The Commercial City of Lorenzo

I brought the Hummer to a stop and worked it back and forth, again and again, until the tires had mashed the grass down into something flat enough to pass for level ground.

I thought about getting out. Then I thought about whatever insects might be waiting in that grass, and stayed where I was. Water and field rations would do for a meal.

US military MREs, of course. Even back in Korea, surplus wasn't hard to come by if you knew Namdaemun Market or ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the stalls near a US base, and Egypt was worse on that score, not better.

I tore the packet open. Macaroni. Plenty of calories, and it didn't taste half bad. I warmed it on the heater pack, ate, and set my thoughts in order.

From everything I'd learned so far, Gaia and Earth were twin worlds. My trip back to Earth had confirmed there was no time lag between them. The days of the week lined up, more or less, and both worlds carved a day into twenty-four hours. The map I'd taken from the dungeon wasn't a perfect copy, but the continents and coastlines looked much like the ones I knew. Only the seas felt wider.

If that reading was right, then fixing a coordinate on Korea meant traveling at least ten thousand kilometers east.

Damn it. That was a problem.

The first goal was simpler: a hideout close to downtown Cairo that I could use as a transit coordinate. The cliff lay roughly a hundred and twenty kilometers from the city. I'd have to cover at least that much.

I studied the map of Gaia and tried to place myself. Around the hundred-kilometer mark, a city was marked.

The intermediary city of Lorenzo.

"How about this one?"

The necklace answered.

"A merchant council?"

I'd carried several identity markers out of the dungeon, tokens meant to vouch for who you were. I sorted through them and picked one up.

"Would this do?"

I pulled out every marker that looked useful. One of them was bound to pass.

And then there was this.

In a society this rigid about station, holding a noble rank mattered. Fortunately, the mage who had owned the dungeon had been a count. A lower title than I'd expected—apparently because he simply hadn't cared about rank. Even so, a count would have turned every head in a city this small, so I settled for something more modest and prepared a marker that signified a baron.

A baron was still a baron. Wherever I went, I wouldn't have to worry about being slighted.

I took out the small flag that meant baron and fixed it above the driver's side. Done that way, people would take the vehicle for a baron's carriage. Preparations finished, I pointed the Hummer toward the city and drove.

Vrooooom.

Sure enough, it seemed I'd chosen well.

The gatekeeper watching the city entrance went rigid at the sight of the strange carriage. But this was a world where the unreal had long since become ordinary. The guards who had been bracing ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠themselves took one look at the noble's marker mounted on the vehicle and stepped aside. They didn't drop their wariness, but they offered no rudeness either, and no one asked me a single question. I passed in through the walls that ringed the city.

Inside those outer walls, the place looked exactly like something out of a medieval cartoon. What surprised me was something else.

"Hardly any stench."

What I learned next was that the sewers and the waste works here were, unexpectedly, well built.

"Why is this the part that's modern?"

Fair enough. If there had been no way to manage it at all, that would have been another matter. But magic included something called purification magic, and raising large-scale earthworks with spells was hardly difficult.

Even a First Circle spell like Dig could scoop out a block of earth a meter long, a meter wide, and a meter deep in a single cast. Measured against the mana cost of a First Circle spell, a lesser mage of the Third Circle could use it dozens of times in a day. In plain terms, that meant trenches tens of meters long—efficiency to rival a full-sized excavator. At that rate, laying water and sewer pipe was no great feat.

There was a more efficient method still. The thing right in front of me.

A giant some three meters tall, lashed together out of logs as if someone had joined them on a whim, was hauling stone with dogged concentration.

I watched three or four crude timber giants carry on the civil works, and drove farther in.

I'd bought plenty of goods back on Earth. The moment I was actually inside a city, a practical problem caught me by the ankle. I had none of this world's money.

The necklace was drumming up business again.

"Enough. I'll earn it myself."

I might not look it, but I was a trading-company man who had made his money off bare dirt. Another world wasn't going to be any different. The first rule of the trade was simple: bring whatever a place lacks, and sell it.

