A New Star Chapter 47

We moved through the town quite quickly, the Count having landed to try to attract a little less attention, though I wasn't sure he was doing all that great a job of it. The good side of him standing out and his apparent age and power was that, despite attracting attention, he also garnered a lot of respect and people were often eager, even without knowing exactly who he was, to jump to help him out or just straight out do his bidding. I moved through the town to the train station at the southern end, walking into a enclosed station with a glass front, likely provided by the same glassworks I had used for my alchemy tools, and an intricately detailed tile floor. I moved for the counter to purchase a ticket, but the Count beat me there and grabbed two first class tickets before I could get to the window. I suppose it was good that he did, as I certainly wasn't going to pay premium for a damned train ride, though I didn't tell him that.  

The train didn't board for twenty more minutes, giving us just enough time to do a whole lot of nothing, though the Count got into a discussion with a random person. The man was too gregarious for his own good, and I had to pull him away from his random discussion when it was time to board, scowling at the person talking about his enthusiastic granddaughter. The train could only be boarded by presenting tickets, or the first class car could only be boarded by presenting a ticket, and the Count handed our tickets over before ushering me into the car. The place screamed luxury, or maybe tackiness, I had a hard deciding as I walked across the plush carpets, trying not to be blinded by the amount of gold they had installed in first class, all polished to a mirror finish. The car was broken up into a large lounge area at the back and then three small, individual compartments at the front, one of which we were entitled to based on what the Count had purchased earlier.  

I ignored the lounge, having no desire to mingle with a handful of snotty nobles and, from the looks of the several others that had boarded, their brats. I walked back to our compartment, dubiously eyeing the build quality of the car, which was not impressive, but had also been amply strengthened with enchanting. I would rather they had built the thing right and added a little extra help with enchanting than make up for poor workmanship with the extra runes. Either way, I settled for a long ride, putting my bag down on the floor before sitting on the bench seat and starting to meditate. It was going to be a long, boring ride and I was intent on ignoring most of it. The Count had not joined me in the compartment, either, preferring to hobnob with the nobles that had booked the full trip and were out in first class. Fortunately, the compartments had sound-dampening runes to block noise from getting in, which also applied for sound getting out, so all I got was a very faint thumping of the wheels on the tracks after the train got underway.  

The train had a dozen stops on the way to the capital, and this was supposed to be the express version. Very luckily for me, safe driving hadn't been invented in this time period, either, so the thing roared along at a far too great speed for up to a couple hours at a time. That was the longest part of the ride, as there were stops every thirty minutes otherwise, and I shuddered at thinking what kind of routing system they were using to keep all the traffic separated. I didn't think, even with a tier seven body, that I was quite strong enough yet to survive the head-on collision of two magically powered locomotives, both being driven far too fast by maniacal engineers. I think I needed to just focus on getting myself stronger, strong enough that I was at the point where I could fly around on my own. That, or I would need to invent some kind of airship or something that I could use; with the addition of mana, I was sure I could come up with something rather interesting that wouldn't depend on nutcases to travel large distances safely. 

The trip took the entire day, and we arrived in the early evening, the Count having spent the entire time out with the other passengers, or somewhere else. Funnily enough, he was supposed to be my minder, not the other way around, so I was not very hard-pressed in keeping track of where he was and what he was doing. He rejoined me as I exited the compartment, stroking his beard while giving me a curious look, which I ignored. We disembarked from the train, the Count happily chatting with several people and wishing them well before we were left alone on the platform.  

"Well, now, where to?" the Count said, a bit coy, likely indicating he was expecting me to be caught flat-footed. 

"To a hotel, I should expect," I replied coolly, giving him a slight glare. 

"Well, I do have a place in the capital, though it's just a small thing," he said. 

I stared at him for a moment before saying, "Alright." He looked at me, I looked at him, and after I moment I grumpily said, "I know you enjoy following me all over the heaven's green earth, but I have no idea where you're damn house it." 

"Oh, yes, right," he said, a bit chastised, and took off down the central avenue leading away from the station, just barely dodging a truck driving down the road. "Damn imbeciles! Watch where you plow that confounded contraption about!" 

