What makes a good city-state?

Most people who don't know much about this will answer you: tall and majestic walls, wide and bright streets, hunting and fluttering lords' banners.

Admittedly, this answer is not wrong, and the vast majority of great city-states contain all of these elements. But if you go deeper—if you're a castle scholar or a lord—or someone who aims at both, you'll need to be able to answer at least the following.

Excellent sewer system, excellent policing, and bustling shops.

Every city-state that is, or has the potential to be, a capital must possess these basic points. Leaving aside the first two points, the prosperity of a small village may be determined by the results of the crop harvest, which are influenced by the combined influence of population, the area of arable land, and the climate. The same may be true for a slightly larger village, but the number of shops will always determine how prosperous a city-state is.

This is true for port cities, and the same is true for military towns. It may not be reasonable to attribute them simply to the type of shop, but in any case, there is hardly a great city-state that can afford to have such a splendid service industry, and Ashriniel, where we are today, is certainly not among them, or conversely, it is a great example of such a city-state.

Along with the surrounding villages and towns with a population of 300,000, the entire northern part of the city is filled with all kinds of supply stores, and the weapons testing ground and the horse market are close to the weapons testing ground and the horse market, which sell a wide variety of weapons, armor, mounts, and saddles, from clothing to repair tools to small items such as emergency potions and miniature compasses.

Everything you need, as long as you have money, you can even walk in here naked, and when you come out, you are already wearing the most expensive and top-of-the-line plate armor, holding a precious weapon etched with a magic circle.

Most of the time, though, you'll find the same as you'll find in the 1,800 other mercantile cities on the continent of Rigal - you'll be left with nothing left of your pocket.

Like we've been saying, a businessman is a savvy creature.

Just like this one right now.

Miss Mary, who runs a small and small arms shop called 'Adventurer's House', which is the same as the one thousand and eight hundred, if there is anything unique enough to be called individuality, it is perhaps her own graceful figure and bright face—and Miss Mary, who is well aware of this fact, naturally does not abandon this advantage by the nature of a merchant.

The deliberate choice of a low-cut tunic that was very uncomfortable to wear, the high-end perfume that was bought and mixed with water within the means, and the long, dazzling red hair that was carefully groomed every day - these efforts made her traffic and sales far exceed those of her peers, and the frustrated eyes of the five big blacksmiths also made Miss Mary more and more prone to seeing people with her nostrils.

-- to this day.

Miss Mary, 25, had never experienced such frustration before.

Even when she was determined to open a weapons shop and was ridiculed by the male blacksmiths around her, all she could feel was full of fighting spirit, but this guy was different today.

- He looked like a fat sheep.

Miss Mary, who had been running the shop for more than two years, could easily discern which ones were buying her own things and which were the old foxes who had just come to rub oil. And this man fits the characteristics of all those who will spend money -

A neat and very handsome appearance, tall and muscular, with very neatly groomed blonde hair and very deep pale blue pupils - this is not comparable to the mercenary adventurers, who have been traveling all year round and taking a bath once a month is already considered diligent.

This is a handsome guy whose face can make countless teenage girls fall into nymphomaniac - but unfortunately our Miss Mary cares more about his pocket, so we focus on the crucial evidence that she really - at least once - determined that this man was a fat sheep.

- He wears a suit of full-body plate armor.

Ordinary mercenaries and adventurers would never do that.

The real reason is that the whole body armor that wraps itself like an iron bucket is completely unnecessary in most cases. Even though there are three types of mercenaries in the A, B, and C categories of mercenaries, they will more often choose to ambush and use tactical and ranged weapons to protect themselves rather than an expensive set of full-body armor.

The only people who will choose plate armor as armor are those who use humans or other intelligent beings as their main opponents, and ordinary soldiers will only wear a chest guard at most, and they will never be fully dressed - for the same reason.

Therefore, this person will at least be a knight, and judging from the brightness of the armor, he will not be the kind of down-and-out wandering knight who is almost indistinguishable from a mercenary, but a noble old man with a plump money bag.

