"Then, in three days. If there is an extension, I will contact you..." (Kaoru)
"I understand. Have a good stay then..."
I left the carriage and the horses at the stables and paid an additional fee to upgrade their care and food. For horses who didn't even get to bathe, food was one of the few pleasures they had, so I didn't skimp on it.
Oh, I need to replenish food for Hang and Bad at the store... Of course, I don't carry around a months worth of horse feed all the time. It's getting low. I think I'll prepare a little more this time.
Then, since we needed money for lodging and purchasing various things, our next destination was—
"Eh……" (Kaoru)
When I went to the money changer and asked if I could exchange my old gold coins for modern gold coins — or "Kaorun gold coins" — they were a bit surprised.
"Such a large amount, huh...?"
Banks and money changers shouldn't be surprised by a small amount of money! That's what it meant to be a "professional who handles money" to handle it calmly...
After that, I exchanged a reasonable amount of money and headed off to find lodging. I actually wanted to exchange more, but I was afraid that exchanging too much at once would attract attention, and it would look extremely suspicious if a young girl had so many old gold coins. I quickly retreated before anyone could be sent to follow me. There was no need to exchange everything here. If I could exchange a certain amount, I could just exchange a little bit here and there. For now, I needed to secure a place to stay...
It was a decent town so there are a few inns, but we would just go somewhere reasonably luxurious. Regardless of the actual situation, we did look like "Two weak girls together." It was unbearable when someone teased us even though I was a stranger. Money was something to be earned and saved to be spent when it was time to spend it. If I didn't spend it to make the trip comfortable, then when would I spend it? That's why, even though I cut back on other living expenses, I didn't skimp on accommodation and food.
"Are there any double rooms available?" (Reiko)
"Yes, it's available. How many nights are you planning to stay?" (Innkeeper)
"For now, it's three nights. If we need to extend the stay, we'll let you know the day before." (Reiko)
It was a high-end inn— no, it was more of a "semi-high-end inn", so they treated us well, even though we had two children with us. Well, we were both wearing pretty good clothes for this world. Apparently there was no bath. Baths were only found in "rather high-class inns."
I left the conversation with the innkeeper to Reiko. I knew more about the inn situation in this world than she did, but you know— That's right, in this world I was seen as around 12 or 13 years old, or at worst 11, and Reiko was seen as around 14 or 15. So when the people at the inn spoke to Reiko instead of me, it just happened that way. The same went for store clerks when we go shopping.
Our heights aren't that different, so why is there such a difference...? Is it because I have a baby face? ...No, I know exactly what you mean, don't say it! In this world, a woman's age is determined by the size of her breasts, dammit!!
Then we were given the key and went to our room on the second floor.
"For now, should I cast a purification spell on it?" (Reiko)
"Please do!" (Kaoru)
Yes, even if there's no bath, it was no problem because Reiko could use this kind of magic. In the past, I would say to them, "Here comes a metal basin filled with a hot water-like potion (with cleaning and disinfecting properties)!" so it wasn't a problem after all. However, as a Japanese person, there were times when I just wanted to get into a bathtub and soak in the hot water. I once impulsively went on a trip to find a hot spring and got caught up in an incident because of that— Well, let's leave that aside.
"Tomorrow and the day after tomorrow we'll be sightseeing. We'll leave in three days. Is that okay?" (Kaoru)
"OK!" (Reiko)
Three days later, we set off eastward.
...No, nothing happened! This is the kind of world it is, so there are no unusual buildings, interesting amusement parks, well-maintained tourist facilities, or anything like that....
Yeah, I knew it. Even if we talk about beautiful natural scenery, most of this world was "nature", and even if you traveled a little, you wouldn't find any particularly unusual scenery —Of course, if I went to mountainous areas or uncharted areas, I was sure there would be beautiful places and magnificent scenery, like waterfalls and lakes, but I didn't have any plans to make such a detour right now. I could travel to such places once I had calmed down and have some free time.
