POV: Lo’ju
’And what about you?’
'I will stay with Jim. It doesn’t make sense to leave him here alone.'
’Got it.’
I don’t waste time and basically get them up to speed on what’s going to happen. The man, who I come to learn is Bahmos, agrees.
Natasha of course agrees too.
I point at the ground, sending out my triver. A massive bird monster, which has two heads, and black feathers. It has eyes that start from the front of its face and s to the chin, like orderly stacked books.
I help them on board. I get her son and husband on too. Once all that is done, and they all have a grip on my monster, or
**
POV: Vernisha.
Everything is dark. And once again the darkness is moving around me like it has a life of its own.
I float around in the space for what feels like forever. I know this isn’t death. Unless dying in this world means that I experience the same thing I dream.
Things start to clear up, and soon I see the bright sky.
Nice. I am really alive.
I have no idea what I am lying on but it feels… animal-like. I turn my head to the side to get a better look at what I am on.
It’s feathers…? And we are high in the sky?
“You are finally awake,” Natasha says. She'slooking at me. “That’s good.”
“Yeah…” I try to move, but my body hurts!
I cough up a black thick liquid. I wipe my chin and stare at it.
Lo’jul says, “You… were eating monster flesh?”
“No…”
"And you contracted Malertaria? You need to get to a doctor.”
“A healing elixir wouldn’t fix it?”
“It doesn’t kill parasites.”
Ah shit. I guess that’s what I get for going on a monster organ eating feast. I will survive though.
Natasha asks him, “How dangerous is it?”
“It depends. If she ate a lot of monster flesh it can kill her in a week or two.”
Oh. That doesn’t sound too bad. And here I thought it would be urgent.
“Is the medicine for it cheap or does it require surgery?”
“Medicine. A bit… Yeah, it’s expensive.”
I mutter, “We pay taxes and we can’t get medicines for cheap. Garbage ass country.”
He smiles. “You’re a vlandos and below the working age, a child. If you say that, you will get it for free.”
Why the hell?
He notices the shift in my and Natasha gazes.
"Jer-kel told me. I will keep your secret a, well, secret."
Tch.
I say, “Then you know that I wouldn’t be telling anyone that I am a vlandos. Especially someone that works for or is partnered to the state.”
He frowns. “I will ask my wife for a favor.”
I ask, “She’s a doctor?”
“Works at a drug store. ”
“Oh… I wouldn’t need a prescription?”
“No.”
“Isn’t that very illegal?”
“Yes. You’d rather go to a doctor? Honestly, you should since we don’t know the strength of the geio tablets you are going to need.”
“No, drug store.” I'm not taking a risk with them testing my blood and discovering I'm a vlandos.
He shrugs. I watch the air blow his hair back and forth.
I ask him, “D'you have some control over your hair? Or does it move on its own?”
“Control. Like moving your fingers.”
“Pretty cool. When you make those short dreadlocks, do you control your hair to get the style or do you use your hand or you use both?”
“Both kinda. And it's braids. My wife braids it for me.”
Could have fooled me. Perhaps it's the hair texture.
“She’s better at it?”
“Yeah. She used to be a hair stylist.”
“Oh, that’s cool. Does she do her own hair or you?”
“Me. Gets tiring doing it yourself, you see.”
“Yeah, for sure.”
I look down at the bird. “How many minutes does it have?"
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He raises an eyebrow.
I expand on what I meant. “Until you lose control over it.”
“Long.”
“How long is that long?”
“Don’t know. When the time is up I will tell you.”
No way in hell he wouldn’t know. When the monster thoughts are getting stronger, you can feel it. If he has been an adventurer for a long time, he most definitely have enough experience to know how long his control can last.
But he is keeping it secret. Because… Because that’s vital information.
What the hell would I do with it though? I would need to know for how long his monster had also been out.
“How fast are we moving? In miles an hour,” I ask.
“Not sure. Maybe 150?”
Oh… With that, we will reach the capital in no time!
I sit up and look at the lands. There are villages, towns, rivers, and a damn lot of green mountains.
Oh, there is this white river. Two guys are in it. I think they are dancing together, naked.
Wait.
Oh.
Never mind.
I look elsewhere, observing a group of people working on a small house, nailing galvanize.
In another spot, some are carrying buckets of water. Others are hiking.
It’s cool to see all this. Extra cool I didn’t see any grim shit, kidnapping, murdering and whatnot.
Emphasis on ‘didn’t see.’
“I’m sorry…”
Caren is talking in his sleep. I wonder what nightmare he is having this time.
“Sorry…”
“Sorry. I am sorry.”
He goes on repeating the same thing.
Lp’jul points ahead. “Check it out. We've reached.”
I look ahead and in the center of a three massive mountains, two at the sides which look like… it doesn’t belong(lacks a mountain range), and one at the back that looks naturally placed.
I am guessing the capital was built there for defensive reasons.
On the mountain to its right has a monster zone.
But damn, that’s a massive city, surrounded by black walls too (maybe twelve meters tall). I heard it was made by Eren Starworth after the original ones were destroyed when Falsker invaded.
On those walls are a lot of watch towers.
I ask Lo, “In those watch towers—they are all vlandos?”
“No. not enough of us for that.”
“So… just ordinary guys?”
“Most are. Only got two knights stationed there, and they at the entrance gate.”
Interesting.
We descended a short distance away from the gates. Apparently, that’s the law.
Lo helps us get to the gate, easily carrying Caren like he weighs less than fifty pounds.
The knights have different armor than adventurers. They quite literally look like knights, but ones that go down in legends. Their armor is gold and red. They also both have swords at their waist and a shield at their back.
