“I’m telling you, ice spells are way more useful than fire spells. When you manage to freeze your enemies, you can take all the time you need to finish them off and they can only watch when you chop off their limbs or gouge out their heart.” She lifted her feet and stomped over the huge log, her voice slightly cracking.
“And how much time do you think it would take to freeze an enemy? Fire spells can set whoever’s charging at you aflame instantly, and with the added bonus of damage over time. An enemy could kill you before you even froze them halfway through.” He accompanied his argument with rapid hand gestures.
Emily turned to her host and raised up her forefinger, “Not if I turn them into a block of ice instantly.”
“What if they have fire resistance armor, hmm? Or if they have wind or water magic to instantly put out the fire? With ice, they can’t even move to defrost themselves.”
“You do know how long it will take to immobilize someone by using ice spells right? All they have to do is to keep running sideways and you’ll have no chance of turning them into a block of ice.”
Kizo scoffed, “And have almost half of your mana supply wasted on a single enemy? Even if you plan to freeze an entire group of, let say, hostile goblins, it would work much better as a last resort than anything because you’ll disappear as soon as you finish casting your spell. What if there are more enemies left? What do I do, huh?”
“You’re a genius, you can figure out how to save yourself. Oh, and need I remind you that you can be vulnerable to your own fire spell because fire can spread onto you and not just your enemies?. All it takes is one dumb goblin seeking for glory in death, and poof, off to kingdom come you go.” He rolled his eyes and tipped his head upwards. At the edge of his vision, the giant tree that was once in far distance has gotten incredibly close.
“I’m fireproof, Em. Do you think I didn’t prepare for such scenario before I started my journey?”
“What about the heat, hmm? You’ll be cooked alive.”
“Firstly, do you think I wouldn’t try to put out the flame even if I’m fireproof? Secondly, did you seriously forgot I can calibrate the temperature of my suit? And here I thought tulpas, a being literally made of thoughts, is better in recalling memories than anyone!”
“It slipped my mind, okay?! Also, just because I’m made of thoughts doesn’t mean I can do more than your big, fat brain allow! Blame your hardware, not the AI that lives in it! And I’m sick of walking! Can’t you just find a car or something already?!” Her voice was raised louder and louder.
“I don’t know where to find a working vehicle! There’s a reason why there are abandoned cars and motorcycles all over the bloody road! They are either out of fuel or their circuitry was fried by that magic shockwave when the apocalypse started!” His steps progressively became heavier, and louder.
“Well, maybe you should’ve learned a thing or two about fixing vehicles when you’re planning to travel across the entire world!”
“Well, maybe the tulpa that’s just spending most of the time having fun in the wonderland should’ve tried to learn those things when the host is trying to survive in this bat-shit crazy world!”
“You know damn well I can’t retain any semantic memory that you don’t already know!!”
“Perhaps you should have swum the subconscious river and try to find if I had come across such knowledge! You have magic now! Just create a spell that protects you when diving into my subconscious!” He forcefully tapped on his helmet.
“It’s not that easy! Can you even comprehend how dangerous it would be to you and the others if I do this?! You could’ve gone crazy and we could disappear!”
As they approached a four-way junction, a pack of devil hounds, with demonic horns and nimble, deadly tails, were attracted to the duo’s loud arguments and sprint towards them, emerging from the right lane. The pack leader, standing in front of its followers, growled at its new prey, but the tulpa and host didn’t even bat the imminent danger an eye.
Despite their apparent lack of concern, they still noticed the threat. Kizo lifted up his rifle, aiming at the hounds even as he was still arguing, “You had five years, ten in your perspective, to overcome this problem with all the magic sitting at the palm of your hands! This is just your excuse for your days prancing around, having fun with your body! All while I was busy helping soldiers tormented by their PTSD!”
One of the hounds was irritated by its preys’ lack of fear and dashed towards Kizo, aiming to bite off his legs. Despite its effort to make its prey miss by running in a zig-zag pattern, it wasn’t difficult for the soldier, who has seen this tactic multiple times, to land his stun bullet on the hound’s forehead. The fainted hound crashed into a nearby car and stopped moving.
