Over the rest of that afternoon and night, we traveled through the desert to Precipice, the capital city. I passively practiced Noxious Grasp the whole time as I watched the sky darken, day shifting to night once more in this timeline.

I’d spoken with Index about more in-depth details regarding this Beacon thing that I’d only just recently figured out, and it seemed like the best plan of action would be to go into the city, figure things out there, and then come back out to the desert later when we weren’t around others and get it set up.

That thing would need to be kept hidden because of its cost mechanics. With the cost to activate it getting ten times more expensive for a week with every use, taking a single group of people on one or two trips per week would be fine, but if someone else discovered it and started using it, suddenly it’d be basically locked out of our use.

Once we got it set up, it’d suddenly be much easier for us to go back and forth from here to Salvation, that way we could keep in-touch with our old connections, and we’d have easy access to the Kingdom if that ever became necessary.

But regardless, that was all later. By the time it began to get late enough for my eyelids to feel heavy, I asked one of the guards how much longer was left in the trip and whether we’d break for the night. He responded that they normally made the trip in a single day, simply traveling through the night, so we wouldn’t be stopping, but we could always sleep in the carriage.

Sharing a single glance with Erani, I knew we weren’t doing that. Even if I knew logically that they were friendly, I was already uncomfortable being surrounded by so many armed Classers, and I wasn’t about to betray that feeling any more by willingly falling unconscious on their watch. Erani seemed to feel the same way. Or maybe she just didn’t think she could sleep on the wooden floor jostling up and down on the bumpy path we traveled.

Ainash was the most uncomfortable of all of us, however. It stood out to me now more than ever, as I’d just gotten here from a timeline where she was much more in her element. I wasn’t sure if I should have found it worrying or not, but she was clearly much happier and more comfortable surrounded by enemies on all sides, fighting for her life, than sitting in a covered carriage among a few Humans.

It was the middle of the night when the city walls came into sight. It was built around a wide river that wound through the dunes, with the stone walls reaching high into the air and covering a massive area. Even when comparing it to Carth, the largest city I’d ever seen by far, this place absolutely dwarfed it in size. It had several tiers of walls, the shorter ones expanding out much further out into the desert, with the absolute tallest—-rivaling the height of even the tallest towers—-only covering a relatively small section in the direct center. I had to imagine the taller walls were there to provide safety from flying monsters like the Sand Stingers. Though, with there also being burrowing monsters out here, did the walls also extend deep beneath the ground as well?

“Here we are,” the guard I’d spoken with before said as the city came into full view. “Should be just another hour or so before we arrive, get through customs, and I can finally sit down. You two do have a permit for that monster pet, right?”

“No,” I said with a sigh, getting slightly tired of explaining our situation, “we don’t. It’s one of the reasons we came here—-to get her officially registered and all that. But I promise you she’s totally friendly and understanding and all that.”

“It is, huh?” he asked, walking closer to the cart where Ainash was sitting, dangling her legs off the side and mindlessly kicking the air.

She gazed at him and narrowed her eyes.

“Doesn’t seem all that friendly,” he said, raising a finger to poke at her calf.

Before he could touch her, Ainash spun into action, leaping up to balance deftly on the edge of the cart, drawing her flaming whip in a single movement, and rearing back to strike utilizing her height advantage.

The man shouted in surprise, stumbling back and holding his hands up to protect himself.

But Ainash stopped before attacking, glancing back at me. “Father, think this Human is bad guy. Was trying to touch me. Probably casting Spell like you do by touching monster to kill it.”

“No, no, it’s okay,” I assured her.

Erani had already leapt to her feet and rushed over to grab onto Ainash’s hand and hold her back from swinging. I didn’t think it was necessary to go as far as physically restraining her, but I supposed it couldn’t hurt to show a token gesture of us trying to prevent a murder from occurring. Surely she wouldn’t actually have gone that far, though.

“You are sure?” Ainash asked me.

“Yeah, I was just talking with him and he was curious. Look at him, he’s just as scared of you as you are of him.”

The carriage, still moving along, had left the man behind, frozen in fear and shock at the sudden death he’d almost faced.

“Afraid enemies are dangerous. Have nothing to lose.”

“Well then, he’s only a little afraid. The amount of afraid that makes a person not want to mess with you. So you don’t need to worry.”

“Humans are complicated.”

“Honey, why don’t you sit down and sheathe your weapon?” Erani asked in a soothing tone. “It’s a bad habit to get aggressive with people automatically like that.”

“Right,” I said. “It’s good to defend yourself, but try not to make any enemies in the process. Otherwise, you’ll end up with more people to defend yourself against than you began.”

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

“If Human is bad enough to attack me out of fear, then should die anyway. Am rooting out the future bad guys.”

“That’s not a very accurate way of thinking about things,” Erani said. “Plenty of people are good, but might think you’re bad if you act like that.”

Ainash stared at the man for a moment, then plopped back down to her seat at the edge of the carriage, repeating, “Humans are complicated.”

“What in flames was that?!” another guard shouted, running up to us.

“Yeah, ‘friendly’ my ass! That thing just almost killed me!” The one Ainash had threatened started jogging to catch back up, too.

“It was a warning,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Don’t be a baby.”

