Chapter 1643 - A Downtrodden Mage (1/2)

Hao Ren was caught slightly off guard when Rheia, the tiny mage suddenly agreed to the idea. He had prepared plenty of other rhetorics but none of them were of use. He could only look at the former in slight disbelief. “Don’t you want to understand more?”

“Understand what? You want me to wait for you to admit that you’re a blacklisted group?” Rheia asked as she shook her staff. “Seeing your reaction, I do believe that you are some adventurers falling on hard times. But color me curious, it’s uncommon to see children in mercenary groups nowadays, no?”

As she spoke, her vision fell upon Y’lisabet. The little devil was uncomfortably adjusting the pointed hat on her head (it was meant to hide her demon horns as Hao Ren and the rest did not notice any demons going about freely). The moment she heard Rheia, she immediately looked up and bared her fangs. “You’re the child! How old can you be compared to me with that body of yours?”

“Such a rowdy lass.” Rheia’s eyes widened slightly in surprise before grinning. “Don’t look at me like that. I am a proper adult. Alright, this is not a proper place to talk. Wanna come to my wizard tower? If we are to introduce ourselves properly, sitting by the warm hearth would be the best, right?”

And so this rather headstrong mage just invited a group of unknown adventurers that had suddenly appeared before her to her wizard tower to rest. This was not due to carelessness, conversely, it was a very calculated move. A mage within their own wizard tower would be able to employ powers many folds stronger, plus the tower itself usually had plenty of automatic defensive measures. So, “inviting a group of strangers into their own tower” was actually the best way to determine if someone was friendly or hostile. If they really were a group up to no good, they would hesitate at such an invitation. Anyone wanting to shank a mage would normally try to do so outside the mage’s own tower, and not foolishly walk into her own turf.

Of course, there was a possibility of some super OP assassins sneaking into a wizard’s tower and unleashing musou[1] attacks. But if a wizard was to attract such visitors, going to the tower itself was pretty much pointless, and the question turned into where the person would die…

Hao Ren was quite aware of the in and outs of this, as Holletta too was a world were magical civilizations flourished and he had contacts with the mages there before. So facing Rheia’s invitation, he acted like he was pondering something for a short while before agreeing. “Alright, we don’t have anywhere to go tonight anyway. But before we go there can I ask what’s the commission about?”

This was a pertinent question, and if they did not ask it, these self-proclaimed “out-of-luck adventurers” would look suspicious, so Rheia answered without much thought while she nodded. “Actually it’s just following me into some ruins to look for stuff. Of course, there will be danger, but it’s not like what you’ve heard from the guild. Every last mercenary who went with me came home alive! If you don’t believe me, you can ask them tomorrow!”

Seeing how agitated the little mage was, Hao Ren could not help but smile, “Alright, alright. We’ll trust our employer. But you still need to let us know what the mission is about.”

“Of course. I value trust the most.” Rheia said as she puffed her chest up before pointing towards the end of the alley with her staff, “Then follow me. Let’s go to my place.”

The little mage led Hao Ren across the winding and complex alley of White Maple Leaf City, and all the paths they traversed were alleyways not used by the common folk. The several-hundred-year-old city was like an ever-expanding ant hive, as generations upon generations of civilian buildings and streets had created layers of the city’s main body. Within the glorious walls were tons of labyrinthine ancient streets. If outsiders got lost in there, they would probably feel like they would never see the sun again. Only long-time citizens of the place dared to map out their path along the messy streets, and the mage was clearly a well-qualified “local”.

At her lead the group had passed through the stacked up civilian area and entered the wizardry zone at the southeast corner of the city without even passing through any proper city gates.

It was nightfall by then.

There was a saying, that the nobility were not necessary mages, but all mages were at least part nobility. As the body of unsurpassed knowledge and power, mages were the symbol of progress and advancement of knowledge, and thus the place they congregate would be extraordinary.

The mages were authorized to live in the city center together with the lord and nobility. However the arrogant and bookish shut-ins clearly preferred somewhere quieter, and all of the city’s wizardry zones were outside the main city. White Maple Leaf city was no exception.

Its wizardry zone was located to the southeast of the city and was the only place without a wall. But the barrier formed by over a dozen wizard towers and all sorts of automatic defensive automatons made the area more defensible than any walls. Over there, the glow from many magical devices and drifting magical particles in the area lit up the entire place. The place was on par with the brilliant brightness of the lord’s manor, and the magic towers standing silently in the night gave the city a much more mysterious vibrancy.

In this extravagant and superior zone, Rheia’s dilapidated wizard tower stood out like a sore thumb.

Her tower was closest to the civilian area and was a stone building about twenty meters tall. The tower was showing clear signs of age and a critical lack of maintenance. The walls outside were pockmarked and cracked because the paint had been long washed away by the elements. At a few more serious places, the magical conduits buried within the tower walls were exposed and were throwing out sparks into the air. Looking upwards, there were windows that could not be shut properly and broken windowsills. A metal bar stuck out from one of the windows and on it were yet-to-dry clothes.

Compared to this tower, the rest of the others in sight were much more magnificent.