Emily summoned her opened grimoire as the rest of the pack followed up the initial assault, “EVERYONE LOOK AT THIS HERO OVER HERE! HE HELPED HIS FELLOW SOLDIERS OVERCOMING PTSD,” She pointed the ground in front of an incoming hound, a sentence inside the opened page glowed, and the ground shot up, sending the hound flying into the air when she raised her arm, “BUT FORGOT TO SPEND A FEW MORE MONTHS LEARNING HOW TO FIX A CAR, SO NOW HE HAS TO WALK ALL THE WAY TO KINGDOM COME!”
“UH OH, A HYPOCRITE TULPA HERE!” He dodged a charging hound by swiftly stepping aside and fired at its head on a point-blank range, “ALL SHE KNOWS IS COMPLAINING! DID SHE OFFER HELP WHEN HER HOST NEEDS IT? NO!” He twirled around as if he was dancing, dodging another hound attempted to bite his face off. “DID SHE TRY TO SOLVE THE PROBLEMS STOPPING HER FROM HELPING? NO!” When the hound turned around and lunged at him, he powerfully kicked the dog up into the air and delivered a skull-shattering punch to its face.
Five hounds remained. The pack leader wanted to escape, but the humiliation, the fact that its prey wasn’t paying attention to any of its members but still took them down as if they were playing, was too great to swallow. It barked with rage, giving the rest of its pack one last order to take the humanoids down.
“I think it’s time to settle our initial argument and see which element is the superior one.” The pages flipped on its own, displaying the elemental spells Emily was about to unleash. Two lines on the pages glow as the hounds scampered close enough for her spells to hit them.
She raised both her hands, palms facing the hounds, and a stream of fire and icy gusts engulfed both of them.
The one hit by a stream of fire instantaneously fled when his body was in flames; the one hit by the icy gusts, however, was frozen into a block of ice just as it tried to escape. Emily stepped towards the frozen hound and kicked it, shattering the ice into pieces. The hound covered in flames dropped dead to the ground a few seconds later, its corpse still burning.
As for the other two charging towards Kizo, he lazily did a twisting hand gesture while facing the hounds. Those two hounds dropped to the ground immediately, blood flowing out of their mouths like a fountain.
“I win. The frozen dog drops dead first.”
“It’s a draw. Both of them still died.”
“Yeah, but this one died first. The ‘hotdog’ died later.”
“Really, Em? A pun? Ugh, fine, you win! Happy now?!” He threw up his arms in frustration. Emily smiled gleefully as she despawned the grimoire and made it disappeared.
The lone hound, still standing at the junction, was shaking, and indecisive. Should it run and live another day? Or should it avenge its fellow brethren and die in unsung glory? In the end, the desire to survive won over its heart.
However, as the hound was about to slip away, a truck smashed into it from the right and it flew for several meters before its lifeless body landed on the ground. The duo stared curiously at the unmoving truck as the driver’s window was slowly lowered.
“Are you folks alright?” The truck driver, who seems to be a hamster Demi, asked loudly.
“We’re fine!” Kizo answered back while Emily pointed her fingers at the other hound corpses.
“Huh! And here I thought some poor souls are getting eaten when those damn dogs finally left the street! Still, thank you for killing those hounds, strangers!”
“You’re welcome!” Emily replied.
“Are you a trader?” Kizo asked as the both of them ambled towards the truck.
“I sure am! Been doing this for a few years. Just came back from another town heading back to Arbor!” Despite the Demi’s appearance, he has a deep and rough voice.
“Arbor?”
“It means ‘tree’ in Latin or somethin’. You see that big tree over there?” He leaned out of the window, looking straight at the gigantic flora, “There’s a town inside its trunk, above the roots. All the buildings in there are made of stone. It appeared out of nowhere a few months after the apocalypse. Nobody knows how it came to be and none of them care. People started moving in, and soon after, a town was born.”
“What does the town have?”
“Food, shelter, water, weapons, clothes. Anything that can help you survive another day. The people there are nice too. The security ain’t bad either.” He turned to the duo again, “You guys wanna join me? I can treat ya somethin’ for killing those annoying dogs earlier. Saved the town the hassle to take them out.”
“Are there any information brokers in Arbor?”
“They sure do! A good fella, that one. He worked hard to gather information from various travellers and gave it to the town council for free so they could defend themselves from potential dangers. Some say he did this as repentance for something he did. However, when it comes to outsiders, the fees he charged for his information can cost quite a penny.”
“Do they still use the currency from the old world?”
