Page 1658 (Patreon)

After a while, though, he supposed the placement of these buildings made sense. The street was narrow enough already, and perhaps it was easier to simply suspend the houses in midair like this than to widen the road--or worse, suspend the houses over the side of the cliff. That seemed like it would be insanely dangerous, especially with how deep this hole went.

The party continued downward, which proved to be a more difficult task than it seemed. After one more instance of struggling to find another staircase leading down, Zeff decided to let Hector take the lead, and even then, it was slow going. On top of not wanting to rush into a bad situation and make it worse, the reapers were also scanning the area constantly, deliberately taking their time with trying not to miss anything.

‘There’s definitely someone strong in this city,’ said Garovel after a while.

‘Yes,’ said Axiolis. ‘Someone near the Salesman’s level of strength, unless I am mistaken.’

‘Sounds about right,’ said Yangéra.

It was a bit early to tell, of course, but Hector supposed that person would be the “lost sheep” whom Rasalased had mentioned.

He had no idea what they were going to do about that. He really didn’t want to deal with another person of that caliber, but he probably wasn’t going to have much choice, he figured.

As they started reaching the middle tiers of the great hole, the streets began growing wider, and Hector noticed small tunnels and caverns in the wall where more buildings were hiding--even entire side streets. He started seeing many, many more people as well--all of whom were Hun’Kui.

Unlike the Hun’Kui in Babbadelo, however, these ones were not usually wearing goggles, and even less frequently did they appear to be armed. Most of them looked like they were too busy with one thing or another to even give a bunch of surface-dwellers a moment’s glance. The way they carried themselves seemed somehow fundamentally different, Hector thought. A kind of a weary resolve, perhaps, like someone who was on their way to do something that they didn’t really want to do but knew that they had to.

Hector had seen the like before in high school. Hell, he’d felt the like before in high school.

When they finally began to reach the lower tiers, however, the sights changed even more significantly. Tall, metal tubes ran lengthwise along the roads, and at first, Hector wasn’t even sure what they were, until he saw a train pass through them. It wasn’t nearly as large or as loud as the ones he’d ridden previously, but it was especially noteworthy to him because he thought he spotted a few regular humans through its windows as it passed.

And indeed, the other areas of the lower tiers only served to confirm that notion for him. The streets became more complexly interconnected, digging into the wall and diverting off into enclosed spaces. Hector and the others even encountered one street which was entirely enclosed and significantly cooled.