Vermillion

"- So, like switching the bids again in a week. Next!"

A loud voice echoes, and a long queue moves forward slightly.

"Ahhh... Come on, I'm tired of waiting"

"Totally."

Inside that row, Kay and Irene, neighboring each other on a ride, sighed with a fed up look. The mercenaries who line up before and after the Kays, the merchants who hold the carriage's reins, the mercenaries who cross the horses, and the peasants who bring the livestock, are all equally tired of waiting.

Approximately an hour after reaching the city of Satina.

After the raid of the people of the meadows, it was Kay and Irene, who were not particularly in any trouble - it was the long line of snakes in front of the main entrance, just traffic jams, waiting for the two of them in Satina.

The castle city of Satina.

With sturdy stone walls on all sides and a magnificent view of the Morra River to the east, the city is a major trading hub for taxes and produce from surrounding villages.

In addition to river shipping via the Morra River, it was also a strange, even better, timber producer on the terrain of intersecting East, West and North streets, making it the economic centre of the southern part of the Lilleil region, where artisans and merchants meet together.

The castle of Satina is equipped with a large city gate on all sides as a gateway. The west, south, and north city gates are access routes from land, except for the east, which is dedicated to the Morra River dock.

Kays, coming west of Satina and from the direction of the village of Taaf, naturally tried to creep through the west gate - so they waited from the gatekeeper but hung up.

Said that livestock and horses could not pass through the gate without a plaque. They need to go first to the south main entrance and, after paying a predetermined amount per head, go through the process of issuing the appraisal.

The point is taxes on livestock and riding organisms.

Outside the castle, houses do not exist except in Slam Street in northwestern Satina. There couldn't be a facility where horses could be kept in the slums, and leaving them outside was out of the question, so the Kays had to head to the south main entrance.

And what I saw was a long line of snakes.

Kay and the others lined up to get the ticket, but they haven't been able to get to the gate since they've been waiting for more than an hour. Probably because of the cumbersome procedure, but also because of those unable to pay taxes or who attempt to cross over, problems are frequent and the issuance of appraisals is further delayed. In addition to that, some privileged classes and thinkers ignore the rows and go through the process as a matter of priority, so frustration was one way to recruit them.

But if you wait, I'll visit you then one day.

"- So watch out for more than that. Next!"

The merchant of the wagon that was in front of us finished the process, and finally it's Kays' turn next.

Under the gate, several guards with short spears held the front and rear of the gate together with a tough face.

The guards' gear is unified with white-dyed leather armor, with a left-hand cross on the chest that intersects around the top of the heart. Its white and black contrast reminded me of a police patrol car somewhere in Japan.

"…… you, the people of the meadows?

One of the guards, a man who stored an elderly blackbeard who seemed to be in charge of this scene, looks at Kay with a frigid gaze.

"No, it's not. If you look at this face, you'll see."

As she stepped down from Sasquatch, Kay pointed at her face and said it was obvious. There are no tattoos of meadow folk on Kay's face, and the armor he is equipped with eliminates feather ornaments, etc., so it is very much the same as normal leather armor, except for the unique tattoos.

"Phew. Though much and much, it seems to possess the arms of the people of the meadows. What's wrong with this?

"They attacked me on my way here. I took it back and stripped it off."

"…… all of it?

"Yeah. There were eight of them."

The black beard guard observed the armor filled with two horses, but he narrowed his eyes and snorted his nose at the squeaky black blood that crept into them.

"…… well, fine. Where are you guys from?

"From the village of Taaf"

"What's the purpose?

"They asked me to deliver the letter. After that, I bought them out... a lot."

Remove the envelope entrusted to Bennett from the lumbar pouch and show it.

"Lend it to me."

Blackbeard, who received an envelope from Kay, gently stroked the wax - Kay has no reason to know, but the pattern is set for each village and city - with his fingers, confirming Bennett's signature on the back.

"Hum, well, that sounds real. One last time, I'm gonna gently inspect your possessions, okay?

