18 Valden City

A few days he passed since that first night and we were on day 4, mountains along our right side contrasted the blue sky with their grey rocky faces. The Grand Mountains they were called, and rightfully so reaching heights taller than modern day skyscrapers from earth. I lived in a rather flat area of earth with more rivers, and creeks than any kind of hills and mountains, so this scenery was really breathtaking.

However we weren't here for the mountains, as beautiful as they were, we were here for the first city of our journey Valden City.

(AN: theirs like no description of Valden other than its close to the grand mountains, and that's where Alice met Rey while she was working at the adventurers guild)

Honestly I don't remember anything about this city from my past life, as I don't think anything significant ever happened here. Although when I was living at the orphanage and when I learned from the tutors at the Helstea household I had heard about it quite a bit with it being so close to Xyrus.

It was a city only in name as I would consider it more of a village, but I guess it's unfair to compare it Xyrus. It thrived with its vast and rich fields to grow crops, that could be sold to Xyrus, and then teleported to other cities. As well as a fairly successful fishing village from a river that comes down from The Grand Mountains right beside their city.

High sturdy wooden walls surrounded the main part of the city, and their city name shown through with loosely cobbled roads. Though with a heavy enough rain the mud could still become a problem. Upon entering the city we were greeted by the gate guards and after showing them our adventurer cards and Mr Zany showing his merchant license we were allowed entry.

"Rez. Could I ask you to go to the adventurer guild here and send a message to the guild leader in Xyrus that we arrived in Valden?" Durk had approached me while I was looking around at the various shops and stalls, savory scents of fish and meats hung in the air.

"I'll go with him!" Naomi called from the back of the carriage. She hopped out and walked up to us.

"He's not a very good talker, so I'll come with so he doesn't scare anyone." She said with a cheeky grin on her face. Durk looks from her to me and then shakes his head.

"Very well, but don't take too long. Part of our job is to also guard Mr. Zany and the caravan while he sells his goods." We both nod and got directions from a local for the location of the guild hall. We passed a few stalls and each stall seemed to garner more of Naomi's attention than the last.

"Did you want to buy something?" I ask as I continue walking, and noticed she slightly stumbled but regained.

"Was it that obvious?" She asked shyly.

"Like a kid in a candy store." I said plainly. I saw her cheeks slightly blush before another storefront caught her eye and I chuckled. She whipped her head to me so that I could see her glare, but it only caused me to chuckle more.

"Case in point." Was all I said as she pouted and we fell into a companionable silence until the guild hall. I really try to enjoy these silences as the girl doesn't seem to have a stop button most of the time. The only way is to tease or embarrass her and she'll go quiet for a little while, but all good things come to an end.

"Hey look!" She shouted as she tugged on my shirt while pointing across the street at a dress vendor. Masterfully silk spun dresses were hanging on racks and mannequins as the vendor called out his wares. He even had a few ladies walking around in the dresses to show them off while telling passerby's about the dress.

"Silk harvested from the A rank mana beast Twin Blade Tarantula!" At the sound of tarantula a chill went down my back, old phobias die hard. Thankfully I have a portable flamethrower in this life. I feel myself be pulled toward the stall and I can only sigh.

"Oh come on don't you want to help a beautiful lady pick out a dress?" She called over her shoulder.

"Let me know when you find one." I said with a snarky tone. She looked back at me with her draw dropped and I just laughed at the expression.

"You're terrible." She said, but our advance towards the dress shop continued. Once we made it she gave many oohs and ahhs at the dresses followed quickly by grimaced when she heard the price.

"They're so pretty but so expensive." She said with a sad face. During this time I had already bought and stored 2 dresses, one for Tabitha and one for Lilia. A deep emerald green for Tabitha that matches the eyes, and a soft honey gold sun dress for Lilia to wear out during the summer. Looking back at Naomi I see her eyeing a dress.

Unlike the deep emerald green of the one I got for Tabitha, this one matched more to Naomi's lighter and brighter green eyes but also softer. Like the bright green of a grassy field swaying in the wind and it was highlighted with golden trimmings and outlines. Her eyes hung heavily on the dress before shaking her head and walking off. Me being the the sappy person I am I quickly gave the owner the money for the dress and stored it in my ring to give to her later.

