paranoianovel Chapter 123: Capital of Aridonia
Chapter 123: Capital of Aridonia
Chapter 123: Capital of AridoniaAfter we left Cactustown and walked far enough for no one to see us, we took flight and headed for the capital.
It was supposed to be a two-day ride, so it only took us a few hours for the oasis capital to become visible in the distance.
We descended to walk the rest of the way, and it was impressive how the arid desert had changed into a more tropical environment.
Water ponds with palm trees scattered around the wavy dirt road leading to the entrance.
The walls of the city were tall, with gates of different sizes at the bottom for the people to use.
There was a line to enter the city, which was quite annoying since we could just fly inside, but I didn’t want to get into any sort of trouble by doing whatever I wanted, so we waited.
Minutes later, we reached the gates, and I turned in my adventurer’s card to get a quick passage inside.
The city was immense and had the same type of buildings as Cactustown, made with white sandstone and flat roofs. However, the vegetation was much more abundant here.
Different flowers and vines grew all around the city. There was a river where children were bathing and playing, and the streets were filled with vendors and hagglers.
The first thing we did was go to the inn and get two rooms — one for me and my companions and one for Gina.
Once we had our rooms, I told Vespera and Gina to split so that we could explore more of the city, and we went on different ways.
I remembered the message that I received from Jen, telling me that the person who was trying to buy the slaves said something about moving his business to Aridonia. However, different from the Droman capital, this place didn’t have the same poor districts that were clearly targeted by the gang.
Not only that, but I doubted that they had an underground base, considering that it wouldn’t be possible with their infrastructure unless they used magic.
As I kept walking around the sea of people, I spotted a little kid crouching next to a house, drawing something on the ground with a stick.
The kid seemed to be around eight years old, and his body looked weak and malnourished.
I felt bad for him, so I hid from the sight of the people around between a few houses and brought out a few fruits to give to the child.
When I approached him with the food, he looked at me with a defeated expression and bowed as he silently grabbed the fruits and began eating slowly.
"What’s your name?" I asked.
The boy munched on an apple and replied with a mouthful. "Abel..." he said.
"Are your parents around somewhere?" I kept asking, but the boy shrugged as he didn’t know.
When I asked him where he lived, he pointed at the house right behind him, but when I used my "
"Hey, what the hell are you- RAARGHG!" the man tried to exclaim, but as soon as he stood up, I used gravity magic to slam his body against the counter and kept him anchored to it.
"What’s... this!?" the man struggled to mutter as his own body weight kept him from moving away from the counter.
The women in the back got startled and stopped their work as they recoiled with fear, so I tried telling them that I wasn’t going to hurt anyone, but that didn’t seem to alleviate the tension.
Nonetheless, I focused back on the shop’s owner and crouched slightly to look into his eyes.
"Now, I’ll ask again. Do you know where this woman, Livia, is?" I asked with a cold tone to intimidate the man, who was still struggling to move with my gravity magic holding him in place.
"I told you... She left..." he muttered in his struggles.
"Ladies, is it true that Livia was the type of person to leave their children behind?" I said as I turned to look at the frightened tailors on the corner.
Nevertheless, it didn’t matter how afraid they were of me because they all shook their heads, denying the shop owner’s statements.
"See, we got three against one..." I said, tapping my bo against the ground gently and increasing the weight that held the man down, slightly cracking the counter from the force of his body pushing against it.
"For every question you don’t answer truthfully, I’ll increase the weight. You don’t wanna see how it ends, trust me..." I muttered as I got my face closer to the man.
I wasn’t planning on killing anyone, but intimidation was the best tool to gather information most of the time, and I had no problem acting like a bad guy if it would allow me to help someone.