I had seen the truck coming and nimbly dodged it by not walking down the center of the street, catching up to the Count afterwards. He was muttering to himself about the good old days and about new-fangled chicanery ruining a perfectly good city. I let the old man vent without really listening; if a hundred and fifty years or so of progress from the time he reached adulthood was too much for him, he should try living through a thousand. I wasn't going to say that to the man, however, and just followed him until he arrived a three-story, ornately decorated red brick building with its own courtyard and grounds separated from the street by a tall wall with a form of razor wire at the top. The Count entered the grounds without a care, the door opening as he was still walking up the steps of the porch to reveal a distinguished man in a suit with salt-and-pepper hair and a thick goatee. The man bowed on seeing the Count, stepping out of the way and ushering us into the foyer. 

"Your Grace, it is so good to see you again," the man said in a sonorous voice. 

"Dufraine, my old friend, well met," the Count said, shedding his traveling coat into the man's arms. The butler, which is what I assumed he was, took the coat and handed it to a maid who appeared from nowhere like a ghost, the lady whisking it away in an instant. "Prepare a room for my guest." 

"And this Young Lady is?" the butler asked.  

"She is the eighth child of the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess, Alexandra D'Crough," the Count said. 

"Unfortunate that I don't have a nineteen hour long introduction like someone," I muttered, loud enough that everyone clearly heard it. 

"I say!" Emmanuel exclaimed. 

"You certainly do," I muttered, seeing the butler quirk an eyebrow before giving a bow and gesturing for me to follow.  

I followed the butler up to the second floor, where there was an immaculately clean and brightly bedroom with its own private bathroom fully prepared for a guest to occupy. I had the feeling that the Count's staff kept the place in pristine condition, regardless of if anyone other than they had been in the premises in years. I put my bag down before donning a cloak and pulling the hood up, exiting the room and making my way down to the first floor, where I found the Count in a deep discussion with the butler.  

"And where is one going dressed like that?" Emmanuel asked me. 

"Out," I replied tartly, giving the butler a nod as I walked for the front door. 

"Do try not to get lost out there," the Count said, not moving to stop me.  

"I'm not quite in my dotage yet, old man," I said as I exited the front door, cutting off the Count's exclamation by shutting the door with a sharp click, though I did not slam it. 

I had a couple goals right now, having rested more than sufficiently on the train on the way down. First, I needed to get the lay of the land, so to speak, roaming around the capital for a bit and figuring out where things were. Beyond that, I needed to figure out the power structures, in particular who in the city controlled the underground and who it was that was messing with the supply routes from the north. It also wouldn't hurt to figure out which merchants and companies had the most power and say, in particular those that were involved in trades that fringed on what we were working on or that directly overlapped. Alchemy was supposed to be a mostly dead art in the present time, but there would always be at least a few practitioners of such things hanging about, so finding who was selling the wares was important. I was less concerned with who was producing the alchemy goods, as I wasn't really competing with them, I was concerned about manipulations to the market itself; I doubted any of the alchemists were the ones juggling the market, but I had seen stranger things in my time.  

I moved through the streets, the mild temperatures of the day, the area hundreds of miles south of my family's home having a somewhat milder climb, especially given the distance from the mountains, were now giving way to much cooler temperatures. I would not say cold, if for no other reason then it likely wouldn't hit the freezing point of water, nor really get that close, but it would be uncomfortable for many without trained bodies to be out and about. It was almost a perfect night, actually, as many of the shadier elements were likely to be taking advantage of the reduced traffic to move about. I would start looking into them in a bit, but first I took advantage of the fact the Count's mansion, which is what it was, happened to be located in a rather rich district. I was able to move at quite appreciable speeds, especially if I mixed in a little bit of walking through The Dark when no one was looking, and I spent an hour exploring the district. The place was a little more circumspect than I had at first thought, as it was home mostly to wealthy merchants and minor nobles, but the Count having a home there as a foreign dignitary that was at the Y-rank and very influential was a reminder to not make too many assumptions.  

I left the district after an hour, having a nice, though still very preliminary, idea of where I would be staying for at least a few days. I moved into the northern districts of the capital, the area where a lot of merchants had shops and businesses. Even further north, though it was still a thing that was developing a little more, were warehouses where goods were stored or sent further along a shipping route. In the way the world had been before this modern revolution that was happening had started, most merchants would have their own shops with storage in the shop. A successful merchant would have a bigger building, including a warehouse built into the building, but society was already starting to transfer to a pattern of holding goods in large shipping centers and routing them from there. Naturally I was interested in this area, both from the perspective of somewhere that had a lot of influence, and from the perspective that this was likely a powerbase for the kinds of people who were messing with Pietr and Robin.  

