Brief Visit to Lareen (3/4)
While Haalfrin waits for several weeks in his isolated cell, the doctors come every day to poke little needles into his veins and shoot medicine into his body. He also has to take so many pills that he feels like choking on them.
Whenever the doctors aren't around, they always leave him several books to read, as well as some rather interesting devices that people in Lareen use to entertain themselves – little puzzles, mostly.
The books themselves all seem to be full of history books on Lareen, as well as a few travel logs that detail some of the more interesting places to visit.
Out of curiosity, Haalfrin picks up the travel log first and flips through the pages.
"…Eh? Stanrock Island still exists? And it still has its original name?" he exclaims under his breath.
What're the odds of that?
Feeling a little urgent, Haalfrin flips to the part of the book that goes into more detail about Stanrock Island, and he reads the whole thing.
'… I see,' he thinks. 'I forgot that a land god was born on that mountain as I was leaving.'
Gods are immortal, and land gods in particular are bound to a certain location.
Naturally, with an immortal land god dwelling in the mountain where the Pit used to be, it would still have its original name.
Of course, all remnants of the Pit have long since disappeared, though the land god there testifies that there was once a prison under its mountain.
'Well, mind as well keep reading…'
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After about 2 weeks, Haalfrin is finally released from his "prison", and he's greeted by Mr. and Mrs. Gaman, who are both sitting on benches in a small foyer.
They may be very busy people, but they've interacted with the Rehkin people long enough to have heard a thing or two about this man. Naturally, they're too afraid of him to risk getting on his bad side.
Hence, they showed up an hour before his scheduled release, and they patiently waited for him.
Once everything is in order, they finally leave.
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Haalfrin, the Gaman couple, and their bodyguards all step out of the immigration building, and Haalfrin squints his eyes at the bright noon sky.
'Huh…,' he thinks, 'I never really thought about it before, but the sun up there is a completely different star. Funny how they both look exactly the same…'
"Sir? Are you all right?" Mrs. Gaman asks when she sees Haalfrin staring blankly at the sky.
"Huh? Oh, yes. I just got distracted," Haalfrin says. He starts walking down the street. "So, where to now?"
"Did you have anything in particular?" she asks.
Haalfrin shakes his head. "No. I'd like to just walk around and see the city for the day."
And so they do.
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The entire square mile around the World Gate has been completely sectioned off from the rest of the city. Haalfrin can certainly see some absurdly tall buildings in the distance, but the area around him is clean and flat.
Mr. Gaman uses that weird light disk spell again, and they're whisked away from the World Gate.
Once they leave the giant courtyard around the World Gate, they approach the city proper, which is basically a forest of metal and stone towers.
Frankly, these tall buildings remind Haalfrin a little bit of that city he saw in the Death Realm. That city had tall towers too… though the streets were empty in that other city.
Here, the streets are so packed full of people that Haalfrin subtly has the urge to throw up.
The streets down the middle seem to be lined with long railways with huge stretches of metal cables above. Using a far-sight spell on his eyes, Haalfrin sees that there are long, metal trains moving down these rails – all stopping periodically to let passengers on and off.
Looking up, Haalfrin sees that there are constant flashes of lights up above, where small light bridges are forming between the buildings and allowing people to walk between them.
As soon as the bridges are no longer being used, they wink out of existence again, so as to not block the sunlight from the streets below.
Presumably, these bridges are there to cut down on the traffic below.
Once they enter the city, the Gamans lead Haalfrin through the street, and the bodyguards do a fine job of politely keeping the crowd front touching their masters.
Can't have let any potential assassins or thieves get close enough to touch them, after all.
Being thronged by people on all sides, Haalfrin wrinkles his nose in disgust. 'It stinks here… The smell of sweat, body odor, and garbage is bad for the heart.'
Another thing Haalfrin notices is the… strange state that everyone seems to be in.
To be honest, Haalfrin had never seen a greater concentration of fat people in his life. It's like being skinny and muscular is strange here?!
Not only that, but the women are all dressed in… well… almost nothing, really. With the miniskirts and their breasts hanging out like ripe fruit, Haalfrin can't help but feel disgusted.
Not even prostitutes dress like that… right? RIGHT?
Even more concerning to Haalfrin is the general feeling that he's getting from all of their Spirits. He's not quite sure why… but the people here feel different… yet the same.
'Ah!' Haalfrin winces in frustration. 'I'm not Fina. I can't just tell what the problem is in a person just by looking.'
Haalfrin may have a strong spirit (for a human), but for the most part, the best he can do is tell that something is wrong.
'Weak!' he realizes. 'Their Spirits are weaker! Oh, that makes more sense…'
After all, people who have easy lives tend to have weaker Spirits. You could say that it's your adversities that shapes your Spirit…
Suddenly, Mr. Gaman looks over and frowns. "Why the disappointed face, Mr. Haalfrin?"
Mrs. Gaman adds, "Yes. I heard you came from the past. I thought you'd be wondering about the strange sights all around you."
"Oh, you mean the tall buildings and the advanced magic being used everywhere?" Haalfrin shrugs. "This world may have been comparatively primitive back in my day, but I've been places, and I've seen cities much more impressive than this one."
He was thinking of the Death Realm Das took him to so long ago...
"Oh... I see," Mrs. Gaman smiles. "Do you mind telling me where you've been that was more impressive than this?"
"The Death Realm," he announces with an even face – completely ignoring the either shocked or disbelieving faces from the people around him.
Haalfrin points up. "The buildings there were taller, and their spatial magic was great enough that each teleportation gate had a customizable contact point. Every building had dozens of teleport gates, and everyone could use these gate to go wherever they want." He then points down at the crowd. "The streets there were mostly empty, despite the population being many times larger."
"T-the Death Realm?" Mr. Gaman wrinkles his nose. "How did you get there?"
"Well… here's how it went…"
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Haalfrin ends up telling a greatly summarized version of his trip with Das to the Death Realm… all while they're sitting on some benches on the sidewalk next to the rail. In that time, he quickly finishes his story…
After a few minutes, a long train pulls into view, and everyone gets on.
Seeing that there is are four rail tracks, and that there is a rail moving on the opposite direction, Haalfrin interrupts his story to ask a simple question: "Why are there four rails? The way I see it, you'd only need two rails to go either direction. What's with the two in the middle?"
It's clear to see that the two rail tracks on the outer edge of the street are for the people on the sidewalk who want to catch a quick ride down the street. Would the two rails in the middle be redundant then?
"Oh, that?" Mr. Gaman clarifies. "The two rails on the edge of the street are the low speed rails. They make stops every quarter mile. Naturally, with how large the city is, traveling on this rail would take a very long time."
As the rail starts to carry them away, Mr. Gaman points to a train shooting down the center lane at a high speed.
"That rail is the high speed rail. It only makes a stop after every 5 miles, so it can afford to pick up a lot more speed."
Mr. Gaman then points to the small sidewalk that's in between all the rail tracks. "These are for the people who want to hop between the high and low speed tracks. For example, of you want to travel 13 miles away, you could ride the high speed rail for 2 stops, transfer over to the low speed rail, and ride 12 more stops. All in all, the trip would probably take about half an hour."
Haalfrin nods in acknowledgement, then goes silent.