Ch172-Out Of The Frying Pan (2/2)

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Ch172-Out Of The Frying Pan

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For a city, 5 years is nothing.

But for Arda, 5 years felt more like 50.

The walls were tall and tough before, but now they looked like the type someone would describe as impenetrable. The stone was a shiny dark purple and seemed to be glowing from the inside. As Lola led Sylver and the large group of dark elves towards the gate, Sylver felt an insane amount of mana emanating from the magical barrier around the city.

It was a barrier that was powerful enough that even the Silver Lich would struggle to break down, completely incomparable to the weak and flimsy tissue paper they had when he first came here.

More than that, the guards were all veterans now, and there were enough of them on standby, that they almost outnumbered the people they were inspecting and protecting.

Lola hadn’t said anything to Sylver since they had teleported here, and simply held him by the hand, as she led him, and his small army of dark elves, towards Arda’s thrice reinforced gates.

Bravo had teleported away after they had arrived, and returned a minute later, holding a handful of sealed envelopes. Lola wordlessly took them from him, and handed one to Sylver, and made the rest float in front of her, to read the labels on them, while they walked.

“Your guild ID is useless now, you’ll need to get a new one, but you’ll be happy to hear you’re now a C rank adventurer. The bard that accompanied you managed to identify a number of people with bounties on their heads,” Lola explained, as Ruslana finished being awestruck by the giant walls and barriers, and jogged over, to walk alongside Sylver and Lola. It was still nighttime, but one of the suns was just starting to peak out.

Sylver tried to introduce her.

“This is-”

“We’ll talk later. It’s nice to meet you, but please don’t separate from your group,” Lola interrupted and gestured for Ruslana to get back to the huddled-together dark elves. Chrys was barely awake and was currently being carried by a Dai.

Romeo walked exactly 5 steps being Lola, and despite the difference in their heights, matched her pace perfectly.

Lola led them past the line of people waiting to be inspected to enter, and the gate on the right opened to allow the group to pass and closed shut the moment the last dark elf had passed.

After that, they all waited together in a large fenced-in area, with Romeo to keep them company. Lola had been teleported away somewhere, and Sylver was left standing around with the tired and hungry dark elves, whose mere presence attracted a crowd of onlookers.

“What is happening?” Ruslana asked, and shot Zelvash a dirty glare as he tried to open his mouth. His face twisted into an unreadable mask, and Sylver made the decision not to involve himself with something this personal.

“I don’t know, but Lola’s handling it, everything is fine,” Sylver explained and tried to find a familiar face in the growing crowd.

“Is she your wife?” Ruslana asked, and Sylver turned away from staring at the crowd and stared at her instead.

“We’re friends, but there isn’t a good word in elvish to describe our relationship properly. I want to say partners, but it’s more than that,” Sylver said, as Spring informed him that Chrys had woken up, and was now trying to climb out of Dai’s arms. The giant shade let her down, and she walked over to where Sylver and Ruslana were standing.

“If you go over there, you’ll see one of your rabbits,” Chrys said and yawned while she gestured towards one of the corners of the fence.

Curious, more than anything else, Sylver walked over to where Chrys had pointed, and sure enough, there was a young man with two pointy rabbit ears sticking out of the top of his head. They stared at each other through the metallic mesh for a good 2 seconds, before the young man disappeared.

Sylver was just about to turn away to walk back to Chrys, when Ging appeared, accompanied by the young man from earlier, along with a young woman.

“We are all very glad to see your safe return sir. Maul and I got engaged during your absence, and we’ve had 4 children, 2 boys, and 2 girls,” Ging explained with a strange mix of childlike excitement, and stern professionalism.

Sylver only now realized the grinning young man on Ging’s left was Benny. Which meant the girl on Ging’s right was Chloe.

“Good, good, everyone is doing well I hope? Nobody ill or anything?” Sylver asked as Ging shook his head in answer to both questions.

