Chapter 410 - Strange town (Part 1)

After the seal was removed from Monk, he was no longer a part of the Redwings. He knew the others would be worrying about him considerably, but he thought that maybe he could use this to his advantage. He wanted to help, he wanted to be of use, and perhaps he could do that now. 

Missions such as this one were almost impossible to do, and he knew Ray would never allow such a thing. On top of this, the strange man had got him curios, what was waiting at the south harbour of the Alure kingdom?

Travelling from Avrion around the Alure kingdom was easy at the moment. Although at this point and time the Redwings had taken over Avrion, it was at a time when it was still treated as part of the Alure Kingdom. 

To afford the cost of travel, Monk decided to sell his Avrion equipment, as well as everything that would show he was previously a knight from them. 

The only thing he kept was his daggers which he used as weapons. He had obtained a fair amount of coins and was on his way to the Harbour. When he arrived, it looked to be the same as just any other city or town. The only difference was that it was stationed right by a large river. Being used as a port for sh.i.p.s to deliver goods. 

Walking through the town, Monk was trying to see if he could notice anything different. 

'I don't know why but I thought maybe everyone here would be infected by the shadow, is the man hiding here?' What he could see though, was several others were walking around who seemed to have never been to the place before either.

Equally, they were looking lost, not just that but their clothes were ragged, torn and some of them didn't even look to be in the best condition. 'Did they just wander in?'

After walking around, Monk started to ask the Locals some questions, but when he approached a fruit stall to ask, he quickly realised something. What was he meant to ask? He had no clue of the man's description and could only remember the sound of his voice. 

"Do you know who runs this place, Ma'am?" Monk asked politely thinking maybe this would lead him somewhere. Perhaps the mayor of the town would know.

The woman behind the counter was quite plump, but she had a big smile on her face. "Of course I do, there is a little Inn, where you can get some grub and drink, not too far from here. At the moment they're inside, but they own the place. You're quite lucky because it isn't every day that he comes by to stay."

"What do you mean?" Monk asked. 

"You don't know much about this place, do you? This place is privately owned, so technically it's not part of the Alure kingdom, although it still has to follow the rules and pay its taxes like any other place. The owner you see is often away and rarely comes back, but when he does, it seems as if everyone knows about it somehow. They all go to that Inn to find him, and then he takes them off on his ship after a few weeks."

This mysterious owner seemed to be the lead he was looking for, he didn't expect to wield results so fast, but it seemed like he wasn't the only one looking for this man, but all these other people were as well. 

Suddenly, Monk heard a grumble from his belly. He hadn't eaten in a while as most of his money was spent on travel and often when he was too focused, he would forget about certain things. One of them being food.

"Here." The woman said as she picked up an apple and went to hand it over.

As Monk went to reach down in his pocket, he realised he had no coins on him at all. "I can't, I'm sorry."

"Just take it, I wasn't charging you in the first place. We all need to eat, and this town is a little more special than you think. One way or another, we have all been in your situation. Where we haven't had the food to feed our bellies, how does it make sense when there's enough food to go around the whole continent, yet we still have people dying of starvation in nearly every major city?" The woman said, shaking her head. 

"It's clear that something's wrong with the system." 

Monk couldn't agree more with the women. He too, had come from one of those so-called families. He had kind of forgotten about it, since his time at Avrion. When his parents heard the news, they weren't happy because they thought he was going to become a knight, but because they knew he would be well fed and looked after.

Taking the apple, for now, Monk promised he would come back when he had a few coins. The money wouldn't be a significant concern for him. He could always just go to the local guildhall and complete a few simple quests to earn a few coins here and there.

Before that, Monk decided he would head to the Inn to see just what was going on. While walking there, he could see that the many people he saw walking through the town really were walking to the same place as him. The inn was located right on edge near the river and port. So, there was a lot of space in front of it. 

When Monk had finally arrived, he could see a massive queue of around a hundred people, not all, but a lot of them looked either poor, sick, or weak with some disease of some sort. Then when looking down at himself, he realised he didn't look too different himself.

Lifting his arm, he went for a sniff and quickly pulled his head away as he scrunched up his face.

'Poof I stink, I haven't had a shower in days. The woman said he would be here for a few weeks right; maybe I should do some quests first before anything.' 

Just as Monk was going to walk away from the Inn, he heard screams coming from one of the sh.i.p.s not too far away. His instinct made him rush over in the direction, but he wasn't the only one as two more men seemed to be running with him. 

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