The Martial Unity

“ID and purpose of visit?” The Martial Master at the front gate demanded with a strict tone of voice. The man looked middle-aged, with a long, thick beard and a bald head, wearing a Martial suit with absorption technology, allowing him to withstand attacks much more easily if ambushed at the city gates.

In the distant past, a Martial Master working at a city gate would have been an utter travesty, but in the Era of Expansion, where their numbers had exploded, and supply had skyrocketed, it was considered a promising, stable career in an unstable frontier.

 Ria and Runark plucked chipped ID cards from the belts on their exo-Martial attire, offering it to the man.

“Ria Falcon,” Ria replied calmly with an alias. “Freelancing.”

“Runark, also freelancing.”

The identity cards they had were issued by the Gaian Adventurer’s Guild, a guild created for freelancer pathwalkers willing to undertake commissions for operations at the frontier of human civilization. Because the Gaian Alliance had chosen to pursue a laissez-faire approach to human expansion, the centralized identification system was not universalized, allowing Ria to get her hands on ID cards for herself and Runark so that they could travel under an alias.

“Hm, you’re free to enter.” The Martial Master nodded after verifying the document. “Welcome to Planet Sarantel and City Stormfront.”

The moment the Martial Master waved them in, they entered a different world from the barren wasteland beneath their feet.

The land within the establishment’s borders was significantly developed, smoothed out, and topped off with tiles and a porous asphalt-like system, meant to prevent loose soil from turning into unpleasant dust very easily, while the city walls protected the establishment from blowing dust.

What stood out most, of course, was the sheer density of the presence of people within the establishment. They stood about, walking in groups, talking loudly to each other, allowing Ria and Runark to hear them as they passed by.

“—And I was fighting this damn enstrantiomer from Planet Sirien, and I barely managed to get away.”

“—Check out this new gamma ray gun I bought, I can’t wait to try it out in the field next time.”

“—and I just flipped out in his face! I’m not gonna work if you don’t pay me!”

Most of them were adventurers, an occupation that referred to freelancers, usually pathwalkers, who operated at the frontier. They wore combat suits equipped with weapons and other utilities and gadgets, walking around from store to store.

A vast majority of the buildings they passed through were stores, brokers, service companies, and corporations that were operating on the planet, extracting and refining resources, shipping back deeper into Gaian Civilization to sell at a high price. A vast majority of the human presence was the resource-extraction industry, and goods and services surrounding the frontiers, with minimal residential presence for those who worked full-time at Planet Sarantel.

If one wasn’t used to the visual stimulation of modern urban cities, one would certainly suffer a seizure, for every building was checkered with lights, whether it was screens featuring advertisements of their own products or others, whether it was the bright signs or holograms that hung above their doors, it was a very stimulating visual environment, despite its relatively rustic environment.

Planet Sarantel itself was owned by the Jakarthar Federation, a multi-racial polity comprised of more than a dozen founding settler colonialists who banded together to create a sovereign polity that was exclusively dedicated to interstellar mercantilism; they existed to extract and export, while also serving as a brokerage platform for the Gaian Adventurer’s Guild.

One could spot many dwarves, tekvores, and Martial Artists, who were part of the colonies that founded the Jakarthar Federation, as well as many hybrids that had already begun forming between the races. There was also the occasional elf who looked out of place in an environment with no nature.

Of course, not every location in the city was purely industrial, brokerage, or service-oriented. There were plenty of shady alleyways, underground establishments, and underground layers to the city where more lurid activities occurred. Places that existed just below the surface, both literally and metaphorically, bubbling and ebbing above to drag people into its depths.

“You look like you have stamina and money, young man,” a woman in a dark alleyway huffed, blowing smoke into the air before directing a suggestive smile at Runark. “Are you interested in having some fun?”

She wore revealing clothes while a sweet aroma of a particular kind emerged from her. Runark gulped at those words while Ria grabbed his hand with a hint of irritation, dragging him along past her, before turning around to glare at him.

“What?” He asked helplessly. “I didn’t even do anything!”

She simply huffed with a miffed manner, refusing to let go of his hand, much to Runark’s delight.

Soon enough, they arrived at their destination.

“This will do.”

They arrived at a hotel no more than five storeys tall. [Chernel Hotel]

CLACK The moment they walked in the door, of course, they found themselves in an entirely different atmosphere. The entrance to the inn led into a pub-restaurant filled with large numbers of boisterous adventurers drinking and eating away to glory as they loudly laughed, talking with each other.

They drew attention from everybody around them, of course. Ria possessed a profound charm about her that reflected her royal bearing; her golden hair was too eye-catching to ignore. And, as far as Runark was concerned, she was very beautiful too, which made her even more attention-drawing.

Had she been in Gaia Prime or other planets deeper within the territory of human civilization, she would have been concerned at being recognized.

However, she was on the frontier.

Far away from home.

She didn’t even need to put up a hoodie in this environment, because there was almost no chance that somebody here had seen her image as an adult for multiple reasons, of course. The first was that while they did indeed live in a civilization connected by information, the throughput of information flowing from star system to star system was actually very narrow.