A Place To Stay

After sheathing my sword, I stepped closer intending to ask the remaining men some questions, but all of them flinched and reacted as if they were afraid of me.

“I have something I want to ask. Would you answer a few questions?”

“W-we’ll answer anything!”

“Then first, tell me about the Adventurer Guild. It looked like the guild wasn’t functioning, but where did the adventurers go?”

“T-the adventurers either went to other countries, or the ones still in the city take jobs individually.”

Taking jobs individually… there were probably people demanding compensation that would normally be absolutely impossible.

“If there are no adventurers, the damage from monsters will increase, and you won’t be able to obtain monster meat either. What’s happening with the food supply?”

“F-food… unless we steal it from somewhere, we can’t get any. There aren’t any shops anymore, so we either steal it or hunt it ourselves.”

Seriously… the more I heard, the worse the situation in the city sounded. What on earth were the people at the top of this country trying to do? Lady Seremees had said they were thinking about starting a war, but at this rate the country might collapse before a war even began.

“What happened to the people who work in farming or livestock?”

When Rebecca spoke up, the men trembled again before answering.

“I-I heard they’re forced to produce food for the people above. None of it reaches us.”

So in other words, the people at the top of this country only intended to keep enough commoners alive to sustain themselves, and considered the rest unnecessary?

“The Empire was this bad…?”

“It’s already at the level where it can’t function as a country.”

Rebecca looked at me with a bewildered expression. With things this terrible, it was hard to know what we should even do.

“There aren’t any inns… right?”

“There’s no way anyone would be running a business in a situation like this.”

“So what do we do now?”

The worst case would be sleeping in the Divine Domain, but if possible I wanted to find a place to sleep without drawing suspicion. We could probably use an empty house without permission… but I’d rather avoid that if possible.

“Luca, should we ask to stay at someone’s house? If we provide ingredients, maybe they’ll let us stay.”

“That might actually work.”

“Right? Do you know which areas still have people living there?”

“Y-yeah, if you go deeper into the alleys there are a lot of them.”

“Got it. Thanks.”

After hearing everything we wanted from the men, Rebecca and I left them there and walked through the city while observing the surroundings for about ten minutes. When we went deeper into an alley off the main street, we discovered a single inn.

“It doesn’t look like it’s operating, but if people are inside, maybe they’ll let us stay.”

“That might be possible.”

“Let’s try calling out.”

I couldn’t sense anyone outside, but when I knocked on the door, I briefly heard the sound of someone moving inside.

“Um, excuse me. We’re adventurers, but we came to this city without knowing the country was in this situation, and we’re having trouble because we don’t have a place to stay. We can provide food and such, so if possible, could you lend us a bed?”

I spoke politely so as not to scare them, but only silence came back with no reply.

“Rebecca, maybe a woman’s voice would work better.”

“That might be true. Um, excuse me. We’re not knights of this country, so could you please open the door? We have meat, vegetables, and many other things. We’re adventurers from the Albanell Kingdom. My name is Rebecca.”

“My name is Luca.”

After waiting a while, perhaps because Rebecca had called out, the door opened slightly. After looking at our faces and our appearance, they seemed relieved and invited us inside.

Inside were two adults and three children. It must have been a family of five. The smallest children looked only about five or six years old.

“Sorry for being cautious.”

The man said that while still not completely lowering his guard, and to reassure them we placed our weapons down nearby.

“We’re the ones who should apologize for scaring you. We’ll remove our weapons.”

“Yeah, I’d appreciate that.”

“…So, you said you don’t have a place to stay?”

“That’s right. We came from the Albanell Kingdom on an escort request, but we didn’t expect there to be no inns… We have meat, vegetables, and many other things, so could you let us stay for a while? Ah, we also have money.”

When I took out the food I had packed into my bag in the Divine Domain before coming here, the expressions of the man and woman—likely the father and mother—changed instantly.

“S-so much food…”

“And it’s all fresh…”

“We’re adventurers, so we can go outside the city and hunt monsters for more if needed. We’ll give you all of this.”

At Rebecca’s words, the woman’s eyes filled with tears as she bowed her head repeatedly.

“Thank you. Truly, thank you. I couldn’t give these children anything decent to eat, and I was really struggling.”

“That makes sense given the situation in this country…”

“You said your names were Luca and Rebecca? Stay as long as you like. We can’t offer much hospitality, though…”

“Really? Thank you very much!”

Rebecca and I relaxed slightly, relieved that we had at least secured a place to stay. And once again, we swore in our hearts to help the many people in this country who were surely suffering.