Brief Visit to Lareen (2/4)
The lanky guard is almost speechless now. "… Um, sir? You're going to need to take your bandages off too."
Obediently, Haalfrin takes the bandages off – revealing limbs made out of the purest blackness. They look like eerie holes in the universe; that's how dark they are.
If it were a younger version of Haalfrin, then the Death Aura in his limbs would've gone out of control – decaying everything around him and killing everyone here.
Luckily, he's long since learned to control these limbs – at least marginally, so nobody's noticeably dying, even with his black limbs are exposed.
Seeing the strange anomaly on Haalfrin's limbs, the lanky guard gasps in shock, and he nearly faints from fear.
With the massive pressure coming from these limbs, the guard knows that this is the source of the strange reading their security devices was picking up.
"S-s-s-sir?" the guard stutters, "We c-c-can't have that here…."
Haalfrin considers getting stubborn and claiming that this solid Aura is part of his body… but that's not quite true. Plus, he'd hate to complicate things even further, since he just wants to get this ordeal over with.
So unceremoniously, Haalfrin sits down and pulls all of his Death Aura back into his body gain.
Ever since the Ant Queen had chewed his limbs off during their war, he'd spent the rest of his life with his limbs being replaced with solid Death Aura.
Naturally, now that he's released the spell on his body, his limbs disappear, and he looks more akin to a pitiful handicapped person than an imposing war veteran.
This startles the lanky guard. Suddenly, he feels like a horrible person for making Haalfrin go through all of this. After all, he realizes the truth of what happened.
It's clear that this man has a huge amount of mana (though the mana is a little weird). This old man seems to have been using his mana to manually replace his lost limbs.
Clearly, if this visitor has enough mana to nearly break the sensor - all packed within his body, then he's definitely not a human.
'I've heard that there are these creatures called "Drakin" in this world that have huge mana pools,' the lanky guard thinks. 'Plus, this old man is a guest of the Gaman family. That must mean that he's an important figure in this world – not some criminal smuggling weapons.'
Feeling even more horrible now, the guard says in a hurried tone, "G-go ahead and put your limbs back on… and your clothes. You're good to go."
The black Aura shoots out of Haalfrin's bare stumps, and he spends several minutes carefully wrapping them up again. Then, he puts his clothes back on and collects his things.
As Haalfrin passes the lanky guard, the man points further up ahead. "Since you're new to Lareen, you'll need to get a visitor's badge from the lady at that desk."
"All right," Haalfrin nods at the terrified guard. "Good day."
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After talking with the clerk lady up ahead, she makes him a badge smaller than his palm.
The badge has his picture on it, his date of birth, his name, and a long string of seemingly randomized numbers.
"Make sure you keep this on you at all times," the clerk tells Haalfrin. "I you somehow lose it, you'll have to go to the immigrant office, and they'll have to perform an in depth background check on you before they issue you a new badge. That could take several days."
"Understood," Haalfrin says solemnly as he takes the badge with both hands. He reaches down and carefully puts the small card in his pocket, then he uses a quick spell to seal the pocket closed.
He may be a powerful mage, but he's not immune to pickpockets.
With everything in place, Haalfrin walks through the World Gate and disappears from Arra.
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After Haalfrin tumbles through the other end of the gate, he quickly gets back up and starts observing his surroundings.
Way back in ancient times, the World Gate was in the middle of a large pavilion with plenty of wide, open space. Around the pavilion was several docking stations where logistics suppliers could drop of their military goods.
Now, the World Gate is nestled inside a large room about 200 feet high and about 2,000 feet long.
All around the Gate are various, strange machinery that Haalfrin can't describe – all propped up and humming with mana.
Well, first, there appears to be a metal frame built around the edges of the World Gate, though Haalfrin doesn't understand why that's even necessary; it's not like the World Gate is going anywhere.
Haalfrin then sees that there is a small, rectangular space cut out around the World Gate and ringed with a small, picket fence.
Just outside of the fence, there are two distinct gates. Well, one of the gates is completely packed full of people – all waiting patiently in neat lines while security checks them all. Above that gate is a sign that reads, "To Arra."
The other opening in the fence, unlike the other, is completely empty. The sign above that one reads, "Welcome to Lareen."
Then, Haalfrin sees that the ceiling is dotted with rows of white lights – all shining down and illuminating the room in a comfortable glow.
The room itself smells clean – a little too clean.
Seeing Haalfrin wrinkling his nose in disgust, Mrs. Gaman quickly tells him, "Oh, don't mind the smell. The Ministry of Public Health is deathly afraid of a disease crossing between the worlds, so there's several enchantments that keep the air disinfected."
She points further up ahead, past the "Welcome to Lareen" sign. "You see the people gathering near the exit?" she says. "There are huge lines of private baths off to the side where everyone entering Lareen needs to wash up and change their clothes. Beyond that are several doctors that make sure you're completely healthy."
"Hmm… Very thorough. This is a lot more than what Brancotte ever did," Haalfrin remarks.
"Did you guys have to deal with plagues a lot more often?" Mr. Gaman asks.
"Eh…" Haalfrin isn't sure how to answer, so he shrugs, "I've never really paid attention to it."
'I wonder why it's a big deal?' Haalfrin wonders…
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Haalfrin may not know, due to him being quite unfamiliar with how plagues and immune systems work, but there's actually a real reason why plagues crossing the World Gate wasn't an issue by the time he was born.
You see, if a population is struck by a disease, then the survivors all have immunity to the disease.
Then, any new children born to them will gain immunity at a young age – either through drinking their mothers' milk, or simply inheriting it through their genes.
Thus, after a couple of generations, a previously deadly disease is conquered and forgotten by the natives living there.
However, things start to get messy when a foreign population suddenly trapses by and comes for a visit.
Indeed, these foreigners don't have immunity. That's a genocidal plague waiting to happen.
In fact, after the World Gate was discovered for the first time by Brancotte so many years ago, the empire was, indeed, struck by several successive plagues. Between all of these disasters, there was barely 10% of the Brancotte population left alive at one point.
However, out of the fire, the newer generations of Imperial Brancotte were all immune to Arra's diseases, so worrying about the plagues there became a little pointless.
Fast forward more than 100 thousand years later, and the diseases in both worlds have mutated.
Hence, Lareen is VERY correct in isolating all newcomers and making sure that they're completely healthy.
In fact, Haalfrin doesn't know about the kind of unrest that the Ministry of Public Health kicked up after the World Gate opened, and before trade began to happen.
There were several occasions where they had to put the entire country under lockdown whenever they found someone walking the streets that had some strange disease they'd never heard of.
Well… that's a story that has nothing to do with Haalfrin… but needless to say… it was tedious.
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When it comes Haalfrin's turn to be inspected by the doctors, he's discovered to be completely riddled with strange germs and foreign diseases. In fact, due to him being extremely old, he actually has several diseases that are extinct to the modern day Arra as well.
However, due to Haalfrin's obscenely strong spirit and his natural immunity, he was actually unaware of how sick he really was.
And so, Haalfrin's journey to explore his homeworld again is delayed by several weeks, and he prematurely has to part ways with Mr. and Mrs. Gaman.
Seeing the frantic looks on the doctors' faces when they rush him to a quarantined room is actually a little funny to Haalfrin.