Chapter 9

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The capital of one of the continent's strongest states and not the world's last hegemon inspired more respect than any other Alurei city I had visited. First and foremost, oddly enough, was the size of the city itself. It was nowhere near the size of Moscow or New York, but it still beat the average millionaire by a minimum margin. Especially when you consider the suburbs, the personal estates of the imperial aristocracy located near the Eternal, the territories of the Guilds and Orders, formally considered states in the state, and other pieces of land that constitute all that is famous about Eternal.

When we emerged from the teleport, we found ourselves in the central part of the capital, in a rich and presentable shopping and administrative district. The others don't need teleportation rooms, and they don't let poor people live in such neighborhoods. Our point of arrival did not impress me with the beautiful and, at times, overly pompous buildings, the clean streets and expensive shops that looked more like small fortresses, the rich clothes of the occasional passerby, or even the very frequent carriages or palanquins that flew by. No, the respect was inspired by a rather serious network of enclosed fields, which seemed to cover the entire block.

Nothing harmful, and against the background of the same Stone, not powerful enough, but these thoughts passed as soon as I realized the territory covered by magic and calculate the cost of energy and human mage hours to install and maintain all this, to feel a certain respect for other people's work. The barrier could track both the death of an intelligent endowed (and not only endowed) within its boundaries and any noticeable use of costly magical techniques, not necessarily even combat ones - especially since combat ones would light up three times stronger - and make some interference with subtle techniques. All sorts of thieves, with their love for limited spatial manipulation and teleporting other people's money right out of the owner's purse, it's harder to work in such places, as if at once lost a dozen levels. And the spy classes have a hard time keeping their disguises.

The composition was completed by the carefully concealed, even from clairvoyance, ability to send a powerful spell at the alarm signal from a very long distance. Not that it was so well hidden, but it would be hard for ordinary people, or those who didn't look too closely to see, to spot such a setup beforehand. Especially if you don't know about it beforehand.

And it was only one completely general field, covering exclusively neutral street territories. And almost every building here already had its defenses. Not necessarily as cool, but individual and much denser due to the uniform coverage of a relatively small area. The richest houses really could be considered small, and often not small at all, fortresses, which should be taken by a small army. Or even not small, yes.

And this isn't the Aristocratic Quarter or the Imperial District. It would be a lot more fun there. But we don't need to be here right now. We could get a room at one of the local hotels, but it would be too expensive for our legend. I mean, maybe not expensive, but usually such spending attracts unwanted attention. And we drank up our share of the "joy" back in Tavimark, so it's not like we have anything else to celebrate.

Of all our company, only two of us were able to keep poker faces and not stare around, Hestia and me. And, I suspect, only because my skills and her physiology allowed me to perceive the picture without turning our necks. Personally, at least for me, the sphere of shadows was almost completely silenced. Yes, the lights were frequent, and yes, some houses were not fully visible and interfered with, but I got the main picture in an uninterrupted stream.

We had to hire a roomy rickshaw to avoid walking like fools. There wasn't enough room for everyone, which made Taria, who sat on my lap, the happiest of all. Hestia's gaze was still unreadable, but she was clearly bemoaning herself for not having thought of it first. It was understandable, given her temper.

It was a long ride, and they even changed the rickshaws for us (yes, horses and other animals were allowed into rich neighborhoods in limited numbers, so we were driven by muscular men, not pink horses) because the previous ones were either tired, or it was no longer their neighborhood. It did not bother me much, and it was easy enough to keep up a conversation. Even Losius, always trying to remain unperturbed, was quite impressed by the beauty of the Eternal.

By the way, one of the rickshaws was reeking of disdain for us. Classic contempt for the "newcomers," you know, just distilled. Honestly, this emotion from a level 6 rickshaw, working as a horse, did not make me angry but amused me and made me laugh. What do people think of belittling those around them and not seeming like losers in their own eyes? I know it. I can see it because I'm just as much of an asshole myself.

I wasn't joking about the asshole, for understanding is understanding, but it's too tempting to make a joke about someone who thinks mean things about you. My vessel of essence is full to the brim, full of healing aspects and concepts. The cure, however, is itself a poison. This is not as categorical a truth concerning essences as it is with earthly pharmaceuticals, but mastery allows for all sorts of things. By mixing even exceptionally positive concepts like healing or renewal correctly, you can grow a bunch of tumors or completely renew brain cells, making a person a zucchini.

I still wasn't crazy enough to kill for having bad thoughts, so I limited myself to exhaling a golden cloud from my mouth, so thin that it was impossible to distinguish without a heightened perception. Control of the essence allowed the cloud to be directed at the rickshaw, causing it to settle on his skin. Now he'll have a hell of a buff for the next week. Any food will be digested many times faster, no poisoning will be possible, and his overall health will only improve. Well, at the same time will attack wild and incredibly fast artillery diarrhea, along with increased hunger. The main thing for the man is not to forget to drink plenty of water so as not to get dehydrated, or it will be a shame.

Leaving the hospitable transport, we even threw a coin for a tip, as should be the ideal customers.

The second time I walked, I caught something that had been hovering on the edge of my awareness since my first moments in this city. The Eternal was really very old. Ancient, even. The catacombs beneath it were many times larger and more intricate than those in Tavimark, literally, and a large part of those catacombs were streets and houses that had gone underground and forgotten mines from the days when the capital was under construction, and only under them were unscrupulously old buildings, like the ones that had been in Tavimark.

The city stood on its bones. Just as human skin peels away and turns to dust, so Eternal stood on a mound of such dust. It's a paradise for the clairvoyant wishing to pump up their profile skills. But one could look for something concrete in this maelstrom of times gone by until the end of time.

As we wandered through the streets of the residential neighborhoods, peeking into individual inns and taverns or simply admiring the scenery, I slowly and surely guided us to our intended destination. A couple of times, I gave small coins to local children or passersby in return for information about the next place where people like us would be easily accommodated. Once, I deliberately allowed us to be tricked. A faded ferret-looking little man deliberately gave us false directions. Later we "accidentally" come to the same Susanin, who prudently planned to go farther away. We kicked him in the teeth, took the money, and kicked him in the teeth again, just as providentially without waiting for the guards.

According to legend, Susanin was the name of the peasant who volunteered to be a guide for the invading army and then led them to the swamps, where they perished. So it's a nickname for someone who gives wrong directions or leads somewhere wrong.

Only a few hours later, I let us approach the person who I sensed could give me exactly the advice I needed. I was right because it was a really good option. It was just right for someone who wanted to settle down well, inexpensively, and without attracting unnecessary attention.

A spacious two-story house in a fairly decent neighborhood was empty because its owner had moved to a nicer neighborhood. Man wisely did not want to sell his real estate in the capital, even if he and his family no longer lived there, preferring to rent it temporarily. The previous tenants were adventurers like us. They had moved out only two days ago, and no new tenants had been found.

We were found.

Negotiations with the owner, who, by the way, was quite officially considered one of the prospective appraisers and antiquaries of the Adventurers' Guild, went quickly and evenly with as many rough edges as I wanted initially - to make the situation look natural. Our status as newcomers, having only just gained membership, of course, embarrassed the poor man, but not too much. His past clients, and the ones before that, had been figures just like us: already established teams who had joined the Guild for preferential treatment. He could've gotten into trouble because some of them were dishonest, and that suspicion of spies pretending to be adventurers wasn't born out of anything. Take us, for example.

The house was rented, along with a small courtyard with a training ground made especially for his clientele and servants. Not many people could afford such a house, but, as I said, the man was lucky to meet such adventurers - seasoned, well-to-do, and eager for peace of mind and the absence of prying eyes and ears.

The servants were three women - a pretty widow and her two nieces. All three were quite aware of what the brave adventurers might demand, and they were not at all opposed to it. They were also very good at keeping their long ears to themselves and knew that if they were told not to go into a certain room or go into some chest, then that was the right thing to do. Don't go in and stay out.

Apparently, we are going to spend quite a lot of time in the capital, and it would be better to spend it in comfort. I would certainly like to believe that I will take all the clues I need right now and have this world rid of Yoke and retire by tomorrow. But I have this suspicion that just probing the Eternal Library's defenses will take many months.

The first thing I had to do, alas, was not to get access to the damn book depository, which, even for money, was not easy to get. Or rather, we could do it, but we would have to pay so much that I almost born a typical isekai toad in my soul. And we hadn't spent so much effort on being members of the Adventurers' Guild for nothing, had we? We even completed two full-fledged contracts, albeit frankly unrewarding and unprestigious.

The guild's metropolitan branch was not a combat branch in the full sense of the word. The main mass of fighters rustled on the border with the frontier, where they could work, get paid, and have free reign and a part-time job. Inside the Eternal walls were groups of analysts, scribes, and chroniclers (the Guild of Adventurers of the Eternal Empire is one of the oldest and richest), artifactors and potions-makers, sitting on a gold mine of treasures mined by adventurers, ritualists, and antiquaries and other public, for direct combat is not intended.

