Chapter 956 — The Unseen Dragon Society

"How could it not?" Metzen sighed. "We never managed to build an equal and infinitely prosperous society, so there must be an upper and a lower. Only, poverty is relative, and must be seen against society as a whole—see the areas where the city lights are densest? That's where they live, in a kind of 'incomprehensible poverty' by human reckoning. The Senate allocates housing to those citizens free of charge and even provides all the necessities of life; Omega opens nearly all entertainment privileges to them; their monthly enhancers are rationed gratis, and even some hallucinogens that may not be sold in the upper districts.

"They have everything; Tarrande society will provide for them entirely. And the condition, or the price, of all this is that lower citizens may only accept this provision—they have no other choice. They perform limited and essentially meaningless work, they may not meddle in the affairs of upper Tarrande, and many other... restrictions that human society would find hard to understand."

Gaoyang frowned, and just then Amber's voice came from beside him: "That sounds... no work, a house to live in, food and clothing assured, plenty of entertainment—I have to say, it doesn't sound bad?"

Metzen turned and looked at the half-elf lady, whose face showed a tangle of doubt and reflection, and a faint smile suddenly crossed her own: "So this is the 'poverty' that the humans of Loren cannot understand."

"I can understand it," Gaoyang said suddenly. "Developed to your level, mere survival has long ceased to be difficult. Tarrande society can easily provide for a vast 'unproductive population,' and the cost of doing so is a small fraction of your total social expenditure. To put those members into jobs instead, and give them the same work and advancement opportunities as other citizens, would incur enormous costs—because those 'low-capacity' members would disrupt your present highly efficient structure of production.

"So rather than bear that waste, better to simply provide for them—it isn't expensive for you, after all."

Amber stared wide-eyed, listening to Gao Yang's reading of the matter as though she could not, for a moment, comprehend the picture he described; Virodai gave Gao Cen a thoughtful glance, as if she too had pondered such things; Metzen looked astonished and taken aback, and after surveying Gaoyang up and down several times she finally frowned with an expression of disbelief: "You... worked all that out so quickly?"

"Just an occasional flash of insight," Gao Rong said with a smile. "As you know, social deduction is a specialty of mine."

"...This goes beyond the scope of social deduction," Metzen said in a strange tone. "Unless a society has developed to a certain degree, this should seem counterintuitive to humans."

"I've hardly done a few things that fit common sense since I was resurrected," Gao Lan said, and did not let the topic continue. "Be that as it may... it seems I've learned another hidden detail of Tarrande."

Metzen fell silent for a time, and only after several seconds did she exhale. "How is your rest? Any interest in going out for a stroll with me now?"

"Are we to begin our 'tour' from here?" Gaoyang raised an eyebrow. "Or is this just a walk with you?"

"A walk and a tour are much the same—there is far too much here for you to see," Metzen said. "By the time in Xuanyao City it should just be dusk. A good hour, in fact, to go out wandering."

"I see no problem with it," Gaoshauke said, and looked toward Amber and Virodai.

"I have no objection either!" Amber sprang up at once. "My sleepiness has passed!"

Virodai also nodded demurely, indicating that she had no objection.

Meitzen smiled. "Very good. Then I shall send word to Noreta at once, and we will go and see Tarrande after dusk together."

Gaoyan nodded, then asked with some curiosity: "Where do you plan to take us?"

"You have spent the whole of today's half-day in the upper levels of Tarrande, and you must have seen quite enough of facilities like the headquarters of the Deliberative Assembly and the upper-level sanctums," Meitzen said unhurriedly. "So I will take you to see the middle and lower levels of Tarrande. We will go to the factory district and the great corporate combines, and then to the lower city of the plains—and if Noreta agrees, perhaps we may even visit the Dark City. The Speaker has told me to show you every corner of Tarrande, but there is no chance we could tour the whole continent in a few days, so we will go to a few representative places... and let you see the complete and true dragon kingdom."

Afterward, Gaoyang and the other two came with Meitzen to a platform outside the Dragon Nest. This broad platform, built halfway up the mountainside, could accommodate dragons landing and taking off; in a sense, it was the "front door" of Meitzen's home.

They waited at the platform's edge only a short while before the sharp-eyed Amber suddenly caught sight of a slender, elegant white dragon flying in from the southwestern sky and landing smoothly at the platform's center.

"Hi! Noreta!!" Meitzen rushed joyfully to meet her friend as soon as the latter had come to a steady stop. "You came quickly..."

She had barely got half her sentence out when the white dragon, only just steadied, seemed to stumble all at once, its enormous claws shifting two steps across the platform, and the next second, beneath the dumbfounded—indeed somewhat horrified—gaze of Gaoyang and the others, it stepped on Meitzen's head...

Strictly speaking, it trampled the whole person of the Proxy Lady underfoot.

Had she been human, anyone below Legend rank would certainly have been killed or crippled.

But the next second Gaoyang heard Meitzen's shriek come out from beneath the dragon's claw, and she still sounded full of vigor: "Noreta! You did that on purpose this time!!"

"I did not find my footing," the white dragon said, lowering its head, its voice rumbling. "You know I am not much used to your family's landing platform."

"That is just an excuse!" Meitzen kept shrieking as she scrambled ignominiously out from under the dragon's foot, every last trace of the elegance and composure she had maintained before Gaoyang for so long finally gone. "I will remember this—now you have stepped on me one more time!"

The two friends seemed to be interacting with great enthusiasm, while Gaoyang, Amber, and Virodai stood not far off, staring dumbfounded.

After a long while, Gaoyang could not help but scratch his hair.

This journey to Tarrande had indeed been worth it—he had seen yet another side of the dragon race that outsiders did not know.

How many "sides outsiders did not know" had this made now?