After finishing off a fruit that looked like a melon, we moved to the edge of the city on the opposite side from the castle.
The city is surrounded by a wall about five meters tall.
I don't know if it's humans attacking or monsters raiding, but it's built as what you'd call a walled city.
We climbed up on top of that wall and looked out at the road leading past the gate.
"Not to be rude, but there is totally nothing out here," Shirakawa muttered.
"Fields? Pastures? Yeah, there's seriously no point comparing this to Tokyo," Shirakawa added.
Around the wall, there's nothing but grain fields and pastures spread out. It's really pretty bare.
"Hey, there's majorly nothing here, so let's just go back," Shirakawa suggested.
"No, wait a bit longer," I told her.
"Is something actually gonna show up?" Shirakawa asked.
"Maybe," I answered.
Shirakawa's right that the scenery isn't interesting to look at, but what I'm watching is the far end of the road.
After watching for about ten minutes, I saw movement in the distance down the road.
"Look, Shirakawa. Something's coming," I pointed out.
"Huh? Oh, yeah, you're totally right. What is it?" Shirakawa said.
"Hope it's what I'm thinking..." I murmured.
Just like us watching from inside the Item Box, soldiers were watching the road from a lookout post above the gate.
One of those soldiers called out to the soldiers guarding the gate.
"A caravan's coming! Start getting ready for inspection!"
What was approaching the city was a line of over a dozen carriages.
Maybe to keep the dust out-the people sitting on the driver's seats had cloth wrapped around their faces with only their eyes showing.
When the soldier on the lookout waved big, the caravan people waved back.
"Is this seriously what Kuroi was waiting for?" Shirakawa asked.
"Yeah. Watching how that caravan works, we'll figure out how to get into the city. Like what kind of ID you need, how much it costs, stuff like that," I explained.
"I see. So it's basically info for walking around the city without getting suspicious," Shirakawa noted.
"If it's a simple ID, you could fake one or steal someone else's and use it. Though there's a ton of stuff to deal with-hair style, clothes, face, all that," I added.
When the caravan stopped in front of the gate into the city, about five soldiers came out and started inspecting.
Seems like the dozen-plus carriages aren't all owned by the same merchant-different merchants are gathering together to form a caravan.
Each carriage has three to four people on it, with two guards and the rest merchants, from the looks of it.
"That's totally the ID, I bet," Shirakawa said.
"Yeah, looks like some kind of metal plate," I agreed.
The ID things seem to be metal plates each person wears around their neck, with some kind of crest and letters carved into them.
They don't seem to have any magic effects on them. The soldiers write down the carved letters in a ledger and flip through another ledger to check something.
"Wait, what? What are they even checking?" Shirakawa asked.
"That thing, maybe. Like a wanted list," I answered.
"Ah, totally," Shirakawa nodded.
The carriages carry all kinds of stuff-rolls of cloth, woolen rugs, grain, ore, salt, wood, stone, and what look like slaves.
Dressed in crappy clothes and crammed into cages, they don't look like travelers.
"Look, Kuroi. Those people have completely different braids," Shirakawa pointed out.
"Oh, yeah. Is that the slave hairstyle?" I wondered aloud.
"Probably..." Shirakawa muttered.
The city people have braids going from front to back, but the slave-looking people on the carriages have their hair parted in the middle and braided so the lines go left and right.
"Also, they're literally all women. Seriously, this country is so rotten," Shirakawa added.
"Hey, there's even kids who look like elementary schoolers mixed in, for real," Shirakawa observed.
Maybe slaves aren't only used for sex stuff, but with zero male slaves, the purpose gets pretty limited.
"Maybe it's totally wrong to bring up Japan's morals, but..." Shirakawa started. "This feels so awful, right? What do we do?"
"What do you mean, what do we do?" I asked back.
"Aren't we seriously gonna help them?" Shirakawa asked.
"Don't ask for the impossible. We can't even save our classmates," I reminded her.
"Right... but even little kids, that's just so sad..." Shirakawa trailed off.
"I get what you're saying, but we can't right now. And we don't have any duty to fix the world," I said.
Sorry, but this is a problem happening in this country. It's not something we-who got dragged here from Japan-should be solving.
"Hey, if we totally killed that caked-up old hag, would the world get a little better?" Shirakawa asked.
"Who knows... Looking at how rotten those soldiers are, just taking out the head probably won't cut it," I reasoned.
"Right... yeah, that might be super tough," Shirakawa agreed.
Even if we had attack power like Saizou who was blasting flashy fire magic, with just Item Box and Purification magic, fixing the world is impossible.
Still, if Shirakawa stays bummed out, bringing her to the city for a change of pace would've been pointless.
"But hey, I'll kill every last soldier, so maybe the world gets a little better," I offered.
"Then let's totally kill slave traders too," Shirakawa chimed in.
"If they're crooked merchants," I qualified.
"Wait, what? Aren't literally all slave traders crooked merchants?" Shirakawa asked.
"Not all slaves are pitiful people. There could be criminals, people who can't pay back legit debts-problem cases, right?" I explained.
"But a little kid, that's completely different..." Shirakawa argued.
"Well, I think that kid's a pure victim... but maybe staying home would've been even worse," I pointed out.
"It's super complicated..." Shirakawa sighed.
"Yeah. We're not politicians or judges," I concluded.
After that, we picked one carriage and followed it.
I figured the guys who finished guarding would head to the Guild to report, but sadly it seemed they were hired by a shop, so we couldn't find where the Guild was.
Trivia:
- Kuroi notices the slave women's braids run left and right from a center part, opposite the front-to-back style of city residents, hinting that hairstyle is a visible marker of slave status that could matter for future disguises or identification.
- The caravan members wrap cloth around their faces leaving only eyes exposed to block dust, a practical detail that also conveniently hides identities and could be exploited later.
- Kuroi's plan to follow a carriage to the Guild fails because the guards were shop-hired rather than Guild-affiliated, quietly establishing that not all security work routes through the Guild and that information networks in this world are fragmented.
Notes:
• Shirakawa - Family name of Shirakawa Kiyoka, the dark-skinned gyaru and classmate of the protagonist who was summoned alongside him to another world.
• Kuroi - First-person narrator and Item Box user. Male protagonist summoned to another world. Has killed three people. Pragmatic and self-preserving, prioritizing his own safety and return to Japan over helping strangers. Plans to loot the castle and escape. Possesses an Item Box skill that lets him hide and store things, and keeps it constantly active, which may be why his leveling is faster. Cynical and rational, with a forgettable presence that he uses to his advantage. He knows the people of this world are trash and plans to return to Japan. He is a virgin and gets flustered easily by Shirakawa's teasing, often struggling to stay calm when she presses against him.
• Saizou - A classmate with an enormous magic value over 2300 Mete, more than ten times that of an average adult man. He is calm, sharp, and quick to see through the kingdom's scheme to collar the summoned students. He negotiates directly with the Queen and demands an apology and fair treatment as guests. He openly plans to enjoy the other world and agrees to cooperate in defeating the evil dragon. The narrator describes him as a dramatic fat otaku with a smug face.
• Saizo - Classmate who was given fire magic. Normally a quiet otaku in class but seizes the spotlight during the summoning. Uses dramatic chunibyo poses and shows off his power to gain leverage in negotiations. Takes charge of questioning the queen.