8 First town

It rained not only for the rest of the day but also for another entire day and night before the sun decided to shine It's way through the clouds again. The following day, two days after he reached the lake, Emperor came into view of Red-water city. Like most towns, It had been built surrounded by three tall walls, two of which made out of solid wood. The first wall stood a couple of kilometers outside the city and was used to keep the monsters out. It was the most defended of the three but when Emp passed its gates, the guards barely looked at him.

Between this wall and the next, they grew large orchards, mostly apples. They weren't grown outside the walls because they could have obstructed the field of view of the guards and enabled a creature to get to the wall without being noticed.

The second wall was used as a backup wall in case the first fell, it surrounded the city tightly to reassure it. As Emp got closer to the gate, he wondered if he would see the third wall while he was there. The first two walls were made of wood to ease the city's expansion but the last wall was made out of stone. It was used to protect the food supplies and the city center. In the case of a siege or an emergency, the inhabitants would be let inside with the lord.

Since he had no reason to go there and the houses he could see from the gates were too tall to let him see the wall, he did not believe he would even get a glimpse of it.

Emp wasn't the only one to arrive in town. It was getting late in the afternoon and the fields workers were going back home. At the gate, a beefy guy in armor sporting a funny drooping mustache was analyzing the hunting cards of the people getting in. He looked at it for an instant, nodded and then let them in before gesturing for the next in line to advance. Nine more guards were leaning against the door and chatted happily without really minding the people passing by.

It didn't seem all that professional to Emp but at the same time, if anything really dangerous came up, it would probably have been stopped at the first gate. Anyway, Emp didn't believe that a single troublemaker could get rid of ten guards alone, even with the effect of surprise .

When his turn came, he presented his hunting card to the mustachioed man like the others. His eyes almost popped out of their sockets and he exclaimed something that Emp did not understand. The other guards all looked his way and straightened up but the mustache man still made the sign that he could enter. Emp removed himself from the view of the now very serious guards and stepped into the large paved road of Red-water. He wondered a brief moment why they had acted differently for him but since he had no way to ask, he just forgot about it as he admired the town.

The buildings were aligned on the road sides, squeezed against each other. Most of them were two floors high and made out of wood but some seemed to like being different and sported a first floor made of stone or strangely painted facade. On the main road, almost all the buildings where for business. There were shops, inns, taverns, bakeries, greengrocers and it went on like that until probably the city center.

The tiled roofs were shared most of the times with their neighbors but sometimes, a building broke the chain by being only one floor high or by being just a little bit taller than the rest.

Most of the windows were opened to let the fresh air in and let the passersby see what they were selling in their stores. Everywhere, signs informed the people of what they were selling with clever images but nothing really caught the attention of Emp.

From many second floor windows, women or kids could be seen picking back up the laundry they had put there to dry. Every so often, narrow alleys where merchants sent and received goods broke through the wall of buildings and led to more alleys, deeper into the city.

On the main road itself, passersby were plenty and the talks animated. Here and there, carts were stored against the walls of shops with many goods ready to be sold. Kids ran and played around in the shade of the shops while their mothers sat on irregularly placed benches.

For Emp, this all seemed very interesting. Outside the city, everybody was on guard but here, an atmosphere both calm and frenetic ruled. Maybe it was strange to describe it both as calm and frenetic but it was Emp's honest opinion. Everybody moved, ran and exclaimed themselves excitedly, noise was everywhere and everything was moving. Still, this atmosphere of excitement was much more soothing to him than the oppressive stillness of the lake.

Of course, he loved the forest just as much but he still admired the joyous ambiance. Also, it was the first time he saw so many people at once. He had come across caravans before, on the road, but it couldn't be compared at all to the quantity of people on this road right now. It was most certainly a sight worthy of a lengthy observation but Emp refrained from doing so, afraid to disturb this serene ballet by stopping right in the middle of the road.

While he gazed at the mostly white and brown city, Emp organized what he had to do in his head. First, he had to find a place to sell the fertilizer. With the money, he would buy a weapon and maybe a night in an inn if he still had enough money. If possible, he would take a look for a new belt buckle. Then, he would need to find someone who could take a look at his leg because even after all this time, it was still hurting. Then, he would ask around to find a way to learn the language everyone seemed to speak around here and finally, he would get back on the road. So first, he needed to find someone who understood him and would conveniently be willing to buy his treasure.

Going up the road, he looked at every signs in the hopes of finding one he could read. Since the road wasn't going straight at all, he quickly lost the entrance gate. He had no clue of how long the road would go on for or where it would end. It was possible that what he was looking for did not exist on the main road in which case, he would walk all evening for nothing. Worse, maybe the ideal shop did not exist at all! If that was the case, what would he do?

He vaguely remembered that Space had told him he spoke the noble language of the south. If he found a group of nobles, would they be able to help him find what he was looking for? How did one recognize a noble? Were they wearing some distinctive sign or was it one of those things were people were supposed to be smart enough to just recognize them as nobles anyway? He hoped that wasn't the case, Emp was really bad at those. Chinui was a noble too, right? He didn't seem that different than the rest of the surrounding people at a glance. Maybe they were all nobles?

Maybe Chinui was just strange among the nobles and didn't look like them at all. If this wasn't the case, it would mean that the nobles were all the same as the rest which would be terrible news for Emp.

