A Medieval City Beyond Imagination
Ten years in Moston Village, more than a month since he had fled it—and at last Karem had left the countryside completely behind. Before him rose a new settlement, no mere village this time, but a city.
Borderster.
A fortress free city, the outermost royal domain nearest to Iceland, the northernmost region of the Seophon Kingdom.
Buildings with sharply peaked roofs stood packed so tightly they seemed ready to burst, all ringed by high stone walls. Beyond those walls, broad fields of farmland rippled with golden ears of grain like waves on a sea.
Even a single district of the place looked large enough to swallow the entire population of Moston Village without noticing. Facing that vast city, both Gordon and Catherine’s faces lit with genuine relief.
They were used to camping, sure—but they were still human. The longing for a warm, soft bed in the civilized world was only natural.
Beside them, Karem rubbed his arms through the moss-boar hide he had draped over himself. Raw hide felt clammy and unpleasant against the skin, yet without it he was certain he would freeze to death.
"Wow, only a few days have passed and it’s already this cold?"
"We’ve properly entered autumn now. And we’re right on Iceland’s doorstep, so until spring it will only get colder."
"Huuuh… colder than this?"
"Yeah. Iceland’s the coldest region in the entire Seophon Kingdom."
"Huuuh. So fretting about the meat spoiling was overkill after all."
The moss boar, just as Gordon had said, had only recently reached adulthood and was relatively small—yet it still weighed several hundred kilograms. Even with a mage and a knight-class mercenary in the party, there was only so much they could carry. And there was no guarantee the meat would last until they reached a town. Karem had been anxious. Learning the folk method of wrapping the meat in the boar’s own moss to extend its shelf life had only made him worry more.
But as true autumn set in, the temperature itself dropped, creating the perfect conditions for long-term preservation without any extra effort on his part.
"Well, it was still touch-and-go for a while."
Gordon thumped his now-slack pack; they had long since eaten through every scrap of the provisions originally stored inside.
True enough, the moss-boar meat they had butchered and packed—even after discarding what they could not carry—had been a considerable amount. Yet once three people started tearing through it at every meal, the pile dwindled at a visible rate from day one, and by the time they neared the city it was already gone.
Yesterday’s entire day of meals, and this morning’s breakfast as well, had consisted of nothing but cabbage stir-fried in moss-boar fat, hardtack, jerky, and apples.
Had they not reached the city today, the only thing left would have been jerky hard enough to use as a weapon.
"If a certain someone hadn’t been shoveling food down like a beggar lived in his stomach at every meal, we wouldn’t have ended up living on greens."
"Gee, I wonder who that certain someone could be."
"You, mercenary. I’m talking about you, you shameless bastard."
"Hey, the mage lady ate plenty herself—don’t pin it all on me."
"Even if you add what I ate together with the little guy here, it wouldn’t come to half of what you put away. Are you sure your race isn’t troll instead of human?"
"That’s harsh, Mage-nim. What am I supposed to do when every meal that comes out is just too damn delicious?"
"Well… that much is true…"
Hearing Gordon’s helpless excuse, Catherine found herself nodding in deep, unthinking agreement.
To put it bluntly, she had never in her long life looked forward to mealtime while camping—not when they weren’t even traveling with a noble retinue. And Gordon, for all his skill, was still a mercenary who wandered from place to place; he needed no further explanation.
Whatever tricks Karem was using remained a mystery, but the moment the hands of this former serf boy touched ingredients, they became dishes more appetizing than anything produced by most noble house chefs—some of them foods even Catherine, who had lived many long years, had never seen before.
Familiar ingredients transformed into something entirely new. A complete shift in thinking!
"In the end, we can pin the root cause on Karem for making the food too good."
"Whoa, now you’re bouncing the blame onto me?"
"If you dig down to the fundamentals, every meal was simply too delicious."
As if to prove his point, Gordon slapped his own belly. The brigandine that had once fit him snugly now bulged noticeably outward, held in place only by his belt—clear evidence of how enthusiastically he had been enjoying the cuisine.
"Look at my gut. Muscle that used to be lean has gotten fat between the ridges."
"Then the answer’s simple."
"Huh?"
"Until that belly flattens again, Gordon is on a fast."
"Wha—?!"
"Oh, hardtack and jerky are still allowed."
Catherine finished with a blatantly smug look, as if to say, See? Karem fell into step behind her toward the city. Gordon, frozen for a second, hastily insisted it had only been a joke and scrambled after them.
The closer they drew to Borderster, the busier the city appeared.
That was only natural. Just as monsters and wild beasts prepared for hibernation, people too needed far more preparation than one might imagine if they wanted to survive winter with their bodies intact.
Moreover, autumn was harvest season. Outside the fallow land ringing the walls, the farmhands and ranch hands of every field and pasture worked without a moment’s rest.
