‘…Uh, didn’t she say that Rikardo was a ‘little cold’ this year?”

‘She did say that!’

‘Then what is this?’

I said as I pointed to a nearby puddle.

It was covered in a layer of ice.

‘Oh, it’s a frozen puddle!’

‘Exactly. …How can the temperature change so much at this distance?’

It was likely about 25 degrees in Mariardo.

While here, it was already below 0.

Even though the Proud Wolf could travel very fast, it didn’t seem likely that the temperature could drop so low in 30 minutes…

I hadn’t heard anything about Rikardo being this cold. This was clearly an abnormal situation.

It would be for the best not to get close to any strange place.

It would be fine if it was just a little cold. But as it was now, there was clearly something abnormal that was causing it.

If I continued on, I might get involved in whatever it was.

‘…Alright, let’s turn around. This might be a sign of an abnormal situation.’

It seemed that odd things kept happening to me ever since I came to this world.

And I saw no reason to go out of my way to stick my head into a place where it was obvious that something was up.

‘What! We’re going back! What a ha.s.sle!’

‘What about all the delicious food in Rikardo?’

…But when I tried to go back, the slimes immediately rejected the idea.

As we hadn’t even traveled for very long, I a.s.sumed it wouldn’t matter too much…

That being said, the food was definitely alluring.

Maybe I could go to the restaurant that Tina had suggested. And then we could leave.

‘Alright. We’ll go and eat. Then I’ll consider what to do from there.’

‘Yes!’

Okay. We’ll go and eat. If the food isn’t much better than the meat I had in Mariardo, then I will turn around and leave.

There was a smaller chance of being caught up in something if it was just a short visit.

And so, after briefly considering turning back, we continued on our way to Rikardo.

‘I can see it now!’

‘Everyone looks cold!’

About 20 minutes had now pa.s.sed.

We could now see the end of the road and the town’s gate.

The town was surrounded in snow and it looked very cold.

I was already wearing the fur coat that I had bought.

I had not expected a coat that I just bought out of grat.i.tude to become useful so quickly.

“…You must be awfully strange to come to Rikardo at a time like this.”

A guard said as I tried to go through the gate.

He was wearing very thick and warm-looking clothes made of fur.

I doubted he would be able to fight like that…but I suppose it was better than dying from the cold.

“I heard that Rikardo has great food.”

“We do have great food. But I don’t know if it’s worth dying for.”

“…Is something happening here that’s killing people?”

“Aye. Several have died from the cold these past few days. But the temperature here was normal only 10 days ago… We are now burning all of the firewood we had in stock. But it won’t last long.”

I see.

You would have to burn a lot of wood in this cold, or people would die.

But if it happened so suddenly, they wouldn’t have had much time to prepare.

“Has anything happened that was strange, other than the cold?”

“No. Monsters are normal. Though, the cold makes you slow, so I wouldn’t advise that you go out there. …You’re an Adventurer? If you plan on staying here, it would help if you accepted quests for gathering firewood. We need all of the help we can get.”

“…I understand. If I do stay here, I will look for those quests.”

“Thank you.”

…It seemed that at this point, Rikardo was still making firewood.

But firewood needed to be dried out first if you wanted it to burn well…

So they must be in a very desperate situation to have to use new firewood.

I thought about this as I looked around.

‘…There’s a lot of strange smoke.’

‘Yes. It smells burnt!’

Black pillars of smoke rose all over the town.

It was probably firewood that was of bad quality and not dried properly.

Also, perhaps the houses were not built to be able to burn lots of firewood.

They didn’t have chimneys and the walls were not insulated well.

Burning such bad firewood here could lead to carbon monoxide poisoning.

…Well, this was another world. So I would like to believe they had a way of dealing with such things.