Black-and-White Bear was alone in the territory of the Minicia Kingdom, traveling north by himself.
He was in no hurry.
Although this was a main quest, and although the other players were already spurring their horses toward the northern region two hundred kilometers away, Black-and-White Bear simply wasn't in a hurry.
He wore a ragged linen cloak over a finely crafted suit of double-layered, six-in-one chainmail, with a bastard sword at his waist and a pair of old leather boots on his feet. Disguised as a down-and-out knight, he set off at a leisurely pace.
Traveling alone also meant Black-and-White Bear made less progress than the other players. While they galloped onward, he ran into bandits on the road.
Bandits, strictly speaking, amounted to a handful of wretches blocking the road with hoes and sickles.
At the sight of their skeletal bodies, Black-and-White Bear was suddenly overcome with saintly compassion. He sighed... then drew his bastard sword and killed every one of the starving farmers.
Poor bastards. With those bloodshot eyes and the blackened blood on their hoes and sickles, they must have killed people-and eaten them, too.
Rather than let these two-legged beasts live on, tormented by this cruel world, better to give them a quick death.
After just five days traveling through Minisia, killing a dozen or so bandits, watching several farces unfold, and directing quite a few starving wretches toward Bagnia in search of food, Black-and-White Bear soon realized that this country had descended into chaos.
Before long, Black-and-White Bear was certain that this country-or at least its countryside-was finished.
The fields lay fallow, the villages were deathly silent, and no cooking smoke rose from their homes. The order that sustained agricultural production had long since been crushed.
The starving farmers were like ants whose nest had