Chapter 253 – Side Story 2 – Young Traveler (2)

After walking through the night, the boy arrived at the domain’s gate the next morning, just as the man had told him.

The domain gate was more impressive than Vlad had expected. The boy had thought there would just be a small checkpoint by the roadside where they would check people passing through. But the domain’s gate consisted of a sturdy, sizeable stone building with various obstacles. It looked almost like a small fortress.

Moreover, the soldiers guarding the gate were more elite than he had anticipated. Seeing the boy approaching alone from a distance, soldiers on top of the building and between the obstacles pointed crossbows and spears at him with tense faces, causing Vlad to raise both hands high.

“Stop right there! Move and we’ll attack!”

Though he had already stopped walking, Vlad raised his hands and waited without protest.

“If you have weapons, put them on the ground and state who you are.”

Vlad couldn’t tell who was speaking from behind the obstacles, but since only one person was giving orders, this person seemed to be the highest-ranking individual here.

Vlad slowly put down his weapons and carefully reached into his inner pocket to take out a paper.

“Is that a business card?”

“Looks like a visitor.”

“That’s fortunate.”

Soft whispers carried on the wind reached his ears, and then the person who had been giving him instructions spoke again.

“Wait there. We’ll come to verify.”

The tone of the person giving instructions had changed from before. Then, one soldier emerged from behind the obstacles to check the card the boy was holding.

“This is indeed our domain’s card. It’s Sir Choi’s card.”

With the soldier’s words, the tension that had filled the area dissipated. The soldiers who had been hiding behind the obstacles and on the rooftop revealed themselves, and the older soldier who had shouted at the boy also came out from behind the obstacles and approached him.

“So it is Sir Choi’s card. Where did you get this?”

“I met him last night. He saved me and gave me this card.”

The boy answered truthfully to the senior soldier’s clear question.

Hearing my words, the soldier nodded and then asked again.

“I see. Did you see anyone else?”

“No. He seemed to be talking with someone, but I didn’t see anyone.”

In truth, he had heard the voice too, but he couldn’t mention that.

Fortunately, the senior soldier didn’t ask him anything more.

“Well, since Sir Choi and the young lady have verified you, there shouldn’t be a problem.”

As it seemed they would let him pass without issue, the boy asked the soldier:

“Excuse me, was he really a knight? He didn’t seem that old…”

The senior soldier smiled at the boy’s question.

“Well, officially he’s an apprentice knight.”

“That’s ridiculous. They say he’s too young to be an official knight, but in any other domain, he would have earned his knighthood long ago.”

The soldier who had first checked the boy interjected after hearing the senior soldier’s words.

“Then tell that to the lord.”

“Come on, I’m just saying. If the lord decided it, it can’t be wrong.”

But the soldier quickly retracted his statement after the senior’s response.

“Well then, write your name and place of origin in the ledger and you can pass through. You’re heading to the domain capital, right?”

“Yes, that’s my plan.”

The domain capital, as the senior soldier mentioned, was indeed the boy’s destination.

“Well, everyone goes to the capital unless they have family or relatives in the domain.”

The senior soldier then took the boy into the building, asked him for his personal details, and recorded them in the ledger.

A commoner named Vlad from a southern domain of the Empire.

After recording these ordinary details of origin and name, the boy set off again.

As he left with a polite farewell, the boy could hear the soldiers’ conversation.

“He doesn’t seem like an ordinary boy no matter how you look at it. Even if he started with others from the wall, he still arrived here alone. I’ve never seen someone come here alone before.”

“Let it go. Are there only one or two unusual people in this domain?”

“Well, I guess the captain is also a retired expeditionary force veteran who fought against the Demon King’s army. Why would someone who awakened mana after surviving that hell work in such a remote place? He could easily be a deputy commander in any decent domain.”

“Even so, there’s no better place to live than here.”

“Well, that’s true.”

And so the questions about the boy faded away, and the soldiers didn’t bring up the topic again.

The boy, who had been secretly listening, closed his ears and hurried on his way when he heard no more talk about himself.

The road to the domain capital was remarkably comfortable. Even though it wasn’t inside a city, the road was paved with large, flat stones that prevented dust and puddles from forming.

Moreover, the road didn’t wind but stretched out straight and long.

“This is perfect for pulling carriages.”

It was the kind of road merchants would truly appreciate.

But the road wasn’t the only thing that surprised the boy.

Endless wheat fields and farms stretched on both sides of the road, along with crops he couldn’t identify.

The prosperity of this domain was evident even to the boy.

Even the Empire’s domains, which were said to have almost recovered from the aftermath of the war, weren’t like this, yet this domain, isolated in the eastern part of the continent, had crops growing so abundantly that just looking at them made one feel full.

“So the rumors weren’t wrong.”

Though he hadn’t seen the city yet, it seemed the rumors about this domain were accurate.

That was fortunate, but the boy’s face wasn’t bright.

The boy had actually hoped the rumors were wrong…

After walking for a while along the well-paved road reminiscent of the Imperial capital, he began to see houses on a distant hill and people on the road.

Farmers pulling carts with animals, soldiers heading toward the gate, and people who looked like merchants.

No one specifically greeted him, but passersby gave the boy eye-contact greetings with smiling faces.

All of them had bright expressions.

This domain seemed to be more than just prosperous.

