11 Cape Immergroen(2)

After the two scary men left the alley, Cyrus leaned on a wall and exhaled his anxieties and worries away.

The fast man who passed by him earlier was clearly a high-profile individual, and now, he accidentally possessed an object from that man.

Examining the scroll much further, he couldn't deduce its contents.

As with anything in the game, it was in a different language, and this time, there wasn't any system interface that popped up to translate it for him.

He even observed it through the magnifying glass, and unfortunately, the pop-up text only displayed question marks.

*Sigh*

Cyrus exited the tight alley and found himself in...another narrow street.

'I wonder who those gun-wielding men were....'

Thoughts about the mysterious lore of this game surfaced to him as he walked through the outer districts of the city.

The twisting alleyways and narrow streets were like mazes to the ignorant player, and he couldn't find his way back to the main street for quite a while.

_______

-A quarter-hour later-

For the first time in his traversal of Cape Immergroen, Cyrus heard the cacophony of life and frantically made his way towards the source of the noise.

As soon as he left the alley, he found himself on a wide street.

However, there was an extremely large number of people, and the stampede of humans rammed his body and made movement hard.

Nonetheless, he was back on a boulevard.

In the center of the wide road, a luxurious carriage passed through, and strong-looking guards surrounded the carriage.

A bunch of people formed a barricade that blocked the stampeding men and women from reaching the carriage, and strangely, Cyrus saw a familiar figure among them.

Chu was also there, and the people that tried to force a passage through her blockade received a glimpse of her decaying face, and all retreated.

Everyone was screaming, but due to the sheer number of rioters, it was impossible to distinguish what anyone said.

"Excuse me..."

"I'll pass through..."

"You're blocking my way..."

Cyrus barely struggled through the crowd, and soon reached Chu Wang.

"Hey."

Chu was on high alert and thought that he was another one of the rioters, so her elbow moved towards him in an attacking motion.

"Oh, Cyrus."

She coughed, embarrassed of herself, and asked him, "Where were you? This quest is a hard one..."

"I pursued a group of dangerous-looking individuals, and then, I got lost...." He kept out the part about the scroll and the former admiral for now.

Chu nodded and caught him up on the situation.

"See that carriage? The prime minister is riding on it, and she's making her way towards the railway network that connects the entire continent, the Iron Godsnake, and we're supposed to protect her from this bunch of rioters until she reaches the station-

A man's fist made its way towards her cloaked face, but Cyrus parried the attack and tackled the man away.

"I still don't understand why they're reacting so strongly to this," Cyrus frowned, as a few more ordinary citizens tried to push their way through their barricade.

"Something superstitious, apparently."

*CHOO* *CHOO*

Suddenly, the roaring sound of a steam engine reached them.

In the limits of his vision, Cyrus saw a trail of black smoke rising from a steel train.

On the body of the train, a bold line of text in golden engravings read 'NEPTUNIA'.

Then, the carriage accelerated to a fast pace, and the citizens had to evacuate in order to avoid being crushed.

Cyrus hadn't accomplished much, so the quest didn't register as successful, but it was not the same for Chu.

______

In the tight entrance of the train station, the personal guards of the prime minister were now enough to defend her, and she swiftly got into a wagon and took a seat for herself.

Despite this successful endeavor, a somber expression was visible on her face.

In front of her, a scholarly-looking man sighed and remarked, "Still mad about enlisting reinforcements from the templars?"

Ursula Von Kanselier had a hand on her mouth.

In a stifled tone, she replied, "Well, the Praetorian Guards are not enough to defend the city from this rebellion..."

"Why did you even agree to go all the way to Deluos to congratulate the Imperator?" This man was her main advisor, Aart.

"The weak cannot resist the whims of the strong."

"If this were a game of Shatranj, we'd be pawns being thrown around the board and sacrificed."

Aart retorted, "But pawns can turn into-

"Except, we can't become queens or bishops or knights when we reach the end of the board."

"If we don't want to be gobbled up, we have to go against the rules of the game and play diplomacy instead."

________

After the completion of the quest, fully-armored men and women marched throughout the city.

Citizens seemed terrified as soon as they saw their silver armor, and the mob calmed down and dissipated.

"Well, let's go visit around the city...Chu?" Cyrus stared at the still Chu.

Her eyes were fixated on a tall man.

He was the one leading the knights, and the ends of his long robe were carried by several attendants.

He had a calm expression on his face and a grey head of hair.

When Chu saw him, memories of her first day in the game flooded into her mind.

Excited by the prospects of acquiring strength early, she bought into a scam.

Now, as she thought about her terrifying body and evil powers, regret overcame her mind.

"High Bishop, I feel an extremely negative source of mana around here," One of the knights made a sniffing sound and commented.

The grey-haired man sighed and stated, "We can't operate the Inquisition in the Republic...yet, unfortunately."

The knight harrumphed and said, "It smells really disgusting, I can't wait for the day the church can finally purify all of the Orient."

His eyes locked onto a cloaked woman.

When Chu noticed this stare, she brought down her cloak further down her face.

Then, she turned to Cyrus and said, "Cyrus, can we part ways right here?"

"Uh...sure."