With Rollo now dead, Lukas was confident as he answered the questions posed by the officers.

He sat in the dark interrogation room, a single lamp overhead, and a desk separating him and the officers.

The walls looked normal but if this was anything like a police procedural, there had to be a one way mirror somewhere.

Fortunately, as the victim, he hadn’t been placed in cuffs or restricted. He’d simply been led to the room, made to sit, and questioned.

He answered their questions, omitting the conductor’s game and the Fate Key entirely. Instead, he told them that Rollo had attacked him to get the [Kairo’s Fillet].

The Adept ranked [Item] was valuable, so they didn’t doubt him. Or at least, he didn’t feel like they doubted him.

Either way, he made sure to emphasize on the fact that it had been the Le Fay family who gave it to him, and that he and his two wives were contracted to the ruling family.

That way, anyone who harbored intentions of taking it from him would think twice. After all, the one thing he could always count on when it came to the government or bureaucracy was corruption.

A few hours later, he was allowed to leave. And one positive thing he could pick out of all this was that they’d sorted out their city identification for them.

Lukas walked out of the police office and back into the main hall of the station, his wives walking beside him.

He studied his new ID, turning it over in his hand as he walked. It was a rectangular metal plate, with a smooth surface.

It had been configured to respond to his mana signature alone, which was the actual identification metric. It was practical and apparently non-transferable.

He’d been warned against tampering with it, and had been assured that such actions would attract jail time.

Then he looked up to observe just where he was.

The main hall of Salaria’s station was a different scale from Havenhart’s entirely.

The ceiling was high enough that if ten Lukas stood on each other’s shoulders, they’d still be unable to touch it. And it has its light coming from sources built into the structure rather than hanging from it.

Hundreds of people moved through the space in every direction with the confidence of people who knew exactly where they were going.

Lukas did not know where he was going.

"How do we even navigate a city this size?" Melody asked, looking around.

Lukas spotted a map stand near one of the main pillars and a smile appeared on his face.

"A map," he said to Melody. "Wait here."

He began walking to it, and the seller sitting behind the stand looked up as he approached.

"I’d like a map of Salaria," Lukas said.

The seller couldn’t help but snort at his words, filled with genuine amusement.

"I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you," the man waved in apology. "You want a map of the whole city?"

"Yes."

"I can tell you’re new here, so I’ll give you a few tips. You could live here for a decade and still not reach every part of it." He shook his head. "You do not need a map of Salaria right now."

"Salaria isn’t a city in the way you’re thinking. It’s divided into eight sectors. Each sector is effectively its own city with its own districts." He leaned forward slightly. "What you want is a map of whichever sector you’re currently in."

"Which sector is this?" Lukas asked.

"Sector three. That’s where we are right now." 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

Lukas nodded before buying the sector three map. He paid without haggling, and carried it back to where Melody and Akira were waiting.

He unfolded it, and all three leaned to stare at the page.

The map was large. Way larger than he had expected, opening out to a size that required both hands to hold flat.

It was packed with details, and the text was small. Fortunately, the streets and landmarks were marked in several colors and categories with a legend that took up an entire corner of the page.

The shape of sector three on the paper resembled a giant slice of pizza, but the scale was undeniable.

Akira whistled. "You’re telling me this is just one eighth of the entire city?"

"What I actually want to know," Melody said, already scanning the page, "is where are we on this?"

Lukas looked around the hall, found the name of the station on a sign above one of the main entrances, then found the corresponding marker on the map.

He oriented it.

"Here," he said, pointing.

Melody leaned in. "And the Adept spatial gate we need?"

He moved his finger across the map, reading the highlighted landmarks.

He soon found a marked point in the sector, labeled clearly, with a route connecting it to the station through what appeared to be a main road.

"There," he said.

Akira studied it for a moment, then nodded. "That’s where we’re going."

Lukas folded the map to the relevant section and tucked it under his arm.

"Let’s go," the three of them said, and walked out of the station together into Salaria.

The first thing they saw were the buildings.

In Havenhart, one story buildings had been common, and the skyline had been defined more by the city walls than anything built within them.

But Salaria was different. The buildings rose from the street like they were reaching for the heavens, with the lowest among them standing three stories and the tallest disappearing into the upper air at heights that made estimating their floors a pointless exercise.

The horizon was gone, replaced entirely by architecture.

Lukas was still processing the buildings when he saw the trams.

They ran on tracks set into the street, moving through the city on fixed lines and stopping at marked intervals. It was exactly the kind of transit system that made sense for a city this size, but it boggled his mind.

He’d already gotten used to seeing carriages move through the streets of Havenhart, so he hadn’t expected technology of this level.

Then he saw the cars.

They were unmistakably cars. Everything from the body shapes, the proportions, and the enclosed cabins said they were cars.

But here, they were not the kind familiar on modern earth, but the post war cars of the &0s.

They had round headlights and shining curved bodies, and one of the ones passing on the side of the street even resembled a 53 Chevrolet Corvette.

However, none of the cars here had tires. Every one of them hovered a foot above the ground, moving faster than the trams as they weaved through the streets.

"How did Havenhart not have any of this?" Lukas said, to no one in particular.

It was as if he’d time traveled.

Melody and Akira were both staring, their jaws hanging from the shock.

A tram slowed to a stop directly in front of the station entrance. Lukas checked the destination sign on its side against the map.

"That’s ours," he said.

They moved quickly, boarding before the doors closed and dropping into available seats as the tram began to move.

They hadn’t gone past the station’s street when a rude voice called out to them.

"Hey!"