In the castle town of Ivan, there is the symbolic white Ivan Castle in the north. The town spread out left and right from the brick-paved central street that came from that castle. Right in its center there was a market crowded with stalls and peddlers and a gigantic fountain equipped with a magic device. Branch roads radiated out from there in all directions.
From above, the town looked like a cut-up pizza.
The town was surrounded by the ma.s.sive walls protecting it that doesn’t let monsters or trespa.s.sers through.
In order to enter you need to pa.s.s through checkpoints.
The south part is heavy on the trade inst.i.tutions and as you go further north it turns more and more into housing.
On either side of the roads that stretch all over the city, there stood three story row houses made of stone where the people living in this city: merchants, soldiers, or artisans, could rest their bodies.
Moreover, as you get closer to the Ivan castle, you will see libraries, art galleries, theaters, cathedrals, and also the elite housing districts where the residences of government officials and high ranking knights live are. Though the common folk don’t come near the place in their daily lives.
“… so, you should be able to understand it this way”
Mist explained for me, pointing at a map.
“Yeah, you made it quite easy to understand. Gracias,” I said, to which Mist smiled.
“If it’s the castle town, I think you can just about get anything”
“First we look at what’s there, should we?”
“I guess so…. Since we’re putting tableware off until later, we should first go for magic cores, then some change of clothes”
I took a pen and note block from the E:ID phone and took notes.
“Also, unless we don’t go and fetch fruits and hardbread, we’ll be in trouble once the shops close”
“I see. You don’t have convenience stores here”
“Conveni?”
“A store in my world that stocks everything. It opens all day and doesn’t close even in the middle of the night”
After all this while, I can tell Mist everything honestly.
About us coming from another world, about Arina being the Hero, and others besides that.
Mist thought I was joking when she first heard, but she’s seen the power of te E:ID phone, so she quickly believed me.
… well, the smartphone is a piece of rather overly advanced technology even in my original world, after all.
“Hmm…, won’t the person keeping the shop die like that?”
“They hire people to take turns working there. … though there are people who collapse from overwork”
While having small chat with Mist, I finally reached the central market.
At the place we reached there were merchants underneath roofs like the eaves of a house made by just stretching a piece of cloth, yelling at full volume to attract customers.
Around them there are bustling crowds of people jammed together like there was some kind of event.
“There sure are a lot of people…”
I now understood why Mist said ‘we should go to the market while our load is still light’ on the way here.
We can’t go through this crowd if we carried other shopping items.
Well, I could just put them away in the E:ID phone, though.
“Come, let’s go!”
A high-spirited Mist took me along and charged into the place.
We headed towards our destination shop by parting the sea of people, which was almost like a full body slam attack.
But just like the jam of people in a crowded train, we almost couldn’t get through.
“Sheesh!! Even though I could easily pa.s.s through if I turned into mist”
Mist yelled, part angry, part irritated.
“Nah, you better not. What about your clothes after that? You’re not going to go shopping naked are you?”
“S, s, shopping n, n, naked — !?”
I only wanted to make a little retort, but Mist reacted more than I imagined.
“W, why does it have to be that! Why does it have to be that situation!!” she said with a red face.
“No, well, your clothes come off when you turn into mist, right? and you can’t go shopping while you’re in mist form, right? That means you’re going to have to go shopping stark naked”
“S, s, stark…”
For an instant, Mist put her hands to her cheeks and took a deep breath, hooh.
I wondered what’s going on with her, but then…
“Stupid—!!! N, n, no way I’m doing that!!”
She suddenly blew up.
“Not going to do that, definitely won’t! Naked! What the h.e.l.l! No way I’m doing that!”
She said incomprehensibly.
She made so much of a ruckus the other pa.s.sers-by looked at us, wondering what happened.
“H, hey hey! It’s just a little joke, don’t be so angry…”
“It’s cause Yuu-kun thinks up something stupid! Ah, geez, aaaah!! It’s embarra.s.sing!!”
“I get it, I get it, just, calm down. Let’s hurry and go shopping. Okay?”
