Chapter 20: The Quarrel and The Cheers

I woke up with the sound of a bell in the evening. However, I felt no need to get up immediately. I heard there were some inns along the way from Tsubai to Herrera.

Since it was evening, I could continue to sleep. However, I felt hungry and I wanted to explore this town. So I decided to go out.

Sometimes it felt hassle-free to enter the shop that got into my eyes without asking other people for recommendations. So I decided to eat at a bar-like restaurant near the inn.

This bar-like restaurant was different from the places I’ve been before.

I approached the owner and ordered a dish called “Estard”. The service was not as fast as Ain’s restaurants, but the food came out promptly enough. Although it had some movement, this restaurant seemed rather peaceful. I could eat quietly here as opposed to Ain. It felt more like a crowded train than a small room with several people inside.

Was the difference in speed due to the large number of menus?

I sat in a suitable seat to eat the simmered dish that was neither good nor bad. However, my surroundings became quite noisy.

I wondered if I had done something, but it did not seem that I was the center of this fuss.

2 well-built adventurer men stood diagonally to my side. They glared fixedly at each other with strong eyes. Please, do not disturb my quiet meal.

Suddenly, one man hit the other man. But the other man hit him too, and the two of them lost their balance and collapsed right next to me.

I pushed one of the man that fell with my back by using some of my strength. I wanted to teach them a lesson, but it would be troublesome if I used my magic against them. With my strength, the man I pushed went toward the other man, and both were blown away at the same time and landed on the same side of the floor.

I didn’t blow them off far away, as we’ve seen in manga, they just fell about 1m away from me.

I stood up and spoke to the men.

「You are annoying me. If you want to fight, can’t you do it outside?」

「What did you say, bastard! 」

「Don’t interrupt our quarrel! 」

…Were they angry? Why were they angry with me?

Ahh, maybe because I blew them away. How annoying. Did they want me to keep silent after they fell on my back while I ate my peaceful meal?

Anyway, it was impossible to reason with drunken men…

「Ah, if you want to fight, go ahead, but please do it outside.」

One man tried to hit me while I was speaking. However, he was slow. He felt like a maggot that was inferior to the Green Wolf.

I grabbed his fist and twisted his arm up. I did not use my martial arts skill, but this small action was enough to suppress the drunken man.

I thought about hitting him. Was there any law in this world that said, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend*”? Thinking about it now, the application of this “law” may have not been used widely on Planet Earth.

Anyway, I could not hit him because I grabbed his arm. So I decided to kick him. 1 kick was enough for this man.

「Ugh…Agh… 」

The man fell to the ground. I heard a roar and cheers from the surroundings. There was a crowd around me before I knew it.

I thought about what to do with these men. On this moment, someone came from the sparsely populated people. This person was wearing an attire that resembled a guard’s clothes. This guard took the 2 men.

「Would you like to accompany me to the station? 」

「Eh, is not my case a situation of self-defense? 」

It felt unreasonable to be taken in when I was not at fault.

「It might be self-defense, but I haven’t seen the situation, so I’d like you to follow me.」

「No, this customer was eating normally when those men interrupted his meal. I watched this situation from the very beginning.」

The owner of the restaurant defended me. The people around me defended me too.

「I see. Then show me the Guild Card. I have to make sure you’re not a bandit.」

The Guild Card was convenient for occasions like this. Would the adventurers who were rampaging become bandits?

When the guard confirmed the Guild Card, he checked my name, returned the card to me, and left.

「Oh, young man. You are strong even though you have a slim physique. I’ve never seen your face around here. Are you an adventurer or something?」

The restaurant owner talked to me.

「Yes, I’m an E-rank adventurer. I left my adventurer equipment in the inn because I don’t need it in this town.」

「You have great speed and power even though you are E-ranked. You have a very promising future. I will give you one item as an appreciation. What do you wish?」

「Thank you very much. What do you recommend? 」

The recommendation seemed to be a dish called “Homed”. The name sounded quite simple. I ordered it and it tasted very good. However, I did not feel any difference between the towns’ food. The seasoning of Ain’s Gargon set meal just changed slightly this meal.

Well, naturally. Tsubai town was only 3 days away from Ain by horse. They might have the same resources and products available.

My stomach was swollen, and I felt that my sleep time was short. So I decided to go back to the inn and sleep.

—

I woke up with the sound of the morning bell. I thought that I could get some harmful effects from the day and night reversal life to a decent life. However, I felt no particular problem. It seemed that my body had become more adaptable since I came to this different world.

After having breakfast, I asked a guard for the way to Herrera. He told me to go straight from the north gate and turn left, and then, go straight on the road. Since Herrera was in the mountains, I thought I would have to cross several intersections and curvy roads. However, it seemed to be a just a regular straight road.

