Dawn of Chaos - Book 1 - Chapter 3 - Tram Ride (Patreon)

                                                                         Within Christopher’s Office

The sound of shattering glass echoes through the room as Christopher glares at the desk with the remains of his glass of wine all over his hand and the desk itself. Meanwhile, the servant standing across the room from him, still covered in water from Chaos’s actions, simply stares with a frown on his face.

After a few seconds of silence, he slowly asks the servant, “Do you know where he went, and if you can catch up to him before he reaches the city gates?”

The servant just shakes his head no, still frowning all the while.

“Why’re you so mad?” Katrina asks from her place leaning against a bookshelf on one side of the office with a smirk on her face. “Didn’t you just give him permission to leave the city?”

Her father simply grabs a cloth handed to him by another servant who is standing to the side of his desk and wipes his hands off before glancing at his daughter and answering, “Because I was planning on sending Archibald here to watch over and protect him in secret. But now he’ll be going of who knows where doing who knows what!”

Katrina breaks out into a bout of laughter at his explanation and exclaims, “You really expected him to come in and announce when he was going to be leaving! That’s hilarious!”

Christopher glares at her, then turns to look at Archibald, who is sending him a judgmental glance.

‘Seriously?’ he thinks to himself before shaking his head and retorting, “No. I was expecting him to ask for traveling supplies and to walk out the door like a civilized person.”

Once the city lord hears his daughter’s laughter grow louder at that, he says, “Enough of this. It’s pointless to try catching him now, as all locking the city down will do is send a message that something’s happening to the others.” He then lets out a sigh and leans back in his chair with a frown.

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                                                                                                   Chaos

I hum a tune while looking out the window of the high speed tram I’m in that’s currently speeding through the city in the direction of the border. Generally, these things cost a pretty penny to use. But that’s only if they see me boarding. Which they don’t.

And even if they do catch me at some point, all I have to do is show them father’s emblem and they’ll ignore me. It’s just that they’d report my location to him, which would ruin the fun of escaping in the first place.

After all, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was planning on having someone watch me from the shadows who would likely stop me from doing anything rash.

But rash actions are where understanding and inspiration comes from, so I can’t avoid them. Which means no shadow.

I glance around the car I’m currently in from my little corner, which has a very thin veil of Chaos element around it making anyone who looks here feel uncomfortable and wants to look away subconsciously right away.

It’s a very nice trick when I want to be left alone or unnoticed while staying still. But I can’t make it follow me, and if someone has enough mana in them then it’ll interfere with the Chaos, righting it back to the way it should be. So it doesn’t work at home.

Anyways, the other people in the car all seem to be about middle class in the city. The city itself is separated into fifty sections, which are all split up between the cardinal directions. And among those fifty sections, the first ten are top class, the next twenty are middle class, and the last twenty are bottom class.

I’ve never really understood the setup, but I do at least understand why it’s here. In a criminal world city.

It’s because it makes it easier to separate the rich from the poor.

Simple as that, regardless of how sad that really is.

I turn back to the window again with my chin held in my hands to watch as the tram continues on through the dark night. But I’m quickly distracted again by the sound of the overhead speakers turning on and a voice coming out of it.

“Hello, everyone!” a relatively pleasant sounding female voice echoes through the car. “This is your regular weather and monster update!”

The sound within the car dims down as the people stop talking to listen. Because the last thing they want to do is end up walking outside later and finding themselves burning alive from walking through acid rain. Or worse. Walking through some sort of strange virus that turns them into monsters themselves.

“The precipitation predicted for the day – starting at around 0100 – is a heavy downpour of rain. Yes. You heard right. Rain!” the reporter sounds quite happy about this. And the people in the car do as well. But everyone’s mood drops once she mentions the next part of the report. “However, the monster update isn’t so fortunate. Yesterday’s accumulation of monsters was an all time high, with over one thousand reported new flashes of Chaos lightning.”

My eyes widen slightly in surprise at that.

Interesting.

Chaos lightning marks the birth of a new monster, whether it be of an entirely new species or of a commonly known one. But generally, I believe there are normally only around five hundred new monsters born a day. Of course, this only accounts for the area around this city along with the neighboring cities around it.

It certainly makes it dangerous to go outside of the city, even if the humans don’t kill or rob you just from trying.

But the upside to the monster population is that the planet has had a bustling market for monster parts ever since I was born. Not to mention that people come all the time to fight the monsters themselves and level up their skills.

I’m interrupted from my thoughts by the sound of the tram coming to a stop, followed shortly by the sound of another voice going out over the speakers.

“Attention passengers. We have arrived at southern district, section 50. Please depart if this is your stop.”

I stand up at that before cracking my neck and casually passing through the Chaos wall around me, startling the other passengers into letting me pass straight by them and out of the car. And as soon as I’m out, I raise my head to look at the fifty meter tall city walls with a smile.

Time to leave the city.