A hover car sped through the legalised air routes in Trundel City, departing straight from Cas Lego province while moving south towards Neon Sumr province.
The blue hover car was shaped like a bullet, but with jet wings. There were unique black lines drawn from one end to the other, giving the hover car an intimidating yet exotic appearance. It was almost as if a fighter jet was blazing through the skies.
This hover car was called a Terino Grand Ghost, or TGG for short. Although it was called a hover car, it was actually a sare shuttle. A sare shuttle was a hover car alternative for freelancers and pioneers who wanted to go into the wild —which is the nickna for a desolate beast domain. These vehicles were built specifically for traversing desolate beast domains. Their exterior was much stronger than traditional hover cars making them resilient to attacks; their speed, performance and reliability were also well ahead of the latter. But one of the most interesting points of sare shuttles was that they could be ard with weapons to combat desolate beast attacks.
The TGG wasn't a high-end sare shuttle and wasn't even suited with a lot of attacking options, having only two low-grade laser guns fitted into its hub. However, in exchange for a drop in attack power, it prioritised speed and defence power. These two were features Lucas settled on after considering the various possibilities that could take shape during this mission. If there happened to be another party aware of the existence of the Heart of Silver, the ability to outrun and survive against their retaliation was more important than the ability to return fire.
'Neon Sumr province, the trade station of the south.'
Lucas glanced at the display of the shuttle that showed the view underneath him. A magnificent city sprawled all over the place.
Being the last province before Belfargos City's territory, Neon Sumr province beca an important trade centre for many. rchants from Belfargos City who wanted to sell their goods, unless they had a contractual agreent, usually did so here. The sa was true for freelancers who went into the Millennia Mountains from Trundel City. Because of this, many companies in the desolate beast market set up their stations and outlets here. So of them even went as far as constructing a regional headquarters here.
While it might have seed silly, setting up a regional headquarters here was a smart idea. This was because the Millenia Mountains was a class A desolate beast domain, so the variety of monsters found here —whether in terms of quantity or quality— was incredible. A simple store, most tis, was unable to handle big transactions reaching up to hundreds of thousands of federal coins, which would be common in Neon Sumr province. But it was a different story for a regional headquarters.
Lucas controlled his Terino to land in a public parking space after paying for the fee online. His goal for visiting the province was to get a map of the Millennia Mountains. Due to the nature of the mission, Lucas couldn't get a guide to lead him forward, so he had to do everything himself.
The world was a digital society, but to have access to unique information such as a map of a desolate domain, unless one was a registered freelancer, you couldn't get it online. Just like vestiges, such information was restricted to only the necessary parties. While it wasn't illegal as with vestiges, average citizens couldn't get their hands on such information easily. Luckily, there was still ti for Lucas to find a place that would sell it to him.
"Excuse for a second."
Lucas approached a man who had just exited a vestige-smith store. Based on his attire as well as the aura around him, the man was a freelancer.
"A human? Get straight to the point." The man frowned as he stared at Lucas with disdain in his eyes. It was almost as if talking to Lucas was not just a waste of ti, but also of his breath.
Belfargos city-state being more acceptable of humans than anywhere else, except Digress city-state, didn't an that every hyuman would be nice to one.
"Nothing much. I just have a business proposal for you. It's nothing difficult; I just need information."
Lucas snuck out a stack of cash and flashed it at the man. The bundle of cash was made of the highest value notes of the federal coin and added up to roughly four thousand federal coins.
The man's eyes flashed with greed as he stared at the bundle, almost reaching out to snatch it.
Even though freelancers made a lot, they also spent a lot. The situation was even worse for the unsuccessful freelancers who occasionally lived between debts and wealth. For an average freelancer, getting four thousand federal coins in exchange for a piece of information was a deal too good to avoid.
The man's deanour abruptly changed as he put on a polite smile and shifted his gaze from the stack to Lucas' face.
"What do you want to know?"
"A map. I need a map of the Millennia Mountains, with all notable hunting and resource grounds. The more detailed, the better." Lucas replied as she stared at the man in the eyes.
Logically, this request was absurd and few freelancers would agree to it. But with the power of money, even illegal things could be done, much less requesting for a map of the Millennia Mountains.
The man narrowed his eyes as he stared back at Lucas and the two were stuck at an impasse.
While Lucas was waiting for an answer, the man was considering the situation more carefully. Although giving out a desolate domain map to a citizen was not illegal, it would affect his reputation if found out. So information networks might even blacklist him for that. On the other hand, there were four thousand federal coins on the line for an 'easy' job.
"If you have any detailed copy and even personal notes, I don't mind topping with one thousand more federal coins." Lucas suddenly said.
"You win."
The man snorted before pulling out a piece of hardware. It looked like a flash and was quite similar to it as this device also stored data and information.
"Inside here is a map of the Millenia Mountains and the major hunting grounds. It also has the details of the types of monsters in there as well as the places one could find certain resources and minerals, but they've been mostly cleared out since long ago. There are also a few notes of mine on certain regions that aren't recorded in public maps. In other words, my experience in the mountains.
"Even though I'm giving this to you, try not to sell it to soone else or get caught doing so." The man warned him.
"No need to remind ." Lucas nodded in return.
He had no intention of selling the docunt no matter what.
After paying the man and confirming the map, Lucas left the man and acted as if nothing had happened. The latter similarly did the sa and the two went their different paths from here. Since it was getting late, Lucas decided to take a break and continue the next day.
Coincidentally, at the sa ti, a group of strangers had similarly arrived within Neon Sumr province.
[1] I'd like to clarify one thing which I think many might have forgotten. A city-state in Eretre is the sa as a country in terms of size (think large countries, at least the size of Brazil, but so can be bigger). Due to the Oklo Dynasty's rule, the use of the words 'nation' and 'country' is prohibited, so they take on the term 'city-state'. This is also partly because most of these city-states originally evolved from one city that expanded its influence, like Baylands city-state.
Districts are state-sized (the Arican ones that are really big, like Texas), while a city can be really huge (think the country of Belgium). This is especially so for capital cities, and if you can recall, Baylands City is so huge that the five major districts in it were essentially individual cities of their own that were also large. Also, mode of transportation is flight, so this isn't really troubleso for Eretreans.
In the unofficial Belfargos city-state, the situation is slightly different. Because Belfargos city-state is unofficial, there is no limit to the size of the cities within it. So, a city can be as large as Scotland (South Carolina) or smaller. Being that large, it's no surprise that the provinces within are also large.
This seemingly absurd size standard is because there are few city-states (countries) in Eretre, numbering only thirteen. anwhile, the planet is 1.5 tis that of Earth. The majority of the planet is occupied by water, just like Earth, and also desolate beast domains. So, if you were to stuff over eight billion people into thirteen 'countries', it's only natural for those 'countries' to be crazy big.
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