Hayley eyed the stone building Vivian pointed at suspiciously. ‘’Didn’t you say giant guild buildings?’’

Liam was already next to Vivian, touching the wall. He first looked down at the uneven ground, then turned to her, narrowing his eyes. ‘’That’s no two-story house but just a tip of a huge tower, isn’t it?’’

Vivian nodded. ‘’If it’s anything similar to Mirasatra’s guild buildings, it should be at least 10 times taller than this.’’

‘’There is a window over there,’’ Carl said, pointing with a finger.

‘’Why can’t I check inside with [Mana Sense]?’’ Ethan asked. ‘’Are there runes inside?’’

‘’No, it’s the material they’d used,’’ Vivian replied. ‘’If I remember correctly, there should be some kind of dust among the stones that block [Mana Sense].’’

‘’Core stones,’’ Hayley blurted, taken aback. ‘’It’s the antimatter of mana stones. Only available near the cores of the realms. No tier-9 should be able to go that deep and mine core stones!’’

‘’Can we–’’

‘’Use it?’’ Vivian finished before shaking her head. ‘’Not a chance. There is only a small amount of dust mixed with different ingredients. Detecting and removing it from the buildings is impossible.’’

Ethan pursed his lips and jumped down from the rock he was sitting on. ‘’It’s cool. At least we can use this ability to disappear unnoticed. Here is what we’ll do. I’ll go with Liam and buy food, water, potions, and so on. The rest of you will busy yourself here. First, relocate our cart to block the other’s view. Then, set the tents a bit away from this building and start a fire like we’re planning to stay here more. 30 minutes from now on, I’ll send Liam back and you’ll all enter from that window quickly while I’ll be distracting others. When I [Blink] next to you, we’ll start our exploration.’’

Vivian gave a salute while the others nodded, except for Fraeya who was quiet all this time.

‘’Fraeya,’’ Ethan called. ‘’I also need you to check up on the people who lost their friends and relatives. Let us know if they need anything at all. Can you do that?’’

Fraeya tilted her head. ‘’I, yeah, I can.’’

‘’Ethan, you don’t feel responsible for their death, do you?’’ Carl asked, frowning.

‘’Do I need to feel responsible for helping others who are in need?’’ he asked back with a wry smile. ‘’They experienced something terrible, and right now, we’re all they got. I’ll see what can be done but focus on the exploration for now. We’ll meet in half an hour.’’

He was a bit regretful for telling half-truths as he made his way toward the crowd with Liam. It wasn’t that he didn’t care for those people, but the reason he sent Fraeya was more to help her. She was clearly shaken up pretty badly. It was either that she knew some of the people closely or she was a more emotional type than he’d expected. Regardless, giving her a chance to do something about it, was the best thing he could think of.

‘’If I don’t count the stern baker in Kelvhan, this is the first time I’m seeing that witch following orders without a complaint,’’ Liam said. ‘’You really know how to treat people.’’

‘’It’s called empathy,’’ he stated, sending a mocking side glance. ‘’You should try it sometimes.’’

Liam grinned. ‘’Whatever it is, it was also the best time for making her listen to you. Some might even say that it was the perfect manipulation.’’

‘’Yet you seem happy as I’m manipulating your friend.’’

Liam’s smile grew bigger. ‘’That’s the funny thing. I just don’t feel that you have bad intentions.’’

Ethan wrapped his arm around Liam’s shoulder. ‘’Good, good. I hope y’all feel like that until I backstab you at once. It’ll be much more fun to watch disbelief in your eyes.’’

‘’Nope. Still nothing,’’ Liam said, still smiling.

‘’Now you’re tempting me to betray you. Just to see the look on your face.’’

Liam’s face fell a little. ‘’Yeah, now I’m starting to feel bad intentions.’’

This time, it was Ethan who smiled merrily. ‘’I’m glad we understand each other so well.’’

It turned out that bringing Liam to his shopping was a good call, because the guy was a natural for getting discounts. Wherever they went, the merchants welcomed them with open arms and some even offered an option to borrow items if they didn't have the capital for it, making Ethan suspect from a hidden stat. If there was something like a hidden Charisma or Luck stat, that’d explain the excessive attention pretty well, but he never heard or read anything like that. In the end, he ordered Ani to remind him to look up for it later and moved on, enjoying the good fortune of the lucky bastard next to him.

They sold everything in Joey’s bag for about 20 mana stones and bought everything that might be helpful. Most of the money went for the potions. Even though Liam assured him that Hayley had many potions with her, Ethan still bought them in bulk, to the point of spending a quarter of his original 40 mana stones as well.

