Chapter 70: Life in a City State

Chapter 70 Life in a City State
After examining all of the test items, Duncan had a better understanding of Aey’s transportation capabilities and the nature of the items on the Lost Country.

Ai can transport several different kinds of items at once, and these items include organic, inorganic, transcendent, and ordinary things. The types of items do not affect the stability of the transportation process, and at the same time, the transportation process does not affect the nature of the items themselves;

Some of the things on the Lost Country that apparently have “activity ability” are themselves “sub-units” of a larger control consciousness, such as shells, which are sub-units of the munitions system, and these sub-units lose their activity nature after leaving the Lost Country and become ordinary The transportation process of the Aye doesn’t seem to be a big deal;
Aey’s transportation process didn’t seem to take much of his “energy”, whether it was the ceremonial dagger he was carrying in the beginning, or the bunch of things he was carrying at once now, the bird was still alive and kicking when he returned, but of course it could be that the total amount of “cargo” he was allowed to transport was still too small, and it was not enough for him to be able to transport the “cargo”. Of course, this could be because the total amount of “goods” it has been allowed to transport so far is still too small, and has not yet reached the bottleneck of its ability;
Only different types of items have been tested so far, and it’s not yet known whether Aye’s transportation ability has a limit on “weight” or “volume”, which would require more testing.

Duncan summarized the known information one by one, and when he was sure he had thought it through, he breathed a sigh of relief and slowly leaned back in his chair.

He knew that the tests he had done so far were still incomplete, and that there were still many possible variables that he hadn’t taken into account, and even in terms of “types of test objects”, the samples he had chosen were too small to accumulate valid data.

In the future, he would at least need to select more types of items, and use different weights and volumes of items to test Ai’s transportation limit and the stability of multiple transports, only with enough control samples would the test data be reliable and trustworthy.

He was very cautious in this regard, and this caution was not unwarranted – because he had a very bold plan …… or idea.

Since Ai can transfer items intact between land and the Lost Country ship without limiting the types of items, can …… it send people?
If it can send people, can it send people who don’t quite count? Like …… Alice?

Duncan knows that a person’s ability is limited, only with their own ability to walk with the help of the spirit world to act as a link between the Lost Country and the land city states, sooner or later will meet the problem of insufficient manpower, not enough consideration, this time if there is a helper, the situation will be much better.

The teleportation ability shown by the pigeon Ai gave him a good idea.

Of course, Alice is not a good candidate for a helper, this empty upper number “abnormal 099” although quiet when staying elegant and mysterious, but as long as the activities will immediately reveal the nature of the dish and waste, but at present Duncan really do not have other candidates.

When he thought that the only available crew member under his hand was a loser who could cook and stew himself, Duncan couldn’t help but sigh.

The Lost Country’s position as an enemy of the world was a real headache for him, and he guessed that it was impossible for him to find allies from the human world, and if he had to, he was afraid that he would only attract a group of middle-aged villains, the kind of bad guys who looked forward to the end of the world as soon as they opened their eyes every day, and who went to cut the gas pipes on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, and went to engage in demonic sacrifice, and went to fight with the Church Guardsmen on Sundays as part of the guerilla warfare… …

That way, they could be in cahoots with the goat-heads soon enough, and they could get together and work out which city-state to invade if they had nothing else to do, but they were never the kind of help Duncan wanted.

“…… Alas, Alice is at least honest and obedient,” Duncan sighed and stood up, muttering to himself, “Can grow up if properly nurtured… . probably.”

Even if it didn’t work as a helper, it would be good for the doll to see the world in the human world, after all, she had been locked in a coffin for so many years, she didn’t even know what the outside world was like.

After organizing his thoughts, Duncan began to pack up this huge pile of things he had brought with him – he wouldn’t be returning to the Lost Country for a while yet, and a lot of these things couldn’t be carried with him, so naturally they had to be kept in the store.

There weren’t many places to hide things on the second floor of the antique store, and with Nina coming up to help clean up the room at any moment, something that clearly didn’t look like an everyday item would be extra suspicious to leave in the room (like a century-old cannonball), but after a brief moment of consideration, Duncan found a reasonable place for these things to go.

The sun amulet would be fine tucked away close to his body, the salted fish could go straight into the kitchen and seem reasonable, and the century-old cannonball and the century-old sailor’s dagger would be even easier –

Duncan took those two things directly to the first floor of the store and put them in an inconspicuous corner next to the counter – anyway, this was an antique store, there were as many similarly painted messes as there were people, and the dagger and the cannonball weren’t as well hidden as wherever he threw them in the pile of raggedy fakes on the first floor… …

As for the last thing, the cheese from the Lost Country’s kitchens, Duncan had found a good place for it as well.

In the trash.

