Chapter 135: 074. City of Slaves -2 (Part One)
Chapter 135: 074. City of Slaves -2 (Part One)
**
Two pairs of skeleton horses pulling the chariot were neighing and snorting noisily.
Our chariot was currently dashing through the barren wasteland.
I settled down and leaned my back against the violently-shaking wall of the vehicle. Meanwhile, Hans seemed to be suffering from a bit of travel sickness, judging from his sickly-white complexion. Oh, he was also spewing everything he ate so far on the desert sand below as well.
“Are you feeling alright?” Tina asked while patting Hans’s back.
“Y-yes, I’m feeling... Wuu-wuuph...”
Hans wiped away the bits of vomit around his mouth and slid down on the chariot’s wall without much energy.
I stared at his exhausted face for a bit before taking out the warp scroll from the item window. After using Amon’s grimoire the last time, I grew quite interested in this magic called ‘warp’.
Hans wiped his mouth with a handkerchief and tried to talk to me with a weak voice. “You said it’s a cheap item, but be honest with me, sir. It’s a great item, isn’t it?”
“Even though you can only travel three metres?”
“You can search both heaven and earth, sir. See if you can get your hands on a warp scroll capable of transporting you three metres. Just that scroll alone will fetch several hundred gold coins.”
“Wow, it’s that expensive?”
“...Well, unfortunately, nobody is willing to pay that much for one.”
Hans grinned wryly.
Unsurprising really, considering that it was a bit useless.
Three metres – that’s a distance you’d be able to cover by stretching your legs a bit and jumping forward three times or so. Who in their right mind would pay good money for something like that?
I stared at the warp scroll in my hand for a long while before saying something. “That feeling when I got sucked into the warp magic. I gotta say, it really was weird.”
I recalled the time when I had blacked out after using Amon’s grimoire.
One of the terms I heard during that dream ‘sequence’ kept replaying in my head.
A black hole.
That’s what I heard inside that faint dream of mine.
Nasus’s warp gate, Hans’s warp scroll, then the black hole inside the VR capsule...
All three of them felt pretty similar to each other.
“You know, there’s something I’m curious about.” I stared at Hans and asked him. “Is it possible to move between dimensions if you cast warp?”
He flinched in surprise before rubbing his chin with deep contemplation. Eventually, he looked back at me and replied. “I don’t think it’ll be completely impossible.”
“So, that means it’s doable?” I asked back after getting quite stunned by his answer.
“If it’s ‘warp’ magic we’re talking about, Lord Allen, haven’t you been using it already?”
I’ve been using warp magic?
Hans shrugged his shoulders. “What do you think happens when you summon an undead? This type of summoning magic calls forth a soul from another dimension that has departed from this world already. You could say that it’s a type of warp magic.”
“Then, does that mean I can also use warp to transport myself to... another realm?”
Hans shook his head. “A soul and a living being are two different things. You can’t warp a living person the way you summon an undead.”
“What’s so different about them?”
“The weight, sizes of particles, and also, the fission and fusion points during the warp process, they’re all different, sir. In the case of a soul, it’s so much easier to summon one than an actual physical body. If we unpack the law set out by the ancient Alchemist Granggas, then...”
Hans continued on with his explanation, but it was like listening to a complicated mathematics formula and I couldn’t understand a word of it.
I clicked my tongue and cut him off. “Fine, fine. Just get to the point, will ya? Is it possible to move between dimensions or not?”
“Of course it’s possible. However, the issue will be with the distance between the dimensions. The required amount of energy will depend on how far apart the two points are, after all.”
According to Hans, there was more than one ‘foundation’ that formed this world. He continued on and said that other dimensions were overlaid on top of the visible world around us.
The middle realm where the humans lived, the purgatory where the souls of the dead went, and also the ‘titan realm’, sealed away by the fearful gods. Then, the spirit realm, thought to be a world of legends that supposedly formed the basis of nature itself.
There were apparently dozens of dimensions overlaid with ours, according to him.
“If the distance between these realms are short, the required energy expenditure will also be on the smaller side. The walls between the dimensions are so narrow that something like a soul can easily slip through without breaking down into fine particles. However, such a thing would be challenging to pull off with a living person due to their overall physical size, even if you manage to break the subject down into tiny little particles.”
“Does that mean a living person can never cross over to another dimension?”
“No, that’s not it, sir. Theoretically speaking, it should be possible as long as you can supply enough energy to ‘break through the wall’. Of course, that amount of energy should be absolutely terrifying.”
What he was saying basically boiled down to this: you can break the wall between dimensions by utilising ‘power’ that rivalled a god. Meaning, it’d be practically impossible for a human to move between dimensions.
“Wow, something about this is rather incredible.”
I sighed out in amazement, but that only prompted Hans to sit up taller with pride all of a sudden. “Sir, I’ll have you know that I didn’t become a merchant out here in the sticks because my skills as an Alchemist were found inadequate. No, it was merely because I lacked sufficient finance and research materials. If I get my hands on those, then I can proudly boast that I’m one of the greatest Alchemists on this continent.”
I wasn’t praising you, though?
Still, he looked rather pleased so I decided to humour him for the time being. “Did you learn alchemy from your parents?”