I drove for the heart of the city, the market.

A square sat at the center of town. Tents ran on without end, and a crowd that had to number in the thousands milled and jostled through them. A broad lane had been left open down the middle for carriages, so I eased the Hummer along at a crawl and took in the surroundings.

People selling live chickens. A butcher's stall with slaughtered meat on display. Grain, fruit, and other food in a long succession, then handicrafts and cloth. Here and there, vendors had hung weapons—knives, longswords.

"Specialty longswords, special discount! Buy one, and the second is free!"

"Wild strawberries from the Arena ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Mountains! Eat them and your skin turns fair—native berries of the Arena range!"

"Order one and we'll kill it on the spot! Chickens, get your chickens!"

Merchants everywhere were lost in the business of hauling customers in, and on every side people were busy haggling over price. I took my time with the mood of the place, watching which goods were out in force and which stalls drew the crowds. Food shops, certainly, were everywhere. Close behind them came the shops selling cloth and clothes.

The city was larger than I'd expected, and the people looked better off than I'd expected. I didn't see anyone who seemed wasted by malnutrition, which meant the farms were producing well enough. Once a belly was full, it was only natural to start caring about clothes. The number of stalls selling livestock and butchered meat told me something about the local economy as well.

On the surface it resembled the Middle Ages. But the cleanliness of the streets, the standard of hygiene, and the condition of the people all said the economy was far from poor—better, at the least, than the poorest countries of Africa. Somewhere around a poor nation in Eastern Europe, if I had to guess.

I was turning that estimate over while I drove, and then I reached the middle of the square.

What is that?

A high platform stood at the center, with tents running out to either side. The emblems on the flags and the signs made it plain that the tents and the platform together were all one shop.

"What are they selling, to need a place that big?"

At my question, the necklace supplied an answer.

"Huh? Slaves?"

"Huh? Seriously?"

A slave trader. Before I quite meant to, I drove that way.

Among the people packed around the platform were riders on horseback and standing carriages, so no one objected to a vehicle rolling up. They only stared, curious at a shape they'd never seen. At the same time, anyone who noticed the noble's mark on the vehicle edged away, as if they wanted no part of whatever trouble it implied. Thanks to that, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I got close to the platform.

Up on it they had just put a muscular man on display, and beside him a man in a ridiculous hat was crying the auction.

"There! Two gold fifty. Do I hear more? Yes, you! Two gold sixty! Look at this muscle. Six feet tall, and goods this solid aren't easy to find. A precious piece, raised on premium feed. Anyone else? Ah, there! Two gold seventy! Come on, now! Opportunity doesn't knock twice. Decide, and be quick about it!"

The price climbed through its repetitions, and in the end the slave on the platform sold for five gold and seventy shillings.

The currency here, as I'd worked it out, climbed by the metal. A hundred copper made one shilling. A hundred shillings made one gold. A hundred gold made one mithril, and so on upward. The reason was simple: metal was the base material of any goods that held mana. Silver went into the most basic exorcism items. Gold was the principal material for inscribing a mana circuit onto an item. Mithril, the metal they called pure silver, pushed the performance and the density of those circuits higher still. A magic circle that had to be drawn huge in gold shrank by a factor of hundreds once the gold was replaced with mithril. Above that, the scale climbed through orichalcum, elysium, adamantium, and more.

A simple meal ran about three or four copper. In Earth money, that came to roughly a dollar.

Beside the auction floor I could see something like a showroom. People who hadn't been put up for bidding stood on display like ready-made goods, though they had less to them than the man who had just stood on the platform. Men and women were lined up in rows, price tags hung beneath them—the old, the short, the slight of build, women whose faces were nothing much. Prices ran anywhere from one gold to three, and above the figures it was written that they were for immediate sale. At those prices, you could buy them on the spot.

And then I turned, and a satisfied smile came over me.

On the ground, both arms bound behind their backs, humans squirmed.

At last, I'd found it.

Something from Earth worth selling in this other world.