Stillness...
Explosive motion.
Stillness...
Explosive motion.
Sharper. Sharper. Sharper still—
“Lo. I see you’re hard at work already.”
The voice broke me out of my concentration. How many of those practice thrusts had I done? I was pretty short of breath, so it had probably been at least a hundred.
“Tonio.”
The one who had come out of the aged shrine was the man with the beard and mild smile. I went to put away my spear.
“Oh, no, I didn’t mean to interrupt. Please continue.”
“Ah, thanks...”
That said, I’d allowed myself to get way too absorbed in practice. I still had walking to do today, so it would do me no good to exhaust myself by pushing my body to its limits. I had to do some cooling down exercises anyway, so I decided to just practice my form. Tonio sat down on a nearby stump and watched me.
“I must say, you are strong, Will.”
“Am I? You think so?”
“Well, I’m not sure how much this is worth, coming from someone who was cheated by a group of fraudulent adventurers...” Tonio laughed as if to conceal his embarrassment.
I listened while practicing my form with slow, gentle movements. Knock away the opponent’s weapon, lower myself, upwards thrust...
“But I can at least tell that your movements are very polished. And more than that, if I may give my opinion as a merchant...”
“What is it?”
“I believe that spear to be a dwarven masterpiece, and you look perfectly natural with it. Someone who’s a perfect match for a gem like that must be a gem themselves.” He shrugged. “However, there is something I don’t understand.”
“Something you don’t understand?”
“Yes,” he said. I suddenly noticed that behind his gentle gaze were the keen eyes of a merchant carefully evaluating a product. “What is it that you truly seek?”
◆
I paused and tilted my head to the side. “Truly seek? Hmm, well, what I want is for the god of the flame—”
“Those are your desires as a priest. Well, perhaps once one is a saintly priest, it becomes a way of life, but all the same... Do you not have any individual desires?”
“Why are you asking?”
“Because I am a merchant.” Tonio laughed. “That which abounds far away, I sell close by, and that which abounds close by, I sell far away. That is what it means to be a merchant. Our business is in moving products, granting people’s wishes, and ensuring their satisfaction in exchange for an appropriate price.”
He spoke openly and honestly, but his tone was serious. It dawned on me that this was the creed which he lived his life by.
“And yet... I cannot picture how you could be satisfied,” Tonio continued. “You are a bit of a mystery. You have muscular arms and plenty of pluck. Based on the way you heal difficult wounds and illnesses, you have earned the gods’ blessings. I sense etiquette and erudition in the way you act, and you seem to have built up a financial cushion as well. And yet, you are sensitive enough to shed tears at a famous story as if you have barely experienced life at all. I have never seen a person quite like you before. It seems to me that ‘nobility’ is not quite accurate. You are like the holy knights that one hears about in stories.”
Tonio smiled with his whole face. “So for my own edification, I thought I would ask you directly while I have the opportunity. What is it that you, as an individual, are looking for? Or are you indeed a representative of God through and through?”
I had to think about the answer. What did I want from the outside world—from this world? In fact, to begin with...
“Tonio, I, um... prior to now, I was living in a small and happy place, with people who... well, they were the ones who raised me, they were my teachers, and I also thought of them as my family. But just before I was due to set off on my own and become independent, I suddenly lost those people and was forced to leave. In their place, I gained the protection of the god of the flame.”
Those events with the god of undeath—it seemed unreal, but they had only happened a few weeks ago.
“I still know so little about the world—about anything, really—so I’m basically just mindlessly following the mission my god sets for me, I think.”
I didn’t know anything about this place, so how was I meant to know what I wanted here? I thought that I probably needed first to learn about this world, this world that Blood and Mary and Gus had fought to protect, and I told him that. “So, the first thing I want to do is learn about the world. I think I’ll discover what I want as I encounter things and learn about them.”
As I said it, an image came into my head of Blood, Mary, and Gus laughing, and I pictured their exploits together.
I looked down a little, embarrassed. “Also, I... I’d like to make some friends... I guess.”
That was something I hadn’t been able to obtain in my previous world. A gang of friends like Mary and Gus had been to Blood. Those three had been my parents and teachers, but this was something they hadn’t been able to give me, something I needed to go out into the world and obtain for myself.
“Is Menel not a friend?” Tonio asked.
Put on the spot, I gave a single laugh while I thought of an answer. “I think we get along pretty well, but he won’t look at me as a friend, you know? And everyone else puts me on a pedestal, calling me ‘sir’ or ‘Father’ or something...” I couldn’t get used to that, and I felt uncomfortable being respected so much when I was so ignorant about so many things. If Menel said we were friends, I had a feeling it would make me pretty happy.
“Yeah,” I said. “Friends would be nice...”
Voicing it brought home the reality. I was saying I wanted friends because even at the age of fifteen (according to the solstice system), I didn’t have a single one. That was pretty darn bad, I had to admit. So much so that it was a little bit funny. People really don’t change much.
“I see.” Having heard my answer, Tonio smiled cheerfully. “Then perhaps I will put myself forward for the third place position.”
