Chapter 417 - The Weakest Monster II
The journey between the capital and the northernmost domain was one best measured in weeks. At a standard trot, it took exactly one, but with dungeons and training thrown into the mix, ten days was quickly inflated to thirty.
Winter was in full swing by the time they set foot in Lord Postumus’ domain. The snow was constant. Even with local workers clearing out the roads with shovels, there was a full meter on the ground at all times. But such was life in the northland.
Cadria’s crowning province was simultaneously far enough north and close enough to the coast that a new storm would roll in each morning. Sometimes, it was a light flurry, with only a few hints of white powder falling from the sky. But far more often than not, it came in the form of a blizzard, as it did in the present. It was almost normal for the forests to be entirely obscured—not that there would have been much to see even if they weren’t. The woods were packed with nothing but evergreens. Pines and conifers flooded the wintery landscape, painting a canvas of white and green monotony.
And yet, Claire was more excited than she was when they passed through Valencia. While the rest of the party sat in the carriage, she alone trudged through the snow. She was maybe fifty meters in front of the others, her eyes shining as she looked ahead. Mariabelle, her closest maid and confidant, had told her many things about the northern lands, and seeing them for herself, she found that most of them were true.
Just as she was told, there were fat beaver-snakes slithering all over, felling trees to create dens made of frozen wood. The shadows often trembled unnaturally, hinting at the presence of stralphs—brain-eating baboons that lived in freezing cold darkness. And the sentient storms, the bird-like creatures that made up the very winds, were every bit as undeniable as Mariabelle had always described.
Had her body been any better with the cold, she certainly would have visited much earlier. Alas, the Claire of the past would have become a popsicle as soon as she was exposed to the biting winter winds.
In the present, the exact opposite was true. Claire was the only one who remained unbothered. Everyone else had at least put on something to stave off the cold. Boris had a tiny hat, Sylvia had a bright red scarf, and the turberi had cute little outfits that made them look more like poodles than sea creatures. In much the same vein, Starrgort had practically transformed into a ball of insulated silk. Though it appeared somewhat exaggerated, his so-called outfit was hardly out of the norm.
A minimum of four full layers adorned each of the party’s remaining members. Most doubled up on either shirts or sweaters, with only Allegra going the extra mile and wearing two layers of everything. Though she had seen it many times prior, the sight of the rabbit inflated to twice her usual size was one that Claire found incredibly bizarre.
Cottontails were supposed to be highly resistant to the cold. Their species was well adapted enough that children would play outside in nothing but their fur. And yet, there Allegra was, shivering to the point of near-death. Though for her, it was nothing out of the ordinary. Despite having made her name in the northern lands, she often refused to go outside in the winter and huddled up by the fire instead.
Like the rabbit, the Postumus domain was considered particularly peculiar, with even its moniker a point of differentiation. Most of the nation’s lords shared their names with its provinces—the Titus county was ruled by a Count Titus, the Pollux march was ruled by a Marquis Pollux, and so on and so forth—but Lord Postumus ruled over the Amrinia march.
A quick look through history revealed the reason. Both the province of Amrinia and its identically named capital city had stood for much longer than the Postumus house. It originally existed as a key part of the thoraen domain—their final bastion, meant more as a last resort than a hospitable location given its proximity to the Langgbjerns. Only with many developments in technology did it blossom to the point of safety. If not for Canterbell’s barrier devices, it would have been wiped off the map within a few decades at most. But with the protectors’ widespread use, it had become a blossoming provincial capital, a winter oasis to ward off the frozen desert.
Or at least that was the impression she got as the storm suddenly broke. Looking upon it for herself, she soon realised that Mariabelle had failed to properly inform her of the extent of its beauty. The city appeared as would a massive temple. It was built of brilliant white stone with arches placed all over. Above the snow, within the sky, among the clouds. Everywhere the sky was obstructed, she saw the magnificent structures.
The base level supports rose from within a pool of yet liquid water, somehow unfrozen despite the boreal climate. The lake was a brilliant blue, the same colour as the clear sky that sat directly above it. The blizzard that she had been stuck in was suddenly removed from the space in front of her. It was still there behind her, but within the bounds of the city’s influence, or more specifically the storm-warding artifact that sat near its square, there wasn’t a hint of precipitation.