“Of course! Do you think we’ll use bottle caps or somethin’ as currency?” The trader chuckled. “It’s easier to use what we already have, even though they prove to be quite fragile.”
“If that’s the case, we’ll go to the town with you. Hope we aren’t bothering you.”
“Gah, don’t worry about it! I’ve a feeling you two will bring more luck than trouble. But...I don’t think your fancy boxes can fit into the seats, traveller.”
“I will attach them to the roof. They won’t fly away.” The containers slowly levitated upwards and affixed themselves at the top.
“Alrighty. Hop on in!”
The duo made their way to the other door as the driver unlocked it. They then crawled into seats, Emily sitting comfortably in the middle whereas Kizo beside the door after he closed it.
“What are your names, travellers? You can call me Carl.” He reached out his hands and shook theirs. Emily estimated Carl’s height to be half of the average adult male height.
“Emily.” “Kizo.”
“Kizo? Your name sounds familiar. Think I heard it before from other traders. Are you someone famous?”
“I’m just a wanderer.”
“Just a wanderer, eh? I don’t think I ever came across such a well-equipped wanderer like you.” He pressed on the gas pedals and the heavy truck began to turn its wheels towards the colossal tree. Kizo slouched down on his seat and closed his eyes to rest.
“Say, how do you manage to find petrol to keep this truck moving, Carl?”
“That’s a great question missy, but using petrol isn’t being used to keep this baby rolling. Any petrol we could find ran out years ago. I’m using a big mana crystal as fuel.”
“Huh.” She glanced at Kizo, then asked another question, “How did you convert this truck to run on mana crystal then? Doesn’t seem like a task that any ordinary Joe could pull off.”
“We were lucky, to be honest. Among us that survived the apocalypse were a few engineering students. Wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to call them geniuses. They had been studying how to construct cars powered by mana crystals, but their attention turned to converting conventional vehicles so it would run on mana after we settled down in Arbor.”
“Managed to drag a few existing mana-powered cars to them and let those geniuses break it apart to learn how to perform the conversion. A year or two later, their project was a success, making trading between towns possible. After that, more towns were discovered and connected via the trade routes.”
“How did any of you manage to find mana crystals large enough to keep this thing moving? As far as we know, there are no mana crystal mines in this country.”
“Arbor isn’t the only place that appeared out of nowhere. We found a new underground mine a few kilometers away, suddenly sprung into existence few months after Arbor came to be. There are many other places like this that just...appeared in the following months and years after the apocalypse. However, these mana-powered vehicles would be useless if not for the fact that the world is now filled to the brim with mana.”
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
The truck went silent. To break that silence Carl struck up a question.
“Where do you folks come from? You two don’t have that accent when you talk.”
“I’m afraid it’s not something we’re willing to share, sorry.”
“Ah, it’s okay. I was only curious. I knew a few people that came to this country before the world ended. Those poor souls are forever stuck here, unable to return to their motherland. Can’t imagine how they feel.”
“Must be horrible.” She replied hollowly.
When arrived at the bottom of the tree, the truck stopped its wheels, right before a giant stone wall, which was blocking the entrance to the town. The wall was rectangular in shape. The roots nearby grew along its straight borders, preventing any openings or tiny entrances into its trunk.
Carl pushed the truck horn in a specific rhythm and waited for a few seconds. The stone wall gradually sank into the ground until it disappeared from sight. He drove into the tunnel carved underneath the tree and switched on the front lights. Emily could hear the stone wall rose up and blocked the entrance behind them.
The light at the other end was not far. She nudged Kizo to wake him up, but he refused to open his eyes. She sighed in annoyance, then took a glimpse at the roots surrounding them. Instead of being cut off, the roots seemed to naturally grow in a way that created this passageway into the bowel of the tree.
“And here we are! Welcome to Arbor!”
It was a sight to behold. In the hollowed out, lower half of the tree, lies Arbor, a collection of simple and complex structures made of stone. And despite its location, it was well illuminated by sunlight. Emily could see the town clearly with little to no problem. There were many spots of transparency spread across the innards of this titanic flora, allowing light from the outside to enter. One can even see what lies outside the trunk and the roots.
The town is roughly two kilometers wide, and most of the buildings were built right at the centre. A few were spread out further from the middle, having farms or plant fields around them. However, what caught Emily’s eyes were the modern infrastructures and vehicles seemingly pushed aside by an incredible force to the very edge of the town, right in front of the inner tree walls.
