Chapter 18: The City of Delusion (Part Two)
Clearly, this was an organized and planned action, but in essence, it was nothing more than a little farce fueled by a crowd of crazed citizens venting their emotions. Their words seemed powerless to change the minds of the majority kneeling in prayer for divine redemption. Before long, more knights emerged from the church, snatching them up one by one and ushering them away from the square.
I didn’t wait around for the show to conclude; I slipped away quietly when the chaos peaked, making my exit while the audience was still fixated on the spectacle.
But even as I walked far away, my mind kept turning over what I had just witnessed.
The Church…
When did it start to gain such a rotten reputation in the eyes of the common folk as “nobility’s henchmen, the dogs of power”?
Even back during the chaos in the Royal City, after so many had died and countless citizens had lost their family and homes—fueled by grief and anger, they had marched, forcing Pope Angel and Cardinal St. George, sworn enemies, to join forces and clarify a few things…
Even then, no one had yelled the kind of thing I just heard, words dripping with contempt for the Church, and even for the great deity.
It’s only been less than two years…
What the heck happened in the Western Continent?
What did that Angel guy do to stoke the people’s emotions to this degree?
Or maybe this phenomenon is unique to the city of Aretien…
I had no clue what the reason was. Having just arrived in the Western Continent, I hadn’t interacted with many people; the information I could gather was painfully scarce. It felt as though not much had changed, yet I sensed a jumble of things that seemed different. With a head full of questions, after over two hours of trudging, I finally reached a place marked on the map called “Jasmine Lane.”
The name sounded elegant and lovely, but upon actually arriving, I realized it was just a common “entertainment street” in the city—a mishmash of restaurants, taverns, opera houses, and, well, casinos and brothels. At the street’s entrance stood a brothel called “Babatarra,” a magnificent stone building that surely wasn’t meant for just anyone’s purse.
Several war chariots were parked outside the brothel, and well-dressed men climbed out, striding straight in, greeted by beaming whores at the door, all eagerly pushing to get attention. One of them was practically topless and didn’t even mind being leered at by passersby on the street.
That kind of woman wasn’t in short supply on this lane.
Once I stepped into the street, the air was thick with a mix of alcohol, vomit, and bodily filth—all too reminiscent of the “Drunkard’s Street” back in the Eastern Continent. The only difference: while the Drunkard’s Street lacked the flashy carriages and respectable folks, Jasmine Lane was flooded with them.
One was a smoky, dismal back alley, and the other was a chaotic paradise of debauchery. Both catered to drinking and revelry, but the differences between the two streets were as clear as day. Yet, despite it all, they shared one thing in common.
I figured whether they were punks, thugs, fat cats, or nobility, once they got a few drinks in them, they all revealed their uncontrolled, reckless, ugly side. This ugly side didn’t care about status; they pretty much all wore the same grimace.
Shouts, curses, foul language, and dirty jokes—though I didn’t want to hear any of it, as soon as I entered the street, these words buzzed around my ears like flies.
Ahead of me, a drunken man was clutching a bottle of alcohol, wrapping his arm around a plump prostitute as he stumbled into an alley next to a tavern. Before he even got inside, he began to unzip his pants, and it wasn’t long before pleasant moans floated back out.
Crash!
Suddenly, a window at a tavern across from me shattered, and someone was tossed through it, rolling onto the street. He staggered to his feet, bl**d flowing from his head, mumbling curses. Two men stormed out of the tavern and, without so much as a word, pounced on him.
“d*mn it, don’t you know who I am? Trying to steal my woman…”
“I’ll be damned if I don’t go home with you!”
Bang! Bang—
They got into a fistfight, clashing with fists flying, moving from one side of the street to the other, and the flying mud almost splattered on my cloak, prompting me to frown and sidestep toward the edge of the street, picking up my pace.
Judging by their clothes and faces, those guys…
I didn’t know their identity, but at least they were living the good life around here. Quite different from the emaciated commoners I’d seen in the northern part of the city and outside of the church. They even had the energy to brawl and buy enough booze to get thoroughly trashed.
This street was probably one of the few spots for the well-off—or perhaps the nobility—to indulge in entertainment…
Meanwhile, the common folks could barely afford rye bread.
But not far along, I discovered that reality was not quite as I had imagined—there were even more poor souls hanging out here, but they often hid in filthy, forgotten alleys, places where the wealthy wouldn’t dare to tread, gazing up at the glitzy war chariots with hungry, longing eyes. When taverns discarded scraps from the kitchen, they would scramble forward, diving into the muck alongside rats.
I happened to witness this scene.
There was even a little boy, around my age, dressed in tattered clothes, knocked down in the scramble with a piece of vegetable in his mouth and broth dripping from his chin. He looked up in confusion, our eyes meeting for a fleeting two seconds.
Then I turned away and continued on.
Out of the corner of my eye, the boy wiped his mouth clean and dove back into the mess of filth.
“…Ah.”
I let out a quiet breath.
For a moment, I almost thought I was still in the Eastern Continent.
Is this really the fertile and peaceful realm of Silgaya that I remember?
The wars and famines had long since ended.
How did it end up like this…
It was enough to take away anyone’s appetite.
Creak—
A pair of double redwood doors swung open next to the street, and a drunken strongman stumbled out, dragging a freckled yet attractive woman behind him.
I turned my head to see her struggling under his weight, nearly tripping over her own feet. Though her wrist was painfully gripped, she wore an awkward yet charming smile. The drunkard chuckled, pinching her cheek, “Miss Furong, let’s go! I’ll show you the mightiest man in the Second Knights Order… my size…”
…They were from the Knights Order?
The Church’s Second Knights Order?
Before he could finish his sentence, his companion followed him out, laughing as he smacked the bald guy on the head, “Back off, I said I’d go first!”
The strongman shrugged it off, “We can both go… it’s not like there’s only one entrance, right?”
“Ha ha ha—”
They laughed shamelessly, groping the woman as they walked, and she didn’t mind, joining in on the laughter as she playfully said in a somewhat awkward sultry tone, “Oh come on, don’t go overboard now, I still have to serve my man tonight…”
The strongman laughed harder, responding, “I’ll give you double for the night, so don’t go home. Your man will agree,” and with unsteady steps, he stumbled closer to me.
The stench of alcohol hit me like a wave, making me nauseous. But what sickened me more was their words and identity. I frowned and instinctively sidestepped, trying to keep my distance from them.
However, the strongman lurched right up to me, losing his balance and crashing into me with a loud ‘thud,’ his elbow jabbing into my shoulder. I didn’t move, but he staggered back two steps, nearly knocking the woman over too.
Finally steadying himself, he let out a drunken belch, bleary-eyed, and scowled at me. Upon seeing what he probably deemed a “short, pathetic kid,” his face twisted with anger: “Who the hell are you, rat? Can’t you watch where you’re going—”
Saying that, he reached out for my hood.
