Chapter 103: How mysterious

Noir continued to gaze at the enormous painting that took up a large portion of the wall. The city depicted in it seemed to belong to a world completely different from the one they had just traveled through.

Its buildings were tall and elegant, the streets were filled with people, and enormous stone bridges connected the towers to one another.

In the sky, soaring above that city, was a black dragon with dark scales and red eyes.

The old man stood in front of the painting with a calm expression, as if looking at it were something he had done hundreds of times. Arlene, on the other hand, couldn’t take her eyes off the dragon. Something about the image clearly made her uncomfortable, though she didn’t know exactly what.

"What does this place represent?" Noir finally asked.

The older man took a few seconds to answer. He stepped closer to the painting and raised a hand, pointing to the enormous structures in the background.

"Ancient Veyra."

Arlene looked at the painting again, this time more closely.

"The old Veyra? Did this city really look like this?"

"Yes. Although it would be more accurate to say that this was one of its forms."

"One of its forms?"

The old man nodded as he lowered his hand.

"Veyra has changed many times. Some transformations were caused by wars, others by accidents, and still others happened for no apparent reason. There are parts of the city that have been in the same place for centuries, while others appear, disappear, or change location without anyone being able to explain exactly why."

Arlene frowned slightly.

"That doesn’t sound like something that would happen in a normal city."

"Veyra stopped being a normal city a long time ago."

The reply was so calm that Arlene didn’t know what to say.

Noir, meanwhile, looked at the painting again. He couldn’t deny that the dragon looked a lot like him, but that alone didn’t make sense.

Besides, the old man didn’t seem willing to explain anything about the dragon.

And Noir wasn’t going to press the issue either. He’d already learned that the more he tried to get answers from mysterious people, the more mysterious they became.

The little demon princess, who had been standing near a bookshelf, finally lost interest in the painting and began examining the objects on a table.

"What’s this?"

The older man turned his head.

"Don’t touch it."

The girl immediately pulled her hand away, though she kept staring at the object.

"Why?"

"Because it’s old."

"Everything you have is old."

"That’s exactly why."

Arlene let out a little laugh.

"For once, I agree with him."

The princess puffed out her cheeks, clearly annoyed at not getting a satisfactory answer, and returned to Noir’s side. Uki hadn’t even shown any interest in the objects in the room. He had lain down near the door and seemed more concerned with sleeping than with the mysteries of Veyra.

The older man walked over to one of the bookshelves and pulled out a dusty book. He set it on the table and began turning the pages carefully.

"There’s something you should understand before you continue exploring the city."

Arlene’s expression turned serious again.

"What is it?"

"The people of Veyra know the city is strange. They’ve learned to live with it."

The older man turned the book so they could see the pages.

There were several hand-drawn maps.

The first one showed a city completely different from the one they had explored a few hours earlier. The streets were laid out in a circular pattern, and in the center stood a massive structure surrounded by four main avenues. The second map showed changes in several areas. The third one was even more different.

Arlene leaned over the table.

"Are these maps of Veyra?"

"All of them."

"But they don’t match."

"No."

"How much time has passed between one and the next?"

The old man ran a finger over the notes written in the margins.

"Some were drawn decades apart. Others, centuries."

Arlene studied the maps for a few seconds.

"So the city really does change."

"Sometimes."

"And no one tries to figure out why?"

The older man looked up.

"Of course they’ve tried."

"And?"

"Some of them discovered things they would rather not have discovered."

The little princess’s eyes widened.

"What kinds of things?"

The older man looked at her and smiled.

"Boring stories."

"They don’t seem boring."

"For someone your age, they should be."

"I’m not sleepy."

"That doesn’t mean they aren’t boring."

The princess crossed her arms.

"I don’t like your stories."

"Then we agree."

Arlene shook her head as a small smile appeared on her face.

Noir remained silent, studying the maps.

Something caught his attention. It wasn’t the changes to the city, but rather certain areas that appeared on several maps and then disappeared completely. On one of them, there was a square located to the north. On the next one, the square had vanished, and another street took its place. On yet another map, that same area reappeared, but much farther away.

Noir raised a claw slightly and pointed at the drawing.

The older man looked at it.

"Yes."

He didn’t explain anything else.

Arlene looked at him.

"What does that mean?"

"It means you’ve seen it, too."

Noir turned his head toward him.

The older man closed the book.

"Come on. There’s something I want to show you."

The remark made Arlene hesitate.

"Where?"

"Outside."

The group left the house.

The street was still crowded with people, though now Noir began to notice details he had previously overlooked. Veyra had a strange atmosphere. It didn’t seem like a dangerous city, but it wasn’t completely peaceful either.

