I spent the next several days just enjoying myself around the town. I didn’t really buy anything, if only because none of it would’ve been particularly useful. But it was still enjoyable. I had enquired into several bookstores if there were any learning texts I could acquire, the problem being that the alphabet I used wasn’t any they recognized from anywhere. That was problematic.
It meant that I would have to pay for a tutor and have them teach me how to read the language from scratch. It’d be relatively simple I think. I’d always had a relatively good grasp on picking up new languages back from my college courses. Lots of language learning just happens to be rote memorization which isn’t very enjoyable.
It would have to be something I looked into in Verdanst. Something I did manage to find out was that the language we were speaking now was referred to as Imperial and was essentially the main form of communication across countries.
Most had it as the primary speaking language anyway, but nations that had a higher denomination of other races had other languages they preferred to speak. Which made sense.
It helped that there was just kind of a standardized language to communicate with, I wouldn’t have to learn 60 billion different languages just to be able to accomplish anything in other countries or hire a translator for everything.
With my energy topped off after several days of relaxation, I set out again, this time on my way to Verdanst. There were at least a couple more towns to pass through before I got to where I was headed, but I didn’t plan to really stop in any of them other than to sleep.
If I kept a steady pace I’d be able to probably clear two or three towns on my way to my destination.
I woke up the final morning and formed my arm again.
‘Ping’ [Wood Manipulation] Has leveled 3 > 4
Roughly a level every two days? Not necessarily the best, but it’s not like I’m devoting every last minute to progressing it. Exp gain on it is probably deteriorating since I’m only just repeating the same actions over and over again.
I’d have to see about trying something unique with it when I got the chance. Maybe I would spend several days just focusing purely on the manipulation aspect going forward in my effort to gain levels. Couldn’t be the worst thing happening.
I situated my pack to make sure it wasn’t going to slide off once I got moving, double-checked that I had everything, and then moved out of the room. I locked the door behind me and went to drop off the key at the reception. The receptionist today was Tina. I wonder if the two girls were related at all. And who was Mila? The mother? Family business maybe?
“Thank you for staying with us, please come again soon!” Tina happily recited to me.
I just smiled and gave her a little wave before stepping out onto the street. The city of Lustirne was already starting to pick up in activity. There was still plenty to do at night, so activity never fully died off, but there were down hours.
I made my way to the north, by orienting myself with the sun. Thankfully this world still followed the rise in the east set in the west from Earth. Although even if it was reversed I guess I’d still technically be able to find my way around.
I slipped through the growing crowds as I made my way down the streets, it only took me several minutes at my brisk pace to make it to the northern district. My eyes lit up as I saw the cart I had bought those meat skewers, the guy running the cart was already there and working.
I happily skipped up to his cart, he looked up and his eyes flashed with recognition.
“Welcome back.” He said, his voice much softer than his appearance would suggest. He was a relatively muscular man and looked like he should have a deep booming voice, so it was a little off-putting to hear him speak so quietly. But that wasn’t important right now. I had meat skewers to acquire.
“I’d like 5 please!” I wasn’t fully able to bleed out the buzzing excitement in my mood. I loved good food, there was just something satisfying about eating a good meal.
With deceptive dexterity, he spun together five sticks and then flicked together a sixth one and handed them to me with a slight smile.
“Last one is on the house.”
I flipped him the few coins I owed him, “Thanks again, if I ever come back through Lustirne I’ll be sure to stop here again.”
He nodded before focusing back on his work. I happily dug into the first skewer, which tasted just as heavenly as the other dozen I’d had over the past few days. They were cooked recently so there was still steam coming off the meat when I bit into it. Normally it would be too hot for someone to eat, but the System provided me with enough fortitude to just ignore the pain it would cause. In fact, it would take something much hotter to actually hurt me anymore.
Well… I guess not something that much hotter, I could definitely feel the heat coming off the meat. But it would take something like actual fire to make it actually painful anymore. I skipped my way to the main gate to the north. Lustirne had finally come down off of high alert while I was here so the gates were finally open for people to come through, although there was still a gate tax unfortunately. The Alixian army had disappeared into the wind, with no one knowing where they had gone. It was strange how they just managed to appear and disappear like that, but people were supposedly looking into it.
At least from what little I’d heard about it. There was a steady flow of people coming in from the north, but it was in a fairly organized fashion so it was easy to make my way past them without too much effort.
