Generally, people in this time period travel on foot. Even in Japan, that was the mainstream mode of transportation until the Meiji era. Naturally there was only so much distance one could cover in a day, which was about thirty kilometers. And about thirty kilometers out of Lishua, there were inns. A natural development.
Based on city locations, inns and restaurants spring up where travelers typically came to rest. As those establishments grow, they form towns. Where people gathered, so did money. On the flip side, towns and villages at an awkward location or too far off the travel road only decline. People only walk past those places, after all.
The same goes for modern-day Japan, too. Even with public transport and automobiles, it’s difficult for a countryside village in an inconvenient location to not fade away. Even in my home province of Hokkaido, 147 of the 188 towns and villages are endangered.
“Humans act the same in any world, it seems,” Tiamat said, as we walked down the travel road.
“Yeah.” I shrugged.
Across time and space, the nature of humanity never changes.
“Why reference Legend of the Galactic Heroes now? That’s from the anime version, isn’t it?”
“Well, I like it, so I reference it.”
“Humans envy and hate others while craving love. Humans want results without putting in any effort. Humans want to escape their routine, but hesitate to step outside the box. Humans can’t stand someone working hard to achieve something. Humans can’t help but be jealous of the success of others. That’s human nature.”
Do you think they’re helpless? Tiamat added. I don’t. Humans are creatures of emotion. Jealousy, envy, hatred... If we lose these things we are no longer human, but mere robots.
“Now, it seems we’ve caught up to our people in waiting in the meantime of our philosophical discussion of human nature,” Hieronymus brought to our attention.
We were walking leisurely, but the caravan Baze had rescued seemed to have waited there. For three hours! Polite was one way to put it, but I was kind of hoping that they would have been gone by now.
“No way around it now. Let’s make their acquaintance. We may thank or curse them for it later.”
“I hope to thank them then.”
We were already stumbling on a roadblock half a day in. Some journey we were on. In the distance, I could see who appeared to be the leader of the caravan noticing and greeting us.
Judging by the amount of luggage, I had pegged them to be traveling merchants, but I was unfortunately off the mark. To our surprise, they were traveling performers.
While that form of entertainment was mostly a thing of the past in modern-day Japan, I have heard that a band of traveling performers still annually visits the hot springs resorts in Jozankei, for example. It was much more popular back when there was less entertainment readily available. There was no radio, TV, or internet in this world. For the most part, people’s enjoyment came from food and drink. And, perhaps, the marital bed.
“What else would a man and woman do after the sun goes down? Even in Japan today, families in the country are big.”
I was being vague on purpose, but this dragon just had to dig deeper, didn’t she? In any case, families in this world also tended to be big. When most of one’s day is consumed by day-to-day life, there isn’t much space for entertainment. That’s why a band of traveling performances were a welcome source of it. While I can’t attest to the accuracy of it, I once read that leaders of these bands were highly respected and sometimes even stepped in to settle disputes in the towns they traveled to.
“How can I possibly thank you for saving our lives?” the respected leader said as he came up to me.
“Please. Baze is the one responsible for it. No need to thank me. Besides, we are adventurers. We are obligated to help those in need.”
Even though we were F-rank, Tiamat and I were still adventurers, yes sir. Cats and wolves, by the way, could not become adventurers.
“I admire your humility unbecoming of your youth.”
The leader seemed impressed. His name was Murdock, a large man who looked to be in his fifties. Which meant that he was most likely around my age. With a rather rushed set of introductions, our familiarity began to grow.
Mister Murdock then called for a member of his troupe and had him bring over something wrapped in cloth. Definitely a token of gratitude. I didn’t even have to guess. Judging by the size, it was cash.
“Please forgive us for repaying our life debts with money.”
With that, Mister Murdock took off the cloth. What appeared from under it was a pile of gold coins, perhaps fifty of them. That was a lot of money. Even my Chronograph only sold for one hundred gold coins.
“Please! We can’t accept this!”
I pushed it back, a little frazzled. If we did accept it, it meant that we were pressure-selling our kindness.
“Still, we have no other way to repay you. We wouldn’t know what to do if you didn’t accept this.”
“I understand, but...”
We didn’t help them hoping for a reward. Really, it was just a coincidence that we happened to save them. Since Baze was the one who saved them, he should be the one to negotiate this, but I couldn’t expect a Fenrir to do that. In fact, he had chucked all the responsibility to me from the very start. With a nod, our silver-haired beauty reached out and took just four gold coins from the pile.
“This will be enough for our reward, Murdock. We are merely F-rank adventurers.”
Four coins. One per member. That was good. It would have hurt Mister Murdock’s pride to rescind his offer now, but fifty coins was way too much for us not to feel guilty about. So, using our F-rank status as an excuse, she accepted an amount that was harmless to both parties.
“How abstemious...”
“Greed hastens death. An adventurer’s mantra.”
“Yep.”
I smiled at Tiamat as she made a self-grandiose declaration, and picked the conversation up from there.
“Mister Murdock. If you’re still unsatisfied, could we ask to join you for lunch?”
I pointed at the sun, almost directly above us. We had been walking all morning, and it seemed an acceptable time for lunch. I couldn’t tell the exact time, though, since I didn’t have my watch!
“Lunch...?”
A slight shadow crossed Mister Murdock’s expression. Oh? I had only suggested it to make him feel better. Was something the matter?
“Our meals are meager... Nothing we can possibly serve to guests...”
Oh. That’s it?
“Please don’t mind us. We are traveling, too. We’d feel bad if you served us an overly proper meal.”
I also added that we would be contributing some food too. To be honest... just having them cook our food would have been wonderful. Our party, including myself, had zero skills in the kitchen. We had a good amount of gagd meat in our zeer pot on the donkey’s back, but we weren’t sure how we were going to consume it. Mister Milon went through the trouble of packing it for us, but I was worried that we would have to discard it pretty soon. I wouldn’t feel bad for the food if we could eat it all when we had the chance.