A Journey and My Usual Whim (2)

I had only passed through before, so it hadn't left a particularly deep impression, but the Paulogia I remembered was a poor country.

The land was somewhat infertile, the water murky, and while it probably wasn't so inhospitable that people couldn't live there, it seemed to be a place where there was barely enough food and drink to get by, with no room to spare.

If I remember correctly, its main industry was pottery and porcelain, made by kneading and firing clay dug from the riverbed.

With little traffic and not much to transport, I remember the roads being in rather poor condition.

Though it hardly mattered to me, since I traveled without using the roads.

But what surprised me now, when I visited this land that had become Giathica, was seeing people coming and going along the roads and wagons laden with cargo rolling along them.

...Of course, the roads had been properly maintained as well.

Ah, by becoming a vassal state of the Vilestrika Republic, this land had instead grown prosperous.

Perhaps Zieden's moves had even given Giathica a tailwind.

When the Duchy of Karkoim was invaded by Zieden, the only route to the Kingdom of Rudoria ran through Giathica.

Money began flowing into Giathica, which had become a trade route between the two great powers, the Vilestrika Republic and the Kingdom of Rudoria.

Naturally, it was only to be expected that it would prosper.

Rather, it was the former Paulogia's refusal to claim the wealth it could have gained by competing with the Vilestrika Republic that had truly been foolish.

But now that Zieden had softened its stance, Giathica was no longer the only trade route to the Kingdom of Rudoria.

If trade from the small states to the Kingdom of Rudoria through Zieden grew more active, it would gradually begin to affect trade passing through Giathica as well.

When circumstances were on its side, everything must have gone smoothly.

I won't say development is easy, but maintaining it is even harder.

Development earns praise, while maintenance rarely does.

On the contrary, people compare the present, in which things are merely being maintained, to the past, when the country was developing, and grow dissatisfied.

Deflecting that dissatisfaction, resolving it, and running the country surely wouldn't be easy.

To say nothing of the fact that Giathica was a vassal state, caught between two great powers: its suzerain, the Vilestrika Republic, and the Kingdom of Rudoria.

It was sure to be buffeted by the great powers' designs countless times in the years to come.

From here on, the quality of Giathica's current ruler would be put to the test.

But even so...

"Hey, isn't that an elf? Wouldn't it be a bad idea to mess with him?"

"Idiot, it's an elf traveling alone in a place like this. There has to be a reason. This is our chance."

"It's a shame he's a man, but we should be able to get a high price if we take him west somehow."

"Hey, you, don't do anything funny. Hand your weapon over here. And none of that strange power elves are supposed to use. You wouldn't want this spear making a hole in your body, would you?"

...What should I do?

At dusk, several men leaped from a covered wagon passing beside me and surrounded me, quickly leveling spears at me. I sighed inwardly.

It was only natural that bandits and the like would increase as trade routes grew prosperous, but it would be difficult for this sort of group to survive without being weeded out.

Judging by their appearance, they probably usually called themselves mercenaries and traveled from place to place in a wagon, engaging in banditry by targeting unguarded travelers who were alone or in small groups on foot.

If they had enough wit to think of that, I wish they'd use it for something more respectable.

Ah, perhaps they really were mercenaries, but after the war between Zieden and the Vilestrika Republic ended, they'd fallen on hard times and taken to banditry.

If they really were mercenaries, they probably weren't too bad at fighting, but apparently they saw me as an exceptionally tempting target.

Their minds seemed busy calculating how much money they would get and thinking about how to spend it, and their carelessness showed.

But if we're talking about carelessness, I can't criticize anyone else.

Normally, I would have noticed a suspicious wagon before it could get close, but excited by being back in the world outside the forest after so long, I had let down my guard.

More specifically, I had been absentmindedly thinking only about tonight's dinner: bread and soup I could eat once I reached a settlement, along with roasted meat and fish.

Of course, that was also because part of me felt that the world outside the forest was safe compared with the Pulha Great Forest.

Honestly, I was a little irritated.

I had thought I'd soon be able to enjoy a warm meal—an elaborate one cooked by people, for the first time in ages—but they'd interrupted me.

I could settle this in an instant by relying on the spirits, but given my current mood, I wasn't entirely sure I could control how much force I used.

The spirits, my friends, were sensitive to my emotions, and especially now, after my encounter with the immortal bird, I felt that the distance between the spirits and me had grown a little smaller again.

I wasn't very confident I could hold back enough not to kill them.

So, rather than react to the spearheads pointed at me, I casually stepped forward.

The mercenary surely hadn't expected me to move as though I might impale myself on his spear, and his surprise froze him for an instant.

Once that happened, the rest was easy.

I reached past the spearhead, grabbed the shaft, twisted it while giving it a light push, then pulled harder.

I kicked away one bandit whose balance I'd broken, snatched the spear, swung it, and knocked the others flying as well.

"Wha—You, what the... Ugh!"

Though the bandit cried out in surprise and anger, the butt of the spear struck his throat, and he rolled across the ground with a strangled scream.

Their reactions were slow.

If they had time to move their mouths, they should have either fled at once or counterattacked.

Spears weren't my specialty, but back in the East, I had learned how to handle polearms from Ouki Genjo, an immortal and a martial arts master.

Compared to my skill with a sword, I could only call my skill with a spear immature, but I wasn't about to be outdone by mercenaries who had fallen so low as to become bandits.

It wasn't quite "in the blink of an eye," but after quickly knocking all the bandits flat, I let out a deep sigh.

After all, the troublesome part was what came next.

I couldn't very well leave the bandits there, so I would have to hand them over to soldiers at the next settlement.

They would surely ask me to explain what had happened, and transporting them was the biggest hassle of all.

Killing them would save me the trouble, but I didn't like needlessly snuffing out lives that yielded neither food nor materials.

Besides, the bandits weren't strong enough for me to clearly recognize them as enemies deserving of death.

Fortunately, these bandits had a wagon, so perhaps I could load them into it and take them along.

I got motion sick in wagons, but I did better when I was the one driving.

If they hadn't had a wagon, I would have buried them from the neck down and left them in the ground, so I couldn't decide whether that was fortunate for me or for them.