It wasn’t too much longer before I finished my meat skewers on my way out of the city. Something that had been interesting about this world was disposal. They actually had public trash cans for people to use. Because of that, I was kind of self-conscious about littering. Although I guess the skewers were made out of wood? Actually. In that case.
I focused on manipulating the wood. It took a decent amount of effort and way more mana than it should have but the wood did respond. It felt sluggish and unwieldy compared to the infused kind I created with my mana. I wasn’t entirely sure what to do with it so I just formed it into a ball. It looked perfectly round and smooth which made the slight OCD part of my brain that everyone has happy.
With that I slipped it into a pocket, readjusting my pack one last time to make sure it was sitting comfortably. I checked my blade to make sure it wouldn’t slide off my back. Once I had made sure all my belongings were secure I picked up my pace.
I hadn’t really noticed I’d been doing it, but passives could apparently be shut off. For the most part, I just ran with it, although I did keep [As Fast A Lightning] off most of the time. It had a tendency to make me spark whenever I moved and left little flashes of lightning wherever I stepped. One time I had turned it on while I was standing on a wooden floor and left a burned footprint on the floor.
Not a good look for elves.
I turned my passive on feeling my perception of the world speed up a third again as fast as I had been before moving up to a light jog. I felt the tendons in my body slowly start to loosen up as my body warmed up from the exertion, stamina drain at this pace was practically negligible given my agility and strength.
Something interesting I had found out from one of the bookstore owners was that strength did actually have an effect on speed. Just not as much as agility. Stronger legs meant you could push off the ground harder, which most just equated to jump strength, but it did mean you could move faster while running which might be important. It was something to keep in mind for my stats going forward.
Slowly I transitioned from what was a light jog to me, by comparison to baseline humans it would’ve been faster than a full-out sprint, to a run. Not quite a full-out sprint, but I could still go much faster. While I could sprint for far longer now than I could when I was at the height of my physique doing sports, it was still exhausting to do and I couldn’t keep it up forever.
The scenery passed me by in a flash. I genuinely had to wonder why most people didn’t just run or sprint everywhere. Most people were in the third tier that I had noticed. At least most of the people that were adults anyway. Kids and teenagers tended to be in the first or second tier, with very few adults being below third. Usually, that was either because they were lazy or they dropped classes to progress down a different path. For example, transitioning from an artisan to a bandit. You’d want to drop your artistic skills and take combative classes instead.
I don’t know that I’d ever get tired of how fast I could run in this world, maybe I’d get tired when I could fly. Flying would be so cool. I’d have to see if there was a way to get a skill for that. Although I hadn’t really seen all that many people actually flying. Sure quite a few mages had the skill, but far fewer than you’d imagine. It was quite strange, something I’d have to look into whenever I got the chance in Verdanst.
Lustirne was a good few days' walk from the border between Alixia and Seltas. At my speed running? It was an hour before I saw the walls rising in the distance.
It took nearly 10 hours of running to reach the walls from Lustirne. I couldn’t sprint the whole way, I just didn’t have the stamina for it. But interspersing my running with a bit of light jogging or walking still allowed me to reach the wall significantly faster.
Did Alixia really build an entire wall between the two countries? That could not have been cheap at all. It must’ve taken them decades to do as well, the walls were as high as Lustirnes at least, which was not that short. Maybe thirty feet straight up? It wouldn’t keep a truly determined person who was at a high enough level out, but it was definitely an obstacle for an army. How did they get past it? Did they have a way to go under perhaps? Or maybe it didn’t fully span the border and there was a place they could easily slip through.
Because they didn’t walk through the gate here, Seltas had their own little outpost by comparison that was manned by a few guardsmen, one of them would’ve been able to easily make it back before the army, so they didn’t come through here.
As I got closer I slowed down to a brisk walk, with a spring in my step. Fiona had said there would be a toll of about a silver to get through but I could see the gate was currently closed. Knowing my luck, they had changed their mind and were charging something ridiculous like ten gold to get through.
I chuckled to myself, shaking the thought from my head. I continued walking up, the Seltan guards looking up from the table a few of them were sitting at and giving me a nod before ignoring me.
There were a few Alixian guards standing on the other side of the gate chatting, and thankfully they were speaking English. Or at least this world's equivalent, whatever they wanted to call it. Imperial, I think it was?