“Annor,” Erani scolded me. Then she turned to the others. “We apologize on the behalf of our friend here. She is friendly, but very jumpy. She would absolutely never actually attack someone like that for no reason; she’s just a little used to the wilderness, and is still acclimating to Humanity.”

“No way you get that thing registered as an actual pet,” the man scoffed. “Flamin’ feral.”

“Y’know, you don’t have to refer to her as a ‘thing,’” I said. “Maybe try being kinder to her and she’ll trust you more. Treat her like an actual person, perhaps?”

He silently rolled his eyes, but I could tell what he was thinking. ‘That thing’s no person.’

I almost responded, but Erani cut in first. “Anyway, we sincerely apologize for that, and we’ll be sure to keep it from happening again in the short time we’ll be together until we reach Precipice.”

The guard grunted and moved on, out of our sight.

“What an asshole,” I muttered.

“Not everyone knows her like we do,” Erani responded. “To them, she’s just another monster.”

“Yeah, and to me, he’s just another jackass waiting to be taught a lesson.”

Erani gave me a look. “You should probably not be teaching anyone a lesson the day we enter a new city. Besides, he helped us out earlier by telling us about that competition thing.”

“That’s fair, I guess,” I said with a sigh. “Just pisses me off how much effort we have to go through to prove to this empire that Ainash isn’t some bloodthirsty monster.”

“But I am bloodthirsty,” Ainash responded. “Want to kill lots of bad guys!”

“Okay, but it’s different from what they’re assuming. They think you’re unreasonable, or that you might kill them.”

“Will kill them if they are bad guys.”

“You don’t make a very good argument for yourself, you know.”

We eventually made it to the outermost wall, thankfully without any murders committed, and got through relatively easily. Ainash unfortunately had to stay outside like she normally did, though that issue would be resolved soon.

Once we were inside the walls, Erani and I quickly split off from the merchant and her company of guards, left now to our own devices.

“So,” I said, “what’s first? Figuring stuff out regarding this competition, or trying to get Ainash inside?”

“Well, unfortunately, we have no information regarding where we should go to do either of those things, so I think our only option as to what’s first would be to wander around aimlessly.”

So we did exactly that. I had to imagine going further toward the center of the city would help our odds of finding something relevant to either of those objectives, so that was the general direction we headed.

The outer ring of the city, surrounded by the shortest walls, seemed to be mostly residential in nature. There were thousands of shabby huts and inns positioned haphazardly along the winding roads, the sand obviously not doing too well as a foundation for building, which made me curious as to why someone would even found a city in a desert like this in the first place, much less why you’d make it the capital of such an expansive empire. Surely there were better places to establish something like that with all the land they had?

Overall, this place was clearly the lower-income area. Glancing around, it seemed like the majority of people here must have worked as stonemasons, considering the equipment that was lying around, which meant the farming must have been done further in. Or maybe they just imported all of their food, with the teleportation circles so nearby.

There were plenty of beggars on the streets, but most of them left us alone. We probably looked foreign enough that they assumed we didn’t have any coin in the form of empire currency. But after walking around the web-like roads for long enough, I began to realize that we were barely making any progress toward the center of Precipice at all. We’d come to a splinter in the road and walk down one path, only to find that it was a dead end, the tightly-packed buildings preventing us from moving any further. And then we’d try to backtrack and go the other way, only to come to a six-way intersection with no idea of where we’d originally come from.

Eventually, I got frustrated enough to just ask the first person I saw for instructions in navigating this nonsensical place. There was a group of three beggars huddled up on a part of the partially-crumbled road, speaking in mumbling tones. Their ragged flax clothes rustled with movement as I approached, no doubt looking slightly more intimidating than I’d have liked, with Dark Plate always giving off its menacing aura.

“Excuse me,” I called to them. “Would you happen to know if there’s…I dunno, like, a map for the city? We’re new, and—-“

The closest one, a woman with cracked tan skin, squawked out a laugh. “If there were a map, it’d be outdated within the week!”

The rest laughed with her, and Erani and I shared a glance.

“I see,” I continued. “Then, could you give us directions on how to get further into the city?”

“Nope,” she croaked, then turned back to her friends. Looking more closely, they seemed to be playing some sort of game using a couple decks of cards, shifting them around from different piles into their hands, then back onto the ground, turning them sideways and upside down and pushing them at each other in aggressive motions. Looked way too complicated for me.

“Seems like they’re a bust, then,” I muttered to Erani, and we moved on. We’d just have to make our way through on our own.

As we left, I heard a stern voice come from behind us, seemingly speaking with the beggars.

“You know, you could be doing a lot more valuable things with your lives rather than playing that game all day,” the new person said.

“Oh? We would love to hear your newest pitch on why we should go die in a pointless war. Please, madam, go on.”

I turned to see what was going on. Seemed like some woman—-a law enforcement officer, from the looks of her uniformed armor—-had walked up and started speaking with them.

“You wouldn’t have to be footsoldiers. If you have a couple Levels under your belt, go compete in this week’s tournament. You’d get quite the cushy life if you win.”

The beggar scoffed and prepared a reply, but I interrupted, calling out to the woman. “Sounds great. Where do we sign up?”

Erani glanced over at me. “I guess we know what to do first, then.”