The five of us, with my four beasts rendered invisible, met with the other convoy members at the front gate of Freehold at the break of dawn. I looked over the group with a small frown on my face.

Some of the group had soft packs filled with goods, others had hard frames with goods tied off to them. The four hunters that would accompany the group as guards were in pairs and had a litter, like a gurney, that they carried between them, which could be dropped in an emergency to switch to the bows they had on their backs.

“No wagons?” I asked one of the hunters, a young man named Bortag who I had become a bit friendly with over the past weeks while discussing the local game and some of my past hunts.

“Can’t keep oxilire outside of the village without attracting lubargs,” he said, referencing one of the beasts he had previously told me about that sounded a bit like wolves. “And not much room inside the walls. Heard the old-timers had one when they first came out here, but once it died they never replaced it, especially with no one farming out here.”

I had seen someone that was around Soren’s age with a taming skill, so he was probably a former farmer and the driver. “What about human-sized wagons? Like small wheeled carts, instead of packs?”

Bortag chewed on that a moment, then shrugged. “Could work. Seems like just as much work as a pack, and worse if it rains. Our road… well, it ain’t much of one, and can be a right slog through mud in the worst case.”

Nodding, I turned away, then sighed. I was worried about that. The road sucked, and that would be a huge limiting factor for my plans to ease trade.

After a bit of milling around, the last few members arrived, receiving some scolding for being late from their elders. The convoy leader—although perhaps it was wrong to call it a convoy when we had no wagons—was an older woman named Bira, who motioned me over.

“You actually know how to use that thing?” she asked, motioning to my hip. Unlike all the other times I had come to Freehold, this time I was wearing a sword on me.

“Rather well, sadly,” I said honestly.

Bira grunted noncommittally. “Well, not many bandits, out on the opposite side of civilization. Mostly beasts, and for that, bows tend to be better.”

“I’m not much of a shot,” I said, which was also true, technically. I had picked up the ranged skill, but had not used it since. My magical abilities were amazing at range, but did not require the ranged skill.

“Just don’t get injured out there. Healing costs as much as we’re trading for on this trip all put together, and it’d come out of your pocket.”

I nodded, taking her seriously despite knowing it would not be a real issue. In fact, with my four beast companions on our flanks, I doubted we would see many beasts make an attempt on us at all.

Taking up my position toward the rear, I joined the procession as it organized and headed out. I watched those that walked in front of me, people who had taken this route back and forth many times. Most of them took the same steps, avoiding muddy areas and dips that would cause a twisted ankle. These were the issues that made wagon use prohibitive, so as the group passed, I slowly reached into the ground and pulled up larger stones, flattening them out and firming up the road a little at a time. Over a number of trips, I would help shape the road up, hopefully not so fast that anyone noticed the change from trip to trip, until it was wagon-friendly.

That was when some of the real benefits my presence brought to Freehold could come out and play.

* * *

It took seven days to walk to Gurt, which I was told was record time. The fact that our entire journey was mysteriously blessed with a gentle tailwind and the complete lack of beast attacks had probably helped a bit. Nine or ten days was more standard, given the amount of meat we had brought through the woods, which tended to draw hungry beasts.

None of our group even thought to question our blessings, though, which was a relief. I hoped no one would notice the minor improvements to the road on the return trip. I would improve the road even more, then, since there would be a larger break before the road was used again than this one, which would only be a day or two to trade for goods.

Since I did not actually have any connections in or knowledge of Gurt, I followed along at first to learn where the people of Freehold did business. After the meat was sold, I asked some questions about how much value fresher meat would have, what they were looking for, what type of meat they preferred, and how much they were able to buy. Then I parted ways from the group and inquired around with other butchers in town about how much they would buy the same goods for, noting who was offering the best prices and for what. At least one butcher was willing to pay quite a bit more for fresh mursin meat. The local hunters brought it in when they could, but the farming around Gurt scared them much deeper into the forest, so they were not as common as they were out by Freehold.

As I finished up with the butchers, I gave a bit of thought to the distance between Gurt and the settlement. Part of me expected the distance to be greater, given the distances I had traveled on the journey so far. Oxilire-drawn wagons would not speed up the journey, and might even slow it down given the added time needed to care for the beasts and their speed limit. It was possible to outpace an oxilire when conditions were good, although one would tire if pushing that hard without rest. Speed aside, oxilire-drawn wagons could carry significantly more goods, making the trip more valuable overall.

If the distance was much greater, transporting fresh produce would not even be possible. As it was, I was willing to bet we would see some spoilage, and what made the trip would likely need to be consumed quickly or pickled, dried, or otherwise preserved immediately for it to have value. Salt was not inexpensive this far east, as well, which compounded the problem. As I had thought when I first left Mirut, expedited travel and refrigeration for preservation would be absolute game-changers for this world.

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The difference was, almost two years later, I was close to making both a reality.

Of course, if I was the only one who could make those things work, it would not be a boon that spread across the kingdom and benefited this world. I could still improve the conditions of my community, and would obviously gain from it myself, but I still had a ways to go to do better for everyone. After all, I had traveled quite a distance to get this far east, and when I came south, I was still within the Kingdom. The maps I had seen had shown how far east Gurt was, but after making the trip from Mirut to Roko, I had started to think of it as comparable. Gurt was much further out, and that distance was clear when I looked around the city at what was available to buy.

In a way, it was similar to what I had seen back in Mirut. I had done much less shopping there, being a child, but such a remote city had limited goods come by land. If not for the sea route, Mirut would be unlivable. Gurt had no seaside benefits, and was further from the north-south trade route that did the bulk of the Kingdom’s merchant business. After asking around, I learned that Gurt maintained their own trade route back and forth from Roko to tap into the larger Kingdom, without which they would struggle to survive. There were even three decent-sized settlements between Gurt and Roko, born out of the distance and kept alive by those that traveled between, and was actually a necessity to ease the burden on those who made the journey.

