Chapter 133: Immigration Documents (1/2)

“Is that it?” she asked herself, falling back into the habit of talking to herself as soon as she wasn’t around people anymore.

“Should be it.” Aki answered, the first words out of the dagger in more than a day, startling her a little but not as much as before.

“Ah, I live for this…,” the dagger said, pure joy radiating from the metal.

“You’re not technically alive you shit. Well you don’t shit but that’s the point.” Ilea said, flying higher to see the extent of the city.

Contrary to the way most cities worked on Earth, there was very little housing outside of the high walls, monster attacks likely too dangerous for anybody to even consider it. Some still did of course and there were even smaller walled off settlements a little outside of the city. A big forest spread to the west, somewhat uncommon for the plains, at least what Ilea had seen of them so far. A lake opened up into the forest as well, some ships stationed near the city.

East and northward, the city spread. Quite far, even with Ilea’s high aerial view. Flying further down and a little closer, Ilea marveled at the Gothic walls that were ridiculously high and delicately decorated. Must’ve cost them a literal fortune to build that. Her thoughts were interrupted by her seeing a couple figures approach from the walls at a high speed.

Five people, two of them winged and the rest simply floating came closer towards her, soon identified by their matching armor as a cosplaying group of some kind.

“State your… name and business in Virilya!” the man in the middle shouted, a little stressed out at her high level. Ilea wasn’t sure if he could identify it or not. The people were of varying levels, the highest being a mage at one ninety. Still, the highest city guards she had ever encountered. A given, the city in question being the capital of an empire and her approach being the flying one probably not being covered by most other guards on duty at the time.

“Lilith is the name. I’m here to look for the remainders of the Shadow’s Hand. I’m one of them myself.” she stated, most of it the truth. The silly fake name didn’t seem so silly to her anymore considering what the mind weaver had told them about names. A lot of people already knew her name but at least sometimes she wouldn’t shout it out for everyone to hear. Especially in new cities.

The man looked over to his colleagues but seemed much more relaxed after the mention of the Hand. “Yea, many have arrived in the past month. You’re pretty late. Come, we’ll check the formalities.” the man said and flew downwards, the other four spreading around Ilea as she followed him, not fully trusting of the stranger yet.

Ilea thought of what to spend her 45 remaining stat points on as they approached the beautiful walls. “These are honestly the nicest walls I’ve ever seen...” she said to nobody in particular.

One of the men chuckled. “First time in Virilya?”

“Yes actually, you’re for hire as a guide?” she asked in a joking manner. The man opened his mouth to respond but was swiftly shut up by a gesture of the man next to him. Professionalism seemed to be higher rated than comedy, a shame Ilea thought.

“We have a wave of demons approaching to the west captain.” a mage flying to the left of Ilea said. “Should we go for support, the west wing has had a rough time the past two weeks.” the man said.

“They’ll send out a signal if they need anyone.” the warrior to the right of Ilea retorted.

“I’ll go, where can I find you afterwards?” Ilea said, stopping in the air, her wings moving steadily as she watched the demons’ movements in the distance. The walls were much too high for them to climb or break through but what the beasts lacked in intelligence or planning, at least without mind weavers to control them, they made up with sheer ferocity and numbers.

And numbers they had. There were at least a couple hundred of the monsters moving in, the light of magical spells forming on the top of the wall as the sunlight reflected from the lake to the west. It looked beautiful, idyllic even. Ilea smiled at the view, even the noise of the demon horde below couldn’t reach them at their altitude.

“No, you’re coming to fill out the required forms. Afterwards we’ll see if we can get you a spot in the civilian support corps.” the captain explained, only looking back at her while shaking his head, apparently thinking it to be a silly notion.

Ilea’s smile turned into an outright laugh as the people around her stopped to look at her, confused at the sudden outburst. “Yea I don’t think so. The other guy here mentioned the western side of the wall to be understaffed and I’m a perfectly fine killing machine.” Ilea said, waving towards the man who had talked about the military resource situation.

“I don’t expect to be paid either, so don’t worry about your gold.” she said offhandedly before she dove downwards. Shouts could be heard behind her, quite efficiently ignored before some of the people followed, quickly left behind as her buffs came to life, the speed of the armored warrior-healer reaching her maximum capacity in mere moments.

“Civilian fighting corpse? What the hell is this bullshit.” Ilea murmured to herself, admiring the somewhat circular wall around the city, the closer she came the more impressive the sheer size of it was. Moving onwards she started concentrating on the upcoming fight, her muscles itching to move freely and at full power after the rather inhibiting escort duty she had to follow.

Sulivhaan would have to wait a little longer, she thought as the first long ranged fire, ice and lightning spells were launched from the top of the wall and into the horde below. Impressive but nothing compared to any long ranged artillery one Earth. Ilea thought of the possibilities of launching big chunks of rocks with explosion enchantments over long distances and laughed at the idea of climbing one to become additional payload.

Her landing was not quite the impact of a launched piece of rock the size of a house but certainly close enough. Obsidian gauntlets upfront, she dived straight into the ground, the impact completely flattening an unfortunate demon before she hit the ground, her body compressing as the ground gave in below, dirt and rock surrendering against her assault and flying outwards to blind or strike her enemies.

Demons hissed around her as a black mist appeared in the vicinity. Ash, the densely packed clusters of the element spreading out to encompass a rather large area. The first demons to approach the small crater left by the ballistic human missile found it rather empty, a moment later the first of them fell. A woman clad in black armor spun through their midst, shrouded by ash and hidden to their eyes she moved efficiently and deadly, the low leveled monsters showing little resistance to the blue steel blades weaved into her gauntlets, covered by the red of their blood.

“Yea I’m not going in there.” one of the aerial guards following behind Ilea said, after stopping in the air. The mage next to him deflected a bone spear shot from a rather large demonic monster below.

“Neither will I but we’ll have to keep an eye on her. We don’t want anymore unregistered refugees in the town...” the mage said, floating back upwards to the rest of their team coming closer in the distance, the two of them the fastest fliers in the group.

“Are you kidding me,” the first guard said, his sword deflecting a ranged attack before he started moving upwards again too. “Refugees don’t jump into demon hordes. Did you see that impact?” he asked, soon outside of the enemy’s range.

“Yea, for all we know she misjudged the height and is now paste on the ground.” the mage commented, getting a chuckle out of the other man.

“I mean she’s with the Hand so fair enough. Crazy fuckers.” he said right before the captain and the other two members of their squad reached them.