Tycoon May: Chapter 5 (Patreon)

Chapter 5

The city in front of Grant was nothing like he had seen before.  Long single-story buildings lined the streets, making for narrow and straight lanes that were jam-packed with people.  All of the walls were made of glass, with only a few normal buildings interspaced just enough to break up the monotony.  All of the glass walls had an unfortunate side effect of bouncing the sun off of one another, making the cobblestone streets shimmer with heat.  Grant sneezed at the smell of unwashed bodies that permeated the area even several yards away.  He was used to the stink of death, but this was something his senses hadn’t dealt with yet.  It was like a rotting bag of onions, mixed with corn chips.

Congratulations!  An unexpected side effect has been discovered!  Your skill, Bodily Awareness, has synchronized with your sense of smell.  Any bad or offensive odors will now be enhanced!  Bonus experience gained!

<Wow.  That really has to suck.>  Grant did his best to keep from gagging as the stink assaulted his nose with a new level of ferocity.  <You should look into getting a face mask or something.  I imagine it’s going to be hard to ignore stuff that smells bad from now on.>

“Ah, the smell of the city.  There isn’t anything like it!”  Doug waved his one good arm expansively, motioning toward a side street that looked only a little less crowded than the main thoroughfare directly opposite the gate.  “Want to come with me to the alchemist’s greenhouse?  It’s this way.”

“Sure.  It’s as good an idea as any.”  Grant’s eyes were watering due to the sting from the sharp smells.  “Anywhere else would be a good change.”

“How long were you outside a nice, sturdy set of walls?  It looks like you spent too much time in the fresh air.  I have heard about how hard it is to readjust.”  Doug set a slow pace as they weaved through the people crowding the road.  His injured arm forced them to stay on one side, so he didn’t get jostled by all the passersby.  Grant wasn’t sure why everyone was in such a hurry to get where they were going, but the whole population seemed to be in a rush.  “I’ve never been outside for longer than a day or two myself.  My weapon is great and all, especially when I’m in a group.  By myself though?  Not so much.”

Their conversation was interrupted by a commotion farther up the road.  A wagon too big for the narrow street had clipped the edge of a cart, and both ended up spilling their contents all over the cobblestones.  Grant was confused why people were scrambling to scoop up the dirt the wagon had been carrying, but shrugged it off to the peculiarities of being in a new District.  The two of them paused to watch as the wagon driver tried to defend his load of soil, but was quickly overpowered by the mass of people that fell on him like locusts.

“Wow.  Too bad.  I bet that wagon driver loses his job after this.”  Doug shrugged with his uninjured shoulder and turned to walk through a small door that led into one of the glass-sided buildings lining the street.  “We can cut through here.  I hope you don’t mind getting wet!”

Grant followed the warrior into the building, and stopped short as he was immediately coated in a sheen of water.  The oppressive heat inside the glass walls caused him to start sweating, and in only a few steps he was dripping wet.  Looking up, Grant was surprised to see a system of pipes that crisscrossed the ceiling, and small nozzles lining them sprayed a constant fine mist onto the tiny budding plants lining the shelves around him.

“Why is it so hot in here?”  Grant hurried to catch up to Doug before he lost him in the maze of shelves covered in trays filled with dirt.  The only positive was the smell had improved from the stench of human waste and body odor to damp soil with a metallic twang.  Moisture dripped off the end of his nose onto his breastplate, where it was quickly washed away by the mist.  “It feels like I’m in an oven.  A weird, wet oven.”

“I take it you don’t spend much time in the outer ring of your city, then?”  Doug shook his head.  “Makes sense, I suppose.  Here in the outer district is where they grow the food we all need to survive.  It isn’t the greatest place to be, but without it, we would all starve to death.”

Grant’s mind flashed back to District March, where he had seen people dying from the effects of not eating.  “It isn’t so bad here, I guess.”

“Ha!  Yeah, exactly.  The alternative is much worse than putting up with the heat.”  Doug weaved his way through the shelves, leading Grant through the maze inside the building and out the other side.  They exited a large gate wide enough to fit three wagons side-by-side onto a street that was dirtier than the others Grant had seen.  “This is a rougher part of town, so be sure to keep your eyes open.”

“What do you mean by that?”  Grant gripped the hilt of his sword tightly, looking around carefully for any ambushers.  “Are you talking about monsters, or people?”

