Outside the office for security personnel at the Golden Ayodhya transport station. Mulah stood there and was unsure what to do, he just stormed out angrily from the captain's office and into the transport station. Satoshi was still inside, so he couldn't ask him.
Suddenly, Mulah's hand was grabbed from behind, it was Satoshi. Satoshi
took Mulah and walked away from the office for security personnel. Mulah looked behind them and when he didn't see the person he expected to see following them, he asked "No Nuno?"
"We don't talk about Nuno," Satoshi answered.
Mulah's eyes lit up as he looked at Satoshi. Satoshi responded, "Shut up and walk with me. It has been 2 hours since we got here, and that transport shuttle that will take you home should already be ready. Let's get out of here for now."
Satoshi and Mulah walked to a place near the exit gate of the transport station, where there was a simple office for transport shuttle service. Outside the office, there were several small shuttles parked in a row.
Mulah checked the shuttle numbers of each shuttle and he found the one he registered to. He opened the passenger door and went in. Satoshi went in with him and closed the door.
They each took a seat and exhaled a long breath.
Mulah looked at Satoshi from the side and asked, "So…Nuno?"
Satoshi, his gaze to the front repeated, "We don't talk about Nuno."
Now that there were only the two of them in the transport shuttle, Satoshi and Mulah spoke in Commoners. Mulah had been talking in Xinjia-korean and a variation of Mhasgaran dialect, and everytime Satoshi would respond in broken Xinjia-korean and a mixture of Mhasgaran dialects.
But now that there were only the two of them, they dropped the whole foreign royalties-servant charade.
Mulah kept staring at Satoshi, he looked unsure about something but then said,"Did you know that, in Dismay Broadway, there was this musical-"
"I know about the musical", Satoshi cut him short and looked at Mulah,
"What the hell were you thinking to be suddenly screaming like that?"
"So you do know it! It's been stuck in my mind since I heard about his name!" Mulah excitedly exclaimed.
"That doesn't explain why you suddenly went batshit crazy." Satoshi retorted
"Well…I was kind of nervous when the captain brought out the torn sleeve with the name, so I pretended to be angry like before to draw your attention and give us some time like before. But when I saw you seem not to understand my intention I panicked and just blurted out whatever…hahaha.." Mulah explained himself, his voice got quieter and quieter as he did.
"It's been stuck in my mind, I can't help it." he looked embarrassed as he said this. "But how did you manage to get out though?"
Satoshi proceeded to tell Mulah about what happened, how he explained why the "allegedly" Excellent Magister of Xinjia-kor went apeshit, and how he said he was going to calm down the lord and then return to the captain's office.
Mulah intercepted Satoshi's explanation, "Wait, did you really say that to the captain? You said, 'We don't talk about Nuno'..."
"Damn sure I did," Satoshi said, seeming proud of himself.
Mulah finally lost it. It took him a while and a whole lot of effort before he managed to control himself. While it was quite a bit clever and a little bit funny, he couldn't understand why Mulah would lose his mind like this.
The driver of their personal transport shuttle finally came and they finally left the transport station. Since he didn't have any particular plan in mind, Satoshi had accepted Mulah's invitation to visit his house.
The personal transport shuffle would now take the two of them directly to Mulah's family house. They even included handling Mulah's mountainous amount of belongings from the big vehicle they came with from Mhasgara to the one they were currently in.
There were only a few others that were missing: the boxes of gifts.
Those were still left at the captain's office, along with Nuno. When they or Nuno opened it up later, they would be so pissed, because the contents were just trash.
Satoshi and Mulah spent a long time back on journey from Mhasgara and Istindi, and Mulah was a man with an appetite. He continuously ordered things and insisted Satoshi on ordering some too. Satoshi didn't want to reject this because he was also curious about the kind of food they have in this kind of place.
So they ate while they talked, and in the end they were left with quite the amount of trash. Satoshi then took those used packaging boxes and neatly wrapped it with the patterned sheets of paper that he made when Mulah egged him to demonstrate his water-light printing technique.
Since it was just a demonstration, Satoshi didn't need his usual equipment. Just water, light from the illumination crystal in their cabin, tea and coffee for colors, and some papers that he brought from home.
Satoshi was just planning to use those as fake gift boxes, so his plan of pretending to be a party if traveling nobility and his servant looked more convincing. He didn't plan at all that it would become some kind of "collateral". If he didn't leave those behind in the captain's office, the captain wouldn't be so trusting letting him leave to calm his "supposed" lord.