“Right, shopping, hurry!! We were going to go shopping!! Come on, let’s go, hurry!!”
I totally did not get just what the blazes happened with Mist.
In any case, I had to chase after her so I don’t lose sight of her.
†
While Mist and Yuuki were going through seven h.e.l.ls in the crowd of people.
On the roof of a tenement right next to them there were two men, watching.
Buildings in these parts were built in rectangular shapes so they had wide roofs and made positions that were invisible from directly below.
The men, whose faces were hidden by their hoods, had the appearance of merchants, but their atmosphere clearly showed that they weren’t anybody honest.
They each locked on to Yuuki with small spygla.s.ses.
“So that’s Shimoyama Yuuki …”
“Looks just as unusual as we heard. There’s no mistaking it”
They said to each other.
“I was wondering what kind of guy could take down Isky’s son”
“He doesn’t look like much”
The men smiled.
“What do we do with the woman?”
“It’ll be a pain if she made a fuss. We’ll deal with her as well”
Their eyes reflected Yuuki leaving the market for somewhere else.
“Let’s move,” said the men as they stood up to chase after Yuuki.
One of them jumped down from the six-meter tall building onto a back alley.
He then chanted, ” ‘Millifly’ ” to a magic core he brought right as he was about to collide with the ground. He then floated and landed safely.
He looked around to make sure it’s safe, and after he’s sure there were no people around, he looked towards the roof and signaled,
“Oy, it’s safe!”
…….
“…… hm?”
But there was no response.
“Oy, what’s wrong? Get a move on!!”
As he said that wit irritatedly, something fell down.
The small something fell to the ground with a clunk sound.
The man looked towards it, but ignored it, thinking that it was a small pebble.
“What’re you doing!? We’re going to lose him!”
Clunk, another small white pebble fell as he said that.
“…?”
What’s that now? the man thought, tilting his head.
Another stone fell down.
This one’s bigger.
The next stone.
This one was long like a tree branch, but snapped as it hit the ground.
Suspecting something unusual, the man picked up the branch-like stone.
Then stones came raining down, each in different shapes and sizes.
Just when the man noticed they were ‘human bones‘, a skull hit the ground with a clonk and cracked.
“Eeek!!?”
The man, who lived a life outside of human morals, became frightened and paled at the sudden downpour of bones.
“Oh my, I’m so sorry”
There was a young girl in maid clothes holding a broom and dustpan.
It was Arina.
“I didn’t know there was a person below. I have to properly make sure when cleaning trash”
She said as she gathered the scattered bones in the dustpan.
“T, trash… !?”
Seeing how Arina treated the bones like trash, the man became frightened and stepped back.
“Yes, that’s right. If we don’t properly separate trash, they’re going to become a problem later. See, people in this world still don’t know about these things…. This is noncombustible trash, and….”
Arina then took out a large black plastic bag.
It was filled with something liquid-ish, it jiggles when she struck it.
“This is organic trash♪”
The man faintly realized.
Where the surrounding meat from the human bones that had been picked clean were.
What the contents of the jiggly bag is.
And ‘to whom’ those bones and the bag’s contents belonged.
“Ah, that’s right! This looks like it can still be used, Please take it if you like. It’s called ‘reuse’, you know what it means?”
Arina pushed some neatly folded linen cloth at the man.
The clothes of the man he talked to just moments earlier.
“Eeeek!? N, n, no way, these bones…”
The man trembled in fear, and Arina said to him,
“People who won’t answer Arina’s questions properly are not needed in Yuu-kun’s world, you see, and if you don’t need something, then it’s trash, right? Arina thinks about Yuu-kun’s world’s ecology, too. Arina separates trash properly. … ah, but this is troubling”
She then put her hand on her face and made a troubled look.
“Arina ran out of trash bags. Arina’s bad with planning”
She made a broad grin.
“So to not create more trash, please pay attention and answer properly, okay? Who’s the one making you do this? And for what reason are you watching Yuu-kun?”