The bar hit the second I step down, full volu, every conversation, scrapes of mugs and chairs arriving at once.
I spotted the group before I had to look for them because you do not look for Nom-Nom; you simply let your eyes go to whatever has created a ten-ter bubble of empty space, and you’ll find her in the center of it.
Peko clocked coming down the stairs before I reached the floor.
"The contract is signed," she said, lifting the folded papers toward .
"If you handled it, it’s handled..." I said, walking past her. "Let’s go."
The papers went back down, the Iron Vanguard exchanged a look, and I caught Garek filing this away in whatever ntal folder he kept his observations about us in.
Trust like that was apparently not sothing most adventurer groups handed out casually, and judging from the way Garek’s eyes lingered on Peko for half a second afterward, he had definitely clocked the implication behind it.
Mitsuki folded the papers neatly before storing them away while everyone rose from the table, and soon enough, we were moving through the guild hall toward the exit together under the attention of practically half the building.
So of the stares were aid at Nom-Nom.
So were aid at .
Most were aid at both.
"That’s the dragon..." a rookie whispered near the request boards.
"That’s the guy from Hollow Cinder Mine..." another muttered quietly.
We stepped outside into the morning air while the sounds of the city rolled over us imdiately from every direction at once, carts rattling across stone roads, vendors yelling over each other from roadside stalls, smithies hamring away in the distance, and sowhere nearby a woman was threatening to beat sobody unconscious with a fish.
Normal city ambience.
The traffic built as we walked, which I had expected, but the volu of it was sothing else entirely.
The closer we moved toward the southern district, the denser the streets beca around us, while the flow of traffic slowly shifted from ordinary comrce into sothing heavier and more anxious beneath the surface.
At first, it was just more travellers, but then ca more carts, more supply wagons, more families carrying entire lives across their shoulders.
Every race funneled into the sa road: elves, dwarves, demon-folk, beast-kin, and humans, most of whom were moving with packs on their backs and children on their shoulders, dragging carts piled with covered supplies that soone had priced out before the market had a chance to respond to demand.
"You two heading toward the dungeon too?" Garek eventually asked while glancing between Peko and .
"Nope," I replied casually. "Got so stuff to handle first."
Then I jerked a thumb toward Nom-Nom.
"I’m borrowing Nom for a bit."
Nom-Nom imdiately looked over.
"Hm?"
That tiny sound alone confird she had absolutely not been inford about this beforehand.
And frankly, 15 minutes ago, neither was I.
It was a spur-of-the-mont decision.
"What stuff?" she asked suspiciously.
"You’ll see."
Her eyes narrowed imdiately.
"Am I beating soone up?"
"Kinda... hopefully." I chuckled.
Peko sighed softly beside , imdiately figuring out what I was up to.
The gate square arrived loud before it arrived visible; the entire district had effectively transford into a giant waiting zone for incoming refugees.
Tents covered entire sections of open pavent.
Cooking fires burned between tightly packed family camps.
rchants had set up temporary stalls absolutely everywhere humanly possible, and the guards directing traffic near the gates already looked spiritually exhausted despite the day barely having started.
Children cried sowhere off to the side while wagons lined up in enormous queues stretching down entire streets, and every few minutes, another group of travelers arrived through the southern roads carrying whatever pieces of their lives they had managed to bring with them.
"These are all Red Moon arrivals?" I asked while looking over the crowds.
"Yes," Peko replied calmly. "Early arrivals."
"Because bunker positioning matters..." Mitsuki added quietly.
Peko nodded once, picking up where Mitsuki left off.
"Supply prices rise dramatically the closer the Red Moon approaches, and districts nearest to major shelters beco overcrowded very quickly. Those who arrive later often struggle to secure enough provisions for their families."
"And the Night itself can last weeks," Garek added.
I looked toward him.
"The Red Moon only ends once the joint forces enter the Red Moon itself and kill the Keeper..." he continued evenly. "Until then, the waves continue."
[So the annual apocalypse event isn’t exactly a single night at all...]
I absorbed that alongside the square full of people who had done the math on their own survival and arrived at the sa destination, and the city that was about to have all of them inside its walls.
As we passed one of the larger tent clusters near the gate square, a small Beastkin child spotted Nom-Nom and imdiately waved enthusiastically toward her with both arms.
Nom-Nom froze mid-step.
The child’s mother saw what her kid was waving at one second later and reacted instantly, grabbing the child and pulling him back hard enough that the poor kid almost lost his shoe.
But before they disappeared into the crowd, Nom-Nom awkwardly raised her hand and waved back once.
The child grinned imdiately, while the mother, thoroughly horrified, hurried away faster.
Nom-Nom watched them disappear into the crowd quietly before resuming walking without saying anything.
None of us comnted on it either.
The guards at the southern gate processed us almost imdiately once they recognized who exactly was approaching, and within minutes, we had cleared the walls entirely
And within a few minutes more, the enormous refugee was behind us, farther than I could comfortably see.
Outside the walls, the road opened up, and the noise of the city dropped behind us while the forest ahead ca into view beyond the rolling dirt paths.
The air itself felt less compressed without people packed into every available ter of space.
I even saw Peko taking in a deep breath of the crisp, fresh air, now that she was finally away from the overwhelming scents of... well, just about everything.
"This is where we split for now," I said, slowing slightly.
Garek nodded once.
"Nom’ll et you by the dungeon... I only need her for a bit." I continued, casually reaching into my inventory and pulling out a crate before extending it to Garek.
Inside sat ten glass bottles filled with pale green liquid so clean and clear that the sunlight passing through them produced faint shimring reflections across the inside of the crate itself.
