A Journey and My Usual Whim (4)

It had been about seventy years since I last visited Saurote.

All the places I had visited after a long absence so far—Warfield, Vistcoat, Janpemon, and Odine—had retained their old townscapes, so although there had been small changes, none of them had become completely unrecognizable.

But Saurote had changed so drastically that scarcely any trace of its former appearance remained as it welcomed me.

For one thing, the town itself was astonishingly larger than before.

Compared to the Saurote I remembered from seventy years ago, it had nearly doubled in size, I thought.

And the harbor that had been the cause of the dispute between the merchant guild and the fishermen back then had been completely transformed into a commercial port.

The harbor was broad, with deep water, and many trading ships were moored there, loading and unloading their cargo.

The fishermen who had fought so desperately to protect their rights to this harbor back then were nowhere to be seen anymore.

Well, that was only natural.

If Saurote had chosen to develop through trade, it couldn't let the fishermen use such a well-situated harbor forever.

But that certainly didn't mean the fishermen had lost their place in the town.

The reason was that, in that one respect, Saurote remained unchanged: the town was still overflowing with seafood.

Apparently, Saurote had built a new fishing port some distance away, one with even better facilities than before, and expanded the town around it.

In other words, the town had grown so large because it now encompassed both a commercial port and a fishing port.

Saurote had abandoned neither trade nor fishing, instead making them the two pillars of its development by giving each its own place.

Of course, the people who had arranged that were probably the two prominent families: the Pasteri family, which coordinated the fishermen, and the Toritorine family, which coordinated the merchants.

I had said that scarcely any trace of old Saurote remained, but that also meant a few traces still survived.

I was now standing before the most memorable place for me among the few traces that remained of Saurote.

They must have rebuilt it at least once.

The building had changed a little, but the aromas and din coming from inside, the smell of seafood being grilled, and the noisy voices of fishermen and sailors drinking were all unchanged.

When I pushed open the swing door at the entrance, its hinges, rusted by the sea air, creaked.

For some reason, that sound made me want to laugh.

"Welcome. Sit wherever you like. ...Wait, an elf?"

A middle-aged woman, a little too old to be called the establishment's poster girl, welcomed me, then stared intently at me and tilted her head.

Apparently, she was the server here now.

I gave her a small nod, chose an empty seat, and sat down.

The people, the restaurant's interior—everything had changed, but traces of those days still remained.

Sometimes it was the atmosphere, sometimes the smell, ... and sometimes an old painting.

A small, framed painting was displayed high on the wall, and it could hardly be called skillful.

I have little knowledge of art, but I could still say that the painting wasn't very good because the people depicted in it were people I knew.

No, saying I knew them wasn't quite right.

After all, one of the people in it was probably me.

A painting of Dorieze, Karena, Grand, and me standing side by side hung there.

I wonder if Grand painted it.

If Karena had painted it, she was good at all sorts of things, so it should have been much better.

I couldn't even imagine Dorieze taking up a paintbrush; it was far too unlike her.

"Four recommended dishes and some alcohol. Oh, and if you have anything with ten or eight legs, I'd like that too."

The server glanced back at the painting, then looked at my face. Without saying anything, she nodded and went to relay my order to the kitchen.

Apparently, the painting was so poor that she hadn't realized I was the person depicted in it.

I didn't mind that at all.

It had taken me quite a while to come here, and, now that I thought about it, I had also failed to keep my promise to have Karena show me around if I ever returned to this town.

And yet I had gotten to see something that made me feel nostalgic.

That alone was more than enough to satisfy me.

The dishes that arrived tasted somewhat different, as expected, but they were still delicious and retained a trace of nostalgia. I could clearly tell that the flavor passed down from Grand had been refined over the years.

After filling both my stomach and heart with food and drink, I left the establishment.

The server seemed unsure until the very end whether to ask me about it, but I said nothing.

I left the town and headed east.

I had considered taking a ship from Saurote, but decided to go on foot after all.

Few things remain unchanged, but even so, I wanted to see as much as possible with my own eyes.

Come to think of it, I heard a story in Saurote that piqued my curiosity.

The Vilestrika Republic is the only country in the east-central region that conducts maritime trade with another continent.

It has formed friendly relations with the merfolk living around the southern islands and, with their cooperation, trades with the distant Southern Continent.

But apparently, a powerful nation that arose on the Southern Continent is destroying the surrounding countries one after another and expanding its influence.

And apparently, that powerful nation refuses to trade with this continent.

For now, the Vilestrika Republic can still trade with other countries, but if that powerful nation were to establish dominance over the Southern Continent, it would have a major impact on the Vilestrika Republic's maritime trade.

Although it also trades with the eastern and western parts of this continent, trade with the Southern Continent is the Vilestrika Republic's greatest strength.

It is precisely because of that strength that this country, despite having less territory, has been able to stand alongside the Rudria Kingdom and Zieden as a great power.

If it lost that strength, how would the Vilestrika Republic make up for it?

I only hope the wind from the south doesn't turn into a storm...