“ ‘You can figure it out yourself, I trust in you Saori~’ What did Muraina mean by that, Saori?”
“Oh, that? Well, in the past three days, I have been considering Muraina’s offer to help me train. You know, more practice would not hurt me, and it seems like Muraina’s confidence in me is high enough to the point that she thinks I can find the entrance to an underworld city that changes every week. Well, she’s not wrong.”
After interrogating those two child-kidnapping bastards and handing them over to a few guards, our party’s and Eshe’s next goal was to head into the undercity of Griffonpeak, Shaturein. However, although we knew that it was somewhere in the red light district, we didn’t exactly know where the entrance actually was.
To expedite the process and not trigger my impatience to save the kids, we decided to ask someone for help. Since we didn’t want to cause Ellaine’s parents too many problems, after we picked Tasianna and Ellaine up once they brought the injured caretakers back to the orphanage, we rushed over to the hunter’s guild. We needed to ask Krymdar or Gael for help.
Unfortunately, neither of them were there. Krymdar was still at that Lycerepth meeting and Gael was currently in Shaturein. We thought we could maybe ask Muraina for help instead, since she was a spy too, but she had no idea.
“I apologize, but the entrance to Shaturein changes every week with the help of their earth mages. It’s to protect themselves from the guards and knights, you see. Usually, you would learn the next location and its password if you’re a frequent visitor of Shaturein or, in Gael’s case, you can use your connections and know-how to learn where the entrance is whenever. I sadly did not ask Krymdar or Gael about the entrance’s next appearance. I apologize, everybody.” I remembered what Muraina said. She did point us to a couple of possible places, but we had to do the footwork ourselves.
So, since we didn’t know the way forward, we decided to start searching in the red light district. The entire situation made it seem as if Muraina was testing Saori or something. Since we knew Aurora was known in the underworld from those spies who followed us, we decided it would be best if everybody wore long, inconspicuous robes with cowls covering our faces and head. Of course, this plan had a teensy-little issue with me being the very definition of conspicuous.
You see, having large horns and a very long tail as my physical traits made it very hard to not get noticed. Sure, I could hide my wings no problem, but the problem was that I could only get rid of the former two was to enter my [Humanization Lv. 9] or Lv. 10 form. I couldn’t risk it. It meant becoming mostly or completely human respectively, reducing my maximum stats by two-thirds and having no access to any of my draconic abilities.
Ever since I tried it out the first time against those bandits, I’ve begun to feel uncomfortable without my dragon abilities. Crazy, sure, but I didn’t like feeling weak. And being human without my wings, fire breath, tail, scales, claws, and sun core felt awful. At [Humanization Lv. 10] I felt like a squishy meatbag.
Thankfully, ever since I met Cernust, I’ve been aware of bovlines. If I wrapped my tail around my legs, I would be able to hide my tail, but it did obstruct my movements. As long as I kept my scaly hands, legs and feet hidden, and they didn’t look too close at my vertical pupils I could pass off as a literal cowgirl.
“Oh yeah, how is Uno? Have you heard from him?” I asked Saori. Despite it being suspicious, we were all moving in a large group since Saori seemed to have a plan to find the entrance to Shaturein.
“Nope, he has not come back from when I sent him off to follow those spies five days ago. He should be alright, though, since he hasn’t disappeared from my shadow beast count,” Saori explained. “Still, to find the entrance, we will need Uno. He should be around somewhere, so I will recall him here.”
“ Since those spies Uno was following probably went back to Shaturein, he’ll be able to lead us to the entrance??” Ellaine asked, to which Saori confirmed with a nod.
“Well, better make it quick, Saori. There’s people watching us,” Grimnir pointed out.
He was right. The moment we entered the red light district with our cloaks on, we instantly attracted the attention of a few thuggish-looking people hanging around on the streets. It was like entering a thieves' den, or walking through the home district of a crime syndicate.
