The process to enter the city was still the same. Once they closed in on the gates, an illusory crowd — echoes from the past — would appear and file into a moving road with lots of seats. They would line up in an orderly manner, before occupying a seat when they moved to the front of the queue.

Everything and everyone involved in this convoluted process of entry was transparent, but joining this ritual of sorts was key to accessing the city…not in the way one would expect, though.

“It should be here anytime soon,” Lily whispered.

No sooner had she said those words when a tremendous, formless wave of power fell from the sky, sweeping through the place like Claud himself doing some housework. The people queuing up, the moving road…the transparent figures and objects fell apart into dust a moment later, and the world ended.

Claud shivered. “Even as a tetra-folder, I wouldn’t have fared any better than these people here if that happened to me.”

“It’s almost certainly the disaster that struck this place, right?” Lily asked. “I still remember what we saw back then. When Celestia was destroyed.”

“Yeah.” Nodding once, Claud thought about the scene the two of them had witnessed back then. Huge numbers of silvery whales unleashing deadly beams of energy, the three prismatic gods shrugging away these attacks, and the offhanded destruction that followed. After they chased down that golden light that seemed to be paramount in every…

He shook his head. The details were getting a bit hazy, but he had a feeling that he would be seeing the vision of Celestia’s destruction once more when they returned to that specific place. It wouldn’t be too late to keep his eyes peeled then.

Taking a deep breath, they walked into the city, which was already teeming with moving carriages that seemed oddly similar to the coffins outside. The only difference was that the graveyard had lots of carriages that didn’t have wheels, but how odd must a culture be if the medium of transportation and storing corpses were so similar?

Or was there a deep philosophical message about how life was but the path to death? That when people died, they stopped moving forever? Certainly, the wheelless coffins did inspire such a thought within him, and now that he thought about it, such a notion was indeed quite inspirational.

“Stop thinking about those coffins.” Lily flicked his forehead. “Worry about the dangers of these things, okay?”

Claud chuckled nervously. The records they had stated that getting hit by one of those ghostly, fast-moving carriages was instant death, even if they seemed incorporeal at first glance. Flying was also dangerous, with the risk of instant death when flying around randomly, so there was no choice but to move according to the rules here.

Fortunately, those fast-moving carriages obeyed the lights that were usually placed around a crossroads. These lights, depending on their position, determined the flow of traffic, and after some artful dodges, close shaves and well-timed predictions, he and Lily crossed through a few roads and arrived at the familiar city square.

“Whew.” Claud rubbed his forehead. “I get a feeling running though a battlefield where both sides are shooting arrows at each other is far easier.”

“Only because you can definitely block them,” Lily replied. “But you don’t want to know if artefacts can save you if you get hit here, right?”

“You sure know me well…”

Lily’s eyes glittered, before looking around the city square. Their journey here had taken them past lots of roads with death traps, along with other scary things like a border of life and death that randomly popped up. As long as one remained sane and in control of their own instincts, making it here wasn’t hard…but it was hard to remain unruffled at times.

The stress of knowing a misstep led to instant death was quite hard to stomach for Claud. If Lily wasn’t with him…

He shook his head and pulled her slightly closer.

“Hmm?”

“Just trying to comfort myself,” Claud replied. “Sometimes, I need someone to hug…you know what I’m saying?”

“Totally!” Lily looked around the square. “But maybe now’s not the time for that.”

“…Yeah.” Claud’s eyes roved around the city square. A small shelter, one whose cheery yellow exterior looked wholly incongruent with the sleek and shiny city, had been erected in the very centre of the city square. “Someone’s base of operations. Didn’t expect to see other people here, to be honest.”

“What should we do?” Lily turned to Claud.

“Why am I the decision-maker here?” Claud asked, his lips twitching.

“Tetra-folder?” Lily replied. “Besides, you’re Lord Paranoid. You’ll definitely give this more thought than me, right?”

Claud rolled his eyes, but she did have a point. He indeed had multiple plans of action regarding strangers long before they actually left for the Celestia Ruins the first time.

