Bear School Astartes

Chapter 146: 146. Steel Street

The two of them strolled around in Lann’s lead as if they were still in the Magic World, wandering in this lively yet unfamiliar place.

The situation in King’s Landing fit Lann’s reasonable imagination of a medieval town.

The moment they exited the gates of the Red Castle, a stench and the sight of filthy streets sprang up before them.

They first asked for directions and headed toward the port.

The port of King’s Landing gathers ships from almost the entire world.

Westeros continent’s ships dock in the capital, while ships from the Essos continent across the Narrow Sea also come here for intercontinental trade.

If Lann is interested in the new and unusual plant and animal materials of this world, he must first have a broad range of observations.

The port of King’s Landing was a gathering of diverse people.

White-skinned Warriors from Westeros, traveling merchants, brown-skinned big traders from the opposite sea wearing silk robes and slippers, and occasionally, mercenaries from horseback tribes with long braids and bells hanging from them.

These people bring specialties from all over the world and take the specialties from King’s Landing back to their hometowns, aiming to earn a huge price difference.

Lann dragged Alia, weaving through the surging crowd and visiting various temporary stalls.

”Wandering Soul Grass from the Shadow Land! Look, this is Lightless Grass from Yasha!”

”The fur of the white lion from the Dothraki Sea! Pierced through the heart with an arrow, flawless and pure!”

Amid the shouts of bustling hawkers, the local Alia was filled with excitement, hardly able to take it all in.

On the contrary, the outsider Lann was unmoved.

Joking aside, did they think I was not an outsider in the Magic World? And yet, I was still bargaining with those unscrupulous traders!

Among the array of commodities, Lann quickly devised a selection mechanism with Mentos.

For items like herbs and plants, he would rub them as if examining goods and then put his fingers into his mouth to taste.

Mentos could summarize the medicinal properties based on these tiny samples with about ninety percent accuracy.

For animal materials like furs, leathers, large teeth, and huge bones, Lann would pretend to approach closely for a closer look, letting his Roaring Bear Head Necklace get near to see if there were vibrations.

According to existing data, the strongest single beings in this world should be dragons.

Other creatures that people could see and touch seemed quite ordinary.

If that’s the case, then simply use whether they contain Magic Power as the standard to filter out worthless items.

After establishing the selection mechanism, Lann’s speed of browsing increased significantly.

He rarely stayed at any stall for more than ten seconds, and so far, he hadn’t found anything worth his attention.

Most herbs had similar medicinal effects to their counterparts in the Magic World, and animal materials mostly focused on aesthetics and lacked practicality.

”Most of the goods here are meant for the ordinary market, and the truly valuable things might need to be found in the black market?”

After walking around, Lann felt this was indeed the case.

In the market, his quick movement, striking appearance, and the exposed sword hilt of Aron Dite on his back obviously attracted hidden attention.

In his perception, many people were discreetly focusing on him in this market.

There were even a few times when some merchants, not showing any signs on their faces, offered him barely profitable prices or even proposed free home delivery.

Clearly, they wanted to extract his address to determine whether Lann was someone they could mess with, whether they could ’do something’ to him.

If Mentos hadn’t already established a pricing model for this world, Lann might not have even realized they had reduced the prices so much, treating them as a regular deal and just paid.

Of course, giving his address wouldn’t be an issue, but these merchants would probably pinching their noses have to deliver things to the Prime Minister’s Tower.

”Alia, it’s time to go.”

Holding Alia by the nape of her neck, as she was about to dash off, Lann led her away from the port market.

Most of the goods were not valuable and attracted too much attention. Lann decided not to stay any longer.

He still thought about what he used to do in Vizima, catching a small thug and following the lead up, but how could he not find traces of the black market.

However, the current Westeros felt like autumn judging from the temperature.

Even the gang members wouldn’t expose their tattooed torsos with the gang symbols.

A city of five hundred thousand people, everyone wore dirty sackcloth clothes, their faces a mix of dust and sweat, reflecting the hardship of life in their eyes and faces turned into ’unnecessarily meddlesome’ and ’don’t get involved’...

Who could tell who was a gang member in this situation?

”Aren’t we going to stroll around a bit more? I saw there are many more interesting things over there... no, materials I’ve never seen!”

Alia chuckled awkwardly.

Lann was already used to her playful nature and didn’t mind.

”Most goods in the ordinary market can be substituted in Temeria. What I want to find are those one-of-a-kind items to bring back, but if we continue browsing like this... we might not find as much in months as what your father could tell us in a word.”

Though what Edd collected wouldn’t be any different once in Lann’s hands.

But Lann didn’t want to come up empty-handed after securing the freedom to enter and exit the Red Castle, it would look too bad.

As they walked and talked, both being new arrivals, they were not very familiar with the environment and routes of King’s Landing.

They only felt the fishy sea breeze blowing from the port gradually recede, replaced by faint heat waves and ’ding ding’ sounds approaching from not far ahead.

Looking up, they saw an iron sign hanging over the street’s portal.

”Steel Street?” Alia looked up at the iron sign and then at Lann, who was looking up too.

”Isn’t this a place selling armor and weapons, not a place to find alchemical materials?”

Lann crossed his arms and tilted his head slightly.

”Not necessarily. In the Magic World, blacksmiths would use monster materials in their forging, and after completion, some even invited Warlocks to etch runes with crystal powder, making them magical weapons.”

”Although there’s no magic here now, in a place where dragons have appeared, maybe blacksmiths would also buy something strange to include in their craft?”

Lann waved his hand, motioning Alia to follow him up the hilly street.

Since they were here, it wouldn’t hurt to look around.

After all, the salary Duke Edd gave him as a guard was essentially meant for him to watch over Alia.

Lann thought the Duke really got a good deal; normally, no one would watch over such a little girl for a guard’s pay.

If they were to look for blacksmiths who would add miscellaneous things during steel forging, then these blacksmith shops at the lower end of the slope were clearly not top-tier or busy trades.

With an enthusiastic Alia in tow, Lann directly headed toward the top of the slope.

At the top end of Steel Street’s slope, the sound of iron striking came from a blacksmith shop.

”Jandry! Stop hammering your horned helmet and go greet the customers.”