A political storm had erupted in Inyama. It had barely begun, yet dozens of people were already dead, and it would continue, claiming still more lives.
But none of that had much to do with Chris anymore. He had left Inyama three days earlier and was over a hundred kilometers away.
Partly, that was because Chris had fled decisively and quickly.
The other, most important reason was that the little prince of the Kingdom of Bagnia was nothing but small fry in the eyes of those powerful figures. He had no power, no standing, and little value as a pawn.
Nobody cared whether he had fled or died.
As for the claim that he had sent someone to carry out an assassination, that was pure fantasy. Everyone knew Chris had grown up in the Academy of the God of Light and practically never left. How could he possibly have built a power base outside?
So nobody believed the story that Bagnia's little prince had tried to assassinate its eldest prince.
All those factors had allowed Chris to escape smoothly. Had he hesitated for a day or two, he really might not have gotten away... someone would have targeted him just to muddy the waters.
He was only small fry, after all. Arresting or killing him would cost practically nothing, so why not give it a try?
Chris had little talent for politics. In his old days of getting by, he had always relied on brute force to bull his way through. Still, after everything he had experienced, he had picked up enough sense to recognize trouble. He was at the center of the storm, and that was a very dangerous place to be.
Whenever he had a choice, he should never let himself be forced onto the defensive. He had to seize the initiative.
That was the central lesson Chris had learned over three whole lifetimes.
So when Chris realized he was on the defensive, he ran.
This place isn't safe. I'll make a strategic retreat first.
Running away was not the best solution, but it suited Chris very well.
Chris had now been on the run for three days. His caravan of over fifty people and ten four-wheeled wagons traveled through the Bohemian Empire toward the Kingdom of Bagnia.
Chris had almost no impression of Bagnia, and he knew nothing about the Bohemian Empire beyond its capital.
This journey would give him his first real understanding of parts of the Bohemian Empire.
After three days in a wagon, Chris had learned through painful experience that riding in one was no pleasure.
There were two main reasons. First, these four-wheeled wagons had no suspension. Even a small stone under a wheel sent a jolt straight into Chris's backside.
A jolt or two now and then was fine, but constant jolting was another matter.
Second, the state of the Bohemian Empire's roads was hard to describe charitably. Within a hundred kilometers of Inyama, things had been passable, with stone-paved roads and stretches of gravel and packed earth.
That made the wagon ride even bumpier.
Eventually, Chris began getting out of the wagon of his own accord and walking with everyone else.
Walking was tiring, of course, but it was still more comfortable than riding. Only when his legs grew weak did Chris climb aboard for a short rest, just like the others.
Besides hurting his backside, the dreadful roads caused the caravan enormous trouble.
Each of the caravan's ten four-wheeled wagons was pulled by two draft horses. In theory, that was enough pulling power, but the uneven roads meant Chris had to help the others push the wagons every so often.
With five people assigned to each wagon, which was also loaded with goods, Chris had originally wondered whether they had too many people. Would the arrangement look suspicious to outsiders?
But after a full day of pushing wagons, when they entered a small town that evening and he lay down on a communal sleeping platform in a cheap caravan inn, he no longer considered that a problem.
Five people to a four-wheeled wagon were definitely not enough!
Besides pushing the wagons, they sometimes encountered damaged roads that the wagons could not cross.
At those times, everyone except the drivers had to grab shovels and spades, clear away the loose snow, and dig up frozen earth and stones to fill the holes so the wagons could pass.
The exhausting road repairs made Chris question his life choices. By their fifth day out of Inyama, several large blisters had formed on his hands despite his furry gloves.
The roads in the Bohemian Empire were far too terrible.
If you want prosperity, build roads first. Don't the Bohemians understand that?
Apart from the dreadful roads, the people they encountered also opened Chris's eyes.
Before they left, Isaac had said that merchants traveling through this country would encounter many places that collected taxes. Chris had instinctively assumed he meant city entry taxes.
Reality proved how naive Chris had been.
While crossing an icy river, the caravan was stopped by people demanding money. They were not tax officials, but a group of Bohemian soldiers in gray uniforms, and their justification sounded quite grand.
"We built the wooden bridge you're about to cross, so you have to pay a toll..."
"How much?"
"One copper coin per person, and ten copper coins per four-wheeled wagon."
Their terms were plain enough, and around a hundred Bohemian soldiers guarded the bridge.
Their weapons were only spears, with no firearms at all. Their bodies were so scrawny that they looked incapable of beating the caravan in a fight. And although...
Isaac paid anyway.
What else could they do? Start a fight here, or force their way through?
"What's their story?"
After the caravan crossed the bridge, Chris asked Isaac, curious about who those gray-clad soldiers were.
"They're Bohemian reservists, semiprofessional soldiers... collecting tolls provides part of their military funding."
Isaac's matter-of-fact explanation truly opened Chris's eyes. Coming from the twenty-first century, he was used to the People's Liberation Army. This was his first encounter with a feudal army like this.
Not long after they crossed the bridge, dusk fell, and a small town appeared ahead. As usual, Isaac planned to let the caravan rest there overnight and sell some goods while they were at it.
But as they entered the town, the caravan encountered a tax official with three attendants. He immediately began shouting at them.
"This is Taka Town, the territory of Count Kadi. Under the laws issued by the count, any outside caravan wishing to enter must present an imperial trading permit and pay a tax based on the number of vehicles...
"One silver coin per wagon."
That was a pretty steep toll!
Isaac immediately stepped forward to negotiate.
