"Is this.... even a city?" Muttered Ooro.
The goblin knights and his own disciples were murmuring similar words.
Night had fallen, and they had now reached the city. Specifically the Outside District.
When they first walked the road, there were merely farmland. A normal sight for these group of goblins.
But when they neared the city's Outside District, they first thought, 'are those buildings castles?'
But when they actually arrived, the sight of the Outside District became clear.
Those weren't castles.
No, they were much much bigger than just castles.
Each building looked at least 3 time taller than the tallest castles or spires they've seen in their entire life.
"How are such things possible?" Asked Ooro audibly. His disciples knew that he wasn't asking this towards them.
Neither did the knights. They all had the same thoughts.
Architecture that looked familiar, but also nouveau. As if it had gone through hundreds of new iterations, combining elegance with efficiency.
Moreover, they couldn't see where the stones had been laid. As if these buildings were gigantic stones carved into singular buildings.
Although Lucky took inspiration from New York, he did not copy it 1-to-1.
Especially not it's early looks.
Although his buildings were made of concrete and used a similar architecture as late 19th century New York, he did not bother with incorporating red brick walls like early New York did.
He chose to just skip straight to smooth concrete walls, some of which were patterned. The patterns of the walls were purely for aesthetic reasons.
To not delay his curiosities any further, Ooro decided to ask a passing stranger, "excuse me, but when were these.... castles.... no, spires.... built?"
"Oh, these huge things? We call them skyscrapers here. Y'know, because they look as if they can scrape the skies?" Said the passing goblin.
"How and when were they built?" Asked Ooro.
"Haha, you're lucky you asked me. I'm one of the guys who built these things," said the goblin.
However, when the goblin was just about to add his answer, another passing goblin who overheard their conversation had cut in.
"Don't listen to that guy, most of us here have worked in the construction of these skyscrapers. That guy's my cousin, all he did was mix the concrete, so don't believe his braggings," said the other goblin.
"Fuck off! I'm trying to brag to these newcomers about our city, not my labour!" Yelled the first goblin.
Eventually, the two cousins started a fistfight with each other, leaving Ooro and his group speechless at the sight.
'These still are the behaviour of country bumpkins, so how come they've managed to build such awe-inspiring buildings?' Thought Ooro.
'And a lot of the words they were speaking aren't of any goblin dialect I've ever heard....'
Then, a couple of police officers, came to the scene and calmed the two cousins down. The offciers were vampires.
'What's even weirder are the vampires. How come they aren't lethargic and behave as normal people would?
The more time he spent in this city, the more questions arose.
Even a single minute was enough to make his head hurt.
"I bought a map," said Aurea, interrupting Ooro's thoughts.
That's when he noticed his disciples and the other knights missing.
Aurea noticed his confused glances of searching for the others and reassured him, "don't worry, they just entered that place over there, the goblins here call those places a "fast-food" restaurant?"
"I see...."
"Here's the map. I don't know how to read so I thought you should have it instead," said Aurea.
"You don't know how to read? You, a Knight?" Asked Ooro.
"I might be a Knight, but I am not a noble. I was formerly a mercenary from a commoner household," explained Aurea.
Moving on from the awkwardness, Ooro opened the map and immediately got confused.
'What kind of writing is this?' He thought.
Yes, he claimed that he was able to read and write back at the gates.
Yes, he knew he said he could easily learn a new language.
But this was completely alien.
Being a Mage naturally meant that one had to also be a scholar. Thus, Ooro thought that he could recognize the script used for the writing here.
'It's not a type of vampiric script, not goblin, not elven, not orcish, not dwarven, not human, not beastmen.... what the hell is this?' He thought.
Truth be told, the signs used back from the gates up till here had always been written in the Ascend script.
Ooro had just been too focused on his mission and also the sight of the buildings to even notice the strange new writing.
His students weren't as expert as he was when it came to languages, so they thought that their master had already known the language.
The Knights were less privy to different languages, so they also thought it was normal.
But Ooro Baldur wasn't just any normal goblin. He was a Royal Mage of the Utara Kingdom.
Realizing that the infiltration mission was going to be much harder, Ooro decided that he was going to enroll into the academy instead of applying as a math teacher there.
Using magic, he could easily change his looks towards that of a child.
A couple hours later, after eating the restaurant that his disciples and the Knights went to eat at, they finally rented rooms in one of the many apartments in the Outside District.
Two rooms to be exact, one for the Knights to sleep in and one for his disciples.
As for him, he explained his newly improved plan....
"I am going to disguise myself as a child and enter the academy. I heard the academy accepts every children no matter what status they hold."
"Then, my new plan is to stay at the academy's dormitories and learn all of this place's secrets. Why as a student? Because children of all walks of society from this place go there."
"I plan to learn this place's language, steal key information, and build connections with the families of those children to obtain even more information. They wouldn't expect a child who's friends with their child to be a spy."
The explanation then went into more depth, but after an hour, most of the people listening were all sleeping already.
At that point, Aurea, who had kept himself awake through sheer willpower, asked a question, "why don't we just abandon our mission and stay here for good?"
"...."
Ooro was speechless. But then, he raised his mana, enough for the knights and his own disciples to become awake again.
"Are you saying we should join the ranks of the ones who almost killed us? The ones who killed our brethren in that cowardly ambush? The ones who sold their lives to filthy blood-sucking leeches?" Said the enraged Ooro.