B2 Ch 91 - Road to Ashfall

Truthfully, Jester preferred watching Necroton’s rebuilding progress without using Caelan’s face. Just like now, he was wandering through the city in his clown form, his normal appearance, occasionally stopping by the roadside to juggle a few balls whenever he wanted to observe the progress in a certain area or listen more closely to what the people around him were saying.

Necroton was certainly suffering from a serious setback, especially after the massive attack a few days ago. A large number of knights had been killed, not to mention the civilians who had lost their lives and the facilities that had already existed before the attack. Seriously, the damage and losses were enormous.

Just imagine it. Necroton was already in a terrible state to begin with. The city had been isolated and treated unfairly for so long, and now it had to deal with an even greater problem because of that attack.

Seriously, someone had to pay dearly for what had happened here. And Jester knew he needed to visit that person soon to collect his paycheck. He would make sure he got paid in cash, with a nice bonus added on top of it.

Jester was standing at the side of the road when he noticed a crowd gathering in the distance, accompanied by quite a commotion.

“What’s going on?”

Curious, he walked closer before seeing... what? Someone was handing out coins in the middle of the street?

There was also a huge beast there. Damn, that thing looked sturdy. Jester immediately found himself wanting a beast like that as a mount.

What exactly was it supposed to resemble? A rhinoceros, perhaps, with a thick and powerful body that looked incredibly solid. Although, at a glance, it did not seem particularly agile or fast.

Sitting on top of it was an old man who appeared to be a player, and Jester had no idea what he was doing to attract so much attention from everyone around him.

Then, as the beast moved closer, Jester deliberately stepped farther away so he would not get caught up in the swarm of excited residents and players. Only then did he finally realize who the old man actually was.

“Another member of the Vesperion Guild,” he murmured quietly.

He took another look at the person sitting on what resembled a miniature carriage, a palanquin, or whatever the thing was supposed to be called. Two figures that looked like summoned spirits accompanied the old man, whose name was Midas.

“Aren’t Vesperion members usually assigned missions in pairs?”

So why was this one alone?

Until… Without warning, another figure suddenly appeared behind the old man, sitting sideways on the back of the mount. It was a woman.

Judging by her outfit, she looked like an assassin. Her green hair was tied behind her head, while the lower half of her face was hidden beneath a covering. At that moment, the woman turned her gaze toward...

Jester?

Jester could clearly feel it. That stare. Sharp and focused.

He responded by staring directly back at her, neither of them looking away until the beast finally passed him. A moment later, Jester was swallowed by the surrounding crowd, leaving him unable to see the woman clearly anymore.

“That girl must be Midas’s mission partner,” he said afterward. “Lazuli.”

The latest arrival in the city was yet another ridiculously wealthy person, Midas. Maybe the old man was playing the game simply to burn through the mountain of money he had spent his entire life gathering while enjoying his retirement. That was certainly one way to spend it. Practically speaking, he could live three times longer inside the game, right?

Jester still had not gotten around to contacting Siki again to follow up on the meeting they had already agreed on. Still, it should happen sometime within the next ten days. Then again, there was always a chance it might be pushed back, considering Necroton was currently going through such a massive recovery.

There was something else Jester wanted to do, though, and for some reason, he felt like he needed to take care of it as soon as possible.

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By the very next day, Jester was already on the road, riding inside a carriage pulled by a Dire Stag. Nothing fancy this time, though. He had left the royal carriage behind and picked something much more ordinary, something that would not immediately give away who he was.

He sat comfortably inside the carriage, with Shade sitting across from him. The black-haired girl had her hair tied high behind her head.

There was just one problem.

“Michel, you really didn’t have to turn yourself into this big, cushioned seat,” he muttered, sinking slightly into the soft maroon padding beneath him.

It was wide, plush, and ridiculously comfortable, the kind of seat someone could easily fall asleep in. “I could’ve just sat on a normal seat, you know.”

Jester sighed quietly as he shifted slightly against the ridiculously comfortable armchair Michel had decided to transform into, which he was currently sitting on.