“Oh, what’s this? Got someone wanting to come through, eh Gary?”
“Right you are, Malachai, right you are,” Gary replied.
I glanced between the two of them, “Well you’ve caught me, I would like through what do you need me to do for that to happen?” I asked good-naturedly.
“Eh, I think about 10 gold will do it. What do you think Gary?” The one named Malachai said.
“Right you are, Malachai, right you are,” Gary repeated.
What.
My confusion must’ve been evident on my face as they chuckled at each other.
“You look a little confused there buddy, do you know how to count? If you want you can just leave your purse with us and we’ll take care of it for you.”
They both laughed at the obnoxious joke.
“Oh I know how to count, I just didn’t realize Alixian guards were stupid enough to tell such blatant lies about tolls to get into the country. Last time I came through it was a single gold.”
Well if we’re playing a lying game, I’ll happily stoop to new lows.
“Yeah, well times change. We’ve raised the prices from a gold to ten now. So cough it up.” Malachai retorted with a sneer.
I didn’t reply immediately, instead choosing to take a quick look at their levels.
[Level 25²]
[Level 19²]
They were kind of low-level for being border guards. You’d think that people would want to have better-defended borders. Maybe there was something I wasn’t understanding, perhaps some hidden enchantments or wards around the wall? I wasn’t confident in being able to sneak over the wall without consequences.
I gave the guards another glance before responding, “I’ll be back.”
With that I turned around and started walking back down the road. I’d have to spend some time thinking about this.
***
The first thing I did was go back and talk to the guards on the Seltas side. According to them, the guards have been relatively obnoxious recently. More so than usual, but it came more as a result of something happening in one of the towns across the border.
They weren’t sure where or what, but something had happened to get them up in panic.
As for getting across the border, all they could really say was that if they said it was 10 gold, I had to pay 10 gold. Not much they could do or cared to do about that. Not for me anyway.
If I was traveling with a group it might’ve been a different story, but not even adventurers got leeway in stuff like this.
I walked a ways down the road and started setting up a little shelter for myself. I was probably going to be here for a while so I might as well start hunkering down. If I needed to I’d head back to Lustirne and start working there to earn a bit of money. Hopefully, it wouldn’t come to that. Honestly, if it did, I’d probably just pay the gold toll and try and make my way across that way instead.
***
The next day resulted in the same thing.
The border guards had been switched out, and the new ones quoted the same price for crossing the border. 10 gold. Absolutely insane. Not even toll booths were as outrageous on Earth.
I looked between the two new guards Bartholomew and Lilkan.
“Is there really no way to lower that amount? 10 gold is absolutely absurd, surely you can see that.”
I didn’t necessarily want to try and argue with them, I had plenty of memories of being in a similar position working for companies in retail of telling someone ‘That’s the price’ and getting the whole, ‘Well that’s too expensive for me, you need to lower it.’ And then had to go through the whole process of trying to explain to them that I couldn’t control the prices any more than they could.
If they wanted the prices to change they needed to talk with the executives of the company, of which I had no sway over and certainly didn’t care about my opinions.
Lilkan just shrugged, “I would say I’m sorry, but I’m kinda not. You either pay the 10 gold or you don’t cross. Simple as that.”
I glared at him before turning around and stalking off without a word.
Now they were just starting to piss me off.
Fine then, I’d find a way around it without having to pay. I’m sure I could figure something out.
***
I waited until it was nighttime. Before enacting my plan. Or at least testing the feasibility of it.
My testing process was relatively simple. I had acquired a… creature. Of sorts. I wasn’t entirely sure what it was, it looked like this world's version of a squirrel, except it looked more like a fuzzy frog that had the paws of a raccoon.
I was planning on setting it loose up the wall and seeing if crossing over would trigger any sort of visible alarm.
Using [Magic Sense] it was very easy to tell that, yes, the wall was magic. Very magical. So magical I nearly went blind trying to look at it and had to quickly shut the skill off.
I still had a slight headache from that.
I picked up the… creature that I had locked in a wooden cage. It was croaking indignantly lending credence to the frog idea.
I then created a raised platform of wood. I had been working on this for a while now, it was just about the height of the wall. Or close enough that my standing on it allowed me to see over the top of the wall.
