The Weakest Tamer Began a Journey to Pick up Trash - Volume 1 - Chapter 8

Chapter 8:

Unlawful Dumping

THE MAN WAS TAKING TRASH from his magic bag and giving it to the slime to dispose of it. He looked like an adventurer. I searched for other auras and found a few faint ones a little farther away… They’d been too weak to notice before. Maybe they were real high-ranking adventurers? I decided to get away from them.

Once I was back on the hunting trail, I let out a long sigh. That got really tense! The adventurers from before were still nearby, but their auras were faint and hard to read. With some effort, I checked to see if they were coming my way. They’re…not. Phew.

They had probably sensed me, though I doubted I’d attract much attention. Still, it was my first time seeing adventurers with such well-concealed auras. Scary…

I took another deep breath and started walking to the next village.

Along the way, I stopped and searched a few times, reaching out to feel for anything dangerous. I couldn’t sense anything that would hurt me, though, and the adventurer team from before was gone, too. I wouldn’t be able to sense them if they hid their auras, but I was probably okay for now.

I walked on, avoiding monsters and animals. Since I didn’t have an accurate map, I could only guess how far away the next village was…but for now, I kept close to the village roads.

After four days of walking toward the next village…

Weird. Here’s a dump, but it’s not close to any villages. What’s the use of having a dump so far away? The trash heap included expired potions, broken bottles, bent swords, and torn magic bags. I could tell that this one had way more broken stuff than most village dumps did. Was it an adventurers’ dump? I’d heard of those, but this was my first time seeing one.

I checked the pile, but there wasn’t anything useful. I took the trash I was planning to throw away out of my magic bags, ready to leave it there…but something felt off. I kept it.

All villages had dumps, but they weren’t recognized by law. Villages used slimes to dispose of the trash, but there weren’t enough tamers. The best two-star tamers could tame up to five slimes, while the worst ones could handle two. Each tamed slime also varied in how much it could dispose of in a day. I heard cities and towns hired most of their tamers on a contract basis. Villages paid the towns to deal with their trash, but villages couldn’t afford much. That’s why they ended up with dumps, which the village officials knew about but ignored.

Deep in the forest, though…that’s where you find adventurers’ dumps. Adventurer teams were required by law to have a tamer with tamed slimes. They also had to throw away trash they couldn’t dispose of in specific places. But this looked like an illegal dump. Since the broken stuff would just weigh them down, they’d abandoned it in the woods. Not many adventurer teams had slimes that could dispose of inorganic matter. The fortune-teller said once that only the S-rank ones did.

Nobody would find out if I threw my stuff away here, but I didn’t. That off feeling…it was like Past Me had intervened.

What’s “littering,” anyway? Weird. Well, I can throw this stuff away at the next village’s dump.