There was a band of silvery black on my wrist. It was a watch. Its display said 1600. The sun hovered to my left, glazing the clouds in the sky with a golden hue. A warm breeze filtered past me.

It was afternoon.

Westward, I saw a cinema, lined up with electro slimes. The slimes smiled widely. They lit up a pathway to the cinema’s entrance. When an electro slime stopped shining, fire lathered upon it. The electro slime lit up and smiled anew.

On one of the billboards was the title ‘Gulliver’s Seven Adventures in Hell – Prepare to feast your imagination’. There was a time-travel themed movie called ‘Bleak’. There was ‘Final Dungeon 3’. Next to the cinema was a bustling restaurant. Next to the restaurant was a clothing pavilion. The pavilion was colored in red and green. It was seceded by a flower shop.

I saw a shopping mall. I saw a stadium beside the mall. Next to the stadium was a gym. Then came a sports complex. Encased between the sports complex and an electric station, there was a building. The board beside it read ‘War Memorial Site: Field Hospital’. At the door of the Field Hospital, statues of soldiers trailed out.

The forerunner lacked a leg. The second man had his hand stretched up, bidding something. The third man had a burned face, his ears in cotton shrouds. He held the collar of the second man, lest that person collapsed from his confusion of legs. The person at the back lacked his right arm. He held himself straight, a knifed apple on his left hand.

‘It does not concern me,’ came my contradictory thought, rejecting what I perceived as an overblown reminder.

A man with an apple-shaped headwear observed me while eating an apple. He yawned. I held myself steady. I swerved into the alley and reached the rubbish dump. I entered the dark tunnel.

As I approached, I observed a crack above. Light fell through it, suspended among the darkness. I boosted the bike with my elemental energy. A dim red light trailed behind, before disappearing. The building’s entrance was like a gaping underpass. The hole on the wall above it was skewed at the sides. It made the building look like a one-eyed monster.

I parked my bike at a distance from the building, behind a vertically lined protrusion on a wall. I entered the groundfloor of the prison-like facility. I could see a woman with a red and black dress in front of me. She had curly and black hair. Her face was agreeable. That agreeableness was as subtle as it looked stoned.

There was little doubt, when I looked at that woman, that her thoughts were immediate. Perhaps, these thoughts would have been silly too. Strands of black ashes came to me. I saw smoldering patches and objects in my immediate vicinity. Farther away, it was burning.

I approached the staircase, looking about the room. The metal casings melted, ablaze. Stacks of wood crackled and burned. To my right, one vehicle exploded. The fire had a large effect. It was more than the result from my igniting the third stack of goods I could see before I left this place. Someone was responsible for that.

The woman turned to face the fire and looked in my direction again. She looked like she could use some sleep. "I’m guarding the rear. Join the crew upstairs."

"Oh, sure." I noticed the black-and-white badge of the warrior and the shrouded figure on her dress.

I rushed onward to climb the stairs. The steps were black. The walls were dark-gray. I climbed down. I ran around to check if there were other exits. There was one, but it was barricaded with stone walls. I returned to the stairs, glancing at the woman. I climbed up.

It was hot. I ran through the corridors of the first floor. Then, I climbed the second floor. I got across the second floor’s corridors and reached its northern area. I climbed to the third floor, at the junction where I had met Nina. I considered the junction. Perhaps I should have visited the armor shop before coming back.

I could hear some faint sounds behind me. I turned right. The path would lead to some prisoners, and the first room where Emma Decker had been. There were two more rooms above. "User Command: Covenant Quests."

Covenant Quest completed

You’ve successfully met with Nina Pyrrhos and joined a sect.

[Covenant Quests] menu has been accessed.

Reward

3,000 utils

Initial Quest Outline:

Visit The Great city to commune with the selected messenger.

[Level up]

You are now level 9. Congratulations on this achievement!

Experience Points

120 + 332/339 → 113/369

Was accessing the [Covenant Quests] menu an act of throwing holy water on oneself or something?

I got 120 xp for the trouble.

Well, I was level 1 when I entered The Great city. At the very least, 120 xp counted for something. Rescuing Emma gave me 400 xp. So far, so good.

Metal plates covered the upper half of the walls. They were silvery and smooth, against the dark gray in the lower half. I sprinted along. I saw three doors, broken in. One door was collapsed, from inside. There was no one in these rooms. An empty corridor greeted me. The wall had crumbled down, here and there. The ground was dusted. When I first came around, it looked polished. Now, it was more like a construction site.

I heaved with moderate effort. The path weaved in front of my eyes like a train. I climbed up the fourth floor and examined the two rooms I could find. The rooms were empty. They felt desolate. I got down to the third floor.

I walked for a few minutes, before I encountered the junction again. I got past it. I got to a fire extinguisher. I saw the Shaolin monk. I raised my hand towards her. "Hello again. What’s your name?"

“Hello…” The monk straightened herself. She stomped her pike on the ground and directed her open palm in my direction. "I’m Amanda Brown. Tell me your name."

"I’m Ashen Spines. Nice to meet you, Amanda."

"You too, Ashen. Go on ahead. We can meet later if fortune favors it."

