What interested Noah most was the sheer detail woven into his new identity.
It seemed perfectly traceable.
Did this "late father," whom he had never even met, actually exist in this universe?
If so, the "Roton" who penned the introduction letter had to be a real person, right?
Yet, before Noah stepped through the cosmic gate, they obviously had zero connection.
If the two sides ever crossed paths, what kind of bizarre scene would play out? He was genuinely curious.
"Should be about time."
Noah looked down the long dirt road and waited quietly for his ride to appear.
Using his gravity magic, he had floated high above the tree canopy to scout the area. He saw that only this specific dirt road bore the deep, rutted tracks of wagon wheels.
At the same time, his heightened vision picked up a horse-drawn wagon traveling toward his position, roughly two and a half kilometers away.
Rather than rashly dropping out of the sky right in front of them, he picked a spot along their route and waited by the side of the road.
Before long, the heavy cargo wagon rumbled into view.
Noah waved his arms high over his head, making sure the driver spotted him from a distance.
As the wagon closed the gap, Noah got a better look at the setup.
It was a standard, horse-drawn flatbed fitted with a heavy canvas canopy.
The roof wasn't designed to shield passengers from the wind and rain; it was rigged tight to protect the cargo stacked in the back.
'Merchants, probably?' Noah guessed as the wagon slowed to a halt.
Aside from the driver holding the reins, another man dressed in similar roughspun clothes sat beside him on the bench.
Beyond the two drivers, Noah's senses picked up the faint presence of a third person resting in the back with the cargo.
The third aura felt stronger than an ordinary human's—though only by a slim margin.
Measured against the crazy standards of the Blazer world, this third person definitely pushed past normal human limits.
In terms of raw stats, they were probably on par with an average student Knight.
As for the two men on the bench, they were ordinary.
Seeing Noah's cheap clothes and small stature, the drivers relaxed.
Encountering bandits on an open road like this was a daily threat. A classic bandit tactic involved sending one or two scouts onto the road to flag down a wagon and gauge its defenses.
If the scouts saw the wagon lacked guards or carried weak fighters, they blew a whistle, and the rest of the gang rushed out of the trees to strip the merchants blind.
But seeing a young-looking boy standing alone on the dirt road, the drivers figured he was just a lost kid.
The wilderness surrounding the Imperial Capital was notoriously brutal to outsiders.
"Hey there, kid. You alright?" the driver called out, taking the initiative.
Seeing the two men stop and show genuine goodwill, Noah returned a polite smile. "Hello, sir. I'm trying to reach the Imperial Capital, but I got turned around in the woods."
"You're out here alone?" The driver sounded genuinely shocked.
Even if kids from poor villages had to grow up fast, this was pushing it.
In the driver's eyes, a boy who looked no older than ten traveling alone to the Imperial Capital was a terrifying thought.
The roads were swarming with too many lethal dangers for a kid to survive solo.
"Yes, sir. It took me half the day just to find the main road. Seeing a friendly face is a huge relief."
Seeing that the drivers bought his cover story completely, Noah felt a tiny twinge of guilt, but he leaned into the act anyway.
Right now, he had zero clue what kind of world he was dealing with.
He had considered the grim possibility of spawning into a universe ruled by a fanatic religion, where his magic might get him branded as a heretic and burned at the stake.
But this time, as long as he stuck to the script of his fake identity, he should be in the clear.
As long as he played the role of "a country boy heading to the Capital to enlist," he shouldn't draw any weird suspicion.
'Appraisal.'
A faint, invisible flicker passed through Noah's eyes.
The personal data of the two men sitting on the bench unfolded in his mind.
[Yuan and Yuen.]
'I see. Half-brothers. Same mother, different fathers.'
Their current objective was delivering goods to the Imperial Capital.
The cargo consisted of handcrafted tools and unique local specialties from the southern provinces. The haul held decent value, but it was far from a priceless treasure.
Nothing weird there.
Their race registered as normal humans.
That was about all the useful intel he could pull from a basic scan.
