Sitting on top of the carriage, Nem glanced to the entrance of the jungle he just went through, almost expecting it to close itself before his eyes.
Of course, that wasn't the case. The plants would at least need 8 hours to fully grow back, not that it wasn't fast. In fact, the idea that he could be lost in the jungle for half a day and come back to find no exist was even scarier to Nem.
'I need to avoid this place if I'm alone, getting lost here would probably mean death. '
A place that would kill you for getting lost was really Nem's worst nightmare. Contemplating the trees and thick vines taller than the carriage, he got back in his room obediently.
'I don't want to fall down or for a snake to fall on me instead. '
Observing the scene passing by from his window, Nem gradually fell in a half-asleep state, something people who traveled a lot would be able to do according to the blessed of Darkness.
He was resting his eyes and even brain but still aware of his surroundings based on all other senses.
Actually, Nem was quite sure people on Earth could do this without necessarily traveling a lot, but he wouldn't tell them that.
As they progressed, Nem could feel the humidity in the air, and various things the travelers told him. The Thousand-Year Forest was extremely large, but mostly in length rather than width. Seeing the good state of this road, they would arrive sometime during the night or maybe early in the morning.
The jungle was filled with primitive tribes and things similar to the monastery he came from. The former and a part of the latter were formed by the people who were lost and in the jungle thousands of years ago.
Because of tradition, they ended up regarding this place as their home, and still existed to this day, perhaps in a different state. Aside from those, who could sometimes be hostile to outsiders, there were also numerous mythical creatures in certain regions.
Of course, the believers of Darkness had assured him that there weren't any near here, or nobody would have bothered making a road in the first place. After all, to beat them, one would need a strong Blessed or an army.
To be fair, Nem didn't quite understand how strong that was, nor did he fully get what difference would be between Tiers. The only clue he had was the terrifying hallucination he witnessed when Mr. Clark evaluated him. Since he didn't know his Tier or what the thing he saw meant, it wasn't much to go on. Still, it was enough to fill him with a sense of caution, if not fear.
Aside from those threats, they were also the more usual snakes, rare insects and large cats. Just enough for Nem to spend the rest of the trip worried and a bit on edge.
Even then, he soon fell asleep when the night came and woke up from the noise out of his room. Still half-asleep, Nem considered yelling them to shut up and let him sleep before he smelled a nice scent of freshly cooked bread.
Sitting up in his bed, he scratched his messy and dirty hair before fully waking up. The endless chatter and loud volume of conversation characteristic of a crowd resonated in his ears.
'Is this Lunhart, did I finally make it ?'
Even though this trip wasn't exactly normal, not much had happened so his boredom was still high and his lack of hygiene even higher. He couldn't wait to finally take a shower and join up with the civilization.
In high spirits, he opened the door and passed his head outside. His dark eyes saw large and thick stone walls. There were high and looked very sturdy, despite seemingly circling the entire city.
Nem was currently in front of a fortified building outside the walls, probably a stable. Not far was a large gate, with a steady stream of people passing through.
Some wore light cotton clothes, some rough linen and even the white shirts in the style of the Red Empire.
Standing against the carriage, just a few steps away from Nem, was one of the believers of Darkness, smoking a brown cigarette. Fortunately, the smoke was going in the opposite direction from Nem or he would have needed to explain to the man the dangers of passive smoking.
The man had noticed him and said :
"Finally awake, uh ? Don't worry, we only arrived twenty minutes ago. From there, you can just go through the gate and do what you need, it's not our job anymore." He seemed in a pretty bad mood for some reason, and didn't even look at the boy he was talking to.
Nem might have felt a bit bad about it if he actually expected anything from these people but since that wasn't the case, he simply shrugged and got out.
'This guy doesn't know his stuff, he didn't even ask me if I got caught trying to cross the border.' Nem joked inwardly instead of answering.
His only possession was a gourd he had stolen from one of them and two sticks of the right size he had picked up on the way.
Suddenly, he felt a bit intimidated. It had been a while since he last saw such a large group of people, even before his death, and his child's point of view wasn't helping either. If he didn't train so much and become a Cursed, which gave him more confidence, he definitely would have frozen up right there.
Not even bothering to ask for more information, Nem headed to the gate. As there wasn't any checking at the entrance, he didn't have to wait and simply inserted himself in the stream of people.
'I hope the Leo Hotel isn't too hard to find.'
Beyond the gate was a wide space devoid of buildings where people kept passing incessantly. Struggling to see beyond the crowd, Nem could only see what seemed to be a large market and something like an inn or restaurant.
Cautiously stepping in the crowd, he decided to go to the latter, since he could ask people where the Leo Hotel was.
His head started to hurt from the number of people around him. Because of the power of his Curse that he couldn't turn off, Nem kept seeing and noticing more and more details on completely different people. He almost automatically drew conclusions from them and therefore was overloading his brain and not really making any worthwhile discovery. Nem's forehead quickly got covered in sweat the heat was not helping either.
'This is like forcing myself to do math exercises on a subject I don't even really know.'
His face suddenly lit up with an idea. Nem stopped in the crowd, closed his eyes despite the possibility of being pushed around, and joined his palms together fully. This set gesture triggered the focus in his mind and instantly heightened his concentration.
Now that he had succeeded in his meditation, he could easily use this in an everyday situation, and it worked extremely well.
In this position, Nem used his entire concentration to put himself in a state of learning, like he was studying for a test taking place in only five minutes. Then he abruptly opened his eyes and separated his hands, ending his concentration.
As Nem looked around, his eyes darted in all directions unconsciously and he was still visibly sweating, but Nem was satisfied. Now, that he forcibly changed his state of mind, the automatic reaction he would have when observing people wouldn't be to draw conclusions but to learn from them.
Basically, what he was doing was looking at the person as an all after noticing the little details, associating their overall impression with that characteristic.
'This should reduce the toll on my brain for a while, until my state of mind changes again. I really don't regret taking my time in the monastery and learning those things.'
'As for the use of learning this ? Uh, maybe... Oh, right, it will definitely help me identify abnormalities on a person, if someone had a lot of details that don't coincide with their overall impression, then I know they are disguised or something. Well, probably...'
Nem wasn't truly convinced, but it was better than nothing. After all, it wouldn't hurt.
Finally arriving in front of the building, Nem could finally confirm that it was actually written "Lisa's Saloon" on the building and that it was not as full as one could expect from its position in front of the gates.
He pushed open the door, reminding Nem of old western movies and entered a large room filled with tables, chairs and a bar counter.
His red eyes were drawn towards the woman behind the counter, who had puffy eyes and hands which kept twisting each other in anxiety. Since his arrival didn't seem to shock anyone, he decided to listen to her conversation with a man drinking.
"My husband wouldn't disappear like that in the jungle ! He always went there two times a week and came on time with meat and clean water. That was never anything dangerous here, I even went with him one time by curiosity. I'm telling you, something bad has happened !"
The man, who seemed to genuinely empathize with the lady, expertly finished his drink in one sip and answered seemingly concentrating to remember something :
"20 minutes North from the West gate, after the ruins of the Darr tribe, right ? That's easy, I just need to follow the stream until the ruins ! Don't worry, I'll go with a few of my men first thing this afternoon ! We'll find Paul, Lisa."