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Girgaya.
It was the name of the city located immediately after crossing the narrowest strait between Foldenbach and Til Nebe Cedric.
The buildings in the city were all low, colored either white or yellow. Instead, colorful cloths hung unevenly across the fronts of the buildings, giving the city a very high saturation.
A city filled with short trees with broad leaves.
Bright sunlight beat down on the winding roads, clumps of grass rolled around instead of dust, and it was a bustling place where people from Foldenbach and people gathered from all over Til Nebe Cedric mingled.
Just as the people of Foldenbach called Til Nebe Cedric the ‘Continent of Unbelievers,’ the people of Til Nebe Cedric had a separate name for Foldenbach.
It was the ‘Island of Fanatics.’
It was a name filled with ridicule, suggesting that they were fools for believing in something invisible like a god.
However, even on that Island of Fanatics, there was a person who knew how to use their head.
It was Grand Duke Lacheize, who had built a temple in Til Nebe Cedric several years ago.
It began with war, but her army soon grasped the nature of Til Nebe Cedric and shifted their stance. They turned to trade, exchanging necessary supplies.
Of course, this was only possible because Grand Duke Lacheize's army held an overwhelmingly advantageous position.
Otherwise, the people of Til Nebe Cedric would never have reached out for the goods of the fanatics.
But it didn't take long for trade backed by force to gradually turn into genuine trade. This was because no one could resist gold.
Whether it was the Island of Fanatics or the Continent of Unbelievers, gold held high value. Furthermore, the fanatics were crazed for the spices of Til Nebe Cedric.
Their gold coins were lower in purity than those of Til Nebe Cedric, but because of that, the people of Til Nebe Cedric could extract even more gold coins from them.
A bag of gold coins for a single bag of pepper berries that grew whenever they felt like it—there was no more profitable business than this.
Naturally, Girgaya became the most prosperous city in Til Nebe Cedric.
While the sight of thousands of foreigners wandering about might have been appalling at first, the people of Til Nebe Cedric had now grown quite accustomed to it.
“Yawn.”
The spice street of Girgaya.
Among them, a young girl was hiding between spice sacks next to the second-largest spice shop.
The girl, about five or six years old, had had only one goal for a while now: the fruit the shop owner had placed on the display stand in front of the store.
The owner had been sitting in front of his shop, yawning widely for some time.
“Maybe I ate too much for lunch, I keep getting sleepy... this is a problem...”
The girl swallowed hard. She had been starving for two days already.
She felt she could steal the fruit if she just reached out a little, but her hand wouldn't move. She was afraid.
In Til Nebe Cedric, the Law of the Sages was absolute, and the Law of the Sages governing the Girgaya region was strict.
If one stole someone else's property, regardless of the nature of the crime, the wrist was to be cut off immediately.
In fact, a few days ago, the girl had seen a man have his wrist cut off for stealing meat from someone's shop.
She wondered if she should just not steal it, but she couldn't move her feet. At home, her sick mother was also starving for the second day.
Eventually, the girl squeezed her eyes shut and decided to steal the fruit and run.
‘If I just reach out a little...’
Just as the girl's hand, hidden between the sacks, was about to touch the fruit.
“Hey! Is there an owner here?”
“Huh? Ah, oh! Welcome! What are you looking for?”
With a sudden loud noise, several people stopped in front of the shop. The owner, startled awake, wiped his drool and stood up.
Startled, the girl hid back between the sacks. She had intended to run, but there were too many people blocking the front of the shop.
‘Are they fanatics?’
“I've come to buy some pepper!”
“Oh my, please sit. My shop handles the best pepper in Girgaya! You've come to the right place!”
The men who entered the shop were particularly conspicuous. It wasn't just because they were from Foldenbach. They were too well-built to be mere merchants, and each carried a sword at his waist.
Above all...
“Well now? Is this gentleman... blind?”
The person at the very front had his eyes closed.
The girl's eyes widened. Only then did she realize that the young man standing at the front, leaning on a cane, was blind.
