“Port ahead!”

I was awoken by the noise made by the sailors and passengers as we reached our destination, the Sorcerer City States of Rallas. Currently sitting on my sun chair, my two vampire minions, Lucia and Horatio, flanked my sides fanning me.

Now that I think about it, I can’t really feel the heat so why do I need people fanning me?

“Ueeghh….I was hoping that we’d be attacked by some kind of sea monster, then some mermaid warriors would come to help us…” Lard groaned next to me, who was sitting on the deck still tinkering on some metal slabs.

“What’s a mermaid?” I asked.

“This world doesn’t have mermaids?!” Lard was visibly shocked by the fact that there was no ‘mermaids’ in this world.

“I don’t know what that is. Can you describe them?”

“They’re half-human half-fish.”

“Oooh. Yeah, there are those so-called mermaids. Nasty creatures.”

“Nasty?! Is it because of their half-fish side?”

“Yes.”

Also, they do not taste good at all, even dried and salted.

I looked to my side and saw a little girl stumbling around. It was my apprentice Kendra who looked slightly green. I coughed loudly to catch her attention and asked, “Are you seasick?”

“I don’t think I’m seasick. I think it’s the idea that I’m about to step foot on those muscle freaks’ territory is what’s making me sick.” After saying that, Kendra ran off, presumably to find a bucket.

Since I was going to suffer here for a while, I decided to get off my sun chair and walked towards the front deck to inspect the city from afar. Gripping on the ship’s railing, I was impressed by the beauty of the city.

Just looking at the harbor, I could see white marble buildings stacked on top of each other, market stalls draped with a multitude of colored silks covering the tops, shined wooden carts traveling along a well-maintained stone road. Statues of muscular figures holding what appeared to be stone imitations of spells were lined not only against the streets, but also scattered around the harbor waters.

The ship I was in passed by a statue of a figure holding a marble imitation of a fireball. I raised my head in amazement as the shadow made by the statue engulfed the ship. To my surprise, there were even tiny balls of fire flying around the statue.

I was about to think the Sorcerer City States was just a bunch of mud huts, but it turned out I was gravely mistaken. I gulped down imaginary saliva and I started taking pictures using my reversed light orb.

My companions soon joined me and we started pointing at things in the distances while going ‘Oooh!’ and ‘Aaaah!’

Truly, this is a touring experience! Compared to the last two places I was in, this was on the same level as the Holy City of Light, Aon.

“So this is real fantasy…” Lard muttered. I followed his eyesight and also noticed there were tall marble towers scattered in the city. They were each differently designed, with some looking like they were missing parts of the towers.

One of my companions pointed at another tower and I was taken aback by the look of the tower. The top tower was partially hugging a huge flaming rock while being connected to the still-intact lower tower by sets of floating stairs circling around the meteor.

It was like a meteor crashed onto a tower and in the middle of it, some crazy architect wizard suddenly thought ‘Wow, this tower-being-destroyed-by-a-meteor looks very neat.’, and proceeded to freeze time around the area.

“Darn it, my tower looks so ugly! If only my time-freezing magic would help me make this tower look less ugly!”

“Sir, a meteor is headed towards this tower!”

“That just gave me a bright idea!”

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

…or so how I thought it went.

There were also many towers which truly escaped the sense of reality. With how magical these towers were, I shuddered at the thought that this was not made using the magic I knew, but using muscle magic.

But at the same time, I thought to myself…

This is going to be fun.

*

*

*

As the ship landed and the cargo was being transported out, I was waiting for my companions to get our luggage out. We also had to get Alph out of the water since we decided to just let him swim along with the ship.

I stepped onto the port and casually sightsee until a commotion started nearby. The heroes’ party and I decided to go check the noise out as the crowd started to gather.

As we squeezed through the crowd and got onto the front, we were greeted with the sight of a group of armored men trying to pick a fight with a couple of lycans.

Like the lycans we met in the elven capital, these lycans wore berets and robes of different colors since they couldn’t wear shirt or pants. There were four lycans all wearing the same colored berets and robes, so I assume that all these lycans belonged to the same pack or company.

In front of them were a dozen or so humans wearing heavy plates of armor with a skirt instead of leggings, armed with gladiuses. They all wore red capes with the most eye-catching of the men wearing a horse plume helmet. The armored men were visibly angry with the lycans and were cursing at them hard.

