Level Up Legacy

Chapter 1488: Life in The City

Arthur listened as she retold what happened last night. She described him and Oriole, hammered and drunk, as they walked through the council and infected everyone with the same status they were having.

It led to an all-night party.

He cringed when she told him that he was singing the whole time. After the party was in full swing, Arthur and Oriole were dancing in the middle of the party as everyone laughed. Then, someone made the mistake of pointing out that Oriole was a better dancer.

Things got a little out of hand from there. The innocent comment led to a drunken rivalry between the two friends who began competing in everything.

The crowd was more than happy to let things go out of hand, as everything the two did other than singing and laughing led to catastrophic consequences: the kitchen was destroyed, the gallery crumbled to the ground, and the inner city was now infested with abyssal spirits.

"How did that happen?" Arthur asked with confusion.

"Well, in one challenge that Gala proposed, you were supposed to catch a spirit. The first to do so would be crowned Catcher of Runera, a nonsensical title that Gala made on the spot."

"If it’s one spirit..." Arthur muttered.

"The title was more appealing than you think. The others also got involved, and you were about to lose, so you tried to summon a spirit to catch a spirit. You ended up opening a portal from the abyss. Luckily, only low-leveled spirits emerged."

"Wait," Arthur said. "How do you remember all these details when I don’t?"

"I’m not sure. Although I wasn’t myself last night," she said while rubbing her shoulder, "the memories are still coming back to me. Maybe because you two were the only ones to drink that thing?"

"Could be," Arthur said as he eyed her shoulder. "Are you hurt from sleeping on the roof?"

"No, this is just itchy," Suyin said. "It feels like..." she lifted up her sleeve to look at her shoulder. The two of them froze in their tracks. Arthur blinked as he looked at the tattoo that was on her shoulder.

"That’s..." Arthur began to say.

Before he could say another word, Suyin pulled it down and was looking at him as if she was about to kill him. Arthur took a step back, and she summoned the sword that he’d given her.

"Let’s talk about this," Arthur said. "I won’t tell a soul."

"You won’t tell a soul?" she said, trembling with rage. "You were the one to give me this tattoo!"

Arthur’s jaw dropped. Then, he jumped back as he avoided her strikes. There were tears in her eyes as she waved the sword around. After a long and terrifying minute, she calmed down enough to stop attempting to kill him.

But she did end up crying the whole way back while Arthur felt guilty.

The city looked the same. Shops opened early in the morning, all making sure to greet Arthur as he passed. Scholars rushed out, carrying supplies and equipment somewhere. A small crowd gathered around a traveling magician who entertained them with spells. Noises rose from the theaters as the actors rushed about to prepare for their shows. A small old man shouted his heart out at a younger disciple who had buckets of paint on the ground. An elderly woman was nursing a crying child scratched by a wild cat on the streets.

Arthur was fascinated by the infinite stories around him, living in his own city. These people all looked at him with respect and gratitude. Even the crying child forgot about his wounds as Arthur passed by, and he waved with a smile.

It filled Arthur with a strange sense of belonging. He waved a hand, and the wounds on the child’s face were gone. Shouts rose from ahead as mercenaries had a fight that Arthur broke with a single word. A thin actor man, wearing a lion’s mane for some inexplicable reason, thanked Arthur for saving him from a falling prop that looked like dark clouds made of steel.

The entire city buzzed around him. The scent of fresh bread and mushroom soup filled his nose. Arthur gulped, and the two of them stopped at a small inn that served them breakfast free of charge.

As the two were sitting, a few men came over with their hats pressed to their chests and their backs hunched down in submission. They recognized Arthur and asked for his help to equip the miners with better gear.

Arthur listened to their problems and told them the solutions he would implement. These miners worked in mana-veins to extract mana stones for the scholars here. It wasn’t a dangerous job, as the mana stones were stable, but they were deep underground enough to pose serious hazards.

The innkeeper had a small fight with a woman who was long overdue for her room and food charges. Arthur covered the expenses without hesitation and received a grateful bow from the woman who scurried away.

