‘…Uh, didn’t she say that Rikardo was a ‘little cold’ this year?’’

‘She did say that!’

‘Then what is this?’

I said as I pointed to a nearby puddle .

It was covered in a layer of ice .

‘Oh, it’s a frozen puddle!’

‘Exactly . …How can the temperature change so much at this distance?’

It was likely about 25 degrees in Mariardo .

While here, it was already below 0 .

Even though the Proud Wolf could travel very fast, it didn’t seem likely that the temperature could drop so low in 30 minutes…

I hadn’t heard anything about Rikardo being this cold . This was clearly an abnormal situation .

It would be for the best not to get close to any strange place .

It would be fine if it was just a little cold . But as it was now, there was clearly something abnormal that was causing it .

If I continued on, I might get involved in whatever it was .

‘…Alright, let’s turn around . This might be a sign of an abnormal situation . ’

It seemed that odd things kept happening to me ever since I came to this world .

And I saw no reason to go out of my way to stick my head into a place where it was obvious that something was up .

‘What! We’re going back! What a ha.s.sle!’

‘What about all the delicious food in Rikardo?’

…But when I tried to go back, the slimes immediately rejected the idea .

As we hadn’t even traveled for very long, I a.s.sumed it wouldn’t matter too much…

That being said, the food was definitely alluring .

Maybe I could go to the restaurant that Tina had suggested . And then we could leave .

‘Alright . We’ll go and eat . Then I’ll consider what to do from there . ’

‘Yes!’

Okay . We’ll go and eat . If the food isn’t much better than the meat I had in Mariardo, then I will turn around and leave .

There was a smaller chance of being caught up in something if it was just a short visit .

And so, after briefly considering turning back, we continued on our way to Rikardo .

‘I can see it now!’

‘Everyone looks cold!’

About 20 minutes had now pa.s.sed .

We could now see the end of the road and the town’s gate .

The town was surrounded in snow and it looked very cold .

I was already wearing the fur coat that I had bought .

I had not expected a coat that I just bought out of grat.i.tude to become useful so quickly .

“…You must be awfully strange to come to Rikardo at a time like this . ”

A guard said as I tried to go through the gate .

He was wearing very thick and warm-looking clothes made of fur .

I doubted he would be able to fight like that…but I suppose it was better than dying from the cold .

“I heard that Rikardo has great food . ”

“We do have great food . But I don’t know if it’s worth dying for . ”

“…Is something happening here that’s killing people?”

“Aye . Several have died from the cold these past few days . But the temperature here was normal only 10 days ago… We are now burning all of the firewood we had in stock . But it won’t last long . ”

I see .

You would have to burn a lot of wood in this cold, or people would die .

But if it happened so suddenly, they wouldn’t have had much time to prepare .

“Has anything happened that was strange, other than the cold?”

“No . Monsters are normal . Though, the cold makes you slow, so I wouldn’t advise that you go out there . …You’re an Adventurer? If you plan on staying here, it would help if you accepted quests for gathering firewood . We need all of the help we can get . ”

“…I understand . If I do stay here, I will look for those quests . ”

“Thank you . ”

…It seemed that at this point, Rikardo was still making firewood .

But firewood needed to be dried out first if you wanted it to burn well…

So they must be in a very desperate situation to have to use new firewood .

I thought about this as I looked around .

‘…There’s a lot of strange smoke . ’

‘Yes . It smells burnt!’

Black pillars of smoke rose all over the town .

It was probably firewood that was of bad quality and not dried properly .

Also, perhaps the houses were not built to be able to burn lots of firewood .

They didn’t have chimneys and the walls were not insulated well .

Burning such bad firewood here could lead to carbon monoxide poisoning .

…Well, this was another world . So I would like to believe they had a way of dealing with such things .