Ivita told them to put away their weapons, as the situation ahead did not seem to involve any assassins or Knight Regiments.
Instead, in front of a stall, there was a young and robust man in chain mail who had knocked down five men that looked like vagabonds.
The stall owner was an old woman in her seventies, ancient and dressed strangely in a cloak made of fox fur, with silvery-grey eagle feathers as decoration on the collar.
At a glance, one could tell that wearing the cloak would provide warmth.
From the crowd of onlookers, Ivita learned what transpired.
It seemed that the five vagabond-looking men accidentally smashed the old woman's pottery as they passed by.
The old woman asked them to compensate her, but was met with rudeness.
The young man in chain mail, who happened to be passing by, couldn't bear to see them lay a hand on the old woman, so he beat them.
The vagabond in the carriage was kicked out by Black Wolf. "It's already cramped enough."
"Get out."
On the street, the vagabonds frantically hurled insults at the young man in chain mail.
"How dare you hit people! You're done for, we're going to notify the town mayor! We're going to inform the town's guild officials!"
"We won't let you off, we'll report you as a troublemaker!"
"My name is Gastrot Nubis," the young man calmly stated, "I tell you my name so that you can report me easily."
"I am a knight on a journey."
The vagabonds' faces changed drastically, their arrogance dissipating as they realized he was a nobleman because he had a surname.
If he was also a knight, they wouldn't be able to afford offending him.
They felt they were only able to bully the elderly woman because of her advanced age and lack of lucidity.
"Even so… this is a town, not a nobleman's territory!" stammered a vagabond. "This is the western territory of the Viscount nation, not your eastern territory."
"I am a foreign knight, I don't know the difference between the West and East territories." Gastrot Nubis scoffed, "But I do know one thing: do you have castle rights?"
"I've heard that in a town, for one to be protected by town law and receive citizens' treatment, one needs to have castle rights."
"Do you have that?"
The vagabonds turned pale and were speechless.
Gastrot Nubis drew his sword, stepped forward, "Ah, so you don't have castle rights and are not citizens of Kari Town, then it's not a problem if I kill you here."
"The town court would just make me pay a little money."
The faces of the vagabonds turned ashen.
A vagabond quickly took off his shoes and took out three pennies from within.
Perhaps this was all his belongings.
He didn't care whether it was enough or not, he just threw it on the ground and turned to run.
The other vagabonds also started running when they saw this.
Ivita turned to Rayli and others and asked, "What are castle rights?"
Rayli responded, "Master, castle rights refer to the ownership of houses and small plots of land in a town. Only the owners of these are considered town citizens."
"However, even passersby are protected by the law."
"That man is mainly a nobleman."
"And if a nobleman kills a commoner, as long as that commoner is not a citizen of the town, the town's court will certainly side with the nobleman."
Rayli, always yearning to regain his noble status, was very knowledgeable about the privileges a noble held over the common people. "In principle, secular courts always try to minimize the sentencing of nobles."
"On the other hand, The Church courts are slightly more just, but not by much."
Ivita nodded. It seemed that the economic and political structures of towns and manors were completely different.
The manor only housed farm slaves, nobles, and hired workers.
However, in the towns, there were concepts of citizens and guilds.
When those vagabonds talked about the West and the East, it seemed like the West and East of this Viscount's country were completely different worlds.
Ivita thought about it and figured it was probably similar to the difference on Earth before the American Civil War.
The old woman in front of the stall looked up, smiled, and said to Gastrot Nubis, "Thank you, young knight."
"May the God of All Things bless you and fulfill all your wishes."
"You can head east. You may find what you need there, but most likely, you'll only find disappointment."
"No one can help the child in your carriage, only God can save him now."
"Give up resisting fate. Sometimes, the pain of humans comes from the desire to go against destiny, and the desperation of being powerless. Let the child have a happy childhood in his last moments."
Gastrot paused, instantly looking back at the carriage behind him, startled.
No one should know about his friend's child's condition.
Maybe the old lady was just rambling.
Gastrot knew, every additional minute his friend's child spent in this town was a great irresponsibility to other people's lives.
They had to leave here immediately.
Gastrot nodded slightly to the old woman. "I must be leaving due to some urgent business, please forgive my rudeness."
He pulled out two coins from his pocket and threw them towards Ivita. However, upon seeing the lavish adornments on Ivita's right hand, his pupils suddenly contracted.
Clearly, he had realized Ivita was either rich or noble.
Gastrot bowed to Ivita. "Please forgive my rudeness, this is my compensation. If it weren't for my urgent business, I would have apologized properly."
With that, he drove his carriage away.
Ivita watched his retreating figure. "That knight was polite and had a sense of justice, completely overthrowing my impression of knights. I thought they were all like the Wild Boar Knights Group."
"He seemed capable and had his own principles, it would be great if he could swear loyalty to me."
Rayli gave a bitter smile.
Black Wolf suddenly reminded Ivita. "Your Highness, that guy's chain mail could exchange for a small manor. The white-fronted horse pulling his carriage could be traded for half a town. You won't be able to recruit him."
"Because he's too wealthy. Unless, he's willing to become your creditor."
Ivita rolled her eyes speechless, good thing, you just need to label 'King of Debts' on my forehead.
This is mocking me.
The old woman suddenly walked to the front of the carriage and said to Ivita, "Young man, you have a likable look, I want to give you a treasure."
"This can be considered my gratitude."
Ivita was taken aback, never mind the treasure, Gastrot helped you just now, but you didn't give him anything, and you want to give me?
"You're thanking me? But you didn't give anything to the knight just now."
The old woman shook her head. "It's not like that."
"When I said 'thank you' just now, it was already a reward for his help."
"But I don't need his help, so I only said 'thank you'."
"He even attracted attention to me, which is actually against my interests. It's only because of my kindness and experience, I didn't get angry at him."
"But I will give the treasure to you, because you're worthy of this treasure."
"Therefore, I thank destiny for bringing you to me."
Ivita felt dizzy, he suddenly realized at some point, the Old Witch had not said a word, merely staring intently at the old woman with the stall.