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Despite being fed way tastier food in the castle, the two of them seemed to be enjoying the wild boar meat a ton. It was likely that they were broke. But that was fine.

“Coming back to why I’m on good terms with the pops here. It’s because I hunt and bring the meat that they serve here.”
“You can hunt?”
“You two should be able to do it too, no? At the Collegium I heard that a man and woman pair with a high status for their age had recently become adventurers.”
“It’s not like we can’t, but the dismantling is a bit…”
“I see. That is a bit troublesome.”

It was true that disassembling could turn out to be a challenging task for them, given they had spent their entire lives as high school students in Japan until recently. Though, I wasn’t any different.

“Then let’s continue where we left off. You asked who I was, right?”

I asked, figuring that if it was these two they might finally comprehend my invented introduction written in the style of a girly anime. One would likely think of me as annoying, however, I couldn’t back down due to my stubbornness.

“I’m Finis. 14 years old…”

◇◇◇

One should think of when to stop being stubborn. For starters, one should think if there is even any point in being stubborn in the first place. Those were the thoughts that ran through my mind as I saw Fujiwara’s vacant expression.

Fumitsuki, on the other hand, appeared to be tackling it with a smile.

“Um…”
“And that’s my life’s story.”

I tried to imply that I wasn’t planning on meddling with their affairs, so I would expect them not to meddle with mine. Noticing that, Fujiwara wiped the sweat from his brow and nodded in agreement.

“Simply put, as long as you don’t disturb me I won’t do anything to you.”
“So, Fini…”
“Finis.”
“But why? Doesn’t the old man here call you Fini?” Fujiwara asked.
“I don’t know why, but I get goosebumps whenever you call me that, Michihisa.”

I was telling the truth. I didn’t want to see his disappointed expression every time I turned him down. I figured he should go and try being called Michi, or something, by some of the guys in the class that he wasn’t that friendly with.

I also tried referring to him as Michi in my head, but it was more annoying than I’d expected so I gave it up.

“U-Um… Are you going to be staying here, Fini?”
“I’m thinking of going to the royal capital of Fraus. Though, I don’t know how to get there.”
“Why do you want to go there?”
“Because that’s the most bustling place of them all, why else? That’s every ordinary town girl’s dream.”

I believed it was normal for people to want to visit the royal capital without actually having anything to do there. And besides, in this world, thanks to the power of the spirits, the central parts of a kingdom were more prosperous.

Rather, there weren’t a lot of people that would ask the same question as Fumitsuki.

“I- I see. Would you like us to show you the way?”
“Did you come from the capital?”
“Yes. It took about 5 days to get here.”

If 5 days is what it took them then it would likely differ depending on the form of transportation. I also had to consider the total travel time for one day. There was also the matter of stopping by towns when traveling.

“Five… Oh yea. It did take us five days. Hahaha. You’re right… Fufufu.”

Fujiwara suddenly started laughing for some reason. At the same time, Fumitsuki seemed to have remembered something and her face turned bright red.

“It did take us 5 days of running…”
“How about we go back to what we were talking about?”

I asked after having understood that they’d taken quite the erratic method to get here.

“You’re right. Sorry about that. The capital is east of here. You’ll get there if you go out the East Gate and follow the path. If you don’t stop at any towns and run for the whole way just like we did then it’ll take you about 5 days…”
“I see. I may use it as a reference.”

Just what were those two doing. They’d escaped from the castle without a coin to their name and hadn’t been able to get into any towns because of that. They likely hadn’t eaten anything at all.

“Did you not stop at any towns because you didn’t have money? Wouldn’t it have been better if you registered as adventurers at the capital and raised your rank before moving anywhere?”
“We want to leave this kingdom as soon as possible. And we also had to leave the capital a bit early. That’s also why we came to this town that’s close to the border.”
“And you couldn’t get through, right?”
“Become an adventurer is the shortcut average folks can take. So that’s why we came here, became adventurers, and are now working hard so that the Gui… I mean, the Collegium and Duchesse will approve of us.”

I could feel his pain. Collegium Duchesse was truly a mouthful. So was Collegium Venato.

Luckily, I could tell that they weren’t lying to me. With Fumitsuki’s Appraisal, they would’ve been able to find edible nuts and wild plants, and medicinal herbs wouldn’t be a problem either. It was also possible to negotiate with the gatekeeper to get into town first and pay the fee later.

Furthermore, from what I’d heard you could also get training here before experiencing real combat. The training ground here was managed by former adventurers who would gladly spar with trainees. According to rumors, newcomers weren’t fond of training, so those who did like it were seen as quite valuable.

“Is there a kingdom you want to go to?” I asked.
“For now, we’re thinking of heading to Aquilus after crossing the border. After that, we’ll take a boat to Caeruleus, south of Aquilus. And from there we’ll cross the sea south of Fraus to Rubel in the east. If all goes well we’re hoping to get to Viridis, which is north of Rubel.”
“You’ll be going around the world.”
“Yes. You can think of it like a journey to train oneself.”

A round-the-world trip really could only be taken as a hobby or for some kind of training. Though that was when thinking by this world’s standards. However, I wasn’t sure if these two heroes weren’t doing it with some other goal in mind.

Let’s hope they don’t turn against me. I was glad I’d gotten some good information out of them. There were 6 kingdoms with spirits in their core. In addition to Fraus, I’d just learned of four more, and also gotten a rough estimate of their locations.

There weren’t maps in this world, at least they weren’t that common, and even the names of kingdoms did not come up often in day-to-day conversations. Frankly, whenever I would hear a name come up in a conversation, most of the time I wouldn’t know if it was the name of a town or kingdom.

So although this encounter had been quite unexpected, I’d ended up getting quite a good return on it, far more than what I’d imagined. A kingdom’s castle was likely to have a map, and given Fujiwara had the Spy skill, he might have known of a lot of things.

I made it a point to get more information out of him in the future.