From Ain to Tsubai, I ran with a light flow, but I sprinted from Tsubai to Herrera almost as hard as when I fought against the Metal Lizard. No, it was faster than that time.

I had certain limitations when it came to my MP consumption during battles. Of course, I could buy time to regenerate my MP while fighting, but it was still safer to do so by running or escaping. I’ve never been out of breath in this world, but it was important to know how well I could run.

It would be a problem if I ran out of physical strength during an emergency. It was a waste to preserve my physical strength more than necessary.

Fortunately, I ran in a fairly important road. I heard people say that monsters with a high degree of danger in the vicinity were generally defeated in order to make this path safer. Therefore, it seemed that there were not many dangerous monsters along the way (although it was still dangerous for merchants and other ordinary people). The area around the upper road was mostly a grassland with a height of about 30 cm, so the visibility was good. I decided to run until I was out of breath, and once I was out of breath, I would take a break.

I kept running. The scenery around me flew at a tremendous speed. It felt as if I was in a roller coaster, but I ran without worrying about it. Along the way, I saw a merchant and a man with his escort-like carriage looking at me, but I ran without worrying about it. I continued to run until noon at a speed equivalent to a car on the highway. I ran no longer at the speed of a horse. I discovered this surprising fact.

I did not feel tired.

After eating lunch in the grassland, I thought, “Maybe I will be tired if I carry my luggage or something on my back?” This time, I wore my armor and held the sword, and ran.

My speed slowed down, but I didn’t get tired even in the evening. I didn’t want to slow down without cause, so I put them all away in the item box.

It was getting dark, so I decided to stay at an inn, which I found about 30 minutes later. This inn was a two-story wooden building that looked similar to what I saw along the way. It was not very large. It might be like a chain store.

Next to the building stood a space surrounded by a huge fence with the same size of the inn itself, and there was one carriage.

At the entrance of the inn said, “Tsubai Herrera 9th lodging”. It was probably a chain business because the name was similar to the other inns and it was numbered. This way was much more efficient than an individual owner running an inn on the road.

When I went inside, an old man who looked like the innkeeper talked to me.

「Welcome. Which room do you want? 」

「What type of rooms do you have? How much is it? 」

Did they have huge rooms despite being a small inn? The old man pointed to the price list.

—

Price List

Private room: 2000 Tael per night, with half board.

Small Fish Sleeping Room: 400 Tael per night, no meals.

Meals: 150 Tael per meal

Parking Lot: 500 Tael per carriage per night

—

They even had a parking lot. Was it a means to provide security? These prices made it cheaper than hiring an additional adventurer to guard the carriage at night.

Moreover, the small fish sleeping room did not sound appalling. Therefore, I chose the private room because the price did not worry me.

The meal was hard bread and smoked meat.

There was nothing to do at night in this world. I ran for a day and fell asleep while thinking that I was having a healthy life. Well, I did not know if it was healthy to run for half a day at a speed that exceeded a car, or continuing to carry a carbonized six-legged wolf corpse.

—

I woke up with the sound of a bell that was much higher than usual.

It seemed that the inn prepared a bell to regulate the hours of the day.

I ate breakfast (the same menu as dinner), checked out of the inn and started running again.

The number of trees gradually increased along the road, and the road was slightly uphill. But I didn’t see a mountain yet.

After some time, I felt that the outline of the mountain could be faintly seen in the distance. And by the time I had lunch, I could see the towering mountain.

After eating my meal, I started running, and after a few hours, the grassland that had been around me until now was replaced by a forest. Although the density of trees was not so high, the landscape was completely different from the grassland.

This road was the only path, which had no plants. But it was not particularly covered with stones.

The road became steeper. It was almost like climbing a slope.

The road was diagonally inclined to the slope further ahead. It felt okay if someone ran like me, but it felt rather unpractical for those who carried luggage or went by carriage.

If I went off the road, I could make a shortcut, but I didn’t want to take the risk just in order to save some time.

It was getting dark, so I went up the hill for about an hour while looking for an inn. I finally found the inn. This was the “Tsubai Herrera 20th lodging”.

The meals were the same as what I ate at the 9th lodging. Would people traveling by carriage eat the same food for 10 days?

I went to bed while thinking about that.

—

I woke up and started running again.

However, after running for about 30 minutes, my advanced radar sensed a strange reaction.

It was probably a person. There were seven people, but for some reason they were moving away from the road into the woods instead of walking in the road. These people did not feel like adventurers because of their movements.

The party was also strange. I focused on the advanced radar to provide more information. It seemed that one out of the six adults was a boy or girl, and this boy or girl was not moving by himself, but was being carried away.

Don’t tell me that these people were -> Bandits.

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*It suggests that two opposing parties can or should work together against a common enemy. The earliest known expression of this concept is found in a Sanskrit treatise on statecraft, the Arthashastra, which dates to around the 4th century BC, while the first recorded use of the current English version came in 1884.

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