Chapter 58: The Train and the Capital, Ranchert
Chapter 58: The Train and the Capital, Ranchert
“I don’t know. Just pick one for me, Ras Oppa.”
In the end, Ras chuckled and asked the employee to recommend something suitable for a woman, then bought it.
“From now on, always carry this with you. Got it?”
Ella seemed somewhat dazed. When Ras placed the item in her hand, she flinched. Then the ears atop her head twitched this way and that before she quietly nodded.
Afterward, the two went to a travel bag store and bought suitcases. They felt quite different from the ones he used in Korea, but that did not mean they were bad. The design was classic, but rather than looking old-fashioned, it felt luxurious.
Instead of plastic, they used a lot of metal and leather, which was also nice. However, they were a bit heavy. Because of that, Ras paid extra attention when buying Ella’s.
“Will you be okay? You’ll have to carry it all the way to Ranchert.”
“Yeah. This much is fine.”
Ella made a show of flexing her arm at Ras, who kept worrying. Of course, no biceps appeared on her thin arm at all, making Ras laugh.
After buying the suitcases, Ras continued shopping since they were already at the department store. He bought some clothes, purchased expensive snacks sold only at the department store, shared them with Ella, and enjoyed the moment.
The next day, Ras packed his luggage first, then went to Ella’s room on the same floor.
“Ella.”
He had already called and confirmed that she was awake, so he did not hesitate to knock on the door and call her.
“Ah. Just a second!”
She shouted in a hurried voice, then opened the door a few minutes later, clearly looking rushed. Ras met her eyes once, and then his gaze reflexively slipped past her into the room behind her.
Ella was still a new employee and did not have any major role yet, so he could not pay her a particularly high salary. Still, considering that she was a girl living alone, he paid her enough that she would not lack anything.
But since she was a child who used to sneak into empty buildings to live, he could not help worrying about what her usual living conditions were like.
It seems fine.
Fortunately, though he only saw it briefly, the room had various belongings and was clean, so she seemed to be managing her life well enough. Though there were some signs that she had packed in a rush.
The two carried their heavy suitcases down the stairs. Soon after, the taxi they had called in advance arrived, and they got in and headed straight to the train station.
“We’re here.”
The train station they reached after a while was quite grand. Its scale was similar to one in Korea, and its exterior looked even more impressive. With stone reliefs attached everywhere and its overall style, it felt like a palace. However, perhaps because of the era, it was stained with soot from smoke.
“Let’s go.”
“Yeah.”
Ras took Ella’s hand and plunged into the crowd of people coming and going through the train station. This world was still in the age of trains, so the people who would have been dispersed across buses, private cars, and airplanes on Earth were all gathered here. It could not be helped.
On top of that, it would have been complicated enough if there were only humans, but Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, and all sorts of other races were mixed in, making it dizzying to look at.
Still, once they entered, a space with a high ceiling appeared above them, making it a little easier to breathe.
“It’s like a small village.”
Ella whispered while pointing at the many shops along the outer wall. As she said, there was a three-story shopping area along the wall, selling not only food but clothes, books, and all kinds of miscellaneous goods.
With people bustling through it as well, it looked like a small village, or perhaps a market.
“Let’s buy tickets first.”
After seeing the crowd inside the station, Ras grew worried that there might not be any tickets left and pulled Ella by the hand.
As expected, an enormous line stood in front of the ticket office. There seemed to be fifteen windows, yet each one looked as if twenty or thirty people were lined up.
Fortunately, the line moved quickly.
“Two first-class tickets to Ranchert, please.”
“Yes. Please wait a moment.”
Since they were going anyway, Ras bought first-class tickets even though they were a bit expensive. The Elf employee with purple hair responded with a beautiful but expressionless face and handed over the tickets after stamping them with practiced skill.
“Here you are.”
He had asked for the earliest train, and when he checked the time written on the ticket, it was twenty minutes later. It seemed there were more seats available than he expected despite the crowd.
“Let’s go.”
“Yeah.”
Since they did not exactly have much spare time, Ras headed straight to the platform with Ella. There were many people, but the passageways were just as wide, so they did not have to move while being pushed along like on the Korean subway.
There were truly all kinds of trains on the platform.
There were old-fashioned steam locomotives, diesel locomotives, and even electric locomotives like those he had seen on Earth. The electric locomotives were a little unexpected. But when he thought about it again, this world already used electric appliances and even had computers, so it would have been stranger if they did not exist.
However, perhaps because they were still in the introduction stage, there were not many of them. The one Ras and Ella would ride was also a diesel locomotive. Its design was somewhat classical, and its large round rivet bolts especially stood out.
“I’ll carry it up for you.”
Ras took Ella’s bag from her and climbed the iron stairs of the carriage first. For some reason, the platforms in this world were at the same height as the train tracks, so one had to climb a fairly steep set of steps to board.
After lifting the luggage inside, Ras took Ella’s hand and pulled her up.
“Oh. This is nice.”
“Really. It’s like a room.”
The first-class seats were far more impressive than he expected. He had imagined seats that were simply a little wider, like airplane first class or premium bus seats. But when he opened the door they reached after walking along a narrow corridor, a wonderful room came into view.
Plastic was still in the early stages of introduction, so it was uncommon. Because of that, the inside of the room was made of wood and metal. Thanks to that, it felt even more antique and impressive.
