Chapter 34 – No Swords to Split Iron, No Fists to Shatter Rock–This World Has Neither.
That morning, Letaria Adeniam stood in front of her wardrobe with her arms folded.
The mirror showed her not in the lavish dress she usually wore--but in the "casual" outfit Milea had put together for her.
A clean white cut-and-sew top, a light short jacket. Slim-fit shorts in denim, layered over leggings. And most importantly: the deep casquette hat that swallowed her distinctively dark purple hair almost entirely.
"...Hmm. A refreshing look. Rather like a traveler from a distant land."
She nodded with satisfaction, and let her mind drift back to the exchange with Milea a few hours earlier.
◆◆◆
[Flashback]
"...So you're going to the residential sector today."
Milea said it without looking up from the holographic monitors she was flicking through with one finger.
"That's right. Don't you think you could use a break once in a while? If you'd like, I could--"
"I have work today. Some other time."
The invitation was cut off before it was even finished. Letaria pouted slightly--Milea continued without acknowledging it.
"Also, given the promotional appearance the other day, be careful with your appearance for a while when you go out. Don't get recognized."
The promotional footage had caused something of a commotion. It was playing on monitors throughout Seldia.
"Behave yourself out there. Understood?"
"You're treating me like a child again! I am, however it may appear, a daughter of House Adeniam--"
"Yes, yes. From where I'm standing, you are very much like a high-maintenance child."
Milea delivered this without lifting her eyes from the screen.
"Honestly!"
Letaria registered her protest--but lately, she had begun to find something oddly comfortable about being handled this way.
"Milea really does get the better of me."
[End Flashback]
◆◆◆
The high-speed elevator connecting the administrative quarter to the general residential sector. Its heavy doors opened, and the view that spread before her was vast.
"This is always magnificent..."
Seldia--fifteen kilometers of inhabited cylinder. Down through every layer of the multi-tiered floors, the lights of homes and shops glittered like stars. One step beyond the privileged enclosure of the administrative quarter, and there it was: a city breathing with millions of lives.
Today, Letaria had decided to go somewhere she hadn't been before.
She made for the platform of the "linear car"--the loop transit system that circled the residential sector. She had been quietly looking into how it worked.
A silver car slid in. She boarded and took a seat.
A faint lurch--and the car began to move, smoothly accelerating.
"...Oh! My goodness--how fast!"
The view through the window dissolved instantly into a streak of light.
Letaria had piloted Arden through high-speed combat. But being carried--passively, as a passenger--at this kind of speed was something else entirely.
"Nothing like a carriage... A mere box of iron, no magic at all, moving at this speed. This world does not fail to surprise."
From the outside, she looked exactly like a girl pressing her face to the glass with delighted curiosity--which was precisely what she was.
◆◆◆
Craft District
Letaria stepped off the linear car into the area known as Craft District, in Sector Twelve.
It was a somewhat old-fashioned, lively stretch of streets where the craftspeople who repaired and manufactured Seldia's industrial goods, furniture, and daily necessities had set up their workshops.
As she walked, she noticed a small crowd gathered around the center of a plaza.
A group of craftsmen were standing in front of a large metal shipping container, heads in their hands.
"The lock's jammed--nothing moves it by hand. And getting a heavy-duty cutting laser in will take time..."
"We need that material out now, or today's work stops. Is there anyone around with a bit of brute strength?"
Letaria leaned in with mild curiosity.
(Back in my world, there were knights who could split an iron door with a single stroke.)
In the world she had come from, a trained knight's blade could pass through steel like paper, and a veteran adventurer punching through solid rock was not considered unusual. But the people of Seldia had no such abilities--they compensated for the limits of human strength through tools and machines.
(No swords to split iron. No fists to shatter rock. This world has neither...)
A world in which everything she had taken for granted simply did not exist. To Letaria--who had been fighting with her life on the line in a Makina's cockpit--there was something strange about that, and at the same time, something unexpectedly warm.
She stood there watching for a moment--and then noticed a small boy beside her, staring fixedly at her face.
"...Can I help you, young man?"
The boy's eyes went wide. He looked back and forth between her face and something playing on the screen of the terminal in his hand.
"...Hey. Are you... maybe..."
"What is it."
"The Runaway Lady?"
The words carried clearly through the quiet plaza.
Every head in the vicinity turned.
"Wait--the Runaway Lady?! The one from the promotion?!"
"Look at that hair! And the way she stands--it's exactly the same!"
"Eep--?!"
Letaria's face went stiff.
Milea's warning came back to her immediately. Don't get recognized.
"Y-you are mistaken! I am simply a modest and unremarkable young woman passing through--!"
She shouted it, turned, and ran.
Fortunately, a linear car was gliding into the platform at precisely that moment.
"Please make it--!"
She threw herself through the closing doors and slipped inside.
The car accelerated. The crowd of curious onlookers fell away behind her. Letaria dropped into a seat in something close to a collapse and let out a long breath.
"...That was close. I nearly had to face Milea's wrath."
She pulled the casquette hat further down and watched the night scenery stream past the window.
A peaceful world. No magic. No blade that cleaves iron. And yet--filled with loud, vivid, lively people who chased her down shouting "Runaway Lady."
"...Next time, I shall need a considerably more thorough disguise."
She noted the failure to herself with some chagrin.
But she was, unmistakably, content.