“An intruder managed to set the eastern corridor on fire, but it was dealt with before the fire could spread, or cause significant damage… Oh, Benny burned his hands on a steam pipe a year ago… Someone left a box with 3 kittens near our front gate, and we’ve decided to keep them… Other than that everything has been quiet and peaceful,” Ging explained, and Sylver felt like another set of weights had been lifted off his shoulders.

“You’ve done a great job taking care of the house Ging, thank you. Misha and Masha?” Sylver asked.

Having only spent less than 2 weeks in his house, after the rabbits had been given to him by Lola, Sylver honestly didn’t know how to feel about Ging, Benny, or Chloe. And going by Ging’s mildly confused tone, he didn’t know Sylver all that well either, aside from being their employer, and the man who saved them all from a curse.

“They are both able to walk around in their physical bodies, and seem to be quite content… There is… It would be best if you were to speak to them…” Ging explained, and Sylver all but rolled his eyes.

“They’re afraid of leaving the house,” Sylver guessed and got to see as all three rabbits nodded in perfect unison. “Thought so… I’ll take care of it… Would you mind purchasing 900 kilograms of raw pork? And a couple of sacks of cow carcasses? Oh, and goat and sheep intestines, if they’re intact… and… oh, can you make sure Maul doesn’t cook anything with too much spice until I say otherwise?” Sylver asked, as Ging nodded along, and didn’t even need to look at Benny as the young rabbit made a note of Sylver’s requests.

“Anything else sir?” Ging asked. Sylver thought it over and glanced over at Chrys.

“Could you find a tailor to come to the house in a couple of hours? Someone good with women’s clothing,” Sylver asked, and turned and subtly pointed at Chrys.

“Yes sir,” Ging said.

“Thank you, Ging… How are you managing the kids? You don’t look particularly tired,” Sylver noted, and Ging smiled the kind of smile normally reserved for when someone felt exceptionally superior.

“They mostly slept when they were babies. Once they began running around and talking, they honestly took care of themselves. We currently have them being prepared by a private tutor, and hope to send them to the Silian academy in a couple of months,” Ging said, and Sylver could see in his eyes that he just barely believed that things were going so well for him.

“At what age do your people become adults? I’m so sure you mentioned it before, but I can’t for the life of me remember,” Sylver asked. Someone called his name, and he turned around to see Lola standing next to Romeo.

Standing a little too close.

“It varies from bloodline to bloodline, and there are environmental factors, but everyone except Coco is just short of being an “adult.” Maul had a difficult time with her and,- I think you’re being called sir,” Ging said, and pointed behind Sylver.

When Sylver turned to look back at Ging, the man had already disappeared.

“Until I can sort out their documents, they’ll stay at Ron’s Rest. The girl and the old man are an exception, they’re free to go wherever they want, but they won’t be able to leave Arda until everything is “official.” Shawn will handle it personally, given that it's you and me asking, so it should only be a couple of days. A week at most,” Lola explained, as Sylver walked over to her, and watched as Bravo opened a hole in empty air that led to Ron’s front door.

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Sylver’s lack of crushable insides saved his insides from being crushed.

Ron had gotten a little stronger since Sylver had last seen him. His smoky armor had more oomph to it, his face was much more defined, and his reception/bar had quadrupled in size.

“You got so big! And all your scars are gone!” Ron said, or rather shouted, given that his voice didn’t come from the thing currently in the process of hugging Sylver hard enough that in different circumstances he would have considered it an assassination attempt.

“So did you! Look at this place! I can’t wait to see what the rooms are like,” Sylver shouted back, but Ron either didn’t get the hint or purposely chose to ignore it.

Given the fact that the room around them shimmered and was replaced by an identical, but empty, bar, Ron understood him perfectly but had also decided to keep holding onto the man who once fought a god to a stalemate.

