Chapter 2016: Metteo Town’s Situation (Part 2)

A/N: Thank you for your consistent support, everyone! As always, special hugs to the lovelies who sent golden tickets, gifts, voted, commented, and reviewed! Each one adds to the story’s metrics and is very important!

...

___

These spices were exclusively supplied to the super rich, whether inside or outside the territory. The commonfolk would not have a say to it. Because the selling price was high, the profit was also high, which continued the cycle of ignoring the commonfolk.

Even if the average citizen didn’t feel it, the two spices were actually this town’s main produce. The fact that Althea and Garan only figured this out after so many hours of going around was indicative of the gap between the elite and the commoners.

If it became a peak Village by monopolizing the surrounding resources, basic food and water, they could thrive as a town due to the industries.

As the only level 2 town in the region, Metteo was also one of the towns considered to be trade checkpoints between the desert towns and the lusher areas.

It was days away from the nearest towns, which were all level 1 towns. Villages were also uncommon, especially in the desert side, as they were less likely to survive in such terrain.

The couple continued to go around and observe the people’s daily lives, remembering how it was. If there was something they liked, they would consider copying it or applying to Alterra, but so far, there was no such thing.

While going around, they did not forget to give themselves some respite with the two of them drinking cold drinks, chilled by Garan, as well as some pin fans inside their robes.

They had already made some preparation on how to handle the massive amounts of undead, and assuming the broker’s information was correct, they should reach there in a day or so or traveling on foot. As for how long they’d stay there, it was too variable, so they could only budget their supplies and determine how long they would be able to last.

They were not arrogant enough to claim that they already knew everything about the undead or how they behaved when they were in massive groups.

Rather, no one seemed to have in-depth knowledge of this. Medussa’s studies focused more on their creatures’ bodies and composition rather than in behavior, though she did share a few insights (and the explanation for them) in her very thick thesis.

The two ended up resting in one of the parks. A town like this would have community areas. The big one was located where the nobles lived, but there were also some patches of land for common people to use.

They were quite dry and not very big, and...they weren’t exactly used for leisure. Rather, it was practically a place where informal settlers sleep during the night. In the daylight hours, they become some sort of mini-market.

For the most part, the citizens seemed to just be surviving. They were gaunt, and their skins were rough from lack of moisture and over-exposure to the sun.

She found the children particularly pitiful. Due to their body requirements as they grow up, the lack of it caused them to look like little tanned skeletons.

There were some who were better off, especially if their levels were decent, but the rest seemed not much different from the average villager.

The children...were all working. They were usually porters or errand people. They could see them going to and fro between stall owners, doing various tasks.

There were even children dedicated to cleaning up people’s shoes, especially those who had unfortunately stepped on shit.

Though there were cleaners in Towns, they couldn’t clean everything immediately. In this case, children were deemed most suitable for cleaning shoes.

It was a bit sad, but they also understood the ways of this world.

Soon, a team dragging a carcass arrived in the small market. They were immediately surrounded by people, asking to buy a piece of the meat. "We’ll just get this slaughtered. Our team will open a stall in Small Market B in around 3 hours."

The butchering could happen in slaughterhouses, while it could also be handled privately. This team owned a duplex unit somewhere and slaughtered meat in their front yard.

As for why they didn’t just sell them right there, the Lord didn’t allow for sales outside markets. The markets, even the small ones from before, had rentals. No matter how small, how could the Lord miss on that?

Althea and Garan, now in makeup to make their features less distinctive, approached the team as they butchered the meat.

"Thirsty?" Althea said, offering them some water in bamboo cups. She chose a young lad.

Generally speaking, most wouldn’t get drinks from strangers, but the voice was nice and there was no hostility, not to mention he was really thirsty.

The other team members looked at them guardedly, while some shook their heads at their teammate. It seemed like it was more ’to each his own’ here, wherein the lad would handle whatever happened to him.

"This is delicious!" the lad said. "Thank you."

Seeing their youngest member being so careless, a more stable adult from the side stepped forward. "We can only sell the meat at the market," he said, pointing in the direction they came from.

"We’re not here for the meat," Althea said. "We’re new hires and we’re gathering information about the beasts outside, as well as the current situation of threats there. The commoners have limited knowledge, unfortunately."

"Anything specific?"

"We were hoping to gather more information about the Undead," she said. "We’re also curious if there are a lot of teams dedicated to hunting them."

This seemed to have gotten the attention of the team lead and others.

Althea smiled, while Garan—as always—stood dutifully right next to her, ready to act as needed.

At this, the young lad, who had been sidelined, determined he could finally speak.

"All I know was that when I was a kid, my mother always told me stories."

Apparently, there was quite a bit of oral literature about the undead, even in Metteo. There were even children’s stories with moral lessons like "If you misbehave, the undead would come out of the dry earth and take you with them."

Basically, they were very disliked and many people had an innate fear of them. On top of the fact that it was more profitable to hunt for beasts because of their meat, the number of people actually fighting against the Undead was a very small number.

"The Undead moves better than humans in the desert too, causing a lot of disadvantage. It’s just not worth it to hunt them."

Another member scoffed at this. "Well, if things go like this, we’ll be forced to fight in the desert either way."

"What do you mean?" Althea and Garan flinched, while the others sighed.

"You’re new here, right?" the member who scoffed said. "Well, the desert has been changing over the past couple of years. It might even be earlier, but the pace was too slow to notice.

"Now...give or take a decade from now, and I bet the desert line might reach the walls of Metteo."

"What?"

Hearing this, Althea was vaguely reminded of an old discovery, that the aether was dwindling, albeit at a very low pace.

She looked at the ground with narrowed eyes. Did that phenomenon have something to do with the fact that the desert was expanding?