What should a good city-state have?
Most people who know little about this will answer you: tall and majestic city walls, wide and bright streets, and fluttering lord flags.
Admittedly, this answer is not wrong. Most great city-states contain the above elements. But to go deeper - if you are a castle scholar or a lord - or someone who aims at both, you need to be able to answer at least the following items.
Excellent sewer system, excellent security system, and bustling shops.
Every city-state that is already, or has the potential to become, a capital must possess these most basic points. Putting aside the first two points for now, whether a small village is prosperous may depend on the crop harvest, which is a combination of population, arable land area, and climate. The same may be true of a slightly larger village, but it is always the number of shops that determines the prosperity of a city-state.
This is true for port cities, and it is also true for important military towns. Perhaps it is not so reasonable to simply attribute them to the type of store, but in short, almost no great city-state can lack these dazzling service industries - and the Ashenil where we are now is naturally no exception. This series, or to put it conversely, it is a great example of this type of city-state.
Together with the surrounding villages and towns, Yasniel has a permanent population of 300,000. The entire northern city and half of the east city are full of various supplies stores. Next to the weapons testing ground and the horse market, they have all kinds of supplies. In addition to weapons, armor, and mount saddles, it also sells a wide variety of small items such as clothing, repair tools, and even emergency potions and miniature compasses that meet the various needs of adventurers.
Everything you need is available. As long as you have money, you can even walk in naked and come out wearing the most expensive and top-notch plate armor and holding precious weapons etched with magic circles.
Although most of the time you will be like what you will encounter in the other 1,800 cities full of merchants on the Rigal continent - you will be cheated until you don't have a penny left in your pocket.
As we have been saying, businessmen are shrewd creatures.
Just like this one right now.
If Miss Mary, who runs a small and medium-sized weapons shop named 'Adventurer's House' like 1,800 others, has something unique enough to be called a personality, Perhaps it was her graceful figure and bright face - and Miss Mary, who was deeply aware of this fact, naturally did not give up this advantage due to her nature as a businessman.
Deliberately choosing a low-cut corset that is very uncomfortable to wear, buying high-end perfume that is watered down within the budget, and taking care of the long and dazzling red hair carefully every day - all these efforts are combined Her customer flow and sales volume far exceeded that of her surrounding counterparts, and the frustrated looks in the eyes of those wealthy blacksmiths also made Miss Mary increasingly tend to use her nostrils to look at people.
--until today.
Miss Mary, 25, has never experienced such frustration before.
Even when she was determined to open a weapons shop but was laughed at by the male blacksmiths around her, all she could feel was full of fighting spirit, but today this guy was different.
- He looks like a fat sheep.
Miss Mary, who has been running the store for more than two years, can easily identify those who will buy their own things and those who are old foxes who are just here to take advantage of the situation. And this person conforms to the characteristics of all those who can spend money——
He has a clean and handsome appearance, tall and strong, with neatly styled blond hair and very deep light blue pupils - this is something that even the mercenary adventurers cannot match. He travels all year round. They are diligent if they take a bath once a month.
This is a handsome guy whose simple face can make countless girls crazy - unfortunately, our Miss Mary cares more about his pocket, so we focus our perspective on how she is really - at least once - sure that this guy is a mere The key evidence of fat sheep is above.
-He wears a full suit of plate armor.
Ordinary mercenaries and adventurers would never do this.
On the one hand, it cannot afford the cost of manufacturing and maintenance. The real reason is that full-body armor that wraps itself like an iron bucket is completely unnecessary in most cases. Even among the mercenaries, there are three types of mercenaries: A, B, and C who specialize in warfare. But more often than not, they will choose to ambush and use tactical and long-range weapons to protect themselves instead of an expensive set of mercenaries. Full body armor.
The only people who would choose plate armor as protective gear were those whose main opponents were humans or other intelligent beings. Ordinary soldiers would only wear a chest protector at most and would never be fully dressed - for the same reason as above.
So this person will be at least a knight, and judging from the brightness of the armor, he will not be the kind of down-and-out wandering knight who is almost the same as a mercenary, but a serious man with a full purse. Noble sir.
