"This is the best breastplate in the whole town, maybe even the whole region! It rivals even the mythril armour that the nobles of the nine Great Families wear. I guarantee its absolute quality." boasts a tall, lank man with a thin mustache and voice that I swear I've heard before. His chest is so puffed up that it looks almost comical. The thick man with the huge beard beside him smiles widely, enjoying the praise with his chin held high. I would've called him a typical hardworking blacksmith which you can see in any decent town, but his face is too clean and his hands look like they have never touched a forge.

While looking at both of them, I bend the breastplate with my bare hands and the busy merchant house falls silent. Looking at the bent excuse for a piece of armour I sigh deeply. After another deeper breath to calm myself down, I put the chest armour on the table and start walking out of the "best" place to buy armour, ignoring the cry of the owner and chatter of people inside.

Useless shit wherever you go.

I gathered some funds during the boat trip by playing the local card game with the other co-travelers on the ship. Sadly, I was only able to participate in the game for a single day, after which everyone refused to join the game if I was playing. The Endless Empire soldiers, who were returning home, were especially angry as I gathered a small fortune from them. Though they didn't dare to do anything after learning what I did with the automatons.

As usual, not everyone was so bright, and during one of the nights I had a visit from a few shadow guests. The quiet night was broken by screams of pain, which disappeared as quickly as they appeared. A few minutes later a huge crowd had gathered around my room entrance, and a pile of broken and bloody bodies near it. No one dared to pursue it further. The guards didn’t even question me about what happened.

It's quite simple actually, no one does anything without approval from the guards themselves. And it's expected, as there are always people who will attempt to acquire things using easier methods, including stealing. The ship stopped at the harbour the next day, and everyone went on their own way. The very first thing I decided to do with the newly acquired funds was to buy a decent sword and set of armour. I fully understood that I won't be able to get any good equipment in this city, which isn't the capitol, but even "mediocre" at least shouldn't bend like it was made out of paper?

After rethinking it for a short bit, I exit the upper-level market area and walk down to the lower-class area and I ask for directions to the closest blacksmith. Reaching the shabby looking street I was pointed to, I find it very noisy, but not with people, but rather work. A person sharpening knives is sitting just few meters away from a group of people skinning some kind of wildlife, and right across from them are several young boys who are running and orderly piling up bricks on top of a cart. And the whole street in a busy frenzy ignores each other, trying to do something. My eyes find a half-crumbled one storey stone building, with an anvil sign on it, and my body instantly starts walking in its direction.

After a small explanation of why I can’t simply go and buy armor in a shop, and a few gold coins later, the blacksmith went into the backroom and returned with exactly what I wanted, a thick chain-mail set with a simple steel breastplate. The whole thing doesn't look very presentable, as it isn't polished to a near mirror-like state like in the shops, but I can tell that this thing is worth the money, or at least I think so. Thankfully, I was able to find a decent sword with fortification enchantments on it already, which was quite a hassle as the stupid seller kept insisting that his shop has many better swords with much better enchantments, specifically, those that cover the blade in fire and lightning. Those type of weapons look pretty but are absolutely useless in a real fight. Oh look, I have a shiny sword, which shines so brightly that, even I, the wielder, am blinded by it.

Though I can’t judge the quality of the enchantment, as I'm not an expert in that field. But I know that some enchantments last for decades, others for just a few weeks. Hopefully it will last more than few hits though. It's quite heavy for local standards, as it was designed for "bigger species", but for someone from other side of planet like me, the local swords for humans look too flimsy and tiny, calling them rapiers would be a compliment. Anyway, the closest ship to the capital is in about a week, and all the "seats" have already been bought, so I decided to buy a horse and continue the rest of the travel on my own. The horse is currently in the stable, being fed and prepared for the travel, while I finish the final tasks in this city.

While walking in the direction of the potion brewer's shop I'm once again struck by the bizarreness of Astapad city. On one hand you have enormous towers throughout the whole city, with a huge white castle in the center of it all, but all of them are in disrepair, showing just how ancient the whole city really is. They tried to hide the damage with simple paint and by filling up the huge holes in the walls with new bricks and stones, but fail miserably. Magic reinforced stone isn't that easy to make, and it's the main reason that such huge structures can exist in the first place.

