Chapter 75: Taking a coach

"Seriously, you don't know how to be grateful."

Resting his back against the hard wooden side of the vehicle, Fen listened to the ongoing conversation between two men. First one of them, was the coachman himself, the owner of a small enterprise solely focused on transporting people in the local area. From how his entire self spread the atmosphere of complete leisure, one could tell that he was a man of his trade.

"What's there is to be grateful about? Didn't you say that yourself? About the Kingdom's borders never stretching as far as here?"

Refusing to acknowledge the old coachman's point, a young traveller, appearing as some kind of adventurer or another noble prick that wanted to play survival raised his head high, as if just by stating something against the common sense of the elderly brought him a lot of pride.

"While it's an undeniable fact that the presence of the Old Kingdom reached here only in form of scouts and patrols, you can't argue with how this entire scheme that we are basing our lives on is their legacy. For that, one should always remain thankful."

Shaking his head in a disappointment, the old man looked at Fen. With how all of the passengers were lined up against the sides of the horse-vehicle, it wasn't some sort of fate that directed the man's eyes, but a simple fact that turning his head even more to the side would require some great athletic skills!

"And what do you think, young man?"

Ever since Fen changed his attire, the way in which people approached him changed completely. It wasn't as if people belittled him while he acted like a hunter. Most of the merchants he made business with during that time were rejoicing about the instance where they meet him, as it was quite challenging to find someone with lower prices. 

But there was always this hint of disregard. No matter what was the trade of the other person, Fen could tell that everyone looked at him as some kind of ancient figure, dying out species. With how urbanised the entire merchants' road was, with how it induced everyone using it with a dream of owning one's own trading post, anyone who used his physical ability rather than wits to make his own fortune would be inevitably looked down upon as a relict of the past. 

Contrary to that, once the young man's back was covered by fine clothes that instantly elevated him to the middle-class, instead of looking down on him, people looked up to what his potential future could be!

"To be honest, it's not easy to answer this question. I don't want some overactive guard of some local, minor lord attempting to cause me problems for speaking truthfully."

Raising his hands in a defensive gesture, the young man used the first excuse to give himself some time that came to his mind. Even if the topic was interesting, any chance that someone would discover Fen's true identity would make certain actions simply unacceptable.

"Oh boy, you don't need to worry about it. Here, no one cares about the lords. The entirety of the merchants' highway belongs to some of the huge clans that make up the headquarters of the merchant guild. Right now, as a part of a caravan, you could say that we are nearly exterritorial!"

Ending the end of his words with a huge accent, the young traveller sitting on the opposite end of the coach exclaimed before visibly losing his energy and sitting back while muttering.

"As long as we remain on the road that is."

Shaking his head in response to those words, the corner's of Fen's lips crawled their way up. 

This entire political construct was incredibly baffling. It wouldn't be an overreaction to claim that empire was infested with various guilds, effectively splitting its territory into chunks with nearly unlimited autonomy. But if one were to take earlier words of the old coachman to his heart, then it would make a lot of sense.

The empire as it stood today, was nothing more but three different areas glued together by the military presence of the eastern chunk that was among the participating countries that destroyed the Old Kingdom. With a lot of lands of the old culture ending up annexed by this new, emerging empire, the borderlands turned into a boiling point where despite the imperial ban, a lot of old ideas and inventions got saved. 

And the scheme of conducting business was one of the major legacies of the old mercenary kingdom. 

Apparently, Fen ended up in the exactly same caravan that he initially wanted to serve as a guard at. According to the words of the old coachman, it was the middle class of the old kingdom that remained that would later create the powerhouse that merchant guild was within the empire today.

And it all grew from the single concept of the roads and caravans. 

Back in the old kingdom's times, the state would construct multiple waypoints in nearly all directions, pioneering a lot of roads. Their efforts resulted in a huge cultural and development growth, all supported by the advanced logistic they came up with. Once the boom for growth was over, all the tools used to constantly expand were given to the public.

And just like that, a culture of caravans was created. Started by anyone willing to make the effort of organising people, it would consist of a guards squadron, possibly an arcanist, and then all sorts of merchants, businesses and private interests like the one of Fen's current coachman that would buy their slots in it. With the role of obtaining the customers requiring a relatively safe means of transportation pushed to the others, the process of forming caravans continued to evolve and upgrade, all the way to the point where more than dozen of those would leave in each direction every single day!

"I will be frank then. This road… No, let me put it in different words."

Dropping the initial idea of just limiting himself to praise the results produced by this and other merchants roads, Fen took a deep breath and calmed his mind instead.

"In the first place, Imperial Highway is a direct copy of the concept that you guys brough up, modified to extort as much from everyone travelling on it as it is humanly possible without instigating a revolt. Rather than using the supply camps as the means to ease the hardship of the journey, Imperial soldiers would use the strategic positioning of their camps to grow huge fortunes just from the bribes alone. But if we look at how merchants are using the road, then there is no denying that they at least reached some understanding of the concept that made the old kingdom implement all those policies in the first place."

Allowing himself to finally open up about a certain topic, Fen shared his own conclusions about it. In the end, it wasn't about who created something. History of humankind was a history of constant progress and development. Once something was discovered, people would come up with all sorts of possible ideas of using it, before moving on to yet another discovery. 

The concept of using caravans to promote growth in the lands attached to the trading road might come from the old, mercenary kingdom, but now was continued by its remaining descendants in a slightly different form. In the future, once the empire would be gone, some other people might pick up the idea, and keep developing it in their own way. 

"That's why, as much as we should be grateful towards those who created this concept, it's on the same level of how we should be grateful to people that discovered how to cook the pastry. And quite frankly, without pastries life would be way worse than without these roads and caravans!"

Decisively cutting the topic by inserting a stupid and unfunny joke, Fen shook his head before looking on the road. Soon, the atmosphere of a slight shock caused by his words vanished, replaced by the two men once again picking up their small quarrel.

Instead of listening to the two of them arguing, Fen focused his attention at his surroundings. Due to sun graciously shining on the face of the earth, the coach they were using didn't have any roof. The slight breeze that caressed Fen's face only made the warmth of the day more enjoyable. 

In the end, renting a place in the coach cost the young man only two silvers. Quite an exorbitant price to move between two cities, especially to someone who would be willing to kill for a single silver just a few weeks ago. But Fen decided to pay it nevertheless. The savings that he managed to create during his act as a hunter would be put to good use if he turned them into a perfect disguise of a young, elaborate master, travelling incognito through the lands to learn more about the realism of the life!