So far, he knew this nation was an Empire—founded and ruled by humans.
The Imperial Capital served as its beating heart.
The government operated as a strict monarchy, ruled by a supreme "Emperor."
"Well, you're incredibly lucky you didn't run into any Danger Beasts out there in the trees," the driver said, letting out a relieved sigh.
That specific term caught Noah's attention.
"Danger Beasts?" Noah asked, keeping his face completely blank. "What are those?"
During his hike through the woods, he had spotted a few small mammals, some snakes, and bugs, but they all acted like normal wildlife and avoided him.
"You really don't know what Danger Beasts are?" Yuan asked, his eyes going wide.
Yuen, the younger brother, seemed a bit colder than Yuan, but he chimed in to explain, showing he had a decent heart under the gruff exterior.
"Danger Beasts is just a catch-all term for any animal—or monster—that hunts humans," Yuen explained.
"Strictly speaking, mean predators like jackals and giant wild boars fall into that category. But that's not what people usually mean when they say it. We mean the stuff that's way more terrifying..."
'Way more terrifying?'
Seeing the genuine, deep-seated fear on both drivers' faces at the mere mention of the word, Noah figured these creatures had to be a lethal, everyday threat to normal citizens.
Yuen continued detailing the threat.
According to him, the entire Empire classified Danger Beasts into six distinct threat levels, starting from the lowest at Class 5, scaling all the way up to Special Class—commonly called Super Class.
Class 5 Danger Beasts were basically your standard, oversized wild animals.
Class 4 beasts looked like normal animals but possessed unnatural strength, though still within the realm of human understanding.
Class 3 was where the size started to break logic.
Adult Class 3 beasts could grow larger than a heavy carriage, and their raw power easily crushed ordinary humans.
Class 2 beasts threw natural biology out the window entirely.
They looked like bizarre, twisted monsters pulled straight out of dark mythology.
Class 1 Danger Beasts were walking natural disasters.
They were massive, and their raw destructive power was enough to flatten an entire town.
And finally, there were the Super Class Danger Beasts.
Every single one of these monsters was a titanic, hyper-aggressive apex predator that fed on absolutely everything.
They sat comfortably at the very top of the food chain. Their mere existence warped the local ecosystem and posed an apocalyptic threat to human society.
Worse, Super Class beasts often possessed supernatural, magical abilities.
They were literal monsters that defied human logic.
Hearing the breakdown, Noah's interest spiked.
'Danger Beasts.'
'They sounded like incredibly unique, high-yield biological targets. If monsters like that roamed this world, they definitely forced human society to adapt and evolve around them.'
'The real question was whether humanity had produced any "superhuman" fighters to push back.'
"If Danger Beasts are really that terrifying, what happens if a big one attacks a town?" Noah asked, testing the waters.
Both brothers shot him a helpless, bitter smile.
"Nothing," Yuan sighed. "There's nothing you can do. A local militia can't even scratch a Class 2 beast, let alone a Class 1. Unless the Empire officially deploys the army to hunt it down, your only option is to abandon your home and run. You just become another refugee."
Noah frowned slightly.
Based on their bleak description, rural villages and towns had low populations, and even fewer actual fighters.
Ordinary citizens lacked the courage and the power to fight back.
Their only tactic was throwing bodies at the monster until sheer numbers drove it away, suffering massive casualties in the process.
It seemed like people who possessed "superhuman" strength were incredibly rare in this universe—so rare they couldn't even form a centralized force capable of defending the nation's borders.
In the Blazer world, even though magic users only popped up at a rate of one in a thousand, there were still enough of them to police the globe and maintain a strict global order.
But here, the Empire couldn't even protect its own tax-paying citizens, nor had it bothered to set up a dedicated monster-hunting guild.
The severe lack of human talent was clearly losing the arms race against the Danger Beasts.
Or else...
'Could it be that the Empire simply didn't care about the lives and property of its own people?'
'No', Noah thought.
