Nolani walked to the end of the storage room and stopped in front of the closed wooden door.
The hustle and bustle outside drifted through the door—carriages rolling over stone roads, merchants crying out their wares, and the distant tolling of a clock tower marking the hour.
She raised her hand to pluck her strings, and a few crisp notes rippled through the narrow room.
“Red copper covers the roofs, gold coins flow along the streets.”
“Merchants pack far-off lands into wooden chests, and gamblers trade their futures for tonight.”
She paused, turning back to smile at Celine. “This poem isn't finished yet, but you can see the rest for yourself.”
With that, she pushed open the door.
Sunlight and noise flooded the room simultaneously. Celine instinctively stepped over the threshold, and her field of vision suddenly opened up.
A vast expanse of reddish-brown roofs climbed in tiers along the terrain, their copper weather vanes gleaming brilliantly in the sunlight.
Flags of various merchant guilds hung between the buildings, while countless ropes and pulleys spanned the streets, transporting wooden chests, bolts of cloth, and spices from warehouses to distant shops.
Even though this was just a secluded street near the warehouse district, the road was already paved with neat stone bricks.
The windows of the shops along the street were set with stained glass, the streetlamps were carved with intricate patterns, and even the stone troughs for draft beasts to drink from were rimmed with polished brass.
The wide main road was packed with caravans from all over. A few people who looked like Descenders stood before a bulletin board studying missions, their equipment appearing highly valuable.
Shops lined the streets one after another. Behind the glass windows of a second-floor restaurant, several magnificently dressed nobles held wine glasses as they conversed loudly. On a nearby terrace, someone laughed and tossed down a gold coin, sending several people on the street diving into the gutter to scramble for it.
No one found this scene jarring. Wealth and poverty crowded the very same street, separated by only a few steps.
Celine looked up into the distance.
Golden domes and white towers towered in the city center, with overpass bridges connecting tall merchant guild buildings.
Even further away, a massive golden scale emblem gleamed brilliantly in the sun.
This was only the warehouse district on the outskirts of Red Kite; the actual city center would only be far more prosperous.
This was Red Kite.
A paradise of trade, and a city where everything had a price.
“Well, what do you think?”
Nolani stood beside her and asked with a smile, “Have you felt the charm of Red Kite yet?”
Celine didn't answer immediately.
She had never been to Red Kite, neither in this life nor her last.
The things she had seen most on this journey were dirt roads, mud huts, and old bridges that looked ready to collapse at any moment.
Yet everything before her eyes could already be considered a rare sight of prosperity in this world.
Compared to this, the area around Crow Candle Castle was practically an undeveloped wasteland.
“It's very lively.”
“Just lively?”
“It also looks expensive.”
“It seems you already understand the most important part of this place,” Nolani laughed, walking ahead. “Come on. I'll take you to register your identity first, or you'll soon experience another, less-friendly charm of Red Kite.”
The two walked along the warehouse district toward the commercial street. The further they went, the more crowded the street became.
Richly dressed nobles sat in open carriages, the gemstone rings on their fingers nearly dazzling Celine's eyes.
White stone fountains of various designs appeared every few streets. A few children chased each other around, carrying gold coins to mobile stalls to happily purchase freshly baked pastries and exotic fruits.
As they passed a small alley, Celine spotted a man in tattered clothes sitting in a corner.
His shoes were worn beyond recognition, a chipped wooden bowl sat in front of him, and a black wooden board covered in numbers hung around his neck.
“There are beggars in Red Kite too?” she asked.
“Of course there are,” Nolani said, following her gaze. “But most of those wearing that kind of black board lost all their money at the gambling tables and were kicked out by their creditors to beg and pay off their debts.”
Celine glanced at the numbers on the wooden board, which had barely decreased.
“By doing this, how long will it take him to pay it off?”
“He won't be paying for long. Creditors don't have the patience to wait a lifetime.”
Nolani's tone was light, but there was no hint of a joke in her answer. “Once the deadline arrives, he'll have to use the most valuable thing on his body to settle the debt.”
Celine didn't ask further.
There was already nothing of value left on that man.
What remained was nothing more than his freedom, his body, and his life.
The road ahead remained bustling with traffic, and the children by the fountain continued to laugh.
Red Kite allowed anyone to rise to the top, and it also allowed anyone to gamble away everything they owned.
In this city ruled by gold coins and contracts, the rules would never show even a fraction of mercy just because someone was driven to a dead end.
Nolani had originally planned to take her to the White Feather Registry first to backdate her identity. However, as they passed a large plaza, Celine noticed a crowd gathered ahead.
Several scribes from the Golden Scale Merchant Guild stood by the bulletin board.
An announcement bearing the dual seals of the Red Kite Lord's Manor and the Golden Scale Merchant Guild had just been pinned right in the center.
