Chapter 172: The Dragon Kingdom of Lugunica!
"Hey! Companion, where are you going?"
"You probably shouldn't wander around right now. If we miss the main quest, we'll be in trouble."
After Shiro had walked for a while, Subaru's voice once again came from behind him.
After Shiro left the fountain, Subaru had eventually followed.
Perhaps he was worried about his fellow transmigrator.
Or perhaps he simply had no idea where to go next.
Judging from that alone, Subaru was probably a decent person.
Unfortunately, his understanding of his current situation was far too naive.
Putting aside whether this supposed summoner even existed—Even if Subaru really had been summoned here by someone, what guaranteed that the summoner was benevolent?
For all he knew, they could be raising people like poisonous insects in a jar.
Under circumstances like these, willingly handing control of his own fate to someone else was the least intelligent choice possible.
For Shiro, this journey was also different from his first visit to another world.
The first time he crossed worlds, he had fallen straight out of the sky and landed among the Loki Familia.
After Loki invited him, joining naturally followed.
At the time, Shiro was part of one of Orario's largest Familias.
Information had never been a problem.
Whenever he wanted to know something, he could simply ask Loki.
This time was different.
There was no Loki here—someone who both possessed mountains of important information and was willing to tell him everything without reservation.
The surrounding factions, the average combat strength of this world's inhabitants—Shiro needed to investigate everything from scratch.
His first priority was determining whether this world was another place where god-level monsters were wandering around everywhere.
Shiro followed the neatly paved stone road for a while.
Soon, he found somewhere that perfectly suited his needs.
It was a secluded alley.
The tall buildings on either side blocked most of the sunlight, leaving the passage dim and gloomy.
Stains covered the aging walls.
The sour stench of fermented waste mixed with the cold air drifting through the alley, creating a smell strong enough to make anyone's stomach churn.
"Ooh! So you deliberately came somewhere like this to trigger an event?"
"As expected of my companion! You've already understood the true essence of being transported to another world!"
Seeing Shiro enter the dark alley without hesitation, the completely defenseless Subaru showed no fear whatsoever.
Instead, he raised a thumb in admiration.
In Subaru's mind, Shiro was probably doing the equivalent of entering mysterious rooms at the beginning of a game to search for hidden events.
Danger?
How could anything truly dangerous happen during the prologue?
And even if something did happen, it would obviously be a scripted event.
Some important character would definitely appear to save them.
Subaru conveniently forgot that characters in stories could also die.
Excitedly, he followed Shiro into the alley.
Unfortunately—
Reality was not a game.
Nor would it obediently follow a predetermined storyline.
The moment Subaru entered behind Shiro—
"Hey! You two! Stop right there!"
The people blocking their path were not the beautiful girls Subaru had been eagerly waiting for.
Instead, three young men dressed like common thugs stepped forward.
"Hand over everything valuable you've got!"
"Don't make us use force."
The largest of the three used his bulky body to force Shiro and Subaru deeper toward the corner of the alley.
Meanwhile, his two companions skillfully moved to either side and blocked the exits.
Realizing that exactly the kind of people he had been searching for had conveniently appeared on their own, Shiro suppressed the laughter rising inside him.
He deliberately put on a nervous front.
"This place isn't that far from the busy streets."
"Aren't you afraid the patrolling guards will hear something and come looking for trouble?"
"Hmph. We specifically found this place because it's perfect."
"The guards won't find their way here anytime soon."
"Hey, why are you explaining so much?"
Another thug immediately interrupted the large man.
"Let's finish this quickly and go drinking."
"You heard him."
"Trying to stall for time is useless."
"Hand over everything valuable, and since we're in a good mood today, we might even let you walk away."
"Mm-hm."
"So even if we fight here, the guards won't find us?"
Having obtained the information he wanted, Shiro nodded slightly.
Then—
Under the large man's gaze, Shiro's right hand suddenly became a blur.
Bang—!
Bang—!
Two heavy impacts sounded from the man's companions.
In the next instant, both thugs flew backward faster than the naked eye could follow.
They slammed directly into the stained wall behind them.
The overwhelming pain prevented either man from making a sound.
Their eyes rolled back, and they immediately lost consciousness.
"What?!"
The large thug stared wide-eyed at his companions, who looked almost embedded in the wall.
Even someone as slow as him understood the situation now.
This man had deliberately entered the deserted alley from the very beginning.