Without knowing any history, I would question why Gurt had even become a walled city, but that was something I learned from Soren in our conversations. Gurt was a former gold-rush town. There was still surface-level gold mining done in the region, but most of the gold had already been claimed by the Kingdom. Gurt itself was no wealthier than any city because everything belonged to the Kingdom, but in the process of mining the gold the crown had elected to wall the settlement. Creating a walled city is a large investment in mages, which was why there were only a handful of them in the Kingdom. They also had a large amount of value in and of themselves, once built, so even when the gold dried up, the Kingdom did not abandon Gurt. Once the gold was gone, they shifted to forestry, and after the land was cleared of lumber, farming followed.

Gurt was not productive enough to justify further expansion in the region, especially since the Kingdom set its sights southwards, which I learned was not just because of magic but also because of textiles. I had wondered where fabric came from, given that the Kingdom was not exclusively wearing leather, skins, and furs like the Velgeins did, and it turned out that they had, prior to taking the south, as well as some flax fiber linens. Haklan was the main producer of high quality cotton textiles, using cotton farmed in the southern region. It was expensive, since the process was not industrialized, but that had been a big part of why we had access to cotton in Mirut, as it was sometimes transported through the ports to the capital.

Textiles were on my mind as I made my way to the artisan district in Gurt in search of new clothing. After speaking with a few, I found a clothier who would not bankrupt me for a new outfit or two, and allowed them to take my measurements, with instructions to go larger so I could grow into it. I left a downpayment and a promise to pick up the goods on my next visit. It seemed like I would have to wait for a full wardrobe rehash until I could revisit Roko, given the price difference. I was able to sell a few pieces that I truly could no longer wear given the rate I was growing, but I was not able to get much for them. There was not really a market for used clothing, which was mostly shared within families and communities as hand-me-downs, but since I had bought some high-quality outfits when I first got to Roko and then had few opportunities to actually wear them, I was able to sell them for the value of the material, at least, which helped to pay for the new outfit.

I definitely needed an avenue to make more coin quickly, so I looked through the rest of the artisan district in hopes of getting inspiration.

As I walked past a jeweler, the quartz I had created came to mind. The revelation of my ability to form crystals had been a bit sidelined by the application of that thought process to water to make ice, which in turn had been significantly sidelined by the big conflict in the north and then my fight with Vorel and my decision to switch gears which had led me to Freehold.

Browsing the gemstone jewelry on display, I palmed my 3-point magic circle and used magic to appraise the stones. There was some clear quartz on display, but it was mostly carved and designed pendants rather than cut and polished socketed stones, which I did not have the skills to make the most of. There were some colored quartz pieces that were simpler and more valuable, which with information magic I was able to determine that it was still predominantly silicon dioxide, but with trace mineral inclusions that changed how light refracted through the stone. I did not have easy access to some of the minerals, but I could probably manufacture quartz that included trace iron inclusions with some practice.

While that would increase the value, it paled in comparison to the value of some of the other stones on display, which I was pleasantly surprised to see were also oxide crystals, but of an element I had not yet tried to manipulate: aluminum. There were a number of different corundum gemstones on display, with different inclusions to create different colors, but the base of corundum was aluminum oxide.

Aluminum was difficult to process which is why it was rare and valuable in Earth’s history before new processes made it cheap and abundant. Pure aluminum was something I was quite familiar with from my previous life, and I suspected if I could find a source I would not have too much difficulty leveraging it with my oxidation magic, but aluminum would be hard to source given its rarity in pure form.

In the meanwhile, I traded the hunk of quartz I had made to the jeweler. It was not worth much, but it was basically free money. In exchange I got a good discount on some beast crystal they had in stock, as I needed to replenish my stores of that and I was far, far away from my only known source. I left relatively happy, and there was potential to earn some real coin once I was settled and could buy materials and practice my magic more.

Leaving the shop, I went through my inventory in my head to see what else I could offload for some coin. I had a lot of raw materials with me, much of which I wanted to play around with still, but one thing I had far too much of were raw hides.

After advancing my butchery and tanning skills, I had gained a new ability through my inventory dismantling to use the brain of the animal to tan the hide and create a finished hide, which was much more useful than a raw one. Unfortunately, I had long since lost the brains of the early beasts that I still carried hides of, either through the destructive dismantling process or from disposing of waste offal.

I knew there were other ways to tan hides, but I did not have the intimate knowledge or desire to deep dive into that, so I went out in search of leatherworkers who might be interested in the raw hides to work themselves, or refer me to people who could buy the hides if not. That ultimately led me to a particularly foul-odored institution in the poor part of the city where tanning was done.

After making introductions with a gruff old man, I asked about tanning methods for hides, and he told me that bark tanning would work for some of them, and we negotiated a price. Given the quantity I claimed to have, it would be a not insignificant sum. I promised to come back later with them, brainstorming methods for delivering without exposing my inventory, when my eyes landed on a bucket of white material that looked like coarse salt. I knew tanners used salt to preserve hide, and needed a source to buy some for Freehold and for my own uses, so I asked about it, and the old man shook his head.

“Ah, that’s not the kind of salt you would want for your food, lad,” he said. “That’s for tawing hides, a method that came from the south.”

Something about that triggered a memory in my head, and so I quickly appraised the “salt”, reading the components of aluminum potassium phosphate as a grin formed on my face.

“Any chance I could buy some of that off you anyway?”