With a click of his fingers, the previously cold and barren tables were replaced by warm wooden seats and table clothes, a fire pit appeared in the middle, and odd-colored chandeliers lit up the room, just bright enough for Sylver to see what was going on in front of him.

Another click of the fingers populated the tables with dish after dish of steaming hot meat, vegetables, pastries, and desserts. Glasses and goblets filled with wines, liquors, and beers appeared in what little space remained, and at Sylver’s request promptly disappeared and were instead replaced by water and fruit juices.

From his vantage point, of about a foot in the air, due to Ron floating while hugging Sylver, he could see the sheer unadulterated confusion on just about every single person’s face.

A woman Sylver recognized as a slightly younger-looking Lara, Dasha’s daughter, was the first to grab a spoonful of black fish egg thing. After she ate it and then struggled to chew fast enough to eat more of it, it was like a dam had been broken.

They were civilized about it, but Sylver could tell from looking at just one plate, they were all going to be sore in the morning and in a food hangover. But after spending the majority of their life eating extremely limited rations, which weren’t that good to begin with, Sylver decided to let them learn from their own mistakes.

Ron put Sylver down and gave Chrys a vegetable wrap of some kind, and Sylver would later learn, filled her pockets with sweets and chocolates while Sylver was busy talking to Ruslana. 

Sylver had wanted to stay with Ron, and have dinner/breakfast with everyone, but the sooner he started the cleansing process for his body, the better. He also still needed to speak to Lola to find out where Edmund was, and although he already knew they were fine, check up on Ciege, Yeva, Salgok, Faust, Bruno, Leke, and Sophia.

He left when the mood turned weird, as Zelvash began to cry, while still chewing some sort of chicken skewer, and it had a domino effect as the people who had been holding their breath since the moment Sylver had shown up inside their dome, could finally let go of it.

However, before he left, Sylver made a critical rookie mistake.

He asked why Ron was doing so well.

“Since the Krist invasion, undead have become the only ones you can really trust. It also helped that the Krist’s flushed out a ton of small groups that had been trying to hide. I know this one guy, I won’t name names, but he’s been charging 9 times the normal price for an escort, and the merchants were happy to pay him,” Ron explained, as Chrys bit into her vegetable wrap, resigned to her bland fate, already well aware of what would happen if she tried to eat the same food the dark elves were currently enjoying.

Their stomachs were “healed,” Chrys’ was brand new.

“What do you mean “trust?” What’s going on with the Krists?” Sylver asked, and the complete lack of surprise or follow-up questions such as “you don’t know?” made him forgive Ron for giving Chrys sweets.

“You must have dissected them when you killed them. They had a little metal rod in their heads, well now they’ve evolved. Now they have two metal rods in their heads. And the problem is that those metal rods are damn hard to detect, and when there are two, near impossible without cutting a person’s head open. Undead are trusted because, they can open their brains up to prove there isn’t any metal there,” Ron explained, and Sylver could do little but raise an eyebrow.

“How can you not detect two fucking metal rods in the head? There would be entrance wounds, or scars, not to mention dwarves should be able to smell their presence?” Sylver asked, and Ron politely nodded along. 

“Honest answer, I don’t know. I haven’t looked into it. I just know that if you’re a creature that doesn’t have a problem with cracking your head open for someone to peek inside, you can make obscene amounts of money. The military has no choice but to use undead for passing messages along. 

“Once the Krists stick those metal rods in you, it isn’t exactly that you become their slave, it’s more like… from what I’ve been told, the converted people have the same skills, perks, knowledge, experience, but they decided the Krists are right, and everyone else is wrong,” Ron explained.

“So brainwashing,” Sylver summarized but could tell it wasn’t that simple. His skin wouldn’t be crawling the way it was if the only problem was mind magic.

Sylver also didn’t like the vice grip Chrys now had on his hand.

It’s bad when Sylver is preemptively freaking out, and very not good when an extremely skilled clairvoyant is freaking out.