The murmurs of the surrounding merchants drifted into Celine's ears:
“Is the Northern Main Route really going to reopen?”
“The old trade route has been cut off for so many years. To think the Lord's Manor is actually allowing a public bidding for the agency rights this time.”
“I heard that ordinary merchants, mercenaries, and even Descender organizations that meet the requirements can sign up.”
“What's the use of signing up? Who knows how many people will die in the first trial run.”
Celine stopped in her tracks, looking through the crowd at the announcement.
At the very top of the announcement, written in eye-catching dark gold font, was:
【Joint Announcement on the Reopening of the Northern Old Trade Route and the Public Bidding for Agents】
Below the announcement, the specific requirements for this bidding were listed.
Participants needed to submit a complete business plan for the Northern Route, including route planning, guard and supply arrangements, unique advantages they could offer, and expected revenue after the trade route opened.
The Golden Scale Merchant Guild would evaluate whether the plan could operate long-term, while the Lord's Manor would consider taxes, employment, and the benefits that northern goods would bring upon entering Red Kite.
The final winner would obtain the priority operating rights for the Northern Route.
“This announcement was just posted today,” Nolani said, standing beside her. “Some news came back from the north recently, and the Lord and the Golden Scale Merchant Guild officially decided to restart the old route after an evaluation.”
“Right now, all the merchant guilds in the city are recruiting, and the price of mercenaries has already gone up by a round.”
She raised her hand and pointed toward the bottom of the announcement.
“Look, the Four Great Families all have priority qualification.”
Celine continued to read downward.
Beneath the joint announcement, notices from the Four Great Families recruiting external agents and partner caravans were also posted.
【Castro Family】
Target Recruits: Descenders with the merchant class, heads of established caravans, mercenary groups, and transport agents.
Requirements: Possess experience in caravan management, route planning, or guard dispatch, and be capable of participating in the trial run of the Northern Route.
Family Support: Provide startup capital, transport caravans, guards, and purchasing expenses along the way.
Terms of Cooperation: Accept unified dispatch and accounting supervision by the family, and sign a long-term exclusive contract.
Benefits & Compensation: Receive high commissions and a share of the trade route profits as agreed.
Key Restrictions: Not allowed to privately accept Northern Route orders, nor bypass the Castro family to contact factions along the route.
【Vesper Family】
Target Recruits: Information-type Descenders, appraisers, contract masters, archive merchants, and route investigators.
Requirements: Capable of providing authentic intelligence on the Northern Route, old route data, ruin records, or appraisal results of special items.
Family Support: Responsible for identity verification, intelligence validation, contract protection, and subsequent auction channels.
Terms of Cooperation: Applicants must disclose their true identity, class abilities, and past contract records.
Benefits & Compensation: Payment based on the value of the intelligence, and the credit guarantee of the Vesper family.
Key Restrictions: Northern Route archives and important intelligence obtained during the cooperation must be kept in the family archives and cannot be sold privately.
【Holman Family】
Target Recruits: Transport-type Descenders, large-scale suppliers, caravan heads, and resource operators with the merchant class.
Requirements: Capable of long-term transport of large quantities of basic resources such as ore, timber, salt, and leather, and controlling losses within specified limits.
Family Support: Provide warehouses, loaders, stable sources of goods, and long-term transport orders.
Terms of Cooperation: Must guarantee fixed transport capacity and delivery times, and accept periodic family audits of cargo loss.
Benefits & Compensation: Obtain stable orders, warehousing discounts, and a share of long-term transport profits.
Key Restrictions: After the Northern Route opens, priority must be given to transporting the Holman family's goods, and the family's transport capacity must not be encroached upon without permission.
A crowd of merchants and Descenders gathered in front of these three notices.
By contrast, the notice in the furthest corner belonging to the Rosalind family appeared exceptionally deserted.
The paper was very ordinary, its edges already slightly curled, and the recruitment terms were far looser than those of the other three.
【Rosalind Family】
Target Recruits: No restrictions on background, race, or class.
Terms of Cooperation: Anyone who can provide assistance for the reopening of the Northern Route is welcome to discuss in person.
What the Family Can Provide: Partial station and warehousing rights, and historical Northern Route archives.
Benefits & Compensation: To be negotiated in person.
Key Restrictions: Must not harm the existing trade route interests of the Rosalind family.
A merchant nearby glanced at it and sneered, “The terms are loose indeed, but going there is useless.”
Another person lowered his voice and said, “The Rosalind family has long since declined. Their caravans are disbanded, their warehouses are mostly sold off, and they can barely even keep their ancestral home.”
“If it weren't for the old patriarch still being alive, barely managing to pay the seat annuity using his past connections, the Rosalind family would have been stripped of their name from the Four Great Families long ago.”
The first person shook his head. “At the end of the day, all they can offer now is a qualification to bid. Too bad this 'qualification' is barely different from scrap paper.”
Rate on N.U.