This is a very rare situation. The knight goes out shopping by himself without his butler or his entourage. Uncensored and rich in money, Miss Mary tried her best to promote her products in the face of such a rare sheep - and we have all seen the results.
The other person showed no interest in her or her products, which made people wonder why he walked into this store. After more than ten minutes of enthusiastic introduction to no avail, Miss Mary's face couldn't help but become as frustrated as the blacksmith uncles around her - but at this moment, the knight with bright armor spoke.
"Do you have a bow here?" he asked, and Miss Mary's hazel eyes instantly lit up: "Yes!" She immediately took out a horn bow from the cabinet next to her, and then gave it to this The knight master, who finally expressed his interest in something, introduced it.
"Do you want to change a weapon? Indeed, bows and arrows are a very good choice. Compared with magic that requires talent, although it also requires a long time of practice." Miss Mary spoke at a very high speed and in a skillful tone. This is the introduction: "The bows we have here are all produced in Renea. You know, it is the country on the other side of the Morbigas Strait that produces steel-arm crossbows. The quality of their crossbow weapons has always been the best in the industry."
"The bow I recommend to you is an Eastern Palosian Plateau-style recurve bow. Although its power is slightly inferior to the West Coast-style longbow, this bow is much more portable than the longbow. It can even be used for mounted shooting, and it is quite suitable as a secondary weapon for a knight like you."
"And we also sell arrows here. If you are a beginner, I recommend this one with a strong pulling force. You know, the harder it is to pull apart, the more suitable it is for training--" Miss Mary said eloquently. Until she found a palm with a silent gesture appearing in front of her.
"...?" She was stunned, and then realized that the knight didn't look at her at all.
His head turned to the side, his eyes looking through the gap in the store facade to somewhere in the distance. Miss Mary also leaned out and looked curiously.
The place the knight was looking at was not far away, but the scenery was completely different from the excitement here. Although it was only early autumn, the desolate streets made those who looked at them feel cold involuntarily.
'A slum? Or the monastery, what is he looking at? Miss Mary, whose eyebrows were furrowed, got the answer in the next second. A man who was much taller than ordinary people and carrying a slender sword appeared in her field of vision with a petite white-haired girl. In just a moment, they disappeared at the corner of the street.
"..." The knight stared at the place where the two people disappeared for a while and then turned to look at Miss Mary.
"What did you see?" he asked. Miss Mary was stunned for a moment: "Hey, what did you see? Isn't it just a little girl with white hair..."
"Huh..." She was stunned for a moment, and suddenly found that she could not clearly imagine any characteristics of that person. A strange feeling echoed in Miss Mary's mind. She knew exactly what she saw, but she still couldn't Unable to piece together the fragments of these memories - the knight in front of him put on an inexplicable smile.
"It's true." He smiled, then changed his quiet demeanor before, turned around and walked outside with great energy - and then when he was about to step out of the door, he seemed to think of something, and suddenly stopped. Come down.
"By the way," he said to Miss Mary, who was still a little dazed, "you'd better stop doing this."
"A bow is not a weapon that should be strong when you first start practicing. On the contrary, it is the right way to choose a light bow and familiarize yourself with the basic movements first. Just to instill wrong ideas in customers just to sell more money. This is tantamount to killing a chicken to obtain the egg.”
he continued.
"And it's not a Palosian recurve, they're longer because East Coast archers still walk more. It's not even a Renea, yours is a Steppe The hunting bow used by the nomadic people for orthodox riding and archery.”
"It is important for businessmen to make profits, but if they lose their credibility, the transaction will not be sustainable. Have you ever counted how many of your customers will come back again if you keep doing this? And if they do, How much more sales will there be on the original basis?”
"Goodbye, madam" the knight simply signaled, and then walked out of the store without looking back.
Miss Mary was left standing there blankly, sighing secretly for a while: "Who is he..."
…
…
The camera pans to the other side.
Walking on the deserted streets, Henry and Mira were silent to each other.
The sage didn't speak because he felt he had nothing to say, while the girl fell into thinking because of some of the things the former told her along the way.
She looked up at Henry's face. Because of the height difference between the two, Mira usually could only walk faster than Henry, otherwise she would be blocked by his shoulders and her expression could not be seen clearly, but she did not do that today.