After taking care of that, Duncan patted the non-existent dust on his hands, very pleased with his arrangement.

He then glanced outside at the sky.

The “sun”, which was blocked by the double runic confinement, was hanging high in the sky, and it was just about noon at the moment.

Nina would be returning home later in the day, and before that he planned to go out for a walk to get to know the city better.

The antique store didn’t seem to be doing much business today anyway.

It was a bit cooler, so Duncan changed into a dark brown jacket and fixed his somewhat disheveled hair before leaving the antique store, trying to look as refreshed as possible in his disheveled and frail body that had been tossed around by alcohol, drugs, and disease.

As soon as he went out, a sound of fluttering and flapping wings came from the second floor, and the pigeon Aey flew out of the room to land on his shoulder by himself, shaking his head while proudly forcing, “Go to Erxianqiao and take Chenghua Avenue ……” Duncan immediately slanted this goods a glance, he originally intended to let this pigeon in the second floor of the watchman, after all, out of the body on top of a pigeon always seems too eye-catching and bizarre, anyway, between himself and Ai spirit fire connection, really encountered the situation he can always use the spirit flame to call it to his side, not afraid of delaying things.

Just did not expect to go out when I forgot to explain, this bird on their own “on the car”.

Looking at this bird spirit proud appearance, Duncan finally or helplessly smiled and sighed: “…… Forget it, you love to follow it.”

He so top pigeon, came to the antique store opposite the main road, and along the main road along not far, will hear a clear sound of bells mixed in the operation of the steam organ sound from far and near to come, look up, a brown for the bottom has a blue stripe painted double-decker bus is along the main road to come, and gradually stopped not far away from the station side.

It was a very common public transportation in the city-state of Prand, powered by a steam engine, and with a fare of six pesos, it could reach a large part of the lower city, and according to the route map posted on the back of the bus, there were still two more stops at the end of its route that would go through the edge of the upper city, in a place called the Crossroads District.

Duncan had an image of “Crossroads” in his mind, and he knew that that neighborhood and the surrounding area were considered the “junction” of the city-state of Prand, where there were more prosperous businesses and more decent housing, and many residents of the lower city considered Crossroads as the center of their lives. Many downtowners saw the Crossroads as their goal and dream to move up in life, and many middle-class people who couldn’t afford the high prices of uptown and wanted to live decently lived there-along with movie theaters, museums, and a few good restaurants.

Nina’s school was near the Crossroads neighborhood, and the museum she had mentioned was next to the Crossroads.

Duncan thought about it and walked quickly toward the station, getting on the bus before it started.

There weren’t many people on the bus, more than half the seats on the first floor were empty, and next to the driver’s desk stood a conductor in a dark blue uniform, a young woman with shaggy hair and simple make-up who first subconsciously reached for the ticket folder when she saw someone getting on, but noticed the pigeon on Duncan’s shoulder immediately afterward.

“Sorry, no pets on the bus, it’s a rule,” the young woman said, lifting a finger to point at the pigeon on Duncan’s shoulder, “including pigeons.”

Duncan looked at Aye, who flapped his wings innocently and cocked his head at him.

“Go steak on the roof of the car.”

“Coo-coo, coo-coo.”

Aey flapped his wings and flew out of the car, cursing “coo, coo, coo” as he did so.

The young ticket agent stared blankly at the man who communicated with the pigeons, and the pigeons that seemed to understand human language, and was speechless for a long time.

“Is that all right now?” Duncan had to speak up to remind the conductor, who seemed a little dazed, and raised his hand to point in the direction of the roof, “I don’t suppose you can control a bird landing on the roof, can you?”

The ticket agent then responded, “Ah …… yes …… the fare is six pesos for a pass.”

Duncan reached into his pocket and fished out two coins in exchange for a blue ticket, then found a window seat and sat down quietly, ready to enjoy his first ride in this world.

The steam mechanism was activated, accompanied by a slight vibration and mechanical friction, and the bell on the front of the bus rang out crisply, before the bus shook slightly and the view out the window receded backwards.

Duncan leaned back comfortably in his seat, feeling the vibrations and accelerations of the mechanically engineered creation as it ran.

Steam organs were a good thing, civilized society was a good thing, technological progress was a good thing.

When he had the chance, he must give the Lost Country ship a set of boilers – even if it was just a set of boilers that could burn hot water, in the future, the ship could also take hot baths.

His thoughts had just spread out when he felt a sudden jolt in the car, and the scenery outside the window slowly came to a halt.

The young conductor lady pushed open the window near the front of the car, poked her head out and yelled, “Get in? There are seats! All big seats!”

Duncan was stunned and dumbfounded.

It was at this moment that he suddenly felt the city-state, still foreign to him, was all of a sudden full of life.

(End of chapter)