“Huh?”
“I fear incurring the wrath of Menel and Robina if I beat them to the punch.”
Seeing me tilt my head in confusion, Tonio laughed loudly and rose from the stump. The sun had risen without me noticing. “All right. Let’s collect some water and start preparing breakfast.”
Tonio was good at cooking. For breakfast, he made bread by mixing flour with water, kneading it into dough, winding it around a stick, then heating it over the campfire. It was simple, but eaten steaming hot with cheese, some lightly grilled bacon dripping with grease, and a little salt sprinkled on top, the result was delicious.
According to Bee, Tonio’s skill at cooking was the reason she was accompanying him. Apparently she was a halfling who really enjoyed eating.
As for me, I had learned how to cook, generally speaking, but the ingredients available to me in that city of the dead were extremely limited, so there wasn’t much I knew how to make. And Menel, in contrast to his pretty exterior, was the kind of guy who didn’t care about taste so long as he had something to eat, and it showed in his cooking. Tonio’s presence had enriched our daily meals considerably.
We ate the holy bread I was bestowed each morning after my prayer as a snack while on the road. Meals were eaten two or sometimes three times a day in this world. Physical laborers in particular usually had a midday meal, and right now, we were in the middle of a journey. Walking all day took a lot of energy. I wanted a midday meal if I could get one, but on the other hand, I didn’t want to stop walking. Tonio had been the one to suggest that we should light a fire for breakfast and leave the holy bread for lunchtime, and it had sounded like a perfectly good plan to me.
“You ask me when I’ll be back home / I wish I knew that great unknown.”
Bee often sang as we walked.
“The heavens open on a stagnant pond /
We both fall silent as the rain beats on.”
She didn’t much care whether it fit the mood.
“If we don’t know when, we’ll say ‘someday’ / That someday, we’ll embrace again / And laugh about today.”
Oh. I thought it was going to be a depressing song about lovers, but it flowed beautifully into a hope-filled ending. Clever.
“Hehe.” Bee sounded proud. “It’s a pretty nice one, isn’t it?”
“The final verse felt like a ray of light piercing through the clouds.”
“Yeah, exactly!” Bee said, equally entranced by the lyrics. “That’s what’s so great about it.”
She really did like songs and poetry.
Chatting like that, we passed through several villages, which became more flourishing the further north we went.
Occasionally, we even came across places big enough to call a town, with probably over a thousand people living in them. In places like that, Tonio would quickly buy and sell and gather information, and then we’d move on. He looked like he’d mastered this process. I thought again about just how good of a merchant he probably was.
“Oh, right, I meant to ask you,” said Menel. “How’s Whitesails doing right now?”
I suddenly realized that he, too, had been cooped up in a remote village, so it must have been some time since he visited the port.
“The Fertile Kingdom is in a transition period at the moment with its new king,” Tonio said.
“Wait, you mean Egbert II has...?”
“Yeah,” said Bee. “His posthumous name’s ‘Egbert the Bold,’ they’re saying. He was a pretty good king, I thought...”
“So he’s dead...” Menel closed his eyes. Somehow, I felt the dignified character of an aged half-elf in him.
According to Tonio and Bee, the Fertile Kingdom had recently suffered the passing of its king, and a new king had succeeded him.
The one who had enriched the kingdom thus far and shown an eagerness to expand into the southern regions was King Egbert II, also known as Egbert the Bold. After his death, he was succeeded by his son and heir, Prince Owen. From listening to them talk, I got the impression that King Egbert II had been a pretty brilliant man, and at the same time, the kind of person to want to run the show all on his own.
Although King Egbert II ran the kingdom excellently and led it to prosperity, the local feudal lords were not the least bit happy at having their rights and interests gradually eroded by the domineering tactics of the king and the aristocrats who were advising him. However, because he was actually producing results, they were unable to openly criticize him.
It was at a time like this that Egbert II’s love of alcohol came back to haunt him. His death came suddenly and was attributed to a stroke or something similar. He may have surrounded himself with priests offering strong divine protection, but there was apparently nothing they could do in a case like this where he was there one moment and gone the next.
King Owen, who inherited the throne, was in the prime of his life, but was said to be a pretty undistinguished person. He wasn’t a degenerate or a wayward thinker, but he was neither as talented nor as wise as his father. In terms of the report cards I got from school in my past life, he would have gotten a run of Bs and Cs, but no As, even when including extra points for having the right attitude.
In terms of his personality, he didn’t possess his father’s decisiveness either, and the feudal lords that the previous king had kept under his thumb seized on the opportunity to assert themselves. They insisted that expanding to the south was a bad idea after all. King Owen replied that it was good, and that they should continue it. To which the lords complained about “our expenses” this, “our forces” that, “our defenses are suffering,” and on and on, ad infinitum.
“Isn’t that... pretty bad?”
“It is. It seems that the political situation over on the continent is a little chaotic. Fortunately, however, Southmark has not been greatly affected thus far. That would be due to Owen’s younger brother being dispatched here. His Excellency is an extremely gifted individual.”
