Despite being within Faramouth the village was still quite, deep within the forest and thus it took the better part of the day to leave the forest. By the time they had left the confines of the forest the sun had already crested past it's midway point and Amelie and Kotori broke for lunch.
The Faramouth kingdom was quite far north and thus even though the sun was shining it was still rather chilly.
They ate a simple meal of bread along with hazelnut butter and a few strips of dried meat.
"Do you know what's the Faramouth Kingdom like?" Kotori asked in between bites.
"Hmmm, I don't know much. I just know they are pretty isolated as a result of the Atlea forest." Amelie said thoughtfully
"You're mom was an adventurer do you know anything about that?" Kotori continued asking
"Well, I was brought to the village when I was a baby so I don't really have much memories of Faramouth in general" Amelie said absentmindedly
[I guess that's right] Kotori realized that asking Amelie about the Faramouth Kingdom was pointless.
Still, She wanted to know what adventurers did and what kind of purpose they held.
[I guess I'll have to find out when I get there]
The city they were heading for wasn't the capital, but rather a frontier city. Despite the fact it was a smaller city on the frontier it was still likely that they still had adventurers.
Kotori was very excited at the thought of becoming an adventurer. It was the quintessential fantasy job and she couldn't wait until she was able to go on quests or kill powerful monsters. Her experience with killing the King Lizard had made her want to test her hunter skill even further.
[Plus it was tasty] Kotori who hadn't tasted sugar ever since she entered the elf village greatly craved eating sugar and desperately wanted to eat something sweet.
It greatly saddened her when she found out that when she used her [Hunter] skill on smaller weaker monsters it would make a glowing ball only about the size of a bean.
When Kotori tried one, and it tastes exactly like a sugar tablet. The flavor was as in-depth as the lizard's ball and thus she didn't feel a strong need to eat them
She fed these to Shu and Umi who greedily ate them up.
It seemed that it had diminishing returns. The bonuses to stats for Shu and Umi started to plateau after the first few glowing beans.
Kotori's journey with Amelie Continued. Soon the trails they were walking on turned into dirt paths and eventually they came across a few sparsely populated villages. The scene was nostalgic to Kotori. She used to live in one of these villages and seeing the life of the villagers made her reminisce.
In truth, Kotori had wanted to go south to exact her revenge on Count Derkin who had killed her family, but over three years had passed since Kotori had last been at the village and it was likely he had already left back to the Atlea capital.
Kotori decided very early on that she would go to the Faramouth kingdom and grow even stronger.
[That bastard will get it!] Kotori thought, palming the flute that hung at her side.
Despite her outwardly easygoing manner Kotori still ultimately was from her encounter with the count and his men that night.
She would have nightmares about the night. Amelie had even woken her up a couple of times when they were particularly bad.
The scene of her father's bloodstained chest always stuck out in these moments.
This is why Kotori would exact her retribution with no hesitation.
The evening quickly approached and Kotori and Amelie began to settle down for the night.
They were staying at a small village inn. Since people rarely stayed at it they were given an especially cheap rate. Frankly, the man who ran the inn was quite nice and wanted to even let them stay for free.
His name was Brom and when they asked about the room fees he just waved his hands and said
"Ahh, we don't get many travelers around her feel free to use these empty rooms, not like we are running out any time soon"
Kotori, still insisted they pay, and eventually, the man relented and let them pay.
He still gave them a heavily reduced rate that was basically, like giving the rooms away but Kotori couldn't bully him any further.
"You two want anything to eat?" He asked. "We have some leftover rabbit stew. My wife made it so it's quite good!"
He paused then said
"Oh, It's on the house don't worry about paying for it."
Kotori who didn't eat much during lunch gratefully took the offer.
She ate dinner with the man and his family. He had a young son named Wally who seemed to have developed a bit of a kid crush on Kotori. He spent a lot of time staring at Kotori while she ate.
This was the first time Kotori had felt herself being leered at and it was an unusual experience. Since she was male in her past life she felt very out of place.
She tried to ignore it and focus on her food. The man wasn't lying, the stew was quite good. It had a bit of gamey flavor that was wonderfully covered and accented by a floral spice that made it very appealing.
That night they slept in straw mattresses with warm blankets.
Amelie fell asleep very quickly
Kotori herself spent much of the night preparing for the next day then fell into a dreamless sleep