I started climbing up the platform I had made, quickly scrambling my way up it. Occasionally I used barriers to supplement my climb.
Eventually, I made it to the top of the platform and rested for a moment taking a few deep breaths and looking around. I had checked beforehand and no guards usually came this way. But it never hurts to be careful.
Confirming with my litany of skills that there were no guards nearby I stood all the way up. I raised the cage up to the edge of the wall where a guard could stand if they were patrolling. I very carefully made sure my arms didn’t touch the wall or crossover the top of it.
I then willed away the front of the cage.
The fraccoon, I wasn’t sure if that word would work but it was what I was going to use, immediately leaped out over the wall, missed landing on top of it, and promptly fell out of sight down the other side.
I heard an extremely muffled thump followed by another indignant croak.
Well. No alarms were currently going off. At least none that I could hear. So ‘Plan A’ is a go then. I created a barrier a little ways up and hopped on top of it. I created a second barrier on the other side of the wall and then steadied myself.
It was a pretty decent jump, but I felt like I could do it. I created a third barrier behind me to give myself a little bit of a running start.
I ran, jumped, and landed. I waited where I had landed for a moment, hovering some thirty-odd feet above the ground.
No alarms. Or none that I could hear anyway.
I quickly created barriers in steps below me, hopping down and reaching the ground quickly dismissing all the things I had created including the platform on the other side. I glanced around with [Electric Sense] not wanting to use [Magic Sense] so close to the wall.
No guards nearby to notice my crime. Excellent. I smiled, rubbing my hands together with glee. I set off at a light jog, not wanting to really disrupt any dust and possibly give myself away, nor did I want lightning to come flashing off me as I ran.
Once I had put some good distance between me and the border wall I laughed.
“Hah! Suck on that, you fat bastards!” I shouted with glee. As if I would allow people to extort me out of my hard-earned money.
I started singing a song that was quite fitting for the moment, it was amusing that committing an actually criminal act was making me so happy. Maybe it was the chance I could finally stick it to bullies and get away with it. It was a very satisfying feeling.
“There I was completely wasting, out of work and down!
All inside it’s so frustrating as I drift from town to town-”
Judas Priest - Breaking The Law (Official Music Video)
I spent the next several days just enjoying myself around the town. I didn’t really buy anything, if only because none of it would’ve been particularly useful. But it was still enjoyable. I had enquired into several bookstores if there were any learning texts I could acquire, the problem being that the alphabet I used wasn’t any they recognized from anywhere. That was problematic.
It meant that I would have to pay for a tutor and have them teach me how to read the language from scratch. It’d be relatively simple I think. I’d always had a relatively good grasp on picking up new languages back from my college courses. Lots of language learning just happens to be rote memorization which isn’t very enjoyable.
It would have to be something I looked into in Verdanst. Something I did manage to find out was that the language we were speaking now was referred to as Imperial and was essentially the main form of communication across countries.
Most had it as the primary speaking language anyway, but nations that had a higher denomination of other races had other languages they preferred to speak. Which made sense.
It helped that there was just kind of a standardized language to communicate with, I wouldn’t have to learn 60 billion different languages just to be able to accomplish anything in other countries or hire a translator for everything.
With my energy topped off after several days of relaxation, I set out again, this time on my way to Verdanst. There were at least a couple more towns to pass through before I got to where I was headed, but I didn’t plan to really stop in any of them other than to sleep.
If I kept a steady pace I’d be able to probably clear two or three towns on my way to my destination.
I woke up the final morning and formed my arm again.
‘Ping’ [Wood Manipulation] Has leveled 3 > 4
Roughly a level every two days? Not necessarily the best, but it’s not like I’m devoting every last minute to progressing it. Exp gain on it is probably deteriorating since I’m only just repeating the same actions over and over again.
I’d have to see about trying something unique with it when I got the chance. Maybe I would spend several days just focusing purely on the manipulation aspect going forward in my effort to gain levels. Couldn’t be the worst thing happening.
I situated my pack to make sure it wasn’t going to slide off once I got moving, double-checked that I had everything, and then moved out of the room. I locked the door behind me and went to drop off the key at the reception. The receptionist today was Tina. I wonder if the two girls were related at all. And who was Mila? The mother? Family business maybe?
“Thank you for staying with us, please come again soon!” Tina happily recited to me.
