CH 222

The day after our new employee welcome party was our shop’s fixed day off so I decided to see what the slum looked like, the part of town where Tanya and Yurina-san used to live. Of course before entering the slum area, there were certain things you needed to be wary of. For example you shouldn’t wear any kind of clothing that looked expensive or bring anything that looked expensive with you.

The public security was poor so we needed to make sure to be well armed for any kind of trouble. Just by looking armed and not inconspicuous alone would work well as a deterrent for trouble in the slum.

Ash was very friendly and he would gladly follow anyone he met so in order to prevent Ash from getting kidnapped, Yurina-san would carry Ash in her arms. As for Tanya, I would hold Tanya’s hand while we were there.

Maybe I’m being a bit too overprotective…?

Now then. We finally reached the slum area by foot. The slum area was located on the opposite side of the main street, hidden like the place was shrouded in shadow. 

I had only started walking for a while but I already felt sick. The whole place reeked with the smell of sweat and filth mixed together. The feeling of discomfort in this place was nauseating because there was no sense of distance between the people and the building here. People were sitting in a makeshift hut on the side of the road while giving us an indescribable look. Abandoned buildings that had been neglected for many years were everywhere. 

Though there was no corpse lying around on the street, both Yurina-san and Tanya told me that a person’s life was regarded as something extremely cheap here. Apparently, when there was a corpse, the guard would suddenly come out of nowhere to come and carry it to the crematorium. It probably served as a minimum preventive measure for infectious disease. 

This place was the vassal to contain the people’s necessary evil. The kind of place where you put a cover on it to contain the foul smell from spreading around. At least, that was what it seemed to look like for me. 

I learned in history class that the ruler would deliberately discriminate people based on the class system in order to take advantage of human’s tendency to feel relieved when seeing someone in a worse situation than them. This kind of mental manipulation was used as a way to control the people. But in regards to Bavarian-sama and the others in power, I doubt they were doing this deliberately. This whole thing seemed to happen naturally due to poverty. 

“Thankn you, Yurina-san, Tanya. Now I understand.”

“”?””

“Well, just you wait and see. Sometimes, this kind of thing can be solved when someone decides to take action toward it.”

After touring the slum, I said so toward these two who were looking at me with a confused expression on their faces. 

Then, I finished my lunch in a hurry so I could work in the workshop. I spread out papers on the desk to work out a plan to solve the issues in the slum.