The king’s brother, Ethelbald Rex Fertile, was a youthful man in his thirties. He was the son of Egbert II and his second wife, and didn’t share the same mother as King Owen; however, it was said that he took after his father, excelling equally in the arts of the sword and the pen.
King Owen, concerned about the political turmoil, pushed through an order to demote his brother to the status of commoner. Then, he revived the extinct aristocratic family of Southmark, and ennobled his brother Duke Ethelbald Rex Southmark. In other words, he appointed him in charge of the entire expansion effort to Southmark.
Once Duke Ethel received his title, he gathered together a group vassals of both military and non-military prowess, finished making the necessary arrangements, and immediately crossed the sea to the south. As the turmoil on the continent continued—
“That all the necessary functions of government are somehow still operating around Whitesails is the result of His Excellency’s excellent governance.”
The situation seemed to be pretty dramatic.
As we talked about all these things, we walked up a road with fields on either side. The ears of wheat rustled in the wind. The air was cold; we were still in winter, but I could detect a hint of spring.
When we reached the top of the hill, the faint salty scent of the sea tickled my nose. Spread out before us was a horizon of ocean.
It was the bay.
Long stretches of land spread out on both sides, as if it were hugging the sea. The blue sea was busy with boats with white sails coming and going, and right in the inlet was a large town. My eyes caught the vivid red and brown tiled roofs, then the rows of white houses lining the slope towards the sea, the steeples, and the bell tower. And was that beautiful series of arches running along the outer edge of the city an aqueduct?
This was a city, an actual, living city. Several thousand people were probably living here—maybe even close to ten thousand. There were city streets filled with people. There was activity, the busyness of people going about their daily lives. Even though I was looking at it all from a great distance, I could feel the the city’s vibrancy like I was there in the middle of it all.
A city. An assemblage of human activity. It was a symbol of what Blood, Mary, and Gus had risked their lives to see protected.
As sunlight glittered on the surface of the sea, I remained gazing at the bustle of that dazzling city until Menel and Bee called my name.
Whitesails was a wealthy city. The people walking through the streets were wearing clothes dyed in all kinds of colors, and I could see certain tendencies in their hairstyles and accessories.
In short—get this—trends existed here! They had the time and money to think about fashion! Just that fact alone was shocking to me.
In fact, my first shock had come before that, when I entered the city. There was no kind of check required, and no toll to pay to pass through the city gate. I’d subconsciously been assuming that there would be that kind of thing based on what I knew about medieval cities, and I’d been prepared to be kept waiting, but they just let us right in.
“That’s one of His Excellency Ethel’s policies. He’s the one governing this city,” Tonio explained to me.
A huge volume of goods was being sent into this city via the sea route to the north, and spreading to the rest of Southmark via the land routes and waterways as if they were blood vessels. Because there was such an overwhelming amount passing through, stopping it all at the city gate would be a recipe for chaos, and in fact would create a hotbed of smuggling.
So His Excellency Ethel brought in the money needed to run the city by imposing fees for the ships to dock at the wharves, rental fees for space at the market, taxes upon the companies setting up shop within the city, and avoided interfering with the movements of people, goods, and money as much as possible. That was the direction he’d taken, at least for Whitesails, Tonio told me.
&nbs
p; I hmm’ed, somewhat impressed. I wasn’t that well versed in economics, but I got the impression that this was quite a progressive, open-minded, and liberal policy.
The way people speak about Duke Ethelbald seems well deserved, I thought as I walked around the city. “Hm? What are those?”
Some kind of pillar-like objects were lined up along the road. Each had something like an... umbrella at the top...?
“Uh, those are streetlights.”
“Streetlights?!”
What?!
“You didn’t know what those were? Oh my God, Will, get with the times! They have the Word of Light engraved on them. Apprentices at the Academy of Sages come around in the evening and light them up. The apprentices get to practice binding mana to Signs, and the city people get to have light during the night as well, so that’s pretty useful.”
“Exactly. It is good training for apprentice sorcerers, and an avenue to earning a little bit of pocket money as well. Similarly,” Tonio said, pointing at a large building ahead of us, “that is another large source of income for sorcerers-in-training. It makes frequent use of the Words of Heat and Purification, after all.”
“Is that—”
“Hehe...” Bee gave me another mischievous laugh. “I bet even you know what that one is,” she said, spinning around on the spot just to be funny. “You guessed it, it’s the balnea!”
Balnea...?
“Hm? Something up, Will?”
“Is something the matter?”
Wait, I knew that word! Wasn’t that a public bathhouse?! I could take a bath there?!
“Let’s go!” I announced without a second thought. The other three looked surprised.
◆
To cut a long story short, my first bath in some time was a wonderful experience.
After all, considering the time period, I’d honestly been considering the possibility that the water would be dirty, unhygienic, and carry all kinds of diseases, but the Word of Purification was doing its job, and the water was crystal clear. The problem of needing an immense amount of fuel to maintain the temperature had been solved by the Word of Heat. Wonderful. I’m repeating myself, but it was wonderful.
The Archer of Beast Woods Page 10
