The Tales of Draconic Warlock

Due to those damn bandits, the journey may take longer than it should.

It was almost noon when we started to move again, and by evening we found another camp to settle down for the night. Based on what I was able to collect, we should have been at another campsite, one that is much bigger than this.

If not for those bandits and the guards tired and injured while battling them, we would have been at the original site.

Last night, I didn't pay much attention to what was happening after the battle with the bandits ended.

I killed a total of four bandits by the end of the battle. After ambushing the first two, I didn't seek anyone but two idiots thought that it was a good idea to attack me, seeing that I was alone at that point.

The contributions they made to my wallet are so meagre that they would bring shame on the entire bandits. They didn't even have a gold coin, nor a silver coin. What they had was ten copper coins and that's it. There are their swords that they attacked me with but they are too rusted to even salvage.

Only Mother Earth can do anything at this point. It would take a few hundred years but I believe soon the world would refine the swords into...hmm, I have no idea what happens but whatever it is converted into, I believe they would be good and that's it.

So I left those weapons there itself. I don't think that they remain there. With so many people in the camp, someone might have definitely picked them up.

The most likely cause was because of the bandits they feel threatened. Though those weapons are rusted and could break sooner or later, to them a rusted weapon is better than no weapon at all.

Though the bandits were dealt with, it was not a guarantee that they were all there is.

The area around Winter City is safe with fewer bandits as my parents would send soldiers to patrol and clear any posible bandits that pop up. Even if they can't they would post in the adventurers guild, which would mean someone would clear them up sooner or later.

Normally, the soldiers would patrol so that monsters wouldn't come too close to the towns and cities.

If they form homes near human habitats, then that would spell disaster for the humans living in those towns or cities. If a monster habitat were found near human habitats, they would cleared as quickly as possible.

This is not just the routine of my parents but of all the ruling nobles.

If they want their territories to prosper, then they have to prevent their territories from being the centre of disasters. It would kill the working force and no merchant would be idiotic enough to cross into lands where their safety doesn't exist.

Normally to the merchants, safety doesn't exist most of the time as they venture into different lands and that was something that they were of, but they hope that there are some safe points along their path of journey.

Even though they would travel to nations that are very dangerous for travel, there are cities and towns that are safer. They would use these places as their rest stops in their travel.

There are guards who are hired to protect them during their travels but these guards are still humans, who would get tired and can't properly guard if it is for too long.

They too require rest once in a while. This is something that the merchants understand. The good ones understand and the reason why they can keep their business afloat.

A good merchant has to know his surroundings and the people in those surroundings well. Without knowing those things, they would surely fail at their business, after all, without knowing what the people would need, what or how could they sell their products to the people.

So, if the merchants see that a noble's territory was not safe enough, then there was no way that they would ever set their foot in those lands. It means, there would be no trading and that means no more prosperity for those lands.

Unless these lands produce something that is not available anywhere else or has a huge demand, then they may try to enter these lands despite the security concerns.

They won't risk for a meagre profits but if the profit margin is very high, there are a lot who would.

So there are always assholes that can rule their territories even if they don't efficiently rule their lands. These bring bad names to every noble out there.

Sure, many nobles are arrogant and there was a reason behind that and not every arrogant one is a bad person. They were arrogant because of their ancestors who spilled their sweat and blood for the nation and as their descendants, they feel that they have the right to be arrogant.

The problem was they were arrogant itself. What they should feel was pride, not arrogance.

Pride of their ancestors was something no one could take away from them and shouldn't.

Being conceited could bring down their house. This is something no one should have, not nobles, not kings and not even commoners.

Anyway, as I said not every noble would concern themselves with bandits and monsters in the vicinity as long as they won't cause his profits to go down. Only in such situations would they act.

---

Time passed and we reached our campsite before the sunset. This is not the campsite that was supposed to be our rest site for the night.

Due to last night's attack, we started late from the previous campsite, and couldn't make it to the original campsite but this was good enough I was told.

I can hear the river running nearby. A river means, the chance to swap away the grime that got attached to the body for the past two days.

Also, it is a source of water for many of the travellers. Not everyone has space storage and that means they have to carry the water and food supplies. This is the biggest reason why travel takes a long time.

There are no airships for civilian transport. I mean there are none for the military either except for the one that I saw.

Teleportation is costly and can't be connected to every town and village there is in the world.

With how the world is, trains are not a safe way to travel either.

Unlike normal land-based vehicles, trains need rails and these can destroyed by monsters, which would derail a train and would injury the people on the transport.

There is a way to make travel safer and that is by building safety nets around the path of travel but that means burning a lot of resources unnecessarily.

Unless the lands are rich in resources, no one would be interested in using their resources in such a way. I wouldn't be that's for sure. This was because hiring adventurers or sending soldiers to sweep the problems along the path would be much cheaper.

Moreover, many adventurers choose to become escorts as they would pay with a little effort. Most of the time, they wouldn't face any threats and that makes escorting the best way to earn a good amount of money.

If suddenly something blocks such a business, it wouldn't be a surprise if many of those adventurers become bandits themselves. I mean that happens from time to time whenever their way of livelihood is threatened.

Most of the bandits that roam the will and kill innocent people were also innocents once, who lost their way of life due to several reasons and sought to banditry to get out of trouble, which only dragged them into a deeper chasm of troubles.

What I say is that solutions to a problem sholdn't bring new problems.

---

Ah finally, Endis Town.

The travel burned like three of my days. I should first find an Inn to clean myself and then meet the Mayor of the town.

For three days, I couldn't take a bath. Sure there was a river to take a bath at the campsite where we stopped last night, but I didn't.

Though I am not shy about having sex with girls I like, I won't move in the crowd naked.

I just scrubbed myself with a wet cloth, especially my armpits. Man, those are very smelly.

If I go and meet the Mayor like this, then it is almost synonymous to insulting him.

There is a saying, First Impression is the Best Impression.

So I can't have him thinking that I did that on purpose and have a bad impression of me.

Unless someone kills me in the middle of my life, which is something that I would avoid at any cost, I have to meet people, a lot of people.

Meeting with a few of them would happen more than once.

If the person forms a bad opinion of me when we first meet, then the next meeting will be disastrous. That I can say with one hundred percent guarantee.

So, the first thing that I did was find an Inn that has hot water and booked a room.