That didn't mean the Guild didn't have any fighters here. No matter how many of them were squeezed out of their home areas, leaving the soft and tasty underbelly unprotected was a stupid thing to do. Another thing is that they wouldn't let us into the ranks of these thousand-times-tested wolfhounds. Well, if we tried to join their ranks.

The central branch of the Guild wasn't a separate mini-fortress, as the same trading houses liked to do, but an entire block, fenced in and carefully guarded by a tireless guard. I could see heavy golems, though, not Dwarven ones, but also several spatial folds with undead warriors, a dozen anchors for summoning powerful spirits or elementals, and a hundred or so select undead tucked away under the sidewalk. The guys sure knew how to be paranoid.

They welcomed us without much hospitality but also without negativity, even though they took note of the suspicious company. The girls also attracted the unhealthy attention of some colleagues, but no attempts were made to "get acquainted" - in these walls, there were girls who could replace, if not an army, then a full-fledged garrison. If you slapped a girl like that on her luscious ass, it would be easier to paint you than to scrape you off the walls.

The boy guide assigned to us carefully showed our group the way. Apparently, the provincials, of which the guild was in the majority, managed to get lost so often that it was easier to get a squad of boys, most often the relatives of older workers, to escort the guests. There was an opportunity to unobtrusively drag us through the sensors on the walk route and to reduce the likelihood that we would "accidentally" go where we shouldn't.

The disguise was working quite well, though I was already thinking I should create Shadow Helper again, just to be on the safe side. Especially for Hestia. Though if they did uncover her, they'd be pretty fucked up. Intelligent monsters and creatures, if they had the talent to infiltrate human society freely, certainly didn't try to visit (voluntarily!) places where they could be easily recognized. Places where those who are used to killing such creatures and making a living from it gather.

When we piled into the small lobby, somewhat subtly reminiscent of the waiting rooms of the communal services of our native Earth, we all sat down on fairly comfortable chairs and waited. There were plenty of people besides us, even if there weren't enough of them to create an "ophthalmologist's line" effect. But still a small crowd, both singles and small, like ours, groups of specialists.

The levels are about the same as our masks. From the twentieth to the twenty-fifth. Classes are rare and unusual, only two have quite serious epics, and both owners of such classes are captains of their teams. One was a twenty-sixth Blade Master, looking like a typical Viking, only not with an axe but with a sword, which is obvious. The other was a mage, Spellcaster of Thunder of the twenty-fifth. A slightly overweight man with an absent gaze seemed to be asleep with his eyes open. If it weren't for clairvoyance claiming that he was assembled and ready to burst into action at any moment, I would have even believed such a disguise.

"Dear Grzegorz, please go down the corridor." Next time it was me who was called. "They are waiting for you."

They are called, by the way, not in order of line but according to some algorithm known to them alone. Maybe they were even pointing fingers or throwing coins. I would not have been surprised by this kind of rudeness. Although, it's probably because we registered in advance and settled all possible issues back in Tavimark rather than going straight to the capital to sign a token contract. We, who had somehow proved ourselves, were treated differently, even if only in small ways.

The interrogation was not an interrogation but rather a polite conversation. The receptionist, a manly lady with an administrative class, told me straight out she had a couple of acquaintances in Tavimark, so she was interested to know what the hell was going on there. I even answered to the extent of my mask, managing to enlighten her about the fate of her dear grandmother. It was a good thing she'd asked me about her and not Taria because my companion remembered that Combat Scribe for a long time, and she would have liked to do her disappearing act at the bottom of some river.

After this heart-to-heart talk, during which I wasn't even scanned, I was handed back my badge, which had already been magically imprinted on our permission to stay in the capital, confirming that I belonged to the Guild. Yes, yes, ordinary slackers who came to the Eternal looking for fortune preferred to be kicked out of the gates or driven to the slums. Or better yet, not allowed through the gates into the Upper City at all. It's just we, as portal users, were transported here at once, so they didn't bother with us at first.

"Then call the next one, if you don't mind." The receptionist asked me just as politely but a little warmer. "Which one? It's up to you."

I sent, of course, Losius as the most polite one. Otherwise, Hans would make a dirty joke, and so would I. I didn't want to spoil relations with an official who seemed to be sympathetic to our group. And I should certainly instruct Taria not to insult the official's beloved grandmother by accident.

"And how?" Hestia, who had already received her mark, asked Taria from the position of her head on the commander's strong shoulder. "Have they tried to pressure you?"

"Nah, she's all right." The dancer answered, batting her eyes, but under the friendly gaze of the crew, she gave up and answered more fully. "Well, I couldn't take it anymore and verbalized her grandmother, the old bag of goblins to chew on. And this Dyrrha wasn't even surprised, just clapped me on the shoulder and said, "Welcome to the list of those who want to kill this bitch". She even complimented me on the fact that very few people dared to say a word against her. And all the young and beautiful, or at least younger and prettier than herself, the hag is bulling. Or, according to Dirra, she's testing them. Bullshit."

All Hans can do is whine quietly into his sleeve about another "joke" of Taria, who can't keep her mouth shut on a purely conceptual level. What if it were really the administrator's favorite grandmother? I would have tried to tell her all this, but I didn't. At least because the girl was second to me in the ability to feel the interlocutor, and in some aspects, even first. I didn't go into the family relationships of the guild clerks with clairvoyance and Taria without clairvoyance, was able to read the situation, and seem to have become even closer friends with this Dyrrha. They even used names, which hinted, if not at friendship, at a buddy relationship.

"Don't tell it, Taria, don't tell it." Losius, who has understood about as much as I have, answers his companion with a kind of thoughtfulness. "It's an old prejudice, but many believe women have no place among adventurers. I was a digger, after all, and these units are something like small and very narrowly confined guilds. One of the senior officers of an allied squad we sometimes worked with was famous for some..."

"He was a jerk!" Hans interrupted, barely able to control the urge to spit on the waiting room floor. "The girls in his squad, the new girls, he used to bully just like that. Even to the point of trying to squeeze them into the corner against their will. If they couldn't fight back or tell him to fuck off, they had to give up their place in the squad. He was bragging, too, like he was testing toughness, bitch. To me, he liked to see the tears and fear. He was held up because he was an officer and tactician of the best, and he had some kind of title that allowed him to bring down ghosts and spirits without silver dust."

In response to an expressive rebuke from Hans, who had been in the same squad a lot longer, Losius was quiet for a while, as if he hesitated to speak. If I know anything about him, he didn't want to reveal someone else's secret, but he overcame that reluctance.

"I've only heard rumors from other officers." He began slowly and quietly but confidently. "He joined the diggers from the Adventurers' Guild, though you know that yourself, Hans. What he didn't tell was that his partner, I wouldn't say she was his sweetheart, but there had been some sort of connection between them, not necessarily intimate... His partner was roasted alive by a tribe of some savages, almost before his eyes. After that, he went into archeology, joined a large detachment, and, it seems, got used to it. So he began to push out every kind of lady out of his fiefdom and was always strictly against hiring any woman, even on a temporary contract. I don't know how much of this was natural squeamishness and pettiness or spite and dislike, but I do know that any rapist or killer of women, even if one had been on holiday in town, he, if not cut up on the spot... all of them either didn't stick around or mysteriously disappeared. Such is the revelation."

Hans was silent for a long time, wrinkling his face in disbelief and incomprehension, obviously trying to fit the information into his picture of the world. He knew Losius too well to disbelieve his words, but he believed his ears and eyes no less, so he tried to compare the available data from all sides.

"I know that Rangmaz and his moles didn't keep any scum... And that they strangled all the thugs in their ranks themselves." The tracker began less confidently. "But I've never heard of that freak's past, and every dog was talking about the girls he raped in every corner."

"Should that be surprising?" Losius didn't even raise an eyebrow at that argument. "Con Athor treated them like the worst of whores, rudeness and humiliation at every opportunity, and in the duels that he was occasionally called upon to fight, he spared only life but not pride or health. He could very well have been slandered, and if he followed his logic, he only supported such rumors - then girls and women would not go under his command. In fact, in recent years, they did not even appear as part of the Moles."

"You know, Losius, I may not have been invited to your officers' parties, but I know one thing for sure." Hans has heard other people's opinions, but he hasn't had much effect on his own. "If someone looks like an asshole, acts like an asshole, and all his deeds are also assholes and end badly, he is an asshole, even if he had some pure motives there. That's all."

While the two of them were arguing, Taria leaned against me on the other side, falling out of the conversation between the partners. And leaning against the isekai's strong shoulder, she whispered in my ear... not a romantic, airy sweetness at all. Rather it was the vital alertness of a bandit, accustomed to expecting a trick from everything.

