Tingen was undergoing intensive construction, presenting a scene of everything waiting to be rebuilt.
Of course, there were no spacious and smooth asphalt roads, no bright gas lamps, no underground water pipes, nor any other things that appeared in the modern era from Don's memories. Lacking the necessary knowledge, the world's technology tree had not yet been illuminated by Emperor Roselle, so Tingen's development would inevitably be subject to certain limitations.
The carriage traveled on stone roads that had been cleared by municipal personnel. Tingen had just experienced a heavy rain in the early morning, and the muddy roads had quite a bit of standing water. Instead, there weren't many living people moving about, nor were there many traces of carriages.
Carriages in this era could almost be said to be the transportation tool of nobles. Horses were precious resources, and carriages were one of the few tools available for long-distance travel nowadays.
Those who could afford to maintain horses all had ample space and wealth in their homes. Even barons often needed to rent carriages from other friendly nobles to maintain their dignity.
Honestly, Don thought that the world depicted in the book was more inclined toward the period after the First Industrial Revolution. Although that period couldn't be called as convenient as modern times, it was an era with flush toilets and toilet paper that the current pit latrines wouldn't even dare to dream of...
Well, he really did feel like crying.
After experiencing it firsthand, he discovered that in the Fifth Epoch, before Emperor Roselle descended and initiated the Industrial Revolution to reform the entire world, the various traces of the Fourth Epoch were more primitive, decadent, and cruel.
On both sides of the road, there were quite a few... corpses. Vagrants, slaves who died from infectious diseases, overwork, and various other reasons, as well as the bodies of children abandoned by families who could no longer bear the expenses—these weren't uncommon.
They died in the night, died during every day and night of hunger and madness, and would be cleaned up the next day, sent to churches for free cremation. The remaining bone ash from cremation would be thrown into the Tussock River—this wasn't the cremation culture brought by Emperor Roselle. In this world, the Seven Orthodox Churches, who clearly understood and knew about the mystical, had not yet undergone long periods of temporal sedimentation and could handle an entire city's worth of corpses. Cremation was the most convenient and lowest-cost method of disposing of bodies.
After all, undead creatures like living corpses that were born from dead bodies were not non-existent, and cultists would sometimes use large quantities of corpses to complete certain rituals that might cause terrible consequences.
"These corpses lying dead on both sides of the road will be cleaned up quickly." Don lowered the carriage curtain and sighed silently in his heart.
This era was truly a man-eating society.
Of course, most of the dead were slaves.
The carriage gradually entered an area where the road conditions were better, and the number of vagrants and corpses around also decreased considerably. This could be said to be the community of Tingen's nobles, the residential area of government high-ranking officials and their families. Whether it was the environment or other aspects, everything was much better than the places they had passed along the way.
Don escorted his mother to the mansion of Viscount Becker. The viscount's wife, Jenny Becker, was Lady Boianca's close friend from their maiden days. Naturally, arriving in Tingen, they had to pay a visit first to avoid being impolite.
Baron Lamud hadn't come along, which neither Lady Boianca nor Don felt was surprising.
After performing a divination to confirm his mother's safety, he also planned to go out and take a look around.
A Sequence 6 Devil from the Rose Redemption appeared in Tingen. As an Beyonder from this secret organization who could rank among the mid-sequences and could be considered middle-to-high level, his disappearance meant that the Rose Redemption people shouldn't and couldn't possibly not take some measures to search for this missing Devil.
"I rather hope they can come looking for me. Of course, if it's a demigod of Sequence 4 or above, then it would have to be left for Father to handle."
Other than that, however many came would probably all have to become secret marionettes hanging from his strings.
However, the danger premonition that comes with reaching Sequence 6 should make the higher-ups of the Rose Redemption stay away from him and Lamud Town.
Tsk, that Devil was really unlucky.
At the same time, Don began to summarize his own Marionettist's code of conduct.
"From my understanding, the core principle of a Marionettist lies in the marionettes themselves. As a qualified puppeteer, a Marionettist should try to hide behind the curtain behind the marionettes, letting the audience focus on the puppets appearing on stage, rather than on the puppeteer behind them."
"At the same time, in puppet theater, each marionette has its own code of conduct, identity, status, abilities, and habits. They need to highlight their characteristics and distinguish themselves from the puppeteer, making the audience remember them deeply."
"And making a deep impression, even making the audience feel that it's a living person, completely distinguishing it from the puppeteer and becoming two independent individuals—this will be the most core part."
['Marionettist' Acting Method rules updated:]
[First, as a puppeteer residing behind the scenes, personally appearing on stage is extremely impolite behavior. Please try to avoid such behavior.]
[Second, each secret marionette is an independent individual appearing on stage. Please arrange the order of appearance for each secret marionette and prepare scripts for them.]
The current manipulation limit for secret marionettes was one hundred meters—not too close, but if one truly wanted to remain behind the scenes, this distance was sometimes insufficient.
The carriage continued moving while he thought.
At some point, he saw a huge tent supported by thick cloth drapes, with a red and yellow pointed top.
"A circus?"
At this time, there weren't many people in the circus. Those who could afford to pay the fee to visit a circus had some savings in their homes, while those truly wealthy young noble lords and ladies had more respectable forms of entertainment and disdained watching cheap circus performances together with commoners.
Of course, if they were truly interested, they might be more inclined to have the entire circus move into their territory to perform exclusively for them.
Don paid a few copper pennies to gain admission. After taking his seat, he discovered that the circus was mostly clown performances, with large fierce beasts like lions, tigers, and black bears rarely appearing.
It wasn't much different from when he was Sequence 8, still a Clown.
How desolate.
Don looked around and saw that there were only scattered groups throughout the entire circus—perhaps not even twenty or thirty audience members.
A performance lasted about an hour, and the circus could perform at least eight shows a day. But judging from the current scene, the profits here were definitely not good—it might even be a losing business.
After the performance ended, Don had watched with great interest.
"After all, this era only has so many entertainment activities. Things that can pass the time—ah no, things that can help one relax—are only watching circus performances, playing cards, and such."
As for paper books, for Don, who had little fondness for ancient literature, they made quite good lullabies.
(End of Chapter)