"It was a shorter trip than I expected," Yurine said. She was getting off the ship with Yu.
"Hmm, you lose track of time when you're chatting. Besides, shouldn't you have already taken this route? You should have been able to calculate how long it would take."
"It was shorter than I expected, though."
They had boarded the ship in the morning and the sun was high in the sky, where he could now see a faint glimmer through the clouds. The captain had said that normally the journey would have been shorter, but they were going against the wind.
As they continued walking, he looked around, the gothic design of the town of Redchapel was depressing. The red brick roofs of the buildings were dark, the colors of the walls were dark. Even the sky was dark above Redchapel.
"How do people live here? It's a very depressing, demotivating city."
The people of the city didn't seem happy either. How could they be happy anyway? It was not enough that the atmosphere of this dark city made people depressed, they also had to live in fear of murderers.
"They are all sulking, all these people are like volcanoes ready to explode. And why can I only see people?"
In the capital, it was possible to see different kinds of creatures on every corner, but in Redchapel he could only see humans, except for two people.
One of them was a fox-eared archer who was on the same ship with them, and the other, of course, was Yurine.
"The Principality of Rolderhelm consists of four islands. The smallest and most populous island is the center of the country and, like the country itself, is named after the city Rolderhelm. To the west of Rolderhelm is Vesthelm, to the south is Southelm. To the east is Easthelm, where we are now, the largest of the four islands that make up the country." Yurine suddenly started talking as they walked. "Don't misunderstand, it's not that I'm trying to make conversation with you; I'm telling you so you won't bother me with your ignorance."
"Thank you, dear sword fairy."
"Hmph."
Yu realized that the islands got their names from English. He wondered how many years the islands had been named this way? Was it Denise who had named the islands, or had other inter-world travelers centuries ago?
"The central part of Easthelm is mostly populated. The northern part is separated by long mountain ranges and consists of the Black Forest, inhabited by goblins and other monsters. The monsters can't swim or build ships, so they can't cross to the other islands."
"But don't they cross the mountains and attack south? I don't understand why soldiers and wizards didn't go and kill them all until now."
"The mountains are not easy to cross. The mountains and the coast are constantly guarded by patrols, preventing the monsters from crossing. But the monsters still appear on the human part of the island, coming out of the forests near the villages, attacking, looting and kidnapping women."
Yurine was probably relaying information she had heard from her mother when the monsters' behavior reminded Yu of an anime he had watched.
"In the past years, it was discovered that the monsters traveled south through tunnels. It turns out that there are huge underground pathways under Easthelm. The tunnels are being destroyed, but since the monster attacks haven't stopped, there must be many more passages that humans haven't detected yet."
"But why don't humans attack the monsters by crossing the mountains or landing on the coast from the sea? They are humans, they will find a way to cross the mountains, and if they can't, they can still land on the coast. They should have eradicated those monsters by now."
Maybe they were afraid that if all the monsters were killed, the adventurers would be jobless, so they didn't move to kill all the monsters.
"The forest. North of Easthelm is a virgin forest. It is called the Black Forest and it is said that people cannot find their way in it. They could have tried to burn the forests, but they worship the Goddess of Earth, so burning the forests is forbidden."
"Does the Goddess of Earth also forbid monsters from attacking humans?"
"I don't know, but it seems that humans are not as smart as me, if it were me I would have burned down the forest already." Yurine grunted. "Why are we talking about this anyway? I don't care what happens to stupid people as long as I'm not the target of monster attacks."
"You started the conversation. Anyway, I try not to care what happens to other people either."
He couldn't just say he didn't care, he was secretly interested in what happened to others, even if he didn't want to be. Especially after Camaeron Don, he understood this better.
But he was still selfish. When asked if it was him or someone he didn't know who was going to die, Yu Valarfin didn't think when he answered. He would rather someone he didn't know die than himself, no matter who it was.
His conscience might bother him, as it did with Camaeron Don, but he would still sacrifice others to live, no matter how many times he had to make the choice.
