Chapter 8: Arriving at Larkesh

CHAPTER 8

Before we continued with our journey I noticed Meili lingering for a moment. Her eyes seemed to be flicking back to the dead serpent in the water.

“Are you not going to loot the serpent?” she asked, pointing with her thumb behind her.

“Loot?” I asked.

“Well yes, you are the one who slayed the thing, you could take its fangs or its hide, they might fetch a good prize on the market.” She explained.

I simply looked at her in surprise, this was yet another useful thing I had just learned but of course even with that there was still the idea of skinning a dead snake which made my stomach turn.

“If you don’t want to, we can just move on, it’s just, it’s always nice to have some extra coin on you.” She smiled.

Better a dead snake than a living one, I thought as I was stricken by the realization that this world, like any other, most probably revolved around wealth and money and I was in no possession of any such thing. Monsters and magic aside, it’s all about those coins in the end, eh?

“Yes, I suppose I should do that, it would be nice if I had a weapon though.” I scratched my head, feeling the absence of my knife once again; speaking of which I could always use that extra coin to buy a new weapon.

“I have a knife, not much power in it but I think it will do the job.” Meili said, pulling a small blade with a blue hilt from her right boot.

I grabbed the knife and willing my revolving guts to stand still, I approached the slain sea beast. It already smelled, or perhaps it had always smelled this way: of algae and wet ground and sea food.

A sudden realization tugged at my thoughts, I was way too comfortable with doing something like this. Indeed, even now I still felt disgust, but back in my old world I wouldn’t pay this carcass a second glance from the sheer grossness of it, let alone get close to it to pull out its fangs. Before I could even ponder over the implications of that I was already parting its green mouth and pulling its two yellow fangs out. I then moved onto its skin and although I don’t feel comfortable describing it in any great detail, I will say that I thought I had done a masterful job.

While I was getting down with my work I could hear Remen behind me complaining a couple of times, about how they should just leave and how he should get a portion of the money because it was his sword that had slain the sea serpent. When I emerged back from the other side of the pond Meili had already procured a brown pouch and held it open before me.

“You can borrow this.” She said.

“Thank you.” I said stuffing the loot into the pouch.

“Thank Alti,” she whispered leaning closer to me, “it was his but he is too shy to give it to you himself.”

I looked at him and smiled with a nod, he smiled back for a moment but then looked away almost instantly.

“Well we are all set now, I suppose.” I said, shaking the contents in the pouch.

“Yes,” Remen chimed in, “and no more holdbacks.”

We descended the hills as Meili explained how the shenanigans with the griffin had thrown us slightly off the original course, she also told me how from where we were now there was a shortcut that could get us to the town even faster.

“What is the name of this town we are heading in?” I asked.

“Larkesh,” she said, “it’s a beautiful town, not as big as Tairen or Denner by any means but it’s basically filled with merchants carrying goods of any price range so there’s something for everyone, not to mention that that you can find a quest of any desired type in it.”

I nodded, anticipating all the possibilities and sights that yet awaited me. As we walked over the blooming pastures of this new world I figured this was as good of a time for self-reflection as any. I had already accepted my situation by now; it didn’t take too long for acceptance to settle in.

Before I was Nero of modern day Earth now I am Nero of some fantasy world (at least I thought I was still Nero, that was still somewhat up in the air) but regardless, now I was living a different life and would continue to live it for an indefinite amount of time. It was what it was, there was no use pondering over that any further. There were certain other things that begged a thought or two and that was: how I should live this life. What is my purpose here?

When I really looked within myself and thought about it, my biggest wish was to explore and discover this new world that I was in. One thing that i learned about this world is that it is merciless so if i want to stay around long enough to explore it I would have to survive and the guaranteed way to survive is to be strong. Was that a valid objective, to grow as powerful as possible; I seemed to have the means for it. These abilities that were granted to me upon my arrival here seemed to be unique even in this world of magic and wonder.

But there was something else that I couldn't ignore. When I played that tutorial that was in some way responsible for getting me here, I got a glimpse of that man who was trying to accomplish something before I ended up in his place. But that man died, he was killed wasn’t he, I saw it with my eyes. but he was a character in a video game...was i somehow connected to him, did I, through some means, come to inhabit that man and in that way assumed his destiny. If so, should I be trying to figure out what that destiny was? And that knight in black that killed him, seeing him as 2d pixel art was one thing, but considering the possibility that he might really exist sent shivers down my spine.

As my thoughts began to reel, my feelings of excitement slowly being tainted by those of fear I had to take a deep breath and push them away. They were not necessary for now. There was that system too, did other people of this world possess it as well.

“Hey Meili,” I called for her attention while still forming the question in my head, “this may sound strange but, um, when you train and become stronger, is there any way to find out when that happens?”

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Meili gave me that look again, as if she couldn’t decide if I was joking or if I was insane. Seeing that she wasn’t sure what to say I decided to help her out.

“I mean let’s say you reach a new height of your strength and you unlock a new ability, something like that happens to people right?” I asked.

“Yes, it does,” she nodded.

“Well how do you know when that happens?”

“You just know, it’s something that you can sense within yourself, we call it ascension.” She said.

“But you don’t have something stating that directly, like a voice or something.” I added that last part with a laugh, to disperse further suspicions of my insanity.

“Well maybe you could call it a voice in a poetic sense, but not literally no, there is no such thing, I think those who hear voices ought to visit a physician.” She laughed.

“Yes, that’s right.” I gave a fake laugh back.

