I already know where to look for the rest of Group 4, but it takes me some time to reach them. I slowly walk through the city and take in its atmosphere which makes me shiver. The city is so confusing, so exciting. Everything feels so… new.
Unlike small towns with barely a few thousand people I visited on the second floor, this one is much bigger and weirder. Lynthari are moving through the streets, each of them much taller than humans and, in most cases, much higher leveled.
They don't feel arrogant or dangerous as they stroll around and curiously take in everything, while their tails show their emotions and their ears twitch as they talk, smile, or get excited about something. But the humans still treat them carefully, extremely carefully. It's hard to identify, but it doesn't feel like it's out of fear.
What I also notice is that the lynthari sometimes show interest in humans. In most cases, it's only when the human is higher leveled, and it's rare to see a human with a level over one hundred.
Sometimes they also stop and buy some trinkets the merchants are selling. Usually, it is humans that are selling stuff or working there. The race of cat people seems to be stronger, more combat-oriented, or just straight-up rich. It's no surprise as they live hundreds of years longer than humans.
And even though I am hiding my mana under the Mantle and cycling it inside my body, disrupting it into small particles before it leaks out, a few lynthari still show some interest in me. They don't seem to notice my mana or level, as on the floors before the natives don't seem to have the ability to see the text over the heads of people from the tutorial.
No, the lynthari that talk to me seem to do so because of how I behave. Like Myrra before, they are attracted by the way I look around and the lack of expression on my face.
After rejecting a few offers, I start to understand that a bit.
To them, I look similar to how Grumpy, Lily's cat, looks to her. A bad-tempered, but pretty and somewhat regal-looking cat that Lily can't help but want to get closer to. As if taking it as a challenge and trying to earn the cat's love. Or just poke and annoy the cat while enjoying her lack of reactions.
That's me. A cat.
My eyes, one brown and the other gray, also seem to interest them as well, as heterochromia seems to be rare here even more so than it is on Earth.
Their offers annoy me, so I just act nice and even hint that I am looking for a “job” and tell them about a gift, a rare brooch from Myrra. I do it carefully, mentioning it as if in passing. But even that is enough, and they offer me gifts as well, almost forcefully pushing them into my hands to look better in front of me.
I pretend to refuse for a bit, and some of them seem to like that and give me even more stuff that I take.
It's hard for me to do so, so I do not smile at them while thanking them, but surprisingly they seem to like that even more.
What weirdos.
That's how I end up with a few small pieces of jewelry, some mana stones they are using here as currency, and a few more stones with their address and something like contact info.
That makes it almost worth it, and to improve my mood a bit more, I find a nice restaurant-looking place and enter it. I ignore the people inside and use the stairs to climb onto the second floor that leads to a large wooden balcony-like terrace with a few tables and flora everywhere, even on the railing.
I take a good place for myself and while I wait for the waiter, I look at the bustling street below me. Dozens of people pass by every few minutes, sometimes walking, sometimes using some exotic monster-like animals, and in other cases, they are in carriages pulled by six-legged monsters.
When I turn my gaze back to the balcony, I notice other visitors eyeing me, but they turn their eyes away the moment I look at them.
What? I have new clothes I spent some shards on to buy, as I lost the ones from the third floor, and I did clean myself with water I also bought. So why are you staring?
“Welcome to ‘Distant Dream,’ sir. What would you like to order?” the cheerful waiter asks. She's a young woman with brown hair tied into a ponytail.
“I'll leave it up to you. A little bit of food, some dessert, and something to drink. No alcohol,” I say simply, and the waitress nods, quickly leaving after giving me a short smile.
It doesn't take long and she is back already. She brings something like a sandwich, a drink of pale blue color, and green stuff in a bowl.
“I have picked a fire salamander sandwich as the main course, the drink is lunar nectar we make on our own. The best in the city! For dessert, you have Leafy Gelato; the cook made it just this morning!” her voice is excited as she places all of this in front of me and leaves, wishing me a good meal.
