Located southwest of its current location, Aochi Town is a town famous for its bamboo ware in the north.

It gets its name "Qingzhi" because of the lush bamboo forests around it, which are always the first sight for travelers who come and go in the middle of summer. Like the concept of "knowing autumn with one leaf" that is widely popular in the literary circle of the country of the moon, it takes the meaning of "knowing the summer solstice because of the green bamboo", and named Qingzhi Town.

Compared with this nameless village at the foot of the mountain where everyone is starting from, the scale of Qingzhi Town is many times larger.

Marsh Village is a low-lying point in the plains at the foot of the northern hills of Crescent Island, but the further south you go, the higher the terrain will be. Lifted off the water, there is solid soil, and the plants that grow in place of the long grass and reeds that are common near the swamp village grow.

Bamboo, which grows very fast, is a more convenient material than trees. Although they are generally less hardy, the climate around Aochi is barely the northernmost part of the Chubu region, and the climate allows bamboo to grow.

With such an abundance of natural materials, it will be inhabited by people and gradually develop from handicrafts to industry and commerce, and become a prosperous town, which is a matter of pushing the boat.

To get to Qingzhi Town from the small village, you have to climb over two hills. Because they were far from the water, if they wanted to take a boat down the river, they had to go back to the river first. And because the population in the vicinity is not particularly large, there are not enough people doing ferry business along the river. It was not easy to find a boat that was willing to carry people, and it was necessary to walk a long way west to the river.

This distance is basically the same as walking directly to Aochi Town on a mountain road, so most people in the vicinity take it on foot if they want to get there.

Many of the merchants who come to participate in the seven-day festival come from Aochi Town. In the industrial and commercial towns that have developed to a large scale, there are still many small self-employed people who pass on their crafts from generation to generation as a family unit. Most of them could not compete with the large and large chambers of commerce, so they had to rely on their industrious hands and strong feet to travel everywhere they could, selling the items they made to earn a silver tael.

After hundreds of years of walking and pioneering, the nearby mountain trails are still flat and open even in the most difficult places.

There were no hotels or supply points for more than a day's journey. Although there is a hilltop temple in the middle of the road, the monks there only occasionally provide relief to shipwrecked travelers, and do not have the daily capacity to receive passers-by.

Therefore, if you want to set off for that side, you must prepare essential items such as rations and water along the way.

There weren't a lot of other travelers in the group, but they still met a few from time to time. Most of them were merchants who had sold all their belongings in exchange for money and happily set out on their way home, and this kind of people couldn't help but quicken their pace when they saw the three Henry, who were obviously armed but did not look like serious samurai.

But there were also a few people who noticed Sojiro who was following them, so they let down their guard in an instant and ran back to talk to them.

The Swamp Tiger was even more famous than Henry and Mira had thought, and Sakura, who had been living in the swamp village, had heard of his heroic deeds, but according to Oiran himself, "a sweaty and frizzy wrestler can't stand with a geisha who sings and paints", so there is no real crossing.

Sojiro is more informative than he impresses, even if he looks like five big and three coarse, this middle-aged man is very talkative and enthusiastic. He wanted to pull Henry into the gang and make a lot of money together, which naturally meant that he was going to participate in more confrontation activities, with his prestige and fame, there were indeed many people who were willing to fight, but the sage did not have such intentions when he came here, so he directly rejected him that night.

But this man obviously has a lot of obsession, and even after seeing his face and understanding that Henry and Mira are foreigners, he will raise his interest even more, thinking that using slogans such as "Oni of the Southern Barbarians" will attract more people.

Oni had heard the name of the Roan girl many times from the beginning of Aya and the samurai, and Kazuto seemed to like to use this word to describe the sage. She was naturally curious, but she had never had the right opportunity to ask before, and this time it was a relatively leisurely trip, so she also opened her mouth to ask.

But the answer to this question doesn't seem to be very easy to give.