That was more of an order than a confirmation. Beside several young guards checking their horse's luggage handily, something like a light bodycheck is exchanged with Pompon.

"What check, this?

"It's drugs. It's been fashionable in Satina lately, and I've been asking you to step up your controls."

Blackbeard, who finished checking Kay, shrugged her shoulder small.

"Come on, stay still!

"Oh, me too?!

Next to Kay, a young guard leans over to Eileen. A little Eileen escaped to the wall in an unexpected manner.

"Hey, don't run away! You, now you have something to hide!?

"Where can I hide what in such thin clothes!?

Irene with a red face, flickering a light tunic. But the young guard with his hands twitching and distancing. "Phew," he sighed as Kay squeezed his eyes and looked at the Blackbeard guard with a troubled face.

"Hey Nick! If I stretched it under my nose like that and had a rounded lower heart face, I would have decided not to like it! Even my mother doesn't like you right now!

Kotsuki, and smashed the head of the young guard, and as he put it, the guards around him laughed more and more.

"I'm sorry, miss, but these are the rules, too."

With a slightly softer attitude than that towards Kay, the Blackbeard guard handily checks Irene's entire body. Eileen, on the other hand, was just as stiff as a doll.

"Okay, I don't have anything particularly weird."

Gentlemen and clerically, Blackbeard, who just finished the check, smiles small as he hands on his pampers.

"Well, then, the gold account and now..."

"- Captain! These guys have weird things!

A guard who was inspecting the horse's luggage screamed. Turn off the grin and say, "Huh?" Blackbeard raising his voice. Irene's ride, dragged out of the bags, was a glass bottle filled with blue liquid - a high magic potion. Kay and Irene look "ah" at the same time.

"You guys,... what the hell. That's really weird stuff."

Blackbeard, who received a glass bottle from his men's guard and shaken it gently to confirm the contents, puts an intriguingly thick blue liquid in the light of day. The type of blue that obviously doesn't exist in nature, when it comes to 'weird stuff', is certainly true - but Kay, who caught a little face,

"That's a panacea. It's quite valuable, and I want you to treat it with care. And avoid direct sunlight as much as you can, it will deteriorate."

"... Therapeutics, hey. Medicine………."

Phew......, and went back to his frigid, smelly look, and Blackbeard looked at Kay.

(I can honestly say it's a potion...)

Kay thinks. The rarity of the potion was even higher in the "Here" world than in the [DEMONDAL] game. This is a genuine hypothesis, and there's nothing offensive about Kay, but if I tell you honestly here, I don't feel like getting into trouble afterwards.

(... yeah, this is a cure! I didn't lie to you!

Kay, reopened, stretched his spine firmly and affirmed, "Yes, it's just a cure".

"Phew, is that so……"

Often, he was a blackbeard who was surprisingly comparing Kay and Potion, but what he thought, he put the one-handed paperwork on a simplified desk beside him, and pulled the cork plug of the bottle out of the way. "Ah," Kay and Irene raise their voices and inadvertently embark on themselves. Let it snap your nose and confirm the smell.

…………

Frequent patrol.

Hey, stop, Kay whining unconsciously, and like ignoring it, Blackbeard tilts the bottle, a quick bite.

(ok no no osannnnnnnnnn!!!

(The lifeline ahhhhhhh!!!

of ooh and voiceless protest voices,

"Buhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

And the blackbeard that erupted it in a grand way makes his body look back at the way it tastes. The momentum is about to spill over into a potion that challenges the limits of surface tension, and I look at that and say, "Wow!" and screaming Kay and Irene.

"Captain!?

"Are you ok!?

"It's poison or something..."

"No, it's okay, but it tastes good, it tastes good! Ohh!"

The black beard bends to the letter where it bends its body, and the bottle in its hand leans again to a dangerous angle. "Ahhh!" and Irene screaming even more, "Close the lid first!" and Kay remembers his willingness to kill him for wasting precious magic pills yelling at him.

"... uh, 'good medicine is bitter in the mouth', but Nfu, this is another hell of a taste."