"Is it okay for us to talk about our past out loud like this?" She said with a single breath, not letting on that she was speaking at all. "There are a lot of spells, and there might even be some listening ones. Hestia told me about them, and she knows more about magic tricks than I do."

I could barely keep my bored face in check, suppressing a smirk. Taria's right, though, and showing her skepticism now would be an insult. And the fact that she couldn't be seriously offended by me, even theoretically, didn't change anything.

"They are here, just not active," I answered just as quietly, inaudible, using the stolen shadow to transmit my words directly to her ears. "There are so many people in the room right now that only a very good sensory spell can make out a solitary voice. They can stand in offices, but they can't record what's being said 24 hours a day - just imagine how much listening there would be to do. And the artifacts that have embedded spirits, which themselves sift out all the trash, leaving only the important, will not be used against us. And most importantly, I'd sense perfectly well if someone decided to turn on even that wiretap they put in the reception hall for the not-so-cool newcomers."

Taria silently digests what she has heard, wrinkling her pretty face a little at the way my words are transmitted - a very, you know, peculiar feeling of such shadow broadcasting. But the silent Hestia, to whom I duplicated the same conversation out of pure politeness, comes to life.

"I suppose you are now also erasing our conversation in the subtle realms, hiding words from the unseen eye?" There's a subtle academic interest in the question, not idle curiosity. "Just in case someone does decide to check our identities on all levels?"

"Yeah." I agree. "Only I don't erase them. I distort and replace them, making them unimportant and blurred. A piece of the past wiped clean is suspicious and can attract attention."

The woman nods contentedly, having satisfied her curiosity. She's been quite busy lately opposing all sorts of clairvoyants. It makes sense since these guys are a natural counterargument to her gifted talent. A good seer has a chance to sense her influence before she manages to secure territory, if not before she tries to secure it at all. Mist is good at obscuring both the past and the future, but Hestia would like to close the vulnerability not only through the monster's talents and the aid of an a priori hostile realm but through her own efforts as well.

Hans, on the other hand, took regular lessons from me in the use of stealth, a skill he had developed with his second class. It was a shame our powers were so different because The Shadow was better at covering and hiding me than Hans was at hiding his Trails. But he's a virtuoso at hacking into stealth, calculating invisibility by indirect influences on the reality around him.

We sat in the guild for another half hour until our unit was listed in the capital's adventurer registry and issued the necessary certificate. It was a certificate that, if anything happened, would have to be shown to the guards if they decided to nag at us. Our rank does not grant special privileges but allows us to use the services of the guild's specialists with an insignificant surcharge. It's insignificant, but it's still less than for complete strangers.

It's not clear about the library pass - a lot of people want to get in there, and the queue is long. The guild has its quota of specialists sent there, and for good money, you can easily be attached to a group of such specialists. They will go to look for their requests (most often for some ancient artifacts, ruins, or other monuments of bygone times, which the field teams were able to extract and drag in a relatively complete state) and those who have been grafted already theirs. Probably on the same topics, but for themselves.

Hints that if we failed or the search proved too long, expensive, and tortuous, the guild would be happy to buy our secrets were given only once and never brought up again. Polite people. The statistics are such that naive fools with a legend like ours, thinking they've found the secret of omnipotence and all that's left to do is decipher it correctly, come here so often that they don't even get counted.

The main thing is not to find yourself in these fools.

Sitting in a rented cabin all alone, one can understand quite a lot. While my team was spending their allotted gold and walking the colorful streets of Eternal, all I could do was lie on the bed, chew raisins, and spit at the ceiling. No, I was invited, but for some reason, I didn't want to have fun. And I didn't even want to have my favorite kind of fun, the way I'd spent my time in Tavimark, even though there were plenty of interesting stories in the capital. And there were even more interesting stories to be set up!

And yet, Kostya was lying on the bed, squeezing the old mattress, made of stalks of some special grass, which made it very comfortable to sleep on. The story of how the owner of the cabin we rented got possession of these mattresses, along with a small chest of silver and a scar on his left buttock, might have been remarkable if not for this strange feeling that never stopped eating at me for a second.

I didn't even try, as I did in Tavimark, to read the city with clairvoyance. I could easily have been exhausted because the protection from the seers was incomparably better, the volume of secrets was terrifying, and I wasn't in the mood. And I could have easily shown up on the radar of other seers, not necessarily Weaver, who also gathered here like fleas.

But.

Even without reading the city, without listening to the echoes of other people's dreams, without searching for lost secrets in the maze of reflections, I could not stop experiencing that strange and annoying buzzing above my ear. Not the pounding in the base of my skull of the march of the wrought iron boots of the lost, but like a mosquito itch, not even above my ear, but far, far away, perhaps in the next room, at the very edge of audibility. When you don't even know if someone is really itching there or if you're just imagining things. It's like you're almost asleep, and you can't tell if the sounds are coming from your dreams or if they're real.

It was just incredibly annoying.

And then, on another grape seed spit out into the ceiling, it was as if I caught something else. It was just as indistinguishable, incomprehensible, and imprecise, not grasped by ordinary clairvoyance but still too real to be fiction. This time, my consciousness interpreted the sensation not as a sound but as an odor. It was like an extra note in an exquisite perfume - imperceptible behind the main bouquet but spoiling the bouquet.

I got out of bed, threw on my trusty cape, and stepped out onto a small balcony. It's nice to watch the empty streets from here or even the full ones, counting the occasional passerby and drinking tart wine with honey and spices. At least, that's how our landlord used to spend his evenings here until he changed his place of residence.

The first drops of melted snow fell on the back of my neck, and it was already sliding off the roofs, turning back into the water. The coldest months were long gone, and there had been no storms or blizzards for a long time, not even in Tavimark. Eternal is in much warmer climes than Tavimark and Arenam. It's rather surprising that Eternal has had so much snow and such a harsh winter since they're usually much milder.

It was at that moment that I realized what it was that had been hanging on the edge of my consciousness for so long. I had almost lost the thread of thought when a whole layer of wet snow moved off, showering my uncovered head with cold and moisture, but somehow, by some miracle, I still kept it afloat. The thought was simple enough that it wasn't so hard to get to, but not with clairvoyance. It was still silent, not indicating anything dangerous to me or my companions. Perhaps it was even giving out quite correct data.

The conclusion I drew was not at the expense of clairvoyance but more from the most basic aspect of the prophetic trance, which is exactly what requires complete concentration and specific conditions for activation. I didn't activate it, no, but I did make something out. Something from which my lyrical mood and lazy negativity were not lost or dissipated but still subsided.

Eternal smelled with the coppery tang of stale blood and the elusive hint of something putrid and sweet. It was a smell that hid behind the dust and the iron, all the shades of magic that had made their kingdoms in the Empire's capital, the subtle chime of cobwebs of foreign intrigue, and the quiet rustle of blades plunging into flesh. The problem was not that this foreboding was abominable or dangerous, not in any way. The same slave markets, execution squares, prisons, and dark magical guild kennels reeked far stronger, harsher, and more repulsive! But these glimpses were there, and I could feel them, discern them as easily as a legendary, charming, and very humble clairvoyant could discern them.

And the scent I had just smelled wasn't there.

Not even for me! With all my titles, my fancy characteristics, and my lovingly nurtured skills. Honestly, it could have been anything. It could have been some kind of covert Eyes operation covered up by a mythical artifact or even more than one. Or the personal intrigues of the imperial family, which certainly accumulated enough ways to hide their activities so that even all kinds of celestials do not pry into their affairs. A dome of secrets that covers the entire capital and deliberately obscures all lines of destiny that are connected to the individual plans and intentions of those who set up such a dome. The hypothesis is working and probably true.

But something in me didn't believe it would be that easy.

It's either intuition, paranoia, or my sad experience with the world, but I have an unfounded suspicion that something might go up in Eternal very soon. As if not in honor of my arrival in this sanatorium.

Three weeks passed in a kind of loop. We were settling in for the long haul, so I preferred not to spare any effort. Especially after I had barely smelled a revelation, which, on reflection, I could not consider to be a revelation at all, but an attack of paranoia. Clairvoyance sees a lot of things, and there's still a lot that doesn't discern, which also provides answers to questions, but this particular smell, the smell of sweet rot, seemed too important for me to discard.

I did not consider myself the center of the universe, knowing full well that while I was "adventuring," many more similar adventures were going on in the world. Eternal had stood for more than a thousand years, experiencing ups and downs, sieges, and storms. I would be a fool to believe they would try to destroy it by my arrival. Like, here you go, Kostik, fireworks, so as not to be bored. All I had was an unformed feeling that couldn't even be called a premonition.

