Two Thousand Krons

Ari lifted his hand to his eyes to block out the sun. "Damn… That *is* the Capital, right?"

"Well, what else do you think it could be?" Abby replied mockingly. Still, she was gazing into the distance at the vast city in amazement.

I held my hand up to my eyes as well and tried to look closer at it. At the center of the city were thousands of glinting spikes rising from the ground. It was hard to tell how tall those buildings were, but I was sure they were far taller than any back on Earth, as they reached almost half the height of the mountains behind the Capital.

But that was only the area around the center. In the middle of the skyscrapers sat a castle that looked like it could fit an entire city just inside it. The castle stood even taller than the already towering buildings around it, making me wonder if it was built on a mountain of its own. I couldn't even imagine what it would feel like to stand by the colossal building up close.

As my eyes went further from the center, the buildings became shorter and looked more like a regular city, though it was still hard to believe how large this city was. It was as if I was looking at a pile of sand spilled on the ground and spread out, except each grain of sand was an entire building.

We continued down the path across the rolling hills, but I couldn't take my eyes off the huge city in the distance. After we ate our lunch of sandwiches again as we hiked through the trail, Abby, Em, and Ari started discussing what they should do when we reached our destination. Abby would be heading to the adventurer's guild to sign up as an adventurer, Em would be going to take an entrance exam to the Artius Magic Academy, and Ari would be going to the recruitment center to apply to join the royal task force.

I only listened as they talked about their futures, but my peace was broken by Ari when he turned to force me to join the conversation. "By the way, Day," he said, "what are you gonna do at the city?"

"I— um…" I trailed off. Was it okay to tell them that I was looking for the princess? If the Capital is that big, then my sister must be a very important person in a very powerful country, right? "I'm meeting with my sister," I answered instead.

"Ohh, you have a sister?" Ari was interested, and for some reason, that infuriated me inside. But when I looked over at Em, whose eyes were shining at me with curiosity, I calmed down.

Abby turned to face me as well. "Didn't you say people from your world don't know about time travel? Your sister is like that too, right?"

I opened my mouth, but I didn't know how to answer. My sister essentially grew up here, and not back on Earth. And if what Irnoma had said was true, then she was born here as well. Could she really be called my sister? "She… My sister went through a similar situation I'm in… But she…"

I trailed off again as my eyes caught something out far in front of us. I raised my hand and pointed to a shining, moving object. "What's… that?"

The other three turned to see what I was pointing at. The object became larger and larger until I realized it was coming at us. Then, before I could say anything, it zoomed over our heads and became smaller behind us. It took me a moment to recognize that a flying aircraft the size of an entire house had just raced over us.

After a moment of staring into the distance behind us as the aircraft disappeared behind a hill, Ari spoke up. "Is… that what I think it is?"

"What? It's just a normal vehicle, right?"

"Okay, now, that's just because where you're from, there were tons of those! On Ashen, we only got coal-powered machines!"

"Well, it ain't my fault your country's so invested in war you don't ask some other timelines for some technology."

"Hey! It ain't my fault it's like that either!"

"Umm… by the way… what was that aircraft doing? It went back the direction we came from, right?"

Ari and Abby dropped their steam upon hearing Em's question. "Well, I did tell them about those wolves earlier," Abby replied. "I didn't expect them to send people that quickly, though."

"That's good, though, right?" Ari said. "It means they got some well-organized law enforcement system."

Abby looked to the city questionably. "I wouldn't be so sure of that," she whispered barely audibly.

***

The first place we passed by that could probably be considered "part of the city" was a vast expanse of simple fields where melons, corn, and other unfamiliar plants were grown. A few people were working in the fields, with some plowing empty areas with large animals and others harvesting melons, placing them in large wagons towed by horses.

It was another long walk before finally reaching the actual city. There were no towering walls surrounding the buildings. Why *would* it need any anyway? Maybe it was the medieval style of the outer-most buildings that made me feel like a layer of protection was missing. But in the end, it's not like walls would help against an invasion led by those high-speed aircraft.

At the end of the path we had been traveling on for two days now, though, we were greeted by a large wooden gateway with the words "Welcome!" printed at the top. The path here turned into a wide but still unpaved dirt road.

To both sides of the road were a few stores. More roads split off from this main road we were walking from, revealing more buildings. People wearing regular plain cloth roamed the streets, carrying baskets full of fruits and vegetables. A horse-drawn wagon filled with large, plump watermelons passed us and turned a corner.

Looking around, it was hard to believe that this place was part of a large city with tall skyscrapers at the center. I looked up front again and saw those towering buildings reaching into the clouds. Still, that section of the city felt disconnected from this part. It was as if this was a town of its own.

As we trotted through the town, a few people turned their heads and looked at our new faces, but they eventually turned back to whatever they were doing. Some of the people, particularly the kids playing around, stopped and looked at us for a far longer time. And a few of them gave such uncomfortable looks that I looked away and down at my feet.