"Here, your medallions." Satoshi handed back Mulah's two medallions to him.
One was an identification medallion for the general employees of Imperial Descendants of Xinjia-kor. While the other one was a token of appreciation given to Mulah as part of a very important team of experts, so this one was more like jewelry than an actual medallion. He asked Mulah for both of these back at the restaurant.
The other thing Satoshi did back at the restaurant was to ask one of the security personnel that was acting as their escort to deliver the other things they had on him at the time to the transport shuttle office. He argued since those were personal belongings that have nothing to do with the allegations it would be silly to carry them around. The escort did check and found nothing suspicious so they agreed to help.
"Do you want this?" Satoshi asked Mulah while holding a small bag. It contained quite a bit of money and other valuable items. It belonged to Nuno.
"Aren't those…Nuno's?" Mulah asked.
"Yep."
"You villain!"
It took Mulah some time to truly understand what Satoshi just did to Nuno. He left him there with the captain of security personnel and several boxes of trash, after taking his money!
"Don't say that, that kid definitely WAS trying to pick-pocket the young master and got caught. When he accidentally bumped into me his reflex was to grab those expensive looking boxes. But when the young master caught up to him, he stuck close and was obviously looking for a chance to escape by using us." Satoshi defended himself.
"Heck, I'll even bet money that he has already planned to scam us out of those boxes once he got out of that office!" He continued, looking very convinced.
Mulah could only blink his eyelids when he heard Satoshi's retort.
"When they realize that something is wrong and search him, they won't find anything, they can only release him. So in a sense I am helping him by taking this!" Satoshi continued.
Mulah was now looking at Satoshi with mouth agape, he couldn't believe this young man's way of reasoning.
"Please remember not to "help" me in the future." Mulah said, emphasizing in the word help.
"Seesh..whatever, you have no vision, I'm doing this for the greater good." Satoshi ended.
"Haha, of course you are. Anyway, look to your left." Mulah said, after which he signaled the driver to slow down.
Satoshi looked toward his left through the window and was instantly amazed by what he saw. Rows and rows of stone temples tower over a huge swathe of land, one after the other. Looking further to the distance, to the left and right relative to this particular temple, there were more clusters of the stone temple.
They looked similar in style to the ones closest to Satoshi, but there were differences in the way they were arranged. Further still, there was a cluster stone temple with a lot more individual temples, in much more complex arrangement, and even bigger size. Even from Satoshi's point of view, they look bigger, despite being much further away.
Each individual temple was adorned with complex reliefs, depicting different deities and living creatures, some even looked like they could have complete stories. All these individual stone temples look similar to one another, but inspected carefully they were all individually unique.
Satoshi shivered when he thought how many variations of relief all these stone temples must have.
"A thousand temples," Mulah said, "Each different than the next, arranged in a concentric geometry, that judging the way it was arranged, might have been a complex restriction array or a grand conduit formation meant to channel a massive amount of energy."
"Whoaa…" Satoshi was at a loss of words and could only whoa.
"Or it could also mean to represent some philosophical symbolism. Since they were considered ancient even by Second Era standards, we wouldn't know for sure." Mulah continued his explanation.
With a serious face he continued, "For me the main takeaway should be this: never underestimate what a horny man can do!"
Satoshi looked at Mulah, he looked unsure, "Are those the one that was made for-"
"Yup"
"Do they still have the one that was made fro-"
"Never been found. It is speculated to have been pillaged during the Third Era, most of what can be found here are reproductions from various surviving records, you see."
"Ah…I see." Satoshi said.
Satoshi looked back at the stone temples as the shuttle drove further. He almost felt sad, not because they no longer have the one he mentioned, but because such grand structures that marked the history of humanity's achievement had been mostly lost. Marred by various collapses and the shifting eras.
It was as if the world itself was trying to erase it, or the generation that came later was trying to erase the ones before.
Satoshi and Mulah sat in silence as they continued their journey. Satoshi was still thinking about what he just saw, while Mulah was being considerate.
Mulah considered Satoshi as a young man that cared deeply about knowledge and wisdom. This man just saw an ancient artifact of years gone by that might contain understanding and knowledge about the era and the civilization that built it, so it must have left this man with quite an impression.
The Golden Ayodhya sphere of governance took quite a good chunk of land within the Giava Territory, thus it would take a while for them to get from the transport station to Mulah's family house. Right now they were just approaching the border into the city while Mulah's house would be further into the inner city.
