The knight's explanation left Bill feeling as if he had stepped into an entirely different world. Everything in Oros seemed to shatter his old ideas about how cities should work, yet somehow it all felt… right. The contradiction made his head spin; he needed time to process it.
John, walking silently beside him, felt the same awe, though he adapted faster. While Bill was still chewing on the idea, John couldn't hold back.
"So according to you, all that shit from people and animals is actually valuable? How come no one noticed it before? Who figured it out?"
The knight's face lit up with open admiration. "All thanks to Prince Gaemon. He found old writings about fertilizer and soil. They say land treated with it yields three or four times more grain, and the fields recover faster. Some plots can even squeeze in an extra vegetable crop during the rotation. The whole domain's harvest has jumped because of it."
By the time the knight finished, both Bill and John were staring at him in quiet wonder. Everything that made Oros different seemed to trace back to one man—Prince Gaemon. They found themselves burning with curiosity about what kind of person could dream up so many strange, brilliant ideas and actually make them work.
But asking too many questions about a prince was dangerous in this world. They kept their mouths shut and simply followed the knight.
The conversation carried them forward until they suddenly stepped out into an enormous open space.
They had reached Dragon Plaza.
The city hall stood at the plaza's northeast corner, impossible to miss.
As the heart of the entire city, Dragon Plaza was vast—forty thousand square meters of perfectly level stone, shaped in a perfect circle. At its center rose a towering round monument of white marble, more than fifty feet high and twenty feet across. Atop it stood a colossal bronze dragon statue, wings half-spread, gazing out over the city with majestic calm.
Four massive buildings ringed the plaza, each roughly the same size but built in distinct styles.
The knight led them clockwise around the square. The first structure they passed was still under construction.
"That will be the university," he explained. "A place for learning and study, the prince says."
"A place for learning?" Bill echoed. "Like a new Citadel, right here in the Wendwater? The prince means to build his own center of knowledge?"
The knight nodded proudly. "It's only just begun. Will take years to finish. When the whole plaza is complete, the four great buildings will be the City Hall, the Treasury, the High Court, and this university.
Right now only City Hall, Treasury, and the Court are finished—they're all operating out of City Hall for the time being. Once the university is ready, the other two will get their own grand halls. Prince Gaemon calls it 'concentrating strength to accomplish great things.' I don't fully understand the words, but the results speak for themselves. Without that approach, City Hall couldn't have been finished so quickly."
Bill stared up at the finished City Hall, mouth slightly open. The building was enormous—nearly five hundred feet long, its four corner towers rising almost ninety feet, with a central clock tower soaring to one hundred and sixty feet. It was easily the largest and tallest structure in the entire city.
"Two years?" he asked, voice hushed with disbelief. "You're telling me this whole thing was built in just two years?"
"Exactly two years," the knight confirmed, chest swelling. "The main structure took a little over a year. The rest of the time went into interior work and decoration. It opened for business at the start of this year. Inside there are more than seven hundred rooms."
He pointed to the clock tower. "See that bell up there? Huge bronze thing. Every hour on the hour someone rings it so the whole city knows the time."
Bill and John could only shake their heads in stunned silence. The scale was almost impossible to believe, yet the proof stood right in front of them—solid stone and soaring towers that had risen from empty ground in the time it took most lords to finish a single keep.
The knight didn't press them. He simply shrugged as if to say, Believe it or not, it's true.
He led them straight to the grand entrance of City Hall. A guard on duty snapped to attention and saluted—right fist thumping over the heart in the clean, disciplined style Gaemon had introduced. The knight handed his horse's reins to the man and turned back to Bill and John.
"Come on. I'll take you to the main hall. Someone there will help you register your business permit. Once that's done, remember to return every month to report and pay your taxes. Don't even think about cheating the crown. Tax evasion is a serious crime here. The punishment depends on how much you tried to hide. If it's bad enough… well, you might lose more than your coin."
Bill waved his hands frantically. "No, no, sir! We're honest merchants. Always have been. We'll report every copper and pay on time. You have my word."
The knight gave a small, satisfied nod. "Good. See that you do. Now follow me."
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