[Sulphat Superhighway, Duchy of Grahm, Dalycon Union of Duchies]
(30th, Black Sea Moon (VII), 644 ASY)
"Um, Daniel?" Ashe turns to look at Daniel who is busy mending his torn shirt together. "What happened yesterday night?"
"Honestly, I'm not too sure myself," Daniel sighs. While he never slept much, to begin with, last night's attack along with the self-doubt that came with it had caused him to sleep even less. He started to doze off as the sun was peeking its rays over the savanna's horizon. "Some I didn't know vampire attacked me claiming to know me, and he said I was Xacont… It's all very worrying,"
"You know, I can't tell if you're making a joke or not when you say that…" Ashe sighs. She turns to look at Angelica, who is half-asleep inside of the cart. "I would say for you to get some rest, but seeing the state that Angelica is in and the fact she's taking up most of the cart, I'd say you should wait till we get to Zaphrius' actual hotels,"
"We'd be there by now if you'd actually decided to walk yesterday. You were good at track back in Middle School, what happened?"
"I'm not sure… I've gotten progressively worse and worse at athletics the more time we spend in this world,"
"Ditto for me. But I guess with Alchemy you can just cheat that away. Man, if ONLY you had a spell that made you have infinite stamina…" Daniel turns to stare at Ashe.
"W-Well…"
"I swear, you are never going to survive in a combat situation without someone to help. Do you even remember half of the spells that you learned?"
"Ehehe…" Ashe half laughs.
"You know, if you were a guy right now, I would smack you,"
"Hey! Equal rights, equal fights!" Moricant yells out from below. He had always been the main person who Daniel had abused the most due to his lack of perception.
"Moricant, I will tie you to the back of the cart if you don't shut up,"
"Hey, that beats running,"
"Huh, let's see how far that ridiculous regenerative property of yours can last," Daniel snaps his fingers and a thick rope attaches itself to Moricant's legs, attaching him to the back of the cart. This causes him to lose his balance and tumble to the ground in a pile, being dragged along by the speed of the cart that he is tied to.
"Isn't that really dangerous?" Lucya half-yells in exacerbation, looking down at Moricant's tumbling body.
"Don't worry about him, he's going to be fine," Daniel sighs.
"How? He's being dragged behind us!"
"I've seen him regenerate an entire arm in a matter of seconds. This won't be the worst he's faced,"
"But he's still being dragged behind us!"
"I'm fine! This certainly beats walking!" Moricant yells out from behind the cart after finally stabilizing his body.
"See? He's fine,"
"But- Doesn't it hurt?"
"Don't question it Lucya. Moricant will forever be stupid and Daniel will forever agree with his stupid ideas for his own amusement," Ashe turns from the front of the Cart to face Lucya, who is sitting in the back.
"When have I ever agreed to his actually stupid ideas?" Daniel asks.
"Like what?"
"Like the one about shrinking a cannonball to the size of a musket ball and shooting it out of a musket with an anti-magic ring attached to the barrel. Remember what happened when he did it without my permission and ruined not only our only anti-magic ring but burned the entire camp down?"
"In my defense, I am stupid!" Moricant yells out from behind the cart."
"That's not a defence you moron!"
"What do you mean? Tyson said I can use it as a defense!"
"That's not a good defense though. You can say that you didn't know what would happen and that you were too curious, but saying that you are stupid just makes my point more clear,"
"What? How is that any different to just admitting that I'm stupid?"
"That's the point! You don't want to admit that you're stupid because that means that, as a person who isn't stupid, you have to listen to me when we are writing a plan,"
"How does that make any sense?"
"How does listening to a stupid person make any sense?"
"Because- oh right,"
"Exactly,"
"What a nice conversation you three are having in the back over there, but can we please focus on the fact that there we are about six hours behind schedule and get more things done?" Tyson hollers from the front.
"Alright! We'll go 50!" Daniel yells back. "Alright Ashe, 50 kilometers an hour, if you may?"
"Will do," Ashe nods as she wills the invisible servants to move faster.
"Hang on in the back there!" Lucya shouts worriedly to Moricant hanging out the back as the cart lurches forwards.