After a while my mouth calmed down, blackbeard with a sluggish expression shook his head as he put a lid on the bottle with cork. Kay, still angry and cold, abusively takes the bottle from his hand and puts it in his luggage bag for the rest of his life. I'm out of bites, but for one thing, Irene strokes her chest down to the potion she returned safely.

"... At least this isn't drugs. Some kind of medicine, I know it's true... but I don't know if he's sick or not, but he's quite unhappy to be drunk... well.

All right, we're gonna have to finish the bidding. "

"……… Are you sure?

"That's okay. It was just a little bit in my mouth, but it was just unusually unpleasant, and then there was nothing unusual."

To the inquiry of the young guard, Blackbeard shrugged his shoulder and went on to say, "And,".

"Even if it were a new breed of narcotics that I don't know what to expect, I'm not in the list of narcotics (yaks) set out in the rules. More than not on the list, we have no obligation to control this and vice versa...

Well, you kept me waiting. I'm going to finish the process...... I guess you have the right money?

Mutually, in an atmosphere somewhere fed up, the process of issuing appraisals began.

After paying Sasquatch and the other triple-headed taxes for the issuance of the appraisal, combined with 45 copper coins, signing the books, and waiting a lot longer, Kay and the others finally get a valid appraisal card for a week.

When Kay and the others pulled the reins and dived through the gate, two and a half hours had already passed since they arrived in the city of Satina.

†††

Dusk.

In the northeast of the city of Satina, Kays, who took the inn in the corner of the merchant district, was seated in a tavern on the first floor of the inn.

Eventually, while I was looking for a place to stay, the sun went down.

Taking an inn, in a nutshell, is easy, but when you actually look for it, this is hard. It's still the four horses that Kay and the others are taking that made me a neck. Only the city of merchants and craftsmen had lodgings everywhere in Satina, but when cleanliness, security, and spare stables, all of which were in place, it was limited to boulders.

He was Kay, who had just taken the inn and then thought of delivering the letter, then picking up the armor store for Eileen - and so on, but he couldn't actually afford that. There is no way to go wild in the city, and after searching around desperately, Kay thinks there is a way to get a little expensive accommodation.

"Whatever it is, celebrate your safe stay……………"

"Kampey."

Table across the street. Yes, Kay and Irene smiled and snapped at Yale's poured tree jock.

Gubby, gubby, and.

Yale poured down his throat, and the two of them with the jock gave him what a subtle expression.

"It's not cold………………."

"It's not cold…………."

Wet. Wet. It's more limp than the air in the tavern, but it's never cold. Throat without any refreshment.

"……… is it obvious?"

"I wonder what you were expecting, we..."

Kay shrugging her shoulders small, Irene with a straight face and a distant eye. There are no refrigerators in this world. At best, it's enough to have a chilling basement.

Alternatively, if there is a high-ranking magician who is strong in the thermal system, it may be different - but to the Kays nowadays, I don't even want to.

"... Can't you handle it with Kay's 'Sieve'?

"How much are you going to use to cool the ginger ale?"

To Eileen, who sees this one with some anticipation, Kay shows her neck chain snapping with a shuddering face. The catalyst for exercising witchcraft, the large emerald, is the last one I have right now. Where there was more than one in the first place, it's out of the question to use it for this kind of thing.

"But cooling it down with sheaves is a bit harsh, 'stop the molecular movement and cool the air' I don't know what to say in the Spirit Language (Esperanto)"

"Uh-huh. That's hard..."

"I was just going to say, if the Spirit understands, it's a different matter………"

"Indeed…… unfortunately, you can't"

As we talked about it, a servant daughter arrived holding a tray at the Kays table.

"Yes, wait. Assorted sausages, three kinds of cheese, two servings of soup, and bread."

"Ooh."

"I'm hungry!

Handy, my daughter arranges the wooden vessels on the table. Irene drips gravy and nails it to a sausage that smells fragrant, Kay's gaze sucks into the valley of her chest she sees when her daughter has a cancer.

"Take your time. No."

