Waperath Jungle was a room considered out of the norm for one simple reason. It was massive. According to the guild, the room had an area of approximately 213 794km², and most of it was part of a rainforest. Rivers and lakes were peppered around the jungle, and there was a huge diversity of creatures here. Bugs, monsters, birds, even some animals that were supposed to only exist on earth were here. They had the level to match the room, but the animals were complete copies of those outside the MAZE. People had already found over 100 dungeons in this room, and that still felt like barely a drop in the ocean of trees and vines that existed here. To add to the strangeness, there were only three doorways, and they were all close to each other. Close for the standards of this room, at least.
Each doorway was between 2 and 5 kilometers away from the city that was home to the beastmen. A long time ago, the first beastmen was born here. Then, because of a threat that existed in the jungle, they fled to other rooms. After a few hundreds of years, they returned, stronger and ready to face the dangers that chased them away. However, the threat was gone. No one could figure out what had happened. Some believed that whatever made them run never existed in the first place, while others thought that someone must have come to the room and destroyed the threat. Because they ran from it, and at the time, their civilization wasn't exactly proficient at record-keeping, the true form of this threat was a mystery to this day. Archaeologists found traces of a large fight near the city, but they also found fossilized parasites that carried a particularly deadly disease. There was also a group of scientists that, through studying the rings on the oldest trees, realized that there was a massive spike in the temperature at some point in the distant past. In theory, no humanoid race would be able to withstand that heat unless they had the proper skills for it, and it made sense for an entire civilization to run away because of that climate change.
However, those were all purely hypothetical. No one knew the true reason why the people fled the room. More importantly, no one knew if the danger could return at some point. Despite that, only a small group of the beastmen who lived in the city were actually worried or even aware of the possibility that someday, things could go south. For the rest of the people, this was just a wonderful place, aside from the bugs. The central city of Waperath was called Waperath Kingdom. Not very creative, but it did the job of telling anyone who was here that this was the main hub of the room. Not just because of the size, but because of the unique location near the doorways. Since most of the room was just a vast expanse of jungle and dungeons, not many people took the time to explore the room. Almost everyone who came here stayed within a day's travel or two of the main city. Some smaller settlements existed. However, the rampages in a place like this were particularly nasty. Because of the massive size of the room, the number and variation of monsters that could appear was staggering. To circumvent that, any city or village built here had to have fortifications in place before even starting to build the first house. On the bright side, since the room was so big, there were situations where some of the monsters would start appearing on the opposite corner of the room and would march without stopping to the closest city. By the time the creatures got there, they would be exhausted and sleep-deprived.
There was the fear of a wendigo being around to top things off. With a room this big and filled with places to hide, it was more than likely that a monster like that was somewhere. Even worse, no one had ever reported the sight of wendigos in the room, which meant that either there really wasn't one or, there was one hiding somewhere and growing stronger. At least people had established that wendigos had similar growth rates to regular people. For a while now, the guild had been studying the monsters, and after capturing one, they managed to test some theories and came to those conclusions. For instance, even if they stayed for years in a low-level room, they wouldn't end up getting to level 80 out of nowhere. Even if they somehow managed to kill several high-level explorers, they would level up the same way as a person. Meaning that when they gathered enough experience, or whatever was the equivalent of that for them, it was only for that level. If it went over what they needed to level up, the extra experience would vanish, and the next level had to be started from scratch.
The clerk that came with Hera and Alex had to stay behind by the doorway while the duo moved towards the city. Unfortunately, they would have to walk through the jungle in the middle of the night, but unlike the previous room, this place was brighter, and their destination was in plain sight for anyone coming from here. Looking from the top of this hill, the Waperath Kingdom was like a lighthouse in the darkness. They started walking away as the two clerks by the doorway tried to appease the small crowd complaining about the situation. Even if rampages were something that everyone who lived in the MAZE knew about and was used to, they would still complain about these issues. Hera was hearing things like 'I have a delivery coming,' 'my friend is in another room,' and even, 'just keep it open for a couple of hours. I can reach the other side.' That last one made her feel weird. Essentially, this was exactly the same thing that she did. Sure, it was Avery who told them to come, but still, it made her slightly uncomfortable.
Alex didn't seem to mind at all, and the two of them continued their journey to the city. The path leading to the kingdom was made with a special type of tile that warded off monsters. It worked almost perfectly, except for the weak level 1 mosquitoes always flying around.
"Man, I forgot to get bug repellent," Hera slapped her neck after feeling a sting.
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"Do we have to worry about diseases?" Alex asked.
