'Too much. This is too much.'
The boy covered his ears as he went through the barrier.
Loud noises assaulted his senses; blaring lights came from everywhere. People pushed against him, shoving him out of the way. Something grabbed him by the back of his hood, pulling him backwards.
He felt a sudden pain in his lower back and rear. The inertia had pulled him backwards, directly onto the stone pavement.
By the time Paryl's eyes adjusted to the artificial lights and his ears got accustomed to the shrill noises coming from all directions, the boy saw Indom. He wasn't as shocked as the child, but he simply seemed perplexed.
Paryl looked around. For some reason, they had been set in the dead middle of a road and only now pulled back to the sidewalk. People were crossing it in two separate directions, some towards Paryl, some away from him, while giant metal boxes floated in the air.
The flying carriages, which looked like boxes, had something akin to a sofa in them, on which many people lay down. The metal chambers had a panoramic ring of glass around them, covering the whole 360 degrees.
In midair was suspended a shining ball with a checkmark symbol on it. Then, the symbol changed into a countdown. People ran to the other side of the street frantically. It proceeded to gradually go down from 5 to 0, at which point the orb glowed red and an 'x' formed on its surface. People stopped crossing the road, and the boxes started flying underneath the orb.
Paryl was wordless. He had lived in a small town before being transported to the facility, but he had never seen anything like this. The town's roads were meant for horses and carriages, rarely being used, allowing the inhabitants to walk and play on the streets as they pleased.
Looking up, he saw a building that was at least 40 meters tall. It was covered in flashing advertisements for things like:
"Get rich quickly!" "Your ticket out of the outer city! Invest a measly 35 olitreov and make 10000% profit!" or "New noble titles for sale! Get them quickly before they're sold out!"
He looked left, seeing a store with a neon sign that said "Inscription instruments, best in town!" Dozens of shops extended down the street.
Restaurants, cafés, and novelty businesses were competing for customers with obnoxious visuals and signs listing arbitrary sale percentages, each of them hiding small print underneath the colorful words.
Every 30 meters stood large, metal poles covered with huge gray metal squares at the top, adorned with mana inscriptions. Loud announcements drowned out hundreds of human voices around him, forcing him to listen to "local sponsors" every 15 seconds.
Indom seemed disgusted.
The boy's ears stung as he was forced to listen about some 'Meat festival'.
Looking up at a cafeteria, he saw poorly edited advertisements for shoddy apartments.
Everything about the city bugged both of the outsiders. Indom helped Paryl up, then walked into the first hotel he saw.
Everything was still obnoxiously loud, with lights shining through the glass door.
The two of them walked up to the hotel desk worker.
The woman greeted them with a practices fake smile.
"Hello, how may I help you two today?"
Indom shuffled around in his coat pocket.
"A room with two separate beds, 7 days."
"Of course!"
She typed something onto a weird rectangle with letters that was fused into the desk. All around it were hundreds of lines and shapes connecting it to a metal book.
"That'll be 2.17 olitreov."
The woman silently slid a small metal box with an engraving in the shape of their bracelets. Indom instead pulled out a gold coin. Paryl didn't know what it was, but he felt a strange mana signature emanate from it. It was weak but had a unique quality to it, almost like a signature.
Indom smiled to himself as he slid the coin to the lady's stunned expression.
"Title of baroness. Take it, and give us the key."
The lady was astounded. She tossed Indom the room keys and ran out of the hotel with the coin, only stopping to say a quick "Thank you."
"Ordin, what was that?"
Asked Paryl, innocently.
"Everyone here seems to be obsessed with nobility titles. So I gave her one Utbrus handed to me before our falling out."
"Ooh! But how did she know it was real?"
Indom fiddled with the keys, squinting to see the number written on them.
"Those coins are artificial cursed weapons. You can unbind them to hand them to a different person. The mana signature was confirmation."
They walked up the stairs, trying to find room 318. They got to the third floor, walking around. The hotel's halls were narrow and empty, their walls and ceilings as red as blood.
The whole place unnerved Paryl, as it reminded him of the facility.
At the hallway's end he saw a white-haired elf, not much older than him. The girl was on the thinner side and had a white, featureless mask hanging from her neck by a string.
Paryl found the girl cute and waved to her. She seemed shocked, her eyes widening.
Before he could even wonder as to why that is, Indom pulled Paryl into their room, slamming the door shut behind him.
Lights and sounds from the street infiltrated through the thin walls and the windows, respectively.
"Kid, you're going to keep practicing your partial transformation for three days. We'll only leave this room after you're done."
Paryl seemed anxious.
"Huh, why? I-is something that's dangerous on the streets?"
Indom sighed somberly, shaking his head.
"No, this city just unnerves me. Something is wrong here."
Paryl just nodded, trusting the powerful man's intuition.
"So, what will we do after I practice?"
Indom thought for a bit, then answered.
"Well, first we'll go and scout for information.
Afterward we will go earn money and buy maps and essentials."
Paryl followed along.
"Okay, pretty reasonable so far..."
The man grinned. Paryl immediately knew something horrible was about to leave Indom's mouth.
"Then, we do just a teeny tiny itsy-bitsy bit of domestic terrorism."