[NR] The Mayor Laughed - Chapter 662

The group was back in the settlement and forced to be a part of a quite dull meeting. It was a gathering of the town’s leadership going on and on about what to do about “the situation”. Though the trio weren’t the only ones done with it all.

Helina was slumped in her chair, grumbling with an ear flicking in irritation. This is mostly ignored as she was in charge of the supplies already in the town and not the guard or the fields. Siegfried, on the other hand is forced to actively engage in the meeting.

“No, we don’t have the guards to keep an eye on all the fields. If we did, I wouldn’t have had to recruit outside help. And no, we can’t just keep using them. They aren’t employees and can choose to leave if we try to pile it all on them.”, with a sigh Siegfried leans back in his chair.

The mayor nods, “Depending entirely on travellers is never wise to do.”, He turns to the team, “No offense.”

Courtney nods, “None taken. I wouldn’t even advise complete trust in us.”

The mayor smiles, “Honest of you.” Then he turns back, “Though even the most honest traveller has a variable that you don’t seem to fully understand. This is not their only life.”

He gestures at Helina, “As rough and tumble as she might be, she’s here and not going anywhere.”

One farmer speaks up, “We know this team cannot leave the barrier. They’re stuck in here with us as well!”

The mayor pinches the bridge of his nose, “No, they aren’t. You can not prevent them from leaving, at least mentally. No one can.”

The farmer scoffs, “Oh, that. Sure, but then they pop up right back here in their body.”

The mayor nods, “And when they leave for long enough that when they pop back up we’re already dead? Or the fact that they're leaving doesn’t even have to be of their own volition? This is them coming here from their life.

“A life that can have emergencies just as much as anyone. Sickness, death in the family, and any of the things we could have happened to you can happen to them in a way that pulls them away.

“And if you really push them? They don’t have to pop up here. They can start over. Most will go to extreme measures to not suffer that, but they can if you push them.”

The trio was honestly a bit shocked after the mayor chewed the council out like that. They hadn’t ever really heard of a local lay things out so directly. Sure, it was clear that they understood a bit about things, but this mayor was more cognizant than anyone besides maybe Andrew from back in Shine Fish village.

Of course, the Mayor laughed at the strange looks they were giving him.

Then the meeting continued to drag on. There just wasn’t a suitable solution. Or rather, what solutions they did have were politically undesired. After all, you could pay a ton of money to mobilize the regular townsfolk. Or what about dipping into the mage guilds alchemy supplies? And there was all the trade goods now stuck in the settlement.

All resources they technically had access to. It was just not desirable to touch them unless it got really bad. So in the end, they could only stop the meeting for the night and sleep on it.

Though once the party had left and was alone, Rosha had a question. “Why don’t they just harvest early? After all, the bandits are doing that right now.”

Courtney shrugs, “We’re in the last stretches of the growing period. Give it a bit longer and the yield goes up. The bandits are simply willing to harvest early because they don’t need as much food as the settlement does.”

Jason sighs, “This is going to get worse.”

Courtney nods, “Food shortages are always horrible.”

Jason shakes his head, “Not the food thing, though that will be bad if things don’t change. No, this fight between the town and the bandits. Since it is about food, even if there doesn’t end up being a shortage, it will get savage.”

Courtney grimaces, “Oh, yeah, that won’t be pretty.”

Rosha sighs, “And we’ll be right in the middle of it.”

Jason shrugs, “I wouldn’t say the middle. We’ll obviously be on the side of the town. Not only are we stuck in here with them, but they’re the victims. There is a reason we’ve fallen to calling the players out there ‘bandits’. They aren’t stuck here. They could go and get resources at least for themselves, even if they aren’t going to go out of their way to get food for the town as well.”

And with that, the group splits up for the night as it seemed tomorrow wasn’t going to be peaceful.

And boy, howdy, was that the case. As much as the settlement leaders thought they had kept the situation under wraps, that was not the case. Well, they didn’t think they would keep secret the fact people had been raiding their fields, but rather the fact they had caught some of them.

The town is the busiest it has been since the team had arrived a couple days ago. Everyone seemed to be out in the streets, demanding something be done about the bandits that had been captured. It is understood that they are travellers and so what they were shouting for wasn’t the usual.

After all, nothing you do to an immortal that can just check out mentally really matters. Besides, the System didn’t look too kindly on going too far. Instead, they were calling for all kinds of legal penalties since the System would actually uphold those sort of things.

Rosha shivered, “Wow, this feels wrong. Like, I’ve seen the whole ‘angry mob chanting’ thing, but having them call out for this kind of thing? It feels so off. While not cool, chanting for blood has a long history.”

Jason, “Yeah, angry mobs don’t exactly call for the peaceful option. It just feels weird for the ‘not peaceful’ option to be the legal process. Well, legal punishments. I’m pretty certain they don’t care about a trial or anything of the like.”