For that reason, we didn't have high expectations for sightseeing, and after taking a couple of days off to rest for Hang and Bad, we continued heading east...
"The sea..."
"The sea, huh..."
"Th-this is……" (A horse)
"The legendary sea..." (The other horse)
No, it's not really a legendary... Anyway, we reached our destination, the eastern coast of the continent. I didn't go into detail on the journey because there wasn't much going on, but it has been a long time since I left the Balmore Kingdom. Here, the events of 73 years ago are merely "a story that was told in a faraway country, with some exaggeration added, and turned into a ridiculous tall tale," and the proper names and appearances of the characters were probably not properly conveyed. Also, since 73 years have passed, it was possible that ordinary people had no idea about this story at all. ...That's right, I don't have to worry about that sort of thing at all.
"Well then, just as planned..."
"Yes, let's establish a base in a moderately sized port town!"
Yes, it was a base. I wanted to live as a human being in this world, but I didn't want to go through unnecessary trouble or live an inconvenient life. However, if our living environment was too far removed from common sense, it could cause various problems if others saw us. So, instead of living in an inn, we would secure a house. We would buy it, not rent it, so that we wouldn't have to mess around with the inside. If we rented, there was no guarantee that someone wouldn't try something strange, like what happened with Atelier Layette.
Sure, it would be easy to crush the other person in a flash, but I didn't want to go through the trouble, and depending on who the other person was and how the situation developed, I might have to disappear from the city, or even the country— Well, rather than worrying about losing money, I'd rather choose the possibility of avoiding trouble. I don't really care about money. I have a lot of gold coins, but I want to have enough to live a normal life, and I don't intend to just laze around without working. If I lived that kind of life, it would be boring and would hinder my chances of finding a partner. Yes. Well, if there was the internet or something I could kill time by just lounging around, but there's nothing here — no internet, no TV, no books, no manga... Well, that's boring.
I exchanged quite a bit of gold coins along the way. Using a bit of clever thinking, I decided to exchange my money just before leaving rather than as soon as I arrived in the city, and I exchanged as much money as I could in towns that had money exchange shops. From the profits from selling potions and the new products I had planned in collaboration with the Abily Company, I was quite wealthy. Most of my assets were in the form of gold coins in my item box. The only other assets I had were the house I gave to the children of Goddess's Eye.
Then, after exchanging large amounts of money in each town, we headed straight to the next town. Even if they tried to follow, the small and light Penelope was being pulled by two top-class silver horses, and they were doped with potions, so there was no way they could catch up on foot or in a carriage. Even if they prepared a horse and hurriedly pursued us, by the time they caught up, we had already changed from the delicate and small Penelope to the sturdy Panzer and sitting in the driver's seat was not two girls but two men (dummies).
Because of this, on a few occasions up until now, shortly after leaving town, we had been overtaken by a group of scurrying, bad-looking men on horseback, but we had never once gotten into any trouble. Of course, the cab remained a dummy until we passed some ill-tempered horsemen returning to the town, and we didn't stop in the town.
The gold coins exchanged were Kaorun gold coins up until around Driszart, but after that they became the gold coins of each country. There was no other way, and I didn't really mind. Once I found a place to settle down, I would exchange the money for gold coins there again. If the young girl were to exchange a large amount of old gold coins at her new home, people would suspect that she had found hidden treasure in a cave or something, and it would definitely cause a commotion. So, for the time being, I just exchanged for gold coins that were currently in circulation. It was a double effort, and I would lose a few percent in fees, but that was unavoidable. It was a small price to pay for safety and protection from trouble.
"For now, let's make this town our first choice and live in an inn for a while and see how it goes?" (Kaoru)
"Yeah. We came to this port town by taking the main road, so it must be a big town around here. There's no reason to skip this place and go to another town, right?" (Reiko)
Reiko also agreed with my proposal. Ok, let's begin the trial period to see if this will become a new world for the two of us, our "town of beginnings"!