On the other hand you have hundreds of automatons walking around the city, in all sizes, shapes, and colours. Most of them are humongous multi-limbed creatures in a very poor state, which rarely look humanoid and are designed for hard labor, such as carrying heavy things around. Though I have seen a few rare exceptions, such as when I saw a noble in lavishly dressed clothes, surrounded by guards and closely followed by a dream like beautiful female automatons with surreal figures and faces, in clothes that are more appropriate to call underwear. How the hell can they have so many automatons, which are pinnacle of engineering all around the city, but have such abysmal infrastructure? This just makes no sense. If you can create automatons you should for sure be able to repair the building, or at least build new ones.

Continuing the walk I turn right into a narrower alley, which should shorten the path a bit as I was told, and find a very different city. Dirty buildings with yellowish moss covering them and people with clothes made out of different coloured dirty patches of what could have been cotton quite a long time ago, fully reflect the stark difference between the city’s social structure. A high pitched scream grabs my attention and my eyes turn in the direction where the sound came from. My eyes stop on half a dozen laughing guards near the bleeding body of a man on the ground, and a screaming woman behind it. The woman falls down on her knees and tries to stop the bleeding from a huge wound on the man’s chest as he starts coughing on his own blood. The locals around look away and resume their walk trying not to get involved as they have always done.

A huge grin spreads across one of the guard’s face as he slaps the woman across her face, sending her tumbling a few meters away from the man’s body. Walking to her sobbing frame the guard grabs her by the hair and pulls up causing the woman to yelp in pain. The guard starts fiddling with his pants and they drop down a few moments later.

Some things are the same whenever you go.

[Are you talking about the behavior of the guards or the people around?]

[There is simply is no reason for them to risk their lives and the lives of their loved ones for someone they don't even know.]

[Or maybe that is exactly what they are telling themselves, that this is not their problem and that they should not get involved. Survival of the fittest, right?]

[Injustice and corruption happens all around world, and for whatever reason people always believe that it is someones else problem, that someone else will help or fix it.]

[Why risk it, right?]

[We have our own goals. Why should we waste time on these pitiful humans? One life more, one life less, nothing more. And the only reason that the tiny voice in your head is raising these moral question is that unlike everyone else you have nothing to lose.]

[Life will not change.]

[The world will not change.]

[And so neither will we.]

My sword sliced across the crowd of guards, and they exploded into messy clouds of flesh, gore, blood, and armour pieces. Before anyone could react the sword moved again, and another group of guards followed their fate, with their innards painting the walls of the alley dark red. A single guard leaped at me with his sword visibly shining with mana, only to connect with my sword and split in half together with its wielder. Not losing the momentum, the sword continues its arc connecting with several more who attempted to fight or run away.

Within a few moments only two guards are left with their swords pointing at me. One of them, after quick glance at the dead bodies of his comrades, decided to flee. Though the attempt was shortly stopped when I took a sword from one of the dead and threw it straight into the back of the fleeing guard, who fell down like a sack of potatoes. Turning to the last one, which is stammering something about mercy with his pants visibly soiled. Ironic that he repeats the same words that have been spoken just a several moments ago by their victim just few meters away from him.

Do they really not understand that this is exactly what they have been subjecting other to?

I grab the human failure, which tries to crawl away, by the leg and slam his body against the corner of the building which causes the upper half to detach from the lower one, painting the corner same colour as the walls are. Turning to victims I find the woman frozen in terror with the same eyes I have seen many times, the ones which just saw a monster. The reaction is a magnitude higher than the one she was showing less than a minute ago when the man next to her was being killed. After a deep sigh, I turn around and resume my walk in the direction of the potion brewer faster than before.

[What did you expect, a "thank you"?]

I need to leave the city now.

After quickly buying several potions, provisions for the travel and getting my horse from the stables I exit the city and start towards the west.

...

Looking at the map once again in order to make sure that this isn't a mistake or a trick of my sick mind, I helplessly sigh as I stand before the only walking path from my current location to the central island. The island on which I'm currently on, the south-eastern one, and the south-western one, where the tournament with Amazons will be, are divided by an ocean. The area where they are closest to each other, which is approximately forty kilometers, are connected by a road, which I expected to be a narrow path created by the low tide. The path is actually a long stone bridge, which is at least sixty meters in width and twice that in height.

