Jeanne’s gaze was burdensome. Her earnest look made it nearly impossible to coldly refuse her.
Yuda avoided her gaze and sighed. Exploring the market as she suggested wouldn’t be bad, but he wanted to get to Aslan as quickly as possible.
The unexpected encounter with Count Zanuer made him anxious that someone might visit an old shop in Aslan and snatch a fragment. If that happened, he would have to chase them down with deadly intent.
“Yuda, are you listening to me?”
She called his name, urging a response.
“Alright, fine. But how about exploring the market in Aslan instead of Dempa? It’ll be more crowded, and as the capital, the market there should be much more developed.”
“Hmm…”
This time, Jeanne hesitated but nodded readily. Still, she glanced back at the market with a hint of disappointment. Yuda led her to find an inn. Fortunately, there was one not far from the market. Inside, the decor was as tidy as it appeared from the outside, and the price was also reasonable. A double room was cheaper, but for Jeanne’s sake, Yuda rented single rooms.
“Then, let’s rest and wash up today and meet again tomorrow morning. If you want to check out the market, feel free to go.”
“Hmm, got it.”
Yuda handed her the room key. She paused as if thinking, then pocketed the key and waved.
“Then, I’ll be off.”
Watching her leave the inn so quickly, Yuda let out a wry chuckle. She must have been really excited.
“Is it okay to let her go alone?”
The innkeeper, who had been watching, spoke to Yuda with concern. Though Philoria’s security was excellent, it didn’t extend to personal matters like romance. In other words, men might approach her while she is alone. But Yuda smiled, unconcerned.
“It’s fine.”
If someone could win Jeanne over, that too would count as a skill, and since no one could overpower her by force anyway, he wasn’t worried in the slightest.
“I’d like to wash up first. Can you prepare some water?”
“Over there, the room you see has water prepared, so you can wash up.”
Walking in the direction the innkeeper pointed, he found a bathhouse. Several people were washing up, but none of them paid any attention to each other. They simply bathed in silence or soaked in the warm water.
After lingering in the bath until he felt languid, Yuda washed up, changed into comfortable clothes, and headed to his room. The neatly arranged room had a soft-looking bed, and he threw himself onto it. The bed gently embraced him. He thought sleep might not come easily in an unfamiliar place, but the accumulated fatigue closed his eyes naturally. Truly, the best sleep came from stretching out comfortably.
Knock knock-
He must have dozed off, as a knock on the door woke him. Being roused like this always felt unpleasant.
Knock knock-
Frowning, Yuda got up from the bed and slowly walked to the door.
“Yes.”
Yawning as he opened the door, he found Jeanne standing there, arms full of something.
“I heard you haven’t eaten. Would you like to try some of this? I bought it at the market, and I got quite a lot.”
Jeanne smiled and handed him a paper bag. Inside were greasy chicken skewers, fries, and various other foods. The aroma hit him, and he realized he was hungry.
“Thanks, But didn’t you buy this for yourself?”
“You’re right. Of course, we’ll eat together.”
Saying that, Jeanne went downstairs to order beer from the barmaid and returned to Yuda’s room. She seemed to have bought every kind of food she wanted, hoping to share the overwhelming amount.
Even though it was a single room, there were two chairs at the small table.
“You bought a lot.”
By the fact that the bag wasn’t small and it felt heavy when he took it, he knew it wasn’t a small amount. Still, even considering the size of the table, the fact that it was completely packed with food, with no room left to spare, caught him off guard.
“I bought everything I wanted to eat. Hold on a moment.”
Feeling shy, she brought the table from her room. Now there was just enough space for the beer mugs. They clinked their frosty mugs together with a cheers. Naturally, Yuda recalled old memories of eating chicken and drinking beer, gulping down the drink. The beer here was hard to appreciate, but it felt good to drink after so long.
Kuhh-
Letting out a satisfied sound, he set down the mug and reached for the market snacks. A chicken skewer glistened temptingly. Wrapping paper around the sauce-covered skewer, he took a bite.
“……”
“…?”
As he chewed, he locked eyes with Jeanne, who was staring blankly at him while holding her beer mug.
“Aren’t you eating?”
“No, I’m eating.”
Has he drunk beer before? Jeanne tilted her head, puzzled. His reaction was not what she expected.
