Chapter 27 Road

The way to the city was uneventful. It was nighttime, and the road into which the path joined was deserted, but I decided not to take any chances, so I go along it, using «Silence».

It was difficult at first - the only path was the one that led to the orc cave, so I had to wade through the thicket. But as I got closer to the city, other paths and even parking lots appeared. So things got easier.

The night forest was unexpectedly beautiful, a kind of dark gothic beauty, with black silhouettes of bushes and trees rising out of the mist, intertwining branches above, and lush thickets of tall grass underfoot. All of this was illuminated by the full moon hanging in the sky.

Eventually I came out of the forest and the city appeared before me. I could only see a few towers and some spires because of the high walls surrounding it, but it looked impressive. At the same time, it became clear why no one traveled the road at night - the city gates were closed.

I returned to the thicket and put on the amulet, transforming into a human. After changing my clothes, I went out into the open again and began to walk around the city so that in the morning I could enter it by the road that led from the eastern side to the settled places.

«Hey, where are you going?» someone suddenly shouted out of the darkness.

Judging by the voice, it was a young man about my age, and I immediately sympathized with him.

«Into town,» I answered honestly.

«Are you going to be an adventurer or something?» my companion asked mockingly, obviously recognizing my sword.

«No, no. I know what it's like for men to be adventurers,» I replied briskly.

«Ahhh... so are we,» the owner of the voice finally deigned to show himself, coming out of the bushes. He appeared to be a young, thin man in good clothes that had clearly seen better days. He had no weapon in plain sight. «Come on, I'll introduce you to the others. We're going to town, too.»

He confidently led me through the woods to a small clearing. There were three other guys sitting around a fire. Two of them resembled my first companion, with their slender figures, well-worn clothes, and lack of visible weapons.

But the third was even thinner, wrapped in a long cloak and carrying a small staff that he deftly pulled from his sleeve. He was clearly a mage and the leader of this party.

Thanks to a few bottles of wine from my reserves, I quickly found a common language with them and was accepted into the company. At the same time, I learned the latest news about the city, which I hadn't thought to ask the pretty girl I had questioned in the cave.

The town, called Borderline because of its location on the border of the settled lands, had been doing strange things lately. The main culprit was the local adventuring guild, which had begun handing out quests with extremely high rewards on a massive scale.

I was already aware of their latest series of quests to catch intelligent monsters. But as it turned out, before that, they had been giving out quests to destroy all the evil in the neighborhood, and it was thanks to them that I met the adventuring groups. In addition, to help members of the guild, began to hire squads of city guards, as payment gave them the opportunity to revive.

As a result, rumors of an impending war with huge hordes of monsters controlled by demons spread throughout the city. Most of the city's inhabitants hastily left Borderline for safer places.

But adventurers began to actively move to the city to earn money on lucrative quests. And all sorts of dark personalities tried to profit from the adventurers and the upcoming conflict.

My new acquaintances were among the latter. They were slum dwellers from the urban outskirts of the settlements to the east of here, mostly involved in robbery.

Their dream of catching some adventurous women in a dark alley and having a good time had brought them here. In other cities, as it turned out, this was almost impossible - the adventurers resided in specially designated neighborhoods that minimized conflict with the locals and took security issues seriously.

Here they had already managed to spread all over the city, and the main forces of the guards were thrown to fulfill their tasks.

In the morning, we entered the city together.

«Tell the guards at the gate that you're an adventurer,» the mage nicknamed Smarty told me. «And don't be afraid of the magic crystal test, it's only for detecting demons.»

«And what, there have been cases where demons have tried to infiltrate the cities under the guise of humans?» I was interested.

«I haven't heard of such cases,» my companion shrugged. «But it would be unlikely that they would just check...»

Indeed, we get through without much trouble. Once inside, the first thing we did was go to the local analog of the slums, where we fell into a pub.

After getting together with new acquaintances, we had a feast to celebrate our successful arrival. My companions boasted about their achievements in the field of robbery and mugging....