“Not only is their struggle pointless, but also if they joined us, they would be able to enjoy the same blessings that our King bestowed upon us. We would march from one geyser to another, conquering the seas first and then the mainland.”
“I agree.” The male walking by her side said. “Why be forced to choose between the land and the sea when we can have both? Beasts and humans have monopolized Mogar for too long. They are no different from the elves. Their time is over but they need a kick in the butt to realize it.”
‘Son of a gun!’ Lith thought. ‘I was right, Leegaain and Faluel conspired to get me here. The only question is if the Father of all jackasses and his granddaughter planned my trip to Jiera together or if they exploited each other’s plan.’
‘I wouldn’t worry about that.’ Solus activated the communication amulet in their pocket, sending the all-clear signal to Rem. ‘Take a look at this.’
Solus shared with him what mana sense showed her. Every single one of Kolga’s inhabitants wore enchanted clothes, a dimensional amulet, and had one magic holding ring on each of their fingers.
When Lith’s group had noticed how well-equipped their aliases were, they had thought that it depended on their role as sentinels. Discovering that it was just standard equipment complicated things quite a bit.
‘Devil’s Souls almighty! This is not a mission, this is a living nightmare.’ The situation suddenly reminded Lith about the forefather of self-punishing videogames that focused on the player experiencing grief rather than fun.
‘Git gud, noob.’ Solus took out of his mind the caring words with which its online community replied to any criticism about their favorite game. ‘Jokes aside, now I understand why even powerful Awakened failed to put down whoever this King is.
‘Everyone here is armed to the teeth, the tower is impregnable, and the fields are more protected than the Royal Palace. Otherwise poisoning the land is all that would take to bring the entire city down.
‘On top of that, the constant mana and life force poisoning make it impossible for anyone but us to exert their true strength.’ Solus said.
‘Indeed. Fighting is not an option. The moment something goes wrong, we’d be swarmed. Stealth is our best ally here.’ Lith thought while opening the mind link with the girls and sharing the information with them.
They had no mana sense and couldn’t use Life Vision without drawing attention. They both cursed their bad luck for a while before regaining their cool.
‘Okay, so we need to find out how the King controls the geyser, anything we can about the ritual, and what happens to the darkness element it releases.’ Phloria said.
‘If that tower is a mage tower, we’re in a world of trouble. Solus is the only one who can check it so she should go there with Lith. Tista and I will look for a library or something like that.
‘What we need is basic information. If Kolga works like the Kingdom, then it might be even taught in the schools. Our only problem is that we can’t ask for directions.’
‘You’ll figure out something. If anything happens, call me on my amulet. Otherwise let’s meet here again in a couple of hours.’ Lith had crafted a pocket watch for each one of them after learning that the Forbidden Sun didn’t rise nor set.
He would have liked to take off and reach the tower by flight, but everyone else moved only on foot or on the flying cars. He had no idea how to get a ride or drive one, so his only choice was to walk and hope to learn something useful along the way.
Meanwhile, the girls moved to the opposite side of the street to cover more ground, planning to explore one city rim at the time. They were amazed hearing people talk about their jobs, their children, or their plans for the future.
The same little things that humans worried about in the Kingdom. The girls had expected the citizens of Kolga to be bloodthirsty monsters and yet aside from their appearance, they were just regular people.
Thanks to their swim above the city and to Solus’s memory, Lith knew Kolga’s layout like the back of his hand. He walked briskly enough to keep people who might know his face from recognizing him but slow enough for Solus to listen to any bit of interesting conversation.
‘Why do we never get to conveniently find the bad guy of the week while they thoroughly explain their plan so that we can learn its weaknesses straight from their mouth?’ Lith inwardly griped after hearing people complain about boring aspects of their lives one time too many.
‘Because in real life no one is so dumb. I’ve listened to a curry recipe that I’d like you to prepare for me, though.’ She replied.
Reaching the tower from the building rings required to move in a straight line and the roads connecting the various districts of the city were perfectly paved, making the trip even easier.
Yet it took Lith quite some time to reach his destination on foot because he had no idea how to ask for a ride without writing the words “intruder” on his forehead.
The cultivated fields took the majority of the land occupied by Kolga and spread across kilometers. During their walk, Lith and Solus noticed that plenty of people worked in the fields, using magic to take care of cattle and plants alike.
They would use earth magic to till the fields, sending the external soil deep in the ground to keep it from exhausting, water magic to conjure fresh water, light and darkness magic to treat respectively diseases and parasites.
‘This is interesting.’ Lith thought. ‘Despite their vastly superior cores, those people use their abilities exactly like Dad’s farmhands while they could achieve much better results with forgemastered tools.’
‘I guess that after food, the second thing they lack the most is resources.’ Solus pondered. ‘Ever since we got here, I didn’t see any complex device. The cars are just metal with simple enchantments and the same stands for the standard equipment everyone wears.
‘Their magic holding rings don’t exceed the third tier of magic and none of the weapons we saw have mana crystals. Probably they keep enchanted metals for elite units, while everyone else has to settle for black iron and enchanted clothes.’
During the walk, very few farmers stood up to look at Lith, and even those who did paid him no attention. They’d rather focus on their jobs to get done with it and go home as soon as they could.
Along the way, Solus noticed several small groups of people.
“Please, tell me there is no risk of another famine.” A woman with a terrified face asked one of the farmhands. Judging from her swollen belly and two life forces, she had to be pregnant.
“Don’t worry, miss. This season we should have a bountiful harvest. I got a small devil on the way as well and this time, if the gods smile upon me, we’ll be able to raise them properly.” A man said.
The woman cried with joy at those words, yet they raised a few questions for Lith.
