Crossing the gate of Viridi

As the sun rays of the morning shone over the fields around Viridi, the human-spiritual beast duo made their way toward the city.

While nearing the city, they began seeing more and more people from all walks of life.

From the ordinary farmers, hunters and mercenaries to the brave (Or foolish) adventurers.

Most of those people came from the city, all of which were preparing for the beginning of another busy day.

For those reasons, a half-dead human, and a spiritual beast emanating a mysterious aura, stood out from the crowd like some exotic creatures exposed to everyone's curious gaze.

Marlon's appearance was even worse than a few hours prior, his damaged and bloody armour was emanating a stench strong enough to scare the nearby merchants.

The people around them unconsciously cleared the way to let them get as far away as possible.

The city was surrounded by high and sturdy-looking walls, colourful runes could be seen shining in and out of existence every now and then.

"Quite a unique sight, isn't it?" The hoarse voice of a man from behind them shocked Cyril out of his curiosity.

As they turned around, they saw a black-haired man in his forties who was pulling a cart.

Over the cart, there were the bodies of a few spiritual beasts…. They looked like giant pitch-black bats, all of them, without exception, had one or more bloody holes in their corpses.

Just like them, he was one of the few people returning to the city in the morning

The bow and arrows, carried on the man's back, made what happened quite self-evident.

Before Cyril could even answer, the man spoke again, this time with a shocked tone alongside a tinge of panic, "Marlon, is that you?! What the hell happened to you?"

Marlon merely shook his head, without answering, before turning around once again ignoring the man.

The man dashed toward Marlon while leaving behind the cart. Less than a second later, his hand was already on Marlon's shoulder as he spoke once again "Stop it and answer me… will you give up, just like that?"

Marlon froze as he stood still as if rooted to the ground.

It took him a few seconds to gather his courage and answer with a shaky voice "...Yes… I'm sorry, Jeff… For everything."

Jeff was confused and stunned… Was this the same Marlon he knew?

Was everything he knew about him a lie? No, it wasn't… Not even once did his judgement miss by so much…. Besides, while he kept repeating to himself that this is just a momentary setback, his sharpened instincts told him the complete opposite….

The answer was evident, Marlon has changed… But not even Marlon himself understood by how much.

By the time Jeff prepared something to say, he realised that both Marlon and the weird spiritual beast had already disappeared within the crowd.

As the duo slowly walked through the crowd, Cyril couldn't help but be surprised, Viridi looked like a small city with no more than 150 thousand people.

Such a city usually could be considered as a small island in the green sea called wilderness.

An island that could disappear anytime a slightly higher wave were to crush into its walls, that is.

The city in front of their eyes, however, was completely different.

The runic arrays guarding the city, however, were far from something such a small city could afford.

The sheer number of runes, and quantity of energy flowing through them, was simply impressive.

The duo soon reached the wide-open gate.

The gate itself seemed relatively new, some of the runes within it made it lighter and easier to move.

The design was rather simplistic, no useless decorations were anywhere to be seen… Aside from the coat of arms belonging to the royal family of Venan.

A pair of human eyes, with a magic circle around each pupil, above a leafy tree.

Rather simple, but meaningful… This was Cyril's assessment.

At their right was a small river, the water was flowing out of the city from a large metallic grid.

The grid was even larger than the gate, spanning around 50 metres in width (54 yards).

Many soldiers could be seen patrolling the bridge above the river.

The bridge was a part of the city walls, and just like any other part of the wall, runic arrays guarded it while also descending unto the grid, enchanting it in the process.

Cyril counted more than 100 guards from his position, all of whom were strong enough to defeat an ordinary spiritual beast.

The aura radiating from them, however, showed how varied their strength was, most of the weaker ones stood at the entrance checking who passed through.

As they approached the gate, one of those weaker guards stopped them.

"Halt. Please stop here if you want to enter the city."

