“I’ll carry you on my back, Myne.” Mom, who must have thought our shopping would never get done if she waited for me, somewhat forcefully plopped me onto her back and started walking away. I couldn’t remember this myself, but judging by how she had something like a baby carrier on her back, she was probably used to carrying Myne around.
The plaza with the well was surrounded by tall apartment-like housing complexes on all four sides, with just one path leading to the outside. After passing through the narrow, dark alleyway, we emerged onto a large road.
Wow! This looks exactly like one of the old European cities I’ve seen photos of. An unfamiliar scene spread out before me, with carts pulled by horses and donkey-like creatures passing each other by on a wide cobblestone road dotted on either side by stores. I spun around, looking everywhere like a tourist in my quest to find a bookstore.
“Mom, which store are we going to?”
“What are you saying, Myne? We’re going to the market. We almost never go to any stores.” According to Mom, most of the stores near ground level sold products for relatively rich individuals and had little that poor commoners like us could buy. We bought the majority of our daily goods at an actual marketplace.
Mmm, in other words, a bookstore is probably a ground floor store just like these? I looked around for a bookstore while Mom walked, and soon saw an especially large building that would serve as a solid landmark. It was made of white stone and, despite its simple design, there was a sort of majesty to it that made it stand out.
“Um, is that a castle?”
“No, that’s the temple. You’ll be going there to be baptized when you turn seven.”
Aaaah... A temple. It sounds like religion is enforced here, which sucks. I’ll try to avoid that place as much as possible.
My instincts and knowledge from my past life made me want to keep my distance from religion. But I didn’t know if this world would be too kind to an atheist, so I kept my mouth shut and looked at the walls surrounding the temple.
“Mom, what are those walls?”
“Those are castle ramparts. Inside is the castle where our lord lives, and the mansions where nobles live. Well, in the end, nothing behind those walls has much to do with you and me.”
The tall stone walls looked more like the gate to a prison than grounds where royalty lived within a castle. Maybe it would look even more like a prison if the guards were ever on high alert and defending against something. The blank white walls continued on either side, and although it looked like they had been designed with imposing dignity in mind without any artistic flourishes, they didn’t quite feel like the brutish walls of a fortress. It felt like they had been built only for the purpose of separation, and would be defenseless if ever actually attacked.
Mmm... They do look a little different from the European castles I’ve seen in historical films and stuff.
“Okay, Mom. What about those other walls?”
“Those are the outer walls. They protect the city. You know Gunther works as a guard at the southern gate, don’t you?”
I knew from Myne’s memories that Dad worked as a soldier, but I didn’t know that he guarded one of the gates to the city.
Hm... There’s a castle where the lord of these lands lives, and there’s both outer and inner walls here. I guess it’s safe to consider this a capital city? It doesn’t seem like that big of a city, judging by the length of the walls and how many people are walking around. But I shouldn’t think on the scale of Tokyo or Yokohama anymore.
It would be a huge city in comparison to the historical fortress cities I read about in my past life, but in this world where it’s normal to have green and blue hair, there were no guarantees that my Urano knowledge would remain accurate. It would be risky to settle on the idea of this being a large or small city before I learned more about the world.
...Aaah, the size of a city will change what kind of bookstores it’ll have, but I don’t understand what makes a big city here! Is this city big?! Is it small?! Tell me, someone!
“Myne, we need to hurry to the market. Everything good will get snapped up before we get there.”
I looked around desperately in search of a bookstore on our way to the market, but most of the stores on either side of us just had simple drawings on their signboards. The signs were either wooden with the art painted on, or metal with the art engraved into them, but either way I didn’t see anything resembling letters. That was good for someone like me, who couldn’t read the letters anyway, but a cold chill was starting to run up my spine.
...Wait. Um, I don’t think I’ve seen a single letter in this whole city. Is the literacy rate that low? Or does writing itself not exist in this world? The very idea made my blood run cold. I hadn’t even considered the possibility of a world without letters. Without letters, books couldn’t exist in the first place.
We reached the market while I was still stunned. I lifted up my head at the cacophony of noises and saw a lively bunch of stands lined up next to each other with plenty of people passing through. It looked so much like a Japanese cultural festival that I felt a little nostalgic. I subconsciously smiled and, after peering into a nearby fruit stall, saw something that shocked me to the point of smacking my mom’s shoulder.
“Mom, look! What’s that board?!” A board with some symbols written on it was stuck into a box with fruit in it. I couldn’t read them, but at the very least, that confirmed that this world had letters or numbers or something. I was so starved for letters that the mere sight of such symbols was enough to make my face flush with excitement.
“Oh, that’s the price. It tells us how much we need to pay.”
“Hey, Mom. What’s it say?”
Mom looked surprised at how excited I was getting, but I didn’t care about that. I had her read out the numbers on each board I saw, and I could feel them start to connect with the letters I already knew.
Okay, great! Keep it up, my precious synapses!
“Okay, so this says thirty Lions?” After Mom had read out several numbers to me, I tried reading some numbers on my own while gauging her reaction. I must have been right, given how she turned her head around to look at me while blinking rapidly.
“I’m really surprised you learned them that fast, Myne.”
“Eheh.” There were ten distinct symbols for what seemed to be numbers, so I assumed operating with base-10 math would be fine. I’m really glad they don’t use base-2 or base-60. I should be able to do math no problem if I can just memorize all the symbols.
...Oh wait, am I going down the child prodigy path here? At age ten I’ll be God’s gift to mankind and at age fifteen I’ll be a genius, but once I hit twenty I’ll just be a normal person. Oh well.