All the food looks amazing, and I try not to think much about its name as I start with the sandwich. Then, before I know it, it's gone.
What the heck?
I quickly take a sip from the lunar nectar and then eat the gelato before I know it. Then I sit there for a minute and just stare into the air. I know I don't need to eat as much as before, but this stuff is even better than the food we stole from the manor on the third floor. Is it because I earned this one and I will be paying for that?
When I finish the last drops of the drink the waitress comes back.
She tells me the price and I pull out one of the smallest mana stones I got from the lynthari. But even that seems to be a lot, as she asks me for patience and disappears for a while before returning with change. From that, I take a few pieces and slide them to her while thanking her.
“Thanks, Mr. Customer!” she chirps happily and bows.
Downstairs, I buy a bottle of Lunar Nectar, a pale blue drink that looks extremely refreshing in the bottle made out of slightly frosted glass.
Then I walk towards one of the places I have noticed from the balcony. The mana stone of the door sends a pulse inside the building as I enter, and an older man with a nicely taken care of beard turns to me with a smile.
“How can I serve you, young man?” he asks.
“I would like to cut my hair, something simple and nothing too eye-catching.”
After that, I find a more luxurious-looking shop with simple but quality-looking clothes and another one where I buy a bag of sweets and something for Biscuit.
The clothes truly make a human. It's hard to describe but I feel… civilized now and somewhat lighter as I walk through the street while holding the sword in my hand by its scabbard. The epic sword of the last king.
It doesn't take long before I reach the tree Tess told me about, and here I see Min-Jae waiting, together with one of the twins. A smile grows on his face the moment he sees me, and he rushes to welcome me.
“Nat! That took you a while! You said only a few days.” Min-Jae stops in front of me and unlike him, I notice that Dennis is somewhat nervous and avoiding my gaze.
What did they do?
“It took only a few days,” I answer him and gesture for him to lead the way.
As we walk, Min-Jae continues, “Nine days,” He says.
Huh? Maybe I should have checked the system countdown clock a bit more. I would have promised it took me only a few days. But I guess time passes quickly when you have fun.
“Oh, and Min-Jae?” I say.
“Yes?” he starts but quickly pauses as I grab and pull his ear, “Ouch!”
“Did you guys have fun not telling me about lynthari?” Did you? Little jerks, all of you, even Tess!
“It was Lily's idea!” he tries.
“As if!” I pull even harder and then let go, “I will deal with you later, but now, anything interesting happened?”
He rubs his red ear, and I see him looking around. His face is red because I did it in the middle of the street and some people noticed it and are giggling.
“A few, but Tess and Hadwin will tell you more. They deal with most of that stuff,” the young boy tries to regain a bit of his dignity by releasing some mana to the point a human that giggled at him feels it and quickly stops.
Min-Jae then smiles, satisfied, and turns back to me, “There is so much stuff, Nat! Auctions, guilds, quests, and lynthari. We even got an amazing base for ourselves and went hunting a few times!” Even though he said Tess and Hadwin would tell me more, the excited boy continues to blabber the entire time we walk towards our “base”.
“Oh, that's quite nice, must have been expensive,” I say and I pay some attention to Dennis who becomes even quieter and some color disappears from his face.
Suspicious, very suspicious. Did they sell Biscuit? The best doggo of the third… of the fourth floor should easily be worth that much.
“Asshole!” Izzy screams the moment I enter, and I feel her skill connecting to me as she jumps and hugs me.
“Izzy, you might be spending too much time with Biscuit,” I say as I return the hug she gives me and then let her go.
“Yes, he is mine now! I keep feeding him the best food I can find. Sophie is rich so I can do that.”
“Oh, you do?” I ask and feeling that I'm not panicking, Izzy herself starts to panic.
“Yes! He won't be able to leave me now!” she says, but this time she doesn't sound so sure.
Poor girl doesn't know Biscuit as well as I do.