The one speaking was a young woman in her twenties, she wore a light grey armour, the symbol of Venan could be seen engraved into her chest plate.

With a firm grip on her spear and narrowed eyes, she kept gazing at Cyril without an ounce of fear.

Although among the people walking there, the duo were the only ones stopped by the guards, no one found it weird…

After all, unknown non-human beings weren't allowed to roam into human settlements without being registered.

Marlon already knew what to do, and before the guard could speak again, he pressed his hand into the wall next to them.

An ethereal light blue circle appeared around his hand, it blinked for a few seconds, and disappeared into nothingness.

The same light shone above the guard's head for an instant before she nodded and turned toward Cyril.

Cyril shook his head slightly before turning toward Marlon.

"He is new"

Hearing Marlon's words, the guard replied calmly "We will need some additional information before allowing you two within the city… Please allow the runic array to establish a communication channel and answer the questions as truthfully as you can"

After saying this, she turned around and signalled something to her colleagues.

10 seconds later, Cyril began answering the questions that kept appearing in his mind.

In less than five minutes, the guard gave them a dark blue bracelet.

After Marlon helped him put it on, the bracelet tightened with a "click" as soon as it was placed around Cyril's front leg.

"Alright, everything is done, you can proceed." The guard spoke without wasting a second, from the beginning of their conversations to now, no change could be seen in her expression.

"Oh right, welcome to Viridi, the emerald shelter of Venan, and remember to keep the NIB (Non-human Identification Bracelet) always with you while you are within a human settlement"

This time she flashed a polite smile before returning to her duties among the other guards.

The duo finally crossed the gate.

Marlon's expression kept worsening with each step forward.

He didn't even remember that after reaching the city, he and Cyril were supposed to part ways.

As for Cyril, he was busy reading through the identification bracelet.

<True Name: None

Race: Unknown - Hidden section[1]: (Similarities to a Drake detected, no draconic traits detected).

Age: Unknown - Hidden section: Recently evolved - Unable to calculate.

Origin: Native of the Primordial Forest (East side).

Status: Independent spiritual beast.

This NIB has been issued on the date 08/02/20, (City of Viridi, Venan Kingdom).

- Hidden section: Position history: Viridi city. Threat level: Mid-mortal at minimum, likely High-mortal. Connections: It has been seen together with a Venadian citizen called Marlon, they were….(Details will be omitted), Mage Celeborn Lazarus has asked for this spiritual beast's presence in his tower, he seems interested in it for some unknown reason. -

Picture of the NIB's owner: ... >

Cyril wasn't surprised, he merely shook his head as his gaze fell onto the wide road in front of them.

The paved road went straight alongside the river.

Hundreds of humans could be seen walking toward the city gate.

Regardless, the people leaving weren't that many compared to those doing business within the city.

Not everyone felt the need to seek the "exciting thrill" of danger.

Non-humans weren't a rare sight as well, spiritual beasts of all shapes and forms could be seen either collaborating with humans or going around on their own.

Just a few metres near them, a caravan of wagons and a few carriages, drawn by spiritual beasts, could be seen making their way towards the gate.

An interesting detail that Cyril noticed was the types of spiritual beasts working with humans…

<Humans' nature cannot be truly hidden…> Marlon didn't even comprehend the meaning of this sentence, but didn't try to deny it… He knew humans' behaviour was weird from others' points of view.

No insect or arachnid-type spiritual beast was anywhere to be seen. After all, scary or dangerous-looking beings are renowned to be bad for business.

- - Author notes - -

[1] - Hidden section - As stated in the previous chapters, Cyril isn't an ordinary mortal and has developed the ability to see through many secrets when it comes to runic formations. To not sound repetitive I omitted the explanation (Mostly because I hope all of my readers can make some guesses and come to their conclusions.)

Anyways, as you've probably already guessed, the hidden section in the NIB should be accessible only to the kingdom's law enforcers or people with special privileges.