Alright so that more or less settled it. There was a form of leveling up for others too but it was something that happened spontaneously and without a system, that could only mean that there were no stat point assignments either.

Hey system, I summoned it in my head.

[System on standby,] it announced right after I called for it.

“Do you have any information on me?” I asked at last.

[Processing available information…]

[System has encountered conflicting data, information currently unavailable. You will be notified whenever valid information is available]

That was odd. I wondered what this could mean. Another thing that has been on my mind was the fact that back in the dungeon I was attacked by ghouls, even the system had confirmed that ghouls usually feed on corpses so why were they so hell bent to snack on me, of course the easy explanation for that could be that they were just that hungry. Or perhaps they felt the smell of blood, I thought suddenly, if I was somehow the same person as the player character from the tutorial that means I got stabbed in the chest by the black night.

I looked down my body and there were no stab wounds anywhere, besides the single scratch on my thigh from one of the ghouls earlier I was completely unscathed, my armor was intact too.

For the remainder of the day my party and I made our way across the wild nature of this new world and after a period of time that felt like three or four hours, Remen announced that the town was almost in sight.

We walked down an earthen path that snaked between two small hills on both sides and taking a right turn we had finally spotted the town, or at least the gates leading into the town. Two tall wooden gates were pushed wide open and as we got closer I noticed they were manned by a few guards wearing silver chainmail and holding their weapons.

One of the guards walked towards us as we neared the gate, holding the halberd in his hand upwards.

“Greetings folk, what business do you have in our town of Larkesh?” the guard with a graying mustache asked.

Meili, Remen and Alti, raised their arms in perfect sync, as if they had practiced this and pulled their sleeves upwards only slightly. Standing next to them I caught a glimpse of some sort of tattoo.

“Ah 'Revolving Ark'” The guard smiled, his demeanor changing immediately from serious to friendly. “Why didn’t you say so right away, go ahead please.”

The guard moved to let them pass but as I stepped forward he held the halberd before me.

“What about you sir, you haven’t shown me your mark.” The guard eyes me suspiciously.

“Well, I…”

“He’s not a guilder but he is with us.” Meili said, pulling me along.

“Alright, pardon me, I have to ask, that’s part of the job.” He raised his hands defensively.

They bid him their goodbyes as we moved into the town.

No amount of video games or vivid descriptions in works of fiction could prepare me for the sights that awaited me within the humble walls of Larkesh town. From the moment we stepped our feet past the town’s gates I stared in disbelief at each object my eye cared to glaze over. There was so much to note that my eyes were doing hardcore labor in those moments. From the houses built with polished bricks in varied colors and the low thatched roofs, to the neatly arranged stone pathways, ornamented with bent lamp posts on the sides.

Upon entering, I could discern that this first block was a residential area, peasants making their way through the street, children running along cheerfully as well as a few horses and donkeys trotting along the brick walkway. No one was paying us much attention, save for the few children that ogled at us from the sides as if we were some war heroes, returning from battle.

As we continued to walk it suddenly seemed as if we had entered a whole new town. The roads expanded, the buildings grew taller and the streets seem to be dominated by adults mostly, adults that seemed to be better off compared to the peasants we encountered just a few blocks back. I spotted a tall man with spectacles and slicked back brown hair, dressed in a blue suit, emerging from one building and heading into another across the street. He didn’t even bother looking up as his attention was taken by a stack of papers in his hands; he was listing through them while walking.

Off to the side I noticed yet another finely dressed man, he wore a coat that almost reached the ground, and the top of his head was completely bald while in the back I could notice a fall of dark hair. He was attended by two guards. In his hand he held a coin; spinning it between his fingers it seemed as if he was sharing some joke with his bodyguards. He, unlike the previous man, seemed to notice our presence for no longer than an instant and giving us what appeared to be a sneer, he went back to telling his joke.

“You seem to like it here.” Meili said, noticing by dumbfounded expression, as if I was seeing a civilized establishment for the first time in my life.

“Actually, it’s very different from anything I’ve seen before.” I said.

“It is? You’re going to have to tell me about your home sometime.” She said with a smile.

“Yes, sometime.” I said.

We took a right turn into a street with more buildings and then turning left, awaited us yet another street with buildings and self-important people walking about. At this point I began to notice a few people whose attire resembled that of Meili and her friends. Armor, weapons, rucksacks, they were other adventurers, or from what I understood, members of guilds.

Lost in the sights, I didn’t notice we had arrived at our destination until I saw my three companions stopping in front of one of the buildings. I looked up to the sign up front and on the wooden board there was a painting of a blue ship with a green orb underneath it.

“So what do we say?” Remen whispered, fidgeting around.

“We explain what happened,” Meili whispered back though slightly louder, “the dungeon disappeared before we got there.”

“He won’t be happy with that.” Remen continued.

“Well, that’s what happened, nothing we could do about it, let’s go Alti, you too come with us…” Meili turned to me and then laughed as if she was embarrassed, “I can’t believe it but I just realized we don’t know your name.”

That’s right, I never said my name. I knew my old name but was this new world perhaps worthy of a new name. I wondered for a second as to how I should identify myself. Thousands of names and the people attached to them flashed in my mind. My old name was Nero, though it felt wrong using that now. Then perhaps,

“Oren,” I said at last, “My name is Oren.”

That was so lame, I realized as soon as the name was said out loud.

“Well nice to meet you Oren,” Meili nodded, “this is our guilds' ‘The Revolving Ark’ headquarters.”