The Anomaly that Yu and the others had taken out was officially designated “owlbear.” After the encounter, the man joined them in the car and showed them to where he lived.
“Thank you so much. I thought my luck had finally run out,” he said.
They’d come to a small village in the mountains, but all of its original residents were already gone. The man, his wife, and their children were living in an abandoned house there with what looked to be about five other families. He told the travelers their story.
“You came from Fukuoka?!” Ijuin asked, bewildered.
“It was either leave or starve to death,” one of the refugees replied. “There’s just no food, no medicine...” The kids were off playing together while the adults had come to discuss their plight with Yu and his friends. “When we left, we learned we could make a better life for ourselves out in the wilderness.”
“We were off in the mountains around Maizuru, so I feel you there,” Ijuin said.
“We’ve been having more problems with wandering Anomalies lately, though. To say nothing of the wild animals, of course.”
“But lemme guess,” Natsuki chimed in. “It’s still better than Fukuoka.”
“Easily,” the man said. “Things aren’t without hardship by any measure, but we’re a lot better off out here.”
Ein and Yu were too busy cooking lunch to join the conversation. The girl was butchering chickens and bulbuls in the yard of the house they’d gathered at, while Yu manned the stove as usual.
“I bet the chickens were probably kept here in town before they went feral,” Yu noted.
“A female would have been useful for a steady supply of eggs, but this will do just as well,” Ein replied. “The children are surely malnourished. A feast will do them all some good.”
“How about we roast them over some charcoal?”
They just so happened to have access to a dutch oven and the appropriate fuel. Yu spread open the plucked chicken’s stomach and stuffed it full of potatoes and carrots farmed by the refugees, as well as some dropwort he’d found growing nearby for the fragrance. He finished by seasoning the meat with salt and garlic before sticking it in the preheated dutch oven to cook for an hour.
It would be a while before the main dish was done, so to tide over everyone’s appetite, they grilled up the bulbul meat and some vegetables in the meantime. Before long, both the children and adults started to drift towards the delicious aromas, and they eyed the banquet impatiently. It seemed none of them were skilled enough at hunting for real meat to be on the menu very often.
After sharing a peaceful meal, it was time for the group to be off.
“Here, take this,” Ijuin said. He handed one of the people a piece of paper. It was a map of the routes of Nayuta’s refugee-collection ships. Now that the elvish speakers finally had full control of the city following the local Defense Force’s fall from grace, the settlement was tentatively opening its doors to all who were interested in citizenship.
Just before they left, one of the women offered a few weary parting words.
“Please be careful in Fukuoka,” she said. “It’s a living hell.”
Apart from the sudden detour, the rest of the road to Fukuoka was smooth. They drove nonstop from then on and reached Fukuoka by three in the afternoon. Their destination was the government office in the center, around the Tenjin area near Hakata ward.
Everything was quiet as Natsuki drove along the city street. But that in itself stuck out. The silence.
“Now this is just creepy,” said Natsuki.
“It’s worse than I thought,” Yu agreed.
The red-haired former high schooler slowed down. Fukuoka used to be a hub of activity, with vehicles crisscrossing the highways in uncountable numbers. But there was none of that to be seen anymore. Instead, the once-busy streets were populated with people—refugees—sitting around or lying right in the middle of the road. They were everywhere. Natsuki couldn’t go any faster than a crawl for fear of hitting someone.
They were passing through a district crammed with office buildings, but not one of them was without at least a few shattered windows. Groups of people loitered in front of the largest of them, though they certainly weren’t employees. Their worn and tattered clothes were only matched by the look within their eyes. No matter what these street dwellers were doing, whether that be lying about in the street, chatting among themselves, or sitting beside boiling pots and open fires, they all had that same defeated, shattered, and ultimately dead expression on their faces.
“God, this is no way to live,” Ijuin murmured. “I don’t see even a single shelter for people to sleep in. They’re just using abandoned buildings like a bunch o’ homeless people.”
“Some of those groups are just kids,” Yu pointed out.
“I hate to break it to you, but their parents are probably dead.” Natsuki wore an oddly stoic expression. “I’ve seen it a lot. No one left to look after them, so they take care of themselves.”
“Oh...”
In that sense, Yu supposed their own group wasn’t so different. He looked at the orphans’ eyes and saw pain. They were all gaunt and bony, and several carried iron pipes or random construction tools. Some looked no older than ten.
“It seems...” A subtle sigh escaped through Ein’s nose. “It seems a number of them have resorted to violence to get what they need.”
“Sharp as always,” Natsuki replied. Her words fed into the illusion that she was as unfazed as ever, but there was clear frustration in her tone. “Things might start looking up if they could get some foreign aid or at least some volunteers to help these people out, y’know? But until then, kids’ll keep going hungry, and they’ll keep doing whatever it takes to eat.”
“I don’t see many women,” Yu remarked.