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Not only for the Adventurers’ Guild, but most workplaces specific to a profession usually have a document room. Books are relatively expensive, and they require effort and space for preservation, so even if they contain useful knowledge, they are rarely purchased individually.
This was also the case here, and on the second floor after climbing the stairs, there were several small tables and chairs, and about three large bookshelves. However, the preservation state was not good, and it too was covered in a large amount of dust.
“Wow, it’s pretty worn out. The paper is wrinkled… But it’s not unreadable, I wonder if it’s been left for decades?”
“Decades, huh. That’s a bit complex.”
At Tia’s opinion after checking out a book from the shelf, I grimaced slightly.
If people have been absent for several years, there is a high possibility that people who have escaped from here are still nearby. On the contrary, if it’s several hundred years, this place would have been long abandoned, and they would have gone far away by now.
But several decades is complex. It’s too long to stay, but too short to give up. As long as the people who lived in this town are still alive, there would be plenty of people who still have lingering affections for this place. And if such people are gathering opinions as elders, there is a possibility that they are still nearby, even if it means pushing a little bit.
“…Well, it doesn’t matter. For now, find some history books or something. Oh, a map would be the best, although I doubt it’s there.”
“Understood.”
Leaving aside what I couldn’t understand, I instructed Tia to search while I also looked for books. That being said, there weren’t that many books to actually check. The bookshelves were rather empty, and there were several copies of standard monster or herb manuals, so there were much fewer types than it appeared.
“This is… ‘Easy-to-understand Herbology for Beginners’? And this one is ‘Guidance of Dissection’. I guess there are similar books in any world.”
“I mean, These are the skills and knowledge that a beginner would need, right? Wouldn’t those things be the same for everyone even if it weren’t such a special world?”
“Well, that’s true. Huh? What’s this…?”
The next book I picked up had “History of the Parel Kingdom” written on the cover. Looking inside, the country’s history was written along with simple diagrams.
“Hmm. So this is the Parel Kingdom… Parel, Parel huh.”
“Do you recognize the name?”
“Ah… sorry, it’s a bit vague.”
There are hundreds of names of countries I have passed through, and unless I’m closely involved with the royal family of that place like with Alexis, the impression is fainter than the name of the town. However, the name of this town is not written in the history book of the kingdom, so I still don’t know.
“I didn’t realize until now, but it’s really hard to know the name of a town.”
“Haha, that’s how it is. Look, even with ancient ruins, you know the name of the country, but you don’t know the name of the town, right?”
“Good point!”
At my comment, Tia showed a surprised expression. Yes, the name of a country is recorded like this, but the name of a regional city that is neither the royal capital nor anything else is not mentioned anywhere.
At most, it is written in the ledger used by the lord who governs the land for tax collection, and it is neither strictly preserved as the country’s history nor widely distributed as documents, so it is exquisitely hard to remain.
And of course, there was no map of the surrounding area. The Adventurers’ Guild should have had a very precise map, but maps were military secrets, so it’s reasonable to assume that they were taken out as part of the contents of that vault.
There might have been a simple map or something, but such things are written roughly on poor quality paper… so the paper-like scraps scattered around are likely the remains of such documents, unable to withstand the years.
“It doesn’t seem like there’s any good information. What will you do, Ed? Shall we search more?”
“Um… no, I think we’re done.”
At Tia’s question, I thought for a while and decided to give up on information gathering.
After all, what we should be doing is to join up with the Hero, and we just tried to find out the cause because there were no signs of people in the town we happened to stop by. And since we know the direction of the Hero’s location, there is no need to ignore that and look for the town’s inhabitants.
“I wanted to replenish our food and supplies, but it seems unlikely given the situation. Let’s just spend the night in one of these buildings and set out tomorrow morning.”
“Is it okay to give up looking for the inhabitants of this place?”
“Whether it’s okay or not, we don’t even know why they ran away from here. If they’ve evacuated, they probably don’t have the capacity to provide us with supplies. If we meet someone on the way to join up with the Hero, we’ll ask… I think that’s good enough. Unless, Tia, are you concerned?”
“I am curious, but it doesn’t seem worth it to go out of our way to look for them. Traveling in this blizzard isn’t easy.”
“Exactly. Ah, if only we could use the vehicles from Canal’s world.”
There were various types of transportation in that world, but among them, the metal box that flew through the sky as if sliding, the magic vehicle, was incredible. I had plenty of money to buy one, but unfortunately, the fuel to operate it could not be obtained in any world other than that one, so I reluctantly gave up on it.
“Fufu, indeed, if we had that… even though it seems like we’d immediately crash into something in this blizzard.”
“I think it was covered in defensive magic, so even if you crash head-on into a stone wall, the wall would be the one to shatter, right? The magic consumption was insane though, so it could only be operated with a dedicated magic stone.”
“That’s right. I didn’t understand even a bit of the mechanism of containing and operating such a large amount of magic in such a small stone. Well, even if I did understand, I’d probably dry up in an instant if I tried to give it that much magic.”
Once our course of action was decided, we left the Adventurer’s Guild building, chattering casually, and spent the night in a suitable lodging-like place. Afterwards, we continued heading towards the Hero through the blizzard, but after a week without catching up, we revised our policy. We decided to drop by towns and villages where we could rest along the way, even if they were slightly off course…
“…Hey Ed, what do you think this means?”
“I don’t know.”
A month passed since we set foot in this world and started chasing after the Hero. Despite having visited several towns and villages, we haven’t seen a single person.
“We might be in a completely abandoned area. Life wouldn’t be possible in this kind of blizzard.”
“If that’s the case, isn’t it a bit problematic? We don’t have much food left, do we?”
I have the banishment skill [Stranger’s Box] which allowed me to carry nearly an infinite amount of goods. However, no matter how much it can hold, the time inside flowed normally, causing the goods to deteriorate. I procured a tool called a [Magistocker] in Canal’s world to prevent this, but its capacity was only about the size of a small chest.
“And isn’t this place really strange? There are no magical beasts, no ordinary animals, no plants, trees, or even insects. It’s impossible to not encounter any living beings other than ourselves after all this walking.”
“………………”
At Tia’s words, I fell silent and started thinking. This frigid land devoid of all life. This is indeed a serious abnormality. And if there’s a cause that created this situation, the Demon King of this world is the most likely candidate. But…
(If there was such a powerful Demon King, I should have remembered it… Where on earth are we?)
Asking myself doesn’t yield any answers. In order to find that answer, all we could do was continue on.