The boy continued walking, giving small nods in return.

After walking diligently all day, he was able to reach the domain capital by nightfall.

The boy stood on a hill overlooking the capital and stared blankly at the city below.

The city was situated in the middle of a wide plain, alongside a sizeable river.

It was clearly a city built in an excellent location.

The plain surrounding the city was covered with vast wheat fields, and several ships floated on the river that ran through the city.

Just from this, one could tell it was a good place to live, but the reason the boy was staring blankly at the city was because it differed from his expectations.

The cities the boy knew, the cities of the Empire, had walls surrounding them and the lord’s castle in the center.

He had heard that other countries weren’t much different, and the city he was looking at now didn’t have a significantly different structure.

However, the contents of the city the boy was looking at were different.

“A wooden wall? But are there trees that tall?”

There was indeed a wall surrounding the city, but it wasn’t the stone wall or wooden palisade the boy was familiar with.

“The texture does seem like wood…”

But rather than being built from multiple pieces of wood, the wall looked like one enormous tree.

It was absurd, but the city wall looked like a massive hollowed-out tree.

“But that can’t be possible, right?”

There couldn’t possibly be a tree large enough to encircle a city.

“It is indeed wood. It’s connected to the roots and trunk of the tree in the center of the city.”

Another person’s voice came from beside him.

Though the voice was sudden, the boy couldn’t turn his head.

The man’s words were addressing a fact that the boy had been deliberately ignoring.

Though the boy had been forcibly averting his eyes, there was something even stranger than the city wall visible in the center of the city.

It was a gigantic tree.

A tree larger than the Imperial Palace said to be in the capital, impossibly tall.

It was the very tree he had thought was a hallucination on his way here.

Because of that tree, the city looked completely different from any city the boy had seen before.

“Well, there are more surprising things once you enter the city, but that’s quite a matter of taste. You should see and feel it for yourself.”

Only then could the boy turn his head toward the person speaking.

The person addressing the boy was an old man.

A man full of muscles, unlike what one would expect from an elderly person.

Just looking at him made one feel like they could smell iron.

When the boy looked up, the old man took out a piece of paper from his bosom and handed it to him.

“I’m a blacksmith. A blacksmith who made quite a name for myself even in the Imperial capital. If you need anything, come find me.”

Now the boy knew what this piece of paper was.

It was a business card.

But the boy had no reason to accept this from a stranger.

“Why are you giving this to me…”

“Honestly, these business cards aren’t really my style. But when I saw you, I had a feeling you’d be a good customer. Even the lord of this place came to have a sword made, so I think you’ll like it too.”

With those final words, the muscular old man walked toward the city, leading an animal pulling a cart.

After this unexpected encounter, the boy shook his head, looking at the business card in his hand and the receding figure of the old man.

Then the boy also began walking toward the city.

Up close, the wall surrounding the city was indeed made from a single tree, as the old man had said.

Fortunately, perhaps because he had heard it from the old man in advance, the boy was able to hide his surprised expression when he stood in front of the city entrance checkpoint.

The line to enter the city was quite long, but the waiting time wasn’t as long as expected.

The soldiers conducting the inspections didn’t scrutinize people thoroughly.

They just briefly looked over the passing people and asked a few questions.

Moreover, the knight at the checkpoint didn’t even pay attention to the inspection itself.

He simply wore his armor and surveyed the surroundings.

It seemed quite casual, but a moment later, the boy realized this wasn’t the case.

The soldiers pulled out a cart that had been in front of the boy.

It was an ordinary cart loaded with wheat, but when the soldiers blocked it, a person jumped out from under the cart.

Excellent stealth that the boy hadn’t even noticed until just now.

The man in black clothing, clearly a mana user, tried to evade the soldiers and leap into the city, but he had to stop after going only a short distance.

Somehow, the knight had blocked his path.

The knight, who had already drawn his sword.

A faint light flowed from the knight’s sword.

“Surrender and I’ll spare your life.”

“Damn it!”

What followed was a confrontation between the mana user who appeared to be a thief and the knight.

No, it could hardly be called a confrontation.

After just a few sword strokes, the thief’s head flew off.

Afterward, the person who had been pulling the cart was dragged away by the soldiers, and the dead man was quickly cleared away.

And the line, which had momentarily stopped, began moving again.

People looked at the recent confrontation with interest, but that was all.

People treated it as if it were a common occurrence.

Even the boy, who had experienced many hardships, wasn’t particularly surprised by the recent confrontation.

He was only curious about how they had found the thief.

There were strange light-emitting objects hanging around the gate, and thick iron plates on the ground, but he hadn’t sensed any mana from any of them.

Though he didn’t have an ability like mana detection, the boy had been confident in his ability to sense mana.

The boy became even more depressed as he saw more and more things he didn’t understand about this domain.

Fortunately, the boy was able to pass through the checkpoint easily.

Once again, it was thanks to the card given by the man called a knight.

The city inside, as the old man he had met earlier had said, was quite unfamiliar.

From the gigantic tree in the center of the city to the seemingly newly built buildings with quite strange appearances.

Nevertheless, the boy felt relieved upon entering the city. After all, he had finally entered the city as his father had ordered.

Though there was still much to do, the boy decided to rest today.

Having entered enemy territory, he couldn’t move immediately.