“In this place?”  Doug started walking, weaving his way through the trash and garbage strewn about.  This area was almost completely deserted when compared to how crowded the other streets had been.  There were still several groups moving about, but none of them had the same sense of rushed energy that was evident elsewhere.  They seemed more… furtive.  “I would say there isn’t much difference between the two.”

<Try not to start any fights.  All this glass around could make a real mess, and you don’t have time to spend a week in a local jail cell while the guards figure out what happened.>  Grant squeezed the hilt of his sword to let Sarge know he understood.  Causing a ruckus was the last thing he needed at the moment.

“And just where do you think you are headed?”  Of course, the moment Grant had determined not to make a scene, a trio of toughs stepped out from a loading dock to block their path.  The largest of the three looked at Grant and pointedly tapped the handle of a heavy cudgel on his belt.  “Looks like your friend there is injured.  I would hate to see it get worse before he made it to the healer.”

“Yeah, that would just be the worst, wouldn’t it, Vernic?”  The smallest of the three was holding a narrow metal bar, and seemed to be unable to stand still.  Grant immediately marked him as the most dangerous of the three.  “Terrible, just terrible!”

Instead of answering, Grant widened his stance and bent his knees with his hand on the hilt of his Uchigatana.  Doug tried to move closer to Grant, without making it obvious.  The third man, who was the oldest by a fairly wide margin, took a half-step back.

“I don’t know, boss.  That one doesn’t look nervous at all.”  The gray-haired man didn’t carry a weapon, but his scarred knuckles and crooked nose marked him as an experienced brawler.  “Maybe we should just go for an ale.”  Grant’s eyes flickered to the older man, and he gave Grant a subtle nod of understanding.  He knew he was outmatched.  Grant returned the nod, and the man hooked his thumbs in his belt to show he had no intention of fighting.  “I don’t think it would be worth it if we messed with these two.”

“You worry too much!  Those idiots who run out the gate to fight are used to fighting monsters, not people.”  Vernic unhooked his cudgel from his belt and spun it by the leather thong.  “Humans are a totally different kind of fight.  They might think they’re tough, but it’s the wrong kind of tough to beat something that thinks!”

<I’m only pointing out the obvious, but he is definitely not the kind of opponent that thinks.>  Grant snorted, struggling to keep from laughing out loud.

“What?  This funny to you?”  The shortest of the three shifted his metal bar into a two-handed grip.  It was a little shorter than Grant’s sword, and he had no illusions as to how easily it could be used to crush a skull or break a limb.  “You think we’re some kind of joke or somethin’?”

“How about you give us all your Time, and we don’t break anything else.”  Vernic seemed to have also been irritated by Grant’s laughter.  “And make it fast.  I’ve got places to be.”

<He’s right.  You are wasting time.  Just get this over with.>

Grant used his Iaijutsu skill to unsheathe his sword in a flash of movement, slicing through the wrist holding the cudgel with a smooth and controlled upward swing.  Vernic’s hand went flying in a spray of blood, still tightly gripping his weapon.  His screams were cut off when Grant’s downward return swing sliced off the top half of Vernic’s skull.

Doug used his staff one-handed, knocking the short man’s metal pole to the side as he tried to swing at Grant’s head.  The Vassal winced in pain, the jarring impact hurting his broken bone.

In response, Grant stabbed sideways into the side of the rod-wielder’s neck.  The man started choking, and dropped to his knees.  Grant split his skull with a downward chop that put him out of his misery.  When he looked up at the older man, he had both hands raised in front of him in surrender.

“I tried to warn them.  You ain’t got the eyes of somebody scared to kill.”  The brawler took a few steps backward in retreat.  “I’ve no quarrel with you two.  I’ll just be off, then.”  He turned and started jogging away with a pronounced limp.  Grant watched him go as he sheathed his sword.

<You should do the same.  There is quite the crowd growing.>  Grant looked around, and the people who had stopped to watch flinched back from his gaze.

“Well, that escalated quickly.”  Doug shook his head, and started walking toward a gap in the crowd of onlookers.  “Come on, we’ve still got to get to the healer.  It should be easy now that word will spread about not messing with the guy that carries a sword.”

The two men hurried out of sight, leaving the bodies of the toughs to bleed out behind them.