"There were signs of someone here. It looked like they encountered
some sudden emergency and left in a hurry."
I nodded and peered through the glass into the guardhouse. It was pretty much as the kid had said. There was a cup of coffee on the desk,
already completely cold, without a trace of steam
rising from it. The room also looked very clean, though there was some muddy water on the floor. Clearly, during the time the typhoon had been raging,
someone had still been here.
At the very least, someone must have been here within the past two days. The muddy water hadn't dried out completely, but some of it had already
dried. Judging by that, it should have been
about one or two days.
I stepped into the guardhouse, munching on a compressed biscuit as I picked up a notebook and flipped through it. It recorded the people coming and going, and over the past six days, there had been
no record of any outsiders.
In other words, traffic here had stopped completely once the typhoon arrived. No one had entered, but the guardhouse here
was still standing.
The guardhouse had been built right against the city wall. With the wall protecting it, at least it wouldn't be swept away by the wind.
But the fact that no one was here was strange. Why?
Frowning, I glanced around. My conclusion was pretty much the same as the kid's: something urgent must have
made the guard hurry into the city,
and they hadn't come back out.
After all, there was nothing but open plain outside, and only the city offered any real safety, so this person must have gone inside.
But... why wasn't anyone guarding the city now?
I hesitated, then looked at the kid.
"Watch them. I'll