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Chapter 766
Bear-san, Check Out the Town
Kagali-san and I walked through the town.
There was no one outside the buildings.
Everyone must be frozen inside their houses.
“I wonder if there are any places where people live near this town.” (Yuna)
If we find any living people, we could get information.
“Indeed. I’ll go and check the surroundings from above.” (Kagali)
Kagali-san’s body rose high into the sky.
It was really convenient to be able to fly.
Flying might be a little scary, but with the Bear Equipment, it seemed like it would be okay if I fell, so I’d like flying magic.
Kagali-san searched around from the sky.
After a while, she came down.
“Did you see anything?” (Yuna)
“This might be a huge island.” (Kagali)
“Might be an island?” (Yuna)
Her words were vague.
“I can’t see the other side of the mountain from this position. But the area I could see was surrounded by sea except for the mountain side.” (Kagali)
In other words, it might be an island, but it could also be a peninsula.
“So, were there any places where other people might live?” (Yuna)
Kagali-san shook her head.
“I don’t know what’s on the other side of the mountain, since it wasn’t visible. It’s not easy to get to the other side of such a huge mountain. There also seems to be no way around it, so it’s unlikely.” (Kagali)
In other words, there was no way to get information.
“So the only way to get to this town is by boat?” (Yuna)
“Not in the current situation. Unless some idiot digs a tunnel through the mountain.” (Kagali)
Somehow, it felt like she was making fun of me in a roundabout manner.
But Kagali-san didn’t know that I dug a tunnel through the mountain between Crimonia and Mileela, so maybe I was just being paranoid.
“But there’s the sea, so there may be sea trade…” (Yuna)
“I’m not saying there isn’t. But we don’t know where they would even be trading. What’s more, even if there was trade, it’s likely that they were abandoned after seeing the current situation.” (Kagali)
The town and its people were left to freeze. If there was no way to save them, it was not surprising that there was no other choice for anyone who knew what happened but to leave them there.
Even if I was a resident or someone involved, seeing this state, I felt that I might have ended up doing the same thing.
It was best not to get involved.
That said, pirates and thieves might not care.
But there were no signs of destruction in the houses, so it appeared that no thieves had entered.
Were there no pirates or thieves in this area, or did they not want to go near this place?
I would not know that in our current situation.
“What are you going to do now? Find out the cause? Or find out why that ball was glowing?” (Kagali)
What should we do?
Find out why the town froze?
Find out what the meaning of that Bear Signpost?
No one asked me to do this, and this is an unfamiliar town that I don’t know. I didn’t know anyone here. It might seem cruel, but I feel like it had nothing to do with me.
Of course, I felt sorry for them.
However, I really wanted to find out what the [Bear Signpost] pointed to, but in our current situation, I have no idea what to do.
However, when I looked at the frozen town, I couldn’t help but think that there must be some connection between this frozen town and the [Bear Signpost].
The [Bear Signpost] wouldn’t simply point to the frozen town without a reason.
“I’ll look around a bit more.” (Yuna)
“I guess we have no choice. In that case, I’ll join you.” (Kagali)
“Thank you.” (Yuna)
“It’s just a way to kill time, so don’t worry about it.” (Kagali)
I accepted her words at face value.
Exploring the frozen town alone was mentally tough.
I have Swaying Bear and Hugging Bear, but I needed someone to talk to, so I was grateful that Kagali-san was accompanying me.
“Then, if we want to gather information, we should go to a place where people gather.” (Kagali)
Indeed, if we wanted to gather information, we should go to a place where people gathered.
“A Bar?” (Yuna)
“You’re stupid. What’s the point of going to a bar? There will be no one there. Even if there are, they will just be frozen. We can’t talk to people like that.” (Kagali)
In games and manga, if you wanted to gather information, you would first go to a bar. That was why I said that.
“In this case, we should go to a guild.” (Kagali)
“Adventurer’s Guild?” (Yuna)
“The Merchant Guild would be fine, too. Well, I don’t know if there’s a guild in this town, but there should be a place that manages the town.” (Kagali)
“But even if we go to the guild, won’t it be frozen just like the bar.” (Yuna)
“I won’t deny that. But in a situation like this, there should be some documents there.” (Kagali)
As expected of someone with years of experience.
If we couldn’t ask people, we could look for physical documents.
Asking people was not the only way to gather information.
We decided to look for a large building.
The town was quiet, as if time had stopped.
The buildings were frozen, but they were not rotting.
They felt like they were in the refrigerator. 𝖓𝔬𝔳𝖕𝖚𝖇.𝖈𝔬𝔪
“I wonder how much time has passed.” (Yuna)
“We can’t tell just by looking. Maybe if we look into that, we can find out some information.” (Kagali)
Kagali-san was reliable after all.