After the driver waved at a passing brown-skinned elf, Emily assumed him to be a town guard, who looked slightly surprised, she quickly asked, “Why are those buildings and cars all jumbled up at the wall there?”
“Those? Well, someone had a theory saying that when this place emerged, it push away everything that used to occupy this area, but didn’t pushed it faster before the trunk walls appeared. Don’t know how much sense it actually makes and don’t care. If it ain’t a threat, it’s nothing to think about.”
Kizo peeled open his eyes. The scenery that entered his vision was not at all what he had expected. Instead of an atmosphere filled with despair and a lack of energy, it was cheerful, and lively. There were kids playing around, adults talking to each other, buildings decorated colourfully, and even greenery littered all over the place. Kizo can’t help but grin at a town full of life.
The truck progressively slowed down. When what seems to be a circular open market came into sight, Carl parked his truck back into a wide alleyway, just right beside a 2-storey house at the left of the street. The driver killed the engine and jumped down from his seat.
“Come on down, travellers! I’ll take you to my home.” Emily could barely see Carl when he’s on the ground.
Emily pushed Kizo, urging him to exit the truck faster. He stepped down and reactivated his containers. She closed the door after getting down and walked side-by-side with her host to the Demi. The Demi then lead them to his house, the building on the left, and into the living room.
“Welcome to my humble home! As you can see here, I’m not a great house decorator, haha.” He hung his coat and hat on the wall and shut the door when the duo was inside.
The truck driver’s home was humble indeed. There were only two tables, one at the far back and the other at the front. A few chairs around the table at the back, two couch sandwiching the one closest to the entrance, and a shelf full of tableware and cups standing close to the wall. There were two doorways at the other end of the floor leading into the kitchen, and a staircase only a few steps in front of the entrance.
There were a few windows, but the source of light inside the house came from the three white neons on the ceiling, with no wires connecting it to anywhere. The same goes for the two unmoving ceiling fans.
“I have some errands to run for the moment. I’m afraid I can’t give you two a tour of the town as much as I want to.”
“It’s fine, Mister Carl. We can take a stroll on ourselves.”
“Alright then. But first, let me guide you two to your rooms. You won’t want to stride around the town with those containers following behind you. And that heavy bag on your back.”
“Thank you for your generosity, Carl.”
“You’re welcome, traveller.” He gave the soldier a warm smile.
The duo followed Carl to the second floor. There was a small open space right in front of the staircase. Occupying it were random items and boxes stacked neatly against each other. They turned to the right and was greeted by a hallway with three doors at the left wall. They sauntered to the final door and the trader pushed it open.
The room was fairly simple. There’s a medieval king-sized bed positioned against the opposite wall with a nightstand on both sides, a large wardrobe on the left, one large wooden table and chair right beside the window facing the street, and another table with a small shrine on it, few steps to the right from the entrance.
“You two can stay here as long as you want. The light and fan switch is over here,” He pointed at two crudely constructed switch behind the door, “The bathroom is on the left.”
“What’s that shrine over there?.” Kizo approached the shrine and examined it. An empty golden bowl was placed in front of a statue of a beautiful woman with multiple eyes and a pair of butterfly wings.
“We think it might belong to the previous owner of this house, used to worship some unknown god. When we reached this place, not a single soul could be found. There was much evidence showing that people used to live in these houses, but it was as if they just...vanished. No bodies or corpses of any kind.”
“Interesting.” Kizo wanted to pick up the statue, but was stopped by Carl.
“It’s best if you don’t mess with the shrine Mister Kizo. With all those stuff that happened after the apocalypse, I won’t be surprised if a demon suddenly appears if you disturb it.”
“We won’t,” Emily replied. Her host pulled back his hand.
“I’ll be going now. Try not to bring any weapons outside, at least not the ones that are obvious. The folks here do not respond well to anyone that flashes their weapons in plain sight.”
“There have been incidents?” Kizo inquired.
“A few. It was during the first few years of our settlement. People would disguise themselves as friendly travellers, then they would threaten to kill people if their demands are not fulfilled. Dark times, they were. But, that’s in the past. The security’s pretty tight now, so you don’t need to worry if someone starts firing their weapons.”
“Is that why you don’t lock your front door? Because of the improved security?”
