458 Running Feels Good
Sir Lolengus saw me off at the gate. He passed over a pouch of gold.
"It will be a long journey. This should serve you well. I have my reservations asking you to take care of everything but it's also true that we are lacking manpower currently. I apologize. It's in your hands."
In the end I only stayed for two days in the federation, but that's not a bad thing.
(Situation was critical after all, wasn't ideal for sightseeing.)
Those ladies must be wanting nothing more than returning home too. I'd like to notify them asap.
They could get sick from worrying too much. I want to avoid delaying this just because I don't feel like it.
I said nothing back to the chairman and passed the gate.
I then entered Acceleration and ran off. I don't wanna get dragged into a mess during this trip so I'm doing this early.
I've got quite the distance to cover too, can't slack off.
Hence, I dash off like attempting a time attack run.
(I haven't had much training lately, this will do just fine.)
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I turned off Acceleration and took a break in a midpoint town I skipped on my way to the federation.
"Phew, I'm not losing a breath despite running so much, can't talk back to people calling me monster no more..."
It's still early in the morning. There's a lot of food stalls offering breakfast here and there.
People on the street seemingly going to work are stopping by.
"This place sure is lively when the federation is having it rough."
That is simply due to all the merchants who decided to open stores here because they were hesitant to enter the federation.
Rather than braving the danger, might as well do business here.
Can't say if they're bold, audacious or shrewd.
The town is enjoying a boom in economy thanks to this phenomenon but that's something I'm ignorant of.
There's nothing for me to stock up in this town. I'm just here for a short break.
I was a bit curious to see what it's like since I skipped it the first time though.
I walked straight on the main street. Once I had my fill, I entered Acceleration again and ran at full speed toward the kingdom.
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My next rest stop is a midpoint village I also skipped the first time.
You could also find stranded merchants hesitant to keep going after hearing the bad rumors about the federation here.
I overheard some of them grumbling about spending money to stay in this utterly unremarkable village.
"They must have left the kingdom before the news broke out and only found out about it in this village. Guess that's the tricky part of timing for you."
It's a midpoint that's too far to go back or to keep going. Of course there must be capable merchants who immediately turned around and resorted to do business at the kingdom.
The merchants that remained here must be the indecisive type or the wait-and-see ones.
The courageous merchants would press on and find themselves in the earlier town. And surely they'd open up shops there.
The deciding factor here is guts. And so, the money all these merchants brought to the village ended up revitalizing it but of course I'm none the wiser about all that stuff.
It's the silver lining to all the bad things that happened in this country.
"Now then, guess I'll resume my march."
I ended up enjoying running under Accelerated state a tad too much.
At this point, it hadn't even been an hour in real world time since I first departed the federation.