Nevertheless, I prepared myself for something big to happen to the city and the empire right in front of my eyes. I was prepared for the possibility of a meteorite falling, a local Cthulhu awakening, or some other thing of comparable caliber. I didn't see it as a necessary outcome; I didn't have much faith in it. I was more afraid of my revelation, but I put that danger on the list of existing dangers. And in the plans I created, I calculated my actions based on this theory as well.

The team didn't stop having fun, but they had tempered their ardor in this endeavor. First of all, because they had already had time to rest from the incessant race through the lairs of all kinds of critters, considering them all as provisions. Levels and skills are undoubtedly very important, but the psychological fatigue of such a life goes nowhere. And even the comfort of living in the Abode of the Green Tits did not remove this fatigue completely. The second reason for the decrease in speed was pricing in the capital, tending from "expensive" to exorbitant "yes they f*cked" and even higher. It is not difficult to spend money, but if you do it all the time, it is also suspicious. Our legend, after all, did not allow us to earn really much.

An elite team of adventurers near forty, and they have some, can pay in gold instead of copper. Simply because these guys have long been beyond the concept of "earning" and "spending". The Guild will easily cover any of their whims just to keep such machines of death in their ranks. Anything they drink or lose at cards while they're out partying is easily recouped by the tasks they perform during their working hours. That is if you do not take into account the very high probability that these guys are simply occupying one of the leading positions in the Guild. And for such people in all worlds, the personal budget and corporate (national) budget have always been blurred into one fuzzy entity.

Our gang was elite, even by the standards of the Empire of the Ages. Not bragging, though I am bragging. I just stating the obvious. The hardest thing to do was to hold myself and my reactions. Knowing that you could kill that insolent clerk in three hundred ways before he could even open his mouth, but holding back and staying silent, not trying to respond to his jabs... is stronger than decency allows.

However, here we are all lucky: our levels were obtained rightfully, in hot and bloody battles, in the struggle for our own lives in various conditions. But they were obtained quickly, obscenely quickly by the standards of even the most rapid upgrade available only to very rich and noble individuals. That same Hans already knows his power. He understands its origins and limits, but he has not had time to cultivate arrogance and the ability to brag about this power, which appears in almost every owner of a level indicator over thirty-five.

Of all of us, only Hestia is accustomed to this status. And even then, at the bare minimum. It's easy enough for her to restrain herself. Losius, Hans, and I have not lost the ability to hold ourselves a little lower than our conceit. The only exception was Taria, who, while still a simple townswoman, was perfectly capable of looking at the world like a queen at shit. She had the skill of Pretense, more suited to a trained spy than an adventurer. She's probably the only one of us who can mimic the society she wants, besides me, even without clairvoyance, which she sometimes teases me about. Although I personally think that her acting talents have something in common with her intuitionist skills, which is why she manages to pick up her lines and reactions so accurately. I have the same thing with my provocation, which is becoming more and more like some sort of skill on the Way-to-Butthurt or the Path-to-Lulz.

In general, we were absolutely ordinary and unremarkable extras at this feast of life.

The main thing is not to be as unremarkable as a submarine in the steppes of Kazakhstan.

* * *

The web of events that shaped life in the capital was not only intricate. It was also well-protected. Few in Tavimark possessed the protection of seers, and seers themselves did not shine at all for the need of any particularly steep protection from them. Eternal, on the other hand, was the focus of the plans and aspirations of the powers that be. Not just the Imperials, but a whole lot of rivals and well-wishers who were curious about the circle of images that was going on here.

It did not reach the level of attention that I had witnessed after our adventures in the Stone, though. But even now, life was peaceful, flowing in its way and not promising much trouble! If such a density was typical of the usual routine, what would it be after some serious trouble? All the more reason to be cautious and three times more paranoid than usual.

I was very thorough in unraveling this web, which was uncharacteristic of me. I prepared a whole bunch of all kinds of potions just to aid and cure clairvoyants. I had prepared them before, but now I prepared what I had not had time to spend. I carefully camouflaged my position and workspace from the attention of the Dream. I made as many as three mirrors, none of which I did not buy directly, always getting them through a chain of accidents. I was also mentally prepared for the next portion of nastiness and filth that was sure to be poured out on me.

The latter was the truest and most dangerous to the psyche. There was plenty of filth in all its forms and manifestations. It wasn't even the sick bastards who regularly bought new slaves to replace the old ones, "spoiled" by entertainment, after which they packed the poor things into different containers. Not the maniacs and obsessives roaming the slums, who were still caught and crushed on occasion. Not all sorts of cults of all sizes and cruelty, not counting the solitary worshippers who had no cult behind them.

It was a wild, purple-tinged, gut-devouring frenzy of mortal cold that made all this crap so commonplace. How easy it was for a rich court shuffler to procure victims for his games with spiked whips and iron maidens. The fact that no one cares about the victims of another maniac who's slowly turning into a weak creature because he was so hungry in a hungry year, and there was no one else around to eat but vagrants like him, starving to death. That most of the cultists, having slaughtered another victim and covered their tracks, quietly exchanged their robes and cloaks for casual clothes and went to work among good citizens.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Truly, if you want to break a man's faith in humanity itself, just give him a similar ability. It wasn't even the bonuses to mental stability that helped me endure, though I would have gone crazy without them, but the rare sparks of those individuals who managed to retain some remnants of the kindness that is so rare in any era and any world.

In fact, there are very few good humans or non-humans. Few are capable of sincere kindness, selflessness, and nobility. But there aren't too many shitty individuals, either, to whom wishing death by drowning in a septic tank would be too mild a wish. The problem is that those who stand in the middle between these two extremes are not in a hurry to get involved in other people's problems, caring only about themselves. But they, like all people, are happy to pursue their gain. And being evil, alas, is too profitable to pass up that opportunity.

Some master of sacrifice who regularly turns the still-living criminals and slaves purchased by his magic guild into useful magical blessings, artifacts, and amulets is not necessarily an evil creature with nothing human in it. He's quite capable of controlling his class, doesn't dive too deep into it, and unlike one isekai guy, doesn't risk his soul for a bit of power. He is also quite sincere friends with a couple of his colleagues, loves his second wife and tolerates the first, cares about his heir, for whom a place in said guild is ready, and in general, if you look closely, he is a normal man.

Most of those who do that most commonplace evil have trivialized spitting on all those who are not them and their loved ones. That's probably why they pissed me off even more because they were justified in spitting. It was profitable. It was easier. They also wanted to live and to live well and not starve. There were dozens of competitors to take their place because everyone around them was doing, thinking, and wishing the same thing. Their rightness made the frantic growl of the involuntarily transformed throat be suppressed.

This whole parade of freaks didn't threaten me with anything scary. It's not a realm intoxication that threatens to dissolve your essence like sugar in hot tea. It's just a source for pumping misanthropy.

On the other hand, there were just as many other personalities, like Hans: honest men and workers, simple and living the way their mothers had taught them. Maybe they, too, would have been converted on occasion, but so far there had been no occasion. Yes, there were fewer of them among the rich, powerful, and influential, far fewer of them, but there were. People who simply lived and tried to survive. They are moderately greedy, moderately deceitful, moderately cruel, moderately petty, and equally moderately compassionate, honest, generous, and generous. They were always there. It's just that against the backdrop of black, it's so hard to distinguish the shades of gray.

And there were people whom he wanted to help against his will, despite the conspiracy. Well, Kostya helped as much as the conspiracy allowed. Light inspiration to the father of a large family, dreaming of becoming an architect, despite not too suitable age, social status, and class innkeeper. After all, he didn't dilute the beer, he didn't cheat the customers, and he even, oh, the horror, disposed of stale produce at the nearby pig farm.

And he really dreamed of becoming one who builds majestic towers and impregnable fortresses. He had dreamed since childhood, never forgetting for a moment. Even now, having celebrated his fortieth birthday, married his first daughter, and raised two decent sons, he spent his dark evenings studying expensive and hard-to-find textbooks, fiddling with the miniature models he collected in the barn attached to his tavern, improving his specialized skills, and not giving up hope for the best.

The stubbornness with which he pursued his goal, even though he knew how hopeless it was, was a nice touch. Level twelve is very cool for a simple city dweller, even a well-to-do one, but he has a good chance of not living up to level twenty-five when he will be able to choose the right class. But he is not discouraged, does not cry, and does not take his anger out on his family for the fact that his dream did not come true.

The determination shone so brightly that it made me want to squint my eyes closed in meditation. The man had no boosts of willpower or concentration, nor did he have a high level that would allow him to pursue his goal even with his legs torn off. He simply wished, trying to make the wish come true. I've encountered much stronger wills in others, but I've rarely seen such will go to someone like this man.

