Chapter 36

Crimson and his party jogged back to town. It was downhill for a good chunk of the run, so it took less time to get back to town. Cherish grumped the whole way about how ‘tired’ she was. How are you so tired if you only killed one goblin?

Skill: Level Up [Balance VI]

Running on a slope also did wonders for his [Balance] and [Running] skills. He’d have to come back later and train.

They reached Falst and entered the gate. This time around he noticed something interesting as he looked at the top of the gate: there were crystals sprouting from the roof. Whenever someone walked under they flashed different colors.

He, and his party, all received the same gentle white flash as they passed under.

“Hey Cherish? What are those crystals for?”

“Oh, those? Those are [Passing Records] they’re [Enchanted] Mana type Crystals, and they do two things: record how many people enter and exit the city in a day, and alert the guards if there are any problematic criminals. The color they turn indicate if you’re Good, Neutral, or Evil. Good is blue, Neutral is grey, and Evil is red. Simple enough. There are also other colors for special positions like ours.

So, if the crystal turns blue: you’re allowed to enter with no problems. If the crystal turns grey, you’ll be questioned before you’re allowed to enter, like what most other cities do. If it turns red, you’ll be arrested immediately.”

The gate area was surrounded by guards, they’d be able to respond quickly if anything went wrong.

“Of course you won’t be held under arrest for long, they’ll let you go if the interrogation doesn’t turn anything up, but you won’t be allowed in the city.”

“It’s amazing that [Enchantments] are able to do so much.” he said with a bit of awe.

Cherish nodded, “They are amazing, but they’re limited. They only work on people who have a Status. For regular citizens they still have to talk with the guards, unless the buy a City Pass, it acts as a pseudo Status and says ‘I’ve been checked.’ Those with City passes do have their own color. Yellow for merchants and craftsmen, and green for regular citizens. There are a few other colors, but you don’t need to worry about them.”

He nodded, he certainly wanted to know about the others, but he didn’t want to annoy Cherish.

The gate wasn’t a simple affair, being thicker than his arm span and bound by giant iron bands. The wall created a tunnel with the gate in the center, and the aforementioned crystals were mounted to the ceiling of the tunnel. There was a constant flow of people passing through the gate, mostly entering, but some were exiting.

He took greater note of the street and surrounding buildings than he did that morning. While the streets were far more congested than they were that morning most people seemed to be taking care of last minute shopping, or heading home. Unlike a lot of fictional books and movies he’d seen there were no animals in town and it didn’t reek of human waste.

It was a sickening mixture of sweat, food, and flowers from the passing people and the roadside stalls along the main street. There were shouts and cries echoing through the air from: people, babies, and stall owners. He’d bet that if he stayed there long enough he’d get a pounding headache; the kind of headache that will turn a man to religion for relief.

The other interesting thing about main street was that it went in a straight line to the plaza around the castle without any twists or turns, the roads leading off main street were evenly spaced - Falst had been planned out instead of just spreading out like most cities.

He turned to Cherish, “Is everything this perfectly planned out throughout the city?”

“For the most part yeah, there are some areas that were never finished due to costs, those areas just grew on their own and became what they are today. One became the slums, one became the home of high end restaurants for nobles, and the last one holds a bunch of…borderline, shops.”

“Borderline?”

“Yeah, some of the stuff in those shops are related to the occult, but they have pretty much anything you can’t find in the regular shops. It’s safe enough over there, just be sure that you know what you are buying.”

“Gotcha.”

They worked their way through the crowd and eventually made it to the castle.

“Crimson, do you know who Lars is?”

“Yeah, he’s the Tiger-Kin quartermaster.”

“That’s him. Go give him all your drops. Make sure that you tell him that you got a skill as a drop and assimilated it.”

“Understood. You aren’t coming with?”

“We didn’t kill all those goblins, plus we get a lighter quota this month for training you today.” Cherish looked a little smug about that fact, “I also have some business to take care of.”

He nodded at her, then began his walk to the barracks. He noticed a strange young man tending to a patch of purple flowers on his route, and began to walk past him.

“Good day.” He said without looking at Crimson.

“Good evening.”

“You must be one of the new DGs correct? I’m glad to see new blood. It’s always nice to meet new people.”

Crimson stared at the man with surprised confusion. Why would this guy randomly start talking to me? He tried to think of a way to continue the conversation without being awkward - lacking any other option he settled for the obvious: “What are you doing?”

The young man looked up at Crimson, then stood while dusting off his hands and pants.

“I am tending to the flowers. I planted these myself and they are growing splendidly if I do say so myself.”

“Very nice.” Crimson still felt a little…very awkward around the man, the first problem was that he looked like a male version of Rhinese, the second is that he gave off the same vibe as a photogenic Hollywood actor: his facial expression and body language were both friendly, but his eyes were…off. They did look just as warm and friendly as the rest of his body language, but it didn’t seem real. Again, it was like dealing with a photogenic Hollywood actor: he was perfect, but when you looked close you could tell something was off.

This guy gives me the creeps.

“I’m glad you like my flowers. My name is Kaine, I expect we’ll be seeing a lot of each other in the future, I hope to get along with you.”

Kaine extended his hand to Crimson and he gripped it; his hands felt as cold as ice. He plastered on a smile that he suspected was every bit as fake as Kaine’s and responded, “Crimson, likewise. You’ll have to excuse me, I need to speak with the Quartermaster.”

He walked away as fast as he could with out making it seem like he was rushing, while two eyes bored into his back.