Year 4094 since the Great Assembly
Being the major religion of the Ponian Empire, churches belonging to Pfanya, the Espy of Time, even a smaller church like Saint Marty church, never lack in terms of churchgoers at any time of the year. There is also the fact that on top of religious visits, churches are crucial in any location or region as they serve as a ‘teleportation point’, to be put simply. A special characteristic of the churches of the six Archangels unlike other minor religions is that they are connected to the spiritual world of the respective Archangels. This allows people to travel from one church to another through the spiritual world in a relatively short period even if the churches were on the opposite sides of the world.
There are two types of such travel. Door travel is available to anyone of any status as long as they can pay for it. This travel can take from 30 minutes up to 24 hours depending on the distance of travel and those who’re not used to traveling this way would suffer from side effects such as disorientation, dizziness, nausea, and feeling sick and weak for a period of time, varying on the individual. The other kind, fast travel, is limited to people from noble houses, people with special statuses, and those working for the church. This would take at most 30 seconds with no effect on the traveler’s physical status.
As they entered the church and followed an aisle, Avah handed over the fast travel card he got from Wolffia to Nad for registering their trip at the church basement while he went over to the right altar to make a donation.
“May your passing of time be faithful.”
“May her faithful lady guide your time.”
It was a young priest with a friendly smile on his face who came up to Avah, “How’s your time passed by, young lord?”
Although Avah usually goes to Saint Sol Cathedral, Solasta headquarters of the Church of Pfanya, he’s been to Saint Marty Church a few times to use their fast travel service. So, he’d talked with this young priest a couple of times but unfortunately, he could not recall the priest’s name even if someone threatened to beat him up. Both himself and the Avah of this world were equally terrible with names. The only clue he has is that it probably starts with ‘B’. Or was it a ‘S’?
“It’s been peaceful under her faithful lady’s blessing.”
Avah’s short and vague answer did not affect the young priest’s friendliness as he watched him put a 2 Nia coin into the donation box, “Bless young lord’s generosity!”
Nia is the currency of the Ponian Empire and it is one of the strongest currencies in the world. The value of the currency lies in its Moravor content. Moravor had a special ability to secure the process of receiving holy power belonging to the Archangels and thus widely used in many devices utilizing magic derived from the holy power. However, Moravor could only be found undersea; the deeper the water, the more likely for the ores to form. But deeper water meant more danger; lawless entities were several times more abundant under water than above ground and the weakest of them being between the 2nd and 3rd tier. So, its difficulty to harvest made Moravor even more so costly. That's why every single coin had been cast with the 'immortal' spell of a Pope to prevent anyone from melting them to extract the Moraovar no matter how little the content.
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10 terry made 1 yan and 24 yans made 1 Nia which contains 1% of Moravor. The more the content of Moravor, the more transparent the coins were. While silver coins like terry and yans were the most common, many commoners would live their life without ever getting to see a 2 Nia, 5 Nia, or 10 Nia coin. After all, a single 2 Nia coin was more than enough to feed a low-spending family of five for an entire year.
“Bless her faithful lady!”, Avah replied as he nodded humbly at the young priest as a farewell before turning to leave.
“Oh, by the way, this priest’s name is Flair.”, the young priest said with the same smile pasted on his face ever since he came up to Avah but Avah had a feeling that the priest found him very amusing.
“Right, I’ll try to remember it next time…”
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Avah made his way to the basement and he didn’t even need to look for Nad who stood out like a sore thumb looking like a crane in grassland, “Is everything ready?”
“Yes.”
“Let’s go then.”
Unlike door travel where the traveler has to open a door and enter a room, thus the name, you just have to receive a stamp on the back of your hand and then place your hand on a transport plate. While this seems like some sort of high-tech, this world had little to no development in terms of technology as there was no need for it. Why would there be inventions of planes when the God you worship can send you across the world in a few minutes? Why would people invent telephones when all you need to do is buy a communication scroll and find yourself a flat surface? It also had to do with the fact that people in this world didn’t chase after entertainment as much as people from Earth, rather they didn’t have the luxury to, fearing it might attract unwanted danger from beyond.
The promise of not affecting the traveler’s physical status was wondrously kept as Avah almost thought the transport plate was broken after he put his hand on it if not for the change in his surroundings. That was no fancy glowing light, the stamp on his hand didn’t go through any change either, and just like that he found himself in a church in Parlour an instant later. He couldn't help but marvel at this despite the past Avah's memories of such travel.
“Welcome to Parlour, gentleman. May your time flows with faith! ” greets a staff of the church not recognizing Avah’s identity. Nad had arrived at the same time as him and the two left Faint Smile church on the outskirt of Parlour. It would take around 2 hours to go to Maswell from here.
Avah was about to tell Nad to go find a hotel nearby when a carriage two times more extravagant than the one Avah usually uses stopped in front of them. Avah’s face darkened seeing the Count Wainwright crest on it.
“Ah, young lord Avah! How fortunate I’ve arrived on time!”, a silvered-head young man around Avah’s age hurried down the carriage with a stupidly handsome smile on his face. He was Larky Wainwright, the current heir of the Wainwright house and a man who got enough marriage proposals to bury himself in from young ladies every year.
“Why’re you here?”, Avah didn’t sugarcoat his words for the man.
Larky almost forgot why he was here seeing Avah and his knight matching the same unwelcoming attitude towards him, “O-Of course, I’m here to warmly welcome young lord. Even the most famous hotel in Parlour is undeserving of the young master and we could never let the young lord be uncomfortable in his rare visit to our Wainwright territory.”
Even when Avah had come out so early in the morning, news of his travel still leaked out so soon that it even reached all the way to the Wainwright house. How annoying…
Larky stood there frozen in his place as Avah stared at him unblinking as if he was staring deep into his soul. He knew he would get this reaction yet still came nevertheless because after all wronging Avah would be wronging the entire Striken House. Hell, he couldn’t offend even Avah himself.
After all, a lazy adolescent tiger who refused to hunt at all will still grow up to be a mighty tiger little rabbits could never offend. There was also the fact that Avah was second in line to the throne and his majesty favored him more than the princes.
After the scariest few minutes of Larky’s life, he finally heard a prolonged sigh from Avah before signaling Nad to give their luggage to the servants behind Larky.
“Ah! This way, young lord Avah.”