Army of the Damned

VOLUME 16 Chapter 5

Driving out of the parking lot with Jackson on the driver's seat. He takes them out to the center of the commercial district. With the tall skyscrapers and the more luxurious cars around. He looked at the steel truss bridge that leads to Downtown, neatly painted and brightly lit with the sidewalks on the sides full of players doing Party Magics as those coming from the massive buildings would give them a coin or two.

As they were stopped at a huge intersection. Thousands of people cross the street in unison, blocking his view of the entrance to the bridge as his headlight wasn't even able to puncture the sea of people. "My Lord, may we not just eat around here? I saw a few restaurants already." Alana nodded and crossed her arms. "Yes, M'Lord. Why should we go far? The establishments here seem to be well more than meets our standards."

He releases his right hand from the shifter and shrugs with his finger. "Why eat out at a place so near when we can go far? And I am planning to get some Italian. Authentic Italian." he stops Bahamut's tampering of the radio and mutes it. "The Men of the Woods has the highest player count of Italian and Italian blooded people in the community. So you know they'll have some banger pastas. Me and Bahamut weren't able to do it before since we avoid these modern cities."

The Dragon crossed her arms and closed her eyes. "What? I'm not wrong." she nods but then shrugs. "Master, the city you built though." the man just sighs as he grips the wheel of the SUV.

"My Lord, we passed by multiple restaurants that had that on their front. Some, having Napoli on their signs."

"No, no, no. If you want authentic dishes, you have to look out for it. That Chinese restaurant we went to. It didn't look anything special right? It actually looked run down and rustic for the most part."

"My Lord, it looked quite special."

"Well, maybe for you. But for me, it was pretty much a standard place. It's the same with Italian. If you want to have the best one, you have to look for it."

"And why should we take an automobile to the slums?"

"Automobile? What's with the anachronistic word?"

"I feel like the word car is far too modern for my lexicon. I am not young anyways and the word feels complex enough." He just shrugs his head as the lights turn green and he gently presses on the accelerator. "Downtown is also not the slums, Elizabeth. It's called a Low Income Neighborhood in the West, so we need to call it the same, alright."

"Uh huh." She then veers her attention to the car next to them. Though a sound of a slap took her attention as Bahamut was gonna shift through the radio once again, the woman noticed the player inside was talking to no one. As if he was chatting with himself as he kept his attention forward, occasionally looking at the center console of the car.

Alana, though who was on the right passenger side next to her, had her hand up on her chin, resting it on the door as her head rested on the window. The afternoon was slowly fading, and alongside it was the turning on of the lights inside the various buildings around them. The towering skyscrapers seemed endless in its pursuit to touch the space beyond the clouds as the crushing depth of the concrete world dawned on her.

The city took on an entirely different form once again as they finally got their turn and Jackson took them to Downtown where the contrast was stark and bumps on the road had begun to show and parked trailer trucks filled whatever open space was available, with closed vans hidden in every alleyway and corner. The rusty fences swayed with no weight as a breeze passed it, carrying with it the shingle of the Industrial belt of the city.

Many of the buildings there were of little to no light and graffiti filled most of the walls of the often left desolate structures as ragged and worn cars filled the sides of the road with broken glass occasionally seen and the gang of Dwarves or Elves patrolling their designated blocks. Often, to the detriment of anyone driving as it made the lane smaller than it already has to be with the danger of gang warfare looming on the common citizenry.