Sir Alikar and Dame Anivh informed us we could leave the flanks to them, that we should prioritize moving forward and protecting Eshe. Eshe, as a holy mage, had some powerful supportive and defensive spells, but on the other hand, her offensive ones were only so-so. Regrettably, her level was still only 23, vastly below everybody else. At least we could count on her knights in a battle since they were formally trained and level 69 and 57 respectively.
As we rushed to a place where there weren’t any prying eyes, Saori kneeled on the ground and touched her shadow. As she kept that pose, a few minutes passed when the shadow suddenly began to spasm, revealing a wolf’s head underneath it.
“Uno. Report?” Saori demanded.
Without sending the information to Eshe and her knights, Uno began to speak with us telepathically. [“The information was correct. The church issued the request to those spies, but the person who issued it was a fat pig they called a cardinal. Based on how the others treated him, he was the leader.”]
“Any information from those spies? Where did they come from?” We promised not to ask them about their organization, but nothing was said about us doing our homework on them; turnabout is fair play, after all. Uno was confident he wouldn’t get caught, so Saori ordered him to track them.
[“The alpha of the pack decided to stop spying on you, Alpha. They called themselves an information broker or something.”] It was a good thing that the garms were intelligent enough to understand us similar to other beastmen. [“I can smell you wish to know more, Alpha. Ask, I shall answer.”]
After Saori told him we needed a way into Shaturein, he agreed to show us the way, as he had just left through it. The entrance he used to enter the undercity seemed to have disappeared today, and he had to trail a group of people to leave Shaturein through the new one. Uno, apparently, survived the stakeout by stealing food and water from the merchants down there, which he described as a common practice.
Is Shaturein that much of a cutthroat place? How has it not descended to anarchy if stealing is such a common occurrence down there?
“Good work, Uno. Inform Song about everything and give yourself a good break, alright?” Saori then pulled out a fresh, bloody steak from her storage and gave it to Uno. Twitching his ears, he grabbed the meat with his mouth before disappearing with it into the shadows. After a moment, Song’s head appeared from the shadow in his place, ready to lead us to the undercity.
When we arrived at the location, we saw a group of raggedly-dressed people crowding around a run-down house, enjoying some simple street food made out of rice dough, a sauce, and whatever meat they could get, at least from the looks of it. The street food stall seemed quite popular and we questioned if this really was the place we were looking for, only for Uno to confirm the entrance was inside the building.
As we looked around a bit more, we noticed a few shady-looking people hanging around, either staying to themselves or by joining into the food craze. Unlike the clearly impoverished patrons, these people had better-maintained clothing and weapons close on hand.
“Hestia, we’re taking the peaceful way in. No need to get into trouble.” I agreed with Saori’s plan. The food vendor and those thugs were clearly guards for the entrance, and, since Shaturein was a whole independent city controlled by various shady guilds, it probably wouldn’t be good to antagonize them now. Well, unless they picked the fight themselves, like those slavers did.
Before we left the guild, Muraina also informed us that the “bouncers” would be dismissive to any attempts of us asking for a way into Shaturein, acting like normal citizens to dissuade strangers from entering their home. Even bribing wouldn’t work. You either knew the weekly password to enter or knew somebody who knew it.
Knowing we were in a hurry to save the kids, Muraina told us to mention a specific phrase to the entrance keeper. As such, Saori walked over to the food vendor alone to speak to him. “How much?”
“Eight davi. Return the bowl.” Saori handed him eight davi and received a bowl of food.
Wait, is that the phrase?!
As Saori took a bite from the flour dough with the pieces of meat, Saori nodded her head in contentment as she put the fork back on the plate. “Lady Grengar offers us her heartful dance.” At the mention of that quote, the food vendor instantly turned his head towards Saori and gave her a nod, before knocking his head backward, towards the door. With the bowl of food in her hand, she returned to us while eating it.
“We can enter.”
“ ‘Lady Grengar offers us her heartful dance’? Was that the phrase?” I asked, to which Saori nodded. Muraina did not specify who this “Lady Grengar” was, though. “And was ordering food also a necessary part?”