It's not as if I'm hurting for money as Vincent gave me a lot before I left and I've already gotten 200 gold coins from my services with Mr. Zany. She's only a C rank though and B ranks were only getting 20 gold so I can only imagine her pay is probably around 5 or 10 gold a day compared to my 50 a day. Either way I'll sneak this into her tent at some point. Or should I gift it to her as a present? We will be traveling together for a while after all. The dark knights never said when they were leaving so they might be planning to stay the whole year.

I'll just hold on to it for now, as I'm sure eventually the topic of birthdays will come up. Quickly catching back up to her we continue our trek to the guild hall. It was a rather simple building especially compared to the hall in Xyrus, but something about the smaller building made it feel cozier. We spotted the lone receptionist standing behind a counter, or rather leaning on to it with her head propped up by one hand.

When she spotted us, she exhaled a deep breath before straightening up and getting ready to greet us.

"Welcome to the Valden city adventurers guild. How may I help you?" Her voice was monotonous and dead. I guess this guild isn't as popular as I would have thought.

"Hello, we're adventurers from Xyrus and we needed to get a message sent to our guild leader to let him know we reached the first city." Naomi took lead as we approached the desk. The receptionist looks through some papers before finding the one she was looking for.

"Williams Zany's guards I'm assuming?" With nod from both us she began shuffling through some more papers before handing us one and a quill and ink pot.

"Write your message on here and then stick in the box there. The messenger will pick it up first thing tomorrow and deliver it to Xyrus." As soon as she finished she propped her head back on her hand and ignored us as Naomi wrote the letter. When we exited the guild hall Naomi immediately shuddered and looked to me.

"Yeesh! What was her deal? The receptionists in Xyrus are way nicer and friendlier."

"Well she's probably worked there all her life having wanted to be an adventurer at first, but I didn't feel any mana from her. It's probably hard to be cheery watching kids become what you always dreamed of." I said before beginning the walk back to the square where the caravan was. Naomi stood still, most likely thinking about what I said, and then fell in beside me.

"Hmph! She still shouldn't be so gloomy." She harrumphed, and walked a little faster. I just shook my head as I followed her now. Not much later we saw a huge crowd of people gathered in the square and heard Mr. Zany shouting his wares to the crowd along with Katarina and Alaina. The stuff he sold was being bought at an insane pace, and one wagon was almost completely empty already.

We joined Durk at the side, who was watching it all with a bit of sweat dropping from his brow.

"Ah Naomi, Rez good to see you back so soon. How was it?" Durk questioned and Naomi just huffed again.

"The receptionist was rather rude, but we sent the message." Durk just nodded in understanding while still looking out at the crowd.

"Seems we will be here till nightfall. I already sent your other party members to secure us rooms at an inn. For now just keep an eye out for any fishy figures." We both nodded and took up positions near the wagons and watched the ebb and flow of the crowd as people pushed and shoved at the chance of buying something.

Minutes bled to hours until the throng of people subsided with the coming of darkness, and we helped Mr. Zany load all his stuff back into the wagons and made our way to the inn we're staying at. Durk had told us that the rotation would continue as we need someone to watch the wagons at night. 3 watching and rotating every 3 hours.

I obviously had Naomi in my rotation along with Amanda. It seemed that Durk was splitting us up in groups that interacted with each other the most, or maybe he was just making sure that neither I nor the girls ended up in a rotation with Maverick. Which is quite smart as that would most likely end badly.

I had my eye on Maverick since the first night because he seemed to do a complete 180 in personality, always trying to help people and being nice. I can't help but get a bad feeling from his actions, even though this is something I hopped would happen from kicking his ass that night. To show that he's not all powerful like he thinks he is. I'll just continue to observe him for now.

"Hey Rez, when's your birthday?" The question while sudden wasn't surprising from Naomi, however it did send me down a completely random train of thought. I wonder if I'm part elf and have divination? I quickly shook the thought from my head as I don't have pointed ears and have to just chalk it up to the eccentricity that is Naomi and the obvious chance that this question would be asked at some point.

