Night at the Bazaar

"We don't see mages too often in these parts. Nice to meet you. The name's Balibadom."

I shook Balibadom's outstretched hand.

"Not that I'm complaining, but what brought on your sudden act of generosity?"

"I was curious, to tell the truth."

As he said this, Balibadom tapped the eyepatch covering his left eye.

"Oh, that's right. We have the same Demon Eye, don't we."

Balibadom seemed momentarily surprised.

"I suppose I am fairly well known around these parts. I've never met someone else with the same eye. Doesn't it give you a headache to walk around a busy city like this without covering it up?"

"No. I've learned to control it."

"Control it? How so? I didn't even know such a thing was possible."

"You need precise control of the mana you feed it. You can change the opacity of the mana overlay to your normal sight and also set a minimum threshold of mana quantity to display in order to avoid picking up the minute mana traces on everyday objects."

"The mana... you feed it?"

"Yes. You can adjust the opacity by feeding mana to your inner eye and adjust the minimum threshold by feeding mana to the forefront of your eye."

Balibadom blinked a couple times in confusion. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure why I'm even bothering to try and explain this to him.

"Eh, don't feel bad if you don't understand. Most people don't have such precise control of their mana."

"I see... It would seem that Demon Eyes are much more powerful when in the hands of a mage."

To be honest, even most mages don't have precise control of their mana, but I was getting tired of this conversation so I just kept that to myself.

"You seem to be quite knowledgeable despite your young age. I think I've got a job for you if you're looking to make some Cinsha."

"Nope. Stop right there", I said as I held my hand up, palm facing outward. "We're in quite a rush and don't have time to be taking on jobs right now."

"Oh. I'm sorry to hear that. Where are you headed?"

"To the Labyrinth city of Rapan."

"That's perfect! My caravan is headed in the exact same direction? Why don't you come along with us and we can make the trip together? We lost a man just yesterday to an unfortunate encounter with two Twin Death Scorpions and I'm sure my employer would be happy to pay you fairly."

"No, that's alright, we really are in a hurry."

"You're going to travel all the way to Rapan just the two of you? Without any Cinsha?"

"I'll probably sell off a couple things while I'm here to buy some food for the journey. You know, there is something you might be able to help me with. It's been a long time since I made this trip to Rapan and I just want to make sure I don't get lost. Do you think you could give me detailed directions on how to get there?"

"I don't mind giving you directions if you're really sure... but I still think it would be wiser for us to travel together."

"I appreciate the concern, but we can handle ourselves."

"In that case, I won't push the matter further. The normal route to Rapan is to take the long route through the Nkots region by traveling around the desert, but lately bandits have been a real problem there so it isn't very safe for a party of just two."

I vaguely remembered taking this route with Elinalise and Balibadom's caravan last time I traveled to Rapan, but we don't have the luxury of time to take the longer route.

"What about the shorter route?", I asked him.

"The shorter route is to travel straight through the Ucho desert to Rapan, but that has it's own perils to contend with. You're basically trading bandits for monsters and then you also have rougher terrain to travel through."

"Monsters won't be a problem for us."

"True enough", Balibadom admitted. "With your mastery of the Magic Power Eye you would surely spot them coming from a mile away."

"Anyway, if you're looking to take the short route, you're going to need to head east until you hit the marker, then go north till you reach the oasis, from there you'll take a winding road to the west until you can see the Kara Mountains. Once the Kara Mountains are in view, you'll head north, keeping the mountains to your left side, until you reach the second oasis. You're going to want to push your way through that desert as fast as you can and then head northwest once the mountains leave your view until you hit the normal road, which you can then follow the rest of the way to Rapan."

"....What? That's the short route? We're going to head east, then north, then west, then... whatever? That sounds very much like a winding, inefficient route."

"That's the shortest route that anyone takes. The desert is far too vast to travel all the way through in one go for most caravans, and even if you bring enough supplies, the multitude of monsters and brutal heat are enough to make you think better of it."

Even if I didn't plan to follow his directions, I decided to write them down as a failsafe incase we got lost.

"Balibadom, do you know where I could find a map of the region to help make sure we don't get lost?"

"A map? You aren't going to find anything like that. Nobody would bother to make something like that."

"In that case, do you think you could point us in the direction of Rapan and we'll just follow a straight line to get there?"

Balibadom looked at me like I was an idiot.

