"The Weight of Knowledge"

"The Weight of Knowledge"

The City of Knowledge, Leipzig, Black Fort District.

A very, very long time ago, before Leipzig was called the "City of Knowledge," it had been a military harbor fortress of the Herasul Empire.

To the Herasul Empire, there were no enemies to speak of in the south. The north, on the other hand—whether elves, giants, or dwarves—was full of enemies worth guarding against.

Thus, the style of this harbor was utterly different from that of Glass Island.

There was not a single laborer or crane loading and unloading cargo, nor any of the low warehouses soaked in fishy odors, with peeling walls and rusted locks.

Instead, there were pitch-black, frigid iron-and-stone fortresses, along with watchtowers and sentry cannons standing everywhere. Grotesque, terrifying machine guns stood densely along the walls. There was even a special harpoon launcher...

"What's that?"

Aleister stood on deck and asked casually.

Captain Erwan, standing beside her, immediately replied, "That was once used to capture and control dragons."

"...Have Stibnite People fought dragons before?"

"Perhaps, but that isn't important."

The fierce-looking half-Lizardman captain answered with a smile, "The key is to make people believe they're being protected—look, our mighty harbor is even prepared to fight dragons! How mighty, hahahaha!"

Hearing the captain's words, the other sailors burst into laughter as well.

According to the Theocracy's regulations, the crew of passenger ships traveling specifically between the Theocracy and Stibnite could not possibly be local Stibnite people.

This was to prevent smuggling, whether deliberate or accidental... After all, if they merely took goods from the Theocracy home and set them down, then paused to catch their breath, that could already be considered a form of smuggling.

Because of the confusion caused by such behavior, local efforts to investigate smuggling would face all kinds of interference