CHAPTER 92…………………………….
A hot and humid wind blew.
Girgaia.
That was the name of the city just across the narrowest strait between Poldenbach and Til Neve Chedric.
The city’s buildings were all low, painted white or yellow. Instead of color on the walls, vivid cloths were draped unevenly across their fronts, creating bursts of saturated color everywhere.
A city filled with short trees bearing wide leaves.
Bright sunlight poured down over the winding streets; grass rolled like balls instead of dust, and people from Poldenbach mingled with crowds from all across Til Neve Chedric.
Just as the people of Poldenbach called Til Neve Chedric “the Continent of the Faithless,” the people of Til Neve Chedric had their own name for Poldenbach.
They called it “the Island of Zealots.”
It was a name steeped in mockery—people foolish enough to believe in invisible, godlike things.
But even on that “island of zealots,” there was one person clever enough to think ahead—
none other than Grand Duchess Lacheise, who, a few years ago, had built a temple in Til Neve Chedric.
What began as war soon changed its course. Once her army understood Til Neve Chedric’s nature, they shifted tactics—from conquest to exchange, trading goods instead of blows.
Of course, that was only possible because the Grand Duchess’s forces held an overwhelming advantage.
Had that not been the case, the people of Til Neve Chedric would never have touched anything from the zealots’ island.
But it didn’t take long for trade born of force to become genuine commerce—after all, nothing could compete with gold.
Whether zealots or faithless, gold held the same value. And the zealots were absolutely mad for Til Neve Chedric’s spices.
Though Poldenbach’s gold coins were less pure than those of Til Neve Chedric, that only made it easier to demand more of them.
A pouch of pepper berries—so easy to grow—could be traded for a whole pouch of gold coins. Nothing could be more profitable.
Naturally, Girgaia became the busiest city in Til Neve Chedric.
Seeing thousands of foreigners walking around would once have been shocking, but by now, the locals had grown used to it.
“Ahem.”
Girgaia’s spice street.
Between sacks of spices next to the second-largest spice shop, a little girl was hiding.
She was no more than six years old, and her goal had been the same for a while now:
the fruit the shopkeeper had set out on the stand in front of his store.
The owner had been sitting there, yawning widely.
“Must’ve eaten too much lunch… I keep getting sleepy…”
The girl swallowed hard. She hadn’t eaten in two days.
If she stretched her hand just a bit, she could grab the fruit—but her hand wouldn’t move. She was afraid.
In Til Neve Chedric, the laws of the sages were absolute, and the laws of the sage who ruled over the Girgaia region were especially harsh.
Anyone caught stealing, no matter how small the crime, had their wrists cut off.
The girl had seen it herself, just days ago—a man who had stolen meat from another’s shop lost his hand for it.
Maybe she shouldn’t do it… but she couldn’t walk away. Her sick mother at home hadn’t eaten in two days either.
At last, she shut her eyes tight and decided to steal the fruit and run.
Just a little farther…
Her hand was about to touch the fruit when—
“Hey there! Anyone in?”
“Huh? Oh! Welcome, welcome! What’re you looking for?”
Suddenly, loud voices rang out as several people stopped in front of the shop. The startled owner wiped his drool and stood up.
The girl flinched and ducked back into the sacks. She had been planning to run, but there were too many people blocking the front.
Zealots? she wondered.
“We’re here to buy some pepper!”
“Oh, then you’ve come to the right place! My shop’s got the finest pepper in all Girgaia!”
The men who entered the store stood out—not just because they were from Poldenbach. They were too well-built for merchants, and each carried a sword at his hip.
And above all—
“Well, well. This gentleman… is blind?”
The man at the front had his eyes closed.
The girl blinked in surprise, only now realizing that the young man leaning on a cane was blind.
He moved so naturally that no one would have guessed it. The pepper merchant seemed equally taken aback.
“What’s this? You walked here with your eyes closed, or are you truly blind?”
The man with the cane laughed softly.
“I’m blind.”
“Ah, poor thing. Must be hard.”
The pepper merchant mumbled something perfunctory and offered him his seat.
He clearly thought the blind man was just a servant tagging along with traders. But surprisingly, that wasn’t the case.
“Here—we’ve brought wheat from Poldenbach. We’d like to trade it for pepper.”
The blind man led the negotiations himself. His eloquence was one thing, but more astonishing was how he touched and smelled the pepper to judge its quality, then weighed it with flawless accuracy.
“This wheat is from the Duchy of Aachen, the most fertile land in Poldenbach. How about this ratio for your best-grade pepper?”
The pepper merchant couldn’t hide his amazement. When the blind man even pointed out that one of the merchant’s scale weights had been swapped—throwing off the balance—his expression turned to outright awe.
“By the gods, my apologies! But sir, are you truly blind?”
The blind man chuckled. “When one sense fails, others grow sharper.”
He sorted the pepper by grade just by touch, faster than the merchant’s assistants could help him.
Even the little girl, hidden among the sacks, was staring open-mouthed, forgetting to hide.
“Showing off tricks like that—aren’t you trying to swindle me?”
The merchant spoke half-jokingly. The blind man smiled faintly as the weighing of Poldenbach’s wheat began.
“How could that be? I can’t see, and you can. Surely I couldn’t fool you.”
“Ha! Don’t be so sure! I might just be too stunned to catch on!”
“You’ve got a lot to say for someone who just swapped his scale weights.”
At that, one of the blind man’s companions cut in, and the merchant flinched.
Then—
The blind man turned his head toward the sacks.
“Hey there, little one. You, hiding over there. Would you come here for a moment?”
The girl froze and ducked deeper. The others frowned, puzzled.
“A child? Where? There’s no one there.”
“There’s a child. Right there,” he said, pointing directly toward her hiding spot.
The merchant, saying “Eh?”, pulled the sacks aside—and scowled.
“You! What are you doing there?”
Merchants were wary of thieves, especially in Girgaia, where orphan pickpockets were everywhere. Many had lost parents in the early days of the foreign campaigns.
Their children grew up to steal from the traders who survived.
“This brat, don’t tell me—”
Just as the girl was about to stammer out an apology, the blind man spoke, smiling gently.
“When I was young, I too liked to play around the grown-ups. Don’t be too hard on your daughter, sir.”
“What? My daughter—?”
The merchant blinked in disbelief, but the blind man went on.
“Come here, child. Would you hold this weight for me?”
The girl instinctively jumped out and took the scale weight from his hand—she knew if she stayed, she’d be beaten and thrown out.
Better to help and run afterward.
The scale in her small hands was perfectly balanced.
“You see? My scale is fair and even.”
The merchant clicked his tongue. It was good to have his honesty proven, but something about the whole thing left a sour taste.
Regardless, the blind man reached into his coat and pulled out a piece of bread.
“Thank you for your help. Here—this is for you.”
Then, unseen by the others, he winked.
The girl’s face lit up.
“Thank you!”
Clutching the bread, she ran off at once.
“Hey, you little brat! You’re lucky today! Don’t come back here again!” the merchant shouted, shaking his fist.
The blind man just looked confused.
“Oh? She wasn’t your daughter?”
The merchant stared for a moment, then burst out laughing.
Good instincts—but not much sense, that one.
And so, he failed to notice the faint red light that flickered for an instant beneath the blind man’s closed eyelids.
