Chapter 44: Future Places

Kalender and Minimine took the long way around—whichever way had the most things to see. Food stalls weren’t as common here as in Clarinets, but that was because the concessionaires here operated out of proper stores and the like, just like the ice cream parlor. The typical store was either a narrow, or shallow, hole-in-the-wall sort of place, with maybe none, or one, or two people milling about in front.

Not a few minutes from the ice cream parlor, they went up two steps from the roadside to the display of a corner bakery, where four others were waiting for their daily bread. Behind the display glass, there were also cookies beside the fresh loaves. Glass is pretty common around here, huh?

They walked away with a small paper bag of crinkles. Page would love them, definitely. They weren’t quite from Emergency Bakery, but the sugary sweetness from the thin crust all the way until the core would surely stop her brain from functioning for a few seconds. In exchange, the sugar would kick in after five to ten minutes, temporarily increasing her general cognitive abilities.

What, you thought it was a gift? No—it’s an item to use against bosses, applying a helpful debuff in the short term, in exchange for a delayed-effect buff that could later work for or against him, depending on how things were set up.

That’s right. This man was stocking up for a hard fight ahead.

He wasn’t just insisting on taking every detour they could possibly take on the way. He was also scouting out the terrain.

Too bad, however, that he was lacking in actionable intelligence, such as where the others had gone to, exactly. Knowing Jyn, she must have gone to the knights’ training field. If that wasn’t the case, then maybe the Explorator Company had their own version.

***

Surprisingly, just down the street from the bakery, there was a cafe on the roof of a three-story building, which was apparently a bookstore. There were two guards in front of the double doors in gambesons, tonfa-like nightsticks easily in reach. He didn’t need to go through them, however; a rising staircase went up the side of the building, going straight to the roof. There, a tent and different sets of curtains protected patrons from the sun, and a mesh net protected them from birds. Despite that, the wind was perfect, and it didn’t feel hot at all.

There were seats for ten—it wasn’t a big roof. There were maybe three people when he and Minimine checked it out. He asked the barista if there’s some kind of rush hour for the place; guy said all the seats easily get filled come evening. Looking around, it had an expansive view over a good portion of the town, ending in towering defensive walls, and in the opposite direction, the angle with the castle made one feel like they were looking at a picture from a tour brochure.

It was a perfect date stop. Page might even want to appreciate the bookstore itself, though Kalender had to wonder why bookstores needed two armed guards out front.

They didn’t linger for too long and continued north. Kalender figured if the Monster Wall was north, then all the buildings filled with armed people would be on the north side of town.

They could already see the plaza, which was clear today, but moving at a more leisurely pace this time, they noticed a street filled with nothing but florists. Those flower fields outside town weren’t for show, it seemed. He considered buying something there, but wondered if there was such a thing as a “language of flowers” in this world; there was no way there wasn’t. He hadn’t seen any examples, though, and as far as he could tell, he needed to see an example in order for All-Language Fluency to trigger.

He ended up visiting the nearest shop. Unlike the ones further down, this one didn’t have fancy-looking flowers that radiated romance. The flowers here were more like irises, lilacs, and lavenders.

The shopkeeper was kind enough to let him pick out a single white lilac, and a single purple lilac. He poked these into Minimine’s hair, and she pulled her neck back from the out-of-nowhere gesture. She did realize what he was doing though, and stopped resisting, letting him fix her hair. She looked up at him, wondering what on Gaia this human was doing matching purple and white with her mint green hair.

[+1 Gratitude]

So I can’t buy her with food, huh? Nice to know.

They skipped past the plaza, going straight for—wherever, really. They just followed the main road. There was just no way they wouldn’t find an important place by following it.

And they did.

It wasn’t some military HQ, though, so, no Jyn and Page for now. It was a house-turned-museum of sorts. If the sun set right now, it would be in the castle’s shadow. The welcome plate in front said it was the site of a historic event that gave Harmony its name. He spotted a bored receptionist through the narrow door, chatting with a brightly-uniformed guard who probably doubled as the tour guide. Not wanting to commit to going inside, they moved on.

Finally, they reached the—Research Guild? That can’t be right. It was a stone building, made of the same stuff as the walls and castle. It might have been a defensive bastion at some point, but in the middle of town? That would’ve meant that the castle was here before the town, or even the walls. The walls looked a lot more cracked than the castle, though—magic?

At the foot of the bastion was a wide archway that could accommodate a wagon. Its large doors were closed at the moment, but a smaller door let foot traffic pass through. There weren’t any guards, just long-robed people going in spotless and coming out with burn marks on their aprons. What kind of research are y’all doing in there?

Naturally letting his curiosity take hold of him, they stepped inside.