“See, that’s the weird part. They’re their old rational selves, but it’s… as if they realize that the god the Krist’s pray to, is the one true god. And if you help the true god, and you die trying to help him, you’re rewarded with eternal life. 

“A lot of it is just guessing, but there have been people who pretended they hadn’t been converted by Krists, only to do something terrible at a critical moment. In Arda, one infected woman opened the gate during a siege, and hundreds of lives were lost as a result,” Ron explained, and Sylver felt like he was shivering, as did Chrys.

“But there is good news amongst all of this,” Ron added, and if Sylver wasn’t no longer in possession of a “stomach” he would have shit himself.

“One temple, far far south, was destroyed by a horde of Krists. And as a result, a [Hero] emerged from the rubble,” Ron said, and even without Chrys’ magical eye telling her the future, he could fucking feel it, before Ron even finished forming the thought.

“He was the son of the head priest. And very oddly arrogant, but he’s a [Hero] after all, if anyone has the right to be arrogant, it’s them. He’s in the north right now, training,” Ron explained, and Sylver was tempted to tell the giant armor-wearing creature to shut up.

But a [Hero] wasn’t the kind of thing that went away if you ignored it hard enough.

“You wouldn’t happen to know his name, would you?” Sylver asked, and could feel Chrys shaking in his hand.

“He’s the [Jester Hero]. Which, I know sounds stupid, but he did allegedly kill a dragon, all on his own. I wrote his actual name down somewhere, give me a moment,” Ron said and disappeared into the ceiling.

Sylver, Chrys, and Ria just stood there, watching the dark elves enjoying every bite. They all looked like they couldn’t believe this was real, that it was all just a fever dream.

“You know what he’s going to say, right?” Chrys asked, and Sylver had luckily calmed down enough not to crush her hand by accident.

“We could just leave,” Ria offered, and Sylver could do little but lightly pat the liquid metal woman on the head.

“It doesn’t work like that. Let’s just get it out of the way, so we can formulate a plan, and hopefully avoid getting involved more than we have to,” Sylver explained, as Ria slithered up his hand, and disappeared into his sleeve.

Ron reappeared a moment later, holding a small booklet in his hands.

“Here it is. Someone explained it to me. You know how those that aren’t nobles, are called X, son of Y, and such?” Ron asked.

“Yes,” Sylver answered.

“Well, the [Jester Hero]s village did things differently. They named the child using the name of the village. So if I were born in Arda, I would be Ron of Arda. But in their dialect, it would be Ron Ardavich. Ardovich? I’m not sure,” Ron explained, and a couple of dark elves turned their heads at hearing a dark elf sounding name being mentioned in an entirely different fucking realm.

“Do you know what Salgok is up to lately? Because I’m going to need a drink,” Sylver asked, and Ron nodded at him.

Almost as if he knew exactly why Sylver wanted to drink so badly.

“He’s in the process of training Ciege and his brother is also helping him out, so I’m sure he isn’t going to be busy if you’re the one asking,” Ron said, and Sylver was warmed by the news.

“What’s the [Hero]s name?” Sylver asked quietly, all while staring right at Ron.

Ron sheepishly squinted at the page in his booklet, and there was a pause.

“I hope I’m pronouncing it right. A-lee-o-sha. Po-po-vich. Alyosha Popovich. I think. Ask Lola, she’s the one who met with him, and gave him some gear,” Ron said, and if Sylver wasn’t in the company of dark elves, a small child, and Ria, he would have started hitting his head against the wall until his skull gave out.

“I’ll be back later Ron, take good care of them for me,” Sylver said calmly.

Sylver was sure Lola had a good reason for interacting with a [Hero], and giving him something.

Even if he couldn’t think of a good reason, that didn’t mean Lola didn’t have one.

Who knows… Maybe it’s all just one big coincidence…

Sylver thought, even as he felt a stomach ulcer developing in an area where no stomach existed. Even without owning a gut, somehow his gut still managed to hurt.