The rain continued to pour down, and now the road is flooded and muddy. It also seems that the number of members within the rest stop has grown since then.
A deputy branch manager from Trient began discussing matters of making repairs to the rest stop due to the minor flooding caused in the area. He came out of his room with the group of adventurers that played the part of his escort.
To put it bluntly, the man is a plump, bald, middle-aged man who makes no effort to make himself seem modest. To note, he happened to be one of the men who had joined the group I was gambling with. He turned out to be quite an inveterate gambler and ended up using most of his goods as collateral after he lost all of his gold.
Although why such a deputy manager would be wandering around in a place like this, gambling away most of his possessions, is unknown. What I can say is that, aside from his gambling problem, he possessed abilities of an undisputed level of talent. His ability to manage the affairs of repairing the rest stop was fast and efficient.
As for cleaning out most of his possessions, he was more or less reasonable about it. At the very least, he doesn't outright treat me as some form of villain.
Since making any progress in the rain would be slow and risk damaging the carriage, as well as possibly damaging the Skeleton Horses, I decided to make the most of the situation and gain some information on current events.
In short, I discovered that the Sternbild Kingdom's princess had been successfully healed with the elixir that the Kirika Empire's Heir had brought back, according to the deputy manager.
It is the first case of "Undead Disease" that has ever been cured, and apparently, the Sternbild Kingdom kept a few drops of the elixir for analysis to attempt to reproduce it.
Well, it wasn't discussed how they managed to retrieve the elixir without conquering the elves, but I decided to not press the matter further. At the very least, it seems there won't be any further attempts to attack the elves again. Due to the substantial losses incurred during the war, the idea of going back to subdue the elves had become quite unpopular; with a certain group of nobles returning from the war, leading the opposition.
It seems I wont need to return to defend the elves for the time being. Other than the talk and a short stroll around the rest stop, the day passed without much of further note.