With the moon high in the sky, we all crowd around the campfire with the half-cut corpse of the giant pig behind us. With everyone enjoying the roasted pork, it feels as though they all forgot the political tension around the throne and are just enjoying the feast.
While stuffing my face with meat, Lia walks over, "So how was it, your new abilities and the gun? We could hear you shooting it from here you know, it was pretty loud."
Finishing the last bit of meat in my hand, I explain, "I didn't use Light when fighting, but so far, the feeling I get is that it has more direct power than Dark. Not to say that Dark doesn't have direct combat capabilities, but the utility is far greater, from what I've seen anyway. The gun has proven to be powerful. You didn't see it while it was alive, but the big pig had nearly as much health as I do and its defences weren't bad either, but a single shot to the head still dealt around 1,000 damage."
"It's still a prototype, right? so I'm sure there are some flaws, I doubt the people who designed it perfected the gun in a single draft."
"Yeah, the biggest flaw is its accuracy. I haven't had a chance to test the exact number, but I'd say at around 25ish metres the round will stray. It's nothing compared to the weapons of my former life, but compared to the guns used here, the range is still a large improvement. One other thing I noticed was that it felt as if there was something wrong when I was channelling mana into it. Like, there was an interruption in the flow and the amount of power behind the shot was reduced. But I don't know if that is because I messed up when making it or it's a design problem."
"While current longbows have much more range, the power behind them doesn't seem to be as strong as that gun. But once we finish here in Lausiel, just show it to the Dwarves and they'll probably have a better design within a month," *yawn*, "I'm a little tired, so I'll head off to sleep for now, night," Lia says as she walks into our tent.
Speaking of which, I haven't slept for a few days now. Probably a good idea to get some sleep while I can. Moreover, I don't want to clean up this mess, so I'll let Aurelia deal with the aftermath of the feast.
--
The bright sun, shining down on our faces, the beautiful scenery off to the side, and the mighty Capital of the Lausiel Empire, Maia, is just barely in sight. And to my side is a grumpy Aurelia.
Ever since the feast we had the night before, Aurelia's been in a bad mood. Since Lia and I had chosen to sleep early, and with most of the guards being passed out, she had to clean up the giant mess that was the aftermath of the feast, all by herself. From what I heard from the few guards still conscious, it wasn't actually that hard for her and was taken care of in a matter of minutes, so I don't really understand why she is still so upset.
But before long her tune quickly changes as we pass the city gates and enter the Capital, Maia. Aurelia begins to tell us about all the landmarks of the city and her favourite places to sneak off and eat.
"In the central plaza where the statue of the founding Imperator is, if you take the back alley off to where he is pointing, there is a special restaurant. Its food is out of this world, and I mean that in a literal sense," Aurelia says.
"What do you mean?" Lia asks.
"It's the only place I know of that connects to worlds that aren't Grauntia, the System still works but many things inside are beyond the System's ability to recognise. My eyes can't see through the staff, but I can see through the origin of the dishes they make and they come from places outside of Grauntia. And the door is some unusual kind of spacial technique. When leaving it will always send you back the way you came, but the people enter from doors other than the one in the alley. Not to mention that the customers are often of races with no presence in Grauntia, I've even seen Gods eating peacefully and next to them at another table was a couple of Devils from the Netherworld."
"This sounds interesting, we should go there at some point," I say.
"This is a given. I was intending to take you two there for dinner tonight. But first, we need to settle some things. On the hill, I'm sure you can guess what that is, but I shall enlighten you anyway, That is the Imperial Palace."
From our current position, we can't see too much, but even still, I can't even begin to imagine the work that was done to build something so grand. Depending on the angle we are looking from the colour of the dome that sits atop the palace changes. Several spires stand tall, stretching across the city's skyline, serving to measure the length of the palace, and similar to the dome, they too change colour. Fortunately, those are the only one that shifts in colour, any more and I'm afraid it will make me sick.
Passing through the palace gates, we ride through a magnificent garden, with large hedges cut into the shape of various different monsters, all made to look as if they were kneeling down in reverence towards those who walk down the path to the front entrance of the palace.
Arriving we near the front entrance, Aurelia says in a low voice, "the restaurant opens in seven hours, I'm going to give you a list of people with a connection to my Uncle, by the time the restaurant opens, I want at least 70% of these people out of the palace. Time to purge the traitors."