This is a very rare situation, and the knight master ran out to go shopping by himself without a butler or an entourage. Faced with such a fat sheep that has not been seen in a thousand years, Miss Mary did her best to market her products - and we all saw the results.

The other party showed no interest in her or her products, and one wondered why he had entered the store. Ten minutes of enthusiastic introductions were fruitless, and Miss Mary's face could not help but become as frustrated as the blacksmith uncles around her—but it was at this moment that the knight in bright armor spoke.

"Do you have a bow here?" he asked, and Miss Mary's hazel eyes lit up instantly, "Yes!" she immediately removed a horned bow from the cabinet beside her, and then introduced the knight who had finally expressed his interest in something.

"Do you want a different weapon, it is true that bows and arrows are a pretty good choice, as opposed to magic that requires talent, although it also takes a long time to practice," Miss Mary said in a very high speed and skillful tone, "Our bows here are all made in Renea, and you know, the country that produces steel crossbows across the Möbigas Strait, and their crossbow weapons have always been of the highest quality in the industry."

"The bow I recommend to you is the Recurve of the Eastern Palosia Plateau style, although it is slightly less powerful than the West Coast longbow, but this bow is much more portable than the longbow, and it can even be used for riding and shooting, which is quite suitable as a secondary weapon for a knight like you. ”

"And we sell arrows here, too, and if you're a beginner, I'll recommend you this one with a big pull, you know, the harder it is to pull away, the better it is to exercise—" Miss Mary said with a mouthful of words, until she noticed a palm in front of her with a silent gesture.

"......?" she froze, only to realize that the knight hadn't even looked at her.

His head was tilted to the side, and his eyes were peering through the gap in the storefront somewhere in the distance. Miss Mary leaned out as well, and looked at her with curiosity.

The knight's gaze wasn't far away, but the scenery was a world away from the bustle here. Although it is only early autumn, the desolate streets make those who look at it feel cold involuntarily.

'Is it the ghetto?, or the convent, what is he looking at?' Miss Mary, whose eyebrows furrowed together, received the answer in the next second, and a man who was much taller than the average person, carrying a long sword on his back, and a petite white-haired girl appeared in her field of vision, and in a split second, they disappeared around the corner of the street.

"......" The knight stared at the place where the two had disappeared for a moment, then turned to look at Miss Mary.

"What do you see?" he asked, and Miss Mary was stunned for a moment, "Ah, what do you see? Isn't it just a little girl ......with white hair?"

"Huh......," she froze, and suddenly found herself unable to clearly imagine any of the man's features, and a strange feeling echoed in Miss Mary's mind, she knew exactly what she saw, but she could not piece together the fragments of these memories—and the knight in front of her smiled inexplicably.

"That's so," he laughed, and then, instead of his previous quiet appearance, he turned energetically and walked out of the door—and then stopped abruptly as if he had thought of something as he was about to step out of the door.

"By the way," he said to Miss Mary, who was still a little sluggish, "you'd better stop doing that."

"The bow is not a weapon that should be strong when you first start practicing, on the contrary, choosing a light bow is the right way to familiarize yourself with the basic movements, just to be able to sell it for more money to instill the wrong ideas in the customer, which is tantamount to killing the chicken and taking the egg."

He continued.

"And it's not a Palosia plateau recurve bow, they're longer, because the East Coast archers are more on foot. It's not even from Renea, yours is the archery of the steppe nomads. ”

"It's important for merchants to make a profit, but if they lose their credibility, the transaction will not be sustainable, have you ever counted how many of your customers will come back if they do it, and how many more sales will they make if they do?"

"Goodbye, ma'am," the knight gestured briefly, and walked out of the shop without looking back.

Only Miss Mary, who was standing in place, sighed in a half-loud voice: "Who is he......"

......

......

The camera turns to the other side.

Walking down the cold streets, Henry and Mira were silent on each other.

The sage did not speak because he felt that there was nothing to say, and the maiden was lost in thought because of some of the things the former had told her along the way.

She looked up at Henry's face, because of the height difference between the two, usually Mira could only walk faster than Henry, otherwise she would be blocked by his shoulders and not see the expression clearly, but today she didn't do that.

