'Damn... I messed up real bad back there.'

As I hurriedly fled from the scene, I felt a strong urge to facepalm.

'I was just too damn excited to have finally found a human... but I should've expected this would happen. If I was 5 and a huge robot spotted me while I was alone in the middle of the woods and started pursuing me while shouting weird things... I'd have shat my pants.

Sigh, I suppose I'll have to follow the path going out from the village to get to a larger town. Still, I don't know how bad discrimination against non-humans is right now, but I'm sure they'll freak out if they see a metal fucking golem striding towards the city... Maybe I could get a cloak and a mask? That could work, but the question is where?'

As I pondered over my options, I realised it would be no easy feat to get something to cover myself with. Going back to the village was a huge nope, since there was no way they would drop their guard enough in the next few days for me to be able to go in and steal a cloak, so the only other feasible option would be sneaking into whatever town I arrive at and stealing it there.

Ir was risky, but even if they caught me I should be able to escape with my abilities, so it shouldn't really be a life-threatening endeavour. Still, that didn't help make me any less nervous.

What did help make me less nervous and much, much more bored was the ensuing journey, which lasted days and had nothing remarkable like, at all.

There were no monster attacks, no carriages being attacked by bandits... in fact I didn't encounter anything other than small animals. I used all my free time to practice the art of talking so at least I did something, but it barely helped.

I also made sure to ask questions to [Olden Knowledge] everyday, the first ones being what the nearest town was.

The answer I got was that it was a town called Lexum that housed around 10.000 people, and it was pretty much straight north, meaning I wouldn't have to make any detours to get to it.

The following days I asked about many other aspects of the town, and learnt that there, pretty much everything was controlled by the Church of Justice, which not only unilaterally set the laws and regulations, but even set the buying and selling prices of their products. This happened on most places within Fairland, but control was especially tight on some places for whatever reason, and Lexum was one of them.

They mantained a fine balance so that, although most civilians would make enough to pay for their food and clothes, any luxuries were out of the question except for rich merchants and nobles.

Civilians were generally very weak too, almost never going further than level 3 or 4, and never getting a class due to the church having locked down on all the Class Crystals within their territory.

On the other hand, the church forces such as the Inquisitors and the Sacred Corps were quite strong, as they often culled forests and roads from monsters to mantain safety and level up.

Also, being a noble in Fairland was little more than a title, and there were only some monetary benefits, meaning they didn't have any actual territories. The only ones with actual power were the government officials, which were almost always high-ranking members of the church.

'I can smell the rot from miles away, man. I guess, even in a world filled with dangers, human greed remains unchanged.'

As I was brooding over the bad sides of human nature, I glanced at my [Map]—which I had made a habit to keep always open—and was delighted to realize that a few kilometers ahead there was a conspicuous and vaguely circular labyrinth of crisscrossing roads and roofs, which could only be Lexus. I could see the wall surrounding the city on the [Map] too, and started watching a plan to get past the sentries once I reached them.

I reached the place after a few dozen minutes, and as I saw the city wall, I was... dismayed.

It was just a plain wall of poorly shape stone bricks stuck together with mortar, entirely unremarkable.

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'Come on, you could've surely put on a little bit more effort than that right? I mean, compare to most medieval city walls these are on the bigger side, but there's magic now! And even without it, even low-levelled people can get 10 times as strong as a normal human!

I'm not even asking for marble-white, glowing walls with mysterious engravings or walls the size of the ones in Attack on Titan, but you could've have at least added those slit windows to shoot arrows through!'

Swallowing my bitter dissappointment, I scoured the top of the walls for sentries. It was worth mentioning that it was currently the middle of the night, and thankfully the church people were haughty enough to dye the armors of all their sentries white with a big golden scale on their chests, making them extremely conspicuous and easy to spot even on the darkness. Especially in the darkness, with my prodigious vision.

I was not much better though, as my silvery exterior reflected the moonlight, so I had to make sure I was extra careful.

