After a few hours of eating, they took a moment to rest.

"I've never eaten anything so good in my life!" Kawao said, burping heartily.

"See? I told you! And that was just the beginning! You absolutely have to go to Kaisan sometime. They have the largest selection of grilled dishes."

"Kaisan? What's that?"

"It's the capital of Kasaka. It's far in the north of the country. But if you don't have a next destination yet, you should go there."

'The capital, huh? Maybe I'll find more information there... The people guarding this place. That one guy had the same uniform as those who attacked my village.'

"Shall we stretch our legs a bit? We can get our Nyd-level measured!"

"Nyd... level?"

"Oh right, the Nyd-level is a value that measures the strength of a Nyd. The higher the value, the stronger you are supposed to be."

"Supposed to be?"

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Yeah. The value consists of a measure of physical strength and a value for the usefulness of the Nyd in combat. So, a person's Nyd level can be high even if they're weak or very slow even if they're strong and experienced in combat."

'I see. So I can get an idea of my approximate strength.'

"Shall we?" Koru asked, groaning as he stood up.

"We can burn off some calories while we're at it!"

----------------------------------------

After a short time, they reached the wall.

Right where the hole was, where Kawao had chased Koru.

Citizens and soldiers were working hard to repair the wall.

As they walked past, someone suddenly shouted at them from behind.

"HEY, YOU THERE! WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE!"

They turned around abruptly.

The man Kawao had pulled from the rubble stood before them.

"Oh, it's you! Sorry for yelling. Things are pretty chaotic here. What do you want?"

"We want to get our Nyd levels measured."

"Hmm... We might have an old device in storage. Follow me."

They followed him silently.

He led them to a small house built right against the wall, which luckily remained undamaged during the attack.

"It should be in there. I can't promise it still works, though."

"Either way, thanks for letting us use it."

"Oh, it's the least I can do for you... Oh yeah. Kawao!"

"Hm? How do you know my name?"

"Everyone here knows it since you saved us. By the way, my name is Kinto. I wanted to apologize. I yelled at you back then without reason, even though you had good intentions. I'm really sorry."

"Oh, no need for that! We were all pretty tense in that situation."

"That shouldn't be an excuse for me... I owe you my life. I won't forget that!"

The lock on the door clicked and opened with a loud creak.