“Yeah, since you do not ask a tavern owner for rumors if you have not ordered anything. The same courtesy applies here. Call it a fee for newcomers.” Saori took her last bite of the food, commenting that the dough was old and the meat dry. It didn’t suit her taste.
I personally would prefer if she took this a bit more seriously, but Saori sure does hate wasting food. Patience, Hestia. If the kids are somewhere in Shaturein, I will turn that place upside down to find them.
After Saori handed the bowl back to the vendor, a thug at the door opened the house door for us and whispered, “Black pieces on the table move at the commands of the Hold. Remember it next time.” If I could hazard a guess, it probably was the password for entering Shaturein for the week.
Once inside, we noticed nobody was inside the ramshackle house; in fact, the place looked even more run down from the inside, with mold destroying the wooden floor and walls. With no other entrance except a single door, we moved through it and descended the stairs into the basement. Going through a door made from fortified earth, we finally made our way into Shaturein.
“Urgh, the smell!” Saori and I pinched our noses. Our heightened olfactory sense was working against us again, the smell of sewage overwhelming us. After Tasianna cast an enhanced [Air Shield] around us, we continued onwards.
“Lady Eshe, please do not move away from the middle,” Sir Alikar spoke in his thick accent, as he and Dame Anivh rested their hands on their weapons, ready to engage at any time. The same applied to us Aurora members with our own guards raised.
Looking at the way this tunnel was made, it definitely wasn’t made to look good. Still, it’s sturdy without any wooden support. Earth mages definitely made this. I analyzed the tunnel. The only way for Shaturein to be able to change their entrance every week would be with earth mages.
After a certain point, though, the structure of the tunnel changed, looking better built and less hastily excavated. It felt more comfortable to walk through, and had torches to light the way. Walking for maybe over ten minutes, we finally made it down to Griffonpeak’s shadow, the city underneath the Griffon — Shaturein.
“W-Well, this isn’t exactly what I imagined,” Ellaine blurted out, a statement I could agree fully with.
The underground city was, at its core, a place for criminals and the impoverished, those who could not survive a life on the surface; at least, that is what Arcanuess Helvas told me. From the looks of it, he wasn’t too off the mark. My first impression of this place was that it was filthy.
Now, it wasn’t garbage dump-tier of disgusting but wherever we walked? There was trash and dirty puddles just lying on the streets. It seemed as if there was a waste disposal service of some kind, as it wasn’t filled with that stuff, but this place did look a bit like the third-world countries I’d seen on TV.
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
Looking further away, I saw canals flowing through this place, making it look a bit like mini Venice. Shaturein, being built next to Griffonpeak’s sewer, which was constructed using the river next to it, probably would utilize these canals for something outside of waste disposal, right?
However, while seeing this was unexpected, I was really surprised to see quite a bit of manatech around.
Yes, there was light down here. Not from the sun but rather through artificial light created through manatech lamps, each marked with a certain insignia on them, probably to warn off any thieves from taking them. Unlike the red light district or slums, this place seemed to have more manatech than above despite its rough appearance. The streets and general architecture looked unhygienic and badly maintained, which contrasted starkly with the modern-looking manatech.
As we analyzed one of the manatech lamps, Saori went over to a lollygagger and asked him about it. “Huh? What’sit to you?” Saori threw a medium copper coin at the person, instantly making his mouth open. “Youse don’t know who’at belonged to? Ya new? Blackreach Guild. Member o’the four gangs of Shatu. Serioully, the founder, me heard. Youse find them in’ner center, with’er other three gangs.”
Jeez, this is fucking hard to understand! Come on, dude, I only learned this language almost a year ago!
Regardless of how difficult his accent was to understand, we still had a way to start. Without a proper guide, we had no way to find anybody, so the best way to do this was to go to the center. Since Shaturein was governed by gangs and guilds, the best way to start this investigation was to find these “four gangs.” Information, that is what we needed first.
