With the dusk about to show itself, I barely make it in time before the gate closed, well nothing bad will happen since I have the goddess blessings with me so I'm sure I can survive that overnight, plus there are a group of people that are called as slum that doesn't live inside the country, wandering around the dangerous open field at night trying their best to survive
As it turns out, the open field are also part of the dungeon that can lead me to other countries as well (kinda, while technically it's not a dungeon, one could said it's the first part of the dungeon and you could find the wormhole somewhere out there), but the based on the map given in the random malignant chest, I'm sure there's a reason they sent me to Estel country out of all the places, well maybe the only reason is that it's the closest from my spawning point in this world and it's their way to care for me. As I keep thinking about it, it's my turn to be scanned by the goddess orb, it's like an ID scanner that you will find in the airport where they will scan those who enter and those who leave, and based on what had been told to me by that download sensation this evening, I can just enter freely, since, well, it's a goddess scanner, and Goddess Achalasia herself make it, and since she gave me the option to reincarnated into her world, I'm 100% sure she had taken care of it... and she does (well not like I doubted her, but since it's my first time being scanned by those massive autonomous orb, I can't help but to feel a little bit of nervous)
"Oh, so you are a traveller, it's rare to be one this day" [Guard]
"Everyone said that" [Ash]
Having a friendly conversation with the guard, he told me that the orb detected me as a traveller. In this world, those who are born outside of any country or those that were born in the dungeon get this title, kinda like a refugee in a sense but there's nothing special about it, you just don't get the special treatment as the citizen of said country said like lower tax etc but it's the same back on earth, maybe there's one more difference, traveler can work in any country in this world which is nice in my opinion
Even the adventure Infront are actually from another country, and as I listened to their conversation, some of the confusion I had become clear, well while it's technically true that the open field just now can be considered a dungeon, the real dungeon are inside the wormhole and that said wormhole is one of a few options to travel safely from country to country. They are currently escorting a scholar who are researching the thing CCTV thing called as The Watcher, one of the theory he proposed is that the said Watcher are kinda like the dungeon way of protecting themselves from something and that anyone that see something amiss inside the dungeon can be sent to help the dungeon, interesting, the information given to me doesn't explain that much about the Watcher, maybe because the goddess wanted me to find it out by myself as part of a trial for me or maybe it's a forbidden fruit that shouldn't be touch by human, both seem plausible at this point of time so the best course of action should be me finding more information about it, but personally, I find the first option to be more plausible, if the goddess doesn't want me to figured the mystery behind it, she would said something along "don't go there etc" but she doesn't, so I guess it's a vague green light for me
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As the conversation with the friendly guard come to the end, he recommends me a nice inn for me to settle down for the day, in which I did. The inn were closed by so I decided to go straight into the inn.
Along the way, the trace of a busy street as evidence of the merchant and stall closing down one by one become quite, in a relaxing way. And there's appear to be one stall that sell Kebab, should try that one.
Infront of me are two Children (well, kinda, my body is that of a 17 years old while my mind is that of a 20 years old, not that much of difference to be honest) begging for food and in quite some amount, amounting for ten people, and things don't look so good
"Listen here you filth, I don't run a charity here, so just get lost!" [Stall owner]
As he said that, he threw away some charcoal to them, seeing this...
"I would like to buy 11 of those kebab please" [Ash]
I just had to do it, no way I can just leave this
"I'm warning you sir, they are not to be fed or else they will always come back and begging you for food!" [Stall owner]
"That's fine by me, so if you could" [Ash]
"Sigh... Don't said I don't warned you" [Stall owner]
Complaints as he did, he still did the job done, and quickly at that, as I paid the amount he told, the price doesn't match up, it's actually lower than it should be! Huh... so he is a pretty nice guy
"My my, Thank you" [Ash]
"Just get out of here!" [Stall owner]
As I said that with a smile, I asked the two kid to lead me to their home but...
"We are homeless... no parents... no home... just the ten of us" [Fox girl]
"I see..." [Ash]
Looks like I touch something sensitive... well crap
But nevertheless, they still guided me to their home, made out of cardboard and some bricks as the bases.
(Can I even called that a bricks though...) [Ash]
As the two oldest children called the other, they come rushing to me, and now I'm surrounded
"Hey, where are your manner!" [Human boy]
At the scold of the eldest one, they stop, and this give me some space to move and gave them the kebab one by one
"Thank you Brother!" [Little girl]
"You are welcome!" [Ash]
(...) [Ash]
(Something missing... Water, I don't buy any water for them! Wait, doesn't my item bag came with food and water, I should gave it to them) [Ash]
As I checked my item bag, something amiss
(There's eleven set of bread and water... coincidence?) [Ash]
Well, what important now is that I have enough for them as well as for myself, so I should bring them out for now
As I bring them out and give it to them, they smile from ear to ear, huh... such a pure smile but... they are homeless. Does the country abandoned them? There must be a reason for it. Well, I should ask them later, I mean I doesn't even ask their name yet so
"What is your name?" [Ash]
As the eldest are about to answer
ROAR!!!
A loud roar, and the Watcher being displayed maxed out at the sky, as if a giant big screen being laid out, and it show a malignant wormhole just inside the country border, and a Behemoth cone out from it