Her daughter, winking at Kay, flickered her hand back into the back of the kitchen. "Come on, let's eat fast, Kay!" Kay replies raw to Eileen, who was looking at her pretentiously rocking daughter's ass, "Oh......"

"Itadakimus!"

Pei, and Irene clapped, "Whoa, this is horseshit!" He began to eat, so Kay, who had returned to me all the time, reached for the fork in a hurry.

Then he drinks and drinks fully, and Kays turns back upstairs to the room.

The room had the luxury of using a spacious four-person room for two. Kay's "BlueFish" pavilion is a wealthy common lodging, so unlike luxury lodging for big merchants and aristocrats, there are no private rooms. There are only three types of rooms: two-person, four-person, and large (miscellaneous fish sleeping).

And in the case of the Kays, although they were with them, they had large baggage such as weapons taken from the people of the meadows, so that they were too small to have a place to store their baggage, and they took a room for four who were lucky enough to be vacant as a measure of bitter meat.

"Ah, you're tired today."

Inside the room, Irene dives into the bed on her left. And for not being a springy mattress, he made a dossy noise and shocked Moro and shouted "Ugh" and sounded painful.

Kay smiles bitterly at Eileen like that, hanging the lamp in her hand on the chain of the ceiling. A thin light of swinging flames lit up the room. Cramped luggage on the floor or on the extra bed. From the closed windows of the rain door, slight gaps, you can see the almost darkened sunset sky. You can hear it from the outside, in the hustle and bustle of drunkenness, the bard singing.

Kay also sat on the bed on the right, placing a fabric case on the pillow with a long sword sheath and a "dragon scale through."

Look, and.

It's like a hard core falling out of a tight body. I felt so secure.

"…… Really, you're tired."

There is a sense of universality in the words that I grumbled about. It already felt like a long time ago that I left the village of Taaf this morning, even though that was the reason I left a dozen hours ago.

"Ugh..."

Irene, who was small and groaned back, rubbed her face against the rind and pillow and said she slept to see.

"Are you going to bed now?

"Mm...... hey. … I want to shower, but I don't …… and take a bath…… not here……………………………"

"Uh, that's right"

The "BlueFish" pavilion is three floors of stone, and from the top, it has a mouthpiece. There's a well and a toilet in the middle of the vacant lot, and if you take a bath, that's where you'll do it, but that's what you can see through the windows of the rooms on all sides. Anyway, it would be a little harsh on Eileen, who is not yet used to the 'here' environment. At least as far as Kay knows, Irene doesn't have a dew habit.

"Well no..., for now, Ne..."

Munya, and Irene, who handed over the sheets, stopped fighting drowsiness and went into a full-fledged sleep attitude. After Yale, Eileen was spared a glass of wine, but even the stone Russians felt drunk. Some of them would have been tired, but soon they would start to sleep easily.

"Hey Eileen...... You fell asleep?

Even if Kay calls out, he's not responding at all.

…………

Silence.

With the quiet away from the hustle and bustle, time flows out at leisure.

Fine lights on the lamp's fire. In a dim room.

But in Kay's eyes, Irene emerges vividly.

Thin body lying on the sleeping table. A supple, feminine waist line that floats on the sheet. Kay, who has embraced her, knows that she is as light and soft as a feather. Fluffiness and a fragrance as compelling as flowers tickled my nasal cavity. Was it because of the alcohol, Eileen's sleeping face also appeared slightly red. Forgotten blonde hair with a ponytail, peeking white, and skin as smooth as white magnet. My forehead on my cheek is shaking at the exhalation that leaks from my lips. lips. Cherry, glossy, poor as a petal -

"... mmm"

Munya, and Eileen hit the turnaround.

Kay, who was trying to pay for the blonde hair on that cheek with his finger, returns to me all the time and takes a distance from Eileen.

And I realized I was being sucked up to her, as if I were a feather worm lured by a moth light.

"... would you like to"

Pei, and Kai slapped her forehead, looked down at Eileen with a troubled expression.