And possibly, depending on the extent of his love for those he knew, he might also prefer the death of someone he knew to his own death.
He didn't want innocent people to get hurt, of course, and he would make sure that good people lived good lives if he could, but when it came to his own life, he would sacrifice people's lives, good or bad.
"Or I will sacrifice another human being for the life of someone else I love. Even if the person I sacrifice may be someone else's loved one. I am selfish."
He tried to comfort himself by saying that every human being would make the same choices, but the thought that there were indeed people out there with the personality of a hero made him feel worse.
"Did I ever tell you that you contradict yourself?"
Yurine looked down on other people, saying she didn't care about them. Even the reason she saved Yu and practiced healing magic every day was for her mother's sake.
But she had acted to save Marino, while she just watched when Yu killed Camaeron.
Yurine still looked down on everyone, but she had the potential to act to save people when her own interests were not harmed.
"The reason for this contradiction must be her age, as she grows older, her character will settle. When I was younger, I too thought it was cool to be reckless."
Of course, Yu soon realized how silly the reckless, emo, bad boy fashions of his childhood were, and quickly recovered.
"Yurine wanting to save other people could put us in danger."
There was no guarantee that she would try to save someone else in the future. The reason she had saved Marino was because her mother was going to save someone in danger, but Yu's influence made her put that thought aside. There was no point in putting themselves in danger for people they didn't know for no reason.
But there was no guarantee that she wouldn't try to save someone else in the future. Again, by saying that her mother would do the same, she could put herself and Yu, who would follow her no matter what, in the middle of danger and they could start fighting for a person they didn't know, a person they didn't care about.
Not to mention the danger of the scenario. Probably the men who beat Marino didn't reported about the Yurine because they were afraid of Pepe Don, which is why Yu and Yurine got out of the situation unscathed, but it's not certain that they would have the same luck in another situation.
And it would be even more painful if they found out that the people they had saved were not worth saving.
"Rie died because she saved someone who wasn't worth saving, just like me."
"What do you think, stupid human?" Yurine asked when she saw Yu staring at her without even blinking.
"I see father and daughter are close enough to wonder what each other thinks, how nice."
She wanted to tell Yurine what she was thinking, but she thought she couldn't take it when Yurine got angry.
"I was wondering if we were going to spend the night in the Redchapel or go straight to the Wizarding Academy."
They had work to do in the Redchapel, but they could do it after they returned from the Wizarding Academy.
"If we leave now, it will be evening when we get there." He wanted to learn Yurine's opinion before deciding what to do. "There is a village next to the Wizarding Academy, we can spend the night there and go to the academy in the morning. If we decide to stay here, we can start searching for the letters now and after spending the night in an inn, we can leave for the academy in the morning and arrive there at noon."
Yu had learned about the time on the road from Lucia. At the same time, Lucia had said that it would be better to go to the academy without spending too much time in Redchapel. Yurine agreed with her.
"Let's go now, it's an ugly city."
"Then the next thing is to find out how to get there."
"You don't know how to get there?"
"I heard it from Lucia, but it's a matter of finding a car. I thought you'd know how to get there since you've been this way before."
"We had our own transportation."
"Where did you leave it?"
"I don't know, I was sleeping the last time we went to Rolderhelm."
"What do you mean you don't know? Who knows how much that thing costs... Off..."
In the end, neither of them knew how to get to the Wizarding Academy and the only thing to do was to ask someone. Yu chose the person who seemed the most polite to his eyes.
"What happened- huh? What do you want?"
Seeing a white-haired half-human next to Yu, the red-haired man's tone changed quickly and became stern.
When Yu saw the man's reaction to Yurine, he wanted to punch him. What prevented him from doing so was the possibility that the guy he wanted to punch would be surrounded by his friends in a few seconds.
"We are looking for a car to go to Urta."
"Go to the municipality, look around, you'll find some."
Yu didn't even feel the need to thank the man, he decided that he needed to improve his prejudices as the one he thought was the nicest of them all turned out to be such a jerk.