After Soren and Lavenza split up with Laventhign, the two of them continued their exploration of the city. Since there lots of shops near the plaza, the duo decided to check some of shops out. The first shop was a weapon shop, slightly similar to the one he had been to before with Rohan when they went there, but the difference was that the shop was definitely bigger and had a bigger assortment of weapons on the displays and some of them had some insane stats and passive abilities. A good example would be the first sword that Soren scanned. Although it looked simple at first, just a sword with a red scabbard, the status of the weapon was a whole another story.
[Strength of the One: (DMG +892, MGCDMG +736, +40 to all stats except HP/MP)
A masterpiece crafted