Chương 88: 059 – The College Of Flames

There had been some difficulty in getting into the bus the Kaedekin had provided, since the main door was just a bit too narrow for their suits to fit into. At first glance, getting through the door was no problem, but the sharp turn needed to get into the bus cabin had gotten someone stuck for five minutes. As that was unacceptable, the Kaedekin had opened the back of the bus and everyone was boarding using a glowing orange ramp that had been intended only for the power armors.

Inside, the special benches for their suits were in evidence again, showing that the Kaedekin had prepared, they just seemed to have missed a small detail. On closer inspection, not only did the bus have gun turrets, but the paneling seemed to be heavy armor plating. Once they were all aboard the bus, there had been a safety briefing.

Or rather, the Kaedekin's idea of a safety briefing: please keep an eye for any large animals outside of your window within a hundred meters of the bus, if anyone saw a large animal coming closer to the bus they should alert everyone immediately and loudly, everyone was to put on their seat belts in the event of an emergency so the bus could maneuver at high speed, do no use high explosives within fifty meter of the bus because of shrapnel.

The Kaedekin had all nodded in a slightly bored way like they've heard it all before, then a couple of Kaedekin had climbed up ladders labeled 'sniper's nest', carrying their guns with them.

"If you look to your left, you'll see the boundaries of the Witchwayowt Forest," Seraphine said cheerfully.

"The trees are mostly composed of venesyrup trees, although there are rustwoods, alumbarks, patinatrees, estanola'au, and berry trees all mixed in there too. The forest is full of wild knugrinds that eat the gnuts and leadberries that fall off the trees. Everything is fed by an underwater aquifer that refills every rainy season. Please don't eat anything you see, or you'll come down with heavy metal poisoning." The bus rolled out, the truck following behind them.

Just as Loren had surmised, there was a road that followed the curve of the circular forest, although it seems she'd underestimated how large the forest was. However, it gave the bus a good view of the forest grounds, which was surprisingly full of people.

Loren saw little Kaedekin girls with pushcarts and wheelbarrows collecting fallen branches and what looked like nuts off the ground, some older Kaedekin tapping trees for sap, a group of Kaedekin children playing some kind of wargame that involved shooting colored lights at each other, what looked to be a group filming some kind of student movie because they were holding a backdrop that looked like a city…

"To your right is the rest of Irorimachi. The walls, roof and electromagnetic collectors around the doors are to keep out metal dust carried on the wind so it doesn't infect the town's terraformed soil and the decontaminated water in the town's drainage systems, and to prevent mass heavy-metal poisoning. Most of the plants in the town were either grown or cloned from greens that we were able to salvage from the Frilly Pink Fortress of Friendship, like garlic, tomato, potato, sunflowers, lettuce…"

It was hard to see much more. A road lit with yellow street lights at night didn't really look like anything in particular unless the buildings along it were so illuminated they were just as visible and distinctive, and there wasn't any of that. There was only the forest on one side and a tall, sheer wall on the other, albeit a wall with doors every few meters.

The few times they passed an open one, Loren saw a street like the ones they were going down, Kaedekin walking on day-to-day business, small buildings and passing cars. With so many doors, why even bother with the wall? She'd have thought it was merely decorative, but Kaedekin decoration seemed to lean more towards artwork on empty surfaces and seemingly randomly-placed plants… one of which was, in fact, tomato.

"While Irorimachi provides immediate food supplies and materials for the College of Flames, the College has its own indoor farms, beef and pork vats, and everything a town needs. It also runs and maintains the oldest and only permanent, stationary nuclear reactor on the planet, which provides both electricity and imbuement…" The road leading to the College of Flames was surprisingly busy. While they didn't encounter any cars or buses along the road, there were a lot of people making their way along it.

The road was wide, able to fit three lanes of buses, but there were no sidewalks. There were Kaedekin making their way along one side of the road, some walking, some biking, and a few of the children floating about a foot of the ground with their faces crunched up in concentration as they moved at slower than a walking pace.

It wasn't a lot of people—there were maybe only fifty going both ways—but it was notable, and Loren had to wonder why the Kaedekin hadn't built some sort of dedicated transport system to handle it. Perhaps this was unusually high traffic? Then a Kaedekin passed over them, flying like a glowing bullet five meters above the bus, and Loren was reminded that they did things differently on this planet. She really needed to stop forgetting that.

"Welcome to the College of Flames!" It wasn't Seraphine who said that. It was a whole crowd of Kaedekin who had been waiting for their bus at the base of the massive stone tower she had seen as their boat had moved to land. Or possibly a tower with a façade that looked like stone. Loren was personally leaning towards the former, even if her engineering degree told her it should be the latter. And a majority of the Kaedekin in the crowd were Pyrotheurgists.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. Loren could feel them as soon as she stepped out of the bus, a phantom feeling of heat on her soul. It was a slight, almost negligible feeling with Seraphine unless she was using magic, but with so many massed together, it felt like she was in the presence of a bonfire. The sensation was familiar from times enough members of her family had gotten together, but what she was feeling now was far more intense.

She didn't know how many Kaedekin this was, but it had to be at least a thousand, and she was only using that number because she couldn't see far over the heads of the first row. All in all, it was the most welcoming war of wizards she'd ever walked into, as having hundreds of people enthusiastically welcoming you like you were a favorite celebrity was very gladdening.