They couldn't fix the main buildings in one of their major cities, which means that they simply couldn't have built something of such scale or grandness. Another relic of the ancients most likely. How is it possible that there was so much made, so much known, and still every single kingdom lost that knowledge? Everyone at the same time... The horse under me neighs and reminds me that I've been standing idle for a bit too long. And the weather isn’t getting much better either. I sigh once again.

After about a dozen minutes of riding I arrive at the the colossal structure and find it in extremely bad condition. This explains why I haven't seen any carriages going on this path between the islands. The path exists, but I don't think that big carriages will be able to pass here, but a single human should be able to. The further I walk, the more destroyed I find the bridge, whereas in the beginning the road itself was cracked with potholes throughout it, right now though, around me there are huge chunks of bridge simply missing. And a single misstep may lead to me falling down into the wild ocean underneath and the fierce waves that continues to crash against the stone bridge.

I continue travelling through the half-destroyed bridge, carefully evading the holes for about another hour until I come to a full stop. A deep chuckle escapes me as I look at the "end" of the bridge. Well technically it's not the end, it's just that the rest of the path continues until about two dozen meters from the cliff. Looking down I find a few parts of the missing area of the bridge laying near the base of the columns that act as supports for the bridge.

Is this the reason that there were no carriages?

Why didn’t they fucking update the maps then?

[You didn’t ask anyone. You just assumed that the map was correct, and that you didn’t need help.]

I can return back to the previous city, hide myself in the city, and take the next ship going west and I could theoretically make it in time for the whole thing...

The alternative is to try and jump over.

People think that there's always an option to turn back and return where they started, to try again and again until they succeed. But that's a lie that they're telling themselves.

In real life there is no second chance.

Taking everything valuable from the horse, I slap it and send it away. While fastening everything on me tighter, I start circulating mana and sending it to the muscles in my legs. There were a few cases were I was able to do things beyond what the human body is capable of. Now I need to simply jump over a small cliff, just a bit over twenty meters, nothing more.

Just a simple jump.

Stretching the muscles in my body I start increasing the blood pressure in my arteries along with the mana circulation's intensity. I start walking away from the edge until I reach a good acceleration distance. Taking deep breaths, I make the final preparation for the jump, and when the body is filled with enough energy and air, the stone floor under my feet cracks as I start quickly gaining speed. Just a fraction of a second later I find myself at the edge and my legs explode, sending me into the air. The loud whistling of the winds eclipses the sound of the ocean as I fly through the air for several long seconds. By the trajectory of my jump and my speed I determine that I'll make it, and just a few moments later I land on the stone floor on the other side with a roll, only for the whole area to audibly crack and fall apart.

Of course.

How could I assume that they things would go the way I expected them to?

The water isn't as cold as it looked from the bridge, but the waves counter to that, are even more threatening than they looked from above. Fighting the current I grab onto the closest pillar and look around to determine my current status. Thankfully I grabbed onto the correct pillar and the only thing I have to to is climb up.

Easier said than done.

After about a minute of climbing I reach the top of the bridge. Cursing under my breath I continue walking near the railing of the bridge trying to keep myself close to the area which stands on the pillars. The walk continues and slowly the clothes on me dry under the strong wind. About two hours later I come to another issue. The bridge simply ends. Focusing my eyesight I look around and find the continuation of the path about a kilometer away.

Great.

Looking in both directions, I determine that I'm approximately in the middle of the road between the two islands, stuck on a piece of rock with no path forward.

Sighing deeply I look back.

[Just go back. Try again. Maybe the city guards are not searching for you.]

[Maybe you will find a nice ship, filled to brim with good people, they will help you and point you in the correct direction.]

[What has ever made you think that things will become complicated. We always met only happy faces.]

Tightening the gear on my body once again I look forward.

Nothing changes.

I leap into the ocean and start swimming in the direction of the other side of the bridge.

...

This explains a lot.

Far away I see the outline of Syena city, which sits on top of a small hill, just about two dozen kilometers away from the ocean. The city is connected to another, at least ten times smaller city, which as far as I can see, just acts as a port. There's a huge road connecting the "port" and the city, where a lot of traffic is visible. The port itself is filled to the brim with ships, with several times more of that number anchored outside of the port.

