“We should have known something was wrong with the quest. We just needed the money, so we had to take it,” the boy said.
“Life is more important,” Terron said and turned away.
“We are sorry to have stressed you all, and thank you for saving us,” the girl said.
“You are welcome. How about we give you two a ride back to your town? I believe we are on our way there. Also, don’t be frightened by Terron over there.
He is a logical person, and he believes people should really think before doing things, but at times, that can take the joy out of life,” Sage said. Terron glanced at them and looked away again. Find your next read on My Virtual Library Empire
He wasn’t used to being addressed as Terron, but he would have to get used to it soon enough, as it had to be natural to the extent that no one could tell.
“So, what are your names?” Sage asked.
“I am Kalif, and she is Ranin,” the boy said.
“Those are nice names. My name is Sage,” she introduced herself.
“You guys are really a trio. Are you adventurers?” Kalif asked.
“Actually, yes, and we are not all that strong,” Sage said.
“What do you mean not strong? She ran so fast and jumped so far,” Kalif said, pointing at Dawn. Then he looked at Silva. “He killed hundreds of rabbits faster than the blink of an eye.
The only person in our town that can be that strong is the A-ranked adventurer Zoro,” he said.
“I guess we are a little bit strong, but can you do us a favor?” Sage asked.
“Yes, you saved us, after all, and we acted rudely to you. We owe you our lives,” Ranin said.
“Alright. All we want you to do is, when you head back to town and anyone asks you how you survived, just tell them that you were saved by us.
Don’t give them the details of what we did or how we did it because we are trying to keep a low profile,” Sage said.
“Hmm, okay, we understand. We won’t tell them exactly what happened. But if I might ask, why not?” Kalif asked.
“Well, because we don’t want to draw too much attention. We don’t plan on staying long in your town, so we don’t want to attract too much trouble during our stay,” Sage said.
“If you tell anyone that we took on the rabbits, I’ll find you and actually cut your throats open,” Terron said and looked away.
“He doesn’t mean that,” Sage said with a laugh, but she was certain that Silva could do just that if he wanted to.
Due to the issue of the rabbits, Aaron had ended up pushing the horses to go faster, so they got to the town after sunset.
The town was as small as Ribest, and the entrance was pretty much unguarded. The carriage entered the town, drawing attention from the people immediately.
“There’s no security. Why is that?” Terron asked Kalif.
“That’s not normally how it is, but on the other side of the town, abominations tried to enter from the neighboring town.
All the guards have been stationed there, trying to fight it off and safeguard the town,” Kalif explained.
“That’s dumb. You leave your town open in order to defend it? What if the abominations somehow manage to come through this side?” Lia spoke.
“It’s an issue with small towns, and it has been like that even in my hometown, Ribest,” Lia responded to her. “Small towns lack personnel. The pay that the guards get is really low and can barely feed them.
So most younger people prefer to become adventurers and seek out their own success by themselves.
This leaves the town with very few people to work with, so security is thin. I’m sure whoever is in charge saw this as a big enough risk to actually pull all his men to the other side,” Lia explained.
“They could ask the help of adventurers,” Fay spoke. “My father did it all the time back when I was younger. Whenever there was a situation that needed fixing and he lacked manpower, he would get adventurers to help.”
“That’s because Ribest was a well-funded town,” Terron said, finally joining the discussion. “Ribest was a prime location. It held many uses, to be honest, so the kingdom gave it a good cash flow.
But this town here is at the border, next to the field, next to the kingdom that everyone hates now—Dark Dragon. There is no import or export. From the looks of things, they also don’t produce any really good raw materials that could pull funds toward the town.
So it’s normal that the kingdom would remove funding from the town. Now, the reason why funding is important is because adventurers are very expensive.
They wouldn’t all help a town for nothing. It might look like they are helping, but behind the scenes, they actually get some sort of reward.
Looking at this town’s lack of funds, it’s normal to assume that the person in charge couldn’t pay for adventurers to help at all.
I ascertained that from the fact that they only had one A-ranked adventurer. Even with a small town this size, they should have more. I’m guessing the lack of resources is making adventurers leave,” Terron explained.
“Makes sense,” Amber said. “When some elf towns and villages needed to be cut away for certain reasons, my father would cut the line of resources that would normally come to them.
This would force all of them to go in search of better towns and cities to survive, and the empire could do what they wanted with the land that they had cleared up.
It’s a sinister technique to get rid of a town, but they managed to get the elves out without hurting anyone in the process. Maybe some hunger and struggle before they left, but it’s ultimately a good method,” she explained.