"Tall, big, strong, and cannibalistic, although it was a former thing. The detailed descriptions given by Sojiro and Sakura are the details after picking out the key points. The more Mira listened, the more misty it became, it seemed to be some kind of beast or monster, but their direct translation of the syllable "Oni", the square text written in the Land of the Moon corresponds to the Lamanite language but the spirit of "ghost".

The incomprehensible Mira finally turned to the sage for help.

"It's the ogre's version of the Moon Country. The sage explained straightforwardly, and now Mira understood, but it was Sakura and Sojiro who were interested.

"Long horns, tall, big, strong, cannibalistic. The sage rediscovered the point, the ogre or ogre in Rigal is pronounced "Ogara", which is similar to the pronunciation of the Moon Country, and perhaps there have been some exchanges in history. After a little communication, they learned a somewhat unexpected fact - the existence of the "ghosts" of the Moon Country actually has a considerable degree of culture.

"It's the same as the status of the Yi people. Sakura's direct words made Mira understand at once.

It's very different from the ogres of Rigal. Subhumans such as ogres in Rigal are usually mentally retarded and exist as beasts. In the Land of the Moon, the oni have their own culture, can speak, have armor and weapons, and exist as a minority on the same level as the Yi people.

The ghost clan has even produced many famous samurai, which can be regarded as a famous fighting nation in this country, a rare fighting elite.

And they are generally more than two meters tall regardless of gender, although compared to the trolls in Rigal, who are often more than three meters tall, which is a lot of shrinkage, the decline in physical ability seems to be in exchange for an increase in intelligence level.

Even if the brainless beast is strong and chooses the right method, it can be dealt with, but it can wear armor and has superb combat ability, and it still has excellent physical fitness with learning ability, if it is not for the sparse population, the ghost clan must be the existence of the ruling moon country.

All in all, because of the existence of this native species, even if the sage did not have horns, the tall figure made the locals wonder if he was from the ghost clan.

There was no kind of small talk that filled the day and a half of the trip, and as the communication with the locals deepened, Mira's Japanese skills also improved rapidly. The language, which is already similar to the Lamanite pronunciation, is not particularly difficult to learn, but it is the country's strict phrasing and rhetorical methods that are really difficult.

Before she could really understand the language, Mira noticed that Lulu and Aya sounded completely different details despite speaking the language of a human.

Born in the upper class, Miss Doctor always addresses others as an honorific title, either "you" or "this one". Lulu, on the other hand, tends to be more blunt, sometimes even using slightly offensive phrases like "you guy".

The difference in the way of wording is closely related to social class, although this is the case in any country, but if you have a problem with the wording in Rigal, you will be excluded and despised at most, and you will be directly killed on the spot.

Civilians who collide with samurai: Death, civilians who do not kneel down to give way to samurai patrolling the streets: death, Death if a junior samurai confronts a superior: Death, and Privately criticize their lord: Death.

Impersonal classes and rules that even outsiders Henry and Mira must follow. Doing what is common means not only changing clothes, but also respecting the local rules to avoid unnecessary conflicts.

Although it is true that sometimes you can't blindly back down and must stick to your bottom line, the standard of the bottom line should not be set too high, and you don't intend to compromise at all. Trying to cooperate as much as possible is a better option than just knowing confrontation and resistance.

After all, even if Henry could defeat a hundred, he could only turn around and run away with an army of thousands in a city of peace, let alone an enemy of the entire country.

There is a limit to what a person can do with a sword, even if that person is Henry Mayer.

After walking through dirt roads, stepping on mountain roads carved out of limestone, and finally passing through wooden bridges built on mountain streams that were somewhat shaky due to disrepair, the green of Aochi Town was undoubtedly known to everyone.

Although it is only early spring and has not yet reached the most lush time of summer, and there are even yellow leaves from last autumn that have been exposed after the winter snow has melted, the dense bamboo forest up to 20 meters high still inevitably makes people who walk in it indulge in this piece of green.

