Chapter 75: A Different Kind of Gate
The memory of Torak's overwhelming, steam-and-magic-choked grandeur was a sharp contrast to the approach to Silveridge. There were no belching pipes or mechanical lizards here. No sky-piercing spires. The land softened, the dense, ancient woods of the forest's reach giving way to rolling hills cleared for agriculture. Tidy, well-kept fields of a grain that shimmered with a faint blue hue stretched out on either side of the road, interrupted by plots of robust, purple-leafed vegetables. Farmers, their skin tanned leathery by the sun, worked the land with patient, practiced movements, their eyes flicking up with mild curiosity as our small, battered caravan passed.
The walls of Silveridge appeared in the distance. They were… functional. Maybe twenty feet high, built of a light grey, locally quarried stone, lacking the imposing, moss-streaked menace of Torak's defenses. They weren't meant to hold back a magical beast tide or an army of goblins; they were meant to deter bandits and tax evaders. Watchtowers stood at regular intervals, but they looked more like raised platforms for archers than the multi-layered bastions I'd seen before.
It was a relief. A testament to a quieter, if not safer, existence. This was a city that lived off trade and farming, not constant warfare on the edge of a magical forest.
As we joined the line of carts waiting to enter, a line of farmers with produce, a few merchants with covered wagons, the familiar ritual of bureaucracy began. But this time, I wasn't the clueless rube fumbling with coins he didn't understand.
When it was our turn, the guard, a younger man with a bored expression and a helmet that looked a size too big, gave our party a once-over. His eyes lingered on the lack of a visible sword on my hip and the fresh scrapes on Briza's armor.
"Purpose of your visit?" he droned.
Laron leaned forward from his wagon seat, his merchant's smile firmly in place. "Business, good sir! Laron of the Wandering Hoard, here to deliver a commissioned collection to Patron Evander. We have a guild-sanc…"
The guard held up a hand, cutting him off. He looked at me. "And you? You don't look like a servant."
Before I could answer, I reached into the inner pocket of my vest and produced two items. The first was my Adventurer's Guild card, a laminated piece of treated leather stamped with the guild's sigil, a stylized tower and sword, and the letter 'D' clearly embossed in one corner. The second was the quest parchment from the Torak guild hall, detailing the escort mission for Laron, complete with dates, client seal, and my assigned signature.
"Kaizen. D-Rank Adventurer," I said, my voice flat and professional. "Escort detail for Merchant Laron. Quest is active and logged."
The guard took the card, scrutinizing it. He compared the scrawled signature on the quest parchment to the one on the card, then gave a grunt of approval. The difference was night and day from my arrival in Torak. No suspicion, no demands for exorbitant fees. The Guild ID was a universal key, a stamp of legitimacy that bypassed a mountain of paperwork.
"Everything seems in order," the guard said, handing the card back. He glanced at the wagons. "Anything to declare? Weapons, magical artifacts, controlled substances?"
"Only art and culture, sir," Laron said smoothly, though his ears twitched nervously. "Tapestries and singing stones."
The guard waved a dismissive hand. "Move along. The Cartographer's Lane is to your right, past the main square. Patron Evander's estate is the one with the blue-tiled roof. You can't miss it."
"Our thanks!" Laron said, beaming.
We clicked the horses forward, and the wagons rolled under the arched gatehouse. The transition was seamless. No moment of overwhelming sensory assault. No shocking reveal.
Silveridge unfolded slowly, like a flower opening to the sun.
The air here was different. It smelled of baking bread, tanned leather, and the faint, clean scent of the blue grain from the fields. The sounds were the comfortable, industrious hum of a working town: the rhythmic clang of a blacksmith's hammer, the chatter from open-air markets, the rumble of cart wheels on cobblestones.
The architecture was lower, more human-scaled. Buildings were two, maybe three stories at most, made of whitewashed stone and dark timber beams. Flower boxes overflowing with vibrant blossoms sat under many windows. It was clean, orderly, and prosperous in a way that felt earned, not ostentatious.
It wasn't the thrilling, dangerous chaos of Torak. It was… nice. Almost unsettlingly so after the horrors of the road.
"See? I told you it was a lovely city," Laron said, his voice full of pride as if he'd built the place himself. "Civilization."
Briza, riding beside me, let out a quiet snort. Her eyes, however, were constantly moving, assessing rooftops, alleyways, and the faces in the crowd with a professional's paranoia. She might have been grateful for my intervention with the Wurm, but her core duty hadn't changed. "Lovely cities often have the loveliest thieves," she muttered. "We should get off the main thoroughfare."
I nodded in agreement. My own senses, still buzzing with the afterglow of my Ki breakthrough, were stretched thin. The sheer density of life here was a constant, low-level hum against my newfound awareness. I could feel the robust vitality of the blacksmith at his forge, the flickering energies of children playing chase, the weary pulse of an old woman sweeping her doorstep. It was a cacophony of life signatures, overwhelming and indistinct, but there. A proof of concept.
As we turned off the main square onto the narrower Cartographer's Lane, a thought crystallized. Torak was a city built for war, a fortress on the frontier. Silveridge was a city built for commerce, a hub in safer lands. One required overwhelming force and constant vigilance. The other required guile, paperwork, and a sharp eye for an opportunity.
We had survived the wilderness, the Aberration, and the journey. Now, a different kind of game began. The game of contracts, percentages, and turning memories of other worlds into a new kind of power. I patted the stump of my sword, a bitter reminder of the cost of the last lesson.
This peaceful, "lovely" city was just another type of battlefield. And for the first time, I felt equipped to fight on it.