Once they were ready, he sent Liam back and started strolling among the others. Other than Joey, a few more people were watching them from time to time. It was a bit disturbing, but he was glad that the eyes stayed on him.

As the promised time was approaching, he started inspecting some of the stone buildings, looking around like he discovered something. A [Blink] carried him away from the crowd and he appeared dozens of yards away in front of a giant rock. After a moment of hesitation, he touched the rock and covered it with his [Void Wrap], making it vanish suddenly. He then took a step forward while covering himself with the skill as well.

Amused by the tier-5s who started to fly up, he smirked before removing his hand and teleporting to the stone building they’d planned to meet up. Seeing that others had already gathered up, he removed [Void Wrap] and made an appearance.

‘’All good?’’ Liam asked.

‘’Yeah. They should be busy touching rocks for some time.’’

‘’Touching rocks?’’

‘’I’ll tell you on the way. Did you distribute the food and the potions?’’

‘’Yep.’’

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

‘’Good,’’ Ethan said, gazing at the others. ‘’Let’s see what this Imperial City has for us.’’

Vivian jumped over and wrapped her arm around his before looking at others with a smile. ‘’I'll be your guide. Please follow me, everyone,’’ she said with much enthusiasm and dragged Ethan toward the stairs.

She was the only one who had changed her outfit in that limited time. A sleeveless leather jacket on top of a simple shirt and shorts, combined with her knee-high boots and straw hat, was reflecting her cheery mood. I guess there is nothing like a promise of treasures for a kleptomaniac. No wonder she became an archaeologist.

There wasn’t any furniture inside the stone house, or more accurately, the giant tower. The party slowly climbed down the stairs, and the more they went, the bigger the tower became. It was completely dark inside, but they all had their sources of light. From time to time, they inspected the tower’s rooms, but it was just an abandoned stone structure, or so it seemed.

Finally arriving at the bottom, the party followed Vivian to the biggest room they’d seen so far, but this room with a cathedral ceiling was also empty.

Carl went up and opened a window, but there was only unmoving soil behind it. ‘’We’re deep under the ground right now. What if this whole city is buried like this?’’

‘’If this is the Imperial City, it should be much bigger than this,’’ Hayley said, eyes wandering around. ‘’But I guess it’s still possible that it got buried completely.’’

‘’It doesn’t matter. As long as we can reach the shelter, we can search the other houses of the royalty from there,’’ Vivian said and pulled the lever next to the fireplace. Along with some clicking sounds, a secret passage showed itself right under the fireplace. ‘’I’m not giving up until I leave no stone unturned in the crown prince’s chambers.’’

‘’Is it just me, or are you a bit overly familiar with this place, Vi?’’ Liam asked, curiously getting close to the passage.

‘’I am,’’ she replied. ‘’Because my master was once hired by the current royalty of Mirasatra to investigate the guild buildings, and he used to bring me along to every exploration. We’d searched every inch of those buildings for three weeks, but in the end, there wasn’t any groundbreaking discovery. I used to consider that as a waste of time, but now I’m thinking that maybe it was destiny.’’

The corner of Ethan’s mouth went upward slightly, but looking at Vivian’s fiery eyes, he didn’t say anything. Though it didn’t escape from Fraeya and she spoke for the first time since their gathering.

‘’You don’t believe in destiny?’’

‘’I believe in myself.’’

‘’What about the–’’

‘’Do you really want to make that conversation, now?’’ Liam interrupted, gesturing towards the passage impatiently.

Fraeya snorted while Ethan turned to Beet with a smile. ‘’Hey, bud. Can you call one of your shades?’’ A scary-looking wendigo shade appeared from Beet’s shadow and caught the small lamp Ethan tossed over. ‘’Make it scout from the front in case there are traps. The [Mana Sense] is pretty much useless in these buildings, we need all the help we can get.’’

Along with Beet’s nod, the shade entered the passage with a lamp and started illuminating the place as it went. The others cautiously followed it after, but there wasn’t anything dangerous in it. Just a long, wide, and empty underground passage, covered with the same stones. Thanks to the corridor's small turns, the [Mana Sense]s of the group were only able to operate in a small area, but they still soon figured out how ridiculously long this passage was.

Ethan approached the sulking Fraeya. ‘’How did your talk go? Is there anything we can do for them?’’

‘’No. Not unless you can bring back the dead.’’

‘’That’s good.’’