It didn't take me very long to find someone I could question and not feel at all bad about it, finding a man assaulting another, and rather violently at that. The man taking the beating was rather small and pathetic, though I would perhaps not say that to his face, and the person dishing out the beating look like a classic thug, bent nose from multiple poorly healed breaks and all. Despite laying a real beating on the other fellow, the big mook was pretty weak, if my first impression was anything to really go by, and that impression was solidified when I easily caught his fist and twisted his arm so far he was swept off his feet and tumbled to the ground. I had little interest in the victim, nor was I a healer, so I simply made a shooing motion, glad when the victim got up and scrambled away with some alacrity.  

"Now, how about we have a little chat?" I asked the thug coldly. 

"Fuck you, ya dumb bitc-" he started, stopped rather abruptly when I slapped him hard enough to slam him bodily into the ground. That clearly rattled the old computer a little, too, as he started groggily groaning and trying to flop up into a sitting position from laying flat.  

"Now, how about we try again, and a bit more on topic this time, eh?" I asked, putting an even colder edge into my voice.  

"Ya, uh, who-…uh, ya know who I, uh, work," the man stammered, clearly having some trouble. I hadn't even slapped him particularly hard. I think this city might need a better class of criminal. 

"Focus, man, focus," I said, snapping my fingers loudly in his face. "Who are you?" 

"I'm Tom," he replied, a bit stupidly. Oh boy. 

"Right, Tom, well then, what where you and that gentleman disagreeing about?" I asked, finding that this was likely to be a great exercise in patience.  

"He was late on 'is payment," Tom said, recovering a bit, getting himself in to a sitting position before considering standing back up. 

"See, this isn't so hard," I said, a clear sarcastic note in my tone. "And what payment is this?" 

"Can't say," Tom said. "Boss handles that. Just tells me ta get the money." 

"Right, well then, who is this boss of yours, Tom?" I asked, sighing in exasperation. 

"I'm part a the Red Hands," he said proudly, climbing back to his feet a bit unsteadily. "We're the greatest gang in the 'ole city." 

"Right, okay, I feel like we're maybe getting somewhere," I said before muttering, "Even if we're going there at a snail's pace." 

"What's that?" he said. 

"Nothing, nothing. Now, Tom, why don't you be a true champ and take me to your boss," I said. 

"I ain't takin' no bitch-" he started, cutting off when I lifted my hand and glared at him. "Listen, lady, I can't be takin' ya nowhere, okay?" 

"Tom, Tom, Tom," I said, clicking my tongue and shaking my head. "You seem to be under a misapprehension, so let me disabuse you of it." 

"A what for who?" he asked, his eyes almost crossing as he tried to figure out what I had said. 

I slapped him again, even weaker this time, causing him to only stagger a little, saying, "I'm not asking here, Tom. I'm telling you. You do what I say, and maybe, just maybe, you get to live all the way through the night. You understand?" 

"Lady, ya can't just slap people-" he started, so I slapped him a third time, just as weakly as the second, but he still fell to one knee briefly. I would feel bad, but I had a feeling this man didn't have all that many brain cells for me to pulp in the first place, nor did I feel all that bad about beating the snot out of a petty thug, especially in this world, where there were just so many opportunities you could hardly shake a stick at them all.  

"I can just slap people, Tom, and I would dare you to do something about it," I said, putting some power into my voice. Unlike the slapping, or maybe as a byproduct of a few too many recalibrations of those precious few brain cells in too short a time, Tom was quite frightened by the force I use to speak. "Now, take me to somebody that has some real authority in these Red Hands or I'll be kicking your head into the river. Mind you, that's without the rest of your body, so I would make a good choice here, Tom." 

"Right, the boss, right," Tom muttered, rubbing the side of his head where I had slapped him. "Well, lady, it's yer funeral if'n ya want." 

"Excellent, Tom, excellent. Though, I will tell you right now, if you're ordering coffins, one in my size won't be necessary," I said. He had to think about that for a disturbingly long amount of time before he seemed to catch on to what I was saying, giving me a slightly more frightened look before leading the way further into the district.  

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