After fooling around with her sister in the pitch-black coffin, which no longer frightened her, Christina waited until the coffin gradually came to a stop and its lid was opened from the outside.
They had arrived at the Steam Train Station south of Liberation Port.
As the most popular and convenient means of transportation at present, the train stations of the Southern Continent were not much different from those Tina had seen in Tingen City and Backlund. Countless carriages and coffins traveled and stopped along the roads before the station. Passengers, some plainly dressed and some distinguished in bearing, entered the hall, queued to buy tickets, waited in the station, and boarded trains bound for different directions.
But unlike the stations in other cities, which had long been properly planned, Liberation Port's station had undergone repeated expansions and had long since been swallowed by the urban district from what had once been the edge of the port city. This gave city residents the chance to watch enormous locomotives trailing thick smoke and blaring whistles pull carriage after carriage between the buildings, cross busy roads, and roll over section after section of track toward the distance amid rhythmic clattering that gradually quickened.
Tina and Dorothy stepped down from the coffin carriage amid that noise. Dorothy took out a stack of soli and pennies, counted out the agreed amount, and handed it to the locally dressed coffin driver.
The city's predecessor, Caesar Pier, had long been occupied by Intis's colonial army. Although it had now been taken over by the local regime and a new currency had been standardized, it was still at the stage where all kinds of money were accepted. Intis's Fellkin and Koppe, as well as Loen's gold pounds and soli, could all be used without issue, and the