(Food!) sounds from behind the corner, and the corgi appears. There are no tentacles around him and he floats just a palm's length above the ground, his short legs hanging in the air. He looks like a corgi-shaped burrito blimp.
What the hell?
Everyone else seems to be used to it and the corgi slowly hovers and moves towards us at a speed that is much, much slower than if he decided to walk or use mana arms. Yet he moves like that and his face seems to tell that he is proud of his new ability to float just a bit over the floor and move extremely slowly.
The terrifying floating monster of a doggo is wearing a dark yellow vest and a scarf around his neck.
He moves past Izzy and stops in front of me. Then, as if changing the setting, the best doggo hovers vertically into my arms, his tail wagging while he continues to shout in my mind.
To show Izzy who is the boss, I pet Biscuit for a while, and then, to deliver the final blow, I put him on the ground and step back so there is the same distance for Biscuit between me and the little empath girl.
“B-biscuit, come here, I have more food,” the little girl tries while unpacking and offering some meat to the doggo. Even from where I am, I can immediately smell it and feel drool collect in my mouth.
What the hell, give that to me, not to Biscuit.
With the use of [Focus], I get back to my senses and say, “Biscuit, come here,” then I reach out and offer him dried jerky made of deer meat I spent one hour looking for.
It was cheap, extremely cheap. The quality is low, and the meat doesn't even come close to the one Izzy holds, yet Biscuit doesn't hesitate and rushes to me.
I win.
“Nat, you'll make Izzy cry,” Tess says as she also enters the room, together with Sophie who continues to look between me and Izzy, trying to understand what's happening.
“Wars require sacrifices, and this is one I am willing to pay,” I answer her.
“You seem to be in a good mood,” Tess smiles and also gives me a short hug, “I'm glad you made it back safely.”
“Yes, it was fun, but Tess, there is something I would like to see,” silence fills the hallway we are standing in, “can you guys show me the extremely valuable epic items I left with you?” I ask, then enjoy the funny expressions of some of the younger members of group 4.
I already know where to look for the rest of Group 4, but it takes me some time to reach them. I slowly walk through the city and take in its atmosphere which makes me shiver. The city is so confusing, so exciting. Everything feels so… new.
Unlike small towns with barely a few thousand people I visited on the second floor, this one is much bigger and weirder. Lynthari are moving through the streets, each of them much taller than humans and, in most cases, much higher leveled.
They don't feel arrogant or dangerous as they stroll around and curiously take in everything, while their tails show their emotions and their ears twitch as they talk, smile, or get excited about something. But the humans still treat them carefully, extremely carefully. It's hard to identify, but it doesn't feel like it's out of fear.
What I also notice is that the lynthari sometimes show interest in humans. In most cases, it's only when the human is higher leveled, and it's rare to see a human with a level over one hundred.
Sometimes they also stop and buy some trinkets the merchants are selling. Usually, it is humans that are selling stuff or working there. The race of cat people seems to be stronger, more combat-oriented, or just straight-up rich. It's no surprise as they live hundreds of years longer than humans.
And even though I am hiding my mana under the Mantle and cycling it inside my body, disrupting it into small particles before it leaks out, a few lynthari still show some interest in me. They don't seem to notice my mana or level, as on the floors before the natives don't seem to have the ability to see the text over the heads of people from the tutorial.
No, the lynthari that talk to me seem to do so because of how I behave. Like Myrra before, they are attracted by the way I look around and the lack of expression on my face.
After rejecting a few offers, I start to understand that a bit.
To them, I look similar to how Grumpy, Lily's cat, looks to her. A bad-tempered, but pretty and somewhat regal-looking cat that Lily can't help but want to get closer to. As if taking it as a challenge and trying to earn the cat's love. Or just poke and annoy the cat while enjoying her lack of reactions.
That's me. A cat.
My eyes, one brown and the other gray, also seem to interest them as well, as heterochromia seems to be rare here even more so than it is on Earth.
