other arm grows in size.
"Kapre Doughnut!" Ibarra slams her large fist against the hobgoblin's torso, knocking it back.
Though Ibarra quickly ran towards it and jumped, enlarging her other arm in the process.
"Flatbread Higante!" Ibarra slammed her fist downwards like a hammer, spilling hobgoblin blood on the forest floor.
The Hobgoblin was slain and Ibarra stood victorious among the bloody bush and trees.
"Phew, my job is done." Ibarra thought but she suddenly hears whimpering.
Ibarra looked around and quickly searched for the sound.
Ibarra then noticed a bush shaking, she adjusts her hat before approaching it.
She leans in and listens carefully if this was the source of the sound. Her eyes widened when it was indeed the source.
Quickly, she opens the bush and sees a goblin cowering on the ground.
"Ah, a straggler." Ibarra says before winding her fist up.
The goblin flinched before turning around, seeing Ibarra made it scared as it throws up it's hands and shouted.
"WAIT! STOP!"
"Huh?" Ibarra was shocked, the goblin just spoke.
"STOP! PLEASE! ME NOT WANT FIGHT!" The Goblin pleaded in fear.
"You talk?" Ibarra was shocked and she slowly lowers her fist.
Realising the implications of Goblins talking, she backs off and let's the little guy walk out and explain.
A few seconds later, Ibarra and the goblin are sitting one-on-one, talking about why they're around this area.
"Captain Savage, yes, yes. Hobgoblin that you killed. Forced me and others to fight." The Goblin explained.
"Me name is Liit-Liit, not fighting goblin, only learning goblin." Liit-Liit says as he points to himself.
"Even in the monster world, you guys have problems with authority too?" Ibarra says.
"Me don't know much, but yes. Leaders are bad, they hurt others to join fight. Harass humans and take treasure." Liit-Liit explained.
"Hmm..." Ibarra looks at the other corpses of goblins, she kind of feels bad now.
"Human... Err... Fellow monster?" Liit-Liit was confused to what Ibarra was.
"I ask you for name. Me want be respectful to you."
"Oh, you may call me 'Pan'." Pan decided that this goblin should atleast know her real name.
"Pan, I see. Let us go, not safe here and noise may alert other humans or goblins." Liit-Liit stood up, looking around to see if there any prying eyes.
"My home near. Goblin settlement is nice, they not hurt people but try to understand them, yes, yes." Liit-Liit then walks away.
"This is getting interesting..." Pan then transforms into her original look.
Though Pan cleaned up the area before following Liit-Liit, absorbing the corpses of goblins and the hobgoblin.
"I feel sorry for going a little hard on you guys but I plea self-defence." Pan then continue on following Liit-Liit to his little Goblin Settlement.
Meanwhile, in the Maria Household. Clara had been studying up the best she could.
In order for her to be a part of the Village's politics and also getting closer to find the truth about the village's sudden change, she needed to get a position in the townhall.
Anything goes fine, if she becomes an errand girl then it'll be enough. She just needs to be in there.
"With how things are going, it'll take months or even years to find out who could be behind this." Clara thought as she fiddles with her pen, reading textbooks.
"Pan won't be able to come back, or worse, Pan's identity gets revealed and she may have to go on the run..." Clara shivers at the thought.
"Time isn't gonna be on our side, I have to figure it out. But for now, I'll have to get a job at the townhall." Clara then closes the textbook and begins her own mission.
In the afternoon, she made her way to the townhall to apply for a position. With how lazy the mayor was, it was no surprise that everyone else in the townhall was taking it easy.
But with the sudden change of the Village's Knights being active, more paperwork will be expected.
Since Education was rare in this world, as there's no universities or schools in the village, Anihan Village's way to test and hire competent people for government positions are exams and interviews.
Clara's studying will be put to the test, it took weeks of preparation to do this and now it's time for her to enact her plan.
"Okay, Clara. This is it! Not only are you actively doing your dreams, but you're now infiltrating the townhall." Clara thought.
"It feels wrong, yet this is the right thing to do. This village needs to be saved." Clara then enters the townhall and applies for a position.
The receptionist at the front looked so bored, and it was apparent that the townhall wasn't that crowdy.
"I know that there's nothing much happening in this village, but this is too much. It's like a library in here..." Clara thought.
"Hi, I'd like to apply for a job here." Clara asked to the receptionist.
"Huh? Oh, you taking an easy way of money, huh? Me too." The receptionist casually says.
"Ah! No etiquette whatsoever! He's more like an owner of an inn!" Clara thought as her eyes widened in shock.
"I-I guess so?" Clara says before chuckling.
"Well, take your pick." The Receptionist takes a piece of paper and lends it to Clara.
"Not much of a choice, but that's obvious. Higher ranking positions are already taken, doing nothing while getting paid would be eye catching." Clara thought before picking out her position.
"Doing paperwork is what I need. If I get access to that, then I can get close to the perpetrator of all of this."
"I'll take the Public Information Officer." Clara smiled as she gives the paper back.
"Oh? Thought you'd pick security, but for a dame like you, something like this fits you more." The receptionist says before he started writing.
"Name?" He asked while writing.
"Clara Maria." Clare answered.
"From the bakery, huh? Don't know why you'd be working here, you're already got nice money from your bakery." The receptionist then gives Clara a card, a little similar to the Adventurer's card but for government purposes.
"Well, I don't really care. You can start working now or tomorrow, doesn't matter, just pretend you're working." He smiled lazily before going back to doing his own thing.
Clara nodded before she makes her way to find the offices in the townhall.
The upper floors of the townhall were more silent, and people just use the quietness as a way to chill.
But for Clara, she found the office and made her way to start investigating. Though the sight she saw was more important.
"W-What's this!?" Clara says.
"There's unorganised paper everywhere!" Clara says in shock, as the offices look like it had a hurricane in it.
"How horrible..! The mayor is lazy but that doesn't mean the staff should be!" Clara then grits her teeth before pulling up her sleeve.
"Someone must make this right."
And Clara took it upon herself to sort every paper in the office for the entirety of the day.
Back to Pan's adventure with Liit-Liit, she was lead deeper into the woods. It wasn't that far from Anihan Village but it felt like she's in a new place.
"Wow, where is this place?" Pan asked a she followed Liit-Liit.
"Gnomes build secret doors. Protect the territory of our princess." Liit-Liit says.
"Princess?" Pan thought but she shakes her head.
"Not now, I can't ask something to these guys. Besides, I don't think this little guy will understand."
Though as they walked through this nature filled tunnel, Pan sees a light in the end.
"There. Liit-Liit's Home." Liit-Liit says before running.
Pan quickly followed, she just jogged since goblins aren't that fast.
And once they reached the goblin settlement, Pan couldn't believe her eyes.
It was a genuine goblin village, though their technology and homes weren't up-to-date for human standards. They lived in huts yet the settlement was lively.
"I welcome, human-monster, to Goblin Settlement!" Liit-Liit announced happily.
The other goblins in the settlement took noticed and approached Pan, looking up at her with curiosity and questions.
Liit-Liit is the only one who speaks the language Pan understands, but it was clear to Pan that the monster she always hunted wasn't truly evil.
"Oh dear, what have I done now?" Pan fully realized what this all meant.
Monsters and Humans aren't all that different.