NOVEL NEXT Chapter 48 – Glosgaw
The rest of the ride went quickly, since the ferica was terrified of Mirefa. It saw Mirefa run behind it and sped up, which just made her run faster, which meant the bird ran faster, and in the end, the caravan arrived at Glosgaw a few days earlier than it would have.
It was nice to have a period of time where I got to enjoy a view that wasn’t just trees, but unfortunately, all the major elven cities are located in forests, even though the cities themselves were lacking trees.
Glosgaw was surrounded by forests, but there was a very clear ring between the trees and the city walls, probably to prevent people from jumping in or for making it easier to detect intruders. There were a few large trees in the city itself that were part of the buildings, but for the most part, the buildings were constructed from the floor.
Luckily, the caravan driver handled all the entrance procedures so we didn’t need to, so when we disembarked, we were already inside the city. We said our farewells, with the caravan driver claiming he won’t be outdone and would successfully teach his birds how to write. Somehow, I doubted it would work out, but it was pretty entertaining to see him try during our trip.
Anortha spent a bit too much time looking at the tall buildings around her, so I had to write, “Shouldn’t we hurry up and find the inn that the driver recommended? Although a lot of our foodstuffs were eaten, our cart is still quite unwieldy and a prime target for theft.”
“Oh right, uh, let’s do that.”
Admittedly, I too was looking around the city in interest. While the buildings were interesting, it wasn’t too far from the buildings I’ve seen back in my previous life, other than the fact that they really liked making them tall, with at least a good five or six stories. I was mainly paying attention to the people walking around.
There were the elves of course, all with blonde hair except for the children. Some of them had a darker skin tone, but otherwise didn’t look much different. What was more interesting was the occasional other races I saw. There were the more obviously non-elves such as the bird-like people that flew over our heads, or the extremely short people that were scarcely taller than I was, yet didn’t appear to be children.
Then there were the less obvious non-elves, such as humans or the person who was walking with a hood on and could totally pass off as an elf, except for the fact that I could see a tail waving around under the skirt. Not that I was trying to, but being so short meant that it was inevitable.
When we finally got to the inn, I was a bit worried, as we were clearly in the shadier part of the city. I suppose we did ask the driver for an affordable inn. At least the inn itself was clean and well maintained, and the receptionist did not care at all about Mirefa’s or my presence.
The room itself was rather spacious, with two large beds. There was a proper bathroom, except for the fact that there was no running water. Given that I saw some other species around the city, I wonder how they dealt with the problem. Surely they wouldn’t all be capable of casting water magic.
After settling in a bit, I asked Anortha, “Do you want to spend more time in Glosgaw or do you want to just take the train to the capital tomorrow? We are ahead of schedule.”
The elf paused for a moment, then answered, “Tomorrow is fine. The sooner we get to the capital, the sooner I can take the entrance exam, and the sooner I can tell my parents that I made it.”
“Not even remotely interested in touring Glosgaw?”
“Eh, all big cities are basically the same, and we might as well go to the bigger and better one.”
Good thing we were in the inn, otherwise I’m pretty sure some of the residents here might have some issues with that statement.
Just because Anortha thought that the cities would be the same doesn’t mean I had the same idea, and so I insisted that we spend at least today visiting the noteworthy places in Glosgaw.
First thing I did though, was to visit a tailor to get clothes for Mirefa. It is one thing when we were in the middle of nowhere, but now that we were in a city where all other races were all wearing clothes, I thought it prudent to have her wear them. It took a bit of convincing, but after emphasizing that she'd be stuck indoors otherwise, she relented.
At the shop, she tried out various types of clothes, and complained that they were all restrictive and uncomfortable. She complained that the pants put too much pressure on her waist, or were too loose that they fall off. As for dresses, Mirefa declared them a tripping hazard. In the end, she chose an extremely short skirt with no sleeves since it contained the least amount of fabric, didn't need multiple parts, and still counted as acceptable. Thanks to magic accelerating the process, it took only an hour for the whole thing to be done.
We decided to visit one of the major shopping districts, which also contained a good number of food stalls. The smell was irresistible for my sister, so we ended up buying every different meat skewer once, besides the really expensive ones and the deer skewers, which she ate twice. I found the street food appetizing, and the best part was that it was actually cheap. Just hope that there are decent sanitation standards or else I'd be spending the night on the toilet…
In between our snacks which added up to be our dinner, we did visit various stores. One of them was a magic shop. Most of the goods there were on the pricier side, although many were quite interesting. They did sell water magic stones, which I bought, although Anortha said they had horrible magic conversion rates. There were also some magic books on sale, but supposedly, the capital had a library that was free, so I didn’t buy any.
We didn’t get to explore much before the shops began closing, since we did start rather late in the afternoon. There were some shops that opened later, but given that the inn was in the shadier part of town, I opted to go back to prevent any incidents along the way.
In the inn, I tried to take a shower by myself with the water magic stone, but it didn't work out. I pumped about half my mana, yet only a small trickle came out. This was only slightly better than my attempts at squeezing water out of the air. Anortha seemed oddly pleased at my failure, probably because she did tell me it was a waste.
There were two beds and three of us, so we had to decide who would be with whom. Both Anortha and Mirefa wanted to sleep with me, so in the end, I decided to sleep alone to ensure fairness. They both didn’t seem to mind, and with that we fell asleep.