Travel and Whimsy (6)

I had completed a satisfying job, and the ten large gold coins I received as payment were exceptionally generous, but I had stayed in Jampemon a little too long.

So, after spending three days mostly asleep following the completion of that major job, I spent another four days playing with Nonna, the innkeeper's daughter, and sightseeing around town to recover my energy before deciding to leave.

I'd already spent far too much time, so I didn't have much leeway left.

If I lingered any longer, Airena and I might end up missing each other's messages.

I didn't want to think about what worried Airena might do in that case.

To reach Odine, the nation of magic, I still had to pass through several more cities.

Even if I didn't stay long, rushing through a town without seeing anything seemed terribly wasteful.

So I had already used up all the time I could spend in Jampemon.

When I announced that I was leaving, Nonna looked a little lonely, but as the innkeeper's daughter, she was used to meetings and partings.

She understood that this wasn't necessarily a final farewell,

"See you again!"

she said with a smile.

When someone says something like that, it makes me want to stop by this town and stay at this inn again next time, so Nonna was quite the savvy businesswoman.

And so I left Jampemon behind and walked northeast along the highway, out of the Duchy of Travoia and toward Odine, the nation of magic.

The troublesome thing about traveling in this world was that the only way to learn what lay ahead on the road was by asking someone.

It wasn't that the concept of maps, or actual maps themselves, didn't exist, but such things were probably kept under strict state control.

At least a wanderer like me couldn't obtain one so easily.

Of course, if I'd lived somewhere for a long time—for example, I'd spent more than ten years in the Kingdom of Rudoria—I could at least make a rough guess at the shape and size of the surrounding countries.

That was why, when I traveled from the Kingdom of Rudoria to the Republic of Vilestrika, I walked through the forest and forced my way across Paulogia.

But if I tried the same thing in a cluster of small nations, I would undoubtedly get lost.

The roads that detoured around mountains and forests could sometimes feel needlessly long, but ultimately, simply following the roads was probably the fastest way.

Now, ahead along this northeast-bound highway lay the Kingdom of Aldeno, another small nation with only a single city to its name.

Its sole city was also named Aldeno, which made it easy to remember and gave me a favorable impression.

Farther north along the highway from Aldeno lay Fokka, a city in the Republic of Tsiar, a country with a large lake and also known as the Water Jar Nation.

If I took a ship from Fokka and headed north across the lake, I would reach Lulonte on the opposite shore, also a city of the Republic of Tsiar.

Incidentally, the lake itself was also called Lake Tsiar, and apparently the Republic of Tsiar had taken its name after pledging to live alongside it.

And if I followed the northeast road from Lulonte, I would find Odine, my destination.

Listing the names of the towns and countries makes it sound complicated, but in terms of distance, they weren't all that far apart.

Since I was traveling on foot, it would take me some time, but the distance from one city to the next was at most two or three days on foot.

Of course, if I used a carriage, I could probably travel from one city to the next within a single day.

Well, yeah.

But I get motion sick, so absolutely not.

I continued along the highway, camping out along the way, and by the time I was probably nearing Aldeno, the sole city in the Kingdom of Aldeno, rows of apple trees had begun to appear even from the road.

Indeed, fruit production flourished in the Kingdom of Aldeno.

Many farmers were walking among the fruit trees, harvesting and tending them.

I wondered whether the fruit trees had noticed my curious gaze.

One of the fruit trees near the highway asked me whether I wanted an apple.

It was a very welcome offer, since my throat was parched from walking, but... I smiled and shook my head.

To that tree, an apple was simply part of itself, and that was undeniably true, but the farmers tending it saw things differently.

Even if I obtained an apple with the tree's permission, I'd look like nothing but a thief to them.

In that regard, there was an unbridgeable difference in sensibility between humans and high elves.

Naturally, there was a similar gap between plants and humans.

Even so, the countless fruit trees growing here lived unhurried lives while being tended by human hands.

Watching that scene somehow made me feel happy and lighthearted.

But that was when it happened.

Far beyond the rows of fruit trees, a loud boom and screams came drifting on the wind.

When I looked, I saw an apple tree snapped and toppled over, with a gigantic boar thrusting its head into it and greedily devouring the fruit.

Compared with the trees in the forest, the apple trees seemed somewhat slender, but even so, they weren't so frail that an ordinary boar could snap one with a single charge.

So, the creature snapping the trees and devouring their fruit was—

"A G-Greed Boar! Somebody! Go fetch adventurers from town!!"

Sure enough, just as the shout had said, it was a Greed Boar.

In other words, it was a kind of monster boasting a massive body and physical strength utterly incomparable to that of an ordinary boar.