"May 30th." Is what I finally responded with.

"Ahh that means you birthday isn't for almost a year." She complains and Amanda snickers.

"What about yours?" The question made both their eyebrows raise, but I'm sure it wasn't the question itself but rather me being the asker of the question.

"Uh, October 3rd." She froze before finally saying. I just give a nod and make a mental note to give her the dress as a gift for her birthday, or before they leave.

"I see." Was my response. Her and Amanda traded looks between each other and began talking amongst themselves, as I just tuned them out. I was gazing out at the sky and the stars, seeing the moon unhindered by clouds illuminating the mountains. Over those mountains Arthur is currently in the Elven castle assimilating with his beast will.

It makes me realize how far ahead I am compared to Arthur right now. I might even be equal to or stronger than the future Lances at this point as they all seemed pretty young. Though dwarves and elves don't show their age like humans, still the human Lances i feel were only in their 20s when Arthur met them for the first time and he wasn't much older than maybe 13. Which is 8 years from now, the human Lances would be around 14-15 probably in Xyrus academy right now.

That's something I never understood though. Are Silver core mages really that rare? Or did they just use the 2 strongest of their generation? I remember the elders that helped Arthur train in all the elements, but I don't remember if they were sliver cores or not. Is core progression to Silver stage tied to how fast you broke through the others? It just seems like there should be more higher core mages, but even being a yellow core is considered being one of the strongest.

Shouldn't elves and dwarves with their longer life spans eventually reach silver with dedication to purifying? Not to mention the Lances only reached white because of artifacts they were given by The Council, and Arthur used Uto's horn to breakthrough. Will I need an artifact to breakthrough to white? As that thought passed through my head I feel my dimension ring warm up enough for me to feel it.

Looking at it I can feel my sword inside of it as if it's calling out to me, or maybe answering my question. Like its saying that it will help me breakthrough to white stage. Maybe I should discard this other sword and just start using this one, besides it's not like everyone knows exactly what this sword looked like from the auction. Even if people do make the connection when I attend Xyrus academy it won't matter anymore, and I could always make a new adventurer persona.

Steeling my resolve I make up my mind and store my current sword and bring out my katana that I bought from the auction m. I immediately feel the difference in the passive core purification with this sword in my hand.

"What's that Rez?" Naomi asks as she sees me holding out my sword in both hands.

"Something I've been neglecting." I say and I can feel the sword slightly vibrate before I slip it into my sword belt.

"What made you decide to use it now?" She asked again and I could see Amanda lean closer as well.

"I want to become stronger." I said as I went back to staring at the stars, and they continued to stare at me.

We went back to the silence we had before hand while I went into a meditation state and practiced extending and retracting my mana. Picking up thousands of mana signatures within the city. I just continued the exercise until it was time for us to change shifts.

——————————————————————————

Author's Note

You may be wondering why he even got another sword to begin with if I was just going to have him decide to use the sword just 4 days later. To that I say that I had a very good and smart reason.

I changed my mind. No but seriously I thought about it while I was writing the ending of this chapter and just decided there was no point for him not to use it as only a few people know he got the sword as most think King Glayder bought the katana. So no one is going to think twice about an adventurer using the katana in my opinion.

Plus he is supposed to be training and getting stronger, and I'm already restricting his magic to just fire. So he might as well progress with the sword, and maybe something will happen that will make him(aka me) decided to do away with the magic restriction, but today is not that day.

No Naomi is not a love interest, she's just been growing on MC a little so he decided to get her a present. Probably be 2-3 chapters before her birthday though, haven't decided.

And don't worry I'm not going to make a story for each city, they will just pass through some cities and I'll give a brief recap or something. And their will be some actual action in the future it's not all going to be sitting around the campfire singing campfire songs. *insert spongebob campfire song*

Also I'll put a map of Dicathen in the paragraph comments of this chapter so that you can kind of see the route we are taking.

Thanks for reading.

-SocioPhobia