Ra'Ok's words were true. He had not expected the city to be like this whatsoever. Originally, he had expected the city to just be a massive military camp. But looking at the actual city, it looked less like a military base, and more of just a regular city.
He could see normal regular people and their families walking around, kids playing with each other as adults talked with each other. In fact, it seemed even more lively than Agna Qel'a.
He could also see a lot of shops located in the city. Restaurants, souvenir shops, toy shops and so on and so forth. He could see every shop that a city was expected to have.
What was really interesting was that while Agna Qel'a had no shops, Na'Ok Thu was littered with them. Another unexpected thing was that alongside the people of the water nation, there were also people of the earth nation. They looked mostly like merchants, which was what led him to believe that despite its reputation, merchants from other nations were still allowed there, even having permission to sell cargo.
The security everywhere seemed extremely lax. He could see water nation guards playing cards with each other, as other guards were fast asleep while on duty. He could see some warriors drunk as they flirted with girls near them.
He wondered if this was a special occasion or holiday. Seeing his facial expression, Ra'Ok smiled, "If you're thinking that is some sort of holiday then you'd be wrong. This is just like another Monday."
Kain had originally thought that it would take the entire fire nation navy to have destroyed Na'Ok Thu. Looking at it now... it would probably only take a few fleets with a semi competent leader to take down the city. The situation was not looking good. Not at all.
Hoping that the waterbenders were still actually doing their jobs and staying on guard, he asked Ra'Ok, "Well, what do we do now? Where do we enlist? And what do we do after that?"
Ra'Ok simply smiled, "Well, I guess you should go to the army command center. It's to your left, you should go there as soon as possible to enlist. They'll pay you a month's worth of payment there. After that, go to the barracks to pick up a weapon. Considering you're a waterbender, you should also pick up one of the durable water pouches to hold your water incase of an emergency in a place where you don't have quick access to it. After that, you can have fun."
"Have.. fun?" Kain replied, a bit astonished that even Ra'Ok, a deputy leader was condoning this.
Ra'Ok pointed to the people around him, "Well, if you haven't been assigned a job yet, you can just have fun until morning comes. You can sleep in the barracks if you need to. When the morning comes I suggest only then should you ask for orders. Trust me when I say its not a good idea to ask right now."
Ra'Ok paused for a second, "Oh yeah, and do try and hide from Balam. He's been chewing out anyone who isn't doing their jobs, and if he finds a bunch of new recruits having fun as soon as they arrive, he's not going to be happy.
With that he left, walking towards a nearby restaurant, leaving Unaq and Kain in the middle of the road. They followed his instructions, going directly left towards the enlistment office. Confused by their new surroundings they asked a few people around them for directions to the office.
They finally ended up at a small building. The building had a banner of the water nation hanging next to the door, but they were still unsure if this was the correct place, considering they couldn't see a single soldier inside. Even as they entered, they didn't see a single soldier in the office.
The room they entered made up the entire office, save for a tiny bathroom in the corner that had a crudely made toilet sign engraved into it. In the very back of the room was one chair and a big desk with multiple drawers located behind the chair, stuffed with various papers. There was a bottle of ink with a brush alongside it on the table. There was also a bottle of beer on the table.
Around the room, he could see a few chairs and tables laying around, likely for people to wait for their turn on. Considering that the chairs and tables looked worn out, with cobwebs and dust on them he could tell that they hadn't been sat on or used for a long time.
As he internally changed the assessment of Na'Ok Thu from bad to terrible he approached the desk. As he got closer, he realized that there was someone sitting on the chair. The person had grey hair and was slumped over on the chair, asleep.
Not wanting to be rude, he knocked on the desk to try to wake up the man. When that didn't work and the man was still asleep, an annoyed Unaq forcefully shook him awake.
Suddenly awake, the officer groggily said, "Who... are... you two? Are you... new here?"
Great, he was drunk as well. Both of them annoyedly said, "Yes, we're here for enlistment. Would you please give us the enlistment papers."
The officer got out of his chair but fell almost immediately. Picking himself up, he then stumbled his way over to a drawer, "It.. should be here..." he said, bringing out the papers and sitting back down on the desk."
It only took Kain a second to realize there was a mistake on the paper, "This... is the paper for a leave application." the officer leaned over, looking at the paper, "Oh, yes... sorry about that." He then stood up again looking around for the papers.
Kain and Unaq sat on chairs, bored out of their minds as the officer looked around for thirty minutes, taking papers out of their drawers, looking at the paper before shaking his head and putting the paper back in another drawer. He even sometimes looked in drawers that he had already looked in, and the duo had to politely remind him he had already looked inside. Finally, he took out two papers and handed it to them.
Confirming that these were the right papers, he took the brush, dipping it in ink and writing down his name, address and that he was a waterbender. At least the system had at the very least gave him the ability to read, write and speak the language of this world. If he were to describe it, he would describe it as a slightly different sounding and looking version of Chinese.
After finishing his paper he waited for Unaq to fill in his. After they finished they presented the papers to the officer, only to realize that he had fallen asleep again.
Unaq was about to wake him with a push but Kain held back his hand, "If we give it to him he'll probably just leave the papers in the wrong drawers . How about we... leave it on the table and hope that he's less drunken when he wakes up?"
Unaq shrugged as he placed his paper back down on the table and Kain placed his paper on top. Thinking for a quick second, he put the bottle of beer on top of the paper so the wind would not blow it away.
Both of them left the office before realizing that they had forgotten to take the money they had been promised, rushing back to the office. The officer was still sound asleep and Kain was sure that he would take at least thirty minutes to actually locate the money.
As such they started looking around the drawers, with the officer still asleep as they scrambled around, looking for the money. Unaq found the pouches of money in a random drawer, mixed with various papers. Each of them took one pouch, before closing the drawer and walking out of the office.
It was time to take a visit to the barracks.