Chapter 56 – Joining the caravan.

Roland’s head hit the uneven window of the train he was riding on. His eyes were hurting as he couldn’t sleep well in these kinds of conditions. With the addition of the stress of riding alone to an unfamiliar location, it only added to his sleeplessness. He had also spent three days riding this blasted train without being able to stretch his legs.

The scenery continued changing while they journeyed deeper into the south part of the kingdom. The snow started to vanish with time and it turned to fields of grass.

Roland noticed that this kingdom had strange climate cycles. One part of it could be covered in snow while another would have smoldering hot weather. This was mostly due to the effects of magic that affected the climate in odd ways.

Thanks to this the journey wasn’t that chilly. This train didn’t have anything like a central heating system. It was more or less just iron and wooden carts, some of the windows let the cold air in if not closed correctly.

Regrettably, this marvel of current engineering couldn’t take him to his final destination. The time to depart came as he arrived at the last station.

It was a large trade city similar to Edelgard. The trains like the one he was traveling on only stopped at these types of cities. They transported goods to specific parts of the kingdom where then they would be taken further by merchants in caravans. This was also the next part of his journey, finding a merchant caravan towards the port city.

“If I remember correctly the city I’m supposed to go to is called Luden. I’ll have to pay and go as a tourist…”

Roland thought back to the moment he got rid of his adventurer card. If he still had it he could probably just take an escort mission from the guild. Every caravan with merchants placed missions as that and adventurers used them to mitigate travel expenses.

The money they received for the job was slightly reduced. Instead, they got free food and even some carriages to ride in when they got tired.

He didn’t worry too much as he did have a hefty sum of money with him. This would even be a better way to travel as no one would expect him to risk his life to defend the caravan.

If something went wrong he could just escape while the adventurers and guards faced off against whatever was attacking them. They would be disposable meat shields that he could use to cover his escape.

Roland hopped down from the train and looked at the surroundings. The train station was kind of similar to the one in Edelgard but it looked to be in worse shape. He didn’t see any people from the church of Solaria like last time, so that was a bonus.

Roland weighed the pros and cons of getting a new adventurer card in this city. He decided against it as this train had a direct link to the city he previously lived in. It would be possible to get his new id from here if they followed the path.

He needed to get a new one directly at Dragnis Island, there had to be a guild at Albrook. That would be one of the first things to be built after a new dungeon appeared.

While walking away from the train station he felt something in his abdomen. It was the feeling of hunger. He had only taken simple rations that he didn’t like that much. There was food to buy on the train but it wasn’t of high quality either.

When he was a few hours away from this city he decided to wait. He would rather not eat for a bit and get some freshly made stew here than eat more dried meat.

‘The caravans take some time to gather. I might have to take a break in this town for a few days.”

Roland continued toward the city. It was the middle of the day so the restaurants would still be open. Smaller cities didn’t have those around that much as the inns the adventurer’s lived in were used for such services.

The quality of the food suffered when the locale was used for everything. After living in this world and having eaten bland food for so long, Roland was slowly getting fed up with it. He was even willing to pay a bit extra if he could get something savory.

The buildings in this city were mostly constructed from red bricks. This was the main theme of the architecture in this kingdom but the warmer the climate became the more log cabins appeared.

After living in this world for so long Roland was able to distinguish between good and bad restaurants. How good the food would be could be mostly spotted by how well kept the building of the establishment was.

Previously he just entered the closest one available and took whatever he could get. Now on the other time, he took some time to examine the outside and inside layouts before choosing.

‘This one looks fine, shouldn’t be too expensive either…’

He pushed the door open to a middle-sized restaurant building. The moment he entered he could smell the aroma of food which made his mouth water slightly. He could see some people on the inside, most of them looked to be regular commoners as they weren’t wearing anything that an adventure would wear.

The biggest telltale sign of a bad restaurant was a large number of drunks. Rowdy adventures also mostly visited the cheaper diners. Most of the hardened men that worked by killing monsters and fighting off bandits didn’t care about good food that much. They would rather spend their days drinking and then visiting the red light district where they spent most of their money.

In about half an hour his dishes were ready and he could finally eat. He used this chance to ask the staff about the location of the adventurer guild. Even without his adventurer card that was the place to go if you wanted some information.

People that formed caravans actually wanted more people to join them. They had enough room to transport people that would pay for the carriage. Some of them would even postpone the journey before all the free spots were filled out. This helped with paying for the adventurers that protected the caravan quite a bit. It was also quite cheap as the people mostly rode with the goods.

Roland covered his mouth while burping and left some coins on the table along with a small tip. He wanted to take care of his business as soon as he could. He wouldn’t want to be stuck wondering through the night searching for an inn to stay.

Even with the general information where the guild was, it would take him some time to find his way. He didn’t really want to spend money on a city map if he was just going to be leaving soon.

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Roland decided to use a coach to get around this problem. The streets were crude but the ride didn’t hurt his posterior all that much.

When he arrived he was greeted by a plain-looking adventurers guild in a large brick building. There was no dungeon in the immediate area here either so the adventurer levels would probably be low.

On the inside, it had a similar layout to all the guilds that he had seen before. The people who were running things here probably decided on keeping all the buildings the same. Which was smart as some adventurers weren’t that intelligent.

Keeping a familiar architecture to all the adventurer guilds probably saved a lot of time. This lowered the possibility of getting the adventurers confused when they traveled to different guilds. They would automatically know where to get everything if it was kept the same.

There was the usual smell of sweat and alcohol and the same similar-looking bar in the back. He could see adventurers talking at the round tables. This brought back some old memories of his adventuring days.

Roland started spacing out, some of his old party member’s figures superimposed themselves on similar-looking adventurers. The only thing that snapped him out of it was a person behind him.

“You’re blocking the door, move…”

Roland snapped back into reality and looked at a group of men. He didn’t answer and just stepped to the side while the person that called him out just cussed at him while walking away.

‘Am I missing the good old days?”

Roland asked himself while going towards the notice board. Would he find anyone pleasant to work within the new city? There would probably be new adventurers flocking there to hit it big. He wasn’t planning on taking a passive backline position though.