[City of Zaphrius, Duchy of Grahm, Dalycon Union of Duchies]
(30th, Black Sea Moon (VII), 644 ASY)
"So this is Zaphrius, huh… It's much larger than Acnoc, that's for sure…" Ashe mutters to herself.
"Of course it would be, there is a river nearby. We're in a pretty dry area of the continent right now, so having a river is one of the only ways a human city of this size can arise," Daniel explains. They are currently standing outside the gates of a massive city wall. The wall is made of smooth steel and concrete as if a modern construction company was told to make the strongest wall they could. The gates are made from what appears to be hardened aluminum, light enough to open and close, but heavy enough to withstand most light siege artillery. This massive structure juts out of the savanna's dry soil, forming a barrier in which the natural world ends and the artificial one starts.
"So how exactly do we get in?" Tyson asks.
"Simple. We go in,"
"What!" Moricant, Tyson, Ashe, and Lucya collectively yelp.
"Isn't that insecure?" Ashe asks.
"They will let anyone who wants to go in?" Tyson continues Ashe's question.
"Yup. Most areas of the city are free for anyone to enter and leave. Only the military and major civil areas are subject to checks," Angelica answers before Daniel can.
"What she said. Though, I would pay to hide me and Angelica's faces, seeing as we are wanted,"
"That's true…" Tyson mutters to himself.
"Don't worry about it, the seats lift up!" Daniel smiles, heaving on the cart's seats, opening up a large space underneath that could fit a person laying down. There are two sets of seats, thus the cart can hide two people.
"When did you have time to make these?" Lucya asks.
"I always make these holds whenever I make carts or other modes of transport. It's important to be able to smuggle things through security," Daniel shrugs.
"Even ships?" Moricant asks.
"Moricant, making smuggling holds in ships is even easier, even more so considering people don't know what double and triple bottoms are," Daniel pats Moricant on the back.
"What's a double and triple bottom?" Tyson asks.
"What it seems Tyson," Daniel mutters with an annoyed look.
"So are we going to sneak in or are we just going to stand here staring at the giant walls?" Lucya asks.
"Yeah yeah, we should actually get on with it,"
"You know, when I you said it would be easy to smuggle a person through a gate, I wasn't expecting it to be that easy," Tyson sighs. The six of them had not only smuggled Daniel and Angelica through the gate without much any hassle, partly because of the extreme lack of guards, and also because of Daniel's great handiwork. They are now sitting in a hotel room. It was supposed to be a communal room, but they could rent one out since there were six of them.
"What did I tell you? I've this isn't my first time doing this, and it certainly won't be the last. It'll be good to be able to practice making vehicles with built-in smuggling systems," Daniel shrugs.
"Still, getting through that should not have been that easy. What is with that lax screening that we went through?" Tyson mutters. "Something definitely feels off about this…"
"Not really? It's always been this way. The screening to get in the city is basically none, while getting to anything important to the state is nearly impossible unless you work for the state," Angelica answers.
"That's very odd… I thought Dalycon was some sort of police state? It certainly sounds like one if their employing 'the devil of authority,'" Ashe asks.
"That couldn't be further from the truth. Dalycon citizen's wellbeing is prioritized quite highly, being only behind secularization, the military, the economy, and scientific development ranking higher," Daniel responds. "Though, I'm not sure I agree with the methodes that they used to achieve the results that you see. Slave labor, even if they sold themselves into it, always hits a bit too close to home."
"What? Slave labor?" The four others exclaim in surprise. Angelica sighs.
"Yup. If you are so poor as to need the state to help you live, you become a 'Servant of the State', which for all purposes makes you a slave to the state," Daniel explains
"I mean, the other alternative for those people is to starve to death, so…" Angelica interjects.
"I know. It's effective and effiecent. But it just hits something within me. I feel like it's a line that shouldn't be crossed…"
"Why does it hit close to home?" Moricant asks.
"Moricant, let's not go there…" Ashe stares at Moricant.
"No no, it's fine. They deserve to know as much as you two do," Daniel shakes his head.
"What do we deserve to know?" Lucya asks.
"My life before I came to this world. Or rather, my childhood," Daniel smiles sadly.