“We will be arriving in Reach in the next ten minutes.” The announcement for the next city came sooner than I expected. Still, the basic device was working. Maybe there would be time to test it before we left for the next city.

  Ah, who am I kidding, even if there was time, I didn’t know where such a testing facility was. It would almost be better for me to go out and find some monsters to kill. Not that I was going to do that. That would be suicide.

  “For those of you that have not passed through Reach before, or read up on the history of the city, I urge you to do so. This city is dangerous in every way. If any of the people living here tell you to do something, it is probably in your best interest to do it and to do it as fast as you can.” The announcer’s tone was serious. Then, without any transition, he sounded happy and cheerful as he finished. “Other than that, enjoy your visit to the city of Reach.”

  “What the fuck was that?” I asked the world as I took a second to look outside. At some point we had re-entered the mountains. In fact, it looked like we were nearing the tops of a particularly large cluster of them.

  And there, sitting in the center, hanging off the edge of the mountain like a crown on a king’s head, sat a massive wall. One that made every wall I had seen so far look like a small toy. The walls even had the jagged look of the older crowns.

  As we got closer, I realized those jagged lines were not built in. The wall had been damaged by something and never repaired. Even as the train made its climb to pass over the wall, my eyes tried to take in everything I could see.

  Like Lionsguard, this city had an outer and an inner wall. Unlike Lionsguard, however, the outer city was utterly destroyed. A few buildings stood here and there, but most of them were little more than ruins.

  And I am not talking about small buildings either. Based on the amount of metal and the few that were lying on their side, these had been full-on skyscrapers. They might have even rivaled the buildings from before the fall of everything. Now, though, the only life that probably lived in those buildings were those that wanted to kill and eat anything it came across.

  The train dipped and twisted as we approached the inner wall. Surprisingly, the wall wasn’t teeming with weapons. If anything, the place seemed a bit devoid of defenses. Before I could ask Bert about it, a small swarm of monsters charged the wall just below the platform. A small turret popped out of the wall, and between one moment and the next, there was little more than blood and monster pieces left.

  The entire sequence confused me. The series of short, sharp pops was not something I associated with any of the mana weapons I knew of. But other than them, the only other weapons that might leave such a mess were conventional in design.

  But no one used those things anymore. Not with how wasteful they were. After all, why waste half the space in your magazine with parts that you wouldn’t even be firing at the enemy? Just fire the whole round. It didn’t take much mana, and the manufacturing requirements for each projectile was nearly nothing…mostly.

  There are still various things added in to various projectiles to create a desired effect. Shrapnel rounds. Explosive rounds. Tracer rounds. Even rounds with various spell effects added on. Though those were stupidly expensive and only used by the desperate or the rich.

  Still, to see someone using such old technology to defend the city meant that something was wrong. A fact that was only further proven as we crested over the wall and I got my first view of the city, or what was left of it.

  Just like the outer city, the inner was in shambles. Not a single structure was untouched. Multiple were canted over at an angle that could not be all that sound. Yet the only thing the city had done to fix them was to add a few supports.

  Then there were the streets. People lined each one, and given what I could see, very few had more than some fabric to keep the sun and the rain off of them. Worst yet, very few kids seemed to be moving around, let alone playing.

  The sight had me wondering what the point of this city was. Why were we even stopping here? Honestly, this city needed to be completely torn down and rebuilt. All while the population needed food and a chance at a better life.

  I had to stop looking at the people in the street as the whole thing was depressing. Mostly because I knew there was nothing I could do. Hell, there was likely nothing that Lionsguard could do. It didn’t have the space to house another city's worth of people inside its walls.

  Static built along my skin as the train passed through a tunnel into one of the few mostly intact skyscrapers. We had passed through a shield. Not just that, but given the amount of light blinding me, whatever this building was for, it was unlike the rest of the city.

  As my eyes adjusted to the stark white light, I found myself looking at a station so pristine that it looked almost new. Machines zipped along on rails as they moved equipment around in preparation for something. Maybe we would be offloading some food for the people below and taking on something for the next city while we were here.

  Then again, seeing how clean this place was, there was little to no chance of that. The whole place screamed privilege to me. Like only those with money, connections, or visitors were given the right to walk here. That even a glance at the inside was a great privilege to those outside these walls.

  Maybe that was why the conductor made sure to tell everyone to listen to the people who lived here. After all, what was stopping them from throwing us outside the tower and denying us access to the train? It wasn’t like any of us had a different way to the academy. Anyone who did have such a method of travel wouldn’t be taking this odd tour of the cities between Lionsguard and Olympic Academy.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  Then again, maybe I was overthinking all this. And I wasn’t going to try to press my luck. If anything, I was going to get off the train, ask someone for someplace to test my drone, test it, then return to the train.

  With that plan in mind, I stepped off the train only to be pulled to the side by a clean-cut soldier of some kind. “Name and reason for visit?”

  “Eli, and I am just passing through on my way to the academy.” I hesitantly answered.

  “I know the destination of the train. I need to know the reason why you are getting off the train.”

  Not knowing how else to answer, and needing my question answered anyway, I answered him with a question of my own. “Do you have a testing chamber?”

  “Type? Size? Length of use? Are you testing your skills?” The oddly gender neutral soldier took a second to look me over. “Or something else?”

  “I need to test my drone after a few modifications.” I figured the less I said, the better.

  “Fine,” they tapped a few things down on a terminal built into their sleeve. “Follow me.” They pivoted and started for the nearest exit.

