Gio spent a little more ti speaking with the Old Lady before she sent him away, telling him to start preparing for his departure.
’She’s not wrong. I have a lot to pack. Three days’ worth, though...?’
Well, packing and whatnot could wait. There were a couple of things that needed to happen first.
Firstly, Gio made his way back to his ho in Gastle. It technically still belonged to him, but he was the one knocking on the door now.
Ricky opened it almost instantly. He had clearly been waiting for Gio to show up.
"A lot of crazy things have happened since you returned."
"It hasn’t even been a day?" Gio responded with a smile as he walked into the house.
"How have you been the past year? From what I heard, you’re thriving."
"Thriving is not the right word for that," Ricky said, sighing and collapsing onto his bed. It was different from the one Gio used. It seed he had made enough money to refurnish the place.
"If you heard about what I’ve been up to, then you should know that it’s been hell. I can’t rember the last ti I got a good night’s rest."
He looked over at Gio, who definitely looked different from the kid he rembered.
"You’ve clearly been through a lot more, though."
Gio shrugged.
"It’s proportional. If we’re talking about who struggled more, it was definitely you."
"Bastard."
Gio grinned and took a seat at the small kitchen table.
"It’s all good news at the end of the day. There isn’t much complaining you can do, is there?"
"Ha, what good news? I’ve just been slaving away and learning bullshit this whole ti. What am I supposed to do with it?"
"You still plan to follow , don’t you?"
"I an, I do, but I thought you were going to the Second Stratum now? What did they call it? Arcadia?"
Ricky looked over with a frown.
"How am I supposed to..."
His words trailed off as he squinted his eyes suspiciously at Gio’s smile.
"There’s no way this is what you were talking about."
"When I ntioned it, I was picturing a different thod, but the end goal was always Arcadia."
"Hahaha..." Ricky laughed listlessly.
"You want to follow you there? Isn’t everyone there, like, uptight and stuff?"
Gio shrugged.
"You can figure that out when we get there. All I’ll say is that nothing you did here was useless. The skillset you developed...if you co with to Arcadia, I plan to put that skillset to use."
"How?"
Ricky sat up as he asked, and Gio answered him seriously.
"Humans need architecture to live. If what they’re saying is true and you really have talent in architectural work; if you really are skilled at leading workers and facilitating these matters, then you’ll beco an important part of my plan for the future."
Gio couldn’t say anything for certain. This was a future they’d have to create from this mont onward.
But if Ricky expanded on his talent, grew so ambitions, and truly put his heart and soul into working towards them...
"You can beco soone great."
Ricky’s eyes widened slightly.
They were words he had never heard before.
’No, I wasn’t born to be soone great. I already know that.’
His mind was filled with annoying thoughts like those. They made it hard for him to accept Gio’s praise properly.
However, Gio was a person he chose to follow. He didn’t make that decision without thinking.
After seeing how Gio lived for these past two years, he’d been convinced that the boy was destined for far greater horizons than the ones he could imagine.
That sa boy was the one telling him that he could reach those horizons too.
Even if he didn’t believe in himself...
"You had three days, right?" he asked.
"You were told about it?" Gio responded with a raised brow.
"I was on top of the walls when it happened. I have a guard shift in the evenings."
"Makes sense. Yeah, it was three days, but I’m going to go talk to them when we’re done. We’ll leave when we’re done preparing, so hopefully the day after tomorrow instead."
"That isn’t a lot of ti..."
"Sure, but do you have anyone to say goodbye to?"
Ricky shot him a pointed glare, but Gio only shrugged. He was sure that Ricky was just as friendless as he was.
And no matter how much Ricky wanted to deny it, he couldn’t.
’I was making friends in the city, but then I got pulled away for all this intensive training I’ve been doing...’
It was to the point where even his vocabulary improved considerably. He’d practically forgotten the faces of his acquaintances and he definitely didn’t rember their nas.
Gio grinned and stood up, patting Ricky on the shoulder as he made his way to the door.
"Anyway, I’ll leave you alone to start packing. You probably won’t be back for a while, if at all. If there’s anything you spent a lot of money on..."
Gio’s eyes trailed to the bed as a sly grin crept up his face.
"Well, you can figure that out."
"Hey, wait! Gio, co back here! I know damn well you didn’t...!"
Ricky’s words faded into the distance as Gio rushed out of the house and down the street.
It was impossible for Ricky to follow him.
’I wonder how he’s going to get everything together...’
Gio truly couldn’t wait to see Ricky’s expression when he told him that he could keep everything in the Storage Hole while they traveled. There wasn’t even a need to pack properly in the first place.
He chuckled to himself as he walked down the street.
’They’re being housed in the inner city. Gregor didn’t have any special background before he beca part of the family, but even ordinary people in Arcadia would find the slums here disgusting.’
That wasn’t to say Arcadia didn’t have slums.
’It’s a different world up there. Unlike the Wasteland, Arcadia is like three different worlds combined into one.’
Above the 5th Stratum were the Strata humanity was able to almost fully develop.
Arcadia was special in that right. Its society was divided into three levels.
The lowest-class citizens lived under the earth in separated cities. They were still governed by the sa entities, but their society was almost completely isolated.
Ordinary people lived on the surface, and for the highest class citizens, there were even floating cities that put them on the sa level as the clouds rather than the people. ]
’The Atmos Clan controls a floating city, however, it’s currently grounded and hasn’t been airborne in a little over a decade.’
The Atmos Clan’s current situation was a bit different from its reputation.
Gio thought about the clan he returned to last ti as he arrived in the inner city.
It wasn’t hard to find out where they were. All he had to do was ask the Old Lady.
He arrived in front of the building easily, and by the ti he walked into the lobby, Gregor was already waiting for him.
"So you really did co," he said with a nod.
"I thought I sensed your presence nearby."
"Right..."
Gregor wasn’t a mber of any Atmos lineage. He was soone from the outside who’d been recruited into the clan when he was young.
However, of the higher-ranked officers in the clan’s army, Gregor was the one Gio’s father trusted most.
Which ant Gregor knew more about Gio than most others.
"Co," he said, ushering Gio over welcomingly.
"I’m sure you have questions. Anything your father doesn’t want to personally answer when you et, I’ll tell you now."
It seed he’d determined that Gio had chosen to go with him.
No, if he didn’t make that choice, there was no reason for them to et at this ti.
Gio walked up and sat across from him at the table he occupied.
To say he had a lot of questions was wrong, but that didn’t an he didn’t have anything to say.
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