After many big turns in the road, he arrived in a large public place adorned with a fountain at its center. The setting sun basked the place in an orange glow to let the peddlers store their stalls away before the night. The whole place was smelling of food, grilled meat and sweet fruits. Emp was quite hungry and the smell alone almost made him drool but since they were closing, he didn't understand their language and he had no idea how much money exactly he could spend before eating at his school admission fee, he had to let the food go.

The fountain in the center of the square (1) didn't represent anything, it was just a pretty water spot. It still was an impressive four layers tall and ended into a pond bordered by a low wall on which people sat to relax. The place itself was round and large enough to accommodate a good hundred peddlers and their temporary stalls. From here, five large road went to places Emp did not know. He had already gotten lost, he had no idea in which direction was the gate he had come from or where was the gate he needed to go through in order to leave.

Around the place stood the tallest buildings he had seen up until now. Just by looking at their facade, he guessed that Chinui's house could fit inside them more than a dozen times over. How many people could even live in such a place? In front of each of them were giant signs advertising what those were for but since he couldn't read them and there were no windows like the smaller stores he had seen before, he could only guess what was inside.

One had a plethora of large chimneys, one was four-storey high with the first seemingly full of tables and peoples, one was a big rectangular building made of stone with a tall tower sprouting out of it, the fourth one was brimming with clamors and songs and a continuous flow of strangely dressed peoples were going in and out of it.

The last building was the most normal of them all, it was standing on the side of a large warehouse and it's first floor was like a big tunnel open to the outside. At the end of that tunnel stood a big stage and on each sides, rows of doors led to unknown rooms. In front of that building stood not only one but around ten signs instead. They were all the same aside from a small but important difference. They were all written in different languages. He knew this because he was able to find one he could read: Merchant guild of Red-water, always open.

Emp had found was he was looking for! He smiled at his own luck and entered the tunnel. Looking around, he saw that above each door on his left and right were colorful emblems and names, undoubtedly used to identify who was inside. Since Emp knew no one, he ignored them and walked further in.

Just before he reached the end of the tunnel and the stage, the space opened up greatly, leaving enough room for a whole crowd of people. The two meter high stage occupied the whole length of the room. Behind it, an enormous curtain hid what was behind the scene. On its left and right end, a couple of steps were placed to let people get up the stage.

On the right wall, a mountain of chairs was stored and a discreet door led to somewhere behind the stage. On the left wall, a long stone counter separated the room from a dozen clerks. Emp went towards them. For now, no one was there aside from him and those who worked there.

Once Emp got to the counter, a middle aged man with clear blue eyes and reddish hair came to welcome him. He seemed less beefy than most man Emp had seen until now but his upright posture immediately gained him the appreciation of Emp. That man was the only one behind the counter, all the other clerks were women.

"?????????"

Of course, Emp didn't understand the word but guessed it was a welcome. He waved his hand to answer and told him about his problem.

"Good evening, I am sorry, I do not understand, is there someone here who speaks my language?"

Luckily, the man nodded in a comprehensive manner and called for another clerk behind him. This one was an old lady. She had pale brown eyes who seemed drowned in the fog of the lake and pale blonde hair, fading strongly towards white. She had tied them in a big hair bun and seemed quite gentle and somewhat tired. She wore long grey robes that were simple but not ugly.

Once at the counter, she placed both her hands on top of it, swept off some invisible dust with a slow gesture and smiled at Emp while welcoming him, this time, in his own language.

"Good evening young boy, before I ask you what do you desire from our guild, would you like to share why you refuse to talk in the common tongue?"

"I am sorry, I do not know a word of it, I only know how to speak in this language."

"Really? This is quite rare, from where did you come from?"

She didn't seem that interested but Emp answered anyway.

"From the south of the mountains, I am going to Bêtéclair for the school."

"Oh, a young boy full of promises, do tell me, what brings you to us merchants? Just to be sure, we cannot sell to kids even they are... nobles you know?" Said the woman while looking quite harshly at his clothes.

Emp did not have to look down to know he looked terrible. All his clothes were dirty and most of them were ripped here and there. He did wear an expensive looking ring but bellow all the dirt, it was barely visible. Her gaze did not disturb him in the least.

"Yes, I know, in my travels, I got lucky and killed a creature, I would like to sell what I got form it and buy a weapon in exchange."

She seemed a little skeptical and leaked a sigh of fatigue before she unwillingly asked Emp to show her what he had.

"You can show me young man but we aren't a street stall here, we do not buy quite everything. We only deal with the most rich and all the big merchant groups of the empire. I do not think that what you are hiding in your pocket would have any value to us."

A little worried as to whether or not the fertilizer was worth as much as the book pretended it was, Emp turned his back to the counter in order to face the empty room. He then very carefully got the giant stone skull out of his bag as near to the ground as possible in order to not spill any of its precious content. The enormous skull appeared in front of the shocked clerk and the sound it made when it clashed against the stone floor turned the heads of all her colleagues.

The choc disturbed the liquid inside and a small quantity of it jumped out of the skull and fell in-between two floor slabs. Before anyone had the time to ask Emp what was happening, a plant grew from between the slabs, displacing them to give it enough space to grow. It didn't take long to identify the plant, it grew tall and thin, leaves sprouted everywhere quickly followed by a bunch of little yellow flowers. It was a tomato plant.

This was an excellent proof of what Emp was about to tell them.

"I killed a woodland horror and brought back its skull for the fertilizer. Is it enough to interest you?" (2)

(1) It always confuses me how public places are referred to as 'squares' in English even though they are circular.

(2) I know the scene we have here is a classic trope but people, including me, always expect it anyway. Next time, the flabbergasted face of the old clerk.