Chapter 309: Wildfire Town
Those three people accompanying him along were individuals of a certain influence and status, yet they were not even able to access a freshman’s details. That made them incredibly curious about Xiao Lin, and although they would not directly ask him about it, they had quite a number of speculations over his ident.i.ty.
“Asabanor.” Xiao Lin narrowed his eyes, as if he was reminiscing about what happened. After a long pause, he finally let out a soft sigh. “He’s a lunatic.”
The other three exchanged glances, but Xiao Lin was obviously unwilling to say any further. It was not appropriate to tell everyone about the things that happened in The Final Land, and moreover, Xiao Lin was not exactly sure as to how much those people actually knew.
A few days later, they arrived at the first stop of the journey—Wildfire Town.
There was more than a dozen variously-sized towns in the entire Silver Province, and the total population numbered over one million, making for quite a large area. Honest folk existed along with sc.u.mbags, and almost all races pa.s.sed through there. The benefits of starmetal were so tempting that even the elves could not resist it.
“Wildfire Town is a town that is close to the Dawn Academy’s colonial area. It’s not de facto under our jurisdiction, but the mayor here has our support,” the Intelligence Agency’s Qin Zuo took the initiative to speak. The other two were aware of that already and that statement was more for Xiao Lin’s sake.
“I know.” Xiao Lin nodded too. He smiled and raised the thick information reports in his hand. It was the same one that Yu Mei pa.s.sed to him, which he read to throughout his time on the road to relieve himself of boredom.
Qin Zuo was not surprised. “I used to work with Yu Mei in the agency. She was a lunatic too, but the dean values her a lot.”
Xiao Lin pursed his lips. It was a rather apt description of Yu Mei, for she could hardly be regarded as a sane person if she had the galls to blatantly have him commit robbery in Silver Province. In fact, Xiao Lin had yet to tell his three companions about it. Having looked over Yu Mei’s information about the bandits, it appeared that those people were not very strong. However, he was no match for their numbers, and attacking them single-handedly was a suicidal act.
Silver Province’s rule and order was basically maintained by those mayors. Although any form of unification was not allowed there, the mayors possessed extremely wide powers. They were the ones who managed daily affairs, and local n.o.blemen were traditionally the ones appointed to that position. When Earth’s academies gradually became stronger, most of the mayors there were then supported by the various academies, thus leading to the complexity of the sphere of influence within Silver Province.
Once at the town, Xiao Lin got off from his unicorn carriage, he looked curiously at the small town, which was about the size of a county back on Earth. It was different from Dawn City and New Washington in the sense that it retained many of Planet Norma’s characteristics. Although the forces there were supported by the colonial academies, none of those academies interfered directly with the development there.
In terms of architectural features, many of the strangely shaped buildings were more ornate than Dawn City’s buildings, but being ornate was all there was to them. Xiao Lin remembered his previous visit, when the fat An Fumin mentioned that the standard design of Dawn City’s buildings was so they could withstand a certain degree of long-range spell attacks. It was clear that those buildings suffered damage during the war with the orcs.
“Will the mayor come to pick us up?” the military’s Ruan Feiyun asked.
“You must be joking! We’re on a secret operation. To the outside world, we’re just an ordinary merchant group. After all, the mayor is not one of us, so it’s best not to trouble him.” The Foreign Affairs Department’s Zhao Mancheng shook his head and refused.
During the next two days, the group of people would temporarily rest and replenish their supplies in Wildfire Town. Whenever Xiao Lin was free, he would wander around the street to observe the true local characteristics of Planet Norma. The majority race in that town were humans, but they were the local indigenous humans. Their appearance was not much different from that of Earthlings, but their different styles of clothing sufficed to distinguish them from the colonists.
Before arriving, Xiao Lin had already changed into the local clothes. Although it was quite awkward to wear and he could barely handle simple Normese vocabulary, many people actually came to talk to him along the way. When Xiao Lin—whose mastery of the language was mediocre at best—could not understand what the other party wanted to express, some of them actually changed their language to and spoke some terrible Chinese.
What left Xiao Lin rather speechless was that they were coming up to him in order to sell their products. The goods on sale comprised things such as soap and perfume, and Xiao Lin slowly began to realize that the soap brands were getting more and more familiar. Xiao Lin had a sudden realization and could not help but wipe the sweat off his forehead. The soap was clearly brought from Earth with the wrapping paper teared off!
Earth’s products were very popular there, and although the history of colonization spanned more than two centuries, the first century was spent in war. During the peacetime that followed, trade with the locals gradually strengthened. In addition, the modernization of Earth was a recent development during the past couple of decades, with many gadgets and products gradually making their way into Planet Norma.
Such an aspect was unnoticeable in the capital city because that was a colonial stronghold. However, it was within those small towns that Xiao Lin saw first-hand the sales volume of those things.
The colonial academies had always refused to commence rapid development of Silver Province. To some extent, it was probably to ensure that the place had a short enough supply of goods in order for them to make more money.
After declining several attempts to make a sale, Xiao Lin became a little annoyed. There was actually nothing to see in the town itself, and in addition to the local buildings and the natives on the road, many places actually had a strong ‘earthly’ character to them. For example, Xiao Lin picked a local restaurant at random to have some lunch, and he was stunned by the names of pork slices in garlic sauce and Gong Bao chicken on the menu.
Unfortunately, Xiao Lin was not in Dawn City, where Earthlings might occasionally prepare the dishes themselves if they were in the mood. In Wildfire Town, those dishes were entirely made by the locals on their own, and the taste was simply all kinds of flavors jumbled up. One thing that surprised Xiao Lin was that knives, forks and chopsticks are always available in the restaurants there. He learnt from history lessons that no such tableware existed in Planet Norma, and all of them were basically brought from Earth.
After returning in the evening, Xiao Lin suddenly understood that those invaders from another s.p.a.ce and time had been subtly changing many things in that continent over a hundred-year period.
The security in Wildfire Town was not too bad, but Qin Zuo reminded Xiao Lin to return to their merchant group’s premises before dark, otherwise they could not guarantee his safety. There were quite a few people in Silver Province who had no qualms about killing and robbing others. Even though they might not dare to go near a merchant group under the banner of a colonial academy, lone individuals like Xiao Lin stood out prominently as an outsider, and even Earthlings were not spared by people like them.