I just smiled and gave her a little wave before stepping out onto the street. The city of Lustirne was already starting to pick up in activity. There was still plenty to do at night, so activity never fully died off, but there were down hours.
I made my way to the north, by orienting myself with the sun. Thankfully this world still followed the rise in the east set in the west from Earth. Although even if it was reversed I guess I’d still technically be able to find my way around.
I slipped through the growing crowds as I made my way down the streets, it only took me several minutes at my brisk pace to make it to the northern district. My eyes lit up as I saw the cart I had bought those meat skewers, the guy running the cart was already there and working.
I happily skipped up to his cart, he looked up and his eyes flashed with recognition.
“Welcome back.” He said, his voice much softer than his appearance would suggest. He was a relatively muscular man and looked like he should have a deep booming voice, so it was a little off-putting to hear him speak so quietly. But that wasn’t important right now. I had meat skewers to acquire.
“I’d like 5 please!” I wasn’t fully able to bleed out the buzzing excitement in my mood. I loved good food, there was just something satisfying about eating a good meal.
With deceptive dexterity, he spun together five sticks and then flicked together a sixth one and handed them to me with a slight smile.
“Last one is on the house.”
I flipped him the few coins I owed him, “Thanks again, if I ever come back through Lustirne I’ll be sure to stop here again.”
He nodded before focusing back on his work. I happily dug into the first skewer, which tasted just as heavenly as the other dozen I’d had over the past few days. They were cooked recently so there was still steam coming off the meat when I bit into it. Normally it would be too hot for someone to eat, but the System provided me with enough fortitude to just ignore the pain it would cause. In fact, it would take something much hotter to actually hurt me anymore.
Well… I guess not something that much hotter, I could definitely feel the heat coming off the meat. But it would take something like actual fire to make it actually painful anymore. I skipped my way to the main gate to the north. Lustirne had finally come down off of high alert while I was here so the gates were finally open for people to come through, although there was still a gate tax unfortunately. The Alixian army had disappeared into the wind, with no one knowing where they had gone. It was strange how they just managed to appear and disappear like that, but people were supposedly looking into it.
At least from what little I’d heard about it. There was a steady flow of people coming in from the north, but it was in a fairly organized fashion so it was easy to make my way past them without too much effort.
It wasn’t too much longer before I finished my meat skewers on my way out of the city. Something that had been interesting about this world was disposal. They actually had public trash cans for people to use. Because of that, I was kind of self-conscious about littering. Although I guess the skewers were made out of wood? Actually. In that case.
I focused on manipulating the wood. It took a decent amount of effort and way more mana than it should have but the wood did respond. It felt sluggish and unwieldy compared to the infused kind I created with my mana. I wasn’t entirely sure what to do with it so I just formed it into a ball. It looked perfectly round and smooth which made the slight OCD part of my brain that everyone has happy.
With that I slipped it into a pocket, readjusting my pack one last time to make sure it was sitting comfortably. I checked my blade to make sure it wouldn’t slide off my back. Once I had made sure all my belongings were secure I picked up my pace.
I hadn’t really noticed I’d been doing it, but passives could apparently be shut off. For the most part, I just ran with it, although I did keep [As Fast A Lightning] off most of the time. It had a tendency to make me spark whenever I moved and left little flashes of lightning wherever I stepped. One time I had turned it on while I was standing on a wooden floor and left a burned footprint on the floor.
Not a good look for elves.
I turned my passive on feeling my perception of the world speed up a third again as fast as I had been before moving up to a light jog. I felt the tendons in my body slowly start to loosen up as my body warmed up from the exertion, stamina drain at this pace was practically negligible given my agility and strength.
Something interesting I had found out from one of the bookstore owners was that strength did actually have an effect on speed. Just not as much as agility. Stronger legs meant you could push off the ground harder, which most just equated to jump strength, but it did mean you could move faster while running which might be important. It was something to keep in mind for my stats going forward.
Slowly I transitioned from what was a light jog to me, by comparison to baseline humans it would’ve been faster than a full-out sprint, to a run. Not quite a full-out sprint, but I could still go much faster. While I could sprint for far longer now than I could when I was at the height of my physique doing sports, it was still exhausting to do and I couldn’t keep it up forever.
