While I didn't really have any reason to mistrust Chirio's words, I didn't really take his warning seriously either.
Yet, pretty much the very moment I pulled the window shades aside and took a look outside...
Gulp.
Swallowing down a mouthful of saliva was the one and only action I was mentally permitted to do, stunned by the sight outside.
If the border city already gave me some insight into the main differences in architectural thought between the two parts of the world, then the Corian estate took it to a whole new level.
The very first thing I noticed was just how expansive the estate was, stretching over no lesser distance than the already impressive border town. Contrary to that city we departed from, however, it was much less occupied by buildings, with massive chunks of gardens, fields, and tranquil plains stuck in between.
Up ahead, I could see a slightly different part of this private province no less, where the green of nature gave way to much denser construction, spreading roughly as far as a standard old-town of the older cities back in the modern world.
'I guess the rules that dictated the size of the cities in the past still do apply here,' I thought, gulping my saliva down once again.
The relationship between the number of buildings one could comfortably cram into a limited space, a sort of city-planner-specific kind of geometry, decided how big a town could be before the rising cost of erecting long-distance walls to protect it would grow beyond the point of benefits from handling more space.
And this town's center of the Corian clan was right in the sweet spot for an architect—just big enough to fit all the necessary buildings, institutions, housing, and private factories, while squeezed in an extremely clever way to limit the area within the innermost section of the clan's walls.
For now, we were still quite a bit too far from the town's center for me to see any details, pushing me to look over the rest of the estate instead.
It was a precisely marked-out area, consisting of a total of five tiers.
The first tier would be the town's center out in the distance, surrounded by the second tier that still served somewhat of a residential role, judging by the type and shapes of the buildings splitting the outermost walled-off area between the structures and nature roughly one-to-one.
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The third tier of the estate was guarded by what I could only compare to some sort of solid-iron fence, while the tier itself was filled mostly with either crops or open fields, each occupied by a small group of people lazily relaxing as they basked in the sun's warmth amidst the chill, moist grasses of the plain.
The fourth tier was where the buildings slowly started to fully give way to nature, guarded by a ring of sparsely set, tall stones.
"That's not really surprising," Chihiro commented, causing both me and Claire to look away as we turned our eyes toward the man. He returned the glance only to shake his shoulders and add, "that's because they often rent the place out to filming crews. Apparently, the filming rights make up a good chunk of the estate's income, allowing them to keep it as lavish as it is often impractical."
Hearing this, I squinted my eyes and looked back toward the city. Now that I knew what to look out for, however, the whole place left me with yet another, different perspective.
The estate's streets were a thing of beauty, pulled directly from a director's script on how to arrange a scene to give it a rich—luxurious even—kind of vibe. Those streets consisted of two walkways made with polished marble and a row of interchanging trees and flower bushes, splitting the whole thing into practically two separate roads.
'It's an experience all in its own right to walk down this road, I bet,' I thought, only to then squint my eyes a little bit further. 'Not much for a good logistical route for cargo, though.'
Now that I stepped back, the beauty of this sprawling estate was there mostly to hide the ugly truth. A truth I could see because Chihiro's remarks allowed me to switch my mindset from adoration to scrutiny, to a critical look only someone who wasted nearly a year of his life playing city-builders would be able to develop.
The streets were too narrow to allow any sort of heavy traffic. Heck, as we got closer and closer, the city proper soon filled my entire view, also allowing me to take a closer look at the actual state of affairs within the city. And that alone was enough to further reinforce my new outlook on the area.
The streets were not practical for moving a lot of cargo, not when both flights of the beautiful roads were used by pedestrians lazily walking in both directions. Heck, there was no need for those streets to support heavy traffic, simply because there was no heavy traffic on them or anywhere near, with people moving stuff not by the ways of trucks, cars, and trains, but limited in their choice to hand-drawn carts and, in a few spare cases, a horse-drawn carriage.
Squinting my eyes to the point I could hardly see, I shook my head and moved back to my seat, only to then catch Claire's curious look.
"Your face changed," she stated, only to lean her head over her arm. "What happened?"
I looked at the girl, only to let my eyes drift toward the window before bringing them back ahead and opting to drop them to the ground.
"For as beautiful as this place is, now that Chihiro mentioned it, I just can't appreciate its beauty anymore," I revealed, shaking my head right as the carriage shook heavily, only to then quickly go back to a smooth drive.
'Did we land?' I thought, looking toward the window, only to then stop myself and look away from it instead, not ready to face the harsh reality of the fake luxury outside.
"And why is that?" Genuinely curious, Claire left the window and sat right back by my side, leaning forward just enough to catch the corner of my stare.
"Because this place is a hell," I threw silently, daring not to even look to the side. "A place designed to look beautiful, regardless of the cost," I shook my head. "A town built by those with means, who never spared a single thought to the fates of all those who would end up living and working in it."
I took a deep breath before turning my face up and locking my eyes on the ceiling right as the carriage started to slow down, indicating we were now reaching our destination.
"A place that disregards practicality in favor of beauty?" I shook my head again. "Don't you guys see that it's one hell of a red-flag for how the society works in here?"