The residents followed certain unspoken rules that no one seemed to explain.

A woman was walking with a basket of fruit, and when she reached a corner, she stopped before crossing. She looked both ways, even though no carriages or people were approaching. She waited a few seconds and only then continued on her way.

A group of children was playing near a crooked house. One of them threw a ball toward a side street, but another child immediately ran over to stop it.

"Not that way," he said.

"Why?"

"Because."

The second child accepted the answer without arguing, and they went to look for the ball somewhere else.

Arlene watched the scene.

"Did you see that?"

"Yes," the old man replied.

"What’s on that street?"

"Nothing."

Arlene looked at him in disbelief.

"Nothing?"

"Nada que quieran encontrar."

The older man kept walking.

That answer only served to deepen Arlene’s doubts, but she decided not to press the issue just yet.

They came to a small square.

It wasn’t particularly large, but it was surrounded by several old buildings. In the center was a fountain whose water rose slowly instead of falling. The water rose from the base until it vanished into the air, as if an invisible current were carrying it toward the sky.

The first time Noir had seen something like this, it had struck her as strange. Now she was beginning to suspect that there were too many strange things in Veyra to be surprised by a fountain.

The old man stopped in front of it.

"This fountain has been here for over two hundred years."

Arlene looked at the water.

"Has it always worked this way?"

"No."

"So when did it change?"

"No one knows."

"And no one tried to fix it?"

The old man let out a laugh.

"Why?"

"Because the water is rising."

"And that’s a problem because..."

Arlene opened her mouth, but then closed it again.

The older man was right about one thing. The fountain worked perfectly. It wasn’t broken, it wasn’t flooding the square, and no one seemed to have a problem with it.

It was simply doing something a fountain wasn’t supposed to do.

"The people of Veyra got used to it," the old man explained. "At first, they tried to fix everything they considered strange. Over time, they discovered it was easier to learn what things to avoid."

Arlene looked around.

"Avoid?"

"There are places in Veyra that you can visit every day for years without anything happening. Others should be avoided after a certain hour. Some change locations. And there are a few that no one visits."

Arlene’s expression grew more serious.

"Why?"

The older man looked at her.

"Because those who went in didn’t always come back."

The little princess walked over to Noir and grabbed one of his front paws.

"Does that mean there are monsters?"

"Not necessarily."

"Then what is it?"

The older man looked toward one of the streets leading off the square.

"That’s exactly what nobody knows."

Noir looked down the street.

It seemed completely normal.

Houses lined both sides, with a few stores and several stone streetlamps. A woman walked down the street carrying a bag, while two men talked in front of a doorway.

Nothing seemed dangerous.

However, no one was entering the street from the plaza.

Everyone was taking the other routes.

The older man began walking again.

"I don’t want you to worry too much. Most of Veyra is perfectly safe."

Arlene sighed.

"That doesn’t reassure me when you just told me that some parts make people disappear."

"I didn’t say they disappeared."

"You said they didn’t come back."

"That’s not the same thing."

"It is to me."

The older man burst out laughing. For the first time since they’d entered his house, he seemed genuinely amused.

They kept walking until they reached a busier area. Shops, restaurants, and food stalls lined the street. People of different races walked among the buildings, and the atmosphere was much livelier.

At first glance, that part of Veyra seemed completely normal.

But even there, small things didn’t quite add up.

One store had a door on the second floor with no stairs leading up to it.

A building was constructed around a huge tree whose canopy stretched across three floors and continued growing into a fourth room.

A street ended at a wall, but people kept walking down it and disappeared behind it.

Arlene stopped.

"Wait."

The older man kept walking a few steps before turning around.

"What’s the matter?"

"I just saw three people turn into that street."

"Yes."

"And the street ends there."

"Yes."

"So where did they go?"

The older man looked in that direction.

"To another street."

Arlene frowned.

"That doesn’t make sense."

"No."

"And nobody’s surprised?"

"No."

Arlene stared at the wall. Then she looked at the old man.

"How does it work?"

"It depends on the day."

"What does that mean?"

"Some days that street ends right there. Other days it connects to the market. Some nights it leads to the southern part of the city."

Arlene fell silent.

Noir looked out at the street too. He couldn’t detect any obvious magic.

That was perhaps the strangest thing of all. In some places, magic was so intense you could feel it in the air. In Veyra, on the other hand, many of these anomalies seemed to exist without giving off any clear signs.

As if they were a natural part of the city.

At that moment, the young black dragon realized Veyra was far too strange, yet at the same time far too unique.

’How mysterious.’