SPOILER Problem I have with the train price ticket.

"Malic: You have a ticket, so don't you know the price? Ah, whatever- it's like, 5 Liquid Emeralds. That's a LOT."

In off the rails, we learn the train ticket price is 5 LE. This is a completely insane. The KING of Ragni pays you less for saving the province than this guy paid for a train ticket. Aside from Ultimate Weapon which is a literal meme, there are almost no other quests that give 5 LE, and even those who do are powerful adventurers (Aledar), literal royalty (Fruman Queen, King of Rodoroc), and Ankou (Stole the money off people who died climbing the tower most likely).

Anyways, I refuse to believe a regular citizen, in Fruma of all places, managed to save up this much by working in a factory for a few years, and find it even harder they would spend it on riding a luxury train.

Yes, I just made a whole thread to nitpick a single line of dialogue. You may now fry me.

 

I'm not a lore expert and I haven't finished going through Fruma but I wonder if a plausible explanation is that emeralds are easier to come by in Fruma. The quests in Fruma, in general, give more emeralds than in the rest of the game (I know the real reason is that they are higher level but it fits) and Fia in the frog bog says that emeralds are basically worthless, which is because you can't do anything with them, but maybe also suggests they are at least somewhat common. I don't expect Fruma to be trading a lot with other provinces so it wouldn't be strange for Emeralds to have a different value there and outside.
Then, if emeralds really are more common, it makes sense that Malic was able to save up. You say "a few years" but that's quite a lot, especially since he says he was working overtime every day and eating less. And I can totally believe he would go through all that effort just for a train ride: Have you ever seen a train nerd?