And wherever villages or cities stockpiled and harvested, merchants large and small inevitably flocked in, hoping to make a big score before winter closed the roads.
Karem had not been near the city long before he let out a deep sigh.
An endless line stretched ahead. People of every sort, carts, and beasts of burden waited to pass through the walls—some of them looking as though they had been standing there forever.
"Man, that line is ridiculously long."
"Tch. Can’t be helped. It’s autumn."
"Even in a big, safe city like this, people just stop moving around in winter the way they do in villages?"
"Outside of Iceland, no one in the Seophon Kingdom is active in the dead of winter."
Catherine folded her arms and answered with absolute certainty.
City, village, or forest—winter when the snow fell was brutal. Hungry monsters and wild animals that had failed to prepare for any number of reasons roamed land, sea, and sky alike. Simply walking outside in the wild winter was dangerous.
"Put bluntly: if you want to throw your life away, go wandering outside in winter. Even adventurers take the season off unless something’s urgent."
"But you just said Iceland keeps operating through winter."
"Ah, that place is the exception. They have no choice."
"Exception?"
"Farming barely works there. If they don’t hunt and raise livestock, they starve."
"Plus it’s the most barren land in an already barren kingdom."
Gordon stroked his beard and added to Catherine’s explanation.
"Still, people live there, so they must have their own way of getting by. More importantly, before this line gets any longer—"
"Ahem. Mercenary. I believe you’ve forgotten something."
"Gordon, did you leave something behind?"
Had they forgotten something at the last campsite? Karem tilted his head in confusion.
"Ha. We don’t need to stand in line at all."
"Mage-nim? Ah—ah!"
"Exactly. Just follow me."
Catherine gave the two of them a look of pure pity, sighed, and strode past the long queue of waiting people.
Naturally, the colorful assortment of travelers in line did not look kindly on them. Of course they didn’t—it was basically cutting. The pressure was intense.
Dozens of pairs of eyes stabbed at him from the side; the heat of those glares made Karem pull the moss-boar hide even lower over his face.
And of course the reaction of the guards who had been standing at the gate all day was predictable.
"Listen carefully—"
"Ah-ah, before that, look at this first."
Catherine did not give the guards time to finish. She casually drew something from her robes and showed it.
Merchants undergoing inspection started to protest, but the guards immediately silenced them.
Standing beside her, Karem could see what she held out: an elegant roll of parchment bound with a silk cord. The red wax sealing the knot bore the stamp of a roaring dragon’s head.
"Fe—Felwinter!"
"As it happens, the caravan I was traveling with was attacked and our schedule fell behind."
"You are a guest of House Felwinter? Hey! Move those carts back!"
"Spears up! Raise the spears, I said! Guests, please proceed inside at once!"
"And those behind you…? Companions? Our apologies!"
Naturally the people whose places had been stolen protested, but the guards simply leveled their spears at the line instead, as if the complainers were the ones in the wrong.
Faced with a far more intense reaction than either of them had expected, both Karem and the mercenary stood with mouths hanging open, staring blankly at Catherine.
She seemed to enjoy their expressions. The corner of her mouth curved into a wicked little smile as she gestured toward the open gate.
"Well then, the path is clear. Let’s go inside."
"…Eh, good enough is good enough. Come on, Karem."
"Heh… heh-ehh. Feels a little wrong, though."
As Karem followed Catherine through the gate, the guards immediately dropped their polite act, turned their weapons back on the waiting crowd, and resumed their high-handed, not-my-problem attitude.
They hadn’t even paid the toll. Gordon was already celebrating the dual savings of money and time, so Karem decided to celebrate with him. After all, Catherine really had saved them an enormous amount of waiting.
Walking slowly behind Catherine and Gordon, Karem looked around.
It was nothing like a modern city of hundreds of thousands, of course—but Borderster was overwhelming in every possible way compared to the Moston Village he had known. The sheer size and number of buildings, the constant stream of people in every kind of clothing and armor moving between places, even the tightly packed cobblestone streets underfoot.
And above all else, one thing stood out more than any other.
"Huuuugh! Cities always smell like this?!"
"With this many people living here, of course they do. Look over there."
"Huh?"
At Gordon’s gesture, Karem turned his head—and silently reeled in horror.
A woman had opened a second-floor window of a three-story wooden house and leaned out. The important part was not the woman herself.
"Watch below!"
Without the slightest hesitation she tipped the wooden bucket she held and emptied it into the street.
"To the side! Move to the side!"
"Don’t push!"
Something brown and solid, mixed with yellow liquid—exactly the sort of waste every living creature produced—plummeted in free fall.
Splat.
Karem squeezed his eyes shut before he could see any more. Across both his lives he called out to the gods with pure, heartfelt sincerity.
"Source of all stench! O gods!"
"Ha! Welcome to the city, country bumpkin!"