Chapter 46: Chapter 45: The war

[Beastmen kingdom's]

Somewhere in one of the countless beastmen kingdom's, Darganth, Allaire and Jennia were making their way through a densely packed crowd.

“Where the hell does this crowd come from?” Allaire cursed.

Meanwhile, Darganth could only give her a helpless look to this, while Jennia had completely overheard her due to having to keep herself calm. Only now could she understand where Allaire's dislike of large cities comes from and she had to agree.

Yesterday they had landed near this city to get a room here. This was something they had done repeatedly already, whenever they found themselves near a city at the end of the day. With beastmen cities being generally less crowded than those of humans Allaire had also agreed that it was a better alternative than always camping outside.

And previously this never lead to any problems, with them leaving early the next day and encountering few of the inhabitants. But on this day they were awoken by the sound of thousands of people trampling through the city.

By now they have been trying for over an hour to get a path through the crowd and reach one of the gates, though with no success.

“The longer we are stuck here the more appealing the idea of just flying out becomes.” Darganth said with a sigh after becoming stuck behind another group of people.

“Yeah, dealing with the a mythical rank sounds far better of an alternative.” Jennia said with a forced smile.

“From now on we only go into cities that only restrict teleporting into the city, not inside or out of it.” Allaire said, with Darganth and Jennia agreeing to the idea.

Trying to make their way through the crowd for another half an hour with minimal success, Darganth just wanted to simply transform into his true form when he noticed where the stream of people seemed to congregate.

“Adventurer guild?” He asked out loud in an annoyed tone.

His words made Allaire and Jennia look toward him in irritation. Following his gaze, they also noticed the building he was looking towards.

Before they could ask why he cares for this, Darganth had already conjured a pair of wings with materialization. This made the crowd of nearly entirely first and second ranks jump to the side, making a clear path towards the guild for them once he moved them in front of him in wedge form.

“Lets see what is happening here.” He said.

Following him with a shrug, the three soon reached the building. Letting the pair of wings vanish when he reached close enough, Darganth walked straight towards the heavily armored aura user standing next to the entrance.

As soon as the man saw them he walked towards them with his hand outstretched, signaling them to stop.

“No shortcuts, even for third ranks.” He said to them.

“I just want to know what this all is about.” Darganth answered him.

This answer caused him to raise an eyebrow while moving his hand slowly toward his sword. Eying the three with wary eyes, he relaxed the grip he had on the handle slightly though he didn't relax his wariness at all.

“The city lord offered pay for any adventurers that volunteer to participate in the war. Especially first and second ranks jumped at the chance.”

“The war?” Darganth asked irritated.

“You don't know? Did you live under a stone the past months?” The guard said with a laugh.

“Traveling. And I am more irritated that the adventurers break their neutrality.”

This made the guard nod in understanding. The high traveling speed that high rank individuals can archive means that most kingdom's don't care about the distance between their large cities. While there were smaller cities and towns in between, they were rarely well connected to the outside world.

This made journeys among lower ranking individuals slow unless they could afford to pay a magician to teleport them.

“The war is with the beasts, that's why they allowed it. The two emperors decided that neither side will send out mythical ranks, meaning they see it as a chance to deal with the most powerful beasts below that.” The man explained.

This answer made Darganth frown in annoyance for a moment. While this irritated the guard, the man didn't show it. Though after a moment Darganth got an idea, causing his previous frown to vanish.

“Any idea how to best get out of the city?” He asked the guard.

“Waiting for a few days should help, I doubt that there will be as many people as today.”

“Thanks for the help.” Darganth said, turning around to leave.

As soon as he was out of sight from the man, he turned to a small alley and waited for Jennia and Allaire to catch up.

When they arrived they looked at him questioningly, irritated by the purpose behind his actions.

“Lets first get out of the city, don't want anyone to overhear us.”

“How? There is still a massive crowd out there.”

To this question Darganth just smiled maliciously. After a second Allaire realized his intention, making her sigh.

“As much as I hate cramped cities, using dragons fear is overkill. Not to mention that it will allarm the mythical rank to your presence.”

“I like the idea.” Jennia interjected with an excited grin.

After trying to convince her for a while, Allaire compromised, “But limit it to the main street as best as you can.”

“Alright.”

As soon as he said those words, Darganth spread his dragons fear. Even he couldn't truly control it, he could selectively increase or lower it intensity. While the rest of the city wouldn't feel nothing, it would be far from being as overbearing than what those in their path would experience.