As a rule of thumb, there were some characteristics that could be inferred from how the other party presented themselves. For instance, if they had a base in the open like this, there were only two possibilities. The first one was that it was a way of gauging the attitude of how other people reacted to the base. The second possibility was that the people inside genuinely didn’t care about the possibility of being attacked.

The second possibility was more alarming, since it hinted at the presence of someone confident in their defensive artefacts used to protect the base or that person’s strength itself. In such a scenario, the best way to prepare was to either slip away and drawing out an out-of-bounds area to avoid them, or to prepare for a fight and enquire about their presence here.

Naturally, preparations included preparing for both a way to bring down the base and its owner, as well as three to eight ways of running away. Negotiating, however, at least allowed for the possibility of a more peaceful coexistence, and there was one very powerful factor in play.

They were in Celestia.

“We’ll poke our heads in and say hi,” Claud replied, before reaching into his bag. “Alright, take this stack of items and place them around the area.”

He took out a small eyeglass and held it to his eyes. There was a red silhouette inside the yellow square building, indicating that there was indeed a human like him inside. The next thing that came out of his bag was a small glass screen, which had a black backing. It was a nice treasure he had obtained from Lostfon, one that could notify the users of any spiritual structures or mana nearby.

Generating a small blip of mana, Claud pressed it into the middle of the glass screen, which glittered a moment later. Other than the house, there didn’t seem to be any other artefact nearby.

Was the owner this confident?

Whispering to Lily a few more instructions, Claud checked on his clothes, which were inlaid with some basic artefacts, and then got her to follow him closely.

It was a shame that he had used Absolute One earlier, but he still had enough trump cards to whisk Lily away if a conflict broke out. Approaching the structure warily, Claud drew his sword, held it by the edge and rapped the door with its pommel.

A few cautious footsteps came from within the structure itself, and before long, the door rattled once. Claud took a few steps back, sheathing his sword at the same time, and then waited for the owner to pop out.

The door slid open a few seconds later, and a black-haired woman looked out. Her eyes fixated on Claud immediately as Claud’s own instincts told him that the woman before him was also a mid-rank mana-user.

“…You don’t seem hostile,” the woman finally commented. “I suppose you two are here to just investigate the ruins, right?”

Claud relaxed somewhat, but he still moved to cover Lily anyway. “We’re here to just check things out in the ruins. We have no intention of robbing anyone or killing anyone here…heck, I didn’t know there was anyone here until I saw you.”

The woman’s eyes flickered, and her caution vanished entirely. “Okay. Let’s talk here, then.”

She sat down on the ground. Claud pondered for a moment, looking at her relaxed appearance. “You don’t doubt me?”

A small smile appeared on the stranger’s face. “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Norn, the Verdant Interrogator. I am the leader of the Named Party, the Seekers of Truth.”

“Named…” Lily took a step back. “You’re the super-famous investigator!”

“With skills aimed at discerning the truth, yes,” Norn replied. “I can tell if you’re lying or not.”

Claud narrowed his eyes. Mana-users whose skills were not suited for battle either were very confident in their ability to fight and survive, or they were utterly useless in combat like Schwarz. Norn was undoubtedly the latter.

She wasn’t lying about her identity either, as evidenced from how Lily hadn’t reacted adversely to Norn’s announcement of her name. For now, at least, it seemed like she was the real deal.

Claud shifted over to Lily. “Isn’t she…you know, Risti’s aunt?”

“Yeah…”

The two of them stared at each other for a while. Technically, they were all allies and friends—

“Oh! You two know little Risti!” Norn rubbed her hands. “Yes, yes, I’m her auntie! How is she now? Is my little widdle sweet cheeks!”

Claud’s jaw fell open, his mind unable to reconcile the excited, proud look that he associated with parents after their children succeeded in life with the professional Verdant Interrogator that had spoken to them just a minute ago.

“Ahem.” She regained her composure a moment later. “Since you’re friends of my niece, come on in. She’ll pout if she learned that I talked to her friends outside my house.”

House? Claud blinked a few more times, and then nodded. For now, at least, everything seemed to be well…