A faint sound from nearby awakes me.

Without a trace of sleepiness in me I open my eyes while lying still against the tree's trunk, scanning my surroundings. It is dark around me, but not for much more time. A hint of the Sun's light can be seen leaving the mountains on the horizon in front of me. There is nothing abnormal in my field of vision compared to when I went to sleep.

Suddenly, among the nocturnal noise of some insects I hear a strangely muffled step, a little far to my right side. I silently get up from my sitting position and start chantlessly channeling Earth Lance and Fireball almost at the same time. After carefully peeking around the tree I search for the cause of the noise. I don't see anyone but then I hear it again, and more important, this time I saw what was it.

Not step but a hop. A small and fat creature with long ears and short legs hopping around is the origin of the strange sound. A smile escapes my lips.

Breakfast.

I uncast the prepared spells, the lost mana will regenerate in like half an hour and furthermore, they will be of no use right now.

The exploding bunnies are cheaters, after all. They have highly flammable hides; if they catch fire they become nothing but charcoal and ashes. Makes cooking them a little tricky, the meat is cooked very fast so it's easy to overcook it and end with a burned meal. Another characteristic of the exploding bunnies —as I call them— and that they share with a few other small animals from around here is that after being pierced in the stomach they suddenly explode. Probably because reasons. Maybe their farts are dangerous too.

Exploding, highly flammable, cheaters.

I wouldn't be surprised that if after being drowned or asphyxiated they somehow liberate something to poison their own meat out of pure spite.

The bunny is currently dumbly hopping around after short pauses, I have seen them run before, they are fast so, maybe it is hoping to scare insects out of hiding. Breakfast searching for breakfast. The natural law of the world.

After making sure that I am not the unaware breakfast of another creature I point to the bunny's head. As I haven't made any move until now, it hadn't seen me yet. It will not have any time to see me anyway, I insta-cast Boulder.

Without delay, a small, round rock materializes about four or five centimeters away of my finger and is shot at a relatively high speed; as fast as I could throw it with my arm, I think.

The rock hits the bunny squarely on the head and immediately drops to the ground, like a puppet with its strings cut.

Success!

It seems I never fail a spell as long as I aim with my arms or hands. My shots are deadly precise if aimed like that but on the other hand, if I aim only with my will, as I can do with the modified spells, the precision varies greatly. I should practice more the spells' aim without moving at all.

I don't need to use my arms at all because I think that the spell matrix's mana is channeled and formed in the mind and not physically in the body. Like that the use of arms isn't necessary even though they facilitate the use of mana. Another way to see it is why I can simultaneously channel two spells at the same time, not because I have only two arms, but because that is the current limit my mind can manage.

The body could also potentially interfere with inactivated magic spells as clothes do to a certain degree, and in more extreme cases, as they are stopped or dispelled by metal. That is something I don't know much about, though.

After stretching my body to cast away my reluctance to move after just waking up I take the black bladed knife from where it's fastened between my clock and my left arm, taking it by the handle and leaving the sheath still fastened there.

Mm, I will need to hide both the clock and knife when I enter the city.

I walk to the bunny's corpse and with practiced ease —because I did practice a lot— I cut its fur with the tip of my humbly made knife.

Although I can skin it fairly good, at least in my opinion, I don't know much about the insides of an animal. I can recognize some things like the stomach or the heart but I just mostly salvage whatever seems edible enough and leave everything else behind.

I am aware that I might have been leaving good parts behind, especially when harvesting monsters for valuable parts, but there is nothing I can do about it now but to cry bitterly about the losses and learn to make it right in the future.

I sigh, then go to grab some tree branches to burn and cook the meat using a stick.

Oh, how I miss the food that the Elder's wife made. Now I know why anyone would want one of those.

After eating I prepare everything to head out and start to think of how to approach the city with a calm mind and full belly. I can't rush inside and hope for the best like back in that Village. And I won't always have the time to think everything carefully like right now.

Let's see. I arrived at the city, Arminum, according to the Elder, like ten hours ago. I was awed by the sight of the city walls. It was my first time seeing ones and I wasn't really expecting to see ones there, it's something I wouldn't have expected unless someone warned me beforehand. Of course, that the walls being there makes sense, I have read about walled cities many times but in my mind, they were like fantasy. Back in town, there weren't walls because the Shield more than made up for them.

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Arminium's walls have the height of two-story-tall buildings. The Sun had started to set when I first saw them at the distance. The road goes around the north side of the city because there isn't any gate on the eastern side. After an hour of following the road around the city, I finally got to a gate. It was closed. A couple of carriages and a dozen persons were camping a distance away from the gate at one side of the road.

I didn't approach them. I supposed that the gates are closed at night and opened again in the morning. As every other night, I walked an hour away from the road before going to sleep at the base of some tree.

The Elder said that the city was about two weeks away on foot but I arrived in five days. I have become aware that I walk faster and for longer times than before. I was stronger than the Elder too. The only explanation that comes to me is the skill I copied from the Minga finally having a noticeable effect. Without using inner-mana their strength and resilience were higher than many others monsters using it. They were even almost as fast as Curite.

Right. I need to hide some things before entering the city. Wouldn't be good to be robbed blind as I enter for the first time by some pick-pocketer. I take off the clock and knife and hide them in my cloth stash, fastened around my stomach and back. There is something else to hide. I open the backpack and retrieve a little bag-like piece of animal hide, tied closed by some roots. Inside is the glowing rock, something like that would draw tons of attention, even if it is anything but a decoration. I hide it in the stash too.

The fur cloak now, should I enter the city while wearing it? It seems like it will attract unnecessary stares. I Better carry it around folded under one arm, it doesn't fits in the backpack and the bags the Elder gave me with the bread are too small.

I am wearing the outfit that the elder Ralph gave me, I dropped my old shorts a few days ago and put on these brown pants. I have a white shirt with short sleeves, brown shoes, and no sockets. I look the village boy part. There is a little problem though, they are badly made, after a few days of use the fabric is starting to get loose. I will need to get a new change soon.

What else? Keeping the fact that I am a mage hidden as long as possible is a given, even I know what 'keeping an ace under the sleeve' means. I need a place where to sleep in the city, a safe one too. The Elder told me to ask the merchants for a recommendation for an inn after selling them the monsters' parts.

They will ask other kinds of questions too. Like how I did get all those parts or if I am alone or not. I don't think that revealing that I am alone is a good idea. Better safe than sorry. I will bluff my way there. Now, to get there I will ask for directions to the guards at the gate themselves.

They probably will ask for the fee to enter the city. If they ask for it I will give it, if they don't then all good. If they ask for more then I will naturally head to another gate.

I think that now I am ready, or at least as ready as I can be. My ultimate objective, for now, is to get a safe place to sleep, I will think of the following after achieving that.

I take off the cloak and put on my backpack, after instant-casting a Clean spell a single time I head in the direction of the road and city.

An hour later the gate appears in my vision again. It's open now and last night's camp is gone. I walk directly to the gate and at the same time that I arrive, a carriage that was leaving being pulled by a pair of horses stops in the middle of the entrance. A well-dressed man is driving it, he starts to talk about something with a guard but I don't stop to listen, I keep walking my way around the other side of the carriage, through the gate and enter the city. I keep walking, as naturally as I can manage, expecting to be stopped by a guard at any moment to pay the entrance fee but I reach the first buildings without anything happening. I didn't see any other guard after I passed the gate and I am sure the guard and the driver of the carriage glanced at me as I walked over to the gate.

It seems I just saved a coin.

In front of me, there are people going about, walking fast and with purpose behind their strides, and there are others, walking with their heads down by the sides, they are all along the main road, that goes in a straight line. There is something different to back in town, something that reminds me more of the forest.

Oh, I know. It's the noise, there is an abundance of strange but harmonious sounds in the background. So many people talking and shouting, steps of feet and hooves in the pavemented main road and in the ground in the secondary ones. But even so, it doesn't seem to be cramped at all.

I step forward and then realize that I don't know where to go. I forgot to ask the guard at the gate for directions.

Should I go back?

I glance back and see that there isn't anyone there anymore. Ugh, whatever, I will get someone else to ask while I look around.

I start to walk, sightseeing. I wonder if there is a magic shop here? It will be good to learn new spells now that I don't have anyone to teach me anymore. The spells I know are pretty basic, after all. Finding a normal library would be good too, reading a book about the rules and laws of the Empire could come in handy. I don't want to commit a crime without even knowing what I did wrong.

"Get out of the way brat!" An angry shout wakes me from my thoughts as I walked and quickly jump to one side to avoid a horse-drawn cart from trampling me. The rider continued its way without stopping after just dropping a glare at me.

A strained smile appears on my face as I quickly resume my own way too. Maybe I should keep to the sides of the road like most people are doing. I look carefully at the buildings that I pass by. Some have big, transparent, windows that show goods in display, making it easy to figure out in what specializes each store. Most of them are workshops of some kind. Among them some are shoe stores, others sell tools, furniture, and a moment ago I even saw a jewelry.

One of the shoe shops has a price list written on paper stuck to the window from inside. I stop and read through it. Shoes of my size are listed as Boy standard shoe and priced as 5 s. Decim.

Decim? Is that the name of a currency? I thought it was just named Empire's coin. And if the 's.' stands for silver then those shoes must be very expensive. According to the Elder of the village, I only have a small silver coin.

Leaving the shopping for after I get some money I continue my way, this time looking for a guard or something similar to ask for the Merchants Guild. Soon enough I catch sight of three guards.

As I start making my way towards them, I suddenly feel something pulling the folded fur cloak that I am hugging under my left arm. I turn around and find a smiling man, tall and slender, black-haired and brown-eyed, with both of his hands firmly grabbing my cloak. I frown and ready myself to snatch it back as I change my grip on it but the words that escape his mouth leave me dumbfounded.

"Guards! Help! A rat is trying to steal my cloak!" Filled with righteous anger, his words puts a pause at the people going around in our surroundings. I turn my head to look at the guards I was heading to and see them rushing in our- no, in my direction.

The fuck?