As soon as he did this, the first and most second ranks on the street froze up immediately. The third ranks and those among the rest that didn't freeze up instantly drew their weapons while searching for the source of the pressure.

“That comes from a dragon, get off the street!” Someone shouted after a moment, snapping the rest out of their thoughts.

While nobody knew whether this was a prelude to an attack, they didn't want to risk being neatly lined up for a dragons breath. Within seconds the street was emptied of all but a fraction of the people, allowing these few more room.

Using this moment, Darganth, Jennia and Allaire made their way towards the city gate. They walked with a slight hast to seem the least suspicious. Nobody would walk slowly and relaxed when the danger of a dragon looms overhead, while running may make them seem like deserters.

Additionally they had all cast a psychic invisibility spell, making those around them ignore their presence as long as they didn't resist the spell. This served as an additional help to get out of the city as they weren't even stopped at the gate.

Once they were out of the city they sped up, making their way towards the nearby forest in a straight line.

“So what is this about?” Allaire asked once they reached there.

“In a large scale battle it won't be suspicious if a few people go missing. All three of us are in the third rank so you should have noticed the slow down of your progress. I can use the mana stored in their hearts to speed up my advancement a bit while you two can use any treasures they carry.” Darganth explained with a smile.

His words caused a dangerous smile to creep on Jennia's face. And while Allaire didn't care for the oportunity to mess with them, she became exited in anticipation of speeding up her next advancement.

“And whats the plan?” Jennia asked.

“We search for a good spot where we can escape should fourth ranks arrive and then I will fly over the battlefield. I doubt that it will be anything but a bunch of separate fights, after all beasts don't really field a convention army. Whoever is stupid enough to follow will be our target.”

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Thinking about the plan for a second, Jennia hummed in acknowledgment. Allaire meanwhile finished her thoughts with a slightly doubtful expression.

“How can we be so sure that they will even have that many treasure with them? Most grow in a select few environments and this is definitely not one. And I doubt they won't directly use them.”

Hearing her doubts, Darganth just shook his head with a smile.

“You still think in terms of the beast continent. Here it is far more common to keep a hold of any magical treasure you have until you bring them to an alchemist. So most will likely carry at least some components of the more common potions with the occasional rarer ingredient. Combined with what we still have from Andra I am sure that I can make something useful.”

His reasoning surprised Allaire, though after a moment she had to agree that it made sense. Due to every alchemist being a mage there is a distinct lack of them on the beast continent, especially considering that not every mage was also an alchemist.

This job was far more difficult than all but the highest levels of enchanting, making it that few mages followed the path despite the high status it offered. This was because it required additional knowledge beyond just how to inscribe the spells into a material. Of course more skilled enchanters would go beyond this basic method and thus create more powerful magic items, but the lower starting requirements meant that they could fully concentrate on these creation.

Alchemists on the other hand would all be regularly asked to create even the most basic of potion, inflating their price. Additionally most talented mages wouldn't split their focus and learn alchemy, leading to alchemists being mostly those that recognized that they wouldn't bring it far as mage. This lead to them being stuck at low ranks despite having access to nearly as many resources as even high ranking nobles.

This may not be a problem in the case of low ranking potions, but any sufficiently powerful potion normally need a certain amount of power to create. This was mainly due to the high and precise power output needed to process the ingredients.

“Wait, doesn't that mean that it would be better to focus on the adventurers? Because I doubt that the guards have traveled enough to get themselves some magic treasures.” Jennia asked.

“Yes. But after attacking a few of them we can just wait somewhere, adventurers are far more likely to act reckless.” Darganth said in a slightly disdainful tone.

“You really don't like that profession, do you?”

“No, I really don't. Apart from the fact that I think it to be a gross misrepresentation to call them adventurers as they are essentially glorified mercenaries, I also hate their stupid code. They claim neutrality and use it as shield but as soon as it goes against a non-humanoid species they stand at the front lines.”

“If you say it like that it really sounds hypocritical.” Allaire murmured.

“Of course. While I would understand saying that they fight only against monsters and beasts that didn't fully develop intellect yet, they don't do that and then hide behind being neutral. I still remember that a few thousand years before my death the fucking god of adventurers had the balls to complain to me about some dragons not respecting their neutrality after they had killed some of his subordinates. I swear, if I hadn't something more important to do back then I would have had his head on a spike.”

Both Allaire and Jennia became surprised by this short rant.

““There is a god of adventurers?”” They asked in synch.