Fraeya’s eyes narrowed. ‘’What’s good?’’

‘’That there are no orphans who can’t take care of each other, that no one needs money, and that their only need is time to get heal.’’

‘’That’s not good,’’ Fraeya said, her shoulders dropping. ‘’That’s just not worse.’’

Hayley gave her friend a sad look. ‘’They’ve returned to–’’

‘’Don’t say it,’’ Fraeya cut her in with a scowl. ‘’I hate that saying.’’

‘’Stop making it hard for her. She just wants to help you,’’ Liam said without turning back.

‘’And how are you so calm about this?’’ Fraeya snapped at him. ‘’You knew those people even better than me, but all you did was look at their bodies for a moment before dismissing them altogether!’’

Liam stopped and turned to look at her, more serious than he’d ever been. ‘’Life is cheap. I don’t make the rules. It is what it is. You can either accept this or get hurt by your misunderstandings every time.’’

It was pretty close to how Ethan felt about it, but he never planned to say it aloud. After all, not everyone was built for that kind of mentality. Noticing that Fraeya started to grit her teeth, he changed the subject promptly. ‘’Vivian, why don’t you tell us more about this city? You kept saying houses of the royalty, but shouldn’t we look out for the palace?’’

‘’Yeah, tell us more about those artifacts,’’ Carl added.

Vivian complied readily. ‘’Sure. Firstly, there is no palace in the Imperial City. This place was the heart of the empire, but Anpu never planned to settle there. His eyes were always on the higher realms, and no one dared to build a palace where he himself didn’t. They were probably waiting for his ascension, but that turned out to be a bad time as well.’’

The group resumed their journey while listening to Vivian's history lesson, but the content wasn’t that useful, especially since most of the information was merely rumors and guesses. Yet, it was entertaining enough to disperse the gloomy thoughts of before.

After walking miles upon miles in that stone corridor, they suddenly jolted together. Because the shade they were following stopped in front of a tall door.

‘’Finally!’’ Liam cried, his voice echoing through the walls.

Vivian turned to Beet. ‘’You can make your shade push the door. It should open directly to the shelter.’’

The shade gently put the lamp on the ground and gave the door a push with both hands, cracking it open. What welcomed them was an enormous hall. It was once again empty, and there were 20 doors like the one they’d entered. The only thing that stood out in the hall was the wide marble stairs that led to the ceiling which had another door on it, albeit different from the others.

‘’That should be opening outside, right?’’ Ethan asked.

‘’Yes,’’ Vivian confirmed. ‘’We’re likely right under the city center.’’

‘’Then let’s see if the city is still intact,’’ Carl said.

Beet sent his shade without them asking and tried to open the door on the ceiling. It was a bit harder than before, but the shade still managed to open it slightly.

When blue light entered from the ajar, the party was already on the stairs, looking outside speechless. The imperial city stood proudly like it was only abandoned recently. There wasn’t any damage on the gorgeous buildings, and even the streets were mostly in one piece. They were able to see everything clearly because there was a dark blue light covering all of the city, coming from the giant mushrooms.

Not all of them were huge, but the bigger ones glowed much more brightly, and while their size differed, some of them were even bigger than the buildings.

Waking up from their daze, they immediately pushed the door open and went out, eager to witness the glory of this mythical city. The scenery was surely breathtaking. Other than the regular houses, there were more than a dozen lofty black stone towers like skyscrapers, absorbing the light and staying true to their colors. Even among the massive mushrooms that covered the city all around, they were still catching the eye, but not as much as the sparkling waterfall that poured into the huge pond. Everyone was basking under the blue lights, gasping everywhere like a bunch of clueless smurfs.

Until they used their [Mana Sense]. Thanks to the buildings around, the range of the skill was still limited, but it was enough to tell them they were not alone and that the residents of the Imperial City were coming toward them. It didn’t take long before they figured out what they were up against.

Gazing at the familiar yet strange creatures that started to gather, Ethan frowned in confusion. ‘’Goblins?’’

‘’Hobgoblins,’’ Vivian corrected him.

‘’They also have shamans,’’ Liam added, looking up toward the tier-5 goblin shamans.

‘’Of course they have,’’ Carl said, frustrated. ‘’What did you expect? The artifacts of Anpu lying everywhere in the city center? Chests full of gold coins and mana stones?’’

‘’Honestly? I was expecting an undead army,’’ Ethan replied with a faint smile as he called his daggers. ‘’I don’t know about you guys, but I’m cool with anything but damn ghouls.’’