“That looks like a guild.” (Yuna)
There was a large building in front of Kagali-san’s gaze.
It certainly looked like an Adventurer’s Guild.
Swaying Bear and Hugging Bear carrying us arrived in front of the building.
Like the other buildings, the door was closed and frozen, probably to protect it from the cold.
Kagali-san got off Hugging Bear and approached the door, melting the ice with fire magic.
I noticed that the wood was a little burnt, but kept quiet.
Then when some of the ice on the frozen door melted, we entered the building. The inside of the building was frozen just like the other houses. The tables, chairs, and pillars…
“Is there anyone there?” (Yuna)
“No, they’re probably at the very back. If there’s a fireplace, there will be someone there.” (Kagali)
Just as Kagali-san said, there were people wrapped in blankets at the back. Of course, they were frozen.
“There’s no one at the reception desk.” (Yuna)
“Well, they can’t really work in this situation.” (Kagali)
That was what most people would assume.
If there was a cold wave, it was not time to work. It was normal to stay at home.
Japanese people try to go to work even if there was an earthquake or the trains had stopped.
I’ve seen images of packed trains on TV.
If a disaster occurred at school, they would announce that the school was closed, but I always wondered if that didn’t happen in companies.
Maybe those people who were still working during such times were the so-called corporate slaves.
I might have been poisoned, even though I was not a member of society.
As a professional recluse, I was no good when it came to this.
Kagali-san started investigating the Adventurer’s Guild.
I split up and investigated to see if there were any clues I could find as well.
I found what looked like a request board, so I went to check it out.
But there was nothing on the request board.
“Strange, there’s nothing posted on the request board.” (Yuna)
“That means they didn’t have any requests before this happened.” (Kagali)
Kagali-san was at the reception desk.
“Did you find anything, Kagali-san?” (Yuna)
“I found something, but I can’t confirm if it was useful information.” (Kagali)
“…?” (Yuna)
I didn’t know what that meant, so I went to where Kagali-san was.
Kagali-san was looking at the bookshelf.
There were what looked like files lined up on the bookshelf.
Looking at the documents on the shelves might give us some insight into the situation.
But, as Kagali-san said, it didn’t seem that we would be able to confirm anything from that info.
The bookshelf was frozen, and I couldn’t take out the books.
“Can you melt it with magic?” (Yuna)
“I need fire magic to melt it. And papers burn with fire.” (Kagali)
I understood what Kagali-san was trying to say.
Even if she melted the ice, there was a high probability that the documents would end up getting lit and burnt.
“If you adjust it…” (Yuna)
“If you can do it, you can try. But if I do it, I don’t think it will result in anything.” (Kagali)
Kagali-san looked at the frozen paper on the desk.
The paper was stuck to the desk, and it didn’t seem like it would come off easily.
Kagali-san placed her hand on the paper stuck to the desk and used fire magic. Just when I thought that the ice had melted, the paper burned as well.
“I thought the same thing when I melted the ice on the door, but this ice doesn’t melt with just weak fire. It needs to be strong enough.” (Kagali)
I remember when Kagali-san melted the ice on the door. The door was a little burnt.
“You should try it out.” (Kagali)
I placed the Bear Puppet on the paper on another desk.
Then I used fire magic.
I used the weakest fire magic possible.
The ice didn’t melt.
I put more magic power into it.
The ice melted but the paper burned.
The fire was too strong.
But if it was too weak, it couldn’t melt the ice.
“Kagali-san, what is this ice?” (Yuna)
“It’s not normal ice. Do you remember me saying that something felt off?” (Kagali)
“Yes.” (Yuna)
I believed Kagali-san’s intuition and went forward, and found this frozen town.
“That feeling is the same as the feeling I get from the ice that covers this town.” (Kagali)
“So this ice is different from normal ice?” (Yuna)
“That is the case.” (Kagali)
In other words, it was not a cold wave caused by abnormal weather like in the north.
Was it caused artificially?
Magic circles came to my mind.
I knew that mysterious magic circles have caused many troublesome things in the past.
“What about melting it with hot water?” (Yuna)
“Do you think you can read a wet book?” (Kagali)
Doing so, the papers would stick to each other and make them unreadable.
If we failed to split them up, we would end up tearing them.
“Furthermore, the ink will be washed off, making the text become unreadable.” (Kagali)
That was also a bad outcome.
Even Japanese manga or novels would become unreadable if submerged in water, but the damage to the text and pictures would not be comparable to the documents here that were only written in ink.
The ink in this world easily spreads when submerged in water.
“This will be a lot more troublesome than we expected.” (Yuna)
It looked like we wouldn’t be finding an easy solution any time soon.
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