Chapter 178
Neldania, Dolbogarde's largest port and the place where I disembarked, is a city of water, where a river from the small states in the north meets the sea.
Apparently, Neldania was developed according to a plan from the very beginning, spreading out in a fan shape around the port, with the river as its main axis.
Several large canals also branched off from the river, with smaller canals connecting them.
Consequently, people and goods alike mainly travel by small boat in Neldania.
The boatmen who piloted those craft through the city were astonishingly well informed and told me all sorts of things.
The small boats that crisscross the city are used not only by townspeople, but also by merchants from far away, and sometimes by travelers and adventurers.
They must become adept at picking up rumors as a result of coming into contact with such a wide variety of people.
Or perhaps the boatmen exchanged information with one another, too.
After all, during the roughly two weeks I spent in Neldania gathering information, most of the boatmen I rode with already knew who I was.
They must all have shared the information that a rare elven customer wanted to know about the situation on the central continent.
In fact, gathering information from boatmen was much, much smoother than asking travelers about it in taverns.
After all, by handing over a tip that cost less than the drinks I would have bought in a tavern, I could obtain far more detailed information.
That was a blessing to me, but seen another way, it was not something to take lightly.
The boatmen knew both what was going on outside the town and what was happening within it.
Even I could tell that after only two weeks in Neldania.
In other words, the boatmen served as the town's legs—its means of transport—as well as its eyes and ears.
It had legs, eyes, and ears.
Then there had to be a head somewhere bringing them all together.
Someone who coordinated the boatmen, collected the information they held, and put it to use had to be out there somewhere.
I did not know whether that someone was the town's ruler, a powerful merchant, or a leading figure in the underworld.
If I had planned to linger in the town, I would have had to keep that someone constantly in mind.
I had felt this before... Ah, it was in Saurote, a town in the Republic of Vilestrica.
Both countries had prospered through commerce and maritime trade, so they had much in common.
The brightness of prosperous places, and the darkness of the unseen sides that sustain them.
Humanity's strength—and its terrifying nature.
One of humanity's strengths, I think, is that its life cycle is of moderate length.
Compared with long-lived races, humans live shorter lives, which lets them grow quickly and increase their numbers easily.
Yet they have enough time to acquire, accumulate, hone, and pass on technology.
In short, I feel that the human life cycle is just the right length for development.
And another thing: the human race's social nature is probably moderate as well.
As far as I know, fairies probably possess the most fully developed social nature of any race.
Even without being as extreme as that, forest-dwelling elves are far more socially cohesive than humans.
The likes of me and the elven caravan are merely very rare exceptions.
But precisely because of that, they are slow to change.
Because humans possess only a moderate degree of social cohesion, their societies take diverse forms and can flexibly change shape in a short time.
They are not so fragmented that they live separately, nor are they exactly cooperative; although they are the same species, they frequently fight among themselves.
That is why they prosper, and why they are so stimulating and interesting.
The brightness and darkness I sensed in the Republic of Vilestrica and here in Dolbogarde seem to me to be expressions of those human traits—and their strength.
After two weeks there, I left Neldania and headed north on foot, toward the small states.
The usual route from Neldania to the small states is to take a boat upstream along the river.
I had done this many times before, but traveling overland on my own two feet was completely different in speed from traveling by boat.
Even so, I deliberately chose to travel on foot.
There were two reasons.
First, there was the desire I had felt throughout my time at sea: to hunt prey and eat meat.
For a High Elf like me, walking along a well-maintained road or through a rugged forest makes little difference in speed or effort.
On the way to the small states, stepping into a forest and spending time among the trees would also help me sort out my thoughts.
Then there was one more.
If I took a boat upstream, I'd be headed for Lake Tsiar.
Specifically, I would end up at either Fokka or Ruronte, cities in the Republic of Tsiar.
If I disembarked at Ruronte, Odine, the city of magic, would be close at hand; even from Fokka, Lake Tsiar made it easy to reach any part of the small states.
That was probably why taking a boat upstream was the usual route to the small states...
But I had already decided where I would set foot first in the small states.
There was no particular significance to that choice.
However, when I was making my journey east across the continent, I had looked away from that place and avoided it.
I hadn't had the emotional room to face it; I hurried onward and passed it by.
But now, if I was to travel through the small states once more, changed or still changing, I felt it was right to start over from that place.
Janpemon, a town in the Duchy of Travoya.
I wonder whether that stone ship is still floating on a sea of golden wheat.
There should no longer be anyone I know in that town, but even so, I wanted to see what Janpemon was like now.
Before anywhere else in the small states.