Chapter 12:
Wagon and Elderly Man
THE DAY AFTER I bought my briefs, the four of us headed to the city of Zibil so Mr. Chotos could repay his debt at a branch office of the Paisley Company.
This Paisley Company was a fairly large organization, and its main branch was located in another territory.
Zibil was north of Tibar and far larger, structurally speaking. As a person from another world with plenty of spare time to shop and go sightseeing, I decided to accompany Mr. Chotos. This spare time was my only reason for doing so. My goal was merely sightseeing. I was just extremely in the mood to go sightseeing!
It wasn’t that I was racked with worry about an old man going by himself to meet a suspicious, evil company while carrying a large sum of money. It definitely wasn’t that. I didn’t care about him or anything. It’s really important to me that you understand that.
In any case, Zibil was reasonably far away. Our round trip would take about two days, and we would spend a night in Zibil. As such, we obviously needed to bring Teru. Only a demon would leave a five-year-old child alone for two whole days.
“Ah, there’s our ride!” Holding Teru’s hand, Mr. Chotos pointed to a covered wagon in an alley.
“Huh. That wagon’s rather nice for a guy like you, mister,” I said.
This would be our mode of transportation. Mr. Chotos had been getting it together the day before. It was vital, as we would be traveling with Teru. Only a demon from the depths of hell would force a tiny, sickly, five-year-old child to walk a distance that would take a wagon a whole day to travel.
However, although we were going by wagon, it didn’t really take a toll on Mr. Chotos’s budget. It seemed we would be hitching a ride. From what I could tell, there was no one else around, either. We were the only hitchhikers.
In any case, as this would be my first ride in a vehicle in another world, I was thrilled. The wagon was drawn by two horses. Even though this was another world, horses were still horses. They weren’t like that deer with its bizarre, twisted horns and odd half-moon eyes; they were extremely normal, simple horses with gentle eyes.
Structurally speaking, the wagon wasn’t that different from the ones I knew of. Wait a minute… On closer inspection, it was slightly large for a two-horse-drawn wagon. Additionally, an unfamiliar, green, box-like apparatus was fixed underneath the carriage.
What exactly was that weird box? I was super interested. My curiosity began to tingle. This was a bad sign.
If I surrendered to my thirst for knowledge and started examining the wagon for scientific purposes, I might end up spending hours fiddling with it, thereby greatly delaying our departure. I didn’t care much about causing Mr. Chotos trouble. That didn’t matter. Rather, I didn’t want to inconvenience the wagon driver’s delivery schedule with a substantial delay.
I desperately suppressed my urge to pry, averting my gaze from the strange box. I turned my attention to the front of the wagon where the driver would sit and found an elderly man already positioned there. This grandpa was most likely the owner of the wagon.
Before boarding, I greeted him out of gratitude. Showing courtesy is the bare minimum requirement for a cultured man. “Thank you very much for taking us along with you. We’ll be in your care today.”
“Ah, no, no. It’s me who’s in your care.” Because I had suddenly spoken to him, the elderly man looked a little taken aback. However, he soon laughed, showing the white teeth of his valiant, sunbaked face. “I’m also relieved to have the generous golem wielder of rumor as a bodyguard. After all, they’re saying a mana beast has been leaving a disturbing trail of victims on this road.”
What a tender gentleman. The rumors circulating the town were due to the illegal acts of violence Gol and I had committed against the debt collectors the other day. In order to protect ignorant little me from shame, this grandpa praised me and treated me with great kindness. He had earned a great number of my affection points.
After that, I moved to the back of the wagon. I’d thought about asking the grandpa if I could touch the horses before I boarded. Like with monkeys and deer, I appreciated them as noble and delicate creatures that had walked together with humanity throughout history. As such, I held great respect for the species. But in the end, I said and touched nothing. Immediately after I threw a passionate gaze at the horses, I sensed Gol beginning to emit an icy bloodlust toward them.
It had completely slipped my mind, but Gol’s experience with animals consisted entirely of being bullied by wild monkeys and a dinosaur, so she was generally bad with them. These delicate, clever creatures sensed her homicidal intent and grew restless. The old driver had a hard time trying to calm the poor frightened things.
I’m truly sorry for all the inconvenience my partner’s awkwardness has caused you.
“Oof.” My shoulders drooped in disappointment as I climbed aboard.
The interior of the canopied wagon was fairly wide and there wasn’t much cargo. Even if the four of us made ourselves at home, there would be plenty of room. A clean, thick, comfortable blanket was spread in the area where we would sit.
Yup, just as I suspected. The old driver was a most considerate gentleman.
“Hey, you’re dawdling, Nemaki. What were you doing?” Mr. Chotos was already sitting on the blanket with Teru next to him. She seemed eager to ride and bounced up and down in excitement like a small animal.
I plopped down and sat cross-legged in front of Mr. Chotos. “Nah, it’s just that I went to the front to greet the driver.”
“At times you’re strangely polite. Is that something you eastern aristocrats do?”
While we spoke, Gol quietly joined us, crossing her legs and sitting as if to snuggle me. As she did so, I suddenly worried whether Gol would exceed the wagon’s weight restrictions. How much did she weigh?
Honestly, I figured she weighed a considerable amount. At the very least, she went out of her way to seem light, and she evaded my attempts to determine her true weight with the most unorthodox maneuvers. I suspected she was in truth quite heavy, especially due to that moment when I had lifted a limp Gol in my arms after she was damaged by the ancient Earth Dragon’s miasma. She had been fairly hefty.
At the time, I’d thought she weighed the same as a thin girl of average height. Back in the day, I used to sidestep around my younger sister, who had roughly the same frame as Gol, and pick her up. However, I think my sister was a little lighter than Gol. Well, then again, my younger sister was also shorter than Gol, so—
Hm? Younger sister? I had a younger sister? Was this a fragment of my memories I had lost when I was summoned?
Ah, damn it! When I tried to remember, I got nothing but void. What the hell? Explain yourself, Luvel Zairein!
“Tsk,” I clicked my tongue.
Well, whatever. Returning to the issue of Gol’s weight, I estimated that she was weighty enough, but nothing outrageous. During our time in the shabby hideout in the basin, Goltarou hadn’t broken through the floor or anything. Even now, when Gol boarded the wagon, it didn’t seem to creak. That meant that Gol wasn’t as heavy as either a stone statue or her original material, the stone pillar, likely because I’d poured a ton of mana into my Reduce Weight spell when I created her.
Hmm. In the end, no matter how much I thought about it, I couldn’t get a good sense of her weight. Maybe I needed to try lifting her up?
While I pondered this, the wagon began to slowly make its way through the western gate and out of the city. I watched the town of Tibar recede from the back of the wagon. By the gate stood a bored gatekeeper who didn’t look that strong. Both he and the town gradually grew more distant, the image of unremarkable pastoral beauty.
Come to think of it, there was a tall watchtower on the eastern side of the town, but…
“There’s no watchtower on the west side, huh?” I murmured.
“Watchtower?” said Mr. Chotos. “Ah, you’re talking about the observation tower. It’s there to monitor the state of the miasma to the east. It’s covered the neighboring wasteland, but hasn’t yet reached us. The tower’s really mostly there to reassure the folks.”
“Ahh. I see. So that’s how it is.”
It wasn’t for looking out for enemies, then. No wonder Gol and I weren’t questioned when we came from the east. Tibar was a peaceful place, after all. When I’d heard the small nations to the east were constantly at war, I developed the impression that this world was ruled by strife, but that had since proven false.