There were no trees or other obvious covers anywhere near the walls, but the guards were spread apart far enough that taking one out would make a blind spot big enough for me to get through undetected. Fortunately, I had just the thing for that.

I put my backpack down and rummaged through the plethora of ingredients, finally taking a glass bottle filled with a transparent liquid. It was already wrapped in cloth to prevent it from breaking, but I decided to switch the wrapping with a bigger one so I could cover it completely and have enough spare cloth to tie a knot and make sure the glass inside wouldn't slip out.

Praying that the cloth will muffle the sound of glass breaking enough that only the guard I was throwing the bottle at would hear it, I threw it at the general place he was stationed at. Of course, I completely missed the guard, but I wasn't aiming for him in the first place. I knew it would be impossible for me to hit someone so far away. The bottle landed—and broke—a couple meters from him.

Just like a proper NPC, he went to check what the sound was about, but as soon as he got close, he fell to the ground, deeply asleep.

'It worked like a charm. As expected of something made by a great alchemist, huh?'

That's right, What I just threw was like chloroform but much, much more potent, a liquid that instantly vaporised into sleeping gas upon contact with air. Don't ask me how it could be made without it turning into gas.

I easily scaled up the now unguarded wall and picked up the cloth filled with circumstantial evidence, grateful of not having to breathe and thus not being affected by the gas.

The cloth had served the double purpose of muffling the sound and keeping the glass shards inside, meaning the job was easy, and when the guard woke up he wouldn't remember anything, and would think he'd just snoozed off.

I knew about the effects of this—and almost all the other—concoctions thanks to a storage log that had been left behind by the alchemist, although I didn't know the actual monetary value of most as he didn't bother writing down those things. I imagined it was pretty high though, judging by its effectiveness.

I checked the streets and found no patrols, something I was grateful about. Still, just in case, I decided to navigate the street by going from rooftop to rooftop, Assassins Creed style.

I jumped onto the nearest one, cracking the roof tiles and almost making the roof collapse. I quickly rolled away before that happened. 'Welp, I got too excited. I weigh almost 500 kilos, of course a roof would collapse under my weight.'

And so, from then on, my hulking figure started... crawling on three limbs from rooftop to rooftop, my only comfort being that no one was watching me.

The embarrassing scene ended when I finally found what I was looking for, a place with a sign above the door with the word 'Tailor' written on it. Actually, it said 'Taylor', but that was just because of the language changes in the last 2000 years. I had already gotten used to translating them automatically, and piecing the completely alien parts out from context.

I jumped down and effortlessly forced open the lock, and swiftly made my way inside the shop.

The interior was... colorful. There were many different pieces of clothing, generally with simple designs and mute colors, but much better than what you'd expect from a medieval-themed world. It was probably due to the increase in manufacturing precision and speed that The System provided along with alternative means to make dye, although I wasn't too sure or too interested in finding out.

Anyways, there were no cloaks or any similar pieces that covered the whole body, but I did find the door to what I assumed was the backroom.

It was also locked, surprisingly enough, but that was barely an impediment. The whole floor was covered by a rug and every wall was filled with rolls of cloth and mountains of clothing, an it took much looking around to spot a black corner of cloth at the bottom of one of the piles.

I pulled it out, and luckily enough it was just what I was looking for, but as I was putting it on and started lightly bouncing with joy, I noticed the floor creaking beneath my feet.

I was slightly curious, but decided not to meddle in something that didn't concern me, as I had already gotten what I came here for.

I started making my way out, but I suddenly heard a clank sound, and the floor—no, the trapdoor I'd been standing on fell open as the lock gave way under my mountainous weight.

The rug and I fell on something hard, but it broke with a crack, and as I scrambled to get the rug off me and stand up, I found myself in the middle of a dimly lit room, surrounded by chunks of splintered wood and torn papers, and more importantly, I saw five figures wearing cloaks much like mine staring at me with their poisoned daggers pointed at me.

'Well shit, I dun goofed this time.'