"When I looked down from the mountain just now, I thought this city was very big, shouldn't there be a lot of people living in such a big city?"

The fact that she didn't see anyone along the way made Alice a little curious. The pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info the only human settlements she has been to in the past are in the human world of Gensokyo.

As its name suggests, the Mortal Village is actually just a human village in Gensokyo. It's a little bigger than some of the smaller villages in Japan, but it's not as big as the small city they live in now.

Alice is one of the most frequent people among the monsters, and she regularly goes to the school in the world to perform puppet shows for the children, and if she lacks some materials to make dolls, she will also go to the market in the world to buy them. The village, which is far less big than the one I saw just now, feels very lively to Alice, especially when it happens to coincide with some festivals, which is so lively that Alice, a girl who is used to being at home, is quite uncomfortable.

Compared to the human world where Alice frequented, the city was so clean. If you think of the buildings on both sides of the road as trees standing quietly there, Alice feels as comfortable now as she used to wander in the Enchanted Forest. But where have all the people in this city gone? I saw so many houses on the hill just now, they must all be inhabited, right? What about the people who live in those houses?

I don't know exactly how many people live here, but I've heard from my colleagues that most of the people in this country live in the capital-centric area, and many young people from other places go to the capital to study or work. Most of the people who are still in their hometowns are elderly people, if they are still working, they must be at work at this time, and most of them will not go out on such a cold day without a job and it is not time to shop?"

Many of Levy's colleagues and students are from this country, and he usually knows a lot about this country. And this is the status quo that is common in many countries. The young and vigorous are crowding into the big cities with more opportunities, leaving children and the elderly to live a slower-paced but less motivated life in their hometowns. In such countries, only those big cities can see the prosperity of developed countries, and the gap is immediately reflected after leaving the big cities, showing a sharp contrast.

"I guess there's probably a population of less than a few hundred thousand here?"

"Hundreds of thousands!?"

Alice raised her hand and covered her mouth in a small exclamation. Hundreds of thousands of numbers sounded like a lot to her, but Levi was clearly saying that the population of the city was small.

Alice doesn't know how many people live in the world, and she has little to do with the family that manages the world and records history, and even if she does, she doesn't ask such questions. However, there are absolutely no hundreds of thousands of numbers in the world, and there are many, many differences. So many people still say little, which shows how huge the number of human beings live in this world. It's no wonder that those monsters who are older and have lived in the outside world for a long time in the past often lament that the development of human beings has left monsters with no place to live. It is precisely because of this that they have moved to Gensokyo to live. A girl like Alice, who has almost never lived in the human world, would not have understood the feelings of those monsters.

When the two reached the intersection, they turned around and saw a long line not far ahead. Some of the young men in the group appeared to have come alone, quietly looking down at their phones, while those who came in groups chattered about topics of interest to them, and the voices that Levi had heard before were coming from.

"Didn't you just say that there are only old people and children left in this city?"

Alice's perception was far inferior to Levi's, and she hadn't heard Levi's voice before. But now that it was so close, she could see that most of the people lining up there were humans of little age, without the help of magic. This is not the same as what Levi said to her just now, the girl didn't mean to question or anything like that, she just saw it and said it.

"I didn't say 'only' the elderly and children, I said 'most' and 'most'. ”

Levi emphasized that the scene in front of him did not contradict what he said. In fact, it is true that no matter how much young people want to flock to big cities, the carrying capacity of big cities themselves is limited. In addition, it is impossible for no one to work outside the big city, so those young people who have not stepped into the threshold of the big city, or prefer the cordiality of their hometown, can also find a job in their hometown, although the income may be worse than that of the big city, but at the same time, the work and psychological pressure is not as serious as the big city, but it is not possible to say exactly which one is the more suitable choice.

"You look at the tall buildings over there, buildings like this are generally not for people to live in, but for companies to work in. These people in line should be people who work in those buildings, no matter how small a city is, there are still some job opportunities, compared to the big city every day crowded and tired, now more and more people will choose a more leisurely small city life. ”

Levi pointed to several buildings with glass facades in front of him, teaching Alice some common sense about the society on this earth. Although she used to go to human villages often, she heard Kaguya and Reisen say that it was basically an existence that was a bit like an ancient model. No amount of Alice's visits to that kind of ancient village will help her integrate into modern life. Don't you see all kinds of literary and artistic film and television works that ancient people have traveled to modern times, and they often start with the ancient people's inadaptability to modern times?

"Are they queuing up to buy something there?"

Some shops in the world have a very good business, and there are often long queues at the entrance. There were even various monsters in those ranks, and Alice could understand what she was seeing. It's just that the façade of that store is too small, and you can't see anything when you are blocked by the crowd, and you don't know what you're buying.

"It's supposed to be an ice cream shop, you see, aren't all the people over there eating ice cream? ”

Although I couldn't see the front of the store, the people who were leaving after buying had nothing in their hands. The three women who walked towards Levi and Alice each held a cylinder of ice cream in their hands, stopped by the lamppost in front of them, took out their mobile phones and took a selfie.