The "lovely" city was starting to feel like a cage. Cartographer's Lane was narrow, the whitewashed buildings leaning in as if sharing secrets, their overhanging upper floors blocking out much of the sky. The comfortable hum of the main square faded, replaced by the echo of our own wagon wheels on the cobbles. It was too quiet. Too still.
And I felt watched.
It wasn't the primal, soul-sucking gaze of the Shadow-Wurm. This was different. Sly. Calculating. A dozen little pinpricks on the back of my neck, from shuttered windows and shadowed alley mouths. My new, fledgling Ki sense was a tangled mess in the urban density, but the basic, human instinct for predation was screaming.
"Lovely," I muttered, echoing Laron's word with a different, darker tone.
Briza heard it. Her hand hadn't left the hilt of her broken sword since we'd entered the lane. "You feel it too," she said, not a question.
"Feels like we're the main course on a menu," I replied, my eyes scanning a rooftop where a cat had just startled, darting away from nothing I could see. "This Patron of yours. He have any enemies who'd know his shipment was coming?"
Laron, who had been basking in the relief of our arrival, paled. "Evander? He's a patron of the arts! A respected citizen! He has rivals, of course, in business, but… enemies?"
"Anyone with money has enemies," Briza stated flatly. "And you talk too much in taverns, Laron. Half of Torak probably knew what you were shipping and when you were leaving."
The rabbit demihuman's ears drooped. "I… I merely generate excitement for my wares…"
"We need to get off the street," I cut in. "Now. We find an inn, get the wagons into a secured yard, and then you can go play art dealer. We're sitting ducks here."
The plan was simple, but every second we spent exposed in this quiet, too-orderly lane tightened the knot in my gut. We found a side alley that led to a slightly wider street with a sign depicting a chipped wooden mug: The Grumbling Gryphon. It looked cheap, sturdy, and most importantly, it had a gated courtyard for wagons.
The innkeeper, a burly woman with arms thick from hauling kegs, eyed our bedraggled party and our guarded demeanor with a practiced lack of surprise. Money changed hands, Laron's this time and we were soon directing the wagons into the walled courtyard. The moment the heavy wooden gate swung shut behind us, bolted from the inside, I felt the first fraction of tension leave my shoulders.
But the feeling of being watched didn't vanish. It just changed. It was no longer a immediate threat, but a patient one. A predator that knew where its prey was bedded down for the night.
Inside, the common room was a welcome wave of noise and normalcy. The air was thick with the smell of stew, ale, and pipe smoke. A few locals glanced up from their drinks, their curiosity brief before returning to their own business. We claimed a table in a corner, my back to the wall, giving me a clear view of both the door and the staircase leading to the rooms.
When the barmaid came, I didn't even look at the menu. "The stew. And whatever passes for your strongest ale." Briza ordered the same, her posture rigid even in repose. Laron, looking overwhelmed, asked for a plate of cheese and bread.
As the barmaid left, the awkwardness descended. We were three people bound by a contract and a shared trauma, with nothing to say to each other. Laron fidgeted with his ledger. Briza stared into the middle distance, no doubt mentally tallying the cost of replacing her sword. I just sat there, hyper-aware of every creak of the floorboards, every burst of laughter from another table.
The food arrived. The stew was hearty, thick with meat and root vegetables. The ale was dark and bitter, washing the dust of the road from my throat. It was the first proper meal I'd had since… since the pizza in the System Administrator's office. A lifetime ago.
But I couldn't enjoy it. Every time the inn door opened, my head would come up, my senses straining. Was it just a farmer? Or was it one of the watchers? My Ki sense was useless, a formless static of life-forces in a crowded room. I needed to master it. I needed to be able to pick out the hostile intent from the background noise.
"It worked," Briza said suddenly, her voice low, not looking at me. "That… light. You saved us."
I took a long swallow of ale. "I got lucky."
"Luck is a skill," she countered, finally turning her gaze on me. The outright suspicion was gone, replaced by a wary, professional respect. "I have never seen its like. It was not mana. It was… louder."
"It's called Ki," I said, seeing no point in hiding it. It wasn't like she could replicate it. "Life energy."
She grunted, filing the information away. "It is a powerful skill. And an expensive one," she added, her eyes flicking to the empty space on my belt where my sword should have been.
A fresh wave of frustration boiled up. "Don't remind me. Five thousand fucking Pele, gone in a heartbeat because I was thinking with my muscles instead of my head." I shoved a piece of bread into the stew, scowling. "A costly lesson."
The rest of the meal passed in a similar stilted fashion. The relief of survival was there, but it was buried under the weight of new threats and financial ruin. As we finished, Laron, emboldened by the food and the relative safety, stood.
"I… I should go to Evander's. Secure the delivery and our payment. The sooner we conclude our business, the better."
Briza immediately stood. "I will accompany you."
"I'll stay here," I said. "Guard the wagons and our remaining gear." And try to make sense of this fucking Ki sense before it gets us all killed, I didn't add.
They nodded and left, melting into the late afternoon crowd outside. Alone at the table, I nursed my ale, the feeling of being watched now a dull, persistent throb at the base of my skull. Silveridge was a different kind of fight, alright. One of shadows and percentages. But as I felt that phantom spark of energy flicker once more at the edge of my perception, I knew I was gathering new weapons for it.
The 24.5% survival chance for Mission 3 didn't feel like such a pipe dream anymore. It felt like a challenge. And for the first time, I was genuinely excited to see if I could beat the odds.
[A/N: Can't wait to see what happens next? Get exclusive early access on patreon.com/saiyanprincenovels. If you enjoyed this chapter and want to see more, don't forget to drop a power stone! Your support helps this story reach more readers!]