The Genius Bloodline

After transferring between steamboats and traveling northward overland for a while, we finally reached Baghdad, whose cityscape was steeped in antiquity.

Gray, timeworn stone buildings stood in rows along the main street, while men pulled handcarts loaded with vegetables and sacks of grain back and forth. Although it was still spring, the Middle Eastern wind blowing against us was absurdly hot. Hiyori's magical chill shut it out, and before we knew it, people had begun crowding behind us to share in the cool air.

"Scatter, scatter! Use some cold magic yourself and cool off!"

Hiyori turned around several times to intimidate the crowd and drive them away, but within minutes, people would start gathering again, drawn by the cool air.

Since it was never going to end, we finally fled into a nearby hotel.

While Hiyori was checking in, I looked around the hotel interior and realized that Baghdad had preserved a remarkable number of buildings from the previous era.

In fact, this hotel was a reinforced-concrete structure that appeared to date from before the Gremlin disaster.

I had thought there were an oddly large number of massive stone buildings in the city, but they were probably all structures from the previous era.

Tokyo was also relatively good at preserving buildings from the previous era, but giant monsters had come ashore and rampaged, earthquakes had struck, and zombies had erupted from the ground. Almost everything had been replaced by newer buildings. The high rainfall, which made buildings deteriorate easily, was another major factor.

By contrast, Baghdad's mages had firmly defended the city since immediately after the Gremlin disaster. There had been no earthquakes, and its rainfall was less than one-tenth of Japan's. Its political situation was stable, with no riots resulting in buildings being demolished. As a result, its buildings from the previous era had survived...