I could not fulfill his dream without revealing myself, even for a brief moment. I couldn't risk opening myself up. But I could make sure that one of the capital's middle-class architects accidentally turned the wrong way as he walked home. And he forced to make a circle, would stop by himself at a decent enough tavern to rest his legs and fill his stomach.

I could push the chain of events so that this very architect would decide to revise his personal notes on the next trade office being rebuilt to honor the owner's transition from the second to the first round of Trade Houses. He was not the chief architect there but only one of the assistants, but still important and useful.

In the same way, I could have made that grandfather - and he's in his sixth decade, which is cool for Alurei - drop the notebook right at the feet of the innkeeper walking toward him. I could make the innkeeper look at the notebook and give him the courage to comment on what he saw. The comment was not brilliant, even erroneous, but it interested Maitre Homarat with such unusual knowledge of the short-looking owner of the tavern.

Interest turned into a conversation, and the conversation turned into an interview, in which Bormat, nicknamed Walrus, did not pass with flying colors, but he passed. And Maestro Gomarat fired his distant kinsman who had annoyed him with his drunkenness and whom he could not find a replacement and replaced the hopeless fellow with this romantic of the big construction site. On the one hand, the apprentice architect, who grew up in a family of architects, had more pumped-up skills, even if he had not yet received a class because of the low level. But the Innkeeper's skills aren't much lower either, and neither has the right class. And the innkeeper is also naturally good at calculations and can easily organize the field kitchen so that the builders are cooked tasty, inexpensive, and do not steal. Part-time, so to speak.

By the evening of the same day, the father finally put the reins of the tavern into the hands of his eldest son, kissed his wife, and left for his new workplace. By the end of the week, he was confidently settled in and no longer aroused quite astonished glances, having proved his professional aptitude. Not at the level of a full-fledged architect, but even those who disliked him recognized him as an apprentice.

The rest is none of my business, but something tells me he won't let himself be hurt. Yes, he has no kinship privileges, but he is not a snot-nosed youngster from the academy who could have been kicked out. If you send him away, you'll go even further to show him the way. Anyway, I gave him a chance, and he didn't screw it up.

A different story happened to a young medicine girl who had just taken level sixteen. She was unattractive, if not ugly, and lost her parents and younger brother early in the blood fever outbreak that swept through the poor neighborhoods a decade and a half ago. It had happened because some assholes from the Healers' Guild had decided to conduct their experiments not in the Guild's well-protected laboratories or outside the city but in a small warehouse rented with the money left over from the purchase of consumables.

An ambitious healer, harassed by equally ambitious superiors, wanted to create a whole group of entirely new potions to help against several dangerous ailments. Not that these potions were cheaper, but they had a completely different composition, which would allow, in the event of an epidemic, not to create a shortage of a certain set of reagents. Alas, no matter how much he yelled in the interrogation that his competitors had caused the leak, he should have taken better care of his safety. The guild's laboratories were protected so well for a reason that the next contagion wouldn't leave it.

The Guilders were hit so hard back then that they are now four separate magical orders, even though before that they were a very old entity that had survived more than one attempt to strip them of their state guild status. No one cares about the poor. But the plague soon spread beyond the poorer districts. And the executions of everyone involved and not so much didn't help either.

The funny thing is that if the authorities had immediately ordered a mass prayer service in several churches, the contagion would have been scorched by a tactical divine miracle. Not immediately, not without losses, but it would have been scorched. It would not be easy to cover the entire capital, but no one prevented them from treating the area one block at a time. It was just that the authorities really wanted to squeeze the healers, and a good portion of them wanted to get rid of their superiors and organize their own personal guild, where they would be in charge.

The Eternal knew how to fight epidemics. It's just that no one was willing to do it at the time because they had more important and more exciting tasks.

And the little girl, who lost everyone she loved at once, devoutly wished that no one else would die, that sickness would not burn loved ones and loved ones alive, that corpse collectors would not walk the streets, and common funeral pyres would not burn. And the girl grew up, became a herbalist, and simply saved those she could save. Not asking for money, though a good healer and her class would easily earn it, except to buy herbs and the bare minimum of food, not asking for anything at all.

This story could not go on for long, for such talent must either be controlled or it must not disturb minds. To the healers' credit, they didn't give a damn about the illegal practice of the girl, who had no magic but healed mostly poor people who couldn't be paid anyway. A small favor, but they didn't touch her.

But the town's bottoms were quick to see what kind of fish they had and how much they could charge others for their services. Not everyone can afford a good healer, and not always because of the price. Some people just can't show their faces from poor neighborhoods if they want to live. That's the kind of clientele this ugly woman should be treating, not dealing with the poor.

She was ugly, but the boss, who was Godfather only in his dream, had not forgotten to give her to his boys for pleasure. Maybe not the smartest thing to do (she had to treat his clients and thugs), but that's how he used to break up stubborn women. Alas, these degenerates could only kill her. For that woman, who had long ago managed to bury herself along with the departed family, would have been strong enough for ten. But fear for her own skin, on the other hand, was not enough for her.

Kostik tweaked the odds a little, which made one of the boss's henchmen say something about which he should have kept quiet. The kidnapping of the unnecessary healer would not even be remembered, except for a few dozen men (or their families) cured by it, who would not storm the bandits. What Fathers do not forgive, however, are attempts to conceal income and too brazen hints that someone would have been a much more successful boss than the present Father.

That's just how they stormed the rookery. They didn't call for a show trial, as they usually do in such situations, but they showed their strength. After all, that fool was not only stealing but also troubling the water, so it was a good reason to scratch their fists. After scalping the former boss alive, Father, disappointed in him, went down to the basement. And after listening to the medic's story, in high spirits, he gave her permission to treat whoever she wanted. Well, given that she might occasionally be called in to treat some of the wounded thugs and for a normal fee.

This criminal knew exactly how useful it was to be friends with healers.

The miraculously rescued damsel did not react at all to the hardship, returning to work the same day she was released. If Walrus had a dream and a goal, this poor woman had nothing but that goal. But she was ready to go to it with such determination that only death could stop her, as it had once caught up with her family.

Such people were rare and memorable, and they didn't always need help, but they lifted my spirits in the best possible way. In the darkness and gloom that covered all of Alurei, any spark seems small and pathetic, but even such a tiny flame can provide a little warmth and light. It was important to me to know that there were those in the world worth saving.

Because I don't even want to know what I'll be the moment I decide there's nothing left to save.

My séances of knowledge were not limited to helping those who were suffering. Though of direct intervention only this very help, minimal and hidden from all sides, was available. The Soul of the Mocker had to be kept not even in iron gauntlets but in an iron cage, hidden in an iron safe, so I heroically refrained from jokes on any occasion or without it.

In the small, blank book I had bought, especially for this case, the complex scheme of the capital's interactions was gradually being drawn out. Yes, the defense here was good, and there were too many attentive glances, but I had a shitload of free time, enthusiasm, and skill. The web was unraveling, becoming part of the scheme.

To be honest, this small book was now worth somewhere around twenty-three or twenty-five of its volume in gold coins. Well, if there was someone who would really buy this book, rather than kill the seller and take it for free. What plans I had not uncovered, what intrigues I had not found, what lies I had not uncovered! I couldn't start a war but I could create countless local conflicts, thinning the Aristocracy, the Guilds, and the Trading Houses. Games of Thrones was very, very large-scale, cunning, and invariably sneaky.

It was not without its dangers. Though I am sure that if anyone detected my presence, they wrote it off as some of the rivals I was mimicking. The only chance of my presence becoming discovered was through the direct intervention of some deity, and a very direct, costly, and powerful one at that. No, there was still a chance that all the parties involved would reconcile simultaneously, reveal their archives to each other, compare those archives, and realize that there had been some murky extra visionary around. The version with divine intervention, if anything, is several orders of magnitude more likely.

There's not much work for adventurers in the capital, as I said before. The Guards, Magical Guilds, other government agencies, and Trading Houses, which always stand apart, run everything here in the capital. And, nevertheless, some sets of "quests" can be found here as well, although they were not in a hurry to be handed over to the Guilds.

The orders included those situations that were trivially outside the jurisdiction of the other parties or those that were issued by the guild itself. More often the latter. The fate of the support in magical circles for mages, roles of trainers for numerous newcomers who are recruited right here without waiting for the frontier, assistance to alchemists or even scribes and scriptors. Yes, yes, even newbies are allowed to haul documents and reports here if they want to earn their first order-fulfillment marks. Well, if the reports are old and do not have a seal of non-disclosure.

Right now, I almost didn't even have to cheat with clairvoyance because one of the orders was passed on to us without any help from me at all. The personality of our landlord, who was indirectly connected to the customer, had its influence. And then there was a group of bored professionals who were trained for a slightly different task but who could still solve the problem quickly and without long waits.

