Chapter 13
Almena, a kingdom located in the northern part of the Wallachia continent was founded more than 300 years ago by the ‘Exiled King’ Barbarut. According to historical records, the ‘Exiled King’ Barbarut originated from the ancient kingdom of Gunfher and was one of the kingdom's many princes.
Barbarut was the third prince of Gunfher (meaning his third in line of the succession) and fought for the succession rights with his other brothers. Unfortunately, Barbarut lost the battle for the throne and was exiled along with his loyal retainers and servants.
The then prince Barbarut wanders the land and found himself in the far north of the continent. The cold north has massive but undeveloped lands. But although the north is cold and land undeveloped, Barbarut saw the untapped potential of the land and decided to develop the region with his own hands.
After years of hard work and with the help of those who were loyal to him, Barbarut finally built and established the kingdom. He named the newly established kingdom, Almena.
The kingdom received its name in honor of Barbarut’s wife, Almena who had died due to difficult childbirth while the then prince was still wandering the lands. As an exiled royalty, Barbarut was fiercely ambitious.
Fueled by his burning ambition and tenacity, Barbarut tries to make the kingdom flourish in order to settlers that’ll become the citizens of the new kingdom. Still, due to the geographical location of the kingdom and its cold climate, recruiting settlers was not easy, and had to put a lot of effort on it.
Even after the establishment of the kingdom and the arrival of new settlers, Barbarut couldn’t rest and enjoy the fruit of his labor.
Plague with problems like natural and man-made calamities, shortage of food, lack of funds, people, and the likes, Barbarut could only painstakingly develop the land.
Moreover, the monsters that inhabited the north were not so friendly and would often attack the still developing kingdom causing casualties and destruction. But despite the setbacks, Barbarut never lost sight of his vision.
And despite the hardships he encountered along the way, Barbarut didn’t give up. He persevered and struggled. He slays monsters and cuts down anyone who tried to take advantage of his situation. Finally, after more than two decades of toiling for the kingdom, Barbarut finally stabilized the kingdom, and crowned himself as its new king.
Also as remembrance to the hardships he experienced while developing the kingdom, Barbarut gave himself the title of ‘Exiled King.’
The first city he had built, Blizzard city, became the capital and the center of governance of the kingdom. Blizzard city derived its name from a terrible blizzard that hits the north and almost buried the kingdom in snow several years after the kingdom was established. Coincidentally, Blizzard was also the name of Barbarut’s first born son (birthed by his wife who died because of a difficult childbirth).
Blizzard city suffered and survived countless calamities over the years. It was also almost destroyed several times because of invasions and natural calamities but had somehow survived the tribulations. The city was also fortified and expanded over the years until it reached its current size.
Many scholars and historians often compare Blizzard city to its first king, Barbarut. The city’s tenacity was said to mirror that of Barbarut. Like the first king, Blizzard city refuses to be destroyed by either nature or man.
****
“That was interesting,”
A girl wearing black cloak that covered her whole body murmured after listening to the narration of the storyteller in a park. The girl took out a coin and flicked it towards the straw hat on the floor before walking away.
“Certainly more realistic compared to the ones before it. “ Someone replied.
The girl wearing black cloak, Rennel, could not help but let out a hollow laugh. Before finding the storyteller in the park, she and Chaos had listened to the narration of other storytellers.
Unlike the down to earth and more realistic narration of this storyteller, the other storytellers’ narrations made the listeners think that they’re listening to legends rather than a retelling of an event.
For example, one storyteller narrates how the “Exiled King”, Barbarut wrest the control of the northern lands from a tyrannical dragon. Another storyteller claimed that the ‘Exiled King’ was actually a demigod, and so on.
In other words, the stories told by previous storytellers were just that absurd.
“Still, I wonder how much of the story he narrated was true and how much were exaggerations?” Rennel wondered.
“It’s quite obvious that he indeed exaggerated but most of it should be true,” Chaos chimed.
Chaos and Rennel had arrived at Blizzard city about two days ago. And the first thing they did was to look for lodgings. But after settling in an inn did not do anything worthy of note. Instead, the duo simply saunters around the city in order to familiarize themselves with their new environment.
Rennel also haven’t registered at the local adventurer’s guild yet. But it’s not like the guild will run away if she didn’t registers upon arriving so she’s not much of a hurry. Still, it’s not like they had no purpose for walking around all day.
On the contrary they been visiting important landmarks and listening to the history of the city. They were also gathering information on the location of the children that had been sold to the slave traders by the villagers (of Rennel’s old village). More importantly, Rennel wanted to know what happened to her friend, Pina.
Being the biggest city in the region, Blizzard city was home to thousands of merchant. These merchants sell all kind of wares, including slaves. Rennel and Chaos had visited several of them but found no clue. These slave merchants had sold hundreds if not thousands of slaves over the year. As such, their search bore no fruits.
Moreover, Blizzard city was a very large city with millions of people from various races. So looking for certain people was extremely difficult. It’s like looking for a needle in the sea.
Not to mention that those people had been away for many years now. Who knows where they are now? Are they still alive? And even if they were still alive, Rennel probably could not recognize them anymore. After all, so many years had passed.
Nonetheless, Rennel has no plan of giving up the search. At the very least she wanted to know what happened to her best friend. Only by doing so could she truly move on with her life.
“Let us go back for now. Tomorrow you should go to the guild to register.” Chaos advised. “If you could do a lot of high-level quest and earn a lot of money, you could hire people to investigate your friend’s whereabouts. That should be a lot better compared to searching blindly.”
“It’s just unfortunate that I had never met your friend before. If I at least met her once, I could lock on her location through her aura. It wouldn’t even matter if she’s on the other part of the world. I could still find her. But since the two of us never once meet I couldn’t do much.”
