Chapter 35: Dragons, People, and Towns
Before entering the passage generated by the Authority of a mysterious fellow kin, Hikigaya had entertained various speculations. After all, he himself possessed the ability to create similar gateways, though what he crossed was merely time and space.
Regarding the lady "Aisya" mentioned by Raffaelo and others, Hikigaya, due to personal linguistic habits, preferred to pronounce her name as "Aisha." Both Voban and Luo Hao had offered occasional evaluations of her, with the common thread being that she was a great deal of trouble.
In a strict sense, she was neither an ancient person like Voban and Luo Hao, nor a modern one like Doni, Alexander, or Anne; it was more appropriate to classify her as a person of the early modern era. She emerged as a Campione during the height of the British Empire, the same era when Chinese civilization, which had dominated East Asia for millennia, was defeated by an external civilization for the first time.
Aisha's passage was completely different from Hikigaya's. Hikigaya's passage was like a turbulent river—hardly a pleasant journey—where endless afterimages of time flashed wildly in the "water," attempting to pour into the traveler's mind. From those fragmented images, indescribable and incomprehensible aberrations might occasionally surge out to interfere with the traveler's transit.
In contrast, Aisha's passage was silent and lightless—absolute stillness and boundless darkness. Here, Hikigaya could feel himself moving forward, but he could not control his speed. In the profound darkness, there was only a small white light flickering ahead, like a star in the night sky; it was the exit, pointing the way for the traveler.
Despite entering only slightly later than Doni, Hikigaya could not sense Doni's presence at all. He paddled his limbs slightly, but it seemed useless. Using his Authorities was the same; it wasn't that the Authorities were useless, but rather that the space here was different from the outside world. It seemed to control everything, ensuring the traveler's safety while simultaneously preventing them from using any means to alter their speed of passage.
The distant light ahead began to grow larger. Hikigaya discovered it was a sphere of light about six or seven meters in diameter, and he felt a suction emanating from it. He did not resist, allowing the sphere to suck him in.
The next moment, a strange landscape appeared before his eyes.
A mighty, deep-blue river appeared beneath his feet, with countless lush green trees standing along its banks. Because he was in mid-air, Hikigaya could observe that this region had a distinct hilly terrain. He adjusted his body in the air and slowly descended.
During this process, he saw a fortress on the riverbank. The architectural level was roughly early medieval; in form, it was Western-style and clearly the kind of fortress used primarily for military purposes—evident that humanity was still a "player" in this world.
Just as Hikigaya landed on the ground, two dark shadows swept over his head. They were two dragons; compared to the one in front of the castle hotel, these two more closely resembled the evil dragons of Western mythology. Hikigaya noticed they had horns on their heads, similar to those of a bull. The two winged dragons swept over the forest, flying toward the fortress.
Simultaneously, a dragon's head emerged from the great river, its massive eyes staring at Hikigaya on the bank. This place truly felt like a magically modified version of Jurassic Park.
Ignoring the Divine Beast hiding in the river, Hikigaya left the bank. He didn't care who was in the fortress or why those beasts were going there—they were going to fight, regardless, and he had no interest in mediating right now. What he was interested in was finding a settlement to gain a preliminary understanding of this world.
He soon passed through the forest and entered a plain, where he saw a road. The road was paved with sand and gravel; judging by the paving method, Hikigaya felt he could confirm that the humans of this world were indeed at a medieval level of development. This also meant he would soon find human settlements—roads, after all, were used to connect towns.
Just as Hikigaya was about to choose a direction at random, a clatter-clatter sound came from behind him. Turning around, Hikigaya saw a carriage drawn by two draft horses approaching him. Calling it a carriage was generous; it was merely at the level of being pulled by horses. Compared to a tractor, the engine was replaced by horses, and the body material was wood instead of metal.
There were people on the driver's seat. They didn't have long ears, nor were they covered in fur or possessed green faces and fangs. They looked ordinary, no different from the humans Hikigaya knew—two white males who, by appearance, didn't look like particularly good people. Their clothes were plain, simple, and not very clean, yet the style was strangely familiar to Hikigaya.
When they saw Hikigaya, expressions of terror appeared on their faces. They stopped the carriage and began to shout loudly—not aggressive shouting, but panicked.
When Hikigaya was able to understand their words, what he heard was: "Demon! Please don't kill us!"
'Do these people know how to talk?
Cursing someone while asking them not to hurt them?
Isn't this as nonsensical as someone taking off their pants in a "shameful place" while saying "don't come over"?'
Then Hikigaya saw these two men unload a pile of things from the carriage, place them on the ground, and run away without looking back. They ran quite nimbly, shouting as they went: "I give all my belongings to you!"
Hikigaya had no interest in chasing two rough men. He looked at the items: shovels, hoes, cloth bags, etc. He picked up the smallest cloth bag and found about a dozen coins inside. The workmanship was quite crude; although the shapes weren't very pretty, stamping technology had been used. They were all copper coins.
This was normal for a world with a medieval level of development. Taking the Earth Hikigaya knew as an example, a medium-sized country in Western Europe during the Middle Ages would be lucky to have an annual income exceeding ten thousand gold coins. In actual life, the vast majority of ancient Western Europeans (serfs, essentially) had no use for coins at all. For serfs in a non-existent commodity economy, what were coins for? Shooting birds?
The fact that these two actually had copper coins suggested the towns here were fairly well-developed.
Hikigaya picked up another much larger and quite heavy bag and found it contained a large amount of white powder. He smelled it; it seemed to be flour ground from wheat.
Considering the current situation, Hikigaya used magecraft to store all the items and then continued along the road—in the opposite direction of the fleeing men. Eventually, a settlement that could be called a small town appeared in his sight.
The town consisted of houses built of brick and tile, with gravel paths weaving between them. Most striking was a building made of white marble with thick, load-bearing columns, closely resembling a Greek-style temple.
The residents here were primarily farmers. As Hikigaya walked into the town, a young shepherd led a flock of sheep past him. A few seconds later, he encountered an old man leading a donkey; people holding farm tools were everywhere. The houses, people's clothing, objects, and utensils were all very simple.
Every person was curious about Hikigaya, but it was merely curiosity. Most of their expressions were numb—this was a group of people with no particular longing for life. Similarly, Hikigaya felt he couldn't obtain much valuable information from these people.
Therefore, he walked toward the temple-like building.
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