Chapter 37: Chapter 35

Argul gave Alyra a good tickling punishment after the punch and let out all her embarrassment and shame on her daughter. Really, they could have had a nice reunion but no, Aly had to ruin everything.

Argul sat down on Alyra and pouted, but lost her annoyance fast. She didn’t really care all that much as she had already paid her daughter back.

Argul sighed and leaned back. “So, what have you been up to the last month? Most of the people already seem to know about my activity, but you haven’t told me anything about you.”

Arthur moved next to Argul and was about to sit down too, but Alyra growled at him. He raised his hands defensively and backed up, then he turned towards Argul. “Pretty much the same as you, only that we got to see some of the undesirables.”

Argul raised an eyebrow and Arthur shrugged. “You didn’t expect that people would just do what they were told, did you? There were a few fights and the military sometimes had problems because they couldn’t use their weapons.” He didn’t say that people died, but she knew that was what he meant.

Argul frowned thoughtfully. “That sounds like a lot of trouble.” She wouldn’t question Arthur about more detail in Mia’s presence, the girl had already seen enough for her age.

Arthur nodded. “It was bound to happen. The people haven’t been put under the military's protection by choice and now the military has lost their weapons. They can’t back their power anymore with mana around. The city I got teleported to is on the brink of a rebellion and even more people are running away.”

And here Argul thought people would be somewhat reasonable, but power seems to attract people like light does moths. A lot of people will die in the establishment of a new order.

Alyra moved her head and looked at Argul. “Could you get off of me now?”

Argul looked around. “Did anyone hear anything?”

Alyra rolled her eyes and sighed. “Dear mother, I am sorry for what I said earlier, so would you kindly get off of me?”

Argul smiled and stood up. “But of course, daughter. Your sins shall be forgiven.”

Arthur just ignored the two, but Mia looked at them puzzled. “Why are you two talking like that? It sounds funny.”

Alyra also stood up. “Don’t mind my mother, she is just weird and thinks it is funny to talk like that.”

Argul nodded to herself. “And I’m right about that.”

Mia cocked her head. “I don’t understand.”

Argul walked over to her and patted Mia, who pressed her head into Argul’s hand. “That’s not a problem dear. I was just being silly.”

Argul turned to Arthur. “So where do we have to go to get to the city? I only know that it is within a day's reach.”

Arthur pointed at a hill to the northwest. “We should be able to see Newport once we reach that hill.” So the city had a name. But Newport, really? 

Argul could only shake her head. The name wasn’t bad, but it also wasn’t creative, though she had to admit that city and town names tended to be more functional than anything else.

She looked towards the hill and thought that she could have guessed the position of the city herself by the amount of people that were walking towards and away from the hill.

The group started their trek towards Newport listening to Arthur telling them about his and Alyra’s month.

They were about to reach the hill when Argul glanced at Arthur. “Can I keep the rifle?”

Arthur looked at her suspiciously and shook his head. “No.”

Argul pouted and Arthur continued. “You can carry it for now, but I want to have it back in a while.”

Argul’s tail and ears drooped when she heard that. She just wanted to have it as some kind of souvenir. Stealing it was not even on her mind, because she thought it was petty to do that to Arthur. The sniper was a memory for him, so while she wouldn’t like it, she would still accept if he wanted it back.

The group reached the top of the hill and laid their eyes on the area in front of them. There was a lot of fresh farmland a few people worked on. Behind the farmland modern buildings rose, some of them pretty high, though it wasn’t enough to call it a skyline in height and amount of the buildings. 

The tall buildings obstructed the view of large parts of the city, but you could still see smoke rising throughout it. North of the city was a forest that had been a lot larger once and had been deforested for a while.

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Behind the city countless hills and the beginnings of a true jungle were visible. Argul thought she could even make out the hazy outline of mountains on the horizon, but wasn’t too sure about that.

She looked at the city again. There were enough houses for hundreds of thousands of people to live here, but the amount of people working on the fields was entirely not enough to feed such a large population and while smoke was indeed rising here and there, it was not a lot for such a city.

Argul thought it looked a bit empty and sad.  “Shouldn’t there be more people here?”

Mia took Argul’s hand and Alyra shook her head in disappointment. “Sadly no. A lot of the residents ran away here, even some of the already integrated.”

Arthur grunted in agreement. “The military had a lot less influence in this city and people took what they could before they left. There wasn’t any manpower that could have been spared to stop them and it would have ended in a fight anyway. The city had more or less been given up shortly after the military had found us and the information had been leaked by someone.”

Argul squeezed Mia’s hand reassuringly. She knew that the girl had been excited to be surrounded by people again, but large parts of this city looked more like a ghost city than something people were living in. Hopefully there were still a few things around for Mia to enjoy.

The group continued their walk with subdued excitement, but once they reached the fields the atmosphere rose back to the original excitement again. Despite the look of the city the people that had stayed behind were joking and laughing while working. The group was greeted by a lot of the farmers and they greeted them back in turn.

Argul thought that the difference between the look of the city and the mood of the people was a bit off putting. She also thought that the ratio of humans and non-humans did not reflect her experience when integrating the people. There should be at least one human for every four non-humans, but here it was more like 1 human for every 10 non-humans.

Calling them non-humans might sound a bit weird, but Argul had no problems doing so as she herself was not a human anymore.

They walked past a pair of gruff looking men, who turned to look after the strange group. “Have ya seen the chick?” The guy whistled. “Got one hell of an ass.”

Arthur started to pointedly not look at Argul and acted as if he was incredibly occupied with the form of the clouds.

The other guy nodded. “Ye and breast too. Would give a lot to get a chance with her.”

Argul blushed hard. There was a two meter tall fox walking with them but they had to comment on her assets, really?

She hoped that wouldn’t happen too often, but considering her appearance and curses that was unlikely.

The first guy punched the second one in the shoulder. “Don’t ya have a wife?”

He turned back to Argul again. “The girl also looks ‘lot like the silver witch, ain’t got no chance with that no matter how harmless she looks.”

The other dude sighed. “Ye right, but a man can dream can’t he?”

The group walked outside of hearing range and Alyra burst out laughing. Argul glared at her. “Stop it.”

Alyra continued laughing while she answered. “Your reaction to compliments is just too sweet mother.”

Argul huffed in annoyance. Mia looked at Argul and smiled. “They were right to compliment you auntie. You are beautiful.”

Argul blushed again and looked away, but the wagging of her tail told everyone that the complement of Mia made her happy.

As they neared the city they could make out something like a marketplace at the entrance. There was a lot more space outside of the city, so it made sense to Argul to build something like this outside. She didn’t know why they didn’t use the stores inside of the city, but she would have time to investigate later.

Mia spotted a stall that sold meatballs and immediately began to drag Argul towards it. “Let’s get some!”

She looked at Argul with big eyes. “Please?”

Argul smiled at her. She would not say no to some meat after not eating meat for so long. “Sure.”

She let herself get dragged towards the stall by Mia, though she had a feeling as if she was forgetting something important. They were about to reach the stall when Argul realized she had no idea how to pay for anything.

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