Chapter 1659 - Setting Change (2/2)

Hao Ren laughed dryly as he ignored the werehusky’s question. The soldiers surrounding them seemed to have received their orders and filing out orderly. At the same time, an officer-like man made his way towards Hao Ren.

“No matter who you are, White Maple Leaf City thanks you for your help.” The officer stood pencil straight and with a powerful voice, he continued, “But the situations demands, and I have orders to understand your origins…”

“They are my helpers!” Rheia who was dazed for a good part of the day had finally regained her senses, and while things had progressed beyond her understanding, she could still correctly determine what she should be saying. “Foreign mercenaries, a reliable bunch.”

The officer looked at Rheia and seemed to recognize the impoverished mage’s identity. “You are… the poorest one in the wizard’s quarters…”

“The smartest one there is!” Rheia waved her staff menacingly. “I am a registered great mage and archaeologist! I have even got you a group of powerful mercenaries to defend the city! I could be asking for an additional two hundred gold coins for that you know!”

The officer took a reflexive step back, not sure if he was wary of Rheia’s tone or the staff in her hand. “Alright, fine. I understand. I will report it as it is…”

The officer seemed to have understood that neither the siegebreaker beast nor the berserk mage with her staff was something he could deal with. He was originally here reluctantly to complete his assignment, and wanted to make his presence scarce after completing his duty. At any rate, the group before him had clearly blunted a wave of attack, and now an infamous person in the city had vouched for them, it would be remiss of him to ask more questions.

With that temporary respite, Hao Ren quickly ushered the rest towards the wizard’s quarter before any more trouble rears its head.

“What are you gonna do at my tower?” while Rheia had followed the team in her gaze, she was still the most confused person, especially as an employer. “Oh I know, you lot are after my inheritance after all… Eh, that’s not right! Seeing your equipment you’re probably filthy rich! My tower and land, added up together won’t even cover the cost of Ms. Lily’s armor…Wait, I understand now! You’re gonna pack your stuff up and make a run for it? Do you think White Maple Leaf City is about to fall? I do think that the city may not hold out for long, but this is my home and I’m attached to it… Eh, why aren’t you guys talking?”

“Goodness please, Madam, can you rein in your wild imagination for a bit?” Hao Ren had a headache looking at the curious and wildly imaginative scholar. “We are heading to your place to get some information.”

“Information?! At this juncture?!” Rheia was stunned. “And here I thought me learning how to disarm an alchemy bomb after activating it was weird enough…”

“….”

As they spoke, the group had arrived at the wizard’s quarter at the south of the city. The area here too had gone into combat readiness.

Towers upon towers were lit up in an orangey light beam as massive magical energies were drawn from magical focal points all over the place as they were injected directly into White Maple Leaf’s defensive system as various combat automatons were sent by their masters in batches towards the combat zone.

The ‘holy ground of knowledge and the arcane’ were no longer the supernatural and peaceful place it once was.

As its master was not around, Rheia’s tower was the only one that did not enter combat readiness, but the run-down tower stood alone in a corner, and no one noticing it.

After Lily had returned to her human form, the group quickly made their way into the tower and ran up to the study on the second floor.

Rheia, not understanding what was going on, followed as well, before seeing the group starting flipping over those old tomes. Confused, she asked, “What are you looking for? If you are looking for important information, you can go to the library on the third floor. The books here are mostly harmless time passers…”

Hao Ren interrupted the little mage as he waved an old book. “No, we found it already.”

The book was not some valuable scholar’s tome, rather a book regarded as a ‘nonsensical garbage’ by the scholastic world, a ‘generic science’ book about the Great Pit. Its author was Roan Zell, an pretty much unknown ‘scholar’.

Hao Ren turned open the book and quickly found the passage regarding the Great Pit.

Upon the already yellowed pages, Roan Zell described the Great Pit as such, “… I have always been looking into the Great Pit, but I’ve seen nothing but a sea of darkness… There is no sense of direction in the pit, neither any floor nor any buildings, only bizarre debris floating about… It looks like a destroyed world, and its debris float deep within the Great Pit… I, Roan Zell, can safely declare that, the Great Pit is a different dimension in itself, and aside from the bizarre sightings, I could not find any logical objects within it.”

As she heard the passage, Lily’s eyes widened. “The passage was different when we read it the other time!”

“This words… are different from our memory.” Nangong Sanba was stunned. He quickly picked up a different book, one that he read before earlier. “The description of the Great Pit had also changed. There were no books talking about the toxic gas or monsters…”

Y’lisabet blinked. “Uncle Ren, what is going on?”

Hao Ren’s expression did not change much as he saw the changes to the words, he only took a deep breath before nodding at Vivian.

“The setting has changed,” he said.