"They… won't attack us or something… right?" Abby said to us in an uncertain tone as a group of children watched us walk by.

"Oh, don't worry 'bout it, Abby. I'm sure they wouldn't be able to steal much from that suit of yours even if they do attack us out of nowhere."

"Yeah…" Em said to Abby, trying to agree with Ari. She still sounded worried, though. "And Abby, you said yourself this place isn't that high on crime, right?"

I gazed at the people around us. So was this the poorer sector of the city? With the plain clothes and primitive technology here, it sure seemed like it. But even so, it didn't feel like everybody was living without money. If we were talking about the slums of a city, I imagined something like wet streets with buildings falling apart and people with tattered clothes. This place felt more like a scene out of a relatively well-off medieval farming town.

Well, in the end, at least Abby was wrong about anybody trying to gang up on us. We soundly reached the end of the area, or I guess the approximate place where the atmosphere slowly began to change. The straw roofs turned to wood, and the buildings looked to become more stable. The residents of the town slowly started wearing more modern clothing. It was as if we had traveled through time just by taking a stroll through a street.

It was only after an entire three hours of walking, and as we were traveling through what looked like a pre-industrial era, when we reached an area in the wide street that was more crowded than the rest. Everybody seemed to be attracted to a particularly large building that looked like a large train station. The most noticeable feature here, though, was a large beacon that shot up from behind the building.

"Damn… What's with this huge crowd at the teleport station?" Ari said as we weaved our way through the sea of people.

"Well, it is the only one in a large area," Abby replied. "Even though many people can't afford it, it is pretty in demand."

"Ugh! If only we had enough money to go in one of those. I'm pretty tired of all this walking!"

"I mean, we're all runaways from another timeline, so we are basically broke."

"I keep telling you to sell all that stuff you got, though! Now you see the consequences of not doing that? Hell, we had to walk on our feet for an entire week because of your selfishness!"

"Hey, do you know how hard it'll be to find a place that sells those items from my homeworld!? Extremely hard! In fact, it's zero percent!"

"Uh—" I broke in after Abby's rebuttal. "I think I have some money…" I was thinking about that pouch of coins Irnoma had given me. She said they would work here, right? More importantly, I just wanted to get to our destinations quickly, so that I might finally be able to continue searching for Alice and let these three go on about their own business.

I took out my bag of coins and revealed the contents to them. Abby's jaw dropped open in shock. "You had this much all this time and you didn't even tell us!?" She said as she reached for my pouch. I instinctively pulled it back, preventing her from taking it. Abby looked up, disappointed.

"So… we can get a ride now, right?" Em said. She was looking at the beacon in the sky. Ever since she had asked Abby about them when the ray of light was still only viewable from a distance, she had been curious about what it would be like to teleport through it.

"Well, what are we waiting for?" Ari was already heading through the crowd. I put my coins safely back into my bag and followed the rest to the station.

At the entrance, a guard stopped us. "Two thousand Krons each, please," she said in an annoyed tone.

I took out my pouch again and fumbled through the coins. How much was two thousand? Irnoma didn't tell me how much each of these was worth. I took out a coin and examined it to try to find a number. But before I could figure it out, Abby took the coin from my hand.

"Let the lady handle the financing," she said as she swiped my pouch from my hands. Abby took out two coins, vanished the pouch into her inventory, and handed the two coins to the guard, who nodded and looked at us suspiciously as we walked in.

Inside was not really much less crowded than outside. In fact, one side of the large chamber with a glass ceiling was packed with people trying to get through. We reached the edge of this wall of bodies and were nearly crushed from behind by even more people almost immediately.

After a long wait in the hot, humid air filled with the smell of evaporating sweat, the crowd narrowed into a line. I was already thinking that this idea of going to this "teleport station" was probably far worse than simply walking when we finally reached the end of the line.

"Next group!" Yelled an officer.

My three companions and I, along with a few other strangers, walked out of the endless line and into a large room. At the center of the room was what simply looked like an endless array of colors floating about in dazzling silky curtains. The colors rose up and through a hole in the ceiling in a white light. This had to be the base of the beacon.

One by one, people stepped through into the aura and faded into nothing. I watched as Abby, Em, and Ari all stepped in. When it was my turn, I took in a deep breath and told myself that this shouldn't be too different from time walking. Then, without any further hesitation, I stepped through.

There was an odd sensation through my body, and around me, the room morphed into another. In just a second, I was out on the other side. I saw my travel companions waiting for me, but it wasn't them I was focused on, but the gossiping I heard across the room full of people trying to go through the exit.

"She's here?"

"Where is she?"

"Is that the carriage?"

"What's she doing at a place like this?"

What type of luck is this? It can't actually be the *princess*, right?