“As for that entity. I don’t know much about them. I only know that the Beast Blood’s head refers to them as the Ancients.”
Renar expressed his willingness to cooperate with Marla’s judgement on them. First, he didn’t have a choice but to oblige. And second, he felt that the cultists’ organization and the kingdom were two sides of the same coin. One side of which was shiny while the other looked rusty.
Marla narrowed down her eyes after she heard Renar talk about the Ancients. It seemed that she had connected a few dots in her head.
But nobody in her team was willing to ask her. They knew there were a few things that the D-Ranker couldn’t share with them. It was out of the syllabus for the current ranking scale they were at.
******************
The kingdom wanted to control people to bring stability. The cultists wanted to destroy that stability in the name of freedom. And ironically, they controlled the rouge rankers joining their fold to get that freedom.
In the end, the ordinary rankers couldn’t escape the leash no matter which organization they belonged to.
Why should Renar or these kids stretch their necks out for the organization that used them as pawns? Their capture by Marla’s team was a blessing in disguise for them.
Only Renar had signed a binding contract with the Beast Bloods. So the kids had nothing to worry about. Had they quit upfront after joining Beast Bloods, they would be hunted down one day for betrayal. The cultists’ organizations had their honour to maintain after all.
But now that they have been caught and punished for it, the organization won’t involve more resources to take care of them. It would just be a complete waste as all of them were only serving as pawns.
***************
Four days after the battle between Eren’s team and the cultists.
A one and a half-day journey to the city of Silvermoon was stretched to three days because Eren’s team had new members joining them in the middle. Eren’s team had to catch wild colts in the forest to accommodate the captured cultist’s travel.
And since the newly caught wild colts weren’t meant for long travels, the travellers needed to take intermittent breaks. The cultists were still tied in runic chains, unable to cast spells or exert their mana outside. But they could move and perform daily activities in a controlled manner.
Marla didn’t let her guard down just because she was a D-Ranker. She had ensured that all the protocols relating to the transfer of captured personnel were followed.
The group finally saw a giant city wall that had dense vegetation covering its surface. It looked like someone had performed a wood magic spell on it to strengthen the architecture and grant it additional properties it may have.
The city entrance was contrastingly small compared to the size of the city walls. A platoon of guards was manning the entrance and talking merrily with each other.
The guards weren’t humans. At least not all of them. There were some dark brown-skinned Faeruns among them who had pointy ears that would twitch as the cause of listening to something hilarious.
There were also elves of other lineages like sun elves, moon elves, and snow elves. Then there were dwarfs as well as half-bloods that were a mix of two distinct gene pools.
The guards saw that a bunch of people on colts were approaching the city gates at a steady pace as they were joking among themselves.
It wasn’t rare for the city of Silvermoon to have visitors. But the traveller’s timing was odd. This was way past the usual dinner time. Normally, the visitors would ensure that they reach the city in the evening or at the break of dawn.
So this uncalled-for visitation from strangers drew their attention. The platoon had already been on the guard as it had been briefed about the recent attacks on the travellers. Therefore, the guards were about to form a formation when they heard the known sound of city gates opening from behind them followed by a known voice of their captain:
“At ease, boys. They are our friends. Well, at least some of them are. So no need to panic and let them in.”
This was the voice of the on-duty platoon captain Ariziana Agnoth. She was a D-Ranker snow elf who looked like she had been bathed in light even when there was dark all around her. It felt like her clear and supple skin had a natural white glow.
Ari had a beautiful face. She had curves at the right places but her features looked moderate. She looked to be in her early twenties but one couldn’t really tell the number when it came to elves.
The elves would mature at the same time and speed as humans. But then their age would stagnate. But this was the case with rankless humans and elves.
The age stagnation didn’t matter when rankers started walking on the ranking journey. Their progress in their paths would decide their lifespan. And humans had the advantage to tread faster in their ranking journey as compared to the elves. So the concept of age wasn’t paid much attention in the ranking community.
“Long time no see, Ari. How you’ve been. I see you’ve broken through D-Rank already. It calls for a celebration. And you are not getting away this time. You know that right?”
Marla greeted Ari with a kind of excitement she’s rarely shown to anyone in LA. It seemed that the two Adepts were very close to each other. The latter replied with tired expressions on her face:
“How many times have I told you? We elves don’t stock our booze enough for your voracious drink-fest. We only drink a sip or two for relaxation. Not like you who drink it for who knows what.”
“Tch, tch, tch. I already told you your torn and tattered excuses won’t work on me anymore. I want all of your Froastfoam ale collection and then some other varieties. Hehe! LA doesn’t have good booze, you know. And all my stock has vanished.
So I’m going to let myself go in your care.”
Marla was very excited to have her booze fest get going. But she was interrupted by her assistant shortly afterwards, breaking her drunk-like chain of thoughts:
“Um, Adapt Marla. We have a few criminals to process first.”
Almera reminded Marla about her priorities that she had gotten skewed in the anticipation of getting dead-drunk. So the latter gave a disappointing glare at her assistant before talking to her snow elf friend about the same.
Meanwhile, Eren was perplexed about something after hearing the platoon captain’s name.
‘Hmm. Ari. Ariziana Agnoth. Where have I heard this name before?’