Eating food that had been drenched by water, Mu Zhou felt somewhat helpless, while Talisa didn't seem to mind at all. She was all smiles, and insisted on sticking close to Mu Zhou, gently pouring him a glass of wine, and using the fire to dry her still somewhat damp clothes.
After a short rest, Mu Zhou tied his only property—a battered large sword, to his back with a vine. He signalled to Talisa, who had just finished packing up their belongings, and embraced her waist. After casting a barrier that could protect them from the wind, they started to sprint quickly through the forest. Such was their speed that it stirred up a trail of dust through the mountain valley.
Finally, before the sun had set, they reached a peak. Here they could finally see the destination of their journey. Under the mountain was a very wide and neat road, and at the end of the road was a grand city, which was a bit surprising to Mu Zhou. In his imagination, the martial and cultural level of this other world should be quite low.
Yet in this big city before his eyes, there were tall buildings everywhere, clear-cut streets, channels circling the inner city, and city walls that were extraordinarily tall and solid, which took Mu Zhou aback. He had originally intended to sneak into the city under cover of darkness to gather information for the next step, but now, even this first step seemed difficult to execute.
Although the towering city wall was not a problem for him, the densely packed guard posts were not blindfolded people; scaling the wall could lead to being treated as an enemy. Although he was not afraid, he did not come to wage war; it's better not to stir up trouble.
After thinking about it slightly, he had a plan. He turned to Talisa, who still had some mosquito coils in her eyes, and extended a finger that was glowing with a golden light. With a drag of his finger, he drew two strange symbols in the air, and then gently tapped. The two golden symbols turned into a stream of light and entered Talisa's body.
"Lord Mu Zhou, what is this?" Talisa, feeling the changes in her body, asked calmly with a hint of curiosity. This is a new skill that Mu Zhou had unlocked a while ago, called 【Protection】. In simple terms, it was a skill that granted others powers. He gave Talisa two protections, one was 【Strength】 and the other was 【Fortress】. The former gave her a superior physical constitution, while the latter protected her from injury.
After affirming that the protection was working properly, he pointed towards the giant city below and then gestured with two fingers. He intended to enter the city alone for investigation first, and it would be inconvenient to bring Talisa along, so she should stay nearby. At the latest, he would return within two days.
Talisa understood his intentions well, pouted her lips and, although she disliked the idea of leaving Mu Zhou, obediently said, "Then, Lord Mu Zhou, please be careful and come back to me soon." She left all the food and warm clothing with her, and also kept the sword.
Although Talisa was young, Mu Zhou believed that she could take care of herself with his protection. He then marked her with a tracking charm before jumping off the peak. With his hood over his head, Mu Zhou followed the official road towards the city gate.
Indeed, he intended to enter majestically through the front gate. Although he didn't want to stir up trouble, it didn't mean he was afraid. Although the gate was huge, the crowd was coming and going. There were just two symbolic guards stationed there. No strict inspection, no city gate toll. However, they frowned upon seeing Mu Zhou in his attire.
Disregarding the disdainful gazes, Mu Zhou strode into the city with its diverse and uneven buildings. There were low houses made of brick, wood, stone, and what seemed to be Gothic-style villas with high towers. On both sides of the road, there were vendors selling all kinds of merchandise and hawking incessantly. Disappointed, Mu Zhou rubbed his chin and observed around. He didn't see any other races; he'd hoped to see mythical beast women or elves, and so on."Alright, although I've successfully entered, what's the next step?" Delving into a secluded alleyway, he peered around from the shadows, aiming to find a place filled with books. Having been in this world for some time now, his understanding of it was almost zero, with everything from the language to the common sense being vastly different. His current predicament lay in the impossibility of telling if houses contained books merely by their exteriors. Just as he was pondering, he heard a whistling sound from behind, accompanied by a rapidly approaching object aimed at his head. Due to the lack of threat, he simply turned his head in uncertainty. "Thwack!" A wooden stick, roughly the thickness of his wrist struck his forehead. The man wielding the stick had a severe case of rhinophyma, a red, drunken face, and a noticeable smell of alcohol was emanating from his mouth. The man seemed perplexed as to why Mu Zhou was not knocked unconscious by his attack. His expression quickly turned sinister. He muttered something before violently swinging his stick once again. "Is this... a robber?" A stunned Mu Zhou thought. He wanted to grab the man by his collar and question him. Had he gotten so drunk that he forgot what it meant to rob a person? Grabbing the stick, Mu Zhou harshly struck it against the drunk assailant's head. As it turned out, not everyone had heads as hard as Mu Zhou. Gazing at the fainted thief, Mu Zhou crouched down and began to search him. From the man's dirty pockets, he pulled out a few brown coins, a card imprinted with some sort of insignia, and a thin booklet. Ignoring the coins and the card for a moment, the contents of the booklet intrigued Mu Zhou. It contained detailed illustrations of the city layout. Most importantly, the last two pages of the booklet had a guide on how to spell and pronounce the languages of this world! It was exactly what he needed! Squatting there studying the booklet, he discovered that the language of this world wasn't as intricate as he had presumed. All he had lacked was a key to unlock the entrance. Upon entering, his constantly improving brain worked like a supercomputer processing information at high speed. This allowed him to grasp the basics of the language in a very short time, enabling him to understand the cry coming from nearby. "Hey! What are you doing?" Five or six figures clad in light armor, holding long-handled weapons were in sight, seemingly city guards. "No, I didn't do anything." His speech was still unpolished but being able to communicate felt great to Mu Zhou. "Oh! By the way! This man was trying to rob me!" Mu Zhou pointed to the man sprawled on the ground and said. The soldiers viewed the fully cloaked Mu Zhou with suspicions. "Please show us your record card." "Record card? What's that? Hmm.... Is it an identification document of some sort?" Mu Zhou did not own such a card, he could only spread his hands, "I don't have that." Upon hearing this, all the soldiers drew their weapons at Mu Zhou. "A drifter, huh? I suggest you don't resist and come with us." Mu Zhou shrugged, raised his hands, and said, "Well, I'll go with you." He had nothing to fear and planned to seize this chance to interact with these officials. He was cuffed and led into a room filled with large cages. Inside were people like him, dressed in tattered clothes and chained up. On the side of the room hung a sign that Mu Zhou could read. "Slave Trading Station" "Wait a minute! Hasn't something been misunderstood?" Mu Zhou pointed at the sign shouting, "Keep quiet! As a drifter, you sure are bold." A soldier pushed Mu Zhou into the room, simultaneously shouting at the people inside, "Jelul! New merchandise is here! And it's a woman! Jelul!"With a creak of the floorboards, a round-bellied man with an annoyed expression squeezed out of the adjacent door. "Can't you wait a bit? I'm busy!" Yet he still approached Mu Zhou, "A woman, huh? Let's see if you're worth anything." He reached out and lifted the cloak off her head.
Long hair cascaded down like a waterfall with the lifting of the cape. For a moment, the entire room grew so quiet that even the sound of breathing ceased to exist. It took Jerel quite a while to regain his composure before he cracked a wide grin, "I've found the grand finale for tonight's auction!"
Mu Zhou stood there, somewhat perplexed by the current situation. "Am I going to be sold as a slave?"