Satoshi ended his contemplation when he noticed the scenery outside began to change. Various buildings could now be seen on both sides of the road, they were of various sizes and shapes but each one of them was grand.
Branching outwards from the main road they were traveling in, Satoshi saw smaller streets every couple blocks. Those streets were also filled with various buildings.
There were restaurants, clothing shops, bookstores, banks, libraries, entertainment centers, hospitals, and many other kinds of buildings. There were also some public places like parks, orchards, and sports fields. But two things caught Satoshi's attention the most: the schools and the youth.
"There are so many schools and young people. Is this the school district?" Satoshi couldn't help but ask Mulah, his eyes still glued to the scenery outside.
Mulah answered Satoshi's question with an expression that said he knew it was coming. "The whole Golden Ayodhya is a school district. Those young people are all here from various territories and even provinces. They came to prepare themselves for various entrance tests and trials that will be held once a year."
Mulah continued further, "The city district is called Golden Ayodhya due to historical reasons, but nowadays it is also known by a different name: Myriad Adepts!"
—
The transport shuttle that carried them finally stopped in front of a particular gate in a quiet residential area. The gate itself was wide, but the walls on both sides of the gate itself were even wider.
Mulah and Satoshi got off the transport vehicle and stood in front of the gate. Satoshi's gaze was intensely observing the name plaque on top of the gate: Lah Mansion.
"When you said 'family house'...were you being humble or just messing with me?" Satoshi asked Mulah.
"What do you mean?" Mulah asked back instead of answering.
"How is this a 'house'?! It's a freaking palace!" Satoshi exclaimed.
"hahaha, it's thanks to you, I'm glad you like it." Now Mulah was actually being humble.
"Are you secretly some kind of notorious criminal boss? Are you some kind of drug lord?" Satoshi tried to pry.
"Hey, if there's anyone criminally minded between the two of us, that would be you." Mulah defended.
While Satoshi and Mulah were standing outside the gate, throwing jabs at each other, an entourage of people could be seen approaching the gate from inside. Two ladies, one of them younger than the other, followed by some people that looked like servants.
The two ladies seemed refined and were wearing simple clothes that looked exquisite.
"Father!" the younger one of the two ladies exclaimed and ran ahead of the entourage. She jumped and hugged Mulah.
"Hahaha, look at this naughty girl, you should properly say your greetings first." Mulah reprimanded the young lady but didn't seem to be angry.
"You are not a little girl anymore, are you not ashamed to be acting like this infront of your Uncle Satoshi?" Mulah said to the girl while introducing Satoshi.
"Ah, forgive me Uncle Satoshi, Ashya greets Uncle." Mulah's daughter Ashya said her greeting to Satoshi, her head bowed.
"It is fine, I don't mind. Have you been well?" Satoshi responded.
"Thanks to you, Uncle." Ashya said back.
While they were conversing the older lady and the servants finally caught up with Ashya. The older lady looked at Mulah with a warm loving gaze, there was a tint of relieved longing on her eyes. She said to Mulah, "Welcome back, have you been well?"
Mulah looked back at the lady, the intense look of longing that had been there the whole journey here had finally found its port. He looked deeply at the lady and said, "Thanks to you."
Satoshi quietly observed all this. It was a very brief and simple interaction between this pair of husband and wife, but for some inexplicable reason Satoshi could feel surges of emotion that the two of them must feel. Their words were simple and short, but Satoshi somehow felt how much both of them must have waited to say those to one another.
"Satoshi, this is your sister-in-law, Mahalini." Mulah introduced her wife to Satoshi, referring to Satoshi as if he was a brother.
Satoshi was quite touched, he bowed slightly to Mahalini and greeted her. "Greetings, sister-in-law."
Mahalini returned the bow and politely replied, "Greetings, brother in-law. I hope you've been well."
"I met him at the transit station back at Mhasgara, since then we have traveled together. You must hear the unbelievable things that happened during our travel!" Mulah said to his wife and daughter, looking very eager.
"Let's save that for later and just go inside for now, brother Satoshi must be tired from the trip' Mahalini interjected.
Mulah slapped his own forehead, he then said to Satoshi "That's true! Satoshi, let's rest for a bit now. I can arrange for servants to prepare a guest house for you. Later, we should have dinner together and chat with my family."
"That sounds good." Satoshi shortly answered.
Satoshi was being led by a servant to a guest house prepared for him, he honestly could really use some sleep right now. When they parted ways, Satoshi overheard Mulah mention Dismay Broadway to his wife and daughter. Satoshi couldn't help but chuckle.
—