…… It's too defenseless. "

Booshiri and in Japanese. Sighing and holding his temples, Kay chanted like a spell, "Andrei and Lay and Lay..."

"…… All right. Let's go to sleep."

Blow out the lamp fire and lay in bed with the momentum intact. With his back to Eileen, he closed his eyes in the dark.

After all, Kay must have been tired too.

"... guh"

I had no time to worry about something, no time to worry about my thoughts, I tried to get sucked in and fell into deep sleep.

†††

The next day.

Because of the tiredness of the unfamiliar journey, Kay and I ended up eating up sleeping together until noon, but there was no reason to spend the day asleep, so we managed to arouse our feelings and start acting.

Grab a late breakfast (brunch) at the tavern on the ground floor and roll out to the city. There are many things I have to do to look over Eileen's protective gear and shields and look for craftsmen to process the skin of Mikazuki's artifacts, but I decided to finish delivering the letter that Bennett asked me to do first.

Inside the walls, the city of Satina, zoned in an Acer Eye shape, is divided into four main districts, bordering the boulevard that runs to the cross.

First of all, a luxury city lined with noble and large merchant mansions is located on the right hand side of the main entrance to the south and southeast of the middle. On the corner of the wall lies the hall of a sturdy lord, and on the outside of the wall is an artificial lake built with water drawn from the river Morra and a defensive tower that soars in the middle of it. Assuming the outside enemy attacks Satina, they cannot easily attack the southeast side, where the Lords' Hall is located, unless they attack this small lake and the defensive tower.

Conversely, the area on the left and southwest side of the main entrance is a merchant town lined with shops. With all kinds of shops open and all kinds of products filled daily, this is the most vibrant section of the city of Satina.

On that diagonal line, the nearest area to the gates of the city's northeastern and eastern docks is the artisanal district, which is the heart of the craftsmanship. In addition to the workshop where the artisans wave their arms, it also serves as a brewery for alcohol and a warehouse for food and supplies, creating a quiet yet lively atmosphere.

And finally, the old town in the northwest. Here is the residence of artisan apprentices, small servants working in another compartment, or public interest slaves, making it the most chaotic area of the satina. The security of the old town dragged by it is not necessarily much better than in other compartments, as a slum is formed around the sewer running outside the northwestern wall so that it is embedded in the ground.

Bennett said her daughter Kiska, who is the shipping address for the letter, was married to a woodworker, so Kay and Irene headed to Satina's artisanal district first.

"There are a lot of guards in this city."

Quiet road with few people. Seeing a threesome of misguided policing there, Irene makes an impressive voice.

In the city, I frequently saw a trio of white leather armor. The guards who are putting together a police force to maintain law and order. Like the gatekeeper, equipped with white-dyed leather armor, they have a baton and rapier on their hips, with a sharp gaze without alarm around them.

Equipment is unified as a testament to luxurious funding.

Its neatness indicates that it is well trained.

The castle city of Satina, is one of its organizational strengths.

"Sorry, there we are looking for a woman named 'Kiska'..."

"Oh, Grandpa, don't you know the woman named 'Kiska' around here?

At that rate, Kay and Irene continued to ask the residents about Kiska's consequent marriage to a craftsman named 'Montan', whose 'Montan' home is on the west side of the craftsmanship district.

Head west of Craftsman's Town all the way.

"Uh, one right hand side from the boulevard, was it?

"You're on Paradise Street. Oh, I saw it, it's me."

"Twelfth and twelfth on Paradise Avenue..."

Following the tile of numbers on the wall, we finally arrived at our destination.

Two-story house, organized in brown bricks.

The sign hung at the end of the house, on a table-shaped board, shows three arrows -

Definitely. It matches the characteristics of the 'Montan' workshop I was listening to.

"Well, and. Looks like we're here……………………………."

With the letter in his hand flickering, but in front of the workshop, Kay is a puzzled face.

"Something... is that it? Are you in a fight?

Eileen, who tilted her little neck, briefly summarized the situation.

Montan's, in front of the workshop.

What Kay and Irene came across was the appearance of two men, somewhat blushing and arguing.