An Upstanding Citizen

The Royal Capital, Frirene.

We came in via Alto's Home. Just like the other towns, the streetscape was lined with medieval-fantasy buildings, with stone-paved walkways running between them.

And in the center of the town stood a castle, something none of the other towns had.

Bigger and more developed than Tsudon, where our group mainly operated. Figured as much, since this was the capital.

This was a bit late to bring up, but going by the town names, my nearest town was "1," Penpen's was "2," Mahariku-san's was "3," and Alto's Frirene was apparently "0." Pronounced "rei," not "zero."

Probably the names were assigned in order of proximity to the Royal Capital. Whether that was lazy or not, I couldn't really say.

"Welp, off to the Adventurer Guild, yo!"

"Alto, what's the Royal Capital guild like?"

"Pretty much the same as anywhere else, yo."

"There are food stalls! Street food! Let's get some street food!!"

Street food. Yeah, that we must do.

And so, before heading to the guild, we decided to fill up a bit.

"Hey old man, three meat skewers!"

"Coming right up, fresh off the grill―― …Eep!? P-p-please――"

"Hm? Copper coins? How many?"

"U-uh, ah, g…"

He'd gone pale and was trembling. A cold, maybe? Not a great look for a food vendor. Well, it's a game, so no point fretting over it.

"Tria-shi, the sign says five copper coins per skewer!"

"Oh, gotcha. Three skewers, fifteen coins, then. Here you go."

"Eh, ah, ha…"

I took the skewers and handed one out to each of us.

"Here, Penpen and Alto's portions. My treat."

"Thank you!"

"Ohh yo, meat eaten on someone else's dime tastes the best, yo!"

"…Anyway, wasn't he just absolutely terrified of us, yo?"

Yeah. I mean, obviously I knew it wasn't a cold. Yeah.

"Alto, did you do something?"

"Hmm. Nothing comes to mind, yo. All I did around here was check whether any items had dropped, and I made a beeline for Tsudon to meet up with Tria afterwards."

I see. Hmm, no idea, then.

"Fair enough. Even Alto wouldn't go on a rampage in the middle of town."

"What's that 'even Alto' supposed to mean, yo? Anyway, that's why I've already scoped this area out, yo. …The barrels and pots haven't respawned, by the way, yo."

"Well, let's hit other stalls too, yo! That place selling stew over there looks interesting, yo. Next round's on me, yo!"

"Then I'll grab the drinks, yo."

Besides the meat skewers, there was a stew shop that looked like a cross between oden and motsu-ni, plus drink stalls, so we stocked up on all of it.

Can't carry it all in your hands? Nay, we have inventories! All-you-can-buy, all-you-can-eat street food run!

So I took a sip of a 50% juice Alto had picked up: orange-like fruit squeezed and then diluted with water.

Apparently the original flavor was strong enough that diluting it hit just the right balance. Sweet, tart, and easy to drink. This was good.

"You bring your own dish, huh, neat system, yo. The daikon is delicious, yo."

"The motsu has good flavor too, yo. Back when I wasn't in VR Mode, the food stalls were just flavor text you could only look at, yo. Being able to actually eat is wonderful, yo… So good, so good."

"Oh right, that's true."

VR Mode hadn't been unlocked until after she joined up with me.

"Oh, that's right, I also got hassled by some thugs in a back alley, yo."

"Huh. And maybe people saw you take care of them and got spooked?"

"Could be, yo. They were so weak I just pistol-whipped them and they vanished in one hit, yo."

If a regular person took a smack from that giant gun, yeah, one hit would do it. Facing Alto's gun in VR Mode, the thing had a seriously intense blunt-instrument presence to it.

"So you actually contributed to public safety, then, yo? I really don't get why people would be scared, yo."

"Riight, yo. I'm a perfectly upstanding citizen, y'know, yo?"

"It's the kind of 'upstanding citizen' with a 'lol' tacked on the end."

"More like one of those unauthorized 'citizens' without a citizen ID, yo. Well, you've got the Adventurer Guild ID, I guess, yo."

So basically she was being treated more like a mercenary than a regular citizen. Provisional citizen, at most.

"Even so, my Adventurer Rank is decent enough that I should be treated as roughly a regular citizen, yo."

"Hope so."

On the Adventurer Rank front, we'd been knocking out quests like crazy, so all of us had hit B-Rank. Counting the second characters, we were a six-person, all-B-Rank team.

…I wondered if that had been the trigger for the royal named-request event firing off.

Anyway, after filling up at the food stalls, we headed for the Adventurer Guild.

―――――――――――――――

(Apparently Alto had been smashing barrels and pots at the food stalls while still drenched in blood spatter from her kills. Plain assault and property destruction, really, but no one could say a word. Because, you know, she was a Spirit-Possessed.)