Chapter 138.
The person putting his arm around our shoulders was a middle-aged man with light-brown hair and a beard that wasn’t cleaned up.
The pleasant-looking man asked us while taking his arms off our shoulders, "You guys are the new civil servants from the Adventurers’ Guild, right?"
This man must be the adventurer who was supposed to escort us.
"Oh, yes. But who are you?" asked Flam.
The adventurer smiled, stepped back, and gaudily waved his arms, doing all sorts of poses. "If you ask me who I am, it is human nature to answer!" He began his introduction which seemed familiar. "I am the Adventurers’ Guild’s flower! The adventurer of the platinum plate! Dane Walker, the handsome magic swordsman!"
Then he spun in place and used light magic to create and make it seem like flower petals were falling down.
"Ohh!" Flam applauded and admired the splendid appearance of the shower of flower petals.
Indeed, Roseland was correct when he called this person an eccentric. Maybe the reason why he didn’t tell us who was escorting us was for the eccentric’s self-indulgence.
Beep!
At that time, a whistle sounded and a station employee ran over here. "Don’t sprinkle petals on the station!"
At the station staff’s roar, the Dane Walker shrunk back and erased the illusion of flower petals sprinkled on the floor. "I’m sorry about that."
"I mean, you’re an adult and even a magician. Don’t you know that you aren’t allowed to use magic without permission in a public institution?" The station employee continued nagging.
Flam and I blankly watched Dane Walker being scolded.
Platinum plate adventurers had quite a lot of power, so it was funny to see him cowering at the nagging of a station employee. Still, he did use magic in a public institution that included train stations, so he deserved to be scolded.
In the empire, state facilities such as government buildings and train stations strictly prohibited magic unless it was a special case. The reason was similar to why people were not allowed to take weapons onto the train.
The magic Dane Walker used was not dangerous and the scope was narrow, so it just ended with nagging. If the range was a little larger or other passengers felt a little threatened, a huge fine would have been imposed.
To use my past life as an example, from the station employee’s perspective, it must have felt like seeing someone smoking e-cigarettes at a gas station.
After a long while of scolding, I stopped the station employee when the train was about to leave. "I’m sorry, but we have to leave for official duty. He is reflecting on himself, and we’ll make sure to be extra careful, so how about stopping here?"
The station employee saw my civil servant ID and said with a sigh, "Please don’t let this happen again."
"Yes, sorry about that."
After the station employee left, Dane Walker hesitated and apologized. "Um, sorry."
His face seemed genuinely apologetic. I got on the train with a smile.
"It’s okay. Adventurers usually travel by carriage, so they are not aware."
Aboard the train, we headed straight to our reserved seats. Since it was a second-class seat, it was neither fluffy nor as wide as the seat I sat in when I first came to the capital. But perhaps because they were seats for civil servants, the compartment was set up like a first-class compartment.
Perhaps they were being considerate so we can have meetings or do work on the road. Although it was not as soundproof as the first-class compartment, it was excellent for a free seat.
"Keuhmm!"
Dane Walker sat down and introduced himself again.
"I’m a Dane Walker and a platinum plate adventurer. I’m often called the Magic Swordsman of Thunder, but I don’t like it because it’s cheesy, so you can just call me Mr. Dane Walker or Dane Walker ahjussi. By the way, I heard you’re both in your teens—” Dane Walker glanced at Flam. He was definitely too old looking to be a teenager.
Flam introduced himself comfortably. "I am Flam. Nice to meet you. Take good care of me, Mr. Dane Walker."
"My name is Den. But is it okay for a platinum plate to be an escort for civil servants?"
Dane Walker answered my question with a pleasant smile.
"Hahaha! It doesn’t matter. I was already interested in the ruins, so it turned out well."
Obviously, if it was ruins from the period of prosperity, there would be no one who was not interested in it, magicians aside. If lucky, it was a rare opportunity where you might be able to observe the magic of the Holy Tribe of the past that was now extinct.
"And also, the Guild Director personally requested me to be the escort."
It was surprising that Guild Director Glont had asked personally. No matter how well known he was for taking good care of his subordinates, it was a huge waste to put a platinum plate adventurer as the escort for civil servants. From Dane Walker’s perspective, it could have felt like he was being looked down at, but I couldn’t see anything like that in his expression.
"Ha-am~! I’m tired, so I’m going to sleep a little." Dane Walker yawned and covered himself with his robes like a blanket and fell asleep.
Come to think of it, he was having to be our escorts immediately after he completed his previous request. To arrive at our destination, we would have to take the train for half a day and even after getting off the train, we would have to transfer to a carriage and go further. Therefore, Flam and I remained quiet so that Dane Walker could rest.
-o-
Malecia set foot in Lotten, a city located northwest of the capital, with his subordinates. He thought he was going to die four days ago when he was transported far enough to cross the border with space magic. But he was able to get to Aries’s mansion safely.
