In this shattered world, the "ocean" was a word that existed only in ancient legends. This so-called "port" was actually built on the edge of a massive inland lake filled with highly acidic, reddish-brown stagnant water.
It sat at the junction of the southern desert and the central plains—the largest black market trade hub for hundreds of kilometers.
As our group approached the city gates, cobbled together from scrap iron plates and rusted barbed wire, we weren't greeted by a guard’s interrogation, but by a suffocating stench.
It was a cocktail of rotting algae, oxidized metal, untreated sewage, and cheap, low-grade tobacco.
“Ugh...”
Walking in the middle of the line, Zayla suddenly covered her nose and mouth. Even with a thick veil hiding her regal features, her feline senses—magnified several times beyond human levels—made this smell feel like a full-scale biochemical assault.
“People actually live here?” Zayla’s voice was muffled by the cloth, sounding both pained and disgusted. “The air... it tastes like dead things.”
“Endure it, Your Majesty.” I lowered the brim of my hat and adjusted my plain-glass spectacles to hide my eyes. “This is the baseline for this world. Cities like Skyreach, with independent sewage and ventilation systems, are the anomalies.”
To avoid unwanted attention, I had parked the Landwalker-1 in a hidden cave five kilometers outside the city. I’d had to pay two full barrels of anthracite coal to a pack of goblin drifters living in the cave as a "parking fee."
Lyn was still gritting her teeth over that transaction.
“Two barrels of coal...”
Lyn trudged along, bent under a massive rucksack, muttering to herself. I saw her fox ears twitching under her hood in phantom pain. “If there’s even a single scratch on that paint job when we get back, I’m leveling that goblin cave.”
Brad led the way. He wore a modified, tattered cloak, but even then, his nearly two-meter frame and the massive width of his right shoulder—courtesy of his mechanical arm graft—made him look like a bipedal apex predator.
“Halt.”
At the gate, two guards in mismatched leather armor holding rusted spears lazily blocked our path.
Their eyes were clouded and greedy, scanning us with blatant predatory intent. Even though we were dressed in dusty rags, the quality of our fabrics—earth-made hardshell jackets—and our tactical combat boots screamed "fat sheep" to anyone with a discerning eye.
“Entry tax.” One guard, missing a front tooth, held out a filthy hand caked in black grime. “One piece of refined iron per person, or equivalent food. If you don't have iron, we'll take the clothes off your backs.”
“And if we don’t pay?” Brad looked down at the guard, who barely reached his chest. His voice was a low rumble.
The guard wasn't intimidated. Instead, he let out a harsh sneer and pointed toward the top of the gate.
Several desiccated corpses hung there, swaying gently in the rust-red wind.
“Then you become ornaments,” the guard said, licking his lips as his gaze drifted to Zayla’s veiled figure. “Or, if the women are cooperative, they can head down to Red Lantern Alley to work off the debt...”
Chime.
The air froze.
There was no sound of a blade being drawn, but I felt a physical wave of killing intent explode from beside me. This wasn't the bravado of a street thug; it was the aura of a top-tier predator who had crawled out of a mountain of corpses.
Zayla hadn't moved, but I saw her golden pupils contract into vertical slits beneath her hood. In 0.1 seconds, she would use the claw-blades hidden in her sleeves to open these idiots' throats.
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I reached out and placed a firm hand on Zayla’s shoulder.
“Easy.”
I adopted a submissive, merchant-like tone. “Don’t mind the officers.”
I stepped forward, inserting myself between the guards and Zayla, my face plastered with a sycophantic smile that probably made Brad want to vomit.
“Deepest apologies, officers. We’re traveling merchants from the north. We were just hit by bandits; we truly don't have any refined iron left.”
“No iron?” The guard raised his spear impatiently. “Then get lost, or start stripping—”
“However,” I interrupted, pulling a small, transparent object from my pocket with the flourish of a magician. “I’d like to use this for the tax. I believe it’s more than sufficient.”
It was an object that absolutely should not exist in this world.
A plastic, disposable lighter, half-full of liquid fuel.
The two guards froze. They stared at the impossibly precise transparent casing, watching the clear liquid slosh inside. This level of Structural Integrity—a "crystal" shell with zero impurities—was something only High Elf artisans or Dwarven masters could produce in Valsalia.
