Kotori watched the two mysterious women leave. She was sure that they had figured out who she was was. As they walked away, she stared at their backs until they were out of her vision.
She quickly motioned to her party that they were leaving the dungeon.
Once they left the dungeon, Kotori assessed her options.
If they were a passing group of adventurers tasked by the guild to explore the dungeon it would be perfectly fine. Kotori knew that she was currently being protected by the weaker adventurers. But if that was a strong group directly under the control of the king it would be troublesome.
They would, of course, report directly to the king himself
Kotori cursed herself for not using status on the other woman. It would’ve been wise to figure out what her affiliation was as well.
For now, it might be best for Kotori to begin her noble life away from the capital.
She opened the deed that offered them nobility. Signed at the bottom was Umi’s signature. She was the person who bought nobility after all.
“So what’s the plan,” Amelie asked
“We might as well go to the village we now own,” Kotori said. It was still likely their best option. It would be hard to associate the new noble with Kotori unless they tried extremely hard.
Nobility typically referred to anybody who owned land officially through the kingdom. In this case, Kotori had bought a small village to be her steppingstone. It was near the east of a country where there was a port. It wasn’t a village directly under the ownership of the port so Kotori as the “noble” of the region would be responsible for the taxes.
[Maybe I’ll get the opportunity to eat fish!] She thought her mouthwatering.
Kotori didn’t have many plans for taxes. She still had over 100 gold coins left after buying nobility in the land. It was a sizable sum all things considered. When she thought back to her original village it was a sum that would make her head dizzy.
It would take over a week to get there but Kotori was going to avoid the main road to avoid being spotted. She was thankful the rush to find her had died down after they secluded themselves in the dwarf village.
It seems after the trail ran cold, adventurers had lost interest.
With the roundabout method, the trip would still likely take 2 weeks.
** ** **
The footpaths were extremely bad. Kotori quickly learned that their trip was likely going to take longer than two weeks from the halfway point.
By the time they reached the outskirts of the village. It had taken them 2 and a half weeks to reach their land.
They avoided visiting the village for now.
Kotori had Shu build another mud house nearby. The outside had the appearance of brick on the account of the red dirt and it looked sufficiently well done to the point where Kotori thought it looked like a normal noble mansion.
She had Umi cut down several trees with her [Water blade] to lay as flooring.
Soon they had a nice enough place set up. The house even had a brick fireplace which Kotori was grateful for. The kingdom of Faramouth was located quite far north and the winters could be quite cold.
Unfortunately, the house was still barebones with little furniture.
After much talk, they decided to have Layla pose as the noble.
Obviously, most villagers couldn’t read so it wasn’t like they could tell who actually signed the deed.
Kotori and her party had thankfully learned how to read in the dwarf village. When Winry learned that they were illiterate she got all up in a huff.
“No patron of mine is going to be illiterate!” She said
Over the course of a month, she taught them all the letters of the language that was spoken in Faramouth. Faramouth and Atlea used the same language so this knowledge would be helpful if Kotori ever went there too.
The language was called Aria and apparently originated in Atlea. Faramouth was the younger kingdom on the continent. They broke off from Atlea a long time ago.
The written form was like Asian languages and used several symbols that were similar to hiragana, and kanji.
Thankfully the numbering system was still in log 10
Kotori was planning on having Layla enter the village and buy some supplies. Even if they had to sleep on straw mats it was still better than what Kotori was currently sleeping on.
Umi once offered something along the lines of
“Please sleep on my body Kotori-Sama!”
Which Kotori quickly refused.
Eventually, she had Umi make something akin to a waterbed. It was comfortable enough, but Kotori was tired of being drenched when she woke up. It would also not be possible to sleep on something like that in the winter months without dying of hypothermia.
[I never thought I’d say this, But I miss straw mats!] Kotori often thought
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Random fact... korean doesn't share the same characteristic of the writhing of the other asian countries (that are known as asian obviously), that's because their letters aren't based on the ancestral chinesse, but a different type based on how you use the mouth to say every word, When I read the part about the asian-like of the letters I remember that fact
Ah korean. I think their writing system is really cool it's syllabic in a weird way. It's a shame I've never really felt the urge to learn it.
@Newfypuppie well, it's considered one of the easiest to learnt thanks to that, the story about its creation is better or so I think, it was in a time where they still used the chinesse writing system because they didn't have one and ther constant trade with them made it easier, the king (or what they had at that time) developed their system because it was innefficient to use the chinesse one in their documents, and finding someone to read and write those documents was hard because the one that did it also needs to translate it so it can be understood, but he didn't based it on the chinesse system because he knew it was hard to learn thanks to their countless simbols (I think right now they have more than 100k different words), so he designed their system based on the movement of the mouth and when he finished it was less than 1 month, thanks to the lack of special rules in that system
Some quick edits:
It was near the east of a country -> of the country.
She thought her mouthwatering. -> thought, her
Water beds are terrible. They offer no support at all. I would often wake sore after sleeping on my old one. Not to mention you could accidentally poke a hole in it...
Its true