It took Zeng Mu three days and three nights to reach Bear City, longer than even he had expected.
Perhaps it was farther away than any of his previous destinations, or perhaps it was because, to avoid questioning by the Chu Kingdom's soldiers along the way, he had been forced to travel on foot and disguise himself as a servant of the Fulin Taiyou People. Only by showing the stone identification plaque Cobert had given him had he managed to pass without trouble. All of that had consumed a great deal of time; actual travel had accounted for barely a third of it.
Upon entering Bear City, Zeng Mu's first impression was that the place brimmed with life.
Shops lined the streets, and eight out of ten were related to hunting: fur shops, beast-claw shops, butcher shops, shops selling sheep's milk or cow's milk, bone shops, and more.
Most of the people he saw were hunters, too. Even children barely a meter tall wore sheepskin clothes and cowhide shoes, with little curved bows slung across their backs and little curved blades tucked at their waists. They certainly looked intimidating-at least to livestock.
The ground was reasonably clean, perhaps because a heavy rain the night before had washed much of the grime from the paving stones. Traces of mud remained, though, in slightly different colors, presumably brought back by hunters from forests in different directions.
"At least I haven't seen any dung," Zeng Mu said with relief, because he could certainly smell it. That faint odor lingered like the gnats drifting through the air here, though the scents of green grass and animal blood were stronger. One gentle sniff made him feel as though a whole jar of aged liquor had brewed inside his nose. Whether it was a distinctive vintage