“That, and everyone here has a strong bond with each other. We all went through the same pain and suffering, and we made this town our home through our collective sweat and blood. We are united as one. Things like stealing rarely ever happen because we look out for each other.”
Emily clapped gently, “That’s wonderful! We haven’t come across a place as nice as this one.”
“Heh, thanks for the compliment, missy.” He glanced at his watch, “I should really get going now.”
“Wait, where can we find the information broker?”
“His house is located at the western part of the town. If you saw a building covered in flowers, then you’re at the right place. See you two later!” He scuttled out of the room and into his own.
Kizo deactivated the container and left it standing on the ground. He opened the empty wardrobe and placed his rifle, backpack, and coat into it. He pulled up his t-shirt and used it to cover his handgun holster and utility belt.
“Been awhile since I saw you without your coat.” Emily stared at his muscular body.
“Yeah. It’s quite refreshing, really.” He stretched his arms up high.
“Not gonna remove the helmet?”
“I rather not.” He dug up his wallet from the backpack and shove it into his left pocket.
“Are you shy~?”
“I feel comfortable in it.” He carefully hid a tiny trap that releases electricity in the wardrobe.
“Shy it is then.” She pushed her celeste hair, purple on the underside, which was bothering her ear, backward.
“Let’s go.” They went down and exited the house.
Most of the buildings they saw were all, at most, two or three storey-tall, but there was one that reaches over five-storey high when they sauntered towards the market they saw earlier. That particular building seemed to be located at the western edge of town. They were certain it must’ve belonged to the former ruler of this land, given how luxuriously it looked.
They entered the market, which was circular in shape due to how the buildings around was built. A unique pattern of tiles lies within the heart of the market, which can only be seen once you pass through the stalls at the sides of the entrances. The pattern resembled eyes and a pair of butterfly wings. There were also benches around the centre; that’s where most of the residents gathered and chatted with each other.
The stalls in the market were arranged in two circular layers, with one near the edge of the market, and the other much closer to the centre. The diameter of the market was around two hundred meters, which provided an ample amount of space for different stalls to set up and still allow people to comfortably amble around. Almost all the stalls are comprised of one or two tables with the vendor’s goods placed on it. A majority of it sold food.
“Kizo, let’s start from here.” She tugged his shirt and they both started walking counter-clockwise around the market. Both of them were incredibly tempted to buy every food they came across as it has been so long since they ate anything that isn’t frozen or stuffed in a can.
“Travellers! Come and buy our signature meat skewer! Once you taste this juicy meat with our special hot sauce, you’ll know what heaven tastes like!” A wolf Demi practically shouted at the duo when they passed his stall.
“Ohmygosh meaaat!” She immediately went and stood in front of the grill, inhaling the savoury smell of the meat into her nose.
“Woah there, traveller. Don’t get to close or you’ll burn yourself.” Emily took a step back, her eyes still fixated on the meat.
“Where does the meat come from?” Kizo stood beside her, also staring at the grill.
“From our farm. We caught some goat-looking creatures a few years back and thought they might be a good substitute for the usual meat. However, we were wrong about it being a substitute. When me and a few other folks cooked and ate its meat for the first time, our taste buds ascended into Nirvana.” The Demi dramatically depicted his first tasting, “It was unlike anything we ever tasted, and I went to several five-stars restaurant before!”
“Sounds like it’s a must-try.” Kizo was amused by the vendor’s overacting.
“You betcha, traveller. No one has ever complained about these skewers. Heck! A few travellers even came back to this town several times just to taste these babies! Since I’m in a good mood, I’ll give you a discount, 5 skewers for 10¤.”
“Only 10¤? Guess the apocalypse is a good strategy to combat inflation.” He pulled out a worn-out 10¤ bill and handed it to the Demi.
“It was pretty hard to reestablish the currency at the beginning. Took us around a year to settle the prices for most basic things between 4 towns, including us.” He placed the meat skewers on a plastic plate, then poured half ladle of thick, red-brown sauce from the pot, sitting beside the grill, onto the meat before giving it to the duo, “If you don’t mind, could you finish those here and give me back the skewers and the plate when you’re done?”
“I don’t mind.” Emily snatched one of the delicious skewers and took her first bite at the meat.
Her mind went blank. The taste was so overwhelmingly pleasing to her tongue that she did not realiz she had consumed the rest of the skewer. She closed her eyes and clenched her fist, resisting the urge to scream out how unfathomably tasty it was.
