Atop a Tree That Reaches the Clouds (4)

A port town is a place where people and goods gather.

Even in a land whose culture differs greatly, that principle remains unchanged.

And when people and goods gather, information comes flowing in alongside them.

On top of that, because places where people gather are used to seeing outsiders, they tend to be relatively less wary of them.

In a farming village with little coming and going, outsiders are inevitably viewed with suspicion.

In that sense, the fact that the first place I visited in this country was a port town worked out well for me.

Well, since I came by ship to Fusang, this island nation separated from the continent, it was only natural that I would end up in a port town.

In any case, I planned to remain at Kaiyo Port for a while, starting by learning about Fusang.

There was much I needed to know, from geography, culture, and customs to laws that must never be broken and the way people thought.

...In particular, because my previous-life memories had taught me about a culture similar to Fusang's, acting based solely on those assumptions would be exceedingly dangerous.

No matter how similar Fusang's culture might be to the Japan I knew, the two were by no means identical.

Because Fusang was also a battlefield where humans and oni fought one another.

The common sense and ethics I had brought from my previous life were utterly unreliable here.

Well, setting that aside, I had two main purposes in Fusang.

One was the original purpose of my journey: tracing the origins of Yosogi Style.

The other was to see with my own eyes the giant tree regarded as the symbol of this country, the Fusang Tree.

Granted, I didn't know whether Yosogi Style still remained in Fusang even now.

After all, there had to be a profound reason why Yosogi Style had traveled so far, all the way to the central part of the continent, and taken root in the Kingdom of Ludria.

It was entirely possible that not only Yosogi Style but no records whatsoever remained in Fusang.

Fortunately, I had plenty of time to investigate.

Surely the Fusang Tree, my other objective, wouldn't simply disappear.

Searching every corner of Fusang would be difficult, but once I learned the local common sense, settled in, and made acquaintances, my horizons would broaden, my ears would pick up things from farther away, and my means of searching would expand.

I should also consider the possibility of staying here for ten or twenty years.

If I stayed much longer than that, though, I might return to the central part of the continent only to find that not a single familiar face remained.

Of course, if I finished what I came for quickly, I intended to head home at once.

"Hey there, that's quite an unusual outfit, stranger. You're from another country, aren't you? Just how far away did you come from?"

At the diner that had become my regular haunt, a man who looked like a traveling merchant happened to share my table and ask me this while I drank cup after cup with pickles to nibble on.

In the week or so since I arrived in Fusang—at Kaiyo Port—I had been asked the same question countless times, so

"From way out west. Past the great grasslands beyond the Yellow Ancient Empire."

I answered with an involuntary wry smile.

What surprised me a little was that being an elf apparently wasn't why I stood out in this country.

Ever since arriving in Fusang, I'd constantly felt curious eyes on me, but apparently they weren't because of my race; it was because my clothes were unfamiliar to them.

Apparently, when people in Fusang spoke of foreign lands or the continent, they meant the Yellow Ancient Empire, so my clothes, so completely different from theirs, made me seem very strange to them.

As for race, pointed ears were certainly unusual, but for people in Fusang accustomed to seeing merfolk and winged folk, they apparently mattered little compared with the fact that I was a foreigner.

That was quite an interesting realization.

Of course, in this world, seeing people of different races living in the same town was probably common.

Even in the Kingdom of Ludria, dwarves lived in towns and worked as blacksmiths, while elves eccentric enough to leave the forest became adventurers.

In Shirakawa Province of the Yellow Ancient Empire, earthfolk like Jizou worked there too.

But they were few in number, and even if they were good neighbors and friends, if you asked whether they were truly regarded as one's own kind, the answer would probably be no.

The difference between a neighbor or friend and a member of one's own people may be a small one.

I knew that, as individuals, people could overcome that barrier and associate with one another.

For example, just as Kaeha had loved me.

But as for an entire society treating another race as its own people as a matter of course... Ah, I know of only one other example.

The dwarves in the central part of the continent had fully recognized Win and me as their own people; that was the only example I could think of.

That must have been extraordinarily rare and special.

Yet in this country, people accepted merfolk and winged folk as their own kind as a matter of course.

Thus, rather than my race, they were interested in the fact that I had come from a foreign country—and at the same time, put up a wall between us.

The more I spoke with people from Fusang in Kaiyo Port, the more strongly I felt it.

What could possibly have caused things to turn out that way?

I didn't mind that there was a wall.

As I said earlier, individuals could overcome it.

But I was intensely curious about why society had come to take shape that way.

I felt I'd gained one more thing I wanted to learn about in this country.