Chapter 166: Man-Made Mountain
As Lake ran he quickly started to see signs that this path through the mountains wasn't natural. His guess would be that it had been made with magic because of how smooth the walls were and the fact there were actually places to drain water so the road wouldn't flood if it was to rain, these two things made it pretty obvious.
Other than that the only other thing to mention was the fact he was pretty sure the balance of mana in the air was changing and even though he wasn't familiar with Metal magic it wasn't hard to guess what was changing. He had never really felt the balance change before except whenever he was down in the Dungeon so this was a new experience but he was sure he would quickly get used to it.
...
The road ended up being kind of long but it wasn't nearly as long as the one he had run on yesterday so the trip wasn't really even worth mentioning but the city he was quickly approaching was. The best he could do to describe it was the Blacksmith guild in the capital times 1000.
The whole city looked to be a factory with every building having smoke stacks spewing out different colored smokes. The only other thing to mention about the city was all the buildings were made of stone and metal and he couldn't see any wood anywhere. It made sense people would use what they could to build but his thoughts were more on the fact this city would be impervious to normal means of invasion.
You would have to come by air if you wanted to have any chance of damaging the city because the only road to it was a narrow path through the mountains. That being said he was sure they would have a barrier to protect them from aerial attacks so it was probably impossible for mortals to destroy this place unless all the people who lived here went mad and did it themselves.
With the front gate open Lake was able to walk straight in and it made sense with how stringent the process to enter the Metal domain was that they would just leave this gate open because whoever they needed to stop was probably already stopped or had blended in enough that they could get through this gate as well.
After a few steps Lake started to see things that answered questions that he had had since he had gotten here. The main one being if there were other races and from what he was seeing the answer was yes. There weren't very many of them walking the streets but he was guessing they would be what he would have called dwarves in his past life but he didn't know if that would be what they were called here.
He remembered short people being ridiculed in his last life but he doubted these dwarves would have that problem because of the amount of muscle they had on them. It made him wonder how they would differ from him as a human but he wasn't just going to walk up to one and ask. He was sure he would find his answer naturally as he lived here.
That being said he did have a question they wouldn't mind answering, picking one that was well armed because he felt that they would know, Lake asked. "Do you know where the fighters guild is?"
In a deep voice the dwarf said. "It's on tier three." Lake understood what was being said to him because he had been able to tell the city grew in elevation as you went deeper but he didn't know if he was supposed to count from the bottom up or the other way. "Which tier is the third one?"
"Go up five and that's the third one but if you would like to wait I'll be going up myself soon and you can follow me." Lake didn't want to wait on someone with such short legs to climb up all the stairs so he said. "No. Thank you." And started walking up the stairs to the next level. As he was climbing he took the time to look at the people he was passing in more detail.
It didn't take much for him to notice the obvious difference in the amount of jewelry and armor the people here were wearing. It seemed the fashion sense here was very different and he could tell by the ornate armor it was more like clothes than meant for battle. His plain and boring plate armor made him stand out quite a bit but it didn't seem like any of them cared what he looked like because they were all too busy with their work to look up.
The amount of work ethic on display was astonishing with almost no one even stopping to talk to anyone who passed them and if it wasn't for the constant hammering he could hear here and there he would bet this would be the quietest city he had ever been in that wasn't abandoned.
Once he reached what he assumed was the third tier, Lake started to look around for the sign that would tell him which one of these buildings would be the Fighters guild and accidentally found the Alchemist guild first. Thinking about it, Lake decided he would leave that for later because he was trying to get the 1,000,000 gold and the Fighters guild was a faster way of doing it for him because while he could probably make more money at the Alchemist guild in the long run it would be a lot more work and he wasn't very interested in Alchemy.
He did enjoy fighting though and being out on the streets was definitely more for him than reading in a library. With some more looking Lake was able to find the Fighters guild tucked away behind another building. Lake guessed it had been tucked back more to accommodate the massive crowd that would be in front of it so they wouldn't block the road like they did in other cities he had been to.
Skipping the line out front, Lake entered to try and find someone he could report his arrival to because that was what he had been told to do by Master Dean. The layout inside was very similar to what the last Fighters guild he had been like inside but the look was very different. It was truly something you would never see where he was from.
A lot of the places he had been to up till this point had been decorated in more of a tame manner but this place truly looked like something you would see in a movie and the fact that the stone didn't have any seams like it had been carved out of one piece of stone gave it an odd look.
He wasn't here to inspect the building though so he walked up to the counter he was sure he would use to turn missions in soon and said. "I was sent here by Master Dean and told to report to the fighters guild as soon as I arrived." Lake hoped this was all he was going to need to do and he could quickly get to work and when the clerk waved for him to follow him he knew his hopes had been answered.
"The Master will be giving you your mission directly, go ahead and go inside." The Clerk tried to walk away but Lake stopped him and asked. "What's the Master's name?" Lake was sure there would be an introduction when he went inside but for some reason he wanted to know now. Something about the way the clerk hadn't said it had probably just caught his attention and it was nothing.
"Masters. Everyone has gotten in the habit of just calling him Master because Master Masters sounds kind of silly. He prefers it this way so feel free to do the same when you meet him." With that Lake let them walk away and went into the room to see a mountain of a man sitting behind the desk.
Master Masters was still a dwarf though even if he was the strongest looking man he had ever seen so Lake did his best not to think about the fact his feet were probably not reaching the ground behind the desk as he introduced himself. "Hello Master Masters, I'm Lake. I was sent by Master Dean to help the Guild kill the Demon Worshipers." Lake felt like this introduction would cut their conversation length in half and allow him to get to work quicker.
"Ok I am Master Masters but I don't like it when people call me that, choose one of them and just say that. Let me see your badge." Lake nodded and handed him his badge. After Masters looked at it for a second he said. "You're really new to the guild so I would like to ask you what kind of combat role you're the most comfortable in."
After thinking about it for a while, Lake said. " I usually fight alone so I'm not sure and if it's possible I would like it to stay that way." Master Masters started to shake his head and said. "Sorry to be blunt but I can't trust you with a record as short as yours especially since it seems you came out of thin air so for now you'll be working in a small group of people like you. Don't worry though, working with others will be good for you."
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