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This frontier village that was under Lyell’s care had several agricultural lands and water sources aside from houses, all surrounded by fences, so it was made to allow them to hold the castle for some time if it was needed.

This was the practical way to build the villages for the north where there was no knowing when a group of monsters would come attacking.

Since the kingdom’s safety wasn’t guaranteed through the land just yet, the villages in the remote regions had to protect themselves on their own.

It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that the fences were there for that very reason.

“But they still break sometimes, right? Big sis Nico slipped out of there once and beat up some Kobolds.”
“Huh, I heard it was Lord Lyell who did the beating, though?”
“My big bro was there at the time.”
“Fii isn’t lying!”

Fina puffed her cheeks as she waved her hands around. She had the fur of the Carbuncle, that came along as her guard, clutched in her hand. The Carbuncle matched her hand movements so its fur wouldn’t get ripped off, but its efforts ended up being for naught and some of its hairs got plucked out.

Though it looked sadly at that, it remained silent, which showed that it had grown.

“More importantly, the fair’s opening today. You should come along too, Fina.”
“Market?”
“Yeah. A merchant will come from the outside and open up their wares for sale. There would be a lot of rare stuff!”
“That sounds fun! But I have no money.”

Buying things required money. She had enough knowledge to know that. Being only three, Fina had no allowance yet.

She slumped her shoulders, but the Carbuncle pulled on the hem of her clothes.

“Squee, squee!”
“Hmm, what is it, Kabby? Oh, is this money?”

The Carbuncle removed the satchel from its neck and pulled out some small change from within for some strange reason.

This satchel was recalled by its Apport spell and it was where all the little money it had was stored. It wanted to use that money for Fina.

“Wahh, thank you, Kabby! I love you!”
“Squee~”

The Carbuncle accepted Fina’s full-body hug with a smile. In a way, it was also one of Fina’s fans.

“Do you all have money?”
“I get my allowance every month.”
“They gave me some this time since there was supposed to be a fair.”
“Me too.”

The rest of the kids showed their own silver coins. They each had two to three coins, which was enough to eat out a bit.

But this was a large amount of money for the kids.

“Amazing, you have some too, Kabby?”
“Squee!”

The Carbuncle had far more money than the children. But it didn’t show it and started walking ahead of the children as if showing the way.

Fina grabbed its bushy tail and followed after it.

The fair was held at the plaza built in the center of the village, and the merchant that had only just arrived here the other day had spread his wares fresh out of the carriages which the villagers were inspecting with deep interest.

“Wow, it’s a shop without a roof!”
“Oh, what a surprise. What a lovely young lady.”
“Ehehe.”

This was her first time seeing a stall, so Fina couldn’t hide her excitement at the wares displayed on nothing but a cloth spread on the ground.

The merchant also addressed her in a friendly manner, seeing that she had luxurious blond hair and well-ordered features that were hard to find even in the cities.

There were about five stalls at the plaza, which showed that the merchant came here with several carriages.

It would be hard to carry all this alone. In other words, it meant that he had enough financial muscle to hire employees to help carry it all here.

“Fina is Lady Maria’s daughter!”
“By Lady Maria, do you mean the Six Hero?”
“Yup!”

The children seemed pleased that her friend was praised and explained about her to the merchant.

The merchant also knew that Lyell and Maria lived in this village, so he wasn’t too surprised.

He had expected that if he put up a stall in this hard-to-reach village, they could’ve shown up. Having said that, he wasn’t so honest as to forget to act amiably.

“That is amazing. Then do you want to check my wares a bit? I will throw in a freebie.”

He didn’t think he’d do much business with kids. He just said that with light feelings, expecting something cheap to be sold at most.

Hearing that, Fina happily peered at his wares.

“Maybe you’d like this accessory, little lady? It’s a necklace made with cullets, and it’s quite cheap.”

He said and took out a necklace that had three glass ornaments on it. It was also extremely cheap, costing mere ten coppers.

This was in reality something made of the waste from the glass workshop, so there was almost no capital put into it. Which made it a good article for children.

“Wow, so pretty!”
“I know right? This glass is something I ordered from Raum’s famous glass store, so its quality isn’t bad. However, in that store, this was treated as waste and was about to be disposed of.”
“So you saved mister glass?”
“Huh? Oh, I guess you could call it that! You got me there!”

The merchant never thought of it as saving the glass. Having such pure gazes directed at him, he could only scratch his head in response.

He started to lose the will to make a profit from these kids.

“You really got me there. It feels bad to make a profit off it now, huh?”
“Hmm?”
“How about it? I will sell it to you for five coppers. I have to at least get some pay or they will get angry at me.”
“Are you sure?!”
“Of course.”

He halved the price in one go, planning to sell the necklace at almost the cost price.

The Carbuncle gave the money to the merchant and he politely handed the necklace over to Fina.

Fina accepted it happily, blooming into a big smile.

Within the crowd of people was someone observing her actions.