From their observations they saw that people seemed to approach the city from either the road that came from the north, or the one that went towards the east. There were a few people who came out directly from the forest, emerging from the tree line to the south. He was going to use that last option since it would be the easiest to justify why he didn't have a horse. The only people who approached without horse were coming from that direction.
They decided that Alex would go to the city without anything except the comms device, and he will hide it under his sleeves while passing through the gate.
Going alone, it was much faster to reach the edge of the forest. When he got there he decided to run while inside the forest to reach a location south of the city. it took him another fifteen minutes to reach an acceptable location since all he wanted was to be hidden from the guards when emerging from the forest.
Today was a relatively busy day and there were a few people in line to get in. They had observed that the busiest times were after sunrise when a lot of people were leaving and before sunset when they were returning, but at noon it was also relatively busy, which is why he chose to arrive at noon.
He got in line, and made sure his wrist-comm was hidden under the sleeves of the suit. A few minutes later, a woman come up from the road northward on a horse and she moved in-line behind him.
He was a little nervous, but tried his best not to show it. When it was his turn, he was afraid they would ask him to move-aside.
When crossing the threshold he could see that the outer walls were very thick, like 3 meters thick and made of a stone like material. He was still curious to know what they were protecting themselves against, the only thing he could think of would be reengineered prehistoric reptiles, but he still hasn't seen any indication of it. After all they would be hard to miss from the air even with trees this tall.
At the gate the guards stopped him saying they had never seen him before and asked him what he was doing here.
This made him a little nervous but simply answered that he was visiting for the first time.
Luckily they accepted this answer but asked where he came from, and that was a problem because he didn't know the name of any city in this world. So he simply pointed to the forest southward, he didn't say south because he didn't know if they use the coordinate system, so he just awkwardly pointed southwards while saying "from the forest", he knew that there were some small villages there, but he also knew that they were a little far, he just hoped they'd accept that someone would walk all the way from one of those villages on foot
«You're from the wildlands?» One of the guards, probably the youngest of the group asked excited, then he continued "It must've been a long walk, it's the first time I meet anyone from the wildland. Welcome to the city» Alex sighed in relief at that.
«We still need to inspect him» One of the other ones said, Alex's heart skipped a beat at that. Would they find his wrist-comm device? he hadn't seen them inspect anyone else when they were observing the city, so he didn't know what it entailed.
«He is not carrying anything» the younger one said, but a look from the older one silenced him.
«Ok, come this way» he was taken to the side, the guard looked him up and down then asked «is this a whole suit or separate?»
Alex couldn't understand the question and it must have shown
«You would need to lift your shirt, but if it's a whole suit, you would need to take it out»
The way his suit was constructed, it looked like a one-piece, but luckily it comprised of two-parts: pants and a top. Alex lifted the upper piece until just above the top of his abdomen. The guard motioned him to turn around and he obeyed. He didn't know the purpose of this, but simply complied. Luckily they didn't ask him to lift it higher since it would have been problematic for when the girls came to enter the city. But why were they not trying to inspect his pockets? why would he hide something under his top and not his pockets?
After that they let him in, at least he confirmed that they use the coordinate system, and they gave him a good excuse continue using.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
Now that he was inside, he partially uncovered his wrist-comm for the others to watch through it, he set up the shuttle to automatically translate whatever conversation he was having. At this distance it was easy to send video and audio signal to the shuttle, if they ever needed to get further it wouldn't be so.
When they were coming down from space the first time they had seen that almost all cities had the same basic shapes even if they had different sizes. The walls either created an hexagonal or octagonal shape around the city, they had calculated that it was about 6 km across, but he had to admit that from the inside it looked relatively big.
Contrary to what he believed the houses looked like made from wood and not stone. There was a main stone road that led from the main gate and went straight toward the center.
Most people were dressed in some type of gray or brownish grey clothes, and everyone is looking at him from time to time, maybe it was because his clothes were so different, although they were also gray, it was a lighter shade, and it was probably also because his suit was so form fitting and theirs was very loose. But he ignored it and kept moving.
It was easy to see that some people had more money than others, by the way they dressed, the people who wore colored clothes looked more well off than everyone else, and their clothing usually had embroidery and other aesthetic augmentations to it.
Walking around he could see that but he could see that most of the secondary streets were not paved with stone and were simply dirt roads. They were also not as broad as the main road, like someone was trying conserver space. But entering the gate and the walking the main street you wouldn't have noticed this, it's like someone made sure to hide these conditions away from casual visitors.
Strangely there were less people looking at him at these side streets, it probably had to do with the fact that everyone looked busy, they were either doing something or were moving like they had somewhere urgent to go.
The clothes in these parts were also more ragged and some thorn in some places, but people simply kept doing what they were doing without minding their appearance. The air also had ever present faint smell of manure in this side of the city.
It's strange seeing people doing so much manual work, like sweeping the streets or tending to horses or carrying dirt or vegetable in what looked like wheelbarrows, his people don't do these types of manual labor, they have machines for that.
What saddened him the most was seeing actual children doing these types of work, he grew in what could somewhat be considered a farm but he still didn't do these types of labor unless he thought it was fun or his father was trying to teach him something.
He went back to the main street, since it looked like it has more businesses, and he thought that a store would be a good place to get more info about the world, he just had to make sure he didn't give away the fact that he didn't know basic things.
While walking he saw some signs on top of doors, like some inns, clothing store, and hunting supplies store.
He went to the clothing stores first, the clothing store had a few different types of clothes, from the same dull gray to the more colorful, but it didn't have the prices written down.
«Can I help you?» came the voice of an old man who approached him
«I came from out of town and was just wandering about the prices» Alex asked
«Oh, which city did you come from?» The man asked, and Alex didn't know the name of any city. So, since they had seen some small villages in the south of the continent and they saw some people going in that direction he just went with it
«I come from the wildlands» he said, copying the detail the guard gave him.
«Oh, a man from the wildlands, that's good, we don't see many of you people here» the old man said.
From there things were easier, the man assumed that he didn't know a lot about the cities, but when Alex tried to talk about the world as a whole the men simply assumed he already knew a lot of things and skipped. The problem is that those were the things Alex was interested about. But he did get somethings like the monetary system and the fact that there was some type of nobility even if the man didn't go to a lot of details.
The monetary system he got by asking and comparing prices, it was annoying that the man didn't write price tags, when he asked this the man was surprised and asked if he knew how to read, when he said yes, the man asked where he learned it, and Alex simply answered that his father taught him. At first Alex thought that only people from the wildlands couldn't read but he soon found out that most people everywhere couldn't read, it was mostly nobles or merchants who could.
This made Alex angry, what type of world was this where people actually reserved the right to read and right for elites, this went against what he and his people believed. For them one of the worst types of wasted opportunity was having an uneducated mind, everyone had the potential to improve society if given a chance, not giving them that chance was simply lack of vision.
He decided to leave the store because his reaction was showing on his face, he walked around some more to calm himself.
After he calmed down he kept moving through the city, using the same gimmick of coming from the wildlands he was able to get more info. It looks like the people from the wildlands were famous for being great hunters, and were the main providers for meat, leathers and skin coats for most southern cities, but it looked like they were recluses and him being here was a novelty, he tried to analyze if there was anything he could do to make money, and for now at least there was no easy way.
The only way he thought of was using the moulder or 3D printer to create a bow, but it was a bad idea because the printing material was limited, and better leave it for emergency needs.