"Who’s there? Show yourself!"

A noise came from the window behind him. Ron glanced over and saw Delaford, draped in that ragged cloth he called a "cloak," crouching on the windowsill with his shortbow in hand, warily scanning the surroundings.

"See what it was?"

Ron asked hurriedly. After all, humans don’t have Dark Vision.

"Enemies, over there!" Delaford raised his shortbow, suddenly aiming it in a specific direction.

"Wait! Don’t shoot! We can talk this out!"

The creatures in the dark seemed to know they had been spotted. They quickly jumped out from behind a low wall. Two people, with their hands raised and bodies stooped, slowly approached.

"Hold on! Don’t attack them yet," Ron said with a frown, stepping in front of Delaford. "That voice sounds..."

’Like an old man?’

Sure enough, as the figures drew closer and revealed themselves in the firelight, Ron and Delaford could easily see that these two intruders weren’t some wild monsters, but simply two elderly, unarmed humans.

Judging by their faces and clothes, they appeared to be an old married couple.

"Who are you, really?" Ron asked again. "Why are you wandering around outside so late?"

"We’re residents of this village!" the old woman huffed indignantly. "Besides, we should be the ones asking you and this... you two that question, shouldn’t we?"

"I’ve lived in this village for sixty years, and I’ve never seen you before!"

"Alright, alright," her husband said, tugging at her arm after furtively seeing Delaford raise his shortbow again. "I can see you two are travelers from out of town, but you’re clearly not with those northern Barbarians from outside Fromm. You wouldn’t harm a pair of destitute old farmers like us, would you?"

"After being robbed by those bandits, we have nothing left. We just want to return to the land that raised us and live out our days..."

The old man pointed to a nearby old house made of mud and straw. "See? That’s our home."

"There’s nothing left in your house, is there? Why come back?"

Ron sized them up. He couldn’t see anything out of place about them. They really just seemed to be two ordinary, elderly villagers.

"And you mentioned Barbarians? Robbery? What exactly happened?"

"What else could have happened? It’s just as I said," the old man replied, a hint of anger in his voice that ultimately faded into a helpless sigh. "Don’t you know? More and more northerners have been abandoning their homes and migrating south lately."

"They say some terrible things happened in their homeland."

"But we’ve also been suffering from natural disasters here—drought and famine. I’m sure you saw the dried-up Levin River on your way."

"We had to start moving too, and we all had the same destination—the town of Fromm over there."

"Wait, you’re saying there’s a town nearby?" Ron interjected. "We haven’t heard of it."

The old man looked up in surprise, glancing at Ron. "You don’t know? Then you must have been wandering the wilds for a long time. After all, there are no other settlements around here besides villages."

"Travelers without maps or guides are a rare sight these days..."

"Well... we ran into a bit of an accident," Ron said vaguely. "Accidents are always happening on this continent anyway, right?"

"Yes, you’re right..."

The elderly villager sighed again. "Just as we never expected that refugees would start robbing other refugees..."

"We were all short on water, food, and shelter, but Fromm is just a town. It can’t take in so many people at once, so the mayor there came up with a plan:"

"They marked off a whole area outside the town where all outsiders are required to stay temporarily. The town provides us with a small amount of drinking water and food each day."

"And if anyone wants permission to enter Fromm, they have to submit an application. Only those with abilities are approved."

"They provide drinking water?" Ron raised his eyebrows. "Sounds like they weren’t affected by the drought, then?"

"They were, actually, but to a much lesser degree—at least their water sources haven’t completely dried up."

The old man spoke slowly, "I heard that Fromm’s former mayor was a man of great foresight. He had aqueducts and reservoirs built many years ago. On top of that, the current mayor persuaded the Priests from the major churches and some of the Mages to perform Water Creation Magic every day, so their water supply is still relatively plentiful."

Hearing this, Ron gently tapped his forehead.

’Right, this world has Magic. How could I have forgotten about that?’

Water Creation Magic could produce up to ten gallons—that’s nearly forty liters—of water at a time. A single Casting from one Caster was enough to supply the daily water needs of at least twenty people.

A disaster that would have been insurmountable in Ron’s past life, or for ordinary people in this world, was trivial in the face of supernatural power.

’Looks like we’re saved!’

"Young man, are you planning to go to Fromm?" The light that had just sparked in Ron’s eyes was noticed by the old man, who shook his head with a bitter smile. "Don’t blame me for pouring cold water on your hopes, but do you remember why we came back?"

"Although the mayor gave people like us enough supplies to survive, those northerners have probably been scarred by the disasters. They can’t be satisfied with just scraping by."

"At first it was theft and scams. Then it was collecting ’protection fees.’ And after that, they started robbing people outright..." the old man said, shaking his head. "The ones from the north are mostly strong, tall young men. How could old bones like me and my wife fight back? Every time, we had no choice but to obediently hand over the little we had—including what we brought from home."

"Bandits! They’re nothing but bandits!" Delaford leaped down from the window, cursing indignantly. "How dare they steal our jobs?!"

’And they’re even encroaching on other lines of business! Because of their limited strength, goblins can usually only stick to thievery in the settlements of other races. But those northerners are handling protection rackets *and* robbery!’

’This is utterly intolerable!’

"Heh heh... Your friend is... quite interesting. He has a peculiar accent, too."

The old man gave a dry laugh and quickly reached back to stop his wife, who was about to ask for clarification.

’He could guess that these two were probably no saints either. But considering they hadn’t shown any hostility so far, it was best not to break the facade.’