Inside-Outside-In

Shae

The skyship arrived in the Gortrand Empire capital city in the morning five days after they had departed.

The trip had mostly been boring. Just a mundane job, with a feeling uncannily similar to the warehouse job Shae once had on Earth. The work environment aboard the skyship was nicer than the warehouse had been, but she also couldn’t leave, so it evened out.

She still practiced her space magic whenever she had some time to spare, but she didn’t once try to teleport. She had no way of knowing how teleporting while inside a moving vehicle might affect it. That was a detail Merrin hadn’t mentioned.

Based on what she could feel, she thought she would just teleport to wherever she was imagining inside the ship, but maybe a distance away, because of the ship moving.

Another possibility was that she might just teleport outside it. It’s possible that all the enchantments and magic going on would prevent her from teleporting as she intended, and then she would fall to her death.

She could also picture a place on the ground, but all the places she knew were back in the Arvace Kingdom or on Earth. If she successfully teleported, then she would be separated from her friends and girlfriend.

The few times the ship had been attacked by a monster, it was actually underwhelming. They had all been flying snakes with two sets of wings. And there were so many people who shot spells at them when they approached that the battle was over before it could even begin.

Their first night aboard the ship had been chilly, because of the embrasure. When they mentioned it the next day, the person they talked to laughed.

He entered their cabin, pressed his hand against the side of the embrasure, and a pane of glass slid out. The combination of needing to preserve heat, but also be able to attack monsters, while also not having a window swinging around, either outside or inside the cabin, meant they had implemented windows that slid into the wall.

Each level of the vessel had a railway outside, surrounding the entire thing. The doorways outside had been locked during their departure, but it had been a fun experience to walk around in the sky like that afterward.

When it landed, the team then spent several hours unloading everything, just as they had promised to do. After receiving their pay, they then went to board a carriage to the city Melo’s cousin lived in.

The capital had had an obvious wealth disparity, and Shae was deeply unsettled by the dead expressions on the faces of people working menial jobs.

It’s fucking terrifying seeing this kind of thing again. Even if someone does dull work for a living, as long as the environment and working conditions are good, then it shouldn’t be too bad.

Shae told Melo, “When I say ‘retail hell’, it’s this that I’m referring to. I can see it in their eyes. They look dead inside.”

Melo nodded. “I see, so your country really was similar to Gortrand. I’m thankful neither of us lives in such a place anymore.”

Zena asked, “That’s what that look is? I’ve noticed that every working person we’ve passed looks like their life is being sucked away.”

““It is,”” Shae and Melo replied in unison.

Shae added, “I used to have to spend all day every day working two jobs like that just to afford a tiny little place to live.”

Konial asked, “What about the people who couldn’t afford it?”

“Many people lived in small groups with others to help mitigate the costs. If someone became homeless, they were seen as inferior and inadequate, and getting out of homelessness was also extremely difficult. The reason someone became homeless didn’t matter, they would be looked down on and treated poorly all the same.
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“A lot of cities had laws to make being homeless basically a crime. They even invented this thing called ‘hostile architecture’ to repel them, rather than help them. There were tons of varieties of it, but a common one was installing spikes where homeless people slept.”

Tria replied, “That’s so horrible! When my family lost their house, we were given help immediately.”

Zena gave Shae a hug, then one to Tria, as well.

Melo shuddered. “Gortrand doesn’t seem to have thought of that yet, thankfully…”

 

———

 

The trip to Melo’s home city was problematic for several reasons. The first was that everyone adamantly refused to hire the group. That one wasn’t actually a problem, since it wasn’t really necessary in the first place, but such an adamant refusal was unexpected and unusual when compared to the Arvace Kingdom.

It turned out that the carriage drivers were just saving money wherever they could because they didn’t make very much. The team didn’t have an excess of it themselves, but they were still able to leave their drivers with a little extra.

The second was the soewans¹Tall, fuzzy lizard-like monster generally used for pulling carriages.. They required more feed than they were receiving, and of better quality, but it simply costs too much. There wasn’t anything the group could do about that. They had to take frequent breaks along the way to let the soewans rest more.

The third problem was the roads. It was normal even in the Arvace Kingdom for the long stretches of dirt to not have pavement or a lot of maintenance, but there was still a minimum standard that was met.

In the Gortrand Empire, the roads had large holes or dips occasionally, and any trees or foliage obstructing them were just left there for travelers to deal with. Arvace had people who would patrol regularly to take care of such problems.

I hate this place.

Three exhausting weeks later, they finally arrived, and Melo marched straight to the bank.

Walking up to the counter, the stout man told the clerk, “I would like to pay off my cousin’s debt.”

The man replied. “I see. His name and yours?”

“Broch Ufrek and Melo Ytrin.”

The two exchanged a few more details to verify his identity, then the man left, returning several minutes later with a stack of papers.

The clerk began explaining the installment and interest systems, but Melo interrupted him. “No. I’m going to pay off all of it, right now.”

“Sir, that isn’t recommended. Your rating in the bank will drop. Your cousin’s will, as well.”

“I understand and accept it.”

The man kept pushing for it, so Melo waved his friends over. They all stood menacingly behind Melo.

The clerk scowled and chose to not push the issue any longer.

Melo watched impatiently as the clerk counted out all the coins he had brought.

When it was done, the clerk wrote several things on a piece of paper, then told them, “The debt of Broch Ufrek has been paid, in full. Have a nice day, sir.”

Melo glared at him. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

“I do not know what you mean, sir.”

