The Blackthorn Cane

Morning, St. Duncan Square.

It lay on Church Hill in Lundenim, directly opposite Saint Joshua's Cathedral, and was immensely spacious.

Countless white pigeons fought over breadcrumbs in the square. Clearly, anywhere crowded with tourists would eventually breed large numbers of fat birds.

The Rescue Festival was an important holiday of the Royal Church, celebrating Saint Joshua's deliverance of humanity from ignorance.

Long ago, humans could not tell the difference between Aberrants and larger wild beasts.

Not until Saint Joshua, a mighty figure descended from heaven, taught humanity to identify Aberrants and harness source substance did modern civilization gain the chance to develop properly.

"Charlotte!" Gordon spotted Charlotte in the crowd.

"Gordon~" Charlotte came toward him, her initially decorous steps noticeably quickening over the last few paces.

She stopped just half a step away from Gordon, in time to avoid walking straight into his arms.

Charlotte wore a pure white coat, and her stockings were brand-new too, hugging her little feet, sheer and fine. Her round-toed leather shoes were elegantly shaped, with narrow straps across her insteps. Their rounded openings revealed just enough of the clefts between her toes beneath the white stockings, protecting and cradling her feet while showing off their charming details to just the right degree.

Charlotte's close friend Cecilia stood behind her, wearing a hat adorned with colorful feathers, every one imported from overseas, that made her look like a sweet little parrot.

Vera stood a few steps behind Gordon.

She gave the two young ladies a slight nod of greeting.

Vera's and Charlotte's gazes collided in midair.

Gordon and Cecilia each held back the woman beside them.

Cecilia had been enjoying the drama as a spectator all along, but now she reassessed the relationships between the four of them.

She did not know Vera, but she knew Charlotte had no chance if elbows started flying. If Charlotte wanted to win, she would have to fight on another battlefield.

"...What's the plan today?" Gordon asked. "This is my first time here."

"Today's plan is no talking about the Blackwater River, villains, fishmen, or monsters," Charlotte said.

"Then what's left to do?"

"Have fun."

"That's a very extravagant phrase."

"Don't worry." Charlotte smiled. "You need to relax once in a while."

"To me, a day without making money is a day spent losing money."

"This is the Rescue Festival."

"Who's getting rescued?"

"People like you who don't know how to rest," Charlotte said.

"Come along, sir. The Rescue Festival holiday lasts fourteen days," Cecilia said with a laugh.

"Let's try that first." Charlotte spotted one of the attractions in the square.

There was a knife-throwing game here.

"Rescue Festival charity game: ten copper cents for three throwing knives. Hit the apple to win a lovely prize," Gordon read aloud.

The stallholder was a fat man with a face covered in stubble, smiling kindly at them.

The target apple hung from a string fifteen meters away, two meters above the ground. It was so red it hardly looked real.

"What's the prize?" Gordon asked.

"A grand prize. It's a surprise," the stallholder said.

"What do you mean by a surprise?" Gordon pressed.

"Does 'surprise' really need explaining?" the stallholder said.

"What kind of throwing knives?" Vera asked.

"Look." The stallholder laid out several custom-made throwing knives. They were thin and blunt, clearly designed to make tourists lose their money.

"Too light." Vera weighed one in her hand.

"This is the Rescue Festival, miss." The stallholder shrugged. "Saint Joshua wouldn't want anyone throwing one off course, hitting a citizen, and sending him to the hospital."

"Three throws." Gordon produced ten copper cents. "Let's see what the prize is for hitting the apple with all three."

"Haha, splendid!" The stallholder accepted the money. "Forgot to mention, you have to throw blindfolded."

"Hey!" Charlotte protested. "You should have said that earlier."

"It's fine." Vera took the black cloth, tied it over her eyes, then turned her back.

The stallholder froze.

Anyone this confident was either putting on a comedy act for the crowd or an expert.

The stallholder began praying she was the former.

With her back to the apple, Vera tossed a throwing knife toward it.

Whoosh!

A small knife instantly appeared in the apple.

"...A coincidence," the stallholder muttered.

Passing citizens nearby looked over curiously.

Vera did not turn around.

Clang!

The second throwing knife struck the first, splitting it down the middle. Two pieces of metal spun to the ground, while the apple remained hanging where it was.

Bang!

The third throwing knife followed immediately, piercing straight through the apple and splattering juice all over the ground.

"Saint Joshua!" The stallholder's mouth hung open.

"Ohhh!"

"Unbelievable!"

"Do it again!" The children beside them clapped, and several adults joined in the cheering.