“No, sir. It’s all self-taught. My dear parents have passed on while I was still a young ‘un, their only heirloom being the books containing their research.” Now that Hans got his chance, he began talking fervently about himself. “Do you know why I had to risk my life to acquire the treasure trove, sir? Was it to spend it all like a playboy? No! It’s all to make my dream come true. To spend the rest of my life researching and refining alchemy, then to find out the truth of our world! That is the ultimate purpose of my life, sir.”
I let out a sigh of admiration at that. I took him as a greedy, aimless merchant out to make some buck, but as it turned out, he was working towards a pretty noble goal.
I asked him. “You have so much skill, yet you aren’t affiliated with anyone?”
“Unfortunately, sir... This world isn’t a kind place. The profession called the Alchemist, well, it’s too full of corruption to be successful with your skillset alone. No noble in their right mind would want to financially support someone like me who doesn’t have any personal connection and comes from a humble background.”
After I heard his speech, I stared at him for a while. “Hey, Hans.”
“Yes, please speak, sir. Is there anything else you’re curious about?”
He sounded a little cheerier than before, perhaps feeling pleased that he got an opportunity to speak about his life story.
“You should come to the Theocratic Empire in the future.”
“Pardon?”
Hans made a puzzled expression.
“If you want to work for the imperial court in the future, then pay me a visit. I will spare no expense on supporting you.”
Hans’s jaw nearly dropped to the floor at that.
It was a promise made by an Imperial Prince of all people, after all. He probably realised that I’d be able to properly support him financially.
It was then, Tina cried out, “We’ve arrived! It’s Evelyum!”
Hans and I turned our heads in the direction Tina pointed at.
She was right. I could see a city made out of hardened sand standing above the barren landscape.
That was the city of slaves, Evelyum.
**
I cancelled the summoning of the skeleton horses and placed the chariot back in my item window.
Tina, Hans, and I walked the rest of the way to the distant city.
Entering it proved to be easy enough. We easily passed through the guard station by handing over a small portion of silver coins recovered in the ruin as a bribe.
After passing through the city’s outer gate, we were immediately greeted by the sight of a lively marketplace and the merchants populating it.
“Selling demi-humans! Selling healthy demi-humans! Orcs, dwarves, and even elves! We sell everything!”
“Truly outstanding nightly technique! Only one gold for a burly slave that will heat up any lonely noble ladies out there!”
“This slave is formerly a mercenary! He’ll serve as a guardian knight during the day, and a servant of lust during the long and steamy nights! Come and take possession of this wonderful...”
The main product on sale in the marketplace happened to be slaves. The slave merchants were busy hawking off living people as if they were selling fruits and vegetables.
I could only grin wryly at this somewhat surreal sight. “There are... a lot of slaves here.”
Tina, who was next to me, smiled forlornly. “Even a princess can end up as a slave in this world after all.”
I placed my hand on her head and patted her there.
She then pulled out a small flower pot from her luggage. It contained a weed that the children gifted her with before we departed from the ruin.
Tina had been watering the pot with holy water and nurturing the weed with every little chance she got.
I asked her. “Is it that precious to you?”
“It’s my hope and dream, my lord. A hope that one day, even weeds can start growing on this land.” Tina smiled innocently before asking me back as if she recalled something just then. “By the way, how do you perform the summoning magic for the holy skeletons?”
“Even if you ask me, it’s still the same basic theory that you already know. You told me that you already tried Necromancy before, didn’t you?”
Of course, I was summoning the undead with the game system as my foundation. It’d be next to impossible for an Elf’s special trait which possessed divinity and Mana, not the usual demonic energy, to summon an undead.
However, Tina still didn’t give up. “Can you tell me what it feels like?”
“What it... feels like?”
“Yes, the feeling. In your case, Lord Angel, what do you feel when you summon the holy undead?”
I had to think deeply about this before answering her, “I just imagine it in my mind. Such as, what the summoned undead will look like, what its ability will be, and the amount of divinity spent summoning one. It feels like I’m consolidating all of those while calling out to them. Like... how the undead with ego answer my call and show up.”
“Consolidating while calling out? Ego?” Tina’s eyes resembled a surprised rabbit’s at my reply.
She put the flower pot on the ground and picked up her staff. Divinity and Mana began writhing around her. The combination of those two energies created light that oozed out from the tip of her finger.
I could tell that she was trying pretty hard to summon an undead. Even though it wouldn’t work, she didn’t seem to know when to give up.
That was one of her strengths, though.
I didn’t say anything and silently observed her attempts, before turning my head away at the commotion coming from a corner of the street.
“Oh, oh! Amazing. That’s nine times in a row!”
“Looks like that slave used to be a Paladin from the Theocratic Empire, doesn’t he?”
“The Theocratic Empire, you say? Why are you bringing up that bastard of a country?”
“Who cares about that! We won handsomely all thanks to that punk, didn’t we?! Hahah!”
A crowd had formed over there and I could hear their jovial laughter. Then, I noticed a group of slaves marching forward in between them.
Since an unfamiliar spectacle presented itself, I decided to leave Tina and Hans here for the time being and take a look for myself.
Just as I took a couple of steps forward, Tina gasped out in surprise.
“Uh? I did it!”
(TL: There will be only one chapter tomorrow.)