Chapter 408.
<strong>Chapter 408. We Encounter a Strange Spaced-out Girl Stranded on the Highway. (1/10)</strong>
<span style="font-weight:400">It’d been three days since we left the first small city we came across. We’d been on the road for four days in total now and today was a Thursday. Whenever evening arrived, same as our first day on the road, we set up camp in thickets of trees throughout our journey. Up to this point, we’d passed through neen towns in total which ranged from small torge, with poptions as low as 70, to as high as 6,000. As for cities, we’d traveled through six on our journey, their poptions ranged from 11,000 to 170,000.
<span style="font-weight:400">So far, none of the cities wereparable in size to our city, but that would undoubtedly change soon enough. The next city in our path had a poption closer to a million like ours. We were only three towns away, about a forty-minute drive from our current location.
<span style="font-weight:400">Once we got used to driving for extended periods on my motorcycle after the first day, we drove for a lot longer. With our built-up experience, now that we were ustomed to it, we’d be able to make the return trip in two to three days. Which meant we had about a week before we had to turn back and head home.
<span style="font-weight:400">Initially, we winged it without any clear destination in mind, we mindlessly drove in whatever direction the wind blew, but we finally came to a consensus on where we wanted to visit yesterday. This next city wasn’t ourst stop. Rather than this city, our final destination was about a two and a half hours drive away from it.
<span style="font-weight:400">This final destination was somewhere I’d never gone to before. Well, technically, I had been there as a child with my mother, but that was in the northern part of the continent rather than the southern part.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Hey, Ran, someone’s stranded on the side of the road up ahead.” Rosa suddenly pointed out from behind.
<span style="font-weight:400">“So? What does that have to do with us?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Why don’t we stop and give them a hand?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Why would we do that?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Let’s just give them a hand.”
<span style="font-weight:400">I focused on the curb and discovered a woman standing beside a pickup truck with her right arm stuck out and a thumb up.
<span style="font-weight:400">It was pretty obvious she was trying to hitchhike a ride.
<span style="font-weight:400">Was she out of gas or did her vehicle outright break down?
<span style="font-weight:400">Never before had I given a ride to someone trying to hitchhike a ride. I always ignored such people. They could be dangerous and concealing a weapon or something. They might try to mug you.
<span style="font-weight:400">“No way. I don’t trust it.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“What? You’re afraid she’s going to kill or mug us or something?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Obviously.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“There’s no way that’s going to happen. Besides, we outnumber her.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“What if there are other people we can’t see hidden inside the pickup truck or ditch on the side of the road?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Then how about we drive past, you park up further down the road, and Ie back and check sneakily. I can sneak up from the ditch and confirm whether there’s anyone in it. While I’m at it I can check inside the vehicle to see if there’s anyone hidden in it.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Why go through all that effort?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Look, there are some things a girl can’t say outright so easily.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Like what? You need a washroom?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“...”
<span style="font-weight:400">“If it’s just that, say so. I don’t see what the big deal is.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“... yeah… let’s go with that then. I need the washroom.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Wait… it isn’t?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Don’t dig any deeper than that unless you want to die.”
<span style="font-weight:400">Was she... on her period? Did she need to…
<span style="font-weight:400">I decided to not think about it any further than that. I’d forgotten girls had that sort of problem to deal with.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Alright, I get it, I’ll pull over up ahead.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Good.”
<span style="font-weight:400">We whizzed by the stranded woman’s side without slowing down and pulled over in a ditch three hundred meters away.
<span style="font-weight:400">Rosa hopped off and rummaged through her bag tied down to the back of the motorcycle.
<span style="font-weight:400">“What’re you looking for?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“None of your business.”
<span style="font-weight:400">As expected, it was that after all.
<span style="font-weight:400">When she found what she wanted she ran off in the direction of the pickup truck using the ditch as cover.
<span style="font-weight:400">Whatever she did after that I had no idea.
<span style="font-weight:400">She returned ten minutester and said, “I confirmed it, there was no one else hidden in the ditch or inside the pickup truck. She’s genuinely stranded. I listened to herining aloud to herself and it seems she just ran out of gas.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“I see. So?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“What do you mean, so?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“You did what you had to do, is there still a need to help her out?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Stop being so petty. It’s not like we even need to do much. We can just give her some of our gas and she can pay us back.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“What if we don’t have enough gas to share for her or us to make it to the next gas station?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Then we can just bring back a jerrycan with gas in it. Stop being so stubborn. It’s not safe for a girl to be hitchhiking a ride with strangers. What if some creep picks her up?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Then she’s shit out of luck and can only me herself for being careless.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“If you don’t go back I’ll go alone.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Haaaaah. If we did this for every hitchhiker we came across we’d never get anywhere.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Well we’re not. We’re just doing it for her.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“What makes her so special that we’d do so just for her and not anyone else?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Going off of what she’s wearing it looks like she’s a farm girl.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“And?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“I was thinking if we made a connection with a farmer’s daughter around here we could potentially get some free amodations for a day or two since it’s not too far from the city.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Hmm… that’s actually not a bad idea. It’d be safer too. Wild animals have been concerning and there’s no telling whether the weather will be as nice as it’s been thest few days.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Exactly.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“I thought your reason was going to be something really stupid like she’s hot or something.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Well... I won’t deny she’s in my strike zone.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“You can’t be serious.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Golden hair and sky blue eyes.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“You’ve got a thing for thatbination, don’t you?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Ehem. Ehem. Anyway, let’s go.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Haaaaah. Whatever.”
<span style="font-weight:400">Rosa wasn’t wrong, if she was a farmer’s daughter crashing at their farm wasn’t a bad idea. We could let her keep the gas free of charge and if we’re lucky she might offer us a ce to stay. It was a calcted move that we could benefit from if things went well.
<span style="font-weight:400">Rosa hopped back on the motorcycle and we drove a short distance before we pulled over on the opposite side of the road.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Hey, did you run out of gas?” Rosa called out to the girl on the other side.
<span style="font-weight:400">Strangely enough, the girl with her thumb stuck out over the road didn’t react immediately. She seemed to be spaced out while she stared down the road in the direction we initially came.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Haha, she totally ignored you.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“What’s with her? Go to the other side.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Sure.”
<span style="font-weight:400">I popped a U-turn and rolled up directly to her side. She hadn’t even noticed our presence when we were this close on a motorcycle with the engine rumbling.
<span style="font-weight:400">Rosa stuck her hand out in front of her face and waved. “Earth to air-headed girl stranded out in the middle of nowhere, can you hear me?”
<span style="font-weight:400">She didn’t blink let alone respond. She was spaced out to the extreme. She was still as a rock. If one didn’t know better they’d think she was a statute.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Hmm… maybe I was wrong?” Rosa sounded uncertain as she raised one brow up.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Wrong about what?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Her needing gas. Maybe what she really needs is a reality check.”