“You filthy scums! How dare you step foot on here under the sight of the glorious Vallen Legion!” The officer shouted at the upright wolves. The language was very different from the Western Commons that the Angolians spoke. Fortunately for me, it was similar to an old language that I knew from a long time ago.

“Oh ho ho, these guys must be the evil conquering empire?” Lard whispered to me.

He could also understand this language as well? How does that work? Damn this guy. I should dissect him and find out how he could understand the languages even if he is from another world.

“What do you mean?” I asked Lard, putting my evil thoughts aside for a moment.

“You see, they must be picking a fight with the lycans because they’re not humans. I, Vakasa of the Darkness, have already forseen this! Nofoffo. No doubt, in the future, we will have to clash with these evil men!” Lard was wrapped in his fantasy world so I had to knock a bit of sense into him.

“Shut up and keep watching.”

“What?” As soon as Lard looked back, he was dumbfounded.

The Vallens took out their gladiuses and menacingly approached the lycans. They quickly made a formation without a word, proudly showing their high discipline and quality of the legionnaires. The officer pointed his gladius at the lead lycan and confidently shouted, “You slaving scums have no place in this world! Release those elves at once or suffer the wrath of the Vallen Legion!”

“Eh?” Lard grunted. He finally noticed the chained elves behind the lycans.

I couldn’t blame Lard. When Rookie, my abomination, wanted to try to get his PhD in the Vallen Empire, he described the empire to me in detail. At first I thought that they were the another slaving empire like most empires back then, but this Vallen Empire was actually radically different as well.

“Yamat had gotten these slaves legally! Yamat can show proof! Can foolish Vallens show proof they are free?” The lead lycan roared at the legionnaires.

“In this world, only through understanding and loving every race and species would we finally achieve true peace. You slavers are only hampering my beloved Vallen Empire’s quest for world peace!”

“Bahahaha! Try it, Vallen! Yamat knows you do not want to harm me so all Yamat has to do is listen to dumb legionnaires talk garbage. Slaving is important in economy so why can’t Vallens understand such simple thing?”

“You are misinformed, slaver. To bigots like you, there is no talk. Now, die!”

“Halt!” Three muscular half-naked men wearing tight leather shorts suddenly burst forth from the crowd surrounding the legionnaires and the lycans. They all posed as one, flexing their well-oiled muscles.

Just before the lycans and the legionnaires were about to clash, the ground shot up and earthly hands grabbed onto every dissident. They all tried to struggle but were powerless against the magical hands.

So this was musclemancy up close?! The last time I saw it, I fainted so I couldn’t inspect the magic. Two of the guards kept posing while the lead guard broke off and slowly approached the legionnaires and the lycans.

“Vallens, you are in Rallas. Respect our law or I squat on you.” Upon the guard’s threat, the legionnaires gulped and nodded in unison.

“You, wolfmen. Take your slaves and leave. In Rallas, you need license.”

“Grrrr…It is dangerous to use all your intelligence in one sentence, sorcerer. Yamat and his pack shall leave as asked,” The lycan growled then quickly hopped back onto his ship along with his pack and slaves.

With the issue solved, the legionnaires were let off with a warning, and the crowd was ordered to disperse, which included me and my kids.

“Tsk, damned lycans. Not that I am racist to lycans, mind you. Me and my 1325 Gods spit on their ancestors' graves!” I could hear the officer grumble under his voice as I left.

"Statirii, there are now 1328 Gods according to the Temples," One of the legionnaires corrected his officer.

Lard cried, “This is a disaster. If not an evil empire, then what kind of demon lord are we really up against?”

“Well…” I looked at Satel to my side. Ever since I took Satel in, I had ordered her to stay very close to me at all times. I wasn’t still sure if she was mentally stable or not so just in case she started to become a super arrogant narcissist, I could smack some humbleness into her.

“Satel, what can you understand from the spells the so-called ‘sorcerers’ did?” I asked her.

“Nothing. I don’t know how muscle magic works. Have you forgotten us demons have some of the highest traditional magic capabilities to the point that we were all born insane? I’m so attuned to my own magic, muscle magic felt…alien to me.”

“Damn.” I clicked my tongue then looked up, eyeing the magical towers. I smiled to myself in my head and said, “Well, there are alternatives to investigating muscle magic…”