A week after Verc declared his plan with the others—
"We got in no trouble."
Pwyll, Bernia, Nara, Jed, and Tatum infiltrated a human city.
It was the City of Sven.
An average city with nothing special. The stone walls were weathered and stained by years of rain, and the guards at the front gate looked bored, barely glancing at the travelers passing through. It was just a city away from Sionann—the nearest city from the [Cursed Forest].
They chose this instead of Sionann because some might recognize Nara, Pwyll, and Bernia who were former slaves there.
They might draw unnecessary attention, and any slip-up could bring trouble to the operation Verc had planned.
Tatum and Jed also went there twice now before. And the last time, Verc was with them and he did a shopping spree that became known to the whole place.
The merchants in Sionann were probably still talking about Verc, a mysterious man who spent gold coins like water.
Having some attention on them isn’t really a problem, but it’s better if there’s no one around them that recognizes them, to avoid unnecessary suspicions. They needed to blend into the background, to be nothing more than common faces in a crowded street.
Anyway, the five just got inside the city.
The bustling noise of the market streets hit them as soon as they passed the threshold of the main gate. Hawkers yelled out prices for fabrics and spices, while carriages rattled over the uneven cobblestones.
Pwyll, Bernia, and Nara acted as a slightly rich merchant family, Tatum and Jed are acting as their guards. The two of them are wearing light armors and robes to hide their animal features.
"For now, let’s find a place we could stay in, we would be here for a while."
Bernia suggested.
She kept her voice low, her eyes scanning the signs hanging over the storefronts. She looked for something that wasn’t too luxurious to attract greed, but not too cheap to ruin their merchant disguise.
And at her words, the others just nodded their heads and started searching for an inn.
*****
The group found a nearby inn. It was a decent one.
The wooden sign outside read ’The Sleeping Griffin’, and the building itself looked sturdy enough, with two floors and a large stable out back.
For their travel, Verc gave them hundreds of gold coins and each a horse. They were surprised taking a big pouch full of gold before leaving.
But Verc doesn’t really care about it. He has a lot of money left from the labyrinth—and they can also start selling monster parts in human cities if they ever ran out. He even has [Black Scales] as an infinite money glitch.
With the resources Verc had accumulated, financial worry was the last thing on hiseir minds.
Anyway, the group rented two medium-sized rooms. One for Tatum and Jed acting as guards, and one for the three humans acting as a merchant family. They immediately went to their rooms and fixed their belongings, then after that—they met up in one of the rooms.
"There are a lot of people at the restaurant down the inn... we can start gathering information there."
Bernia stated. She looked around and studied the whole inn as soon as they entered. She had been doing this since they got the city, to be honest.
"That’s a good idea. You three are probably hungry as well from a whole day of travelling—let’s go down."
Jed casually said. He leaned against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest.
Bernia, Pwyll, and Nara—they knew that Tatum and Jed are vampires as well that doesn’t need food to survive. They need blood more than anything, and for vampires; that’s the most delicious delicacy for them.
The sight of human food did nothing for the two guards, but they understood the physical limitations of their companions.
That’s not the case for the three of them, and as Jed said; they were tired and hungry from the journey.
The sun will go down in a couple of hours and they haven’t eaten since they started travelling early this morning. They travelled without rest after all to reach this city as soon as possible.
"Keep your ears sharp, we need to caught up with the news outside the forest."
Tatum reminded the others.
The four nodded their heads, then Pwyll—
"Making drunk people talk is my specialty back in the coliseum aside from fighting, I saw some drunk men downstairs—I’ll gather as much information as I can from them."
He declared that with a casual smile on his face.
*****
The five went down to the restaurant of the inn with the intention to gather information rather than to eat.
The main floor was loud, filled with the clinking of tankards and the low hum of multiple conversations overlapping. The smell of roasted ale and grease hung heavy in the air.
The group sat on a table in the middle to get a proper look and hear at every corner of the place.
It was a strategic position. From here, they could observe the entrance, the stairs, and the private booths. They ordered normal foods... which they all hadn’t eaten for a long time.
The plates brought out by the tavern wench contained simple baked bread, vegetable stew, and some salted pork. Back in the village, most of the their diet consists of monster meats; roasted or stewed. The crop resources they have back there isn’t big enough to diversify their food—but they aren’t complaining.
The monster meat back in the forest are tasty because they’re full of mana.
It provided a strength that regular farm animals simply couldn’t match, making this human food taste somewhat bland in comparison. Anyway, the five of them sat down and ate in silence; but all of them were focusing on gossiping on conversations around them.
