With no artificial light, the night was really dark.
The light of the stars that littered the skies was dimmed by the thick clouds. With such limited vision, I could hardly make out the shape of the nearest buildings.
And as we followed the guide that somehow navigated the narrow backstreets of the town without any source of additional light, the darkness absorbed us into itself, hiding our presence from anyone watching.
Sadly, the same didn't apply to the sounds of our hurried steps as we rushed to get through this not-really-safe part of the town.
Still, the connections of the Imperial Express had to be as great as the rumors spoke, as in mere few minutes, we managed to somehow reach the city's outskirts where the dense housing gave way to much more open land.
Instead of two and three-story-high buildings, we now walked past small ranchos that quickly turned into full-fledged farms and grazing pastures.
'And we still have to reach the city wall,' I thought, gulping my saliva down. The difference between what I expected and what I experienced was simply too much. Not even my wildest imaginations spurred by reading novels or watching anime allowed me to ever picture something as grand as the very first city I visited in this world!
'Regardless of how it came to be, this dive is freaking awesome,' I thought, finally getting to calm my thoughts a little. The fact that we moved in a hurry and without a single word only augmented my focus, allowing me some time to slowly consider my situation.
And it was weird.
From being shot in the head by a pneumatic stun gun, through awakening in the middle of a deadly tournament, all the way to receiving a beautiful slave and now skipping the town to avoid certain death…
My recent past could easily serve as a basis for a damn novel or something! And we were talking about what? A few hours at most?
"It's here," the leader of our guides spoke up for the first time since we departed from the backyard of the inn.
Forced out of my line of thought, I raised my eyes to assess the situation.
We stood by the fence that appeared and then disappeared into the darkness. But the fence's outline allowed me to spot the outline of a huge farm building a bit deeper down the road.
'The stables.'
If the city took me by surprise with its enormity, then the stables looked every bit like how I expected them to be.
A bright light suddenly exploded right into my eyes, coming out from the insides of the house the outline of which I noticed.
Someone opened the door.
"Let's go," the guide hurried us up before stepping forth himself.
Soon, from the cold darkness of the night, we stepped into a world of light.
There was no reception in the normal sense of the word. No counter awaited travelers who were about to disembark on another journey.
No, right as we entered the building, we ended up in a huge room with horse boxes snuggled into two rows on each of the sides of the main hall.
Only about a third of the boxes were currently filled, with a constant stream of stable staff roaming around the place to keep its operations up.
Keeping horses alive and awake at this ungodly hour required far more work than an amateur could imagine. Yet, my host was a mercenary, someone who spent as much on the road looking for employment as much as he did fighting for money.
'Just seeing the scale of this thing…'
Even though it wasn't my first time visiting stables like that due to my host's memories, it was still the first time for the new me.
And by understanding the magnitude of everything that happened around me, I could feel just how crucial this place had to be to the operations of the Imperial Express.
Every bucket of feed was worth at least a silver coin if not a few. Every bail of water for the horses to drink had to be manually carried by a damn expensive worker. Someone had to take care of the saddles, someone else had to fix them and then another person had to make or order new ones to exchange those that wore down.
'With the technological means of this setting, creating such an organization…' I thought, shaking my head like a tourist during sightseeing while our guides took us deeper into the open hall.
Before long, an older man in thick, fur clothing spotted us and made his way to cross our path.
"I hope you are well rested, sir," the stable officer spoke without any introductions or spare pleasantries. "Because for what I was ordered to prepare, you better run them like hell to squeeze every bit of worth from the treasure you are paying us."
Despite the relatively crude approach, this grandpa's direct way of speaking somehow ended up charming me a bit.
It was crude, bordering the realm of rudeness in fact… But I could sense a strange kind of warmth that only an old, experienced person could produce.
"And before I listen to the list of requests, I'm obliged to inform you that the price of your departure increased five-fold," the old man added while raising his hand, most likely to stop me from cutting into his words.
"I mean not to dispute it," I gently nodded my head, "but may I ask why?"
I could guess the answer.
The nobles weren't going to give up on me, not so quickly, not so easily.
And as powerful as the imperial express could be, especially in one of the bigger imperial cities… It was still but a private enterprise, an organization created by merchants and merely backed by the imperial crown, not directly sponsored by it.
There was a limit to how much they would be willing to put on the stake to keep me safe, a limit precisely marked by how much money they estimated I could bring them.
A small smile trickled on my lips.
'No matter the world, money flows the same,' I thought, strangely relaxing even if the moment called for me to start getting anxious.
"There was some pressure…" the old servant hesitated, but only when it came to picking the right words. "Some pressure on our investments to break our code and reveal certain information. And by association, that increased the risk of doing business with you, sir."
Listening to the old man's eager explanation, I struggled to keep my small smirk from transforming into a fully-fledged, mouth-wide smile.
'Money flows the same.'
I took a deep breath.
'Still, it's only five times the normal prize. That means the situation didn't make them call quits yet,' I thought.
Whatever the cost of escaping the city was supposed to be, it was bound to be mere spare change when compared to the fortune in my current position. And it would be more than dumb to hide it away if I could make proper use of it!
"I understand," I nodded my head, ready to forge my thoughts into actions. "I'm more than happy with the current prize. But my request won't be easy," I added with a smile.
The pressure has yet to reach the point where the Imperial Express would judge dealing with me to be too risky. But that also meant it was only a matter of time before it would happen.
As such, rather than waiting for the enemy to prepare the stage for their revenge, I was going to skip the town.
But with the next words that came out of my mouth, the easy part of the process came to an end.
"I will need a total of nine horses. A main cruiser, a carrier, and a versatile spare for me and each of my companions."