Chapter 1587: Escapees Landing
A few days later, the Gold’s party finally reached the Alterra region. Specifically, it’s black bitumen road.
Kalfene and the others felt imbalanced because the movements of the carriage were suddenly... smooth.
The change from the hours and hours of their brains rocking in their skulls to... stability was naturally a bit jarring.
"Is the Town in sight?"
"No, there should still be several minutes before it is visible, even by a beast cart."
This puzzled them a bit. At their current pace, half an hour by beast car meant that they were still several kilometers away!
Sleuth happened to be the one by the window today, and he slid the curtain to the side to see what was going on. He slightly looked out and didn’t move anymore.
"Hey, what is it?" the others asked curiously, but sadly, they were too squeezed in to take a look.
"What happened? Why did the travel change so much?"
Sleuth did not answer and just continued staring outside.
"Hey! Why isn’t he answering?" Kahonn asked, thinking the guy was even ruder than usual.
Obi, who was sitting across from Sleuth, looked over and smirked when he realized what was going on. "He’s using a voice blocker, quite the small one, too."
"..."
Sleuth famously abhorred noise, so they hadn’t really spoken to him much unless they were camping. In retrospect, while in the carriage, the only time he spoke was at the start, when they were catching up. He didn’t react to any other conversations.
For much of their trip, he had his eyes closed as if asleep or meditating, completely unbothered by their chatters, which had been uncharacteristic of him. Now, they knew how.
Apparently, he was using a miniature voice blocker—one that had a very small scope and fit only one person.
This was quite an interesting thing because it wasn’t commercially available yet. Did he not release that he could do this? Then again, he might be the only one who’d find this useful. After all, this world was too dangerous, and losing one of the senses was akin to putting oneself in danger.
In that case, Sleuth must also trust them all very much. Hey, it was quite touching if one thought of it that way...
Anyway, seeing as he wasn’t going to answer, Marcus, who was also across from him, squirmed forward a bit to take a look.
The ground where the carriage was running was no longer the forest floors covered with rocks, uneven ground, and roots.
Instead, it was covered with a black flat surface that was relatively leveled despite going through such a dense forest.
"A road..." he mumbled.
"Oh?" Kalfene blinked. "This far away?"
Kahonn nodded, wondering which window was closest to him. "How curious—"
The Golds were afraid they’d all squirm in their seats and make everyone uncomfortable, so they finally decided to explain things to them.
Like many other Alterrans, the Golds also enjoyed watching people’s reactions when they encountered any of Alterra’s works. It gave them a sense of pride whenever it happened.
"It’s a Bitumen road," Obi said, smirking. "It’s a sort of pavement."
"Are we near Alterra?" Kahonn asked. Were they fooling them earlier? He wondered, referring to how they were still a couple of minutes away even by car.
"No, we should really still be a distance away," Otto said, making the others blink.
Since it was Otto who confirmed it this time, it must be true.
Obi: "..." Did he seem like a liar?
Anyway, the newcomers couldn’t help but feel odd.
This distance... How much did paving such a distance cost?
Generally speaking, popular territories would have paths created naturally because of the traffic going in and out of the territory.
The plants and trees do take a few weeks to grow out completely, but if the traffic came through often enough, the plants would be flattened down by the constant flow of beast carts and foot traffic.
Some larger caravans would also hire mercenaries to clear the roads. Although beast cars could traverse forests in general, the travel would be too rough if they bumped through so many trees and went through so many protruding roots.
What if the items the caravans were selling were fragile and could no longer fit into spaces? In those cases, mercenaries would clear the way for them days in advance.
Usually, this would be joint missions too, with a lot of caravans passing through in order to maximize the road clearing, which was definitely labor-intensive.
However, no one would bother creating official roads like this, especially not one so far away from the territory! The system pavements couldn’t be used outside the territory, either, so everything must have been done manually! Who in their right mind would invest so much in projects like these?
After all, there were threats of mobs everywhere; how many people would die paving this?
The Golds pursed their lips, having an idea what they were thinking about. However, they were purposely vague about some things.
"The territory has its way of quickly placing these things," Olga said. There was a bit of a lump, and they scooted a bit. "It’s not perfect, but it can easily be repaired?"
The fire users just had to heat up the tar again, do some minor preparations, and place it back. Even when the roads were very much used and there were mobs passing by often, the maintenance of the roads was surprisingly infrequent.
They didn’t really know much about the technology, so they couldn’t explain it, but there seemed to be a dedicated team in the Research Center focused on improving and maximizing building materials.
"It is also a great way for wayfinding—it definitely helped with the economy of the territory."
The newcomers nodded, curious. However, as impressed as they were, they were also not completely convinced.
After all, there were wars and enemy territories.
Wouldn’t making roads like this make it easier for enemies to get to the territory, too?
"The place isn’t concerned about enemies traveling this way," Olga said with a smile. "You’ll see."