No matter how corrupt a government gets, letting your tax base get eaten by monsters is bad for business.
That seems a bit too unlikely.
Hitching a ride on the wagon not only gave Noah a crash course on the local lore, but it also delivered him straight to the Imperial Capital mentioned in his fake letter.
From miles away, the magnificent, towering stone walls stretched so far across the horizon that Noah couldn't even see where they ended.
Honestly, he was stunned.
Orario was probably just as spectacular, but he had been unconscious when he was carried through its gates, so he never got to see the labyrinth city from the outside.
Still, he imagined it felt pretty similar to this.
When Yuan casually mentioned the Imperial Capital covered an area of 200,000 square kilometers, Noah assumed the guy was using a weird, local unit of measurement.
But staring at the endless sprawl of the outer walls, he realized the driver wasn't exaggerating.
Japan back in the Blazer world was only about 370,000 square kilometers in total.
Yet the capital city of this Empire—just a single city—covered more than half that entire landmass.
Just how massive was this continent?
Judging by the heavy weathering and the ancient architecture of the walls, the Imperial Capital had stood for at least a thousand years.
"Haha, that's the usual reaction," Yuan chuckled. "Every country kid looks exactly like that the first time they see the Capital. It's a good thing you've got family waiting for you inside, boy. Otherwise, I really wouldn't recommend coming here."
Yuan's tone turned dark.
The way the driver stared at the towering gates was entirely different from Noah's awestruck look.
There wasn't a single trace of wonder or yearning in the man's eyes.
It looked more like pure dread.
"Listen to me, kid," Yuan said earnestly. "Danger Beasts are terrifying, yeah. But inside those walls... there are monsters way more terrifying than any beast in the woods."
'Hm?'
'Monsters more terrifying than a beast? Did he mean the people?'
Naturally, a capital city this massive would attract the wealthiest, greediest merchants, alongside corrupt nobles and ruthless politicians.
After all, this was the Emperor's seat of power.
"Halt!"
At the massive main gates, a squad of heavily armed guards was aggressively inspecting every single person trying to enter the city.
When the wagon pulled up, the brothers quickly produced a stamped merchant pass and handed it down.
The guard snatched it, checked the cargo, and then locked his eyes on Noah sitting in the back.
"Whose kid is this?" the guard barked.
"Ah, well..." Yuan hesitated, freezing up.
Logically, all Yuan had to do was tell the truth: Noah was a lost kid they picked up on the road.
But with the guard glaring at him, Yuan panicked.
He worried that telling the truth might get the kid interrogated or thrown in a cell.
If he just lied and claimed Noah was his son, the guards probably wouldn't ask any more questions.
But if the guards pressed him and caught the lie, both brothers would get dragged away for smuggling.
That one second of hesitation made the guard's eyes narrow in deep suspicion. His hand dropped to the hilt of his sword.
Seeing the situation spiral, Noah hopped off the back of the wagon, clutching his cheap cloth bundle.
"Hello, sir. No, I'm not with them. I got lost in the woods on my way to the Capital, and these two nice men just gave me a ride."
The guard snapped his gaze back to the brothers.
Yuan and Yuen both nodded frantically.
"Lost? Hmph." The guard sneered. "Where are you from?"
"Haye Town, sir."
"You lying little rat!" The guard roared, stepping right into Noah's face. "Do you think I'm an idiot?! I know exactly how far Haye Town is from these gates! You're telling me a little brat like you walked all that way by yourself, survived the Danger Beasts, and just magically got 'lost' right outside the Capital?!"
The guard's face was purple with sudden, explosive rage.
Hearing him shout, three more armed guards broke away from the checkpoint and surrounded the wagon, hands resting on their weapons.
Seeing the situation instantly escalate to the brink of violence, Noah felt a little puzzled.
'That's a pretty extreme reaction,' Noah thought. 'Is he not even going to ask to see my papers?'
It seemed that if Noah didn't defuse the situation with his very next breath, the guards were going to draw their swords and attack him right in the middle of the street!
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