In fact, Miss Baron herself wasn’t quite sure. In any case, when facing Ryan Bennett, she had a strange feeling. Don’t get her wrong—it wasn’t affection or infatuation, but rather... an inexplicable sense that this man would become remarkable in the future, as if some voice in the dark was telling her she ought to help him.

Why would she have such a thought? Katherine herself was confused.

“Take it. The capital is thousands of miles from here, and you have no one to rely on.”

“Thank you!”

Ryan Bennett accepted the silver coins without any pretense. He knew the road ahead would be perilous. If he could really succeed like other transmigrators, he would definitely repay this kind-hearted girl.

Watching the boy’s figure gradually disappear into the distance, Miss Baron felt a wave of loneliness rise in her heart.

Although he had already planned to go to the imperial capital—after all, just like on Earth, the bigger the city, the more opportunities there are. If you want to make something of yourself, you can’t stay cooped up in this tiny borderland. But after leaving the baron’s manor, Ryan Bennett suddenly realized an important problem... he didn’t know the way. What’s more, Hailan Star was nothing like Earth. Even though there was magical power here, transportation was extremely backward: no cars, no trains, let alone airplanes. How was he supposed to travel?

Here, moving from one city to another wasn’t as simple as buying a ticket.

What should he do?

He was a bit frustrated, but it wasn’t an unsolvable problem. Ryan Bennett quickly came up with an idea. He went to the Ruhr City Chamber of Commerce and soon found a suitable target: a merchant caravan heading to the imperial capital to sell specialty goods collected from the elves in the Green Sea Forest.

Speaking of elves, Ryan Bennett, who loved reading fantasy novels before transmigrating, was very interested in them. They revered nature, were elegant and beautiful, and their pointed ears were their trademark. They had deep attainments in music and art. Of course, what interested people most was... elven beauties.

Legend had it that elves were a race favored by the gods. Their looks seemed sculpted by artists. Looking across the entire race, it was hard to find a single ugly girl among the elves. Just imagine—a whole race of beauties... what a temptation for men.

The power of the elves was not to be underestimated either. They had established the Nature Alliance, standing in a three-way balance with the human Taige Empire and the beastmen’s Beastman Kingdom. These were the three strongest forces on Hailan Star. Although there were many other intelligent races, their strength was comparatively less.

Elves lived in the forest, but they weren’t isolated from the world. Thousands of years ago, they were indeed self-sufficient, but as times changed, that conservative lifestyle had been abandoned. Now, they interacted, traded, and learned from other intelligent races.

Ruhr City bordered the Green Sea and was an important trading outpost with the elves. Unfortunately, most of the time, it was human merchants who entered the forest to trade with the elves. Even though he had been in this world for a week, Ryan Bennett still hadn’t seen the legendary... elven beauties.

But he’d heard that in the bustling imperial capital, elves and beastmen often appeared, and there were even elven and beastman exchange students at the Royal Academy!

Because of this, Ryan Bennett was full of anticipation. The merchant caravan he’d chosen had purchased a large number of elven handicrafts from the Green Sea and planned to sell them at high prices in the capital. Ryan Bennett intended to persuade the caravan owner to let him travel with them. That way, he wouldn’t have to worry about getting lost, and it would be much safer—after all, there were often bandits on the road, and the caravan had hired mercenaries.

Everything went smoothly, but there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Ryan Bennett paid five silver coins, and he had to take care of his own food and lodging along the way.

As for the price, well, it wasn’t expensive. After all, the journey from here to the capital would take more than a month. Thinking of this, Ryan Bennett started to miss Earth again. Only now did he truly appreciate the benefits of advanced transportation. If there were airplanes, it would be so much faster.

But now, all he could do was imagine. Ryan Bennett shook his head, readjusted his mindset, and focused on the present. The mercenaries hired by the caravan also piqued his interest.

Chapter 6: Sword-Armored Tiger

Back on Earth, when reading fantasy novels, mercenary groups were always an essential element. But novels were novels, and seeing these blood-licking adventurers with his own eyes still gave Ryan Bennett quite a shock.

To be fair, in a small place like this, the best they could hire was at most a third-rate mercenary group. There were no mages, nor any diverse professional combinations. After all, those who could wield magic were few and far between. Of the dozen or so mercenaries, all but two were warriors; the only two archers also carried short blades for close combat. Among these dozen people, only the captain, Nick, had barely passed the Knight Association’s intermediate lower-grade assessment. The rest were all low-level knights—in other words, they didn’t even have battle aura.

The reason for saying “barely” is that, as the dividing line between intermediate and low-level, the captain’s battle aura was extremely thin and couldn’t last long in combat. Compared to Miss Katherine, who was also an intermediate lower-grade knight, the gap was obvious, even though their ranks were technically the same.