Chapter 5 | HAHAH I LOVE THEM
Priscilla had a million thoughts running through her mind.
“Why are you staring like that?”
The man’s perfect lips moved as he spoke.
He didn’t look quite human, though his lips moved like a person’s well enough.
“…”
“When you stare at someone so intently, it makes me want to find out what you’re thinking.” He asked the speechless woman again. It sounded almost like a warning.
Worried he might read her thoughts, Priscilla quickly asked, “If you can levitate things, why do you take trains and carriages? Why not just fly?”
“You don’t run everywhere either. Sometimes you just want to take a stroll.”
His mocking reply made her realize she’d asked a stupid question without thinking.
Wizards were rare. They were people you might never encounter in your entire life. How could she possibly know anything about their habits?
After that, the two didn’t exchange a single word. But the situation remained strangely nerve-wracking.
The sun had completely set and the window was pitch black. When a conductor approached to check tickets, Priscilla handed over hers. The book on her lap hadn’t moved during that time.
After getting back the paper with a hole punched by the ticket scissors, she began to notice something odd. The conductor didn’t even check the ticket of the man sitting across from her before moving on. Then he went around normally checking other people’s tickets.
Click, thank you. Click, thank you. With the repeating sounds, the book started moving again.
‘Is he riding without a ticket? Is he using that precious magical power for fare dodging now?’
Was it because of her bad first impression, or did she just dislike the fact that he was a wizard?
Somehow she kept thinking in petty, negative directions.
“You’re staring again.”
“…”
“Is my face that entertaining?”
The man wouldn’t tolerate even the smallest glance.
He deliberately embarrassed her until she hid her face behind the book. She felt like someone caught peeking in secret.
‘Why am I hiding?’
The moment Priscilla blocked her view with the book, she cleared her throat and poked her head back out. She’d been looking because the conductor hadn’t properly checked his ticket, not because she was peeking. There was no need to be embarrassed.
“You’re sitting across from me, so naturally my eyes wander that way.”
“You were looking at me like I was some exotic animal.”
“That’s not true.”
“You’re doing it right now too.”
He had a talent for pressuring her without ever making eye contact.
‘This situation is easy enough to flip.’ Annoyed at constantly being treated like an idiot, Priscilla boldly asked, “How much did you see? Earlier, my memories, I mean. That’s what’s bothering me.”
“All the important parts. Including that very precious thing you’re hiding against your chest.”
“Are you saying you saw me going to the bathroom too?”
“You’re curious about the strangest things.”
THUNK
A yellowed book flew through the air and hit her in the face.
Priscilla caught the unfamiliar book. Now she had two books in one hand. Reading one was hard enough, and suddenly she had another. The title of the new book was ‘About Wizards.’ and it looked just like an animal encyclopedia.
From somewhere came the muttering, ‘Where did my book go? It was just here a moment ago.’
Good lord, he’d used his precious magical power to steal a book too.
She thought she should return it, but couldn’t figure out how to explain the current situation.
‘If I say the wizard in front of me stole the book, would that solve anything?’
“Read it.”
No, that would be a very dangerous thing to do. It was better to believe he’d paid for the book.
Priscilla showed a somewhat wary attitude, but soon read the newly given book as if to say ‘Do what you want.’ She was gradually getting used to this. The man in front of her just wanted her to read quietly and didn’t cause much trouble. Now that she understood that much, there was no need to be overly sensitive.
She occasionally looked out the window, sometimes becoming mesmerized when she encountered beautiful scenery she’d never seen before.
Then she’d read again, and before she knew how much time had passed…
They arrived in Arancel.
The regular swaying over the rails subsided, the brakes engaged, and the whistle blew noisily. It was enough to rouse Priscilla from her concentration.
She closed the forcibly borrowed book and placed it on the seat. She wanted to tell him it was a rather boring read but held back.
Then she stood up. Getting her luggage down was easy. She just had to pull the bag strap.
Standing in the corridor, Priscilla lingered for a moment. Though she didn’t want to, she felt she should thank the person who had helped her, so she glanced at the man’s expression.
“Thank you.”
Whether the man listened carefully to those words was unclear.
But one thing became certain—he was a creepy man.
Because the newspaper he’d been reading when they departed from Sabed was stopped at the same page as when he’d started.
He turned the page, turned it again, turned it once more. Then started over from the beginning.
He continued the ‘act of reading.’
It looked like he was clumsily mimicking human behavior.
“…”
‘I ended up staring intently again without realizing it.’
“Take care.”
The man spoke in a dry tone, perhaps thinking she was waiting for a farewell.
He consistently used gentle tones, but Priscilla knew well that there was no emotion in them whatsoever.
He had been a strange travel companion.
Belatedly, she realized she should stop the whirlwind in her head trying to distinguish whether he was a bad person or not.
Since they’d never see each other again anyway.
Arancel was another world entirely.
First of all, the fog was too thick.
Fog instead of sand…it wasn’t exactly a welcome feeling.
The people who got off at the station were diverse. There were well-dressed elderly people and those in gorgeous dresses like noble ladies.
And some people worked in factories, wearing work clothes.
Some of them sat and stayed at the station until sunrise. She could hear whispered conversations about how the dawn streets were dangerous.
Since there was no reason to risk danger in an unfamiliar city, Priscilla also waited with sleepless eyes for the sun to rise.
Eventually, greeting the morning sun, she buried herself among the procession that began moving one by one.
Being among them, her shabby appearance wasn’t anything to be ashamed of.
Around the station district, there were people catching carriages, beggars, and children running around noisily. Sometimes half-naked men gathered in groups of three to five, tossing a ball back and forth while laughing boisterously.
‘There’s no peace at all here.’
Positively speaking, it was a lively place; more negatively, it was chaotic.
People kept flowing into the city. To the point of bursting.
Priscilla walked the winding paths through the misty white streets. Finding her way was difficult, so she had to ask people for directions every time she passed an alley. Sometimes she went in circles around the same area.
She acted calmly without panicking. From a bit of observation, there were many people around giving strange looks. Lots of pickpockets too. If she seemed naive, she’d likely become a target.
Even during the moments when she was thoroughly lost, she pretended to be composed for quite a while.
When she came to her senses, she found herself standing in front of some industrial district.
But those massive factories all belonged to some large company and weren’t the place Priscilla was looking for.
‘Lost again.’ Priscilla let out a short breath, then immediately began searching for the way again.
The factory she needed to reach was a few alleys over, on Teberg 3rd Street along the murky Milin River.
The street reeked. It was the smell spreading from the river water polluted with waste.
Among the complex tangle of residential areas and shops, the factory was a place that looked like a small, ordinary brick house.
It looked like a family home on the outside but had a rather large door, and when she entered through the open door, she caught sight of several women along with a strong chemical smell.
Inside, textile machines were running. The old-fashioned looms required constantly stepping on pedals connected to shuttles with both feet. Women standing attached to other machines with long pulleys connected from the ceiling kept pulling and plucking the attached strings to produce fabric. There were no bobbin net machines, they were hand-making lace one by one. It felt old like mechanization had been half-completed.
Most of the workers seemed too busy with their tasks to pay attention to an outsider. Priscilla needed to find someone at the management level or the factory owner.
As Priscilla made her way between the machines, it was a young boy who approached her.
“Who are you?”
He blocked her path with wide eyes.
He wore gloves on his hands and an old shirt with suspender pants.
‘So they said even a ten-year-old could do this work, and there is indeed a ten-year-old here.’