“Your Highness, this isn’t a burden for me at all, so there’s no need to worry about it. If you’re comfortable, just enjoy it. Besides, I’m softer and warmer than an ordinary chair. You can even ask for extra features if you need them. I can massage you while you sit, or gently rub whichever part of you happens to need attention.”

The voice seemed to come from somewhere around him, making the entire situation incredibly strange. Someone was clearly talking, yet there was no visible person who could possibly be speaking.

“When I told you to transform into anything other than your human form, I meant when we were in front of other people,” he said.

Shade merely let out a quiet laugh in response.

Jester had his reasons for saying that. Michel’s human appearance was simply...

He sighed.

Far too eye-catching for an ordinary woman, which was exactly what Jester needed her to look like if they wanted to travel without attracting attention.

Michel’s human form had strawberry-colored hair and an ideally proportioned height. She was not exceptionally tall like Sliora, who stood at more than two meters. Michel, on the other hand, had the kind of height that blended naturally with her curvy, sexy figure, along with a beautiful face that made it difficult for people not to look at her.

Obviously, traveling with someone who looked like that would hardly help them remain unnoticed.

That was why Jester had asked Michel to stay in any form other than her human one. He just had not expected her to turn into a luxurious armchair for him to relax on.

Then again… Was this actually a problem?

After all, he was sitting on a piece of furniture, not a woman.

Michel was a Mimic. Transforming into things was literally what she did. So this was not weird, right?

Jester pushed the thought out of his mind and tried to make himself comfortable instead. Besides, this was hardly the first time something this strange had happened to him. He had literally been inside Sliora’s body before, surrounded by the Slime’s warm, wet interior. Now that had been weird, but somehow he had gotten used to it.

Okay. If Michel did not mind, then there was no reason to overthink it. This was not slavery or anything like that. She was doing it because she wanted to. Besides, Michel was not the only one Jester had brought along for the trip. Shade was sitting right across from him, and there was a reason he had chosen these two in particular to accompany him.

Shade, for one, was practically made for spying. With her shadow abilities and the way she could blend seamlessly into darkness, sneaking around without being noticed came naturally to her.

Michel was useful in a completely different way. She could disguise herself as almost any object and practically erase her presence that way. And if the situation called for it, she could always take her human form instead. A beautiful young woman could be surprisingly useful when a mission required someone to draw attention elsewhere.

Jester had deliberately left the others behind in Necroton. Traveling like this would be much easier with fewer people, and more importantly, both Shade and Michel were perfectly capable of taking care of themselves if Jester suddenly had to log out and leave them on their own for a while.

The journey itself would take almost the entire day. They had quite a distance to cover before reaching the city near the kingdom’s southernmost border, an area directly managed by Rania, the Second Princess.

The place was actually fairly popular among higher-level players. Not because it was comfortable or particularly pleasant to visit, but because of the greater challenges they could find there.

More challenges meant more difficulty. And more difficulty meant more opportunities to level up.

Jester glanced out the carriage window as they continued down the road. The farther they traveled, the better everything seemed to become. The roads were smoother and better maintained, while the surrounding land showed far more signs of development. The difference between this region and his own city of Necroton was becoming harder to ignore.

By the time the day began slipping into late afternoon, the city walls finally came into view. Standing on slightly elevated ground ahead of them, the walls rose clearly against the evening sky. Even from this distance, they looked incredibly solid, easily twice the height of the walls surrounding Necroton.

Although, when Jester really thought about it, comparing Necroton to this city made it difficult to decide which one was actually more unfortunate.

Necroton was dry and barren, and while natural resources were there, getting to them and making proper use of them took far more effort. Even growing crops was a constant struggle. But for all those problems, the city was relatively safe.

The monsters roaming the surrounding areas were rarely aggressive enough to attack the city itself. Even creatures from the nearby forests hardly ever wandered close enough to become a serious threat.

The city ahead of him, Ashfall, was different. It lived under the constant threat of attack, and the danger did not come from monsters. Not even from Beastkin.

It came from something far worse.

Demons.

Creatures that emerged from the Hell.