They kept their heads low, chewing slowly while their ears tracked the voices rising from the surrounding tables.
Well, Nara was trying to do that at first; but the little girl was really hungry that she forgot and just continued eating.
Not that the others minded, they even smiled seeing her eat excitedly.
Moving on, after they ate—the five spread out and started mingling with the other customers and people inside the inn to gather more attention.
The crowded tavern provided the perfect cover for them to separate without looking suspicious. Nara went with Bernia, and Bernia—she started gossiping with the owner of the inn, which was a woman and a mother.
Bernia expertly steered the conversation toward family life, complaining about the difficulties of traveling with a young child before asking about the safety of the local roads and the rumors floating around the city. The innkeeper, happy to speak with another woman, began to share everything she had heard from recent travelers.
Pwyll used some of the money given to them by Verc to buy some old men some drinks and even the rough looking bartender.
He slid a few silver coins across the counter, laughing loudly at a joke one of the patrons made. And after that, he started socializing with them, asking a lot about the recent events.
The alcohol quickly loosened the tongues of the locals, who were eager to show off how much they knew to a generous stranger.
Tatum and Jed aren’t really good with conversations, so they just pretended to be eating still by themselves, but they’re still monitoring the whole room as they do so.
They sat back at the table, their eyes moving mechanically, tracking any sudden movements or anyone who seemed to be taking too much interest in Pwyll or Bernia. Their presence was a silent anchor, ready to move if anything went wrong.
... ... ...
... ... ...
... ... ...
After a few hours and the moon had risen in the sky and some people started leaving the restaurant inn—the five went back to their rooms.
The noise downstairs had finally begun to die down, replaced by the quiet stillness of midnight. They walked up the wooden stairs in small groups to avoid notice.
But before Tatum and Jed entered theirs; the two of them stopped at the others’ room to share all the information they got.
"Let us disclose everything we learned."
"I have a few... some elders and the other kids told me about some new monster appearing."
Nara said.
"I heard it as well, so--"
Bernia followed.
So basically—the appearance of the 14th Demon King was wide spread throughout the whole Arcanis, even the remote villages know about it. This was more than they and Verc had expected.
The name of the new power in the [Cursed Forest] had become a shadow hanging over the conversations of every merchant and traveler. The speed at which the news traveled showed just how much the people feared the rise of a new demonic ruler.
But they also came to realize that the world doesn’t know what kind of demonic race Verc was.
The rumors were wild and distorted; some claimed he was a giant ogre, others said he was an ancient lich resurrected from the dead, and a few even claimed he was a multi-headed beast. Verc told them about Elianna and the others; the six that knows that he’s a vampire. So hearing that Verc being a vampire isn’t known.
Means that Elianna and the others still kept it a secret.
The Saintess and the Knight Commander had hidden the specific details from the public, likely to control the panic or for their own personal reasons.
"Ah, I heard something interesting as well."
Pwyll said.
He heard that some kingdoms are in territorial wars right now, including the Kingdom of Halveron where they are.
The political landscape was fractured. King Erui, failing to conquer the [Cursed Forest], but still wanting to expand his territory—started a war to his neighboring kingdom.
The loss of the expedition force had weakened his standing, and in a desperate bid to reclaim his honor and secure more resources, he had directed his remaining armies outward, striking at the borders of rival nations.
"But we don’t need to worry about it because the city that we are in is very far away from the battlefield."
Pwyll added.
Anyway, they also caught of a bad news—that the emperor and some other forces are planning to attack the [Cursed Forest] where the new demon king had apparently appeared.
The human empires were not going to let a new threat grow without a fight. This news was brought by Pwyll too, one of the old men he was drinking with before was a soldier of the Lord of the city. And it’s apparently a rumor going around from all noble houses.
"Some civilians are even hearing it now as well with how spread it is."
The high-ranking nobles were already discussing the logistics of a joint military campaign to crush the greenhorn Demon King before his influence could spread beyond the trees.
"Though, the good news is—"
—the attack won’t be coming any time soon because preparing forces takes time, and an attack to a demon king need a huge amount of force, even though it was just a greenhorn.
Gathering the logistics, moving an army across kingdoms, and securing the backing of the Churches would take months, if not longer.
It might even take a year before thet could reach and attack the forest.
And even if that happens--
"Those fools will be handled by the Lord."
Tatum declared that with a casual shrug of his shoulders. The others think so as well, to be honest.