"Mr. Fang Zheng, Mailu hasn't left her room for several days. Do you know what's going on?"
Mein came to Fang Zheng with her question, clearly uneasy. It was no wonder. Ever since returning from that adventure, Mailu and the others had shut themselves in their room and refused to respond no matter how they were called. If Mein had not occasionally brought them food, she might have thought they were dead...
"It's simple. They've merely seen the gap between ideals and reality."
Fang Zheng set down his pen, glanced at Mein, and answered with a smile.
"Ideals and... reality?"
"That's right."
Fang Zheng nodded, then seemed to think of something.
"Mein, what do you think an adventurer's life is like?"
"Um..."
Hearing Fang Zheng's question, Mein froze for a moment, then furrowed her brow.
"Heroes adventure through dungeons, explore, defeat monsters, rescue princesses, and obtain treasure?"
"Sounds romantic?"
"Of course!"
Mein nodded hard. Many of her favorite adventure novels contained fantastical stories like that. The protagonists ventured through dungeons, defeated Evil Dragons, rescued Princesses, and then married them. That was the very foundation of fantasy romance!
"But reality isn't that romantic."
Looking at Mein's sparkling eyes, Fang Zheng chuckled.
"I only need to mention a few things, and you'll understand."
"Hm?"
"First, there's relieving yourself. People need to excrete, right? But dungeons don't have toilets. How do you think adventurers take care of that?"
"Ugh..."
Mein's expression immediately changed.
"Then there's hygiene. A party of heroes might adventure in a dungeon for ten days or half a month, and if they're unlucky, they might not even find water. Forget washing clothes or bathing. On top of that, they spend the whole journey fighting, so their clothes are bound to be covered in blood. After living like that for a