The scenery passed me by in a flash. I genuinely had to wonder why most people didn’t just run or sprint everywhere. Most people were in the third tier that I had noticed. At least most of the people that were adults anyway. Kids and teenagers tended to be in the first or second tier, with very few adults being below third. Usually, that was either because they were lazy or they dropped classes to progress down a different path. For example, transitioning from an artisan to a bandit. You’d want to drop your artistic skills and take combative classes instead.
I don’t know that I’d ever get tired of how fast I could run in this world, maybe I’d get tired when I could fly. Flying would be so cool. I’d have to see if there was a way to get a skill for that. Although I hadn’t really seen all that many people actually flying. Sure quite a few mages had the skill, but far fewer than you’d imagine. It was quite strange, something I’d have to look into whenever I got the chance in Verdanst.
Lustirne was a good few days' walk from the border between Alixia and Seltas. At my speed running? It was an hour before I saw the walls rising in the distance.
It took nearly 10 hours of running to reach the walls from Lustirne. I couldn’t sprint the whole way, I just didn’t have the stamina for it. But interspersing my running with a bit of light jogging or walking still allowed me to reach the wall significantly faster.
Did Alixia really build an entire wall between the two countries? That could not have been cheap at all. It must’ve taken them decades to do as well, the walls were as high as Lustirnes at least, which was not that short. Maybe thirty feet straight up? It wouldn’t keep a truly determined person who was at a high enough level out, but it was definitely an obstacle for an army. How did they get past it? Did they have a way to go under perhaps? Or maybe it didn’t fully span the border and there was a place they could easily slip through.
Because they didn’t walk through the gate here, Seltas had their own little outpost by comparison that was manned by a few guardsmen, one of them would’ve been able to easily make it back before the army, so they didn’t come through here.
As I got closer I slowed down to a brisk walk, with a spring in my step. Fiona had said there would be a toll of about a silver to get through but I could see the gate was currently closed. Knowing my luck, they had changed their mind and were charging something ridiculous like ten gold to get through.
I chuckled to myself, shaking the thought from my head. I continued walking up, the Seltan guards looking up from the table a few of them were sitting at and giving me a nod before ignoring me.
There were a few Alixian guards standing on the other side of the gate chatting, and thankfully they were speaking English. Or at least this world's equivalent, whatever they wanted to call it. Imperial, I think it was?
“Oh, what’s this? Got someone wanting to come through, eh Gary?”
“Right you are, Malachai, right you are,” Gary replied.
I glanced between the two of them, “Well you’ve caught me, I would like through what do you need me to do for that to happen?” I asked good-naturedly.
“Eh, I think about 10 gold will do it. What do you think Gary?” The one named Malachai said.
“Right you are, Malachai, right you are,” Gary repeated.
What.
My confusion must’ve been evident on my face as they chuckled at each other.
“You look a little confused there buddy, do you know how to count? If you want you can just leave your purse with us and we’ll take care of it for you.”
They both laughed at the obnoxious joke.
“Oh I know how to count, I just didn’t realize Alixian guards were stupid enough to tell such blatant lies about tolls to get into the country. Last time I came through it was a single gold.”
Well if we’re playing a lying game, I’ll happily stoop to new lows.
“Yeah, well times change. We’ve raised the prices from a gold to ten now. So cough it up.” Malachai retorted with a sneer.
I didn’t reply immediately, instead choosing to take a quick look at their levels.
[Level 25²]
[Level 19²]
They were kind of low-level for being border guards. You’d think that people would want to have better-defended borders. Maybe there was something I wasn’t understanding, perhaps some hidden enchantments or wards around the wall? I wasn’t confident in being able to sneak over the wall without consequences.
I gave the guards another glance before responding, “I’ll be back.”
With that I turned around and started walking back down the road. I’d have to spend some time thinking about this.
***
The first thing I did was go back and talk to the guards on the Seltas side. According to them, the guards have been relatively obnoxious recently. More so than usual, but it came more as a result of something happening in one of the towns across the border.
They weren’t sure where or what, but something had happened to get them up in panic.
As for getting across the border, all they could really say was that if they said it was 10 gold, I had to pay 10 gold. Not much they could do or cared to do about that. Not for me anyway.
If I was traveling with a group it might’ve been a different story, but not even adventurers got leeway in stuff like this.