“What is this? Some kind of... crystal trinket?” the guard asked suspiciously, reaching out to snatch it.
I flicked my wrist, avoiding his dirty hand.
“No, no. This is an... ancient relic. Known as the Palm-Flame.”
I smiled, my thumb pressing down on the ignition.
Click.
It wasn't the clunky sound of flint striking steel. It was a crisp, precise, and satisfying mechanical engagement.
Hiss—!
A stable, blue-tinged, and perfectly controlled flame erupted from the small metal nozzle.
No smoke. No pungent smell of sulfur. No fluctuations in mana.
The flame stood defiant against the cold wind, neither flickering nor dying.
“Ssss—!”
The guards gasped in unison, instinctively recoiling a step.
In this world, fire was sacred and expensive. Ordinary people spent minutes striking flint or using costly oils. Only noble mages could summon fire at will—but even a mage’s firebolt was a violent eruption of chaotic mana. It could never be this quiet, this stable, imprisoned within a tiny transparent box.
“Is this... a magic artifact?” The toothless guard’s voice trembled, greed finally overriding his caution. “How many uses?”
“Thousands. Perhaps more.” I released the trigger, and the flame vanished instantly, as if it had never been there.
I pressed it again. Click. The flame returned.
This "on-demand" certainty, this absolute control over the elements, was nothing short of a miracle to a primitive civilization.
“In the northern noble circles, this could trade for a champion stallion,” I said, tossing the lighter casually in my hand with a look of feigned regret. “But to enter the city... sigh, consider it my loss. Does this cover the tax for all four of us?”
“Yes! Yes, it does!”
The guard snatched the lighter, cradling it like the Holy Grail, terrified of spilling the "holy water" inside. He had no idea he was holding a piece of industrial trash that cost less than fifty cents back home.
“Get in! Don’t block the way!” the guard shouted, waving us through without ever taking his eyes off the orange plastic casing.
I nudged the still-fuming Zayla, and we moved quickly through the gates.
...
Once inside, the nausea-inducing smell intensified.
The streets were narrow and muddy, lined with crooked wooden shacks that looked ready to collapse. Shivering slaves were chained to posts, their eyes hollow and vacant. Goblin peddlers pushed carts of unidentifiable sludge, screaming their wares. In the dark alleys, several pairs of glowing eyes watched us with ill intent.
This was Rustwater Port—a lawless land where chaos and opportunity were indistinguishable.
“You really gave that to them?”
Lyn leaned in close, whispering with a pained heart. “Even if it’s cheap Earth-trash, in my ledger, that’s a Tier-1 Alchemical Igniter! It’s worth at least two gold coins!”
“It’s an advertising fee, Lyn.”
I adjusted my glasses, catching sight of several shadows following us in the periphery. I knew the "ignition performance" had already attracted several tails.
“In a place like this, showing wealth gets you robbed. But if you show High-Tech that they can't comprehend, you don't just attract bandits...”
I stopped in front of a shop with a massive gear hanging as a sign. The sign bore crooked letters in the Common Tongue: [Old Gob’s Miracle General Store].
“You attract the kind of major buyer we’re looking for.”
I straightened my collar and looked back at Brad and Zayla.
“Ready? It’s time to give this local merchant a lesson in Modern Industrial Standards.”
We just bribed a guard with a disposable lighter that cost $0.50 back on Earth. To them, it's a legendary "Palm-Flame Artifact." To us, it's just Tuesday.
Question of the Day: Why use a lighter instead of gold to pay the tax?
(Click to reveal the trade secret)
?? A) To save money (Lyn's choice).
Result: The Penny Pincher. True, gold is scarce. But carrying gold makes you a target for muggers. Carrying "magic artifacts" makes you a target for VIP buyers.
?? B) To avoid violence (Zayla's choice).
Result: The Diplomat. If we didn't pay, Zayla would have turned those guards into sashimi. While fun, cleaning blood off her clothes is annoying.
?? C) Market Disruption.
Result: The Capitalist's Move. Winner. It wasn't a bribe; it was an advertisement. By showing off "Stable Fire," we just told every power player in the city that we have tech they can't even dream of. Let the bidding war begin.
Follow and Rate. The grand auction is about to start.