Because of this, Ras and Ella were not particularly tired during the six-hour trip and leisurely enjoyed the scenery outside the window.
“Wow...”
Ella admired the vast plains. Ras did not make a sound, but he could not take his eyes off the window either. He had ridden trains often in Korea, but this certainly felt different.
He did not know whether it was because the era was older or simply because the environment was different. But seeing this raw wilderness made him imagine train robbers appearing from somewhere.
However, in this world, when people saw untouched places like this, it was more common to worry about monsters appearing than train robbers. In reality, the military periodically carried out monster exterminations, and sometimes there were news reports about train accidents caused by monster attacks.
But... is it slow because it’s an old train after all?
In truth, unlike Ras’s impression, trains in this world were not that slow. However, the land was so vast that looking into the distance made it hard to feel any sense of speed. Still, it was not boring. For Ras and Ella, these were sights they were seeing for the first time.
They also ate an in-train meal midway through. The taste was nothing special, but because they were eating inside a train and sitting close to someone they were comfortable with, it was very enjoyable.
“We have arrived at Ranchert Station.”
After six hours like that, their arrival was announced through something like a transmission pipe instead of a speaker.
“Let’s get off.”
“Yeah.”
Since it was their first time taking a train, the two could not quite judge the timing, so they hurriedly moved with their luggage. Thanks to that, they were able to get off at Ranchert Station’s platform without any trouble. Even when getting off the train, they had to be quite careful because of the height difference.
There was nothing particularly special about the train station aside from being larger, and because the crowd was exhausting, they quickly headed outside.
“Wow...”
As soon as they came out of the station, Ella’s mouth fell open at the enormous skyscraper visible in the distance.
Ras was less shocked because he had memories of Earth. But in another sense, precisely because he had those memories, he was surprised to see an enormous red building that looked far taller than the 63 Building, no, nearly twice as tall, in a place that was at least seventy years and perhaps nearly a hundred years behind Earth.
“Ras Oppa. That must have been built with magic, right?”
“...Probably?”
Standing still in the middle of Ranchert Station Plaza and staring up at the Wawelly Building as if possessed, the two boys and girls looked exactly like country bumpkins who had come to the capital for the first time.
Ras snapped back to his senses when he saw an Orc passing nearby laugh faintly. Feeling his face grow slightly hot, he took Ella’s hand and pulled her along.
“...Let’s find a hotel first.”
“Hm? Mhm.”
After walking a little out of the plaza, they immediately reached a main road. In Kames City, automobiles were still not very common, so Ras thought the roads were quiet. But after seeing the roads in the capital, that thought vanished completely.
The wide six-lane road was packed with all kinds of vehicles, including passenger cars, vans, trucks, and buses. Of course, this was because this place was the center of the Republic of Smite. In general, Ras’s original impression was still correct.
Ras went with Ella to the taxi stand at one side of the road, waited in line for a while, and then managed to get into a taxi.
“To the Basron Hotel, please.”
Since this was their first trip here, Ras had gathered some information from a bookstore before leaving, and he had seen good reviews of a hotel called Basron. Of course, there were a few better places above it, but he still considered spending over a thousand del for one night a waste.
The hotel they arrived at was quite good.
“I’ll carry those for you.”
A slightly young-looking hotel boy dressed in a suit took their luggage. Ras and Ella looked around as they followed him. The hotel building was magnificent, and the room they were shown into was clean and luxurious.
Until they reached the hotel entrance, Ras had harbored a slightly lecherous thought about booking the same room. But they were already slowly growing closer. If he forced things unnecessarily, it would only make things awkward and bring no benefit. Thinking that, he held himself back and decided to be satisfied with getting rooms facing each other.
“What do you think? Should we eat first?”
“No. We ate on the train earlier, so I’m not very hungry.”
Ras felt the same, so instead of insisting on going to a restaurant, he decided to handle work first. After unpacking and coming back down, he took one of the taxis waiting in front of the hotel.
“Do you know a store called Arcade Game Land?”
“Ah. I’ve been there a few times before.”
The Dwarf driver seemed to think for a moment, then nodded. It seemed that even here, the name had spread enough that taxi drivers knew it.
“But the taxi fare will probably be fairly high. Is that all right?”
“Yes. That’s fine.”
“Well, if that’s the case.”
Ras decided to solve things with money rather than suffer through wandering around public transportation in a capital packed with people. If he were alone, he might have tried it once, but he did not feel comfortable doing that while taking Ella along.
A little after the taxi departed, Ras found himself in the middle of a smoke-filled road. The cars in this world still had low technical standards and little awareness of air pollution, so the middle of the road was genuinely thick with smoke.
“Cough!”
Because of that, Ella opened the window slightly because she felt stuffy, only to immediately cough and close it again.
“The air in Ranchert is bad.”
She said that with a slightly tearful face. Ras simply chuckled.
Still, the unfamiliar city visible outside the car window was worth looking at. Even more so when it was a massive metropolis. High-rise buildings, which were almost nonexistent in Kames City, lined up everywhere here.
There were also huge billboards on top of buildings, and occasionally, though he did not know what they were made of, something like a gigantic TV sat on a building rooftop and played short advertisements.
“Is that really a TV?”
“Not sure. I don’t know either. Can they make a TV that big?”
Ella seemed deeply impressed by the billboard and whispered the question to him. But it was not as if Ras knew everything, so he could only answer with an awkward smile.