Even if they had deactivated the streetlights near the bus, which was inconvenient, until Loren remembered the pajhadin with them needed the darkness to see.

"Commander Bronze, everyone, this is Megumi, the Princess of the College, and Wisteria," Namine introduced as one of the Kaedekin stepped forward, a small flame burning in the hand she held at stomach level, underlighting her face. She had dark-purple hair, brown eyes, a wide smile, a long wooden staff in one hand, and had a device—no, a buddy —fastened onto her left forearm.

"She's the one who extended the initial invitation to you."

"Hello, Commander," the… princess… said, extending hand for Bronze to shake.

"We're so glad you accepted! Everyone's been looking forward to this."

"The pleasure is ours," Commander Bronze said, "though we were surprised to receive your invitation. May I ask why you are interested in our quantum engineers? You mentioned them specifically."

"It was all thanks to Seraphine," Megumi said cheerfully.

"She mentioned meeting one on Stargazer, and we just had to get to know one of the wizards from Earth." Loren couldn't help it. She glanced sideways towards Ben, and found him looking right back at her, his gaze accusing. She frantically shook her head, tapping her chest over her heart, and by implication her soul. His expression changed to rueful agreement, and the two of them turned back to the sheer audacity happening in front of them.

"I assure you, there's no wizardry involved," Commander Bronze said, sounding both amused and bemused.

"Just capable hands skillfully handling advanced technology."

"Haven't you heard? Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic," Megumi said, her already wide smile growing, which Loren hadn't thought physically possible.

"That means those who work on them are indistinguishable from wizards."

"I… suppose that's one perspective. Is that why you refer to all your advanced technology as magic?"

"Oh, no. We refer to magic as magic, technology as technology, and magitech as magitech," was the cheerful reply.

"They're all different things after all, even if they're inter-related." Namine clapped her hands together.

"Well, why don't we get this tour started. Where are we going first, Princess?" Loren raised her hand.

"Can we start with why the title of the head of the college is 'princess'?" she asked.

"Oh, because the first Princess of the College, Princess Anya, wanted to be called a princess, and at the time we weren't using the title for anything else," Megumi said.

"So now I get to call myself a pretty Princess! There's even a crown that goes with it, but we all agreed that's for special occasions only." The Princess of the College suddenly pouted.

"I wanted to wear it today, but everyone said 'special occasion' means formalwear, and no one wanted to dress up in the 'hard to laundry' clothes if there was no food to make it worth it. And since it would be rude for us to eat when you can't… No crown. But don't worry! When you come next time and don't need to wear those suits anymore, we'll have a lot of food ready for you."

"We'll look forward to it," Commander Bronze said.

"It'll be great, we'll clone an actual pig for the lechon liempo instead of using cultured pork," Megumi said.

"Now, for the tour! Where do you want to go first, the Materials Research Foundry, Pseudo-Vampire Research Island, the Alchemy Labs, the Spiritual Research Building, the High-Energy Magic Bunker, the Whitehouse, Central Research…"

"Perhaps whichever is nearest?" Commander Bronze suggested.

"Pseudo-Vampire Research Island it is!" Megumi declared, and a group of Kaedekin just out of sight audibly cheered, then started yelling in panic to choruses of, "Excuse me! Excuse me! Excuse me, please!"

"Why don't we take the scenic route so the pseudo-vampire research team can go back to the island and get things in order," Namine suggested. She looked around.

"And so everyone else can go back and get their stuff ready for when it's their turn." There was a moment's pause, and Loren distinctly saw the eyes of the nearest Kaedekin go wide as their cheerful smiles froze on their faces. Then there were only the backs of Kaedekin running away to more cries of "Excuse me! Excuse me please!", leaving many amused-looking Kaedekin who apparently felt no need to make their workplace look presentable.

"Well, shall we get going?" Megumi said brightly as she gestured for them to follow her. Now that there wasn't a big war of Kaedekin in front of her, Loren as able to properly take in the tower in front of them. It was tall and uniform, the stone some dark color she couldn't quite identify because of the distance and yellow-tinted light.

There were balconies jutting out of the tower's sides at seemingly random that made her engineering degree start worrying again, and she resolved to not get under one or step on one until the Kaedekin explained what was keeping them up. Thankfully, there were none of them over the front entrance of the tower, which was a tall and wide door that was wide enough to drive a Kaedekin tank through… … and apparently someone had, because Loren could see a tank through the doors.

Loren couldn't help staring at it for a moment.

"Miss alien?" It took Loren a moment to realize the words were directed at her, and another moment to look down when she didn't see anyone. She found herself looking at one of the Kaedekin children, who was wearing a bright red coat and red hat, a basket in one hand and holding out a small bouquet of alien flowers wrapped in brightly colored paper and cord towards her with the other.

"Welcome to Surcease, miss alien," the child said with a wide, excited smile.

"I hope you like it here." Out of habit, Loren accepted the bouquet, and found it barely fit in the palm of her suit.

"Uh, thank you. I hope I like it here too…?" She moved her gaze a little past the girl's hands and saw a gun holstered at her waist. The girl's smile widened.

"I'm Meiko, and this is Oscar," she said.

"Do you want to be friends?"