Chapter 235
The next tournament’s candidates from Galois Magic Academy, including Lenia, arrived at Bern village using the express pegasus golem flying service. There was a station on the outskirts of Bern village set up just for this express service. The party safely entered the village after getting off the flying chariot at the station.
In the past, air travel had not been a viable option for entering Bern village due to the large magical birds and beasts in the sky. The countless wyverns that inhabited Mores mountains were another obstacle to air travel. However, the current pact with the wind dragons Oxis and Winchant who led the wyverns and the other dragons of Mores mountains changed this reality. The flying chariot, which had only existed as an imagined concept for some time, was finally put to practical use.
For Lenia, Fatima, and the others who had already visited Bern village in the past, this was their first return since their visit three months ago for the appointment of Christina as the Baroness of Bern.
During the appointment ceremony, only aristocrats of the lowest social standing had been present. Currently, those of higher standing had been dispatched to Bern village instead. Nelneshia and Fatima were aware that the sight of these folks indicated the intent to build ties with Bern village.
This visit was the first time Kushli and Aznar had entered this village on the frontier. Somehow, the fact that this remote village in the northernmost part of the kingdom—barely mentioned on the map—was bustling with activity seemed like a lie or an illusion.
Although Bern was not yet comparable to Galois, the key village in the northern part of the kingdom, the sheer number of people filling the streets and the heat radiating from them was impressive enough to make the summer sun surrender in defeat.
Tons of people streamed into the village, bordered by walls reinforced with spectacularly formidable magic. On these very walls, a fantastical sight of flowers and trees covered them. Among the crowd were merchants seeking goods that were only available in the barony of Bern, or landless commoners who had gathered on the promise of becoming owners of the land they cultivated. Their faces were filled with glimmers of hope for their future selves, for a future of happiness that had yet to take shape. Some of them even had frighteningly serious expressions.
On the other hand, relatively wealthy commoners and aristocrats could be seen at the large bathhouse built inside the village for a healing bath. The bathhouse was open all year round, and it offered a relatively peaceful atmosphere in a territory that seemed ablaze with the enthusiasm of its people.
The sounds of people coming and going; chattering and chatting; the hammering of nails, saws on cutting boards for construction works and road works; street performers playing flutes, stringed instruments, and percussion; even singing intertwined to create an avalanche of sound.
Kushli and Aznar had heard about Bern village’s developments, but the rumor of the remote village in the northernmost part of the kingdom—a rumor that the villagers themselves would not have denied a year ago—stuck in their minds. They could not help but doubt whether they were really in Bern.
The two of them were already startled to see mermaids and fishmen swimming in the newly constructed waterways that ran throughout the village. The sight of some of them towing or pushing small boats to help tourists get around was even more astonishing.
The third blow of shock came when they learned that the Mores mountains mermaids and fishmen living in Bern had sought permission from Christina, the baroness of the village, to use the waterways and start their own water transportation business for tourists.
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