“Yes, sadly. He had the idea and implemented it across Vunreon before ascending soon after. And getting the universe to recognize divinities based on ruling over a certain place works, so this does too. And by now it would be too much of a pain to get rid of this shit, so I just let it be and probably will continue to. But if I meet that stuck up idiot again after regaining my power then he is dead for sure.”

His words made Jennia chuckle slightly while Alleire just smiled wryly. Deciding to switch the topic, they slowly made their way through the forest while searching for a good spot to create formations.

[Inside the city]

A few hours after Darganth's display of dragons fear the chaos inside the city still hasn't fully subsided. Especially among the adventurers that had experienced the brunt of it was still an atmosphere of unrest.

While the city lord had quickly managed to bring order back into the guard, his men were currently forced to frantically run around the city to prevent any chaos from erupting. Thus he had taken it into his own hand to guard the outer walls, freeing more manpower.

Now standing in one of the towers near the main gate, he stared towards the nearby forest with wary eyes until one of his subordinates walked into the room.

“Sir, we have found no damage inside the city.” The man reported.

“As expected.” The city lord sighed.

Seeing his superior simply continue to stare into the distance, the man didn't know what to do. Looking around slightly irritated, he just wanted to leave the room when the lord turned to him.

“Wait a second.”

Stopping, he nervously looked towards his boss.

“What do you think of the deal?” The city lord asked.

Irritated by the question, the man took a few seconds to realize that he means the deal between the two emperors. Thinking for a moment how to best answer this, he took a deep breath before talking.

“I think that it can serve to create a great opportunity-”

“Stop, not like that. I mean with concerns to the dragons, I should have clarified that.” The city lord interrupted him.

This puzzled the man, making him look towards the lord before saying, “You think that this was supposed to be a warning?”

“Maybe. Whatever the reason for this burst of dragons fear, it was concentrated on the adventurers. And nothing is missing or destroyed, so a diversion is unlikely.”

“But why? All this did was let us know he is here.” The guard asked.

This made the city lord chuckle slightly. Turning back to look out of the city, he motioned for the guard to come closer. While he was irritated by this, the man followed the command and walked towards the commander.

“Yes, it served to let us know he is there. But look around, where do you think a dragon would live in that area?” The city lord asked, pointing towards roughly where the area in which mythical ranks are not allowed to step foot in was.

Letting his gaze wander over it, the man shook his head with a shrug. Smiling at this evaluation, the city lord explained.

“Yes, nowhere. It is unlikely that the dragon lived here previously, so whatever reason why he does so now is why he demonstrated his dragons fear.”

Agreeing with this assessment, the guard couldn't help but ask, “Then shouldn't we warn the adventurers?”

“Why? Most will only get motivated by this to actively go after him. No, we will keep quiet and hope that, should they find him, most will follow their orders.” The city lord said.

Sighing in resignation, the guard dropped the matter. He knew that the city lords words held some truth to them so he couldn't even argue against it. Instead he chose to focus on more important matters.

“What about the guards? Should I inform them about the dragon or not?”

“I will tell the commanders to only focus on the beasts unless attacked first. When they let their greed influence them then they deserved whatever will come to them.” The city lord said.

After a moment he added, “Though exclude the princes guards from that order. Inform them about all details, but make sure that the prince doesn't learn of it. From what I have heard about him he would react similar to most adventurers.”

“Will be done.” The guard said.

Turning around, he walked out of the room and towards the center of the city where the castle that currently housed the prince stood.

The city lord was meanwhile looking into the distance with a conflicted expression that he had hidden before his subordinate. Ever since he had felt the dragons fear he had been thinking about abandoning the plan.

When the beastmen emperor announced the deal of establishing a few dozen zones where entrance was limited to varying ranks there had been enthusiasm amongst the higher ups. Beasts took longer to grow stronger, meaning every loss would have a longer lasting influence.

Back then nobody understood why the empress had agreed to this, but now he had fears that this was exactly what motivated her to do so. While not much is know about her, the fact that she is a lesser dragon of some kind is one of the things that is. This made his thoughts wander to a multitude of grim possibilities, forcing him to reconsider sending out his men.

But after careful thought her realized that this was a risk he had to take. These skirmishes were supposed to last for a week and if he didn't send out someone the beasts could simply relocate and overwhelm another area. And by the time he caught up, it would likely be too late.

So while he now risked that his men would have to fight a dragon in addition to the beasts, he had to send them out. Pushing these thoughts about what could happen if things went wrong to the back of his mind, the city lords sat down with a sigh.

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