“Where is my cousin, and I need the papers to get him out.”

“Ah, my apologies,” he insincerely apologized.

They finally left the building, papers and location in hand.

Zena asked, “Why was he so adamant about paying in installments? It wouldn’t affect him, right?”

Shae guessed, “He probably gets bonus pay for every person he ropes into a contract.”

Melo explained, “That’s exactly it. And the worse the contract, the better his bonus. To an extent, I feel for the guy. His base pay is probably shit. But he was also an asshole.”

Konial asked, “Why didn’t he want to tell you where Broch is?”

“Probably so they could arrange to get him into debt again somehow.”

Shae was incredulous. “Wait, that happens?”

“Yeah. Their thinking is that someone who was previously in debt will easily fall into debt once again, so they work to make it happen.”

“Fucking hell, this place is cruel.”

They made it to a massive building surrounded by lots of tiny shacks where all the workers lived.

What the fuck, this is like the Industrial Revolution, but with magic instead.

Entering, they saw hundreds of people sitting at tables, assembling cheap decorations. They walked past, trying not to gawk, and found a supervisor.

After looking over the papers, he yelled, “BROCH UFREK! YOU’RE OUT OF HERE.”

Everyone stared because of the sudden yelling.

“KEEP WORKING!”

Everyone hurriedly went back to their horrible jobs.

A stout man with small, green spikes in a few places came forward. He was wearing cheap clothes and looked incredibly haggard.

“Cousin…” he muttered. “Did you do it? Am I really free?”

Melo hugged him. “Yes, Cousin. I paid all of it, down to the last chif²Currency.. Now, let’s get the fuck out of here.”

As they were walking away, Shae commented, “That was possibly the most fucked up thing I have ever seen.”

Even more fucked up than killing someone…

Melo agreed, “Yeah. It’s slavery, minus the shackles. This miserable country will be torn down soon enough, though.”

“What do you mean? A revolution?”

“That’s right. People don’t have enough power on their own right now, but magic tends to give people what they need or want. Historically, countries like this one never last more than a few centuries before people start getting Skills specifically geared for razing and dethroning.”

Right, I forgot that magic works that way. I didn’t exactly want what my Skill did, though. …Unless I did? I had always wanted to better understand what Vicky was going through. Did I really get my Skill for that reason? …I have no way of knowing for sure, but it might be possible.

Zena touched her, “Shae?”

“What is it?”

“You looked deep in thought.”

“Oh. Yeah, I may have just realized something about myself.”

She explained her thoughts, which led to a conversation about the nature of magic while the six people went to find yet another carriage.

Melo had prepared beforehand, so there were supplies and equipment for Broch. No one wanted to be here any longer, so they weren’t even going to look for a place to stay the night.

Unfortunately, the skyship would’ve already returned by now, and likely wouldn’t be making another trip this year. That meant they would be taking the long way back to Marlonn.

The city had become the base and home for everyone on the team. They would eventually need to leave to take higher-level missions, which couldn’t be found in the Arvace Kingdom due to its low mana-density. But that was still a ways off.

 

———

 

Broch

He had slept soundly these past several weeks, despite only having slept in a bedroll in the outdoors. It was still better than the bed he had been sleeping on until just recently. It had been little more than a flimsy board with a piece of cloth in it.

Truthfully, he hadn’t believed his cousin would actually pull it off. Broch had been close with Melo growing up, and still vividly remembered the glimpse he had gotten of his devastated face when Broch was taken away.

I owe him my life. I’d probably have been there for many years as they found more reasons to prevent me from leaving. I’m one of the lucky ones for getting out at all.

His cousin’s teammates were all nice people and had even been willing to come to a place like this to help him out.

The Gortrand Plains, territory of the Gortrand Empire, with their miserable capital city, Gortrand. Gortrand, Gortrand, Gortrand. Why are they so obsessed with themselves?

Broch didn’t understand how the country had gotten to be like that, but he also didn’t have the mental energy to think about it right now. He wasn’t even out of it yet.

He had been concerned about the debts the others were in, with everyone but Melo still owing money to the Mercenary Center. He was then angry upon finding out that those debts, while they did take some time to repay, were still significantly more lenient than anything in the Empire. They had only joined the Center eight months ago and were all close to fully paying it off.

Melo had made sure to inform the Center of their team’s departure so that they wouldn’t have any late fees. Even in Gortrand, they could still accept missions, but it would take some time for the Center to be notified across such a distance.

Long-distance communication was something that nobody had been able to figure out yet. The longer the distance, the more ambient mana interfered.

Setting up relays was possible, but ambient mana tended to mess with things over time, causing enchantments to stop working. This meant maintaining all those relays was costly, so that method of sending messages wasn’t used very often.

In the end, it was still almost always faster to hire a courier. There were people out there who specialized in speed and traveling, and if they were at a high level, it would be even faster.

Broch’s letters to Melo had been infrequent due to the vast distance to be traveled every single time.

As he ate dinner with his cousin and his cousin’s friends, he felt content. He was relieved to be out of his horrible situation and was feeling physically better now that he could properly take care of himself. And for the first time in a long time, he was looking forward to the future.

Shae was clad in her weird, mind-bending aura, just as she always was whenever she practiced her space magic. Her brows were furrowed as she concentrated, and then she suddenly appeared a meter to her left.

She was shocked for several seconds, before finally speaking, “I did it… I did it! I-DID-IT-I-DID-IT-I-DID-IT-I-DID-IT-I-DID-IT!!!”