“You okay, Em?”
“Haha, worry not my friend! That is the expression of a satisfied customer. Go ahead and try one traveller.”
Kizo opened up his visor, picked up one up, and chewed. The vendor refrained himself from asking why did the human wear a Kitsune mask inside a helmet.
That moment when the meat landed on his tongue, its divine taste blown his mind away. It reminded him of the scenes in a food-themed manga he read before the apocalypse. He devoured the rest like a whirlwind.
“I now understand why you said people are willing to come back to this town just to eat more of these.” Emily licked the plate clean.
“Like I said, the taste will bring you straight to heaven. You’re pretty lucky today, traveller. Usually, people would stand in lines so long that I’ll be sold out before noon!”
The duo takes another one and ate much slower this time, to savor its taste, “Why isn’t there a line today then if this is so popular?”
“Not just today, it’s been three days since I had a line that long. I heard there is a pack of devil hounds chasing away anyone that tried to enter the town. Those bastards aren’t easy to kill either. With their speed and strength, you’ll be dead before you could scream. It’s why the guards have been delaying their extermination plan; they haven’t made one that doesn’t involve any of them suffering heavy injuries. Say...how did you two manage to get into town?” The Demi narrowed his eyes.
The duo turned to each other, then looked back at the vendor.
“We killed the hounds.” “It was pretty easy.”
He gawked at them, and then quickly closed his mouth, “You’re kidding, right? You two took on a pack of devil hounds without a scratch?”
“If you don’t believe us, you can ask the truck driver, Carl.” Emily tried to take the third one, but Kizo was faster.
“Carl? He’s back? He brought you two into town?” His eyes widened, his tail was stiff straight.
“Yeah. We didn’t even know there was a town under this huge tree until he asked if we want a ride in.” The tulpa glared at her host.
“THANK YOU TWO SO MUCH!” The tulpa and host were visibly startled by the Demi’s sudden outburst, his tail wagging at high speed, “I would hug you both, but it wouldn’t show my appreciation nearly as much. You two can take as much meat skewer as you want!”
“Really?!” Emily’s eyes shone in excitement.
“Is Carl supposed to be someone important?” Kizo raised his eyebrow.
“We have been waiting for him to bring us supplies from other towns, but he’s been a few days late. We thought he might’ve been in an accident, but it seems to be because of the hounds. They could’ve slashed the tyres and topple the truck.”
“I see.” Kizo eyed at the sizzling meat, “We’ll take ten more of these please.” He returned the plate and the empty skewers.
“With pleasure!” The vendor swiftly served up ten more meat skewers on a larger plate, “Just put the skewers and plates on the table once you’re done. I’m going to spread the news!” He quickly covered the sauce pot and the grill before dashing towards the northern part of the town while shouting “Carl is back!”.
“Do you think we might be a little too OP for solving a problem that the town guards couldn’t for the past three days?” They continued eating that delicious meat.
“I think it might be more on the fact that you’re a mage and I’m an experienced soldier with a powerful gun.”
“I still wouldn’t call you an ‘experienced soldier’. More like ‘a soldier that knows what he’s doing’.”
“So, an experienced soldier.”
“Yeah, yeah. Whatever.” They promptly finished their meat and puts the skewers and plate on the table.
“Soooo, where to next--”
“ATTENTION EVERYONE!” Emily covered her ear reflexively, “THE PACK OF DEVIL HOUNDS THAT HAD BEEN WANDERING AROUND THE TOWN ENTRANCE HAS BEEN EXTERMINATED. THIS IS ALL THANKS TO THE EFFORTS OF TWO TRAVELLERS, A MALE WHO WEARS A BLACK HELMET, AND A HUMAN FEMALE BESIDE HIM. THANK YOU, TRAVELLERS!”
Immediately, everyone in their surrounding set their eyes on the duo.
“ALSO, CARL IS BACK. HE’S THE ONE THAT BROUGHT THOSE TWO TRAVELLERS INTO TOWN. TRY NOT TO DESTROY HIS HOUSE AGAIN, OKAY? LIZ OUT.”
People began to cheer. Then, they started to crowd around the duo, thanking them. They got increasingly uncomfortable when more and more approached them as they tried to leave.