She didn't need to see it with her own eyes to guess that Henry's face was just calm at the moment.
A girl's mind is complicated.
She had many questions to ask, such as why people could do such a thing, or why people would sit back and watch such a thing happen. But she had the answers before she even asked them.
At only 11 years old, Mila is burdened with a maturity and calmness that most children who are still spoiled in the arms of their parents cannot have - but if there is a choice, who would want all this instead of a warm and peaceful family? .
Her eyes shifted to Henry's hand holding hers.
The sage's hand was very warm, and his left hand, which had been holding a sword all year round, was thickly calloused, but the girl didn't feel any discomfort when he held her hand.
'He is probably also a person with stories...' Mira thought, and others might also appear very calm when they understand the truth behind this matter. But that's just a kind of indifference that has nothing to do with me, which is different from Henry.
At this moment, Mira can fully understand the few words he said to her ten minutes ago, but it is precisely because of her understanding that it is even more difficult for her to understand the essence of Henry.
The calmness and maturity beyond her peers allow Mira to easily judge a person's true purpose hidden behind his or her behavior - this is the way for the weak to adapt to the world. Only through such observation can she barely ensure her own survival.
But no matter what, Mira couldn't judge Henry's purpose.
Profit from good deeds? She could understand this, but who was Henry going to benefit from?
If she had been rescued before and had chosen to run away and report him for murder, he would have only gained trouble. But what he wants to do this time, what can those orphans who are younger than her and have nothing to repay him for?
I can't understand his thinking patterns and reasons for his actions - but that's why.
Because of this, in the eyes of the white-haired young girl, the warmth and light she felt from the man she didn't know much about through the tightly held palms seemed extremely pure.
Henry might really not care about anything, just like the calm expression on his face. He doesn't care if he makes a profit, and he doesn't care if the people he helps feel grateful.
Maybe he did this just on a whim, Mira thought.
As naive as a child, Mira began to snicker.
"What's wrong with you?" Henry, who noticed her actions, turned his head and they were still walking, while Mira covered her mouth with her little hand and shook her head: "No"
"I just think that you may be a worse adult than I thought, Mr. Sage." The girl's eyes were pure, and there was no trace of derogatory meaning in the eyes facing the sage, and Henry couldn't help but be attracted by her smile. Infected, a slight arc appeared on the calm face, but it quickly disappeared.
"I just thought you were complimenting me, and then, here we are" He stopped.
"What building exists in a slum that someone can maintain without having too many visitors, and at the same time have enough space and a legitimate reason for a group of orphans to live there?"
"The answer is the monastery." Henry raised his face, and Mira followed his line of sight. What she saw was a somewhat dilapidated manor with a gray and white tone.
The white slate paved on its long walkway has been cracked and blackened. The angel statues standing on both sides of the door look extremely worn due to wind and rain. The dirty and black surface makes the originally loving angel look like he is crying. The resentful woman.
The door was unlocked, and Henry walked in slowly with Mira.
"This kind of old-style monastery was built in large numbers in the past. They were used to train orphans to become a new generation of nuns and monks to spread the glory of the gods." Henry paused, his ears caught some sounds, and then turned He turned in a certain direction and walked towards there.
"But today, when clergy are increasingly valued, the vast majority of people who are qualified to become monks are children of civilians or noble families who have attended seminaries. Therefore, monasteries have gradually been replaced by churches and temples. It has become a place that no one cares about." They walked slowly over there. The direction the two came in seemed to be the back door. Based on the stone tablets that often recorded great achievements in monasteries in large cities, Henry judged that that side was Where the main entrance is.
"But even so, they have not been completely abandoned. After all, 'those who forget the glory of God will eventually be forgotten by God.'" Henry shrugged. Mira could see that although he quoted the words from the divine book, Not even a trace of basic respect can be found.
"So they were targeted by these slave owners and bad guys who wanted to make profits. These outsiders came here and forced the monks and nuns to tolerate it..." Mira looked at Henry and said that she thought, and the sage responded with another shrug.
"No, little Mira, things may be more boring than you think."
They walked out of the corner, where several young men who looked about twenty years old were arguing with nuns who were about fifty or sixty years old.
"Bad people sometimes"
“Not from outside”