Because of the rapid growth of the dense bamboo forest, it has not necessarily been much less than it was at the beginning after thousands of years. However, according to the words of the craftsman uncle who also walked with him because he chatted with Sojiro, the bamboo here is specially cultivated and cared for.

"After all, a lot of it is consumed every month, and it is natural to grow, where is it enough. This paragraph of his words was directly addressed to the curious Luoan girl, even if he saw the appearance of the two foreigners, this uncle didn't seem to mind very much.

Although he did look at Mira a few more times and whispered a few words to the Snow Girl, which made Miss Luo An a little unhappy, but in general, the appearance of harmony gave her some confidence to enter the town of peace.

However, when walking through this dense bamboo forest, she noticed some shadows around her, which also made the white-haired girl more or less understand the reason why this uncle followed them closely.

The craftsmen of Aochi Town who participated in the festival would happily return after selling out of their belongings, and those who returned with the silver taels they earned were naturally fat sheep to be slaughtered in the eyes of others.

Even in a unified and relatively peaceful country like the Moon Country, there are still a lot of violent incidents.

After the samurai, who lost ground for various reasons due to the lack of wars to reduce the population, and whose population was always increasing year after year, there were only a few who were able to engage in business and rise. Most people, like the fighting professionals in other regions, have chosen to bully the weak and violently plunder others for their livelihoods, lacking the means of making a living from war.

Because of the control of the circulation of armor by the high-level of the Moon Country, most of these bandit groups composed of exiled ronins are not very high in combat effectiveness, and they can only flee in the face of the regular army. But for the helpless civilians, they are still a great threat.

It's just that no one with a discerning eye can do anything to them.

The sage's figure alone was enough to make most of the ill-intentioned people retreat, not to mention the fact that he was carrying a huge Kramer behind his back, even if he was wrapped in cloth. And Mira and Sakura both carry swords, although there are not many people in this line, but they are all hard boards no matter how you look at them. As a result, at the last moment of entering the town, many of the merchants who had distanced themselves from them before slowed down or quickened their pace to approach them, pretending that they were also part of the group.

People's hearts remain the same everywhere, and even if there are differences in language and culture, the small calculations of these people are still the same as the ones they occasionally encountered when they were on mercenary missions in Rigal.

The last section of the mountain road is downward, and after stepping out of the bamboo forest, the flat ground suddenly opens up and shimmers in the early spring sun.

"It's so big!" Mira couldn't help but sigh, and the sage lifted his hat and glanced at the clear sky.

The houses closest to the bamboo forest are surrounded by square walls, and this is the bamboo processing workshop of the Great Chamber of Commerce. Workers cut down the bamboo, remove the excess branches, and then pile them up in the sun to dry, most of which are used to make low-grade items. And some of the carefully selected ones are received in the house to take longer to dry.

The processed bamboo is pulled into the yard and processed in a variety of ways, and there are hundreds of such workshops. Densely packed occupy a large area, and further along, there are more dwellings, with two spires standing in the center of the town, the golden hall in the southeast corner of the town, and the wide tributaries of the Yongchuan River in the northwest look sparkling from this angle.

Busy ferries came and went, and judging by the direction, it was clear that as expected, the likelihood that another group of people who had escaped by boat would come here was extremely high.

"Let's go, let's go to the tavern down there for a bite to eat. Old man, I have a treat, how about the entry fee for the little brother?" Zong Erlang threw out an olive branch again.

"You're really not giving up. Sakura sighed again.

"I don't participate in your so-called jousting competition. ”

"But rice. ”

"Eat. The sage said in a flat tone.

"Uh-"

"Hahaha. And the open-minded Swamp Tiger laughed again: "I like the little brother more and more, what, do you really not consider partnering with the old man to make a lot of money!"

"Not considered. ”

"Think about it, hahahaha. The two men walked forward first.

"Stupid man. Sakura sighed again.

"I feel the same way. Mira agreed, reaching out and pulling the Oiran to catch up with them.