Meanwhile, Selenia slowly trotted across a cobbled road on the only half decent horse she could find in the bandit's stables, the road grew wider and caravans passed by more frequently until a wall came into view, it stood at 10 meters tall with towers rising along its surface, several sections of the wall appeared to be a lighter shade of grey as it had yet to be weathered by age, the obvious signs of battle once again reminded Selenia of how war torn the south truly was, she has yet to see a fully intact farm on her way here which is sure to cause famines and only help cause more wars between the Dutchys as they fight each other for resources.

After queuing for entry into the city Selenia began to observe the people that were in line waiting to enter the city, most of them resembled merchants of some sort, she frowned at the sight of their excessive amount of guards, which is common for merchants that deal in weaponry for war, Salenia thought of just cutting them down where they stood now instead of allowing them to continue in death profiteering, but decided her reason for coming here is more important than a group of low-level merchants.

The rest of the people waiting mainly consisted of poor civilians with groups of adventurers found here and there, the only adventurers she could see were battle hardened men with none of the nieve adventure and fame seekers present amongst them, she usually found these conditions in areas with high mortality rates and she guessed that the adventurers here were forced to take on tasks they were not equipped to deal with, the dutchy leaders probably spent all their military strength on fighting petty wars instead of sending expeditions after the more powerful magical beasts that small groups of adventurers could not deal with.

by now she had gathered the attention of all the people nearby, her cloak could not hide her armor perfectly and soon one of the merchants was coming towards her with his guards, he stood in front of Selenia and all but licked his lips, however, once he got within talking distance he noticed the quality of the armor Selenia wore and his greedy eyes immediately morphed into friendly ones as he changed tactics.

"greetings I am CaArll lâche of the Halseth household, what brings my lord to this corner of this small world"

Selenia coldly replied "None of your business" then quietly added only loud enough for him to hear, "I've no interest in short stumped men like you caaarll", CaArll became enraged then roared "HOW DAR--", his guards raised their weapons upon seeing a sudden flash and saw their employers head fall the ground before they could do anything, Selenia lightly said "come if you wish to die" while brandishing her blade.

Luckily for the guards, they decided against attacking the well-armored foe in front of them and instead chose to simply take the CaArll's carriage and leave, whether they were going to return the goods to the Halseth household was of no concern to Selenia so she simply let them go.

The city guards finally made it to the scene and saw the headless body on the ground and pointed their spears and the only person with a weapon unsheathed and bloody, Selenia opened her cloak completely revealing her armor while pouring mana into the metal to highlight the runes etched into the metal.

After seeing the armor accompanied with the complete disregard this woman showed for them they hesitated before one of the higher ranking city guards said "welcome to capital city of the Grand Duchy", then another retorted "but sir--" and was interrupted by the same man "do you think they are someone we can afford to offend, we should just welcome her in and tell the superiors about this, they deal with this kind of thing all the time" then he whispered to the man "they will send probes to find out who she really is and if she is someone important they can just pull back and pretend it had nothing to do with them"

The other man whispered back "but what if she is someone they can offend" the higher ranking man snickered and replied "well then, our lord is going to get a new set of armor, and we will get a raise for reporting about said armor"

Selenia could hear everything they said but simply ignored them and continued into the city, once inside she sold her horse and a few gems from the dungeon to buy a better mount, she found a beast tamer guild and walked out several minutes later on top of a horse sized white dire wolf, while being sent off by the guild master and his servants.

Salenia proceeded to visit several more shops and spent extravagantly for even the most basic necessity, once she was satisfied with the number of people tailing her she found a high-end inn and took the best room, then walked upstairs to her room leaving behind a grateful innkeeper behind.

She did a once over of the room and sat down on the bed, after getting comfortable she began to meditate to get into optimal condition.

An hour later she heard a knock on the door, surprised by how long it took for the information to reach the ears of the higher ups she walked to open the door, while thinking that perhaps they had already known earlier but were simply preparing, nevertheless the extra time was not good for her.

Behind the door stood an old man in a well-kept uniform that is common of butlers or stewards that served large families, he bowed slightly and spoke "My lord I am honored to invite you to my master's estate for dinner if it pleases you", without missing a beat when he saw the occupant of the room still fully armored.

Selenia gave a slight nod then passed the Stewart without any real care then stepped into the carriage the man came in, his brows lowered slightly when she opened the carriage door herself despite his presence, it spoke of either poor manners or an insult to his station to ignore his job of escorting the lady to their destination.

He was beginning to think that this person was simply a high-level adventurer instead of a noble in disguise because a noble would know of such etiquette, adventures with such high-level gear do exist and are usually backed by kingdoms or goliath corporations, however, they are extremely rare and would not move without reason.

During the carriage ride the steward spoke of his days as an adventurer in hopes that the person in front of him would reciprocate in kind, however, he was disappointed by his apparently mute companion, so he failed to gain any useful intelligence that would uncover who this mysterious woman was.

they both exited the carriage and the steward led the way into a large mansion, the stewards mood improved slightly when he noticed the woman was not looking around at all the gaudy furnishings and artwork like someone unaccustomed to wealth would when they entered these halls, however, Selenia was too busy shifting through different spectrums of light and using the corner of her eyes to pinpoint all the hidden guards in the area.

With every mana or heat signature her heart dropped a little further, they arrived at a pair of ornately crafted double doors with beautiful maids waiting outside, Selenia paused just before the doors this time and allowed the Steward to open the door for her and announce her presence to his master, another short opportunity to look around for more guards then she entered.

Selenia was almost surprised that no one had even stopped her to look at her face yet, she knew that this armor was good enough to get her into the mansion but she expected to have to sneak in afterwards, or even attempt a frontal assault, which now that she has seen the defences of the mansion seemed like a terrible idea to her now.

Once inside she saw a man sitting behind a desk filling out a mountain of paperwork, the sight slightly amused her for a moment before the feeling was replaced with irritation at how slow she was walking, then rage, Selenia could barely stop her hands from shaking.

The man stood up and introduced himself with a curt bow used between nobles "Greetings my lady I am Erasmus B. Dragon of the Ironhide clan, I may not be the ruler of these lands but I am quite close to that and would...

Meanwhile, in the dungeon, Lucifer spoke the name of his enemy Erasmus B. Dragon, then laughed as he prepared to send a message to Ahri.