A part of Sylver was tempted to make a large loop and ask the people following him what they were up to. He was certain now, both groups were following Sylver’s “trail,” and not Sylver himself.

In his haste, he forgot to ask Faust if was marked somehow, but he had to assume Faust would have said something if he was. So they were using something Sylver couldn’t detect.

But he didn’t worry about it too much because Sylver was sure that if he cornered them, and politely asked for the specifics regarding how they were tracking him, they would be more than willing to explain it to him.

With [Fog Form] Sylver arrived at his destination in mere minutes. Or at least, he got close enough that he decided that he needed to walk the rest of the way, so as not to arouse suspicion.

As Faust had said there was a festival to welcome the delegates, stalls sold weird-looking food that filled the air with a sickeningly sweet aroma. The crowd was so dense that only the fact that Sylver was actively gently pushing people away from himself using his magic prevented them from shouldering him in the gut as they walked.

The southern path was named so because it was a straight path without any room to get off it, from the barrier, straight to the White Ring. Gates that Sylver assumed would normally be open were tightly shut, and interestingly enough, guarded. The guards weren’t holding their weapons in their hands, but they were armed, and ready, even if they were wearing festive-looking clothing.

The bright-colored cloth did well to hide their wooden armor, even if it made them look bigger than they actually were.

With his height, all the brightly colored cloth in the world wouldn’t hide Sylver, even when he compressed his bones to their limit, he was still a head and a half taller than these people. And that was with him craning his back like an old man.

The general reaction to Sylver’s presence wasn’t great to begin with, but it became much worse when people saw the sect symbol hanging on his arm. Sylver was tempted to use an illusion to make it look like the symbol of a different sect, but that would mean starting shit with whichever sect he was impersonating, and Sylver didn’t want to bring Faust any trouble until he was ready.

Normally Sylver wouldn’t give two shits about people having a problem with him.

In this case however, he needed to ask someone whether the delegation was still in the process of arriving, or if they were already halfway to the White Ring. And word of a member of the “thieving sect” spread so quickly that Sylver couldn’t get the shopkeepers to so much as look at him, let alone talk to him.

Luckily, Sylver had a friend who didn’t mind pretending to be part of a different sect and wasn’t as tall or memorable as Sylver was.

Regretfully, Sylver hadn’t had the foresight to bring any jade with him and couldn’t buy Spring the clothing he needed. He wasn’t proud of it, but he ended up having the shade find some clothing being dried on a drying rack and borrowed it.

Spring noted the exact house he took the bathrobe-like garment from and made a note to ask Faust what a fair price would be to pay for something like this.

After that, it was a simple case of finding a dark corner to pull Spring’s skin-suit out of Sylver’s [Bound Bones] storage, have Spring enter it, and then give him a couple of seconds to put his stolen clothing on.

Due to Sylver’s size, he was able to literally do that in a random corner. He just stood in a corner with his back against it, and ever so slightly puffed up his robe to completely hide Spring from the people staring at him.

While Sylver waited for Spring to change, he burned the Green Rabbit sect’s symbol onto a piece of wood and handed it to Spring to put on.

Armed with a good sect’s name, the woman selling honey-soaked bread candy went as far as to give Spring a free sample, after she had told him the delegation had passed this area half an hour ago.

Spring thanked her and met up with Sylver, who was already walking towards the White Ring.

“I’ve sent shades ahead, but with all the Ki barriers everywhere, they’re boxed in. They would need to fully materialize to pass through, and even if there weren’t too many people around, they would probably trigger alarms,” Spring explained, as honey leaked out of the bottom of the paper cup he had been given, and traveled down his arm, onto his sleeve.

“Does Longaeva sound familiar to you? I’m so sure I’ve heard it somewhere before,” Sylver asked, and then had to wait for Spring to finish chewing.

“It does sound familiar, but apparently it wasn’t important enough for us to make a note of it. It’s an elvish name, but that doesn’t mean much, since elves invertedly ended up naming everything,” Spring said, as Sylver scrunched up his face as he continued digging through his memory.

“Elves named everything?” Ria asked.

Sylver gestured at Spring with his finger and made the honey unstick from his sleeve and hand, and had it float back into the paper cup, which Sylver sealed up to stop it from leaking.

“They were the first mapmakers,” Sylver answered, as Spring took another bite from the honey bread thing.

“They didn’t name everything, but most city names were originally elvish. New cities/towns are named in Eirish, but they’re typically named after their founder. Arda for instance was named after the king at the time. Longaeva is an old name, but that’s all we know about it,” Spring answered, as he finished his honey bread with one last bite.

“If that’s all we know about it, why does it sound so familiar?” Sylver asked, as he continued walking through the dense crowd, and was doing his best not to shove anyone too hard out of his way.

Sylver could feel they were close to the delegation, even if he couldn’t actually see them. There was so much ambient mana in the air, that Sylver felt some of the tension in his shoulders ease away. He could tell by the scrunched-up noses of the people nearby that felt the same thing he did but weren’t having a positive reaction to it.

There were 5 large carriages, with a roof and wooden walls colored a light shade of green. They were being moved using a very simple enchantment on the wheels. People wearing similar colored green robes walked alongside the carriage, and now and then would stop for a moment to buy something that caught their eye.

Sylver kept his distance and watched as the people walking outside the carriage brought food to the ones sitting inside it.

As one of them was reaching up to give a satchel of breadsticks through the carriage window, a small gust of wind made the man’s hood flutter, and Sylver saw what he should have guessed from the way the mana in the air felt.

Elves.

Fuck.

Now there were people that could potentially call bullshit on Sylver’s bullshit.

On the bright side, there were now people here that Sylver could offer some of his gold to. With a newfound optimism, Sylver continued making his way forward, and in a couple of short minutes, he found himself walking right next to the carriage at the very end.

Sylver turned his head out of habit, to look at the elves sitting inside the carriage.

When the door opened and the woman locked eyes with the spot where Sylver instead had bandages, she dropped the cinnamon bun she was in the process of biting into a moment ago. The muscles on her jaw tightened so much that Sylver could see pulling against her skin.

They just stared at one another, and Sylver very nearly tripped over a man because he wasn’t paying attention.

He wasn’t paying attention for 2 reasons.

The first was that he was surprised to see Rosa here.

The elf he had given an Eldar tree sapling to, from the dungeon he had found Faust and Bruno in. Sylver didn’t have any hair right now, his face was covered, and he was significantly taller than he had been back then, and yet he could see recognition in Rosa’s eyes, clear as day.

The second reason Sylver wasn’t paying attention was that he realized why the words “NEGATIVE MOUNTAIN” didn’t make sense in the context the dragon said them.

Because the dragon didn’t say “negative mountain”, as Sylver had assumed, it had told him its name.

Twice.

“Gorr” roughly means mountain, and “Ynych”, roughly means none or negative.

Gorynych.

A part of Sylver hoped it was a coincidence that Rosa had asked him that name, just before leaving, but the less optimistic part of him didn’t believe the two weren’t connected.

But considering the elves lived westward of Arda, months of travel away from the Schlagen mountains, Sylver made an educated guess that Rosa wasn’t here just to see the sights, and enjoy a cinnamon pastry.