Many of the buildings sat on stilts. They were supported either by arches of their own, or those that raised the stone slab foundation that kept the city from drowning. But those that sat at the ground level, those still susceptible to the brain-eating baboons, only made up a tiny piece of the city’s whole. The vast majority of its constructs stood far above the ground, standing in open defiance against the concept of gravity.
At a glance, it looked like there was nothing to hold them up. Unlike the floating castles found all across the country, Amrinia’s airborne buildings were devoid of magical generators. The extent of their verticality was another obvious indicator of the difference in their technological backbones. Flying fortresses needed to be more wide than tall so as to remain stable in the air. Any castle with an excess of upwards expansion was one that was sure to rock and capsize. The ideal ratio was ten meters of width for every one of height—a ratio that the Amrinian towers flipped on its head. They extended so far into the sky that they looked more like overgrown speartips than buildings.
There were large walkways between them, floating paths in the sky resembling both bridges and ramparts, but with their supports few, far between, and often floating as well, they failed to explain how anything was held in place.
For those who looked upon the city for the first time, without understanding the unique mechanisms that allowed for its shape, it appeared as would a work of god.
She was tempted to run ahead, but Claire spun around and returned to the carriage. She lightly shook her body down with a series of vectors and jumped into the seat beside the driver’s.
“Anything I should be worried about?” asked Krail, with a yawn.
“Nothing,” said Claire. “The city’s up ahead. You’ll see it after you crest the hill.”
“Finally,” he said, with a grunt.
“Wait, we’re there now?” asked Sylvia. Her ears twitched as she stretched her body and rose from Lana’s lap. Being made of fur, the tiny wolf girl was the warmest of the party’s members. All of the animals, Allegra included, had long abandoned their inhibitions and cuddled up.
“Do you want to dry off?” asked Chloe. She handed over both a towel and a blanket, but Claire shook her head and took a seat.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“No point. We’ll be there in a few minutes.”
“It’ll be nice to finally get out of the storm,” said the maid.
“U-unfortunately, t-t-the city isn’t g-g-g-going to be much warmer.” Allegra chattered like a woodpecker as she forced the words out of her mouth. “A-a-and w-w-w-w-we’ll have to depart s-soon i-if we want to get any t-t-training done.”
“I have every intention of initiating our training after a single day’s rest,” said Arciel.
“Oh, come on. One fucking day ain’t gonna do shit,” said Jules. “At least give us two so we can get all drunk and shit.”
“I am under the impression that the duration of our rest shall have little influence on your alcohol consumption.”
“Yeah, but that ain’t the point. It’s more guilt free when I know I don’t got shit to do the next day. Not to mention, I kinda want to put that medallion thing we got to use.” He wasn’t able to carry it on his person on account of his lack of pockets, but the royal crest was fresh enough in everyone’s minds that they quickly understood.
“It shall certainly prove as quite the prank should they fail to suffice as claimed,” said Arciel. “I cannot begin to fathom the effect that it would have on our budget.”
“Well, for one, we’d probably have to cut out all the snacks,” said Chloe.
“Snacks…” echoed Lana, sadly.
“W-wait, that doesn’t mean the fish too, does it?” asked Sylvia, nervously.
“Of course it would,” said Chloe. “We spend more on fish than on all of our other supplies combined. It’d be the first place we start to cut.”
“W-wait, hold on!” said Sylvia. “T-that’s just unreasonable! Let’s uhmmm… sit down and talk about this!”
“Stop worrying.” Claire booped the fox’s nose. “The medals aren’t fake. Father is petty, but he isn’t that petty.”
“Oh, whew…”
The carriage finally broke through the blizzard as the fox breathed a sigh of relief. The storm’s sudden disappearance drew the whole party’s attention. As she observed their reactions and followed their eyes, Claire felt just a faint hint of pride. It didn’t make much in the way of sense. She knew that, if anything, she should have been proud when they looked upon Valencia.
It wasn’t like she knew much about Amrinia in the first place. But somehow, the irrational feeling continued to swell in her chest.
Her own eyes soon shifted towards the city’s centerpiece—the floating castle that lay half-submerged in the unfrozen lake. It was Mariabelle’s home. More accurately, it was the place that had become her home in the wake of her wedding. Claire had been invited to the accompanying ceremony, but she had skipped it in favour of staying in Vel’khan. Perhaps if their security was light enough, she could pay her a visit and make up for the prior decision, but she highly doubted that it would prove possible.
Those who lived in the Postumus domain were among the cream of the crop.
They had to be.
Even the non-Langgbjern species that roamed the surrounding lands had their levels well above a thousand. It was said that stralphs were conceived with three ascensions, and that their children slew each other in the womb so that only the strongest was born. It seemed like an awfully extreme behaviour, but so far north, it was an absolute necessity.
The Langgbjerns were packed to the brim with dungeons. There was not a member of the pantheon without a difficult trial up in the mystic mountains. It was simply the perfect location. The sheer amount of ambient magic allowed the gods to go hog wild and install all manner of features without having to concern themselves with the magical economy thereof. And though many of the trials went untaken, courtesy of a lack of qualified examinees, they exerted their influence on the world around them.
Spawn rates within the dungeons were high enough across the board that a horde of monsters was ousted from its birthplace each day. The poor evictees were left to wander the mountains in search of new homes. It was only natural that they would come into conflict with others who shared their fate and grow stronger from their repeated skirmishes.
Those driven all the way out of the mountains would naturally prey on the monsters and people who lived in the foothills. To remain in their presence and perhaps even drive them away, the area’s inhabitants had to be tough enough to survive repeated encounters.
The guards standing outside the city’s gate served as the prime examples. There were quite a few of them present, roughly two dozen in all. There was only one way to leave Amrinia’s bounds. The east and west were both walled off, both for safety, and because there was no reason for any such exits to exist. Amrinia was the single closest settlement to the Langgbjerns. Every single one of the roads that stemmed from the city came with a decrease in latitude.
One could apply the same logic to assume that the northern gate was missing as well, but there was a fairly large door present. There weren’t trodden paths that led up into the mountains, and the gate was never opened for public use, but it remained as a convenient method for a military unit to deploy in case of training or emergency.
To compensate, the southern gate, or more accurately the southern gates, were of a particularly grand scale. Built in the same, arched, almost-divine style that encompassed the rest of the city, they spanned a hundred meters in all—a twentieth of the city’s ground-level diameter. The floating parts extended further out to create a loose structure with a largely conical shape.
“So? What’s it gonna be? Do we get one day or two?” It was Jules who eventually spoke up. Breaking the wowed silence with a yawn and a scratch, his voice shook the party from its moment of stupor.
“It is in our best interest to keep it to one,” said Arciel.
The words were shaky enough for Chloe and Jules to exchange a set of glances—glances and confident grins.
“I’m not so sure. One day doesn’t seem like it’ll be enough to rest and resupply,” said Chloe. “We’re bound to get lost.”
“Right? Just look at the fucking place. I can’t even tell where the goddamn shops are.”
“Because you’re blind,” said Claire. She lifted her tail and directed its tip towards one of the particularly large sectors floating in the middle of the sky. “The shopping district’s right there.”
“Oh, shut the hell up, no it isn’t,” said Jules. “That’s obviously a uh… red light district, yeah. You can practically smell the fish from here.”
“Fish?” Sylvia perked up. “What fish?”
The clam grimaced. “Alright, I gotta admit, I did not think that one through before I opened my mouth.”
“Huh?” The fox tilted her head and blinked. “Wait so uhmmmm… does that mean there aren’t any fish?”
“I have some,” said Lana. She opened the pouch on her waist and produced a piece of dried squid. “Here. Snack.”
“Thanks Lana!” Sylvia vaulted from her seat and ate the treat directly from the wolf girl’s hands. “You’re the best!”
“I know. Praise me more.”
“You’re super awesome and I love you because you always have snacks!”
Nodding, as if satisfied, Lana produced another piece from her pouch and fed the infinite void that was the fox’s stomach.
“Fish aside,” said Chloe. “We could really use the rest. We’ve spent twenty of the last thirty days in dungeons, and Allegra’s ears will probably freeze off if we don’t set her down by a fireplace and let her thaw out.”
“Besides, if this city, or whatever the fuck it is, is supposed to serve as our base of operations, then we’re probably gonna book out a hotel for a long ass time anyway,” said Jules. “One extra day ain’t gonna mean shit, especially with our medals or whatever.”
“I suppose if you insist,” said Arciel. “If we are truly so weary, then let us spend two days in recovery. This does come at a cost, however. I expect that you shall be entirely rested by this reprieve. I have every intention of doling out some manner of punishment should you remain hungover by the time of our departure.”
“Deal,” said Jules.
His face was a toothy, innocent grin. He knew from the moment he voiced it that the promise was made in vain, for he was too much of an alcoholic to even dream of seeing her condition fulfilled.