At a glance, his movements were so natural that one wouldn't think he was blind, so she hadn't suspected it. And it seemed the pepper merchant felt the same.
“What? Did you walk here with your eyes closed, or are you blind?”
The man with the cane laughed, “Haha.”
“I am blind.”
“Goodness. You must suffer a lot.”
The pepper merchant offered a useless platitude and seated the man where he had been sitting.
He seemed to think the man was just a burden accompanying a group of common importers. But surprisingly, he was not.
“Now, this is wheat from Foldenbach. I would like to trade this for pepper.”
The man with closed eyes took the lead in the transaction. One might think it was just because he was a smooth talker, but surprisingly, he identified the quality of the pepper by touching and smelling it, and even performed the weighing perfectly.
“This wheat comes from the Duke of Achen's territory, the most fertile land among those in Foldenbach. How about this ratio for the highest quality pepper?”
The pepper merchant also seemed unable to hide his amazement. After the blind man pointed out that one of the merchant's weights had been swapped and the weight was being measured incorrectly, the merchant looked at him as if he were watching a magic trick.
“No, my apologies. But mister, are you really blind?”
“Haha, because I cannot see, there are parts of me that are more sensitive.”
As he spoke, the blind man sorted the pepper the merchant was selling into grades just by touching them. His hands moved much faster than the other merchants helping him pack.
The girl was so mesmerized that she forgot she was hiding between the sacks, so need I say more.
“Are you using a strange talent to trick me?”
When the pepper merchant said that, the blind man laughed softly. It happened to be the turn to weigh the wheat brought by the fanatics.
“I cannot see and you can; how could that be possible?”
“Eh, you never know! I might be so surprised that I fail to see through your trickery!”
“Hey, the one who swapped the weights is talking too much.”
When one of the blind man's companions added a comment, the pepper merchant flinched.
It was then.
The blind man looked toward the girl and spoke.
“Child, the little one over there, you. Could you come here for a moment?”
The girl flinched and hid her body further between the sacks. The people tilted their heads.
“A child? Who? There's no one here.”
“Isn't there a child right there?”
As he spoke, he pointed exactly in her direction. The pepper merchant said, “Huh?” and pushed through the sacks, then his face contorted. He had discovered the girl.
“You! Why are you here?”
Merchants were sensitive to thieves. Especially in Girgaya, there were so many orphaned thieves. This was because many had died during the early stages of the expedition years ago.
Their children grew up to be thieves, and it was common for them to steal the merchants' capital.
“This brat, don't tell me...”
I-I'm sorry. Just as she was about to beg, the blind man spoke with a smile, his eyes closed.
“I also wanted to play among adults when I was young. Please do not scold your daughter too harshly, sir.”
“What? This child is...”
Ignoring the bewildered pepper merchant, the man continued.
“Child, come here. Why don't you try holding the weight this uncle has caught?”
The girl instinctively leaped out and took the scale from the man's hand. If she stayed put, it was obvious she would be beaten and chased away by the pepper merchant.
It was better to do this quickly and then look for a chance to run.
The scale held in the girl's hand, with its center point, was perfectly balanced.
“How is it? My scale is balanced, isn't it?”
The pepper merchant clicked his tongue. It was good that it proved there was no trickery in his scale, but he felt very uneasy because of that girl.
Regardless, the blind man reached into his coat and pulled out a piece of bread.
“Thank you for helping me. Eat this.”
As he did, he subtly made a gesture of winking with one eye, only to the girl. The girl's face brightened.
“Thank you!”
As soon as the child received the bread, she bolted away. The pepper merchant swung his fist, shouting, “That—that brat! You brat! Consider yourself lucky today! Don't ever come back!” leaving only the man with a blank expression.
“Oh? Was she not your daughter, sir?”
The pepper merchant looked at him in disbelief, then burst out laughing.
He had good intuition, but for some reason, he lacked social awareness.
Because of that, he didn't notice that for a brief moment, a red light flashed between the eyelids the man had winked.
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