When we asked Saori if she could guide us using the scent from the lamp, she shook her head. The smell was even worse down in the city and neither Saori nor her garms were willing to expose their noses to it, preferring to stay inside the [Air Shield]. Uno described his experience down here as hell, and if it wasn’t Saori’s order to track those spies down, he probably would never have stayed down here.
“Should we go ask those spies for help?” Tasianna suggested, but Saori shook her head.
“We agreed not to get involved with each other, and I think appearing before their doorsteps would count as that. Then again, I don’t think we need them, really. Hestia, would you be able to do something?”
Saori was talking about [Mana Eyes]’s new ability after I made it possible for our group to fast travel.
Mana Eyes
A skill that allows the user to perceive the flow of mana in the air. Allows the identification of items and creatures, revealing their description or profile. Allows the isolation of mana signatures, making it possible to follow mana trails and links between mana sources. Requires tremendous cognitive abilities to process properly. The Skills combined are: [Identify Lv. 10] [Blacksmith’s Appraisal (Incomplete) Lv. 1]
“Allows the isolation of mana signatures, making it possible to follow mana trails and links between mana sources,” was the ability that I was talking about. If I concentrated, I could activate my skill’s ability to track a singular mana source and create a trail to something related to the mana.
In the case of the lamp, a mana battery had to be placed inside for it to work, and I could use that mana to track down the person who filled it up. It might not lead us directly to this Blackreach Guild, but might lead us to the person who worked for them.
Mana Eyes!
I could see the mana source inside the lamp with a trail leading—
“Arck!” I immediately regretted activating the effect.
Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled. [High-Speed Calculation Lv. 2] [Multi-Thought Processing Lv. 3] gained
“”Lady Hestia!”” Tasianna and Eshe exclaimed as my head shot backward, flinching from the sheer amount of pain my eyes and mind felt from looking at the trail. I clenched my teeth, grinding them to relieve the pain as much as possible. This pain even ignored my [Absolute Pain Tolerance]!
“Urgh! Ark!” It felt as if a needle penetrated my eyes and injected a serum of pain into my brain, ravaging my nerves like flames. My white flames activated from this, beginning to heal me, erasing the pain as I slowly recovered. When I removed my hands from my eyes, I felt something wet drip from my eyes.
“Shit! Hestia, are you okay?!” Saori expressed her worry for me with shocked, widened eyes. Eshe pulled out a handkerchief, cleaning the wet tear up before showing it to me.
R-Red?! Blood?!
It seemed blood had started to flow from my eye, the backlash from all the information I tried to process causing the veins in my eyes to rupture. At that moment when I looked at the trail of mana, I managed to locate the source of it, but due to the sheer size of it, it caused some serious strain on my eyes and mind. It was too much information in too short of a time.
I’ve gotten better with using [Mana Eyes], able to hold it active for longer than ten seconds with my parallel minds’ help without suffering any pain. In an environment where mana is less convoluted like my subspace, I could probably handle it for longer, but the mana in Shaturein was a mess. This place was filled with mana, to the point I was worried monsters would appear out of nowhere.
“Shit! Help! Monster spawning!” Speaking of the devil…
Before I could inform everybody where the mana battery’s trail led to, shouts for help exploded from over the corner as men, women, and children ran for their lives away from that direction. A sharp “Kruuuuuk!” resounded, followed by a loud cry of helplessness.
Deciding to check it out, our group ran over towards the sounds, only to find a blood-sucking bat draining the already deceased body of a man dry. [Blood-Gnawing Land-Bat], I think it was called. We encountered a few of them in the dungeon in Cedaraille, and the sight of a pair feeding on three defeated adventurers especially stuck with me. With the mana so thick down here, I guess monsters randomly spawning around was an actual possibility.
The moment the land-bat was finished with its meal, it turned towards us and roared, before fleeing. Saori moved to draw her dagger at it, but stayed her hand, pointing out that somebody was coming from the rooftop. In the next second, a group of people appeared from the rooftops and smashed the land-bat into pieces.