Their offers annoy me, so I just act nice and even hint that I am looking for a “job” and tell them about a gift, a rare brooch from Myrra. I do it carefully, mentioning it as if in passing. But even that is enough, and they offer me gifts as well, almost forcefully pushing them into my hands to look better in front of me.
I pretend to refuse for a bit, and some of them seem to like that and give me even more stuff that I take.
It's hard for me to do so, so I do not smile at them while thanking them, but surprisingly they seem to like that even more.
What weirdos.
That's how I end up with a few small pieces of jewelry, some mana stones they are using here as currency, and a few more stones with their address and something like contact info.
That makes it almost worth it, and to improve my mood a bit more, I find a nice restaurant-looking place and enter it. I ignore the people inside and use the stairs to climb onto the second floor that leads to a large wooden balcony-like terrace with a few tables and flora everywhere, even on the railing.
I take a good place for myself and while I wait for the waiter, I look at the bustling street below me. Dozens of people pass by every few minutes, sometimes walking, sometimes using some exotic monster-like animals, and in other cases, they are in carriages pulled by six-legged monsters.
When I turn my gaze back to the balcony, I notice other visitors eyeing me, but they turn their eyes away the moment I look at them.
What? I have new clothes I spent some shards on to buy, as I lost the ones from the third floor, and I did clean myself with water I also bought. So why are you staring?
“Welcome to ‘Distant Dream,’ sir. What would you like to order?” the cheerful waiter asks. She's a young woman with brown hair tied into a ponytail.
“I'll leave it up to you. A little bit of food, some dessert, and something to drink. No alcohol,” I say simply, and the waitress nods, quickly leaving after giving me a short smile.
It doesn't take long and she is back already. She brings something like a sandwich, a drink of pale blue color, and green stuff in a bowl.
“I have picked a fire salamander sandwich as the main course, the drink is lunar nectar we make on our own. The best in the city! For dessert, you have Leafy Gelato; the cook made it just this morning!” her voice is excited as she places all of this in front of me and leaves, wishing me a good meal.
All the food looks amazing, and I try not to think much about its name as I start with the sandwich. Then, before I know it, it's gone.
What the heck?
I quickly take a sip from the lunar nectar and then eat the gelato before I know it. Then I sit there for a minute and just stare into the air. I know I don't need to eat as much as before, but this stuff is even better than the food we stole from the manor on the third floor. Is it because I earned this one and I will be paying for that?
When I finish the last drops of the drink the waitress comes back.
She tells me the price and I pull out one of the smallest mana stones I got from the lynthari. But even that seems to be a lot, as she asks me for patience and disappears for a while before returning with change. From that, I take a few pieces and slide them to her while thanking her.
“Thanks, Mr. Customer!” she chirps happily and bows.
Downstairs, I buy a bottle of Lunar Nectar, a pale blue drink that looks extremely refreshing in the bottle made out of slightly frosted glass.
Then I walk towards one of the places I have noticed from the balcony. The mana stone of the door sends a pulse inside the building as I enter, and an older man with a nicely taken care of beard turns to me with a smile.
“How can I serve you, young man?” he asks.
“I would like to cut my hair, something simple and nothing too eye-catching.”
After that, I find a more luxurious-looking shop with simple but quality-looking clothes and another one where I buy a bag of sweets and something for Biscuit.
The clothes truly make a human. It's hard to describe but I feel… civilized now and somewhat lighter as I walk through the street while holding the sword in my hand by its scabbard. The epic sword of the last king.
It doesn't take long before I reach the tree Tess told me about, and here I see Min-Jae waiting, together with one of the twins. A smile grows on his face the moment he sees me, and he rushes to welcome me.
“Nat! That took you a while! You said only a few days.” Min-Jae stops in front of me and unlike him, I notice that Dennis is somewhat nervous and avoiding my gaze.
What did they do?
“It took only a few days,” I answer him and gesture for him to lead the way.
As we walk, Min-Jae continues, “Nine days,” He says.