"That would take you directly over top of the Kara Mountains. There's no way that would be faster. Not to mention your camels won't be able to cross them."

"Oh, we don't have any camels."

"What? Then how are you going to carry your supplies? Do you intend to carry a month's worth of food and water on your backs!?"

"Well, first of all, water isn't a problem", I said as I conjured a [Water Ball] at the tip of my finger. "I can provide us with as much drinking water as needed with my magic. Secondly, I don't plan on this journey taking a month. I'm hoping to make it to Rapan in less than a week."

"Less than a week!? That's impossible. I know I said that I wouldn't push the matter further, but you really should come along with us. You're going to get yourselves killed out there."

"Look, if you don't point us in the right direction, I'm sure somebody else will."

"Alright then", Balibadom sighed. "Rapan is in that direction", he said, pointing mostly north and slightly west.

"Thank you."

"If you change your mind, you can find our tent on the west side of the river. This is my employer's mark", he said pointing to a symbol on his armband. "It will be displayed on the front of his tent."

With that, Balibadom made his way back to his carpet and sat down next to a young woman who seemed to be in her early twenties or so. Eris had been patiently eating our meal beside us while the two of us talked.

"What were you guys talking about?"

"I thanked him for paying for our meal and then asked him for directions to Rapan."

"I see. So you know where we're headed next now?"

"More or less. I got vague directions, but I'm sure we'll be able to find our way there."

Now that I was done talking, I could finally eat. The main dish was a thick, white bean soup with some spicy, steamed meat on the side. There was also a tropical fruit, slightly sour in taste, that was covered in a sweet sauce of some kind. The soup turned out to have chunks of rice floating in it, making it a sort of rice gruel. It turned out to be a pleasant surprise and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I had forgotten that they grew rice here. It was somewhat surprising, given the climate.

By the time we finished eating, most of the bonfires had been put out and people were making their way back to their tents to sleep.

"Did you ask him about an Inn?"

"They don't have Inns around here. People are expected to just find a place to sleep themselves."

"Oh."

Eris didn't seem the least bit concerned. I suppose we did that a lot during our travels through the Demon Continent with Ruijerd.

The two of us walked back towards the outskirts of the city where I hid my magic armor and I constructed us a simple shelter using the [Earth Fortress] spell. I ended up falling asleep almost immediately after resting my head. I really was exhausted.

I woke up feeling surprisingly refreshed the next morning. Surprisingly, Eris was still asleep beside me. She normally was an early riser. She must have been exhausted as well. I decided to let her sleep a little longer as I snuck out of the shelter. The city of Bazaar was already bustling with activity as merchants were busy setting up their stalls. Now would be a good time to stock up on supplies for our journey.

They didn't have an actual place to exchange currencies here, but I managed to trade two Asura Gold coins for 800 Cinsha. While nobody here recognized the currency, gold was still gold. Our meal last night had only cost 3 Cinsha so I was confident 800 would be plenty to buy supplies for a week.

After asking around, I was directed to a stall selling salted Garuda meat. The merchant assured me that the meat was preserved and would last at least one week before going bad. I bought twenty kilograms of the meat and also bought an over-the-shoulder satchel to carry it. It was almost like a backpack. I also bought a dozen of the tropical fruits we had with dinner the night before as well as some spices to add to the Garuda meat.

By the time I got back to our temporary shelter, Eris was up and about.

"I was wondering where you went", she quipped.

"You were still asleep so I decided to go buy some traveling supplies."

"I see. Are we heading out right away now?"

"I thought you might want to buy a spare set of clothing before we leave. It's going to take us about a week before we reach Rapan."

After thinking about it for a moment, Eris agreed and picked out a set of women's desert robes and a turban. They were brightly patterned like all the clothing in the city. She looked like a local as soon as she put them on.

As soon as we got back to our shelter, I put on my magic armor and we left right away.

The journey was honestly a lot easier than I expected. Traveling through the Ucho desert was much easier than the monster-laden desert we just crossed. I suppose most people probably never venture that way. Rather than crossing over top of the mountains, we decided to run along the eastern side of the mountain range. It wasn't much out of the way and ended up being much faster than trying to cross over top of them.

The rocky terrain of the mountain range also made running a lot easier. Sure, there were plenty of monsters, but nothing like what we had just encountered on the way to Bazaar. The desert heat was also not as bad as what we experienced previously.

In the end, it was only five and a half largely uneventful days before we finally reached our destination; the Labyrinth City of Rapan.