Everything happened in the span of a single morning, one that he didn’t plan on having. After their food, Arthur realized that he could have used his portal earlier since his powers returned, but no longer felt the urgency to go back. In fact, he forgot about going back.

The city pulled him into a strange rhythm where stories were woven into each other. He found himself mesmerized, enjoying becoming a small part of someone’s day and then jumping on the next. It all culminated when Arthur and Suyin found themselves at a funeral house.

Bells rang above the small house. Inside, roses lined each side of the empty aisles as a young man stood in front of the coffin. There was no one inside, and the two of them couldn’t hear the man’s words over the ringing bells.

Arthur walked inside, but Suyin remained standing outside. She learned not to approach a recently deceased person, as her presence might trouble his journey back into the astral stream of souls.

The young man was alone, standing in front of the old man’s coffin and muttering something to himself. He didn’t hear Arthur approaching him from behind over the bells.

"I’m glad that you’re dead," the young man said to his deceased father. Arthur stopped in his tracks. The man continued, "You always looked like an insurmountable mountain that would outlive the world itself for me. But here you are, unable to take one more breath."

Arthur thought that the man was gloating at first. His words didn’t seem like something you said to your dead father. But then, he saw the man shake, and a sob leaked through the chimes, cutting through Arthur’s heart.

"I’m glad that you’re dead," the man said again as he collapsed near his father’s coffin. "At least you don’t have to worry about me anymore."

Arthur paused as he stared at the coffin’s intricate engravings. It shook as the man cried out, unaware that Arthur was behind him. In the end, he turned around and left the funeral that no one bothered to attend.

Suyin stood outside, and she stared at Arthur and the sobbing young man. She understood that something was wrong and that this scene might not be as easy for Arthur to handle as it was for her. But she knew better than to ask.

The rest of their journey back to the council was one spent in silence. They passed a bridge, where long kayaks floated atop the stream to carry couples, and reached the inner city.

Unlike their time so far in the city, the inner city looked like a mess. Fruits rolled down the street as vendors rushed to gather them. A baker was extinguishing some fire that erupted in his shop. An innkeeper grumbled as he hammered his fallen sign.

The two exchanged a glance and knew better than to ask. They rushed through the streets, working hard to hide their faces lest the people recognize them as the culprits behind their insolence.

Arthur felt his face turn red in shame as the Lord of Runera and the one responsible for the mayhem that befell the inner city. He vowed to never trust Oriole again and to hang the alchemist on the fountain’s statue in the inner city as a punishment.

The two finally reached the council, and the guards saluted as they recognized Arthur. They rushed down the corridors and reached the main hall, which seemed to have been upturned by a tornado.

Arthur paused as he saw the chandelier had crashed on the ground, and sleeping atop it were two goblins. They had clearly been dancing atop it when it betrayed them. The winding stairs were covered in food, wine, and clothes.

Several people slept inside the hall, some of them from Alka and the others from Arthur, but all a part of their guild. Arthur even spotted Yuran collapsed on the ground but didn’t bother to wake him up.

The two of them climbed the stairs to seek Julia, who was luckily collapsed in her office. After several attempts to wake her up, she groaned and rose from the desk that had been stained with her drool.

"Mhm," she rubbed her face and then looked at Arthur. "You’re already awake? I thought you would be dead somewhere."

"Why would I be?" Arthur asked.

"Everyone tried to kill you after giving them the tattoos," Julia said as realization dawned on her. "You flew away from the city, and everyone lost track of you."

"Not everyone," Arthur said while glancing at Suyin. "You were chasing me?"

Suyin shrugged. "I should’ve killed you too."

"Wait, I gave the tattoos to everyone? How?" Arthur asked.

"A rune or something," Julia said with a smile. "I’m just glad that I didn’t get it."

Arthur tried to hold back his laughter as he realized that the same tattoo was looking at him from Julia’s neck. It was of Arthur giving a thumbs up and the text "Approved" engraved beneath it.