I look back at the city, where the competition should be hosted, and where the Amazons should be. It looks shockingly similar to the Ancient Capital of the Sun Empire, and is approximately the same size. But unlike the Ancient Capital, the city is divided with merely three rings of walls, with the outer one around thirty kilometers in radius. Still, even with a "mere" three rings, calling the city enormous would be a slight understatement. In the very center of it is a massive tower a bit less than two kilometers in radius, its top isn't currently visible, as it's hidden behind the thick clouds in the skies.

On the outer ring of the city are six towers, which are about a tenth of that size, which are connected to the central one with gigantic arcs. Unlike all the other cities I have seen before on this side of the world, this one looks to be in near perfect condition. I stop analyzing the city structure and turn my gaze to the huge queue of people trying to enter the mega-city visible even from here. After about a half an hour of walking I join at the end of the queue, only to find that it moves so slowly that it could take days just to get to the gates. This will take some time, but I think that it won't be an issue at all, as people around are all talking about the event, and that it will take a few more days. That means that the Amazons should still be there for at least that long.

The day moves slowly, with the queue moving forward. Several colourful carriages have passed by, ignoring the queue all together and the people standing in it. But not everyone is simply waiting, as quite a few stalls around are selling food, clothes, and more for people who are in desperate need of it. It seems as if there is a tiny city based around the queue into the city itself.

There are quite few guards walking around, mostly in the direction of one of the several brothels formed around the queue. And by the talk it seems the reason there are so many guards here is because the prices here are much lower than in the city, and they can freely move in and out of city without the need to pay the massive toll.

The queue would be a good way to hide myself and quietly slip into the city, but the issue is that I stand out too much. Even if I cover my head full of gray hair with a hood, I'm still standing out. The huge sword on my hip and my height are hard to hide. I'm standing about a head higher than anyone else around, and nearly everyone around me have taken at least a few glances in my direction. And I already marked several suspicious ones in the crowd which will more likely act soon.

And as I expected they acted.

A simple diversion on one side of the queue and a small pickpocket from the opposite side, which softly collided with me in the place where the wallet usually is. Standard action, and standard strategy.

After I caught him red-handed, his friends joined in to help him and teach me a lesson. A few mangled bodies and a crushed skull later, a small circle of emptiness was created around me. Quite soon "righteous" guards appeared and started questioning people about what just happened here. Like they weren't watching the whole thing from afar. I would even go as far as to call those very guards the ringleaders.

The half a dozen guards surround me in a half-circle and start the theatrical play, with stupid questions, answers which they already know, and fake exaggerated emotions. Some of them react passively as if they have seen this many times before, one even has a smirk plastered on his face, as if he just saw something amusing.

It is always the same damn thing.

[We should do this quietly. Attention is something that we do not need right now.]

Of course.

Simply allow them to do their stuff.

And I will do mine.

[Wait no-]

In the next instant I appear before the lead guard and grab his hand which was just about to pull his sword. It took a few more moments for the guards around to understand what's happening and grab their swords.

"Either arrest me or fuck off." my voice comes low and cold.

His eyes freeze when they meet mine. He attempts to say something but only stutters. He audibly gulps, and releases the hold on his sword. In the next few moments the whole thing deescalated quite quickly, and before I knew it I was standing alone, with mention that the guards will find and contact me after the investigation is finished. There are people like that. Puffed up chickens which bail as soon as things start going south, or when they see that their bluff failed.

Within a few hours I was able to enter the city, and the first thing that became shocking is the number of automatons, and their types. Every human looking automaton I have seen in the previous city pales in comparison to even the worst ones here. It's as if people have been trying to create the aesthetically perfect bodies, and succeeded in that. There's just one problem with these automatons. They either wear fully transparent nightgowns or pieces of clothing that wouldn't be appropriate to even call underwear as they barely cover anything. I somehow feel that these small pieces of cotton make them look even more naked than if they were naked. The non-human looking ones look like a mix of different wild animals and a huge chrome slime. They all have mirror-like shining armor, with your face reflecting in it if you look at them.

This city is just too strange.

But I'm not here for the city.