“Wooo! Another for the count!” A young man with wild, unkempt black hair shouted as cleaned the blood off from his bone cudgel. His clothes, made from the pieces of monsters, didn’t give me the same impression as the people we first saw entering Shaturein. Looking closer, he and the two men behind him seemed to have the same emblem we saw on the map.
Blackreach Guild?
“Shut it, fucker! If you’ve got time to gloat, you got’cha some time to kill more!” A man behind the cudgel guy grabbed him and dragged him to the next battlefield. Following them from the streets, we ended up in an area with a bunch of thugs or delinquent looking people hunting monsters from an outbreak of felwings and land-bats
I had no idea if they were adventurers or the local militia, but they certainly were dealing with the problems decently enough. Since those felwings and land-bats were only rank E, they could only be taken out by people with some knowledge of fighting. They were hardly doing it flawlessly, many of them were hurt and some barely escaped a fatal blow, but the monsters were being culled.
“W-We should help Lady Hestia!” Eshe exclaimed. She wasn’t a saintess for nothing with her intention to heal the wounded, but she was quickly stopped by Anivh.
“Lady Eshe, we should wait. This is not our battle to participate in. Our priority should be your protection and to find and save the children, My Lady.” Eshe reluctantly agreed to that statement. In this chaos those people called fighting, it wouldn’t be weird for Eshe to get attacked if we weren’t careful. No need to risk fighting if we could avoid it.
Even Anivh is serious about finding those kids, huh? The Saintess of Orphans and her knights. What a fitting combination. Still, I do wonder if it would be best to heal them after the fight, since it wouldn’t do us good to get attention. Any case, not like the threat warranted it. It’s only a bunch of E ranks…Huh?
One second I was watching the pseudo-adventurers cleaning the bats up, in the next second, the ground began to break away, and numerous jaguar-sized land-bats appeared from below the ground.
Mana Eyes.
Acidic Blood Land-Bat
A giant bat monster with wings adapted to land travel. With a huge appetite for mana-rich blood, these monsters roam caves and forests, using their acidic blood spit to blind or incapacitate both prey and predator. Rank D
Me and my loud mouth…
“S-Shit! Those things again! Hey, hey, get fucking help! Run!” The thugs shouted as they stopped attacking the bats and instantly ran away without any hesitation. Seeing their attackers running away, the bats shrieked in victory, preparing to roam the streets to find their next meal.
Scheiße! We better take care of this now. Sorry kids, please, hand a bit longer. Your Big Sis has to help out.
Seeing me prepare a lightning spell, Ellaine nodded her head vigorously and unsheathed her sword. Saori sighed, leaving us to engage the foes as she and the others stayed behind to protect Eshe. As Ellaine and I engaged the first couple of land-bats, my [Detection Sensor] suddenly felt something appearing out of nowhere. Looking over, I saw a familiar man jumping out of a shadow.
“Dark Tendrils!” Black vines shot out of the shadow underneath one of the D ranks, constricting it long enough for the man to dash in and slay it with his daggers. “Home sweet home, there is always fucking action down here! I just want to sleep in peace!”
Gael?
What a place to find the very man we were looking for. Farron’s vice and his spymaster, Gael.
“Gael!” I shouted as I blasted a D rank bat out of the way.
Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Job [White Pyromancer] has risen from [Level 0] to [Level 1]
Attributes have increased due to level up
“Huh?! Lady Hestia?!” Gael recognized me instantly despite the cloak hiding my face. Did he remember my voice? “What are you doing here?!”
“Talk later, how about I give you a hand first?” I shot out another [Lightning Bolt] before cleaning up a few E ranks with [Wind Slash]. Ellaine wasn’t slacking off either, slicing up the bats at a faster rate than I was with her mid-ranged whipsword. It wasn’t long until only the D ranks were left.
Suffice to say, we didn’t have much trouble. After the battle was over, Gael came over to us and pulled the cowl slightly back, revealing my face up to my forehead.