The startled pigeons nearby took flight, only to settle back onto the ground under their own weight.

Charlotte looked at Vera in astonishment.

"How did you do that?" She could hardly believe it.

At that moment, a faint wish surfaced in Charlotte's heart.

Source substance? Source substance... The thought had barely surfaced before she hid it beneath her smile.

"Basic skills." Vera removed the cloth. "Is the grand prize worth much?"

"..." The stallholder's expression changed. "What are you planning?"

"If the grand prize is valuable, I can keep throwing knives for a very long time," Vera said earnestly.

"Ahem." Reluctantly, the stallholder took a small toy out of his stock crate. "Congratulations, miss. It's worthless."

[Super Wind-Up Bird. Wind it a few times and release it, and it can fly very high.]

"Do you like it?" Gordon asked.

"..." Vera frowned. "Can I smash it?"

"Don't," Gordon said. "That's your trophy. Besides, it'll look nice on display at home."

"All right." Thinking that she could indeed display it at 9 Knights Road, Vera carefully tucked it into her pocket.

"I'd like to buy my father a present..." Charlotte looked around.

"This is a good place for pickpockets," Vera said warily.

"You're too sensitive," Charlotte said. "You should be more careful of man-stealing cats."

"Where?" Vera scanned the surrounding stalls, then the fountain and the flocks of pigeons, but saw no cats.

"Never mind." Charlotte smiled.

The four of them continued along the square.

There were all sorts of things for sale at the charity stalls.

["Most holy" candle. Goes out when danger approaches. Also goes out when there is no danger, because it is simply a shoddy candle.]

["Evil-banishing" salt jar. The salt is real. The evil is made up.]

["Protective" stone. Someone has polished it to a glossy patina through handling. It cannot even protect itself.]

["Ancient" "amulet." The ancient part is questionable. So is the amulet part.]

At last, they arrived at an attractive stall in the square.

The stallholder looked like a rather dishonest middle-aged man, wearing an old top hat and sporting two small tufts of mustache.

He claimed to be an impoverished noble who had brought out his family's most valuable possessions for the charity sale. Refusing to buy meant disrespecting Saint Joshua.

Gordon examined the goods carefully.

[Foreign handicraft. Locally produced.]

[Hundred-year-old jewelry box. Hundred-year-old means nobody has bought it even after a hundred years.]

[Energy conduit. A wondrous item shaped like a cane. Just channel away.]

Oh!

Found a bargain. Gordon studied the cane.

It looked roughly a meter long, made of blackthorn, with a classical elegance.

Drawing on his experience with the towel, Gordon tried to investigate its connections.

A thin, silvery-white thread emerged from the cane and circled the surroundings, but did not connect to the stallholder. All the more evidence that its origins were anything but ordinary.

"A fine eye, sir! A fine eye," the stallholder enthused. "The handle is pure silver, and the shaft is blackthorn. When my late father was alive, he once took it to the palace on King's Mountain."

Charlotte lowered her voice.

"Gordon! It's a scam. These people claim everything came from a bankrupt noble, and every noble has been to the palace. If that were true, the palace would be packed, and His Majesty wouldn't even have room to stand."

"I know. But it looks like it would suit me."

"Maybe." Charlotte pursed her lips. "But I could buy you one."

The stallholder immediately sensed a threat.

"A new cane has a price, but an old cane has history!" he said hastily. "It has a story! It carries a family's last remaining dignity!"

"Better than an ordinary cane." Vera inspected it.

"This young lady knows her stuff!"

"The length is right. Convenient for hitting people over the head."

"Uh..."

"There's metal on the end. Getting hit would hurt."

"This young lady certainly understands practical value." The stallholder's smile grew somewhat strained.

Gordon picked up the cane and toyed with it.

"Energy conduit"...

He fed his power into the cane, and it flowed downward along the energy pathways within.

It was like pouring water into a properly built channel: steady, smooth, and without any loss.

Then Gordon lightly tapped the ground with the cane.

Thud.

A wave of power spread outward, gathering information from dozens, even hundreds of meters away, then feeding it instantly back into Gordon's mind.

Vibrations in the ground... human footsteps...

He sensed them with extraordinary clarity. Everything around him was woven into a web that vibrated and resonated all at once.

Now, even with his eyes closed, he could sense every movement in contact with the ground.

People came and went. Whether they walked, ran, or crept along in small steps, he could sense it all with perfect clarity.

A wondrous item that could hold, channel, and radiate source substance.

Very nice indeed.

Gordon picked up the cane. He absolutely could not let the stallholder discover that this thing was a genuine treasure.