Eventually, someone shouted that they should give the travellers some space and shouldn’t bother them anymore. The crowd dispersed, and the duo was able to continue their tour around the market.
The duo was in for a lucky treat as Kizo doesn’t even need to pull out his wallet when they wanted to buy something because everyone insisted that they should receive a ‘gift’ from them as their gratitude for the trouble they had saved the town from.
Over the course of their tour, they had received free food, some are desserts and drinks, others were more savoury, like meat pies. There were a few stalls that sold non-essential items scavenged from the ruins, such as books and toys, and even they offered something to the tulpa and host. But, they declined, seeing that they can’t carry much when traversing the land.
However, Kizo changed his mind when he saw a fully functioning, high-quality electronic book. The vendor hesitated to give him such a valuable item, which was fine with him as he didn’t plan to accept that for free. He paid the vendor with a high price, and both parties separated in delight.
After an hour or so, they sat on the benches at the centre of the market.
“Man, how long has it been since I was this full? I’m going to miss this.” He gently slapped on his bulging stomach.
“Same for me, but even longer. I think the last time I was able to eat this much food was what, 2 years ago? Anyhow, I think I can handle a few more hours with this much tasty stuff inside me.”
“Circe’s gonna get pissed~”
“Nah, she won’t. She’ll probably have fun hanging out with the twins in Wonderland.”
“We should go to the broker now. Hopefully, those outside the Red Zone are as good as those on the inside.”
“We’ll see soon enough.”
Both of them stood up, hands holding, and headed towards their destination. They took their time too, slowing their pace to soak in the beauty of the ancient city and, occasionally, talked to passing strangers, especially kids.
When they arrived, the building was as the trader described, covered almost entirely in flowers, among other plants. If they didn’t know better, they would easily mistake the broker’s house as a fancy florist shop. Still, they couldn’t help but admire the beauty of this flowery structure. It was painfully apparent that the broker spent a lot of effort planting and taking care of these florae.
“This guy even have lilies.” Emily walked close to one and smelled the flower. She could barely remember the last time she saw a flower.
“Let’s go. Come on.” He tugged her arm.
The building resembled a shop more than a house, as evident by the fact that the front wall was not aligned with the end of the two side walls, but was rather positioned near the middle of the building, and there’s a stone counter at the left. There were two metallic tables at the middle and more than a handful of plastic chairs around them. There were two doors lead into the interior at each end of the front wall.
There’s a big sign at the middle of the wall with the words, “FEN’S INFORMATION BROKER AGENCY”, and a small note beneath it. When they took a closer look, it said, “If you don't see me outside, go through the left door and ascended the stairs. I’ll be in my room doing things. If you’re a traveller, don’t try to steal anything or you’re not leaving this town. Thanks!”
The duo entered the house and was greeted by a well-decorated living room. It was a stark contrast from Carl’s living room. The first major difference was the wall has a cartoonish, watercolor drawing of the ocean on its surface. The artist also included several sea life such as dolphins in their work. Pots of plants occupied many corners of the room floor. There were also elegant curtains covering the windows. Other than those features, the tables, chairs, cupboard, lights, and fans were the same. Emily wanted to examine the room longer, but Kizo dragged her upstairs.
The second-floor layout was nearly identical with the trader’s house’s, with one major difference. There were a large variety of plants in pots of different sizes on the hallway and the empty space in front of the stair. Even Kizo couldn’t help but to popped open his visor and took a deep breath, enjoying the fresh scent of the flowers.
However, his enjoyment was cut short as the broker decided to exit his room at that moment to see if someone was outside. Kizo shut his visor tight just before the stranger could see his mask.
“Ah, welcome travellers. My name is Fen, the one and only information broker in this town. How can I assist you?” The broker was an elf. His smooth skin was pale in a natural way, and his voice was silky and pleasing to the ear. He had a tied up long hair, which made him looked even more androgynous. He wore a black t-shirt with a band name on it, and a pair of short pants.
“I’m here to buy any and all information you possess. I have the money to pay for all of them.”
The elf was taken aback by his monstrous request. He stared uncertainly at Kizo, “You wish to buy all the information I have? Even those that might seem pointless?”
“Yes.”
“It will cost you far more than an arm and a leg. Not even the wealth of the entire town can purchase all the information that I own.”
“I have valuable information I can trade with you if you think I am incapable of paying.” The broke felt reassuring hearing such determination in Kizo’s voice.