She didn't need to see it to guess that Henry's face was just the usual calmness at the moment.

A girl's mind is complicated.

She could ask a lot of things about why people could do such things, or why people would sit back and watch such things happen. But she had the answers before she could ask.

At just 11 years old, Mira carries the maturity and calmness that most children who are still spoiled in the arms of their parents do not have - but who would want all this instead of a warm and peaceful family if they had a choice.

Her gaze shifted to the hand Henry was holding her.

The sage's hand was warm, and his left hand, which had been holding the sword for many years, had a thick callus, but the girl did not feel a trace of discomfort when he held her hand.

'He's probably a man with a story......,' thought Mira, and the others might seem calm when they understood the truth behind it. But that's just a 'what do you have to do with me' indifference, unlike Henry.

The words he had said to himself ten minutes earlier were fully understood by Mira at this moment, but it was precisely because of these that it was even more difficult for her to understand the essence of Henry.

Calmness and maturity beyond her peers allow Mira to easily discern the true purpose of a person's hidden actions - this is how the weak adapt to the world, and it is only through this observation that she can barely ensure her own survival.

Either way, Mira couldn't tell Henry's purpose.

She could understand that by doing good, but from whom did Henry benefit from?

If he had been rescued before, if he had chosen to run away and accuse him of murder, he would have only gained trouble, and what he wanted to do this time, what could those orphans who were younger than her and have nothing to repay him?

I can't understand his way of thinking and why he acts—but that's why.

Because of this, in the eyes of the white-haired young girl, the warmth and light felt through the tightly clasped palms from the man she did not know very well, seemed incomparably pure.

Henry probably really didn't care about anything, like the calm expression on his face. He doesn't care if he will profit from it, nor does he care if the people he helps will be grateful for it.

Maybe it's just a whim when he's doing this, Mira thought.

Childish as a child, Mira began to snicker.

"What's wrong with you?" Henry, who noticed her move, turned his head, they were still walking, and Mira covered her mouth with her small hand and shook her head: "No"

"I just think you're probably a worse adult than I thought, Mr. Sage," the girl's eyes were pure, and there was not the slightest derogatory look in her eyes towards the sage, and Henry couldn't help but be infected by her smile, and a slight arc hung on his calm face, which quickly faded away.

"I'll just be praising me, and then, here we are," he stopped.

"What building exists in a slum where someone can maintain it without too many visitors, and at the same time have enough space and a justifiable reason for a group of orphans to live?"

"The answer is the Abbey," Henry looked up, and Mira followed his gaze to see a somewhat dilapidated manor house with a grayish-white tone.

The white stone slabs of its long aisle were cracked and blackened, and the angel statues on either side of the doorway looked extremely dilapidated from the wind and rain, and the dirty and blackened surface made the originally loving angel look like a crying woman.

The door was unlocked, and Henry walked in slowly with Mira.

"These old-style monasteries have been built in large numbers in the past, and they are used to train orphans to become a new generation of nuns and monks to spread the glory of the gods. Henry paused, his ears catching some sound, and turned around and walked towards it.

But today, when the clergy are becoming more and more important, the vast majority of those who are qualified to become monks are the children of commoners or nobles who have attended seminaries, so the monastery is gradually replaced by churches and shrines, and becomes a place where no one cares. They walked slowly to the other side, and the direction in which they had entered seemed to be the back door, which was the main entrance, judging from the stone tablets of great deeds that were common in the monasteries of the great cities facing Henry.

"But even then they are not completely wasted, after all, 'those who forget the brilliance of God will also be forgotten by God'" Henry shrugged, and Mira could see that although he quoted the words of the canon, he could not find even the most basic respect.

"So they were targeted by these slave owners and bad people who wanted to make a profit, and these outsiders came here to coerce the monks and nuns into withholding themselves from it......" Mira watched as Henry spoke his thoughts, and the sage shrugged back with another shrug.

"No, Mira, things may be a little more boring than you think"

They walked around the corner, and several young men, who looked to be about twenty years old, were arguing with nuns in their fifties and sixties.

"Bad guys sometimes"

"It's not from the outside"