Chapter 9 – Domes

This meant that once the domes were set up, humanity's total living space was established. They would never have access to more resources than what was already present inside the domes. The first thing they ran out of was water. Once all water inside the domes was used, they had no choice but to rely on recycling, the rain that the dome let go through, and water mages. Water mages in particular became essential to humanity and were now one of the most crucial and respected jobs. And of course, they became some of the richest people too.

The same issue arose regarding food. There was only a finite number of fertile fields. This meant that the quantity of food produced was pretty much fixed, which also implied that the human population had to be strictly controlled. That was why folks had to wait in a queue for a spot to get freed in the baby field. The size of the baby field was calculated to adjust for a stable population.

And then came standard resources. Stone, metals, wood, earth, and sand all became precious. Some of these could still be recycled like Suuru was doing for metal, but the available quantity was still limited for all of them. This was the reason why houses were made of a mix of materials, like stone, earth, and metal. People just used whatever they could to build their homes.

After going through the market, I continued to explore the city. Sometimes, I would enter a shop to examine their goods and prices. I also paid attention to the people I came across. I was surprised to find out that their ranks were low on average. Most women were between rank 0 and rank 2. I still hadn't seen anyone I estimated to be more than rank 2. On top of that, the majority of the rank 2 were older people. It made sense since ranking up was a very long-term effort but it still felt weird for it to be that low. In comparison, normal people in my world would be between rank 0 and rank 6. Was this due to a lack of external threats? Or maybe because the concentration of sel in the air was only around half that of my previous world?

After walking through most of the city, I estimated its population to be in the low tens of thousands. There was still plenty of time left in the day and I had to decide what to do now. I could go back to Suuru's home but there was no point in watching her work idly while doing nothing. I needed at least some start-up capital to become a trader like I always aspired to. If I had any interesting items in my storage, I would sell those to get a bit of money, but that wasn't the case. The only thing that could earn me a bit of cash was my phone but I had no plan to sell it. Even though I couldn't use it to contact anyone, it would still be useful for many other things. As for the medicine, not only were it only simple ones, but I wasn't sure how people would react if I took out some unknown drugs. There was no need to get into trouble for a few coins.

The best thing to do was to get to work, at least for today. I approached a random woman on the streets and talked to her.

"I'm saying whatever."

There was no need to say anything interesting. The woman noticed my foreign-looking clothes, heard a foreign language coming out of my mouth, and her eyes lit up in understanding. She moved sel toward her ears and when I saw she was done, I talked again.

"Hello, ma'am."

"Hello. What is it?"

"I'm new to this dome and I'm looking for work. Do you know any place that needs a helping hand?"

"You must come from a faraway dome. I've never heard your language before. I don't know any place that needs help, sorry. Try asking at the city hall."

"Could you tell me where it is?"

"If you go that way, turn right and left one time, and right again, and you'll reach it after about three minutes."

I memorized her careless instructions. I could always ask someone else when I got closer to my destination.

"Thank you, ma'am."

"No problem."

She left quickly after that, going on her way. After three minutes, I was indeed lost and had to ask one more person before I reached the city hall. The building was a bit better than the ones around it. It was two stories tall, was mostly made of stone, and had many people going in and coming out of it. When I entered it, there were several lines of folks waiting in queue for a manned counter to get freed. Without thinking too much, I got in one of the queues too and waited for my turn.

When it came, I uttered something random again to the counter lady before we could communicate.

"Hello. I'm new to the city and looking for work."

"Alright. Can I see your ID please?"

'ID? Darn it. How could I forget about something so basic?'

"Ah… My ID… I left it at the hotel. Let me go and fetch it. I'll be back soon."

I didn't even know if they had something like a hotel in this city. Fortunately, the civil servant didn't seem to care much about my words.

"Sure. You'll need to queue again, though."

"Of course."

I made my escape, hoping that I wouldn't get marked as an illegal resident or something. I had my previous world's ID in my wallet but that wouldn't be of any use here. Just like how my credit card became a useless piece of plastic now.

I felt quite embarrassed at myself for forgetting something so simple. So much so for being a rare talent. I wasn't so great when it came to the real thing.

I shook my head. Whatever. Mistakes happen. It wouldn't be my first one and certainly won't be my last one.

In life, there's always a way. I just needed to find it.

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