Huh? Maybe I should have checked the system countdown clock a bit more. I would have promised it took me only a few days. But I guess time passes quickly when you have fun.
“Oh, and Min-Jae?” I say.
“Yes?” he starts but quickly pauses as I grab and pull his ear, “Ouch!”
“Did you guys have fun not telling me about lynthari?” Did you? Little jerks, all of you, even Tess!
“It was Lily's idea!” he tries.
“As if!” I pull even harder and then let go, “I will deal with you later, but now, anything interesting happened?”
He rubs his red ear, and I see him looking around. His face is red because I did it in the middle of the street and some people noticed it and are giggling.
“A few, but Tess and Hadwin will tell you more. They deal with most of that stuff,” the young boy tries to regain a bit of his dignity by releasing some mana to the point a human that giggled at him feels it and quickly stops.
Min-Jae then smiles, satisfied, and turns back to me, “There is so much stuff, Nat! Auctions, guilds, quests, and lynthari. We even got an amazing base for ourselves and went hunting a few times!” Even though he said Tess and Hadwin would tell me more, the excited boy continues to blabber the entire time we walk towards our “base”.
“Oh, that's quite nice, must have been expensive,” I say and I pay some attention to Dennis who becomes even quieter and some color disappears from his face.
Suspicious, very suspicious. Did they sell Biscuit? The best doggo of the third… of the fourth floor should easily be worth that much.
“Asshole!” Izzy screams the moment I enter, and I feel her skill connecting to me as she jumps and hugs me.
“Izzy, you might be spending too much time with Biscuit,” I say as I return the hug she gives me and then let her go.
“Yes, he is mine now! I keep feeding him the best food I can find. Sophie is rich so I can do that.”
“Oh, you do?” I ask and feeling that I'm not panicking, Izzy herself starts to panic.
“Yes! He won't be able to leave me now!” she says, but this time she doesn't sound so sure.
Poor girl doesn't know Biscuit as well as I do.
(Food!) sounds from behind the corner, and the corgi appears. There are no tentacles around him and he floats just a palm's length above the ground, his short legs hanging in the air. He looks like a corgi-shaped burrito blimp.
What the hell?
Everyone else seems to be used to it and the corgi slowly hovers and moves towards us at a speed that is much, much slower than if he decided to walk or use mana arms. Yet he moves like that and his face seems to tell that he is proud of his new ability to float just a bit over the floor and move extremely slowly.
The terrifying floating monster of a doggo is wearing a dark yellow vest and a scarf around his neck.
He moves past Izzy and stops in front of me. Then, as if changing the setting, the best doggo hovers vertically into my arms, his tail wagging while he continues to shout in my mind.
To show Izzy who is the boss, I pet Biscuit for a while, and then, to deliver the final blow, I put him on the ground and step back so there is the same distance for Biscuit between me and the little empath girl.
“B-biscuit, come here, I have more food,” the little girl tries while unpacking and offering some meat to the doggo. Even from where I am, I can immediately smell it and feel drool collect in my mouth.
What the hell, give that to me, not to Biscuit.
With the use of [Focus], I get back to my senses and say, “Biscuit, come here,” then I reach out and offer him dried jerky made of deer meat I spent one hour looking for.
It was cheap, extremely cheap. The quality is low, and the meat doesn't even come close to the one Izzy holds, yet Biscuit doesn't hesitate and rushes to me.
I win.
“Nat, you'll make Izzy cry,” Tess says as she also enters the room, together with Sophie who continues to look between me and Izzy, trying to understand what's happening.
“Wars require sacrifices, and this is one I am willing to pay,” I answer her.
“You seem to be in a good mood,” Tess smiles and also gives me a short hug, “I'm glad you made it back safely.”
“Yes, it was fun, but Tess, there is something I would like to see,” silence fills the hallway we are standing in, “can you guys show me the extremely valuable epic items I left with you?” I ask, then enjoy the funny expressions of some of the younger members of group 4.