"Oh yeah, that's something we need to be on the lookout for, but the guild in the city offers checkups, and inside there, they have some sort of spell always running to stop these kinds of bugs from getting inside. It's like a zapper barrier that only affects monsters at level 1, if I'm not mistaken," Hera explained.
"What about people who were born here?"
"I don't know. Maybe they die if they try to leave, or, the more likely option, the spell is not strong enough to hurt a person," Hera shrugged.
As they walked along the path, Hera tried to look at the city. It was already dark out, so parts of it were obscured by shadows, but there were so many lights all over the place that she could see most of the shape without any issues. In the middle of it all, there was what looked like a stone ziggurat that should be at least 50 meters high, split into 5 layers. On each terrace, several structures were close to the edges. Some looked like houses, while others looked like restaurants and hotels. That wasn't even the entire city. On both sides of the ziggurat, there were two massive stone columns that almost looked like two ribs pointing up. More buildings could be seen on the outer part of those rock formations going all the way to the top, where both had lines connecting to the top of the ziggurat. On the bottom layer, several large trees and houses were built not just inside, but on top of the vegetation is a mix of modern architecture with something you would expect to see in a tribal setting. Despite the looks, everything was modern on the inside with sewer systems, electricity, and all that someone living today could need. That part of the city could not be seen from Hera's point of view. Instead, she could only see a massive 5-meter tall wooden wall with several scout towers and large pillars holding some sort of mana stone on top. Before that, there was also a 20-meter wide moat with a 5-meter drop before reaching the water. From what Hera could tell, the only way to enter the city was through a metal bridge facing the same direction as the staircase of the ziggurat.
Everything had a fantasy feel as if it was something made for an epic movie or a drawing from a concept artist. However, the numerous lights, billboards, and screens that kept playing advertisements quickly shoved that feel away.
"This is… something. I'm just not sure what," Alex said as they got closer.
"Yeah…" Hera couldn't think of anything to say, especially after seeing a billboard for the most famous soda in the entire world right in the middle of the city.
"We are in the right place, right? We didn't take a wrong turn anywhere, did we?" Alex turned to Hera. They were still about 10 minutes away from the city, but now they could only see the wall and the top of the structures.
"I think so. I mean, I was talking to a few people who were here in the library, but no one mentioned this. And the pictures I've seen from here don't have so many…." Hera paused.
"Ads?"
"Yeah. Well… now that I think about it, the official ones don't. But if I looked on social media, there were some strange lights on the background of the pictures. I just figured those were filters or random people using spells, not billboards," Hera sighed. It was weird that they went as far as changing the official pictures, or at least turned all the advertisements off just for that. Then again, a good graphic designer should be able to do that easily, but Hera couldn't tell why they would bother doing something like that.
"Is anyone waiting for us? Or are we just going in and saying, 'hey, we are here to look into your old files?'" Alex asked.
"There is no one waiting, but I did put in a request for a specific file, and they already have approved. Well, they gave me a preliminary approval. I still need to give some identification, show my guild card, and things like that. Also, I don't know how long it will take me to find what I'm looking for, so feel free to hang out in the city or do some dungeons. Apparently, there are two of them inside the city."
"I'll do that, but I think I'm taking a day off. I mean, we have been traveling for almost a week without stopping. Even if we were pacing ourselves, I'm still tired."
Hera nodded, "Tell me about it. The few times I went on a long trip, I had to take a day off before even starting to enjoy the place I was in. And those times it took what. Five hours or something."
"Yeah. It's just a shame that we can't stay in a triton hotel. I loved that bath and those pillows? It felt like I was sleeping on a cloud."
"I would agree. If I didn't think of that before we left Boothudurn," Hera smiled.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, I know we were going to stay here for a few days at least. So I took the liberty to make a reservation in the only triton hotel in the city, and since I got the room for a week, they tossed in a spa day for two, breakfast included for the whole stay and five complimentary massages," Hera showed the reservation on her tablet.
Alex stopped for a moment, stunned by the announcement. She picked Hera's tablet and read the information about the reservation before turning back to the explorer, "Can I hire you to plan my trips?"
"Are you sure you can pay my rates? After all, I'm a rich businesswoman now," Hera chuckled.
"Don't I get friends and family discount?"
"That's why I'm charging you extra."
"Is it cheaper if I make you hate me then?" Alex scoffed.
"Maybe, but you will never know," Hera replied as they reached the metal bridge. Entering the city wasn't an issue, even if it was already late in the evening.
Both Hera and Alex wanted to explore the city, but they needed some rest after traveling so much and running for so long. The city would be here in the morning. There was no need to rush.