Chapter 9: The Universal Standard and the Hinge

Morning greeted the campsite with a pale, bruised light filtering through the Zephyr Forest canopy. Takuya opened his eyes, the damp chill of the ground finally waking him. He sat up and took a quick inventory of the camp.

Inori was already awake, meticulously cleaning the fire pit and organizing their meager supplies for the journey. A few yards away, Kaguya was crouching next to Lacy. The large warrior was pointing to a cluster of small, bell-shaped blue flowers near the roots of a tree. Lacy was speaking in slow, practical terms, sharing what little he knew about which leaves cured stomach aches and which roots stopped bleeding. Kaguya nodded along, absorbing the basic herbalism like a sponge.

Takuya’s stomach let out a loud, hollow rumble.

Hearing the noise, Inori stood up and walked over. “Ah, Takuya. You’re finally awake.”

“Yeah. We walked a lot yesterday,” Takuya groaned, stretching his stiff back. He looked at Inori, keeping his words simple out of habit. “Is there any breakfast? I’m starving.”

“Here,” Inori said, handing him a tough strip of dried deer meat from their previous dinner and a hollowed bamboo cup filled with warm, boiled water. It wasn’t a feast, but it was enough calories to get his brain working.

Seeing Takuya awake, Kaguya and Lacy wrapped up their lesson and walked over.

“Morning, Takuya,” Lacy grunted, adjusting the leather straps of his gear. “If we keep a steady pace and use the old game trails, we will reach the village before the sun hits the middle of the sky. The trails cut a lot of the walking time down.”

“That is great news, Lacy,” Takuya smiled between tough bites of dried meat.

As they packed up and began their trek down the narrow, winding game trail, Takuya’s mind shifted to their next immediate problem: economics. They were entering a society with zero capital, zero status, and no assets. They needed a product.

He matched his pace with the large warrior. “Lacy, you said the people in Dian Village are mostly hunters and farmers, right? What kind of things do they usually buy from travelers? What do they need the most?”

Lacy stroked his braided beard thoughtfully. “Good tools. Strong traps. Anything that makes hunting easier or helps clear the fields faster. If you have something like that, they will trade for it.”

Takuya nodded, looking back at Inori, who gave a subtle nod in return. Tools they could do.

“And how do people pay for things?” Takuya asked simply. “Do they trade items, or do they use coins?”

“We use coins,” Lacy explained easily. “It’s the same everywhere. Copper for the cheap things, silver for good gear, gold for buying land or horses, and platinum for the lords. There is one other coin, though—the Royal Coin. It’s made of melted gold and platinum together. But commoners like us don’t use it. The King gives it out as a special gift to nobles. You can’t really buy an apple with a Royal Coin.”

“Do different countries use different coins?” Takuya pressed.

“No,” Lacy shook his head. “A gold coin here in Cynthia is exactly the same as a gold coin across the ocean. Money is money.”

“I see. Thank you,” Takuya smiled, stepping back to walk beside his brothers.

Internally, however, Takuya’s political and economic engines were roaring to life. A universal, continent-wide currency system based strictly on precious metal weights. He began to rapidly process the macroeconomic reality of this world.

• The Positives: * Frictionless International Trade: Without exchange rates, merchants can cross borders without losing capital to currency conversions. It heavily incentivizes long-distance trade routes.

  • Absolute Price Transparency: A loaf of bread in Cynthia costs the same relative amount of copper as a loaf in a neighboring kingdom. It makes spotting price gouging and market manipulation incredibly easy for an observant economist.

• The Negatives:

  • Zero Monetary Policy: Because the currency is a physical, universal commodity, individual kingdoms cannot control their own money supply. If Cynthia faces an economic depression, the King cannot simply “print more money” or devalue his currency to make his kingdom’s exports cheaper and stimulate the economy.

  • The Resource Trap: Financial power is entirely dependent on geological luck. A kingdom with abundant gold and silver mines holds absolute economic dominance over a kingdom that only has farmland, regardless of how hard the farmers work.

If I can introduce fiat currency or centralized banking notes back by a fractional reserve system, Takuya thought, a dangerous smirk playing on his lips, I could crash a rival kingdom’s economy without swinging a single sword.

His deep thoughts were interrupted by the sudden twang of a bowstring.

Up ahead, Lacy had stopped. He was lowering a strange, blocky wooden bow. Twenty yards away, a small partridge dropped from a branch.

“Dinner for the road,” Lacy grinned, walking to retrieve the bird.

Inori jogged up to him, his eyes glued to the weapon. “Lacy, your bow. I didn’t see that on your back earlier. Can I look at it?”

