Chapter 258: Let Me Go And See
Flying out of the tunnel, Lake looked at all the people who were sitting down until he found Wezz and said. "What do you want to do from here?" Lake wanted to leave them behind and start looking around by himself so he planned to talk Wezz into this plan. "We need a break. That climb was brutal."
Hearing this, Lake knew getting what he wanted would be easy and said. "Ok I'm going to look around to see what the situation around us is like." Flying up to the tip of the mountain Lake looked around for a while before he headed towards the city down below on foot. He didn't want anyone seeing him approach while in air and shooting at him.
With his Agility running down the mountain wasn't dangerous so there wasn't a real reason for him to take the risk that came with flying. Once he was at the base of the mountain, Lake took the time to set Detector to look for enemies. Going forward while using Mana Vision to look for groups of living people hiding in the rocks he slowly made his way towards the dark barrier that covered the city.
Making it almost all the way there before he saw anything that could be people, Lake headed towards them to see who or what they were. Once they were in the range of Detector and they didn't start to glow golden he ignored them and headed towards the barrier. Once he was there he looked around and started to fly up so he could look over the wall and into the city.
With the way the city was shaped he was unable to see the whole thing but from what he could see it was in bad shape and the other side of flesh formation was still in one piece like the one he had left behind. It seemed no one knew what to do about the formation because it had to be damaged on both sides at the same time or the formation would change and start doing something else which would most likely be more deadly to the people still trapped inside.
As he was flying back towards the ground Lake couldn't help but wonder what the Demon Worshipers were up to again. If they had wanted to just kill everyone here they could have very easily by making the formation slightly different but they had gone for trapping everyone instead.
With the fact the barrier was still up it made him think they had wanted to drag this conflict out for some reason and the only thing he could think of was that they were trying to draw something or someone here.
He was sure people were coming to help but that didn't really tell him who their target was or if that was really even their goal. With him done looking at the city he decided to look around a bit more before heading back to where he had seen those people. There was no reason not to say hi even if they didn't end up being involved at all in what was going on.
Walking towards where he had seen them, Lake used Detector to make sure they were humans before he wasted his time trying to talk to them. Seeing them glow gold Lake walked through the stones until he could see them with his eyes and said. "Hello." All four of the scruffy people that had been hiding looked towards him with looks of fear and he could tell they were about to run away so he stopped them by saying.
"Do you need any help? I'm from the Fighters guild." They didn't really look like they believed him but none of them tried to run away and that was good enough for him. "Who are you?" Lake had kind of just told them but he was sure they wanted to hear a name so he said. "I'm Lake."
"We don't need any help, please leave." Lake understood their apprehension to accept help from a stranger and was happy to leave but only after they answered his questions. "Do you four know anything that might be able to help the Fighters guild?" Lake doubted they would know anything he hadn't already figured out, especially since they seemed to have been living outside of the city for a while and hadn't been trapped but you could always get lucky when you asked people stuff.
"We're under attack by the Demon Lord. His armies have taken control of the entire city leaving no way in." Lake had known this already so he asked. "Anything else?"
"There's a disturbance in the Metal mana and Earth mana seems to be affected as well." Seeing they didn't seem to be the kind of people that had looked into anything and only knew what you could tell from a distance Lake said. "Alright I'm going to go now, good luck."
These four weren't the type of people he needed to waste his time on. Even if he did get them to come with him they would slow the rest of his group down because of their bad condition.
Heading towards the mountain Lake quickly ran back to where the tunnel exit was and saw everyone had taken the time he was gone to eat and dry their clothes on rocks. They looked ready to move again if he gave the order but he wanted to talk to Wezz first to see if they would be happy to wait here since it was safe.
Lake wanted to go see if the gate he had passed through was what was keeping help from getting here. The gate had been built like the walls of the city so if the Demon Worshipers had made a barrier there as well he could see them being able to keep anyone from being able to send help.
If he was right the only way anyone would be able to get here was by climbing through the mountains which meant it would take forever if it was even possible for the average person that would be in an army. He really didn't know how strong the average person would be in an army so he really had no idea how long it would take them to get here.
"Wezz no one is here to help yet." Lake decided to paint a bleak picture so he could make Wezz think him going to investigate was necessary. "That's not a good sign. What do you think we should do about it?"
"I want you all to hide while I go to look at the gateway. I think it's possible the Demon Worshipers have taken control of it and are using it as a way to keep help from arriving."
"Do you think it's safe for us to stay here next to the tunnel? If anyone finds it we will be in trouble since it will lead them straight here." This was true but Lake didn't want to spend any time finding them a new place to hide. "You guys can move down the mountain while I'm gone if you want, I already looked and there aren't any threats around and I'll be able to find you when I get back."
"Alright. How long do you think you will be gone?" Lake actually had no idea but said. "In less than two days. Even if I'm not done with whatever I'm doing I'll come back to check on you." Lake might or might not keep his word this time because he wasn't going to ruin whatever he was doing to come back here for them.
"Ok, I'm going to take us that way." Wezz pointed away from the city to the next mountain over. "I feel like we're less likely to get caught up in anything if we move away from the city." Lake didn't really care what they did and said. "Alright I'm going to go now, good luck."
Running down the mountain again Lake got onto the road and started towards the gate as fast as he could move. The road was extremely straight in places so he was able to actually use Burst every now and then to go even faster than he could handle. Like this he was able to get half way back to the gate within an hour and was able to see it before the hour passed.
Trying to think back to the amount of time it had taken him the first time he had traced this road, Lake knew his increased perception had let him go a lot faster this time. He wasn't exactly sure how stats scaled as they went higher and higher but the amount the 20 point increase from Fire Archer had allowed him to speed up made him think maybe the more you got away from mortal the more the increase was with every point.
It was really something he should ask Lucas the next time he saw him since he was the one who had given him the elixir. Getting a bit higher off the road so he could get a better look at the gate Lake could tell he had most likely been right about the gate getting taken over but wasn't sure because the only thing that made him think this was the buildings were destroyed.
He didn't see anything like the barrier that was around the city but Lake knew a lot of the time barriers were only used when necessary since they could burn through a large amount of mana. He saw this as a chance for him to get inside because he was sure they had guards that looked around every now and then.
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