If it didn’t clearly say “Research Guild” on the door, he wouldn’t have guessed. It was completely like an Adventurers Guild, what with the job board and the receptionists and—a coffee bar? Researchers had a different demand for fluids, it seemed.

He checked out the job board, securing his hold on Minimine’s hand.

“Therm-type Magic Circle Decipherment, C-Rank; 500 notes.”

“Anti-kinesis Barrier Development, B-Rank; 2000 Notes.”

“PERSISTENT QUEST: Jungle Paper Processing, E-Rank; 5 Notes per Keygram.”

Where’s the ‘Research’ in any of these, though? Ah, well, there’s the ‘Decipherment’ quest. ‘Development’ was sort of stretching it, though I guess it puts the D in R&D. Materials processing was just straight-up throwing menial tasks at the lab assistant, wasn’t it? There’s no way it wasn’t.

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“You there! I haven’t see you around here. Looking for something?”

Kalender turned around to face a man in the same uniform as the receptionists. He had this cool burn scar over his right eye and shaggy black hair—not at all typical for a Lyrican. The burn scar and the hair, though … kinda reminded him of someone.

“Ah, just looking around,” Kalender replied, “and also kinda interested? I’ve never heard of the Research Guild until today.”

“Not from around here, are you, sir?”

“Not at all.”

“I see. You’re interested, are you? We can take this over to my station.”

He wasn’t working at the counter, per se, but by a little open table by the side of it. He gestured for the two to take a seat—probably pulled people over here to pitch ’em like some sort of salesman.

“We’re not widespread like the Explorators and the Adventurers Guild,” he explained. "Really, our modus is a bit different, you see? We discover new magic, new materials, make new spells, new magic circles, and when the Explorators or the Adventurers call, we send our scholars out to ancient ruins to decipher their scriptures.

“Well, that, and everything else in between. On the not-so-exciting side, we help protect the rights of Scholars, Researchers, and Inventors to their work. Most courts in most countries take our word when we say someone definitely discovered, wrote about, or invented something. We closely protect details to those works, and issue licenses to them appropriately per what our members grant.”

Oh? It’s like an international patent office and freelance agency rolled into one. It sounded like a publishing house for a moment there, too. “Wait, there’s one thing bothering me.”

“Yes, sir?”

“If you’re a…‘cross-nation’ guild, then how are you running here? Isn’t the kingdom sort of isolated right now? The border’s locked down and everything.”

“I’m not…certain about the details, but I do know that the kingdom’s laws prevent us from issuing privileges that our branches in other nations do, such as unrestricted travel once you reach a certain rank. We also may not import or export any information about discoveries and inventions without the approval of the kingdom, though we can freely ferry rare materials through our channels—after taxes.” He chuckled, briefly. Kalender chuckled with him, too, but, aren’t tax jokes something made by modern people?

The receptionist continued, “The available technology here also forces us to operate far differently than elsewhere. It’s been an…interesting experience.”

“Not from around here, are you?” Kalender asked. They met eyes, and Kalender knowingly smiled. The receptionist shook his head and chuckled.

“You got me,” he said. “Before anything, I am actually here legally. I’m on what they call an ‘overland supplementary staff tour’—which I volunteered for, though I’m not sure I like the routine.”

“Looks plenty peaceful, though?”

Just then, through the wooden floor above, there was an explosion like an extra-large fuse popping—glassware imploding from a vacuum? There were scampering steps, tables tipping over, another explosion, and a bunch of overlapping water spells to mitigate the damage.

“Happens every day. I still don’t know what they’re doing.” He shook his head. “Well, are you still interested? My name’s Cressian. Cressian Irulia. Call me Cresh.”

“Kalender. Just Kalender.” He shook hands with Cresh. “I’ll have to think about it. I still have things that need sorting out—oh, right, do you know where the knights’ or the Explorators’ training fields are?”

Cresh feigned a frown. “There you all go abandoning me for the Explorators again…”

“Hey, now, that’s actually kinda sad.”

“Just kidding,”—probably—“Just keep following the road and you’ll find the Lyrican army’s barracks and their training grounds. Not sure what you want with them, though, since they keep their training grounds behind a wall.”

“They don’t open it to the public?”

“I’ve been to a few places where they do that, but not here. It’s the Company’s you’re looking for. Just keep following the road, past the barracks, then when you see a four-story-high red-brick inn—too fancy to miss, don’t worry—turn left. It’ll take you straight to the north gate, but you should be able to find the Company’s HQ along the way.”

Kalender thanked Cresh. He wrangled Minimine and tore her away from the coffee bar before she could get into something new again and pull her lady-godfriend connections to conjure a caffeinated potato or something. On the other hand, he reminded himself that he wasn’t ready to be a father—after losing sight of Minimine for a whole five seconds? He’d have to do better.

Still, he’s a dad at that age, huh? Cresh thought.