When he had just arrived at Aries’s mansion, he thought he was still falling, so he laid on the floor and screamed while surrounded by his subordinates. At that time, he thought he would die in a different sense, but somehow, he managed to survive and safely arrive at his destination of Lotten.
"Captain, shall we find lodgings first?"
When asked by his subordinate who was also with him at the Holy Land of Zaharam, he shook his head. "No, we will start by meeting up with the guys who arrived first."
There should already be a number of Aries’s followers in Lotten. Finding lodgings was something that should be done after meeting up with them.
"Who is the guy that’s supposed to be here?”
One of Malecia’s subordinates answered immediately, "Jiren. The curse of weakness is his specialty, and his base is the inn near the mercenary alliance branch in Lotten."
Malecia clicked his tongue and frowned at the subordinate’s briefing. "Jiren, that punk?" He thought that magicians were either usually crazy about academics or self-absorbed. Either way, it was his theory that magicians were crazy. "Lotten luck.”
The latter used special powers, magic, which ordinary people could not, so it was inevitable that they would become self-absorbed. He did not understand the magician’s way of thinking, but he could understand that point and move on. But as long as a magician was being a good crazy person by himself, it didn’t matter if he was crazy or not.
However, Jiren was not a good crazy person. Even among Malecia’s magician classifications, he was a wicked person with a “chosen one” mindset and behaved superciliously.
"Nothing we can do about it. Let’s go to the mercenary alliance."
Malecia’s subordinates nodded and followed him.
-o-
I woke up Dane Walker around 3 p.m. when we were arriving at the train station where we were supposed to get off.
"Mr. Dane Walker."
I called his name over and over again, but he didn’t wake up. The adventurer was so dull that he looked like a perfect candidate to be stabbed and killed on the street.
Unable to do anything else, in order to wake him up by shaking him, I removed the protective magic from the robe covering him.
If you put protective magic on the robe that electrocutes people who touch it, then you should be responsive and wake up when people call you. He was being a bother.
"Mr. Dane Walker!"
Dane Walker woke up surprised when I shook his body to wake him.
"Huh?"
He looked around then looked at me in surprise.
"Did you perhaps shake me to wake me up?”
Having woken up, he seemed to have realized that he didn’t tell us that his robe had magic cast on it. As far as I knew, he mainly used electric magic and thus worked alone because he was worried that he might accidentally hit his colleagues. Electric magic was definitely one of the magic that was difficult to control if there was a lot of moisture around.
"What are you talking about? You woke up right after I called your name."
"Oh, really?"
When I pretended and looked at him like he was being a strange person, Dane Walker checked his robe. He probably wouldn’t be able to feel anything wrong because I had already cast the same magic after I was done shaking him.
"Hmm, did the train shake?”
I left the mumbling Dane Walker behind and spoke as I got up and grabbed Flam and my luggage.
"Flam went to grab his weapons first.”
“Let’s get off quickly, too.”
“Uh, yeah.”
Dane Walker rubbed his face and chased away his sleepiness. Then he quickly grabbed his luggage.
"Let’s go together."
Dane Walker and I met up with Flam at the station after he had received the pistols and rapiers. Then we found a carriage leaving the station and headed straight to Lotten City.
There was no direct carriage route from here to Lotten City, so we would have to change the carriage once in the middle. The estimated time of arrival was 9 p.m. at the earliest and could be longer.
"Wow, the world has become a lot better. How is it possible to get to Lotten in a day? I think it took about three or four days when I was a kid."
Dane Walker was surprised by the flow of time like an old man. On the contrary, I could fly there in under an hour so it was annoying having to go round and round like this.
"Mr. Dane Walker, were there no trains like this when you were young?" Flam asked.
Dane Walker shook his head. "No, there were, but there weren’t that many routes, and there was only a railway connecting the Duchy of Asteria to the capital. And I couldn’t trust it because it had a lot of breakdowns."
The Duchy of Asteria was a territory located north of the empire and bordered the Demon Territory. It was said that the development of railway lines in the empire was one of the efforts to facilitate the distribution and dispatch of the military to the Demon Territory.
The development of trains and railways began to be discussed during the later stages of the reign of the Blood Emperor, the former emperor. It was around the time when the current emperor, who was the crown prince back then, began to seize the political situation.
The former emperor opposed the construction of a railway to send supplies to the territory of the Duke of Asteria, his greatest political enemy. However, the construction of the railway was accomplished by the cooperation of the crown prince and the Duke of Asteria, the head of the nobles.
The railroad was completed at least 20 years ago.
"If you’re talking about the time when the railroad was only connected between the capital and the Duchy of Asteria, then how old are you, Mr. Dane Walker?”
Just from his appearance, he looked to be in his early 30s, five to six years younger than Flam.
Dane Walker smiled and scratched the back of his head. "Me? I’m 47 years old."
My God! He was older than my father. Before I knew it, Flam had arrived first in front of the carriage and waved his hand.
"What are you doing? If we don’t get on fast, we might have to sleep out in the street! Hurry and get on!"
At Flam’s urging, Dane Walker and I hurried into the carriage.
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