Chapter 31: Ch 31: A City in Fear
As Baldeur arrived out in front of the company branch office, Sigurd and Haydn did double takes. They could sense that Baldeur had entered the third circle in Mana.
It was possible to obscure what circle someone was in but it was difficult to do that while an advancement was still raw. Not that Baldeur was planning to hide it.
"Congratulations. Though usually it's best to wait between missions since newly formed circles can easily lead to Mana fatigue." Sigurd said.
"Oh yeah. I forgot about that." Baldeur rubbed the back of his head to exaggerate his embarrassment.
He actually did forget about possible Mana fatigue with newly formed circles. Partially because his methods of splitting his circles kept the time of risk to a few hours and he'd be fine by noon, rather than after a few days like most people.
"We'll mostly be traveling so it shouldn't be too risky. Plus, it's the most stable advancement I've ever seen." Haydn said.
"Alright, we're already a bit delayed in starting. We have a long journey to just get to the mountain range." Piaras then mounted his horse.
The others followed suit and started to get ready to head out of the city.
"Aisling. Are you okay?" Baldeur called out to the stunned woman standing in the doorway of the world branch office.
It was already a surprise that he made the effort to advance one Source overnight, but two was well beyond what she thought of him.
Collecting herself she mounted her horse and joined the others.
They weren't too far from the city's gates and were soon on the open road.
A few hours outside of the capital city they just left, Aisling approached Baldeur.
"Why'd you do it? You seemed to think that prophecy was fake. So I can't see that as being the reason." Aisling said.
"It just seemed like it was time. Maybe if I put a little effort into my training things might go a little smoother and I can slack off more since our missions won't be that hard for an empowered person like me." Baldeur replied.
"That sounds like the type of messed up logic you'd come up with. Train hard just so you can be lazy. You know it doesn't work like that right? The better you are, the more challenging the missions they send you on." Aisling said.
"Huh, I guess I should just become all powerful so everything is easy for me." Baldeur said.
"Idiot." Aisling then moved her horse further up in the line.
Over the next five days they kept a decent pace and stopped in smaller villages or alongside the main road to rest at night. It was an uneventful journey thus far.
Things got a little interesting when they arrived in the city of Vlaburg.
The guards at the gates were visibly tense and asked a lot of questions about where they came from, who they met on the road, and where their final destination was.
Once in the city the tense atmosphere continued in the way the citizens carried themselves; traveling in pairs, walking hurriedly, and constantly looking behind themselves.
The office of the Zeerous Trade Company in the city was only a small building with a warehouse meant as a pit stop for caravans and not the full set up back in the capital.
After checking in at the office, Piaras found no new news about the people they were sent to find but he did find out why the city was on edge.
"Turns out there's been a number of gruesome murders lately. Sometimes it's lone people on the streets, sometimes it has been families in their own homes. Most have happened at night but a few took place during the day. This also isn't the first city to experience this.
"We'll be sharing rooms at the inn tonight and stay there until it's time to leave in the morning. No one goes out alone. Each of you has enough training to take care of yourself but I don't want the locals thinking we might be involved in any way. So we'll stay out of sight until we can leave." Piaras said.
They ended up in a decent inn near the gate that they'd be leaving through the next day.
As they were eating dinner, the other patrons in the common room were giving them different looks that were mostly variations of fear or anger. Their group could pick up on snippets of conversation about them and what had been going on in the city.
Then one of the more drunk patrons got up and stood close to their table. Just eying them without saying a word.
"Can we help you friend?" Piaras asked in a pleasant tone.
After staring a bit more and making an effort to not fall over the man spoke.
"You can go back to where you came from." The drunk said.
"We're just making our way to the Hoernter mountains. We'll be out of the city at sunrise." Piaras said.
"Well that's not soon enough. You travelers coming here and killing our people. We're not going to put up with it… Are we going to put up with it?" The drunk had begun to address the other patrons.
Most looked away wanting nothing to do with this, but a few started to look like they were going to join him.
Baldeur had started to hum as quietly as possible to not alert anyone that he was singing an emotional calming spell of Divinus. His volume made the spell less effective but he didn't want anyone to accuse him of being devious if they heard him.
Thankfully before things got more heated the owner of the inn stepped in.
"Alright Golin, I think you should be heading home for the night." He said.
"Are you going to let them get away with murder?" Golin slurred in anger.
"These travelers just got in the city and will be leaving tomorrow. There's no reason for us to get into a fight with them." The owner placed his hand on the drunk's shoulder and a faint glow of Anodular left his hand.
The drunk began to become drowsy.
"Hey why don't a few of you help him get home." The owner then indicated a few of the more angry patrons to be his escorts.
After they left, Piaras gave his thanks and slipped him a gold coin.
"The idiots couldn't see that even one of you would be able to handle all of them combined and I didn't want to have to spend the night's earnings on repairs." He said with a laugh and left.
Their group finished up their meal quickly after that and headed to their rooms, ladies in one and men in another.
As they entered their room, Sigurd placed his hand on Baldeur's shoulder.
"Maybe next time you should make a move and try to get a room with her. Of course then I'd have to room with Haydn and Derbail and that would leave Piaras all by himself." Sigurd joked.
"What? Our relationship is nothing like that." Baldeur protested.
"Really then why did you keep making subtle glances at Aisling the entire night?" It was Piaras that asked that question.
Baldeur let himself turn slightly red to let them believe whatever they wanted. He had been keeping an eye on Aisling the entire meal but it wasn't because he was infatuated. She was attractive, but there was another reason he wanted to keep an eye on her.
"Well, try and keep your feelings to yourself until after the mission. Inter party relations can lead to complications." Piaras gave Sigurd a knowing look as he said that.
The younger man just shrugged.
"I'll keep that in mind." Baldeur replied.
His real reason for keeping an eye on her was to see if she had seen what he had as they made their way through the city.
The same carriage that she had followed their first night in this world was in this city. They never came close to it but he was sure it was the same one.
Aisling wasn't that good at hiding her emotions and he was sure that if she had seen it, he'd have noticed something from her actions during dinner. Thankfully he didn't get the impression that she had.
The woman from the carriage was collecting Accursed Stones that were filled with Infernius. First it was passion from the brothels and now it seemed like it was fear from a city that didn't know if they were going to be the next victim of a faceless killer.
He had little doubt that the murder had a few Accursed Stones around the city to soak up the intense emotions their actions have been causing.
The question on Baldeur's mind as he fell asleep was if this was just a routine collection of stones and they farmed emotions like this all the time? Or if that woman was gathering them for a specific purpose?
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