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Chapter 96

The pair of us left behind the Blanche estate and started walking through the city. Most of the town consisted of tightly arranged buildings made of stone and wood as one might expect from a city at this level of technology, but every once in a while, they would be broken up by a large complex surrounded by a wall that looked grand enough to protect a city, despite the city itself had no protective wall.

These massive complexes weren’t placed together like one might expect from the residential area of a city. Although there were residential areas, that was mostly for the common people. When it came to the noble families, they each had their land, complete with multiple buildings and protective walls. That wasn’t their only safety precaution. I was also dimly aware of magic protecting them, although I wasn’t experienced enough to detect how the magic worked or what it did. However, even if there wasn’t magic, there were also guards.

Not only did the front gates have guards, but there appeared to be guards stationed along the walls too. Every guard wore colors and an insignia that seemed wholly unique to their family. Now that I thought about it, the Blanch family guards and servants were all wearing yellow, and their insignia was that of a knight helmet and a spear. It seemed like noble families were series business, even in this smaller city.

It was pretty clear that the family guards thought nothing of the city guards. The two seemed to act like the other didn’t exist, and when they were forced to walk past each other, they would act like the other was a passing breeze. At one point while Mara and I were walking, a man in a carriage came barreling down the path. His insignia was a raging bear and it was colored orange. I pulled Mara aside for safety, as the man was traveling much faster than traffic would allow. Common people were forced to dive out of the way or risk being injured.

The driver was lashing his whip wildly, and he even struck a woman who had been too slow to get out of the way causing a gash to appear across her face. Her husband yelled to the guards to do something about it, but the guards ignored her. The carriage belonged to someone from one of the families, and they wouldn’t risk enraging anyone from a family for the sake of a commoner. Realizing the guards wouldn’t even listen when the crime was done right in front of them, the man could only curse to himself, helping the woman off and scurrying off down an alley.

“Is this what cities are like?” Mara asked quietly.

I couldn’t help but glance back at Mara. She had not spoken very much since her family died. After encountering Erika, she had started to speak more, but Erika had ended up in the Schrödinger’s box. She had become quiet during the journey, so this was one of the few times I had seen her go out of her way to speak. She noticed me looking at her and blushed slightly. She was likely remembering that my identity as a pond spirit meant I would never have seen a city before. However, in my past life, I had lived in the city, although it was vastly different from this one.

“Cities are full of all kinds of people from any walk of life,” I told her. “It’s the only place where beggars can brush shoulders with kings. So, be careful, you never know who the person walking past you truly is.”

She looked up at me in surprise and then nodded thoughtfully. If Mara was going to end up as one of these nobles, I didn’t want her to be like that guy. All he had to do was offend the wrong person with his actions, and he may not be alive to regret it. For example, had that whip struck Mara, the driver would be dead before he even knew who he upset, and his so-called noble lord would follow soon after. Well, it wasn’t like someone of sufficient strength would allow themselves to be run over by a cart anyway, so thinking along those lines was pointless.

“Spirit…” Mara glanced up at me sweetly.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Did anything happen between you and Erika inside that immortal’s palace?”

I stiffened. Where did that question come from? She was looking at me intently without blinking. Of course, I had completed the lover’s trial with her, which had involved us kissing each other once. However, there was nothing between us other than that.

“No,” I responded flatly. “We should get moving.”

Mara frowned slightly, but she didn’t say anything else as we continued walking down the path. My words were quickly proven true, as common people were walking alongside the various noble families. Of course, nobles were less plentiful, but wherever they moved was obvious due to their fine silk clothing and the wide berth everyone else left them, and they were the ones who weren’t joined by guards.

At first, I wondered why some had guards and others did not, but I started to realize it mostly had to do with their evolutionary level. The younger and lower level typically had a few bodyguards, while the older and more experienced did not. Some of them even openly had swords on their belts and would look around the crowds challengingly as if looking for a fight.

Killing was one way to gain experience, and perhaps the fastest way to level, so I’m sure those looking to level were open to a fight, and they might even go out without guards intentionally in hopes that they are attacked and can gain new levels. Of course, that was just when it came to the hotblooded youth. The older members who were at higher levels seemed to garner a great deal of respect from those around them, rather than fear.

I had one other mission as I walked down the street. I checked out various shops and vendors. I was naturally looking for the kinds of things that sold, and for what prices. If I was going to owe this sentinel woman money, then I needed to figure out how much I owed. There were all kinds of shops, clothing shops, weapon shops, and even ingredient shops. There were furniture shops, armor shops, and even a magic artifact shop, although the only people who entered it were nobles. Various food stalls sold various fried foods, and I even saw the occasional restaurant, although they weren’t all that common.

Grrrrrrrr…

“Hungry?” I asked, looking back at Mara who was holding her stomach.

She gave me a guilty look. “The guard refused to pull out anything from the packs while we were waiting outside the Blanche residence. I haven’t eaten since yesterday.”

“I’m sorry, it’ll have to wait. I don’t have any of the currency this city takes.” I told her, but she only shrugged as if it didn’t matter.

I had already come to understand the money situation in this province. These so-called joules came in the form of a stone. That stone had an indicator on it that had a thousand lit notches. You could exchange light by pressing two stones together. These stones were also used to power things like lighting and spells. In other words, this world’s currency was energy. A single stone was called a kilojoule, and the 1000 notches were joules.

Buying from the stalls costs about 300 joules while buying from a restaurant might cost a few stone kilojoules and some joules as a change. A cheat sword cost about 500 kilojoules, but it went up from there and those blades seemed to have questionable quality. In other words, by my best guess, a joule was about a penny, and so every kilojoule was $10. So, in short, I owed the sentinel Mirage $1,000,000. It was no wonder that Tyler and Erika were dubious about me being able to repay. I was more surprised Tyler was about to raise $500,000 to save us in the first place. It also gave me an idea of just how valuable the magical artifacts were… although supposedly there was something called a megajoule, which had 1000 notches, each equaling a kilojoule. I owed one megajoule.

I also checked, and the stones seemed to have an extremely long lifespan. Whether they lost notches or not depended on where they were stores, and in some places they even gained notches. The richest families all had places where they stored partially emptied stones, thus gaining a passive income. Things didn’t change, even with worlds that had magic. Of course, I realized that this all had to do with that substance known as mana.

Power is money, money is power. I heard that mantra from back when I was a pond, but it only made sense now. This was literal. Mana seemed to govern this society. If mana was rich, the stones would absorb it. If it was low, they would release it. Both evolution, the physical embodiment of power, and currency were driven by the collection of mana in this world. Those who had the power hoarded it, and those who didn’t live at their mercy. Of course, out in the country, these stones had no use, and were thus replaced with more traditional trade, but that would be useless here, even if we still had our cart of supplies, our only choice would be to find someone to sell them to.

“It’s him.” Mara grabbed my arm.

We were almost at the location that Erika had indicated. She had provided us with a rough map, but her elegant skills with the pen had made it more than sufficient find. Unfortunately, parked in front of the complex we were heading was the carriage from earlier that had almost killed several people, the orange bear. That was unfortunate.