* * *

"My brother's not the worst Monstrologist in the Eternal." He complained to me, a stout man with a thick red beard and the cunning eyes of a professional profiteer. "Not a master of monsters, no, but more of a scholar. Well, you probably know, don't you?"

Losius nods importantly, as he knows the peculiarities of this class, honed in the study of all sorts of critters of the "monster" class. Not destroying or subduing them, which all kinds of monster fighters specialized in, but dissecting, examining weaknesses, learning their habits, and other little things. Not a fighting class, even if some of their abilities can be used in a conflict, but they do not need to fight.

"You know, he took the job on the house, boy!" One of the guild's buyers, caught in a bad situation, went on and on. "And the house is now locked with seven locks!"

The story turned out to be funny. Although if the situation had gone a little differently, it would have been bloody and terrible. To the merchant's house, whose entire second floor was occupied by his brother's chambers and offices, a monster was delivered, fastened and tightly bound, and drugged beyond all measure with narcotic potions. What's more, like every other monster within the city, the beast had a piece of controlling amulet strapped to a control rod implanted in its spine. A useful artifact that allows limited control of said monster even without the necessary skills. Only the behemoth, more often than not. Monsters are too smart for such a slave chain, and creatures are too otherworldly.

They weren't even going to kill the captive thing; they were just borrowing it to do a partial dissection. A good meal and a few potions would have cured the effects of being dissected alive. If it hadn't been for the drugs, which not only weakened the amulet's controlling charms but shifted the monster's consciousness so that the amulet's effect was almost null and void.

The creature, hallucinating and nearly banging its head into the walls, could not harm any of the households, but it drove everyone out of the house. And then it withdrew from the drugs it had taken, becoming dangerous. The wand most likely fell into disrepair, and if not, where exactly it is unknown, as it was abandoned in a hurry. Its only effect, which has caused the abomination not yet to take to the streets, is to tie it to a place. A subordinate creature cannot move too far away from the rod... yet. When hunger gets to it, it will overcome its already weakened subjugation.

And now a Woolly Gryzl is hiding somewhere in the house, just below level twenty. It is a beast of rare grade, sharpened for ambush hunting and very much adapted to work in tight caves and dens. Our task is to make sure the customer can return home quickly and without unnecessary noise.

"Understand, Grzegorz, it is not a problem to call the guards." This spiritual descendant of the Jews of Odessa convinces me. "Even on the huge fines I can put a big and thick... the case from the rod, yeah. The problem is that my brother has his Senior Master's defense in a week. He has already taken the right level, and the skills disclosed in sufficient measure, and the subject of his scientific fucking thesis is also good. Except he's still young, and there, until you go gray with old age, you can't even become a simple master. If the story gets out, they won't even let Forchan in the defense of degree. He will be reprimanded and demoted at once!

For the umpteenth time, I hold back a chuckle when I hear the name. It is physically impossible for me not to help a person with such a nickname because even I know the solidarity. All the more, we are paid very well, though a little below the price of the services of our level team, and just relaxing will not be superfluous from the word. The main reward for all of us should be a mark on the completed task, which has a slightly inflated rank. Just to cover the risks of haste and compulsory silence.

"Is that even legal?" Expressing mild interest. "Or rather, how illegal is it?"

The merchant's eyes didn't wink, and he didn't even try to lie, which is a plus in my eyes. He must have known that it was a bit reckless to cheat and frame people who made their living by killing particularly scary creatures. Although he might try to cheat or frame us, the suspicious newcomers.

"Limitedly legal, I'd say." Calmly he meets my gaze. "Your contract is entirely legal, and if it gets out, and people get hurt in the process, all the stones will be thrown at me and my brother. You'll get a ricochet, but the guards won't miss an opportunity to drink blood, and the guild can impose sanctions. What kind, I cannot predict."

If I hadn't had clairvoyance, I would have suspected a frame-up with an attempt to hang some debt, or a fine, or other obligations on a bunch of traveling boys and girls. It's not that this guy couldn't or wouldn't have wanted to do it, but he didn't have time to pull off such complicated schemes. If Gryzl got out of his house, there would be no time for tricks and attempts to save money.

"All right, we'll take the case," Losius answers for everyone, subtly sensing the moment.

I could go into more detail about exactly how this operation took place, but I don't see the point. Any one of us could execute such a target even alone, let alone in a group attack. Gryzl, who turned out to be a level twenty-four, didn't stand a chance from the start. He'd already managed to eat the meat in the cellar, tear up the stuffed animals and dummies, and just add a little chaos to the environment. He even had enough brains to realize they were coming for him soon.

His ambush was good, but no more. We knew the tactics of the creatures, not in the Alurei sense of the word, from Forchan's own words, so we would have expected an attack from the ceiling, even if I hadn't detected the hairy fuck with the sphere. More effort had to be expended on the show for the spectators.

Me, Hans, and Taria each went in through the windows, and Losius and Hestia through the center door. The pretty reckless tactic, especially from the outside, but we're still playing the part of tough enough guys, not mere claw meat, barely getting our classes. The stated levels allowed us to hold out against a hungry monster for a while, and together we could have stabbed it. Well, if it was "barely level twenty" and didn't have a couple of nasty and completely uncharacteristic talents. Oh, it's no coincidence that the young upstart got this particular specimen, oh, it's no coincidence that he was "lucky" to arrange to have it delivered to his house.

In any case, I couldn't tell the guilder directly, congratulations, you've been fucked big time with that woolly sack. It wasn't even the slightest bit strange that a professional monstrous man couldn't immediately see how unusual this beast was. The gnawer was barely a size fifteenth, but Forchan's professionalism allowed him to notice certain details, like its excessive resistance and the peculiar structure of its jaw, so that he could consider the beast more evolved.

Somebody, if not bred it on purpose, then found this species in order to either kill or set up young talent. Again, I know who, but I won't say anything so as not to arouse unnecessary suspicion. Especially since the Monstrologist himself will figure it out as soon as he performs a proper autopsy, even if it's a corpse. Even a specialist of much lower rank and level would be able to notice the denser bones and the saturation of the giblets with essences.

The talents honed in mimicry and disguise could have allowed the Gryzl, if not to destroy, then to halve a team of adventurers. But we were "lucky," after a short but very tense battle, Gryzl was stabbed, and I naturally began to rant at the peddler. We, too, couldn't help but recognize the power of the monster, pulling at very different levels than it was declared to be.

At first, the bearded man was only angry and intended to give some trouble to the cheeky newcomers, who decided to show their rights after the deal was already fixed, and to his acquaintance, who had set us up, he wanted to say a few nice things. No, we have completed the task, but after that, we started to be impudent and without brakes, from his point of view. But then his brother examined the body, poked it with a scalpel, did some quick analysis of the blood and a piece of the brain, and then came to our aid, apologized for his mistake, and offered to pay extra for the risk. Generously offered, or else he realized what exactly could end up in a fight with a much more dangerous Gryzl than it was declared. He was also surprised at our restraint toward the couple who had set us up.

To his credit, he was quick to figure out exactly how and by whom he was being set up. He did not say anything aloud, but he gave his brother hints to get us out, to calm down, and to talk without strangers. The gold was not superfluous, nor was the entry in the guild books. And at once, our help went from being a risky but paid venture to full-fledged salvation, if not of life, then of reputation and career.

I'd say I was surprised that, after only eight days, my permission to visit the library had been approved, but that would be a blatant lie. After all, it was for this service, entirely voluntary on the part of the guildsman, that I got involved in this clownery.

* * *

The pass was issued for two people, so it was just me and Losius who had to go. Ideally, I would have liked to have had Hans with me as a good sensor, but he was not much of a face for the job, alas. Me too, either, for I declared myself to be a lurker, but Losius, with his face painted with aristocratism, was quite suitable for a visit to such an eminent establishment.

Once we went on business, me and Rabinovich,

The first shock was how this library felt from the outside. The expected multi-layered barriers and alarms were not too surprising, although their density and power were only slightly inferior to that of Stone. And even then, exclusively because of the fact there were not regime objects, but the civilian population, near whom the most odious measures of defense were undesirable to use. But these defenses were, though steep and very versatile, still familiar and understandable. I had seen all this before or seen something very similar.

I was shocked by the feeling of the library itself. A majestic and pompous building, all the size of Stone with most of the rock on which it was situated. And all my senses, which were not drowned out by the glow of magic and the overwhelming sensory techniques of the enchantments, asserted that the structure was made entirely of stone, enchanted beyond belief. So enchanted, in fact, that the stone is not so much matter as it is hardened magic, blended into a hundred different shades.

No, you misunderstood me.

The point is not that the structure is made of enchanted stone; that was the obvious solution. The point is that the whole Library, except for a few entrances and exits, was a single, solid rock, which had been shaped and refined, with windows and stucco, but left inside as solid enchanted rock! There were no rooms inside, none at all, just tons, hundreds of tons of magical stone, with no cracks or openings or any other voids it should have had.