I agreed and proceeded forth. Ahead, things looked half-decent. There were a few matryoshka coffins, courtesy of the knight. There was nothing much else beside that. I wondered if Amanda Brown was Reynolds in disguise. Her words were uncharacteristic of Reynolds though.

I saw Nina ahead. She held three prisoners in bubbles. The path forward was blocked with flocks of bubbles. I jogged to her side.

"You are back," Nina said, turning to me. Her eyes appraised my face. I brushed the gaze away. "You are still not tired of fighting, huh?"

"Improvement follows from practice," I said.

"Sure, go ahead." An outlet formed in the bubble barricade.

"There’s no strategy?" I said, in case I missed on something.

"No, not really," Nina smiled. "It’s almost over now. We’ll put the fighters out of their misery, liberate the cooperating and innocent prisoners, and that’s it."

I was surprised. Reynolds and Romeo were strong guys. "You mean you, Darius, David, the knight and any other backup that came have already subdued all these prisoners? No backup from the other side either?"

"That’s wordy," Nina said. "You don’t need to worry. Romeo, of the Covenant of the Hero, Sect of the Lover, was on a rampage." She sighed. "The other side had no backup. To be fair, having to deal with twenty people is still a lot. But yeah, no backup. These kinds of things often occur. The prisoners have probably been abandoned by the owner."

I thought Nina had a funny nose. "This reflects badly on us."

"Well, you’ve got a point. But they were the ones who captured those women and the other prisoners."

Okay, she sounded angry.

I traversed through the outlet within the bubble barricade. What was up with announcing the covenants and the sect names? Perhaps Nina would get angry if I asked her a question about that later on. I shrugged.

Might be it was her peculiarity.

I did not expect Romeo to be on the same moral ground as us, whatever ground it was we agreed to be on. Come to think of it, what was the name of that woman in the red and black dress? Tired eyes which seemed to persevere.

I saw stone walls layering some of the walls. This was likely David’s handiwork. I pressed on. Two folks were dead at the other room I saw. Three of the prisoners had been captured by Nina. I was a little worried about that. Nina, Amanda and that fiery woman. I wasn’t sure if soloing our paths to retreat was a good idea.

What had happened to the four guards that got captured before I left this place?

With Romeo out of the equation, but including Reynolds, that meant seventeen opponents, to go by Nina’s words.

I jogged onward. I emerged into the hole I had made with a dynamite stick. "I know a piece of shit when I see one." I looked to my left, to find Reynolds. He was standing there, shackleless.

"Why are you here?" Why was he not disguised?

"I lost my battle, you goddamn runt. If you know what’s good for you, get moving."

"Runt’s not appropriate. I’m a white belt. Name’s Ashen." I stepped forward, before stopping. Reynolds clicked his tongue. The guy looked fidgety and sulky. He had a strong physique. We were in the hall. More metal plates lay around. Some of the target circles were burned through the center. "I’ll stick around. Care for a conversation?"

"Nope. Couldn’t give a shit about that."

"Never mind. I’ve got nothing much in mind for you."

"I know that," Reynolds spat.

We stared at each other. Reynolds struck the wall on his right with lightning. He widened his eyes. I did not budge. His fight with Romeo piqued my interest. When I asked, Reynolds refused to elaborate. It took roughly ten minutes, before someone poked his head into the hall.

No, it was a ‘she’.

The person did not wear a prisoner’s cloth. She leveled a bow at me, and then Reynolds. I prepared my [Attributes] menu. The woman frowned. "You couldn’t hit anyone with that stuff," Reynolds said.

She shot a target close to him. It hit, one inch off center. Behind her, I saw a woman, with the badge of the Covenant of the Wise Fool on her dress. I saw her open her mouth. Binoculars appeared in front of her. She looked at my tunic, and nodded to herself. She gave off no other signal. That was weird.

Next came Darius, followed by a brawley man – ‘brawley’ came to mind, looking at him well. A procession of prisoners ensued. They had tied arms and taped mouths. There was a total of twelve, followed by three defectors. Other than the woman with the bow and the woman who was also part of the Covenant of the Wise Fool, I saw that four new members of the Covenant of the Wise Fool had joined in.

It was three men and one woman.

"Time to go home," said one of the men. He sounded like a Russian bear, for accent. I saw David, and the knight coming out.

I introduced myself to the speaker. In return, the man said, "I’m Roger Bergeron. It’s good to know you. Let’s go."

I heard Darius complain that they had only got about a third of the prisoners. The rest had been shifted to somewhere. He wasn’t done with fighting. Darius kept quiet after expressing his sentiments.

We joined up with Nina. I queried about the woman on the ground floor – the woman with the curly and black hair, and an agreeable face. She had tired eyes, and might as well use a pet. Nina told me that I was idealizing the woman too much. "Remember, white belt. Things are only as special as you make them out to be," Nina said. Glancing at Amanda, she added, "You’ve still got to live with that if you have more faith, than regrets, just like the person you asked about."

"Well, who is she?" I asked.

"Her name is Elizabeth Darwin," Nina told me. I thanked Nina. That was one more preface for the day, speaking of introductions.

Little use determining the climb.