He had assumed the strangely dressed young man was some foolish noble who had gone outside without his guards.
Instead—They were the ones who had taken the bait!
Realizing this, he immediately turned around and ran.
Yet somehow, Shiro, who had been standing in front of him only moments earlier, was already waiting behind him.
And for some inexplicable reason, a coil of rope had appeared in his hand.
The large man stopped.
His expression shifted repeatedly as he stared at Shiro.
Memories of his two companions suddenly played through his mind.
They had grown up together.
Eaten meat together.
Drunk together.
They were brothers who had shared everything since childhood.
And now, both had been casually beaten into the wall, their lives uncertain.
Was he really going to abandon his brothers and run away alone?
When had he become a coward who lacked even the courage to avenge them?
The large man clenched his fists tightly.
His aura steadily intensified.
The next second—
"I surrender!"
There was an ancient saying in the Kingdom of Lugunica:
A wise man knows when to yield.
Revenge?
What kind of joke was that?
The last people who tried opposing this monster were still stuck in the wall so deeply they practically needed tools to pry them out.
Not wanting to share their fate, the large man immediately raised both hands in the traditional French salute.
"Ooooh! Is this our other-world bonus?!"
After witnessing Shiro effortlessly crush all three thugs by himself, Subaru's eyes practically fired laser beams.
He copied Shiro's earlier movements and threw two punches into the air.
"This is that setting, right?!"
"The structure of the two worlds is different, so our physical abilities became ridiculously strong after coming here!"
"Small-fry thugs like these must be nothing to people like us!"
Shiro gave Subaru a speechless look before using the rope to bind all three thugs together.
"From now on, I ask the questions and you answer."
"If you deliberately lie, you'll end up like those two."
"Understand?"
Shiro pointed toward the two men he had pulled out of the wall, now lying unconscious in a heap on the ground.
The large thug nodded frantically.
Only then did Shiro continue.
"First question."
"Where are we?"
Shiro could clearly see surprise flash through the man's eyes.
But there was no helping it.
He knew far too little about this world.
He could disguise his ignorance about most things, but he absolutely needed to learn the name of the country he was currently standing in.
This went beyond lacking common knowledge.
Anyone with a functioning brain would become suspicious if someone did not even know what country they were in.
And Shiro could hardly walk onto a busy street, grab some random pedestrian, and ask them what country this was.
So he had no choice but to ask the thug.
Hopefully, the man would simply assume Shiro was testing whether he intended to lie.
After a brief silence beneath Shiro's oppressive gaze, the large man finally answered with a trembling voice.
"T-This is the Dragon Kingdom of Lugunica."
"Where is it geographically?"
"At the easternmost edge of the continent..."
"No way! Seriously?!"
"The Far Eastern Country?!"
"Then this is the legendary golden land everyone dreams about?!"
"But if we're already in the far east, the excuse I prepared beforehand is completely useless!"
The moment Subaru heard their geographical location, he interrupted again.
"What excuse?"
"Well, if someone asked where we came from later, I was planning to say we came from some small country in the east."
"But if this country is already at the easternmost edge, I'll need to come up with another flawless backstory!"
"Forget it."
"Believing your brain might start functioning normally would be harder than convincing someone I'm Qin Shi Huang."
"Qin Shi Huang?"
"The guy who rejected the Hundred Schools of Thought and honored only Confucianism?"
"That was Liu Che of the Han Dynasty. Qin Shi Huang was—"
Shiro suddenly stopped.
"Wait. Why am I explaining this to you?"
"Can you shut your mouth for a moment and let me finish asking questions?"
Subaru opened his mouth, clearly wanting to protest.
However, he eventually lost beneath Shiro's stare.
He reluctantly made a zipping motion across his lips.
Seeing Subaru finally behave, Shiro nodded in satisfaction.
Then he turned back toward the large thug and asked several more questions.
Some were simple—Such as who the strongest man in the country was.
Others involved things like the distribution of different factions between nations, information an ordinary citizen obviously would not know.
By mixing the questions together, Shiro concealed what he actually wanted to learn.
Once he had squeezed almost everything useful out of the thug, Shiro estimated that it was about time to leave.
If guards really did arrive and discover them, things could become troublesome.
To prevent the thug from reporting his movements afterward, Shiro decided to knock him unconscious first.
But just as he prepared to act—
"Hey! You guys up ahead, stop blocking the alley and move!"
A clear and pleasant female voice suddenly came from the entrance.
…
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