Back when she parted ways with Zentia and Yuda, she had shared a final drink with Zentia. During that conversation, Zentia mentioned she had never let Yuda touch alcohol and would not allow it until he came of age. Jeanne had expected him to be curious about beer, maybe even hesitant. But instead, he reacted like someone who had tasted it plenty of times. It was the kind of response only someone familiar with drinking could give, not something you would expect from someone newly of age. Still, her doubt did not linger long. Yuda was tearing through the food he had bought at the market with surprising speed, leaving her no time to sit around wondering.
“By the way, how was the market?”
Eating some fries, Yuda suddenly asked, as if it just occurred to him. With his hunger satisfied, he had the leeway to focus on other things.
“The market? It was incredibly clean, surprisingly so. Even the Empire’s markets aren’t like that. I was truly impressed.”
“Aren’t markets the same everywhere?”
A place where people constantly bump into each other, crowded and full of pickpockets. But also filled with delicious food and plenty to see. That was how Yuda defined a market in his mind. Jeanne suddenly let out a quiet chuckle at his reaction and took a drink of her beer. The mug, already less than half full, was quickly being emptied. Letting out a satisfied "kuhh," she reached for the food on the table.
“I thought so too, but Philoria was a bit different. Shockingly so. How it was different… ah.”
She paused mid-sentence, then let out a scoffing chuckle.
“We’re going to visit the market in Aslan anyway, right? You’ll probably be surprised when you see it. To keep that excitement, I’ll hold off on saying more.”
Jeanne just smiled and ate the food. Yuda looked at her with a blank expression and sighed softly.
‘From the way she’s talking, it seems she just had a normal market visit.’
He wondered if she’d had a special encounter like with Count Zanuer, but she said nothing. After the meal, Jeanne reminded him not to forget about visiting the market in Aslan and left.
After resting at the inn, they left around midday. There appeared to be a merchant group that handled travel between Aslan and Dempa, as there were plenty of carriages waiting, making it easy to hire one. If it were the day of the Flag tournament, there wouldn’t be idle carriages, but having a convenient way to travel was nice, so Yuda and Jeanne hired a carriage and coachman.
Yuda had plenty of funds, so he rented a better carriage than the one from Serenia Castle and arrived in Philoria’s capital, Aslan, with relative comfort.
“…It’s magnificent.”
As soon as they stepped off the carriage, Jeanne spoke, awestruck by the sight of the capital〈Aslan〉. Her trembling voice was fairly understandable. As she said, the grandeur and majesty before them were breathtaking. The coachman, used to such reactions, wished them a pleasant trip and turned the carriage back to Dempa.
Absently waving to the coachman, Yuda looked back at Aslan. Dempa’s walls and castle were impressive, but Aslan was on another level. Even from a distance, it made him feel like an ant.
‘It’s amazing.’
That was the first word that came to mind upon seeing Aslan. There was no other way to describe it. Like Serenia Castle, it was surrounded by two or three walls, but their heights all varied. The outermost wall wasn’t low, but the deeper you went, the higher the walls became. The inner buildings suggested a massive mountain had been carved into a fortress. The term “impregnable” felt almost inadequate.
If he were a general tasked with conquering this place, he couldn’t think of a way to breach it beyond inciting an internal rebellion or starving them out with a siege.
Even if you somehow scaled the lowest outer wall, higher walls on elevated terrain awaited inside, making the prospect daunting.
“Did you know?”
“Huh?”
Lost in thought while staring at the castle, Jeanne spoke to him. He turned to look at her, but she wasn’t looking back. Instead, she was taking in the sight of the castle as if she intended to remember it for the rest of her life.
“Philoria has never once allowed an enemy to reach its capital. Yet, they always prepare for the worst, fortifying the capital and even areas enemies haven’t reached. That’s what made the kingdom of Philoria known as impregnable. Isn’t it incredible? Isn’t it magnificent? They live in peace but never grow complacent, always ready for trials that may come.”
“……”
“My instructor told us trainee lance knights to visit Philoria’s capital if possible. The Empire conquered many kingdoms and doesn’t even fear its rival, Baekje, but the one exception is Philoria. I didn’t understand why he said that or why we should see Aslan, but now I get it.”
To Yuda, it was just a stunning view, but to Jeanne, it seemed to hold deeper meaning. She was showing the brightest expression he’d seen from her. With eyes full of anticipation, she shivered and grabbed his sleeve.
“Come on, let’s go, Yuda. What can we learn by just looking?”
Jeanne pulled Yuda along, striding energetically toward the castle’s checkpoint.
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