  “Wait,” I called. “I need to go grab the drone.” I took the fact that they stopped and stepped to the side as their way of acknowledging my words. With swift feet, I wove my way back to the cabin and grabbed my new controller as well as a few cables and adapters. Hands full, I tried to figure out where to put it all so that I could grab the drone.

  Bert coughed. Having caught my attention, he gestured at the drone. “Want me to grab that for you?”

  “If you would.” Without any visible effort, he lifted the drone and made for the door. I raced ahead, trying to make the doors open for him and to clear the path.

  As we reached the soldier, they gave Bert a once-over. “Name and reason for visit?”

  “Bert, and I don’t have a reason.”

  “Without a reason, I will have to ask you to return to your cabin.” I don’t know if the soldier was jumpy or something, but for some reason, one of his hands went from his side to the odd-looking weapon on his hip.

  “He is helping me.” I jumped in, trying to keep Bert from saying something stupid and getting himself hurt.

  The soldier relaxed. “Thank you for your clarification, Eli.” With that, the soldier pivoted and started for the door.

  “Rigid much?” Bert muttered as we exited the platform.

  Just as they had been in there, the walls here were clean. Even the rails running along the top and bottom of the hall was pristine. Something about the scene niggled at the back of my mind. But for the life of me, I couldn’t place my finger on what it was.

  “Bert!” I lightly chastised. “Remember what the announcer said as we entered the town. I have a feeling that these people are on a bit of a hair trigger.”

  “Fine,” he sighed. “But I don’t like having to tell some stranger what I am doing and where.”

  “The faster I get this testing done, the sooner we can head back to the train.”

  Only three turns and a short elevator ride later, we found ourselves in a fairly large room. And judging by the scattered domes, it had a fairly sophisticated holographic system. One that would make any other system I had used look like nothing. I wouldn’t be surprised if it could manifest a whole army of monsters to fight.

  It was a cool little setup, but doing so must use a shit ton of mana. More than enough for several cannons on the outer wall. Surely this city wasn’t dumb enough to hoard its mana for this part of the city and to let the rest of it use regular electricity. That would be practically suicide against any decently powerful monster.

  Then again, maybe that was why they had lost the outer section. Maybe something did manage to get through their defense, and now they didn’t have a way to clear it out. Whatever the reason, I needed to focus on what I was doing. None of what happened here, none of this city's history, none of the politics, nothing about this city was my problem. And even if it was, nothing I did could or would change it.

  Bert moved to set the drone onto a table set into one of the walls, only for the table to shift and boil. Small pillars of what looked like metal stabbed their way out of the roiling liquid. They almost looked like they were reaching for the drone. Before he could pull the drone away, the various pieces latched onto a piece of the drone and dragged it toward the table.

  “Class two autonomous unit detected.” A metallic voice called from the table. “Manufacturer: unknown. Mode of travel: flight. Propulsion: four hybrid dual, contra-rotating air-mana thrusters. Weapons: two, basic. Mana capacity: modular, dispersed, small. Mana-based circuitry. Computing unit: one thinking core, two hybrid cores. Controls: unknown schema. Possible Experimental. Running diagnostics.”

  Whatever the table was doing, it was racing through it. I didn’t have time to cross the room, let alone disconnect my drone from it, before the system continued. “Diagnostics complete. System booting. Testing cores. Testing complete. Testing power delivery. Testing complete. Testing mana storage. Storage failed.”

  I watched in horror as a small spike of whatever the table was made of stabbed into one of the few openings in the drone. A moment later, it pulled back out. “Balancing mana storage. Balancing complete. Recalibrating mana storage. Calibration complete. Testing mana storage. Testing complete. Testing thrust.” A series of pulses erupted from the drone as each of the various fans revved up and down in rapid succession.

  “Testing complete. Testing sensors.” Various objects formed and vanished from the walls around the drone. At one point, something even popped out from above the drone. “Sensor system passed, sensor values failed. Recalibrating sensors. Calibration complete. Testing sensors.” Like before, items appeared and vanished around the drone.

  “Testing complete. Testing controls. Testing failed. Testing controls. Testing failed. Testing controls. Test failed. Aborting control test. Testing complete. Activating drone.” I honestly had no clue what to think.

  Whatever system ran in that table had just taken my job, and there was little I could do about it. While the testing would have taken me only a little longer, the various issues and calibrations would have taken me days, if not longer, to fix. Yet it did it in minutes.

  Of course, any monkey could say they did the same thing. That didn’t make the work they did any good. But, I guess we would see in a minute, as the system didn’t even ask if I wanted to activate the drone or not. It just decided to do so.

  God, I hope this thing doesn’t kill me. Wait, did I make sure the magazine was empty? While I didn’t add anything to it, I couldn’t guarantee that anyone else didn’t. And as my parents beat into my head, any potentially dangerous item is to be considered ready to do you harm until you yourself check it to verify that it is safe. Even then, trust nothing.

  Better to be paranoid than hurt or worse.

  The soft humming sound of the motors spinning up filled the space as the drone lifted off the table. While various parts fell away, a few tendrils of the table stayed attached. The drone spun around before centering its sensors on yours truly.

  My body went rigid as my heart skittered to a stop. This was it. This was the way I died. Not by a monster, but by my own creation. Huh, guess that isn’t the worst way to go, but I would rather have something like old age be the thing that punched my ticket.