The City Hall itself was a traditional, domed-topped structure. Ronny furrowed a brow at the similarities in architecture between it and similar buildings from Earth, but that wasn’t the strangest thing he’d seen his arrival. It was still odd that Greco-Roman styles had taken root in a separate world though. Not knowing what to make of it, Ronny chalked it up to coincidence.

He and Enzi hadn’t been the first to go there following the city’s destruction. Open doors and drawers suggested that looters had already done their business. Detect Life didn’t detect anything, but it was a large building and he didn’t expect it to turn up anything.

After clearing the lobby area, Enzi frowned, “Even if Alice is here, how exactly would we get her attention? This place is massive.”

“Don’t worry about that. Alice is a magic-user, so she can passively sense mana. It’s not as powerful as my Detect Life because it can only detect other magic-users, but at her level, it should be potent enough to pick up on me. I have mana.”

“So just walk around and hope she notices us? That’s the plan?”

“Unless you have something better.”

“Fair enough. If this doesn’t work, I’ve got an idea, but it’s probably better not to use it…”

“Oh?”

“We could set the building on fire. That’d would definitely draw her attention.”

Ronny shook his head, “Let’s not. But actively doing something to get her attention isn’t a bad idea. I guess I can use Freeze to move mana around faster.” He put his hands together and started casting his spell at the wall.”

“Magic is weird.”

“Can’t argue with that,” He continued freezing the wall, “You know, with the way things have been going, there’s a chance that you’ll become a magic-user soon too. System definitely has the power to do that.”

“It wouldn’t come as a surprise.”

After a few more minutes of focused casting, the door leading into the Town Hall’s lobby creaked open. Ronny and Enzi anxiously turned their heads to the noise. Standing before them was a hooded figure. A quick Scan gave the “too high level” error message, confirming that it was probably Alice.

The hooded figure pulled down the hood and revealed her face. It was her. She smiled amicably at the sight of her friends, “Long time no see!” She went up and hugged them, “Was the journey alright?”

Ronny took a seat on the ground, “I’m glad we found you! And yes, the journey was… interesting. We met the Mythrills that were responsible for the invasion at the halfway mark.”

“You did!?”

“Yeah, they failed their mission apparently. Madison used that secret weapon you hinted at in your letter. A Corpse Chimera. They gave up almost as soon as they saw it and were hiding in the forest while they waited for things to die down.”

“And they just told you all that?”

“They were pretty relaxed about all of that for some reason.”

“Huh. I’m glad they took my warning seriously, but it’s unfortunate that they didn’t manage to kill Maddy. The Guild will start taking this seriously now. They might send an Adamantite.” She sat down across from Ronny, “But that outcome was pretty much what I’d expected. I’ve been planning for this.”

“What kind of plans do you have in mind? Are you intending to take the throne now?”

“God no! There are two possible futures for Barnock, and I don’t intend to be a part of either. The most likely scenario is that The Guild will send an Adamantite and have them make Barnock and Sundenspur into a Guild-owned colony. The less likely, but not impossible, scenario involves Madison. There’s a good chance that the ‘Blight Lord’ is just a steppingstone for her to become a Litch. If that happens, she’ll be able to go toe-to-toe with all but the highest ranked Adamantite adventurers and with that power, she might even start colonizing the nearby islands. As I’m sure you can tell, both of those futures are horrible.”

“I see. Do you think we’ll be safe here in Ignar?”

“No. Both Madison and The Guild know that I’m alive now. They’ll both be looking for me. My magical prowess is something both sides want.”

“So where should we go?”

“As I’m sure you know, Barnock is just one island of several hundred on this archipelago. It’s one of the largest, but it’s still just an island. We could sail to another one and take shelter there, but that would endanger Enzi. There are a few other islands controlled by Demons in the archipelago, but those are far away. Plus, there’s a chance that The Guild will hire an Adamantite to eradicate all of those civilizations. For now, our best bet it to hide out in Deep Dural.”

“Aren’t the monsters there a lot more dangerous than on this side of the island?”

“That’s correct, but I can keep you two safe while we’re there.”

Enzi realized what stronger monsters meant and grinned, “Good. We’ll go there then. It seems like a good opportunity to do some power-leveling!”

“Power-leveling?” Alice wasn’t familiar with the term.

“Ronny’s ability gives us the ability to ‘level-up’. I don’t understand the details, but level-ups are the reason that he and I so much stronger than the last time we met. We get XP when we kill monsters. After we accumulate enough, we level-up. With each level, we get more powerful—among other things.”

“Interesting. I remember there being something about ‘stats’, but I don’t remember being told anything about ‘levels’. Is that new?”

Ronny jumped to his feet, “Somewhat. The stat sheet only started including them after Enzi and I killed that Rockjaw at the construction site. I didn’t really understand how leveling worked until we started preparing for the Mythrill invasion though.” He put his hands together and cast freeze.

“You can use elemental magic already?”

“System gave me the spell.”

“That… is one hell of an ability you’ve got. Is System what gave Enzi those Royal Horns?”

“Yep.”

“Good god…”

“It’s pretty wild,” Ronny sat down again, “So when do we leave?”

“You two should take some time to rest first. We’ve got a lot of walking to do. Let’s leave tomorrow morning.”

“Sure.”

After a stale dinner, and some tutoring, they slept in the lobby.