Chaos was feeling slightly regretful. With its ability, there’s very little thing that Chaos could not accomplish. Sadly, looking for people he never meet before was not among them. Actually, it’s not that Chaos could not find Rennel’s friend without familiarizing itself with Pina’s aura but that would require using more of his sealed powers.
As someone who did not belong to this world, Chaos would be forcefully rejected by this world, or rather by ones administering this world. In other words, of he uses more of his powers; the administrators of the world would be able to sense Chaos’ presence.
Although Chaos was not afraid of the administrators, and could just ignore them since they couldn’t actually do anything to it; the same thing couldn’t be said for Rennel.
In other words, the administrators would make things very difficult for the girl. For that reason alone, Chaos wants to avoid getting into conflicts with them. That’s because if a conflict did arise between the administrator and Chaos, it won’t bode well for this world.
“That’s fine teacher, I know that you have your own difficulties.” Rennel comforts her teacher with a smile. “Anyway, finding Pina and the other villagers was my responsibility. Since I was able to escape my fate, it should fall to me to find them.”
Chaos looks at its student intently before nodding its head. Seeing the determination in her eyes, Chaos decided to just do what it could within the limit of its power. “So annoying… Should I just replace those administrators with ones of my choosing?”
Feeling a little helpless, Chaos contemplated replacing the administrators with other people but throw the idea in the back of its head after thinking more deeply. Still, if things get out of hand, Chaos doesn’t mind getting more personal with them.
****
The next day, Chaos and Rennel went to Blizzard city’s adventurer’s guild as planned. But upon seeing the adventurer’s guild building, the two were rather surprised. Actually, only Rennel was surprised Chaos only showed a slight reaction as indication that it was “surprised.”
Having been into many words, Chaos had seen a lot of things, including countless “adventurer’s guild” over the years. And compared to them, this world’s adventurer’s guild was still very much in its infancy. The only reason Chaos showed any reaction at all was because the Blizzard city’s adventurer’s guild was more impressive compared to that of Alchur.
Still, comparing a building in a town to a building in a city was very unfair. It’s quite obvious that buildings in cities, especially a large city like that of Blizzard city were more impressive compared to buildings in smaller towns.
Nonetheless, for Rennel that had been in the city for no less than a couple of days, Blizzard city’s adventurer’s guild looks very impressive.
“Don’t stare too much. You’re looking like someone from the boonies.” Chaos scolded with disdain. “Besides, the guild building was not even that impressive. It’s just not bad, at least for an underdeveloped world like this one.”
Rennel blushed with embarrassment after being scolded by her teacher. Still, the girl thinks that as someone who grew up in the countryside, her reaction was pretty normal. What’s more the building did look very impressive (to her). It’s just that her teacher has very high standards.
The two entered the guild building and saw a lot of people inside. As one would expect from Almena’s adventurer’s guild main headquarters, the diversity of its members could not be compared to that of smaller cities or towns.
Looking around, Rennel could see beautiful human-like being with pointed ears (elves), small bearded men with stout figures (dwarves), beastlike people with animal heads but human body (beast men), strange human-like creatures with blue skin (flagars), and more.
Rennel had since long known about the various intelligent races but this is the first time she saw so many of them congregated in just one place. Certainly, he had also saw many of them while walking around the city but not at the same time.
Honestly, she could not help but feel a little overwhelmed. Fortunately, she had learned how to control her emotion so she was able to recover rather quickly. After observing the place more, Rennel saw that it was very similar to the adventurer’s guild building in Alchur, only much bigger and much more posh-looking.
"It's like a large tavern or restaurant."
Just like a tavern, the guild still has a bar that served alcohol and food to the adventurers; a large number of tables and chairs littered the first floor. It also has a notice board and a quest board similar to other guild buildings in small towns. Lastly, the guild building has a second floor.
Besides being much larger and having a second floor, it did look somewhat similar to that of Alchur.
Unlike Alchur though, the ones manning the reception area was not a muscular middle-aged man but attractive young women. Rennel was actually rather surprise to see this but not as much as when she saw the diverse cast of adventurers.
“Hmm… I guess many worlds shared the same template.” Chaos commented after seeing the young women manning the reception area.
Hmm? What’s a template?
Staying by Chaos’ side, Rennel had heard her teacher spoke words she never heard before. Although she didn’t ask, she knew that some of the words her teacher spoke of didn’t belong in this world. When Rennel was about to ask her teacher what the word mean, she suddenly heard the voice of a man coming from behind her.
“Please don’t block the way.” Someone said in a patient voice.
Hearing the voice, Rennel quickly turned around and saw a group of young people behind her. The one who spoke to her was a young man that seemed to be in his 20s. The man question has blonde hair and blue eyes and could be considered quite good-looking. Nonetheless, Rennel didn’t care about that and quickly move out of the way so that the man and his group could pass.
The man nodded his head to Rennel politely before walking towards one of the receptionist. It seemed that the group were adventurers and were there to report the result of their quest. The girl didn’t put much attention to the group and went to another receptionist to register.
She talked to the receptionist and showed her badge that was from Alchur along with Arnold’s recommendation letter. The receptionist took the badge and letter with a gentle smile. She studied the parcel carefully without opening it but was a little surprise after seeing the mark on it.
The receptionist stares at Rennel curiously for several seconds before standing up and approaching another employee. The two talked for a bit before returning and talking to Rennel again. After the explanation from the receptionist, Rennel finally understood the situation.
Apparently, the recommendation letter from Arnold was addressed to Blizzard city’s guild master himself!
****
To be continued
Previous Chapters: https://read.cash/@beastion