“Oooh, it really is you, Your Highness. And here I thought I turned crazy when I heard your voice so suddenly down here,” Geal said, flabbergasted to see me in Shaturein.
Showing him a wry smile, I couldn’t help but understand him. “Well, it’s not like I expected to go down here. I thought about it, but you know, this place stinks too much for my nose. Anyways, how did you recognize me from before when I’m dressed like this? My voice?”
“Come on, did you think I would forget? Like the voice of an angel, My Lady.” With an over-the-top bow you would only see from nobles’ sons, Gael bowed before me in the showiest way possible. He then raised his head and sang his next sentence. “So, My Lady, why are you here, in the den of the rats~”
Nice rhythm, but he can’t control his voice super well. Good enough to swoon most girls, though.
“Well, for one, I was looking for you for help, Gael.” As I said that, Eshe and the others approached us, followed by the rag-tag group from before. Before I could finish my next sentence, the rag-tag group shouted in fervor.
“Woooo, big haul for today, guys! We eating good tonight, I say!”
“Break out the fire! Grill that shit up, boys!”
“Bro! Nice work, today! Thanks for the help as always! Huh? … Who’s the tiny?” The last comment came from the same cudgel guy from before.
Tiny? Really?
I personally knew I wasn’t the tallest, but saying that to somebody’s face isn’t very nice. I mean, what if I had a complex about it like a certain blond alchemist from that anime I watched? Regardless, it wasn’t something I needed to answer. I wanted to get down to business now.
Gael looked at my lack of reactions and sighed, before smacking the young cudgel man in the head.
“Yeowch! Bro, what gives?!” he shouted in confusion.
“Don’t ‘Bro’ me, you pup! Damnit, get your ass up and clean this fucking mess! Tell the residents everything is fine and then prepare the meat for storage. Call the mages to clean this mess up. Oh, and one more thing, the next time you speak with somebody, fucking learn who you talking to first!” Gael grabbed his head and pulled it over to me. My cowl was hiding my face again, although not my horns. “Learn some respect, kid. These are my guests. Apologize to the young lady.”
“Ehh?!” The young man was confused as hell, but Gael did not give him much time to react, pushing his head down into a deep bow. “I-I’m sorry, My Lady!”
“You sorry for what, huh?!”
“I’m sorry for calling you ‘tiny,’ My Lady! I won’t do this again!” Considering he knew what was rude without anybody telling him, he sure was a quick thinker.
Gael then pulled the guy’s head up, closer to his face to give him a face-to-face lecture, “Remember this, kid, if you want to rise through the ranks inside the guild, you analyze who you are talking to and keep your foul mouth to yourself, alright? If you were to anger the guests of Mister Vangrim, even if by accident, he ain’t gonna let you keep your tongue. The guilds are the bosses here in Shatu, not some greenhorn kid thinking he is the biggest shit in the whole world! You hear?!”
“Yes, Bro! I’m sorry!”
“Good! Now scram! Learn some manners and get some training! Eat some meat to pack some more muscles, kid. You fucking brats, too! Fuck off, now, I got business to deal with.” After sending those young men away, Gael sighed and scratched his neck.
W-Wow, did Gael just do that for me? Wow… Somehow, I feel like I’m somebody important.
“… You certainly changed from our meeting in Firwood, Gael.” It was Saori. She had a smile on her face.
Recognizing her, Gael gave out a small chuckle. “Nah, this is how I deal with these rambunctious kids these days. Had to learn these things the hard way, so I’m just doing my best to act as a mentor. Shaturein isn’t kind to anybody if you don’t know how to fit in. Even the ones out in the slums probably have it better than here. Anyways, where were we? What are you ladies doing down here?”
“We—” Once again, I was interrupted.
“Erm, excuse me.” But this time, it was from Eshe. “Could you allow me to heal the wounded, first?”
“… Saintess Eshe?” Gael looked mortified. “My stomach is acting up again. Are you ladies about to drag me into more trouble?”
It was only once, but he already knew us as well as if we were besties.