He took it on reflex, both hands coming up to receive the weight, and he looked down at it.
Taking out one of the ten Grade 8 potions inside, he turned it in his hands, checking the smooth translucent green liquid carrying faint mana density beneath the glass.
"These are absurdly pure," he said, breathless.
"Uh-huh, consider these your... Health insurance," I said with a chuckle.
Mitsuki’s eyes sharpened imdiately afterward.
Berant looked between the crate and like he was trying to determine whether I was secretly a governnt conspiracy.
anwhile, Selenne clutched her hand with the other, trying to stop the shaking.
Which honestly felt like her default reaction whenever I did anything now.
"These alone are worth a small fortune..." Mitsuki murmured.
"If you say so..." I smiled.
Then ca the important part.
Because, while infinite potion production was a pretty fun concept, all for the wrong reasons, I needed society to stop asking questions before soone eventually arrived at the correct answer and had an aneurysm.
So I improvised.
"Peko made them," I said casually. "She’s gotten really into alchemy lately"
Everyone looked at Peko.
While Peko looked at , wordlessly asking, ’Since when?’
While I continued, absolutely refusing to make eye contact with her. "Turns out she’s really good at it."
Technically speaking, this was not even the worst lie I had told this morning.
And now, suddenly, the existence of absurdly high-quality healing potions had a believable explanation attached to them instead of whatever horrifying conclusion people would otherwise eventually reach regarding .
"Peko has been experinting," I continued casually. "This batch ended up better than expected, so we figured there’s no reason to let useful stock sit around collecting dust."
Garek slowly looked back toward the potion in his hand as he breathed, "...I see."
"That explains the purity," Mitsuki said thoughtfully.
Peko finally sighed softly and said calmly, giving the Iron Vanguard a look over, "Please use them carefully."
And that single line imdiately made the entire story infinitely more believable.
I almost laughed out loud.
Garek carefully put the potion back into the crate and bowed his head slightly toward Peko, "We’ll make good use of them."
Final farewells followed shortly afterward while the Iron Vanguard prepared to continue southward toward the dungeon routes.
Mitsuki thanked us quietly.
Berant gave an awkward half-bow that looked physically painful for him to perform.
Selenne avoided eye contact completely.
Nom-Nom looked at all of them seriously before speaking.
"Don’t die."
Berant looked deeply uncertain whether that counted as encouragent or a threat.
I watched the Iron Vanguard disappear further down the dirt road before finally turning toward Peko.
"So," I asked. "Pick a spot?"
Peko imdiately opened the Party Module, unfolding a 3D topographical map between us, expanding the forest terrain.
She pointed toward a location deep within the southern forest between Shinkotsu and the border regions.
"Sounds decent," I nodded.
The reason we needed sowhere isolated was fairly straightforward.
mory Extraction is technically classified as Dark Magic and was extrely illegal for several very understandable reasons.
Extracting intact mories from a living or recently deceased mind required invasive manipulation of the brain itself, and according to Peko, most practitioners either destroyed large portions of the target’s mories accidentally or simply exploded the brain outright during the process.
Which honestly felt like nature itself trying very hard to stop people from doing this.
"If perford improperly," Peko explained calmly while adjusting the map projection, "... the target suffers catastrophic neurological collapse before complete extraction can occur."
"So basically illegal brain archaeology?"
"That is an extrely irresponsible way to phrase it."
"But not inaccurate."
Without the ritual itself, she could only extract fragnted pieces. And that too while exploding her target’s head.
But with proper preparation and a proper ritual, full extraction is possible.
Still horribly illegal though.
Getting caught doing Dark Magic ranged anywhere from having your mana core crippled to outright public execution, depending entirely on how badly the Mage’s Association wanted to make an example out of you.
Which was exactly why we were absolutely not performing the ritual inside our luxury inn room like a bunch of psychopaths.
The ritual itself also required nightti conditions to function properly, aning we had the entire day free to prepare supplies and pick soplace more deserted than a library on New Year’s Eve.
Once that’s handled, by evening, I would return to the city for the eting with Kisho Hikaru while Peko handled the extraction itself.
Which finally brought back toward the final reason I had kept Nom-Nom behind.
"Now, the reason I kept you." I turned to Nom-Nom as she straightened imdiately.
"We’re gonna spar," I continued. "I wanna see what you’ve actually learned so far and where your current level really is."
She listened carefully while I continued walking beside her.
"Look, I know I’m not exactly qualified to teach or judge..." I admitted openly. "I an, right now we’re basically two middle schoolers winning by throwing overpowered magic around..."
Nom-Nom looked mildly offended by that statent despite not knowing what a middle schooler even is.
But I could tell she agreed with the statent.
"So instead of frankly beating up... you’re fighting a Ferrum Knight."
I looked straight in Nom-Nom’s eyes, activating the magic, levitating the golden speck beside , and continued.
"A Ferrum Knight charged continuously for one full hour... starting from now."
Her eyes widened imdiately.
Then sharpened.
And there it was.
The little smile Nom-Nom constantly carried vanished from her face completely while her slit violet eyes narrowed into sothing colder and far more dominating.
Because she understood exactly what I had just implied.
The whole "not even one percent" conversation yesterday had absolutely wounded her pride, and now I had placed physical proof of that statent directly in front of her.
And judging from the way her posture shifted while staring at that little speck of gold without blinking, I had hit the target perfectly.
[Yep... there she is.]
And just like that, Nom-Nom was gone, and what remained was only a Greater Dragon with sothing to prove, and shove the results down my throat.
User Comments
0 comments from readers