"Sir, here is our trading permit... if we don't enter town and camp outside instead, could this tax... perhaps be reduced?"
"Nooo, it caaan't."
The arrogant tax official drew out his words. Isaac immediately caught his meaning, stepped closer, and slipped something round into his palm.
"Mmm."
With his extensive experience, the tax official immediately recognized the two silver coins in his hand. They were in excellent condition, their edges untouched by unscrupulous merchants.
The tax official beamed.
The taxes belonged to the count, but these silver coins were his own. Besides, the tax rate really was rather steep.
"Actually, you can camp outside. As long as your wagons don't enter town, there's no problem!"
"Thank you, kind sir."
Isaac smiled obligingly and gave the official's three attendants small gifts as well: a palm-sized bag of coarse salt each. That put broad smiles on their faces.
Under Isaac's direction, the caravan began setting up camp. The smugglers he had brought were experienced workers, skilled at arranging the wagons and pitching the tents.
The young people Connie had brought were less capable. They were noticeably slow and awkward at their tasks, clearly inexperienced.
But they were not the worst. That distinction belonged to the ten players following Chris.
Chris did not work because he was financing this caravan expedition. Pushing wagons and repairing roads had already exhausted him.
The players followed Chris's example and did no work either.
But not working did not mean they stood around being lazy.
On the contrary, they made an enormous contribution to the caravan.
One player had bought a lute somewhere. He found an open patch beside the road outside town and began playing a cheerful tune.
Three players with good voices sang folk-style songs loudly to his accompaniment, while the others, including Lin Ruoyu, linked hands and performed a dance resembling the Soviet commissar dance.
What astonished Chris most was not merely that every player could dance, but that the singers were singing in Bohemian, and he had never heard their songs in his predecessor's memories.
Impressive. That means these cheerful songs are either adaptations of real-world songs or outright originals.
Either possibility spoke to their musical talent.
"Ah, I'm such an idiot."
Chris smacked his forehead in frustration. Had he known the players he summoned were so versatile, he should have taken them to... forget it. What use was thinking about that now?
Chris sighed.
The cheerful tunes and harmonious singing soon drew residents out of the town to listen and enjoy the spectacle.
The crowd kept growing. When Isaac noticed what was happening, he seized the opportunity to have wagons brought over and began selling goods beside the road.
The caravan did not carry much variety: coarse salt, homespun cloth, iron pots, broken tea leaves, and assorted odds and ends such as needles and thread.
These were all smuggled goods Chris had originally supplied to Isaac, and their cost was low.
So when Isaac sold them here, his retail prices included all the taxes incurred along the road.
Even so, the townspeople still found the caravan's goods affordable. Their low prices and good quality made people want to buy them.
The homespun cloth was especially popular. The cloth Isaac's caravan sold came in many patterns and vivid colors, and it was particularly thick. To the townspeople, it was first-rate merchandise.
The townspeople who recognized its value snapped it up. Those with a little capital bought extra to resell in more remote villages, acting as middlemen.
Two of their ten wagonloads sold out right there.
To avoid leaving the wagons empty, Isaac also acquired goods from local merchants. Through barter, he obtained two local donkeys, a wagonload of wooden poles, and a wagonload of silage.
Both sides were pleased with the barter, each making a small profit.
Then the town's tax official appeared again.
Isaac knew the rules. He paid the official five silver coins in taxes, plus half a bag of coarse salt as a handling fee.
Once paid, the official stopped troubling Isaac's caravan, leaving them free to continue their journey the next day.
"We've sold half the cloth."
"That's fine. I have a contact who can get us more cheap cloth... what's the next city called?"
"Duokang."
"Mm. Then we'll stop near Duokang, and I'll go into the city."
Traveling as a merchant was tedious and exhausting, but thanks to the players, Chris had no shortage of enjoyment along the way.
There was plenty of singing, comedy sketches, and song-and-dance performances.
The ten players were very patient. They entertained themselves, finding their own gaming fun on the road.
Their excellent performances earned them tips from Isaac as encouragement, as well as copper coins from the townspeople. Even a rough count showed a respectable sum.
So the players never passed up an opportunity to perform along the way.
Meanwhile, thanks to Chris, illnesses during the journey caused no permanent losses to the caravan. Whenever someone fell ill, suffered an injury from something falling on them, or developed frostbite, Chris could treat them promptly.
As he treated people, Chris discovered that one of the ten players was a medical student offline. He promptly appointed the player as the caravan's physician and told outsiders that this was his student.
Yes, Chris was shameless enough to do that. The player's medical skills were clearly better than his, and the player should have been his teacher instead.
But despite the player's superior medical skills, Isaac's and Connie's people trusted Chris more because of the reputation he had built while practicing medicine in Inyama.
So this upside-down explanation allowed the caravan to accept the player's treatment. When they camped, they could now offer medical care to townspeople and villagers alongside selling goods and song-and-dance performances.
The caravan's profits rose considerably as a result. Every evening, Isaac distributed a share of the trading profits to all the workers, offsetting their resentment over traveling through the wilderness in winter.
Winter trading was profitable, but also especially grueling. Besides taxes, Isaac's caravan encountered several bandit attacks along the way. Fortunately, they escaped every time with nothing worse than a scare, and nobody died.
The caravan was thriving and drawing ever closer to its destination.
Isaac estimated that they would reach the border between the Bohemian Empire and the Kingdom of Bagnia when spring arrived.
P.S. Since the journey isn't part of the main plot, I've skimmed through it quickly.
If there are any problems, let me know, and I'll see whether I can make changes.
Before you continue