Needless to say, I entered one of the central entrances somewhat tense, though our attendants might have mistaken it for excitement and admiration of the scenery. By the way, Losius and I were greeted warmly and without the usual disdain for muddy newcomers eager to take advantage of the guild's benefits. Apparently, our adventure created us some reputation.

The fact that someone had done a good job with the space in the Library was obvious to me. If all I could see was the solid rock on the outside, there must be some folded-up space inside where the library is stored. So I took pains to reinforce the cloak, thanking my foresight for the pre-prepared disposable Shadows, as much as Losius hated them.

The transition was instantaneous and almost intangible. The protective fields muffled my senses too much to see the few signs of spatial displacement, and the room itself had so much magic in it that I could only discern the moment of the transfer because I was ready for it. And the fact that I could barely keep the disguise in working order was also a gentle and unobtrusive hint.

As we stood in the small vestibule that resembled the one in the Adventurers' Guild. I got a taste of what it was like to be under a hundred microscopes at once. If it were not a routine check but the paranoid caution of those ready to invade, we would have been burned, if not immediately, then a few minutes later, when I could no longer keep control of the woven shadows and Shadows.

We were tested by more than two dozen fields, each of which was either powered by a different realm or embodied some conceptual shit, like Truth or Veracity. If it weren't for the tendency of Shadows to steal and take everything else, I don't know how I would have passed such a test. A normal Shadow Theft would have been uncovered almost instantly without too much delay. It's a good thing I haven't used ordinary theft in a long time, or it would have been embarrassing.

The hardest part was using some kind of artifact of unknown grade on us, but certainly not lower than a very cool legend This artifact didn't create sensory charms or try to rip off our disguises, no. It was just giving us a look of something bad. It felt not just clear, but too clear, extremely clear.

And it was only a matter of time before I looked back, and my image found itself fixed and sketched in someone else's memory. The disguise managed to endure, though I had to sacrifice two of the four entities placed in our shadows to fool it. For a second, these Shadow Victims, Shadow Deceivers, became more than just skillful imitations of false identities. For one brief moment, I manifested them into reality as the full souls of the beings I had lied to them with. The shadows couldn't survive that, and neither could anyone else. I don't know what in this world is capable of creating a full-fledged, empowered entity from scratch. It's not like a shadow to cast or a nightmare to weave!

Some system alerts flashed before my eyes, and I struggled to maintain a serene appearance. The second part of the trap is sharpened exclusively for Visionaries, Intuitors, Sensors, and the like. Any attention to the one who looked at us would be a consequence of my disclosure. My image, which I kept so carefully secret, would cease to be a secret in a moment.

It's a good thing I'm a master of un-existence, otherwise, I would have been very sad and hurt, honestly. Not that I would have been revealed as a Hero, but as a very powerful Shadowmancer, I would have been. It's a good thing I didn't take Hans with me, too, for he would have been able to sense the look but not evade it.

"Welcome to the Eternal Library." The thirteenth-level Librarian, dressed in a white robe with red rhombuses on the sides, broadcasts. "My name is Ollo Lo. For those new to these walls, I'll give you a short briefing. The first thing I declare is that you are forbidden to take any books or scrolls out of the Library except by express permission, signed and sealed by will..."

While this little man was spouting off about his rules, most of which boiled down to "no shitting on books", "no letting the scrolls on the joints", and other obvious prohibitions, I got a chance to restore some of the camouflage webbings, patch up the dying Shadows, and read the system tray.

Deceiving the Great (Legendary): You stood before the eye of one whose name is neither named nor remembered but whose will can break even the most steadfast. And though you were barely touched by a glance that carried no threat or danger, you were able to endure that glance without giving yourself up to the gaze of the beholder. A deception that could be your undoing. A deception that withstood the will of something impossible to stop. A deception, unmatched in a long time. So take the reward you rightfully deserve. Bonus: +10 to all characteristics, + 1 free ability point; all disguise skills and abilities become noticeably stronger.

The gift was a good one, and even the System didn't make any hints about my stupidity, but I couldn't be happy about it physically. I had to either come here alone or not at all because the scanners were so dense. Keeping the deception on me and Losius with his aversion to shadow power was a task far from impossible. But to probe the defenses of the Eternal Library at the same time was an arduous task.

Fortunately, Losius already knew exactly what we were looking for, so he asked the attendant who had been issued to us to point us to the right shelves. Alas, our level of security access did not allow us to wander freely among the shelves, looking for things of interest. Only the reading room was open to us, even an individual one, but for a separate fee, and the books were brought to us by the local maids.

The servants were boy slaves, between twelve and fifteen years old, covered head-to-toe in magical tattoos that allowed them to pass through various sectors of protection. Oh yes, they also had no soul, being some kind of meat golems, able to think and execute complex commands, but incapable of development, creative thinking, and leveling up - living artifacts, walking computers, googlers personified. Perfect assistants for such a place, and also incapable of blabbing.

It made me want to kill all of a sudden.

Losius ordered information about one of the lost civilizations, whose ruins we found in the Wildlands and its dialect. The same one that built the city in which the Spectre reigns, the same one that created the megalith I destroyed. The signs we look for in these books were not taken from these two, but from another ruin, almost completely destroyed. There, we almost got kicks from a very nasty, not-so-powerful Legend. They're drawn to those ruins, or what?

We found no special treasures there except for a few stone tablets that had miraculously survived the depths of time that had passed and the carnage we had caused. I have already had time to examine these tablets and even learned they were credentials for some supplies in one of the reserve stores. I even learned the approximate location of this warehouse located too deep in the power of Undead Frost to really try to get there.

But the symbols themselves will not surprise anyone because relics of this civilization are found quite often. The set of specific dictionaries and interpreters satisfied our request one hundred percent. They know how to search here. So we worked, though in fact it was Losius who did some of the translation, and I only pretended to try to make out at least something in the intertwining of charms and spatial distortions.

One thing is certain: the Eternal Library consists of an unspecified, but obviously, huge number of spatial pockets tied to an external anchor. This anchor is that shrouded super stone, so well-protected that even a dip in the Shadow for a couple of hours won't do much damage to it. Already from this pebble come wormholes into separate pockets.

Our reading room, which housed the bulk of the Guilders and contained several separate rooms for privacy seekers like Losius and me, was one of them. I sensed about a dozen passageways, as used by both Googlers and full-fledged Library workers, very vaguely grasping what was hidden on the other side of those passageways. And all around, besides these dimensional doors, is the same endless stone, only not so enchanted. On the outside is a shell of material similar to the outer shell of the Library, and beyond that is plain stone, only very dense and hard.

The clairvoyance worked with such a creak as if a couple of dump trucks of small and not-so-small gravel had been unloaded between the gears of the well-adjusted mechanism and jammed them. There was enough in the dry residue to be horrified but not to find a normal way to open such a nut. What a fucking tough nut to crack!

Most likely, the whole Library is not the size of a small town and is far from being all book depositories and archives. Such a place, like Stone's, probably has a whole bunch of secondary uses. All sorts of secret laboratories are begging to be placed here. With this kind of protection, they would really be secret because nothing would make them obvious.

But even all these precautions do not make the Library invulnerable. There must be ways to get in, trick the scanning, overcome the spatial enchantments, and penetrate the most secret archives available. I can even state with some optimism that the farther the spatial islands are from the "entrance," the less paranoid the protection there is. Or rather, the protection may be exactly the same, but the attention to it is much less. In addition, many laboratories simply cannot be stuffed with alarms because they would interfere with them. And the vaults with antiquities can not always be blocked by closed fields, which can conflict with each other and damage the decrepit gizmos.

One of the most obvious ways to infiltrate would be to use those same googlers, but I'm not going to do that. Simply because the method is really asking for it, and for sure, they had to prepare for it three hundred times and reinsure three hundred times more just in case. Their tattoos are extremely complicated in their structure, and stealing a shadow doesn't mean they can transfer to me only the effects that I would need. Even without clairvoyance, on one sense of danger, I know these magical tattoos necessarily decompose the soul into nutrients, turning the child into a googler.

A pass through protection is undoubtedly sewn into these tattoos, but it won't work if only part of it is copied. The structure of the magical drawing on the skin is such that the individual elements do not have any meaning or effect but only work together. Copying all the effects onto myself in one piece would only cripple the foolish isekai. My plan-chewed soul is too tough for a (un)simple tattoo to cut, but it won't make the masochism any less painful. And without the decomposition of the soul, the structure itself becomes useless because it is one of the basic elements, the cornerstone of the structure!

Trying to pretend to be some full-fledged librarian is already more like the truth, but they either don't leave this very Library at all or are vetted in every way possible. Plus, I'm sure their lives, status, and health are monitored in dozens of ways, and even the ability to put on a Shadow with pieces of the essence of another's soul ripped out on them isn't certain to hide me completely. There are so many things tied to their souls that ripping out a piece without damaging those things would be a very difficult task.

