Many rats?
Sean did recall that the girl selling fruit earlier had mentioned this too—one of the peaches had even been nibbled on.
"Is it serious? I heard about it when I was buying things before." The overall sanitation in this other world was certainly inferior to that of a modern civilization; garbage piles were often visible on the streets.
Brucan Avenue was fine, but when he'd come before, other streets had dirt roads, with standing water that never dried up, making the whole street filthy.
"I've heard about this too. When I had someone deliver goods earlier, the coachman complained about it," Esmeralda added from the other side.
"Is the rat surge in Koga City cyclical?"
"No, I've heard about it in previous years, but this time it feels worse." Esmeralda hadn't seen it firsthand, only heard others complain, so she assumed it was more severe.
Without good prevention and control measures, this kind of problem was bound to arise.
It was just after the start of spring; if rats were already a problem at this time, this year's harvest might be affected.
Koga City was a major city in the southern part of the empire; even if the harvest occasionally failed, they could still buy their way out with wealth...
Sean watched Claude peeling a peach and suddenly thought of a method.
"What do you think about planting fruit trees in Talamian?"
"Fruit trees? You want to develop an orchard, my lord."
"The area around Talamian Town has natural conditions. I remember Luke mentioning that there used to be an orchard in the town in the early years, but it was burned down in a fire." Sean had seen some records about the orchard. Almost every generation of barons had written logs of major events, and he himself had continued that log after the avalanche.
But there wasn't much written about the orchard; the earlier ideas were more detailed.
From the lines, it was clear that Baron Viger at the time had also been eager to find ways to improve the townspeople's living conditions, so he'd thought up a bunch of ideas and finally got fruit tree saplings from an outside merchant to start planting.
But after the fire, he only wrote: "The fire burned down the entire orchard."
Just a few simple words with a date, and no further description—it felt very strange.
"An orchard, that's not a bad idea. But do the townspeople still know how to cultivate?" Sean noticed a 【Distracted!】 status appear above Esmeralda's head.
This girl was thinking about something else.
It seemed she'd been like that ever since he mentioned Luke.
Oh well.
He was the lord of Talamian; what needed to be done was just a single command. Asking too many people for opinions would only confuse him.
The town was already this poor—what more could go wrong? At worst, it would fail.
He'd just try a few more methods.
"I'll contact Luke about this. There's a coachman I know at the trade market who can help deliver the message to the town," Sean said.
The two siblings suddenly stood up and said, "If Lord Viger needs any help, just say the word. We'll both assist."
Watching the siblings nod repeatedly, Sean, thanks to Luke's recommendation and their existing goodwill, chose to trust them.
...
Over the next two days, Sean needed to familiarize himself with Koga City's environment; otherwise, he wouldn't even know how to get around.
He first thought about buying a map... because on a map, he could see the locations and layouts of various buildings, and to get a clearer view, he wanted one that specifically depicted the entire city's environment.
But Claude told him that would be hard to find, since most maps were large-scale guides, like the routes around Koga City and the distribution of towns and cities.
In fact, there was a map in Skov's shop, but it was large-scale.
For example, Koga City was right in the center... below it were a few winding roads, to the west was the so-called Xiaowan Town, and to the southeast, a cluster of mountains was drawn with a small circle marking Talamian Town.
The north and east were similarly depicted.
Most people probably used this kind of map—it just gave you a general direction so you wouldn't get lost.
The map wasn't big...
It was drawn on parchment about the size of a towel.
The paper had limited space, and more importantly, the map's scale was just that large, so Sean couldn't see any more detail.
In his eyes, the roads and mountains on the map did appear, and Koga City showed up as a projection-like, square city outline, but that was it. Every town marked on the map appeared, including his own Talamian Town...
But that was the limit; he couldn't see inside the city at all, let alone the people.
Only the arrow marking his own location remained unchanged, but because the scale was so large, his position covered almost the entire city!
To put it in terms of a metaphor: it was like opening a map with 'M' and right-clicking to see the big map—it only told you where you were, without detailing the city's buildings.
Unless he could find something like a city guide map to see clearly.
But Claude said such maps were hard to find; travelers might have them, but because they were difficult to draw, they might not sell them... he'd have to try his luck.
On another matter, Sean had sent a letter via the trade market caravan to Luke about his idea to rebuild the orchard, telling him he was staying at Skov's shop...
Sean had also learned a lot about Esmeralda and Luke's story from her brother.
Five years ago, when Luke was still a scholar, he met Esmeralda, who was helping her father run the shop. Claude was young then but knew about their relationship.
As for later... like all the stories in novels and scripts, the love between a village commoner and a rich merchant's daughter was thwarted by reality and family. They even considered eloping, but after a certain conversation between the siblings' father and Luke, he left on his own.
No one knew what was said between them...
Later, Luke returned to his hometown and became a scholar by the baron's side, while Esmeralda became the heir to Skov's shop. Until the old shopkeeper died and the previous Baron Viger also passed away, the two never contacted each other again.
To this day, he's unmarried, and she's unwed, but they still don't reach out.
Just dragging it out...
It really was like the ending of every story, but happening around him still made him sigh.
During the day, Sean usually went out to avoid interfering with Skov's business, and also to look for the girl who sold fruit. He remembered she said the peaches were from her family's garden, hoping to buy some saplings from her.
But after two days of searching, he hadn't found her in the same spot!
Was she a mobile vendor?
Just as he was about to look around again, Sean suddenly noticed someone very distinctive.
About five meters away, in the crowd, there was just a slender back... but above her head appeared 【Explore~】
It was even a spell!