I walked a ways down the road and started setting up a little shelter for myself. I was probably going to be here for a while so I might as well start hunkering down. If I needed to I’d head back to Lustirne and start working there to earn a bit of money. Hopefully, it wouldn’t come to that. Honestly, if it did, I’d probably just pay the gold toll and try and make my way across that way instead.
***
The next day resulted in the same thing.
The border guards had been switched out, and the new ones quoted the same price for crossing the border. 10 gold. Absolutely insane. Not even toll booths were as outrageous on Earth.
I looked between the two new guards Bartholomew and Lilkan.
“Is there really no way to lower that amount? 10 gold is absolutely absurd, surely you can see that.”
I didn’t necessarily want to try and argue with them, I had plenty of memories of being in a similar position working for companies in retail of telling someone ‘That’s the price’ and getting the whole, ‘Well that’s too expensive for me, you need to lower it.’ And then had to go through the whole process of trying to explain to them that I couldn’t control the prices any more than they could.
If they wanted the prices to change they needed to talk with the executives of the company, of which I had no sway over and certainly didn’t care about my opinions.
Lilkan just shrugged, “I would say I’m sorry, but I’m kinda not. You either pay the 10 gold or you don’t cross. Simple as that.”
I glared at him before turning around and stalking off without a word.
Now they were just starting to piss me off.
Fine then, I’d find a way around it without having to pay. I’m sure I could figure something out.
***
I waited until it was nighttime. Before enacting my plan. Or at least testing the feasibility of it.
My testing process was relatively simple. I had acquired a… creature. Of sorts. I wasn’t entirely sure what it was, it looked like this world's version of a squirrel, except it looked more like a fuzzy frog that had the paws of a raccoon.
I was planning on setting it loose up the wall and seeing if crossing over would trigger any sort of visible alarm.
Using [Magic Sense] it was very easy to tell that, yes, the wall was magic. Very magical. So magical I nearly went blind trying to look at it and had to quickly shut the skill off.
I still had a slight headache from that.
I picked up the… creature that I had locked in a wooden cage. It was croaking indignantly lending credence to the frog idea.
I then created a raised platform of wood. I had been working on this for a while now, it was just about the height of the wall. Or close enough that my standing on it allowed me to see over the top of the wall.
I started climbing up the platform I had made, quickly scrambling my way up it. Occasionally I used barriers to supplement my climb.
Eventually, I made it to the top of the platform and rested for a moment taking a few deep breaths and looking around. I had checked beforehand and no guards usually came this way. But it never hurts to be careful.
Confirming with my litany of skills that there were no guards nearby I stood all the way up. I raised the cage up to the edge of the wall where a guard could stand if they were patrolling. I very carefully made sure my arms didn’t touch the wall or crossover the top of it.
I then willed away the front of the cage.
The fraccoon, I wasn’t sure if that word would work but it was what I was going to use, immediately leaped out over the wall, missed landing on top of it, and promptly fell out of sight down the other side.
I heard an extremely muffled thump followed by another indignant croak.
Well. No alarms were currently going off. At least none that I could hear. So ‘Plan A’ is a go then. I created a barrier a little ways up and hopped on top of it. I created a second barrier on the other side of the wall and then steadied myself.
It was a pretty decent jump, but I felt like I could do it. I created a third barrier behind me to give myself a little bit of a running start.
I ran, jumped, and landed. I waited where I had landed for a moment, hovering some thirty-odd feet above the ground.
No alarms. Or none that I could hear anyway.
I quickly created barriers in steps below me, hopping down and reaching the ground quickly dismissing all the things I had created including the platform on the other side. I glanced around with [Electric Sense] not wanting to use [Magic Sense] so close to the wall.
No guards nearby to notice my crime. Excellent. I smiled, rubbing my hands together with glee. I set off at a light jog, not wanting to really disrupt any dust and possibly give myself away, nor did I want lightning to come flashing off me as I ran.
Once I had put some good distance between me and the border wall I laughed.
“Hah! Suck on that, you fat bastards!” I shouted with glee. As if I would allow people to extort me out of my hard-earned money.
I started singing a song that was quite fitting for the moment, it was amusing that committing an actually criminal act was making me so happy. Maybe it was the chance I could finally stick it to bullies and get away with it. It was a very satisfying feeling.
“There I was completely wasting, out of work and down!
All inside it’s so frustrating as I drift from town to town-”
Judas Priest - Breaking The Law (Official Music Video)