“Sure,” Lacy handed it over. “I made it myself. It folds in half on a leather hinge so I can carry it in my bag. It’s good for close range, but it’s not my main weapon. If I pull the string back too far to shoot something distant, the wood snaps right at the joint. I don’t know how to fix it.”

Inori inspected it, then handed it to Takuya.

Takuya ran his fingers over the wood, his architectural and mechanical engineering background instantly analyzing the structural integrity. He leaned close to Inori and Kaguya, dropping his voice to a whisper and switching to his high-speed, technical cadence.

“It’s a disastrous distribution of kinetic energy,” Takuya muttered rapidly. “He used a dense hardwood for the riser and a flexible softwood for the limbs. But the folding mechanism acts as a rigid, central fulcrum. When drawn, the tensile stress doesn’t distribute evenly across the arc of the limbs. Instead, 100% of the mechanical load concentrates directly on the shear point of the hinge. It’s a localized structural failure waiting to happen.”

“Solution?” Inori whispered back, adjusting his glasses.

“A locking sleeve mechanism over the joint to reinforce the fulcrum, combined with a composite lamination,” Takuya analyzed. “If we back the softwood with animal sinew or horn, it increases the tensile strength exponentially, allowing the stress to bypass the hinge entirely. It turns a weak folding stick into a high-poundage recurve bow.”

Takuya looked up, his expression instantly smoothing out into a friendly, simple smile. “Lacy, this is a very clever idea! Folding it makes it so easy to carry. Do you mind if we try to make one just like it for ourselves?”

“Go ahead,” Lacy laughed. “If you can find the wood, you can copy it.”

Takuya beamed. Thank goodness there are no intellectual property laws in this era. I can mass-produce an upgraded version of this and monopolize the local hunting market.

Inori then stepped forward. “Lacy, do the villages have… potion makers? People who mix strange liquids and powders together?” Inori tried to describe a chemist using the simplest terms possible.

Lacy scratched his head, looking confused. “You mean a cook? Or a healer with herbs? I don’t know anyone who just mixes weird liquids for fun.”

“Ah. Okay. That’s fine,” Inori smiled, stepping back. He looked at his brothers, a terrifyingly gleeful spark in his eyes. He had a total monopoly. The moment he found sulfur, charcoal, and saltpeter, he would own the chemical market.

They walked for another hour. The dense trees began to thin, and the smell of the damp forest was replaced by the scent of woodsmoke and tilled earth.

Suddenly, Lacy stopped on a slight grassy ridge. He pointed a thick finger downward.

About a kilometer away, nestled on a higher plateau alongside a gentle, winding river, sat a collection of wooden and stone buildings. Plumes of smoke rose lazily from chimneys. It wasn’t a sprawling city, but it was organized, fortified with a modest wooden palisade, and unmistakably human.

“Dian Village,” Lacy announced. He turned to the brothers and took a step back. “This is where I leave you. My men are waiting for me back at the high pasture.”

Takuya stepped forward, extending his hand firmly. “Lacy. Thank you. For guiding us, for the food, and for keeping us alive. I hope we get to see you again soon.”

Lacy shook the hand with a strong grip, brushing off the sentiment with a gruff chuckle. “Winter is coming in a few months. The hunter community will pack up and move to warmer grounds soon. We probably won’t be around.”

“If fate allows it, we will meet again,” Takuya insisted warmly.

“Ha! If fate says so, then it’s a done deal,” Lacy laughed loud and deep. He nodded to Inori and Kaguya, who both offered their sincere, simple thanks. With a final wave, the large warrior turned his back and disappeared seamlessly into the Zephyr Forest.

The three brothers stood alone on the ridge, looking down at the village. The safety wheels were officially off.

Takuya turned to his brothers, his demeanor instantly shifting from the friendly traveler to the calculating strategist.

“Listen closely,” Takuya commanded, his voice sharp and precise. “We are walking into an established sociological ecosystem. We do not know their taboos, their legal parameters, or their cultural sensitivities. Observe their behavioral paradigms before you engage. Do not invoke religion, do not criticize their food, and do not demonstrate advanced knowledge until we understand the power dynamics of that village. Understand?”

“Minimize variables. Blend and observe,” Inori confirmed, his pragmatic mind already at work.

“Maintain clinical detachment until the social baseline is established,” Kaguya agreed, pushing his glasses up.

Despite the strict warnings, Takuya couldn’t hide the thrill in his chest. They had survived the impossible. They were battered, wearing ruined suits, and armed only with charred sticks and their minds. But as they looked down at the smoke rising from Dian Village, all three brothers shared the same expression—a sharp, confident excitement.

The alien wilderness was behind them.

Takuya took a deep breath of the cool air. “Alright. Let’s go introduce ourselves to civilization.”