The two men are huge, both definitely above 6’9.
One of them asks, “What is it?”
I take out our residence papers, and Lo shows them his adventurer’s license. One of them moves forward, scanning our papers and his license with a mark-stone, aka this world's version of a tablet(kinda).
It takes a while, but he basically gives us both a nod. They ask why we are here. We say medical reasons, pointing at Caren and Ulah.
The other knight ask, “What kind of sickness do they have? Is it transmittable?”
“No, they ate a bread which made them very sick and seems to be having a weird mutative effect on them. And Vernisha has Malertaria, she has spitting up black liquid,” Natasha explains, leaving out the violent outbursts they had.
The two check for obvious proof. I spit up black bloody vomit for them. Then they take some blood from us, run it through their mark-stone.
Obviously, I am worried about my blood being taken. But they discard the blood as soon as they get the results, which I assume was to verify if we truly didn't have any transmittable diseases.
They then ask how long we plan to stay here? Then if we have a place of residence?
If it wasn’t for Lo, that would have been a problem for us. He came in clutch, saying that we reside by him until our family members are treated.
We pay entrance fees, fifty bronze pints for Natasha and Caren, but half of that for Ulah and me.
Oh. Lo doesn’t have to pay since he is an adventurer. I’m also not sure why, but it doesn’t seem like they like each other. They are just professional.
Anyway, one of the knights knocks on the gate, and soon after the double gates open for us.
Oh, random thing, the residence papers have a part that is supposed to identify the citizen as a vlandos or regular.
As we enter the city, the knights tell us:
“We hope your experience in Sundawn is great.”
“May the stars shine on your family's future.”
They seem cool.
When I step inside, what I see surprises me. The place is beautiful. There are massive concrete buildings on both sides of the roads, commercial ones, it seems.
There are many elves, punchios, very few Julioes, and other human races moving up and down.
Oh, that’s a silyuk. They all got big ass foreheads, half-white and ginger hair and blessed with a high disposition of fats in their lower body. Aka, big butts and the like but no breasts.
Reminds me of my high school principal from Earth.
Even the guys have it. Which… from what I have heard, makes them get seek out a lot in prison.
I look around and see a mulvar. Dark skin, sharp jawline. But no goddamn eyebrows. His long brown hair and eyebrow-less combination remind me of Super Saiyan Three.
Nearby on the other street is a balash temple with three holograms in front of it. The first hologram depicts a yellow-haired woman with yellow eyes, her gaze fixed on the distant light of a star. The other is an orange-haired man covered in the intense light of a star, and the last, the biggest of them all, a blood-red-haired man with hundreds of stars looking at him.
The three mortal gods.
Lo notices my gaze and says, “The universe sure has its favorites.”
All of them are humans. Kinda feels awkward.
I clear my throat and say, “There might be another mortal god who’s a punchio, but hidden.”
“In our legends, there used to be. Anyway, let's get your family to a doctor. I will get the medication for you. ”
“Yeah, thanks a lot again.”
We walk for a while and get a taxi. A lizard driven carriage. However, Bahmos who has been silent the entire time, takes another taxi.
I tell Lo'jul, “You are much nicer than I thought.”
“Oh. Well, Jer-kel requested me to help you all. So she must like you a lot.”
“Ah. That’s good to hear. She saved me too.”
He slowly nods and seems somewhat surprise. Not sure why it surprised him.
Anyway, it takes about ten minutes and driving over a bridge, where a river runs under it for us to reach a private doctor's building/office.
Lo says, “It should be better than a regular hospital.” He then takes a card from his pocket, then stops, and asks, “You guys don’t have a pyramid communicator?”
Natasha says, "No."
He clicks his tongue, then looks me straight in the eyes.
’Lo’Jul sons'ver’mol’yu is trying to form a communication line with you.’
Oh! telepathy!
I confirm the request. Once it's done, he acts normal and faces front.
’Give me a thought if you need something.’ I hear his thoughts.
‘How close do I need to be?'
’A mile, maybe.’
“Thanks,” I say out-loud.
“Yeah.”
He looks out of the carriage and tells the security at the closed office door, “When the person inside is done, help them in.”
“Of course, Lo’jun”
And he disappears. Maybe people don't have adventurers as much in the city? Or Lo has a lot of connections.
The security offers us benches, which we gladly take.
The only issue with dropping us at a private doctor office is the fact we don’t have an appointment and its going to cost a lot more than a state funded hospital.
But I am hoping he knows all this and chose this office for a reason.
I look at Natasha who glares at a tall boy, a vlandos based on his height, 6'5, and looks at max, fifteen years.
He has blood red and blonde hair, yellow eyes, clearly good skin and is ridiculously handsome, enough to be a model that would capture the attention of all, even a bit more than regular vlandos men(not by much, but a noticeable amount).
I wonder if it’s just lucky genes or the power of being a vlandos and being able to afford beauty products. I wonder if he dyed his hair or... belongs in those star families,
I ask Natasha, “You know him?”
Her closed fist relaxes. “No.”
That’s so weird. This is the same woman who doesn’t even get angry at Caren when he is in a bullshit phase.
I ask, “You sure? It definitely seem like you know him.”
“I’m sure.”
On his finger is an emerald ring.
Hm… That guy is most definitely rich, perhaps nobility? Or a big job. I should probably avoid him since even Natasha doesn’t like him. But, if I can make friends or acquaintances with someone who has influence or lots of wealth, that will be beneficial.
Because of me making a connection with Jim and Jer-kel, I got Lo to help me in a time of need.
I don't know when this will pay off, or if it will even work, but making friends in high places will be beneficial.
I walk up to him, “Hello.”