Freed from the company of the so-called young farmer, Theo could finally pay some attention to the town of Vistra itself, rather than just taking it as a granted part of the background.
And from the very moment he did, just one thought triumphed above all the others.
'It is quite a big town, especially for a frontier area.'
While not exactly a well-traveled person, Theo never was the one to stick to just a single city for his entire life. That gave him just enough context to really appreciate the size of this place.
'It's even split into districts,' he thought as he slowly continued down the town's main street, emerging from the crowd where he continued down towards the shop rather than heading towards the town's busy market.
The size of the town was honestly its biggest, stand-out feature. When it came to the architecture, it had nothing on the ancient buildings preserved in the Slevian sect. There were hardly any decorations around, making Theo appreciate the sect's gardens all the more.
All in all, one could recognize this place as a frontier fortress of a civilization from every detail of the architecture.
The buildings were either perfectly solid, almost fortified each in their own right, or were extremely flimsy, delicate enough for heavier winds to blow them over, which also made them impossibly easy to rebuild.
The main streets were big enough for troops to march down, while the alleys were extremely narrow and high, making for a perfect kill-zone from within the building in case a monster attack ever made it past the walls.
By all means, this city was a fortress not only in its entirety but also throughout each of its buildings. And yet, even with such a defensive nature of the place still visible in most of its architecture, the normal life has long since adapted those quirks to its own convenience.
The several-floors-high buildings with heavy, stone bottom floors and lighter, often wooden, upper floors? Those have long since turned into dual-purpose parts of the town, where the upper floors served as the housing while the bottom floor commonly turned into shops and workshops of the families living above.
The narrow alleys became race tracks for the kids. The alleys that were just wide enough for merchants to drag their carts through them became a part of a complex and intuitive system of one-way streets, allowing the laborers to move wares through passages that tended to remain out of everyone's sights, leaving the more open parts of the city just for its inhabitants to enjoy and occupy.
'Taking all of it into account, just how the hell did this place grow so big?'
This was the one question Theo couldn't find an answer to. The frontier towns he visited in his old time were usually just big enough to bring forth the benefit of organized defense, just big enough for a bunch of craftsmen to find enough work to make a living there.
All of them, however, hardly grew beyond that point, given how the increase of their size would only attract more attention — be it from the few wild monsters still left alive or by the far greater threats — organized bands of bandits that loved to roam the borderlands in search for targets ripe for their taking.
"Well, it's not like it's, in any way or form, my business. All that matters," Theo muttered to himself with a small smile, "is that with how big this place is, there should be no shortage of the cooking ingredients!"
Theo soon arrived at the doorstep of the shop designated by the city's silent protector.
Just like he noticed before, it was one of those mixed-purpose buildings… Although in this particular case, even the upper floors appeared to be transformed into trading areas, greatly increasing the room for the place's owners to sell their wares at.
And as Theo stepped inside, he soon found the exact meaning of what this farming cooperative was all about.
Flowers, grains, fruits.
The entire bottom floor was filled with just those three things… Or rather, every possible variation, origin, and type of those. The boxes of each produce would be stacked as high up as the ceiling itself, only to leave just a single box displaying the produce right at the bottom, where the potential buyers could reach out and test whether the farmed goods were up to their liking and standards.
'Not here, huh?'
As much potential as Theo saw in all the grain stored in this place, he wasn't in this place to get rich by means of brewing alcohol locals have never heard about before.
He was here to settle the pressing lack of materials he needed to establish a spirit-stone factory, and solving the lack of those materials was the one and only problem he was here to solve!
And before long…
"Welcome to Kresby's farmers cooperative," one of the store's clerks approached while wearing a huge smile on their face.
Rather than a suit or a uniform, the old man came dressed in the exact kind of clothes a noble would expect a farmer to wear while having no clue what they would actually wear to endure the heavy toil in the fields.
"Is there anything I could help you with?"
Theo scanned the old clerk with his eyes for a moment before taking just a little bit longer to scan his aura, or as a mage would call it — to scan the way in which the man's presence affected the mana around him.
Contrary to the young farmer that approached him before, this old man appeared to be a genuine clerk of the store, patiently waiting with a smile for Theo to reveal his intentions.
"I'm here for three things," Theo turned towards the man before acknowledging his presence with a slight nod of his head.
'Now that I'm about to pull the royal act, I need to act the part!'
"First, I want to exchange those for money," he announced while pulling out his pouch and then loosening the cord that kept it closed, allowing the pouch to open itself up and reveal its precious, slightly shiny content to the old clerk. "Then, I need all the sugar, salt, pastries, and booze you guys can afford to sell to a single individual. And finally," Theo smiled as he leaned his head over to his shoulder.
"I want you to arrange for a monster delivery service to bring all those things over to the Slevian sect."