We left the library with a very relaxed demeanor, but I was still disappointed. It is unpleasant when your bad expectations are met, and it is doubly unpleasant when you have underestimated them. I think I'm going to be here not just for a long time but for a very long time. I might find it easier to mutiny and put my ass on the Empire's throne rather than try to bash my forehead through it.

As I left the room, having managed to hold on to the stolen shadows again, though the check on the exit was much weaker, I took a full breath. Losius was having some kind of detached conversation, and he was sincere, and I could only answer briefly and count the reasons why I couldn't tell everyone to fuck off and go arrange a mega harem of gorgeous chicks, preferably elves.

Holy Imageboards, what kind of an isekai am I if I haven't seduced an elven princess or at least groped an elven woman with my own hands? A short adventure of Kickass the Great somehow doesn't count as a full-fledged third-degree contact. Remind me of Kickass by checking out the titty elvess and her daddy? Especially since I can get information from them about Weaver since I've already checked out all the other guys on Cassie's Ended Friends List. Maybe I'll do that when I'm in the mood. The next visit to the library would be not so soon if I didn't want to draw too much attention to myself, but I had to do something. I suppress Soul of Mocker every day, and it's not good for my psyche. And besides, it's been too long since I've really fought, which is good, but I don't want to get fat from the idle time.

The comrade-in-arms went to sleep, for he was frankly sick of having to put up with Shadow and its companions waiting their turn for a hug. He deserved it. I briefly narrated my observations to my companions, not out loud, but through a specially created dream, and then wished them good luck and went for a walk. Eternal is a beautiful city, and I really need to rest now. I'm not going to look for trouble, nor am I going to get into trouble, but rather just to visit a couple of places of interest.

* * *

I started with a ride in a rented carriage, for which I even stole the shadow of some rich-looking man so that they wouldn't stare at my face and this season's unfashionable outfit. The carriage was rolling along, and the coachman, who had offered to tell me about the places I could see through the window for an extra coin, quickly shut up in response to my gaze. I just wanted to see, not be bombarded by tourist pamphlets!

I came out near Imperial Park, where, by the way, I was originally going to hide Ygra. She had already reached the outskirts of the capital and was eating the rare monsters. Soon, I'll start siccing her on the bandit gangs that, oddly enough, abound here. The capital is near, and that's not only a lot of guards but also a huge slum that's easy to hide in from any raid. If they don't look seriously.

The park greeted me with neat paths, ponds, trimmed bushes, and many peculiar restaurants. The guards were very well trained and cool - that's why the park was called the Imperial Park because members of this family came here quite often. In the early days of my stay, I learned that the park itself was covered by some very old blessing that placed temporary buffs on the blood of the local rulers. Some kind of interaction with their family titles, which I couldn't figure out more specifically because of the truly powerful protection from the seers on all available levels.

Although, personally, I don't give a shit about the whole family. I sat at a cozy table in an outdoor cafe, one of the nicer ones, and just enjoyed the scenery, the fresh air, and the absence of innumerable tons of rock overhead (and on all sides). Still, this trip to the library was more nerve-wracking than I would have liked it to be. Especially given the incomprehensible thing that stared at me the moment I entered.

"Something sweet and light, please," I order briefly, dropping five gold coins on the table made of rare wood.

I think I overdid it because even though the prices here are steep, five gold pieces are probably too much. By the way, my clairvoyance was unwilling to warn me that I was making a mistake. Fatigue was taking its toll on me more than I care to admit. I decided to rest for a reason, and it's a good thing I wasn't in my disguise!

The Peddler, level thirteen, eager to please a generous customer, brought my order as quickly as possible, placing it in front of my majesty. With a wave of my hand, I send him away, not wanting to listen to the long name of the dish, which I would forget after a couple of minutes anyway. How long has it been since I've had fun like this, completely calm and normal, not in my "find a problem and make it a thousand times more problematic" way?

The dish was served without a spoon but with some kind of sharp glass stick on which to prick the candied berries. It wasn't candied, though, but rather treated with some kind of sweet syrup that gave the cherries an amazing flavor. I'm used to eating any kind of cooking, especially after the fish diet of my first few days, but this is still very tasty.

Suddenly, I realize that something is wrong.

Clairvoyance is silent.

Not only did it not point me to the mistake with the coins, but it gave me practically no information at all from the moment I entered the café. Only some nonsense in the form of the weather for tomorrow, flowerbeds blooming, and a succession of buds opening on all sorts of plants. There were quite a lot of snowdrop analogs in the park, and the snow itself had been cleaned with great care so that the scenery was more like spring than winter. It had to be some kind of magician's work. Actually, clairvoyance knew exactly how these magicians worked. It was a good job, for the plants were blooming and green all year round, regardless of the snowfalls and blizzards.

But something was not right.

In the distance, there was a procession of several dozen well-armed warriors, mages, and high-level men. I even managed to strain my ass, but the people around me just watched the procession with interest, and those who were too close tried to get away or were politely asked to leave by guards and inconspicuous people with stealth classes and high levels.

It looks like I'm just in the middle of another promenade of some imperial big shot of extremely noble blood. Maybe that's why my clairvoyance is failing. But why do I still feel like there's something fucked up going on? A glance at the border between caution and recklessness shows some kinsman of the Emperor Eternal is sheltered by good protection, as are all his retinue and the surrounding area. Also, everything is in perfect order there.

I can absolutely discern there is no threat to these gentlemen and ladies, but I don't have to discern anything if they are sheltered by protection! Or rather, I should, but from under the protection and very vaguely, not clearly, and from the outside. It was as if someone had put a deception on me, aimed not at me but at the entourage of the big shot. And somehow, I felt uncomfortable all at once!

Literally!

My sense of danger is very well developed, and it now hints gently that I might be cut a little... Yes, cut, bloody, and fleshy. But not now, in the near future. And clairvoyance, still seeing only good things around the procession, indicates that the waiter, frozen next to me, gazing at the very procession (surprisingly lush indeed), will soon, if not die, suffer a serious wound. So will some of the individuals surrounding the procession.

I begin to hear an inaudible rustle, like a harbinger of a storm in a dense deciduous forest. It's getting clearer by the second, and I'm already turning my head, not knowing where the trouble is coming from and whether I should get the fuck out of this place with a tow truck while I still can. If I get hit by an accidental blow, it will be so funny, so it won't even offend me too much.

For a moment, I realize that the rustle of leaves is more than the image-vision I'm being given. My gaze falls on some ficus-like flower in a painted pot, standing just to the side of my table. And its leaves faintly wobble and seem to... fading?

I bend down and tear off one of the leaves, bringing it close to my face. It falls off almost by itself, without my interference. The delicate coughing of the peddler, who would neither be rude to the customer nor make a fuss in front of such a respectable crowd as was passing by the window, was heard nearby. In the distance, following them, by the way, are the rich carriages, which the gentlemen have left for a walk in the company of a person of royal blood.

"Sir..." He tries to say something about the flower, but then his gaze catches the way this leaf is slowly turning yellow in my hands, and the (un)ficus itself is turning yellow just the same, rapidly changing color. So does every other flower in the pot, and so do other plants in the neighborhood, even though the closer they are to the procession, the slower and less noticeable it is.

My gut is already screaming it's going to hurt, and I know that in just a second, there will be the surprised exclamations of those who noticed the trouble with the plants. And so I, also knowing that the blow will be struck early, silently toss away the completely yellowed and withered petal and then honestly warn the peddler:

"Fall down fast!"

I followed this advice at the same moment so I could make it in time, unlike the poor guy who stared at me in bewilderment. And then several things happen at once, clearly letting me know that Kostya decided to eat cherries at the wrong time.

A short shudder went through reality, followed by an annoying buzzing sound that continually shook the space and ruined all spatial techniques. I could step into the Shadow, even if it would be hard for me, but something more complicated and distant, should not be used if you want to leave in one piece.

And then every single tree, grass, flower, and other flora suddenly turned yellow, filling with a kind of abnormal life that reminded me too much of death. Not even the beat of a frantic heartbeat passes, and every leaf plummets forward, flying into the center of the crowd of aristocrats at breakneck speed. And any one of those fallen, autumnal petals would be more dangerous than a crossbow bolt, even a well-enchanted one.

The poor peddler was pierced in several places, as were the guards, as were the inconspicuous people with classes of lurkers, as were some of the entourage who had not expected such a trap, as well as some random passers-by. And I, who ducked under the table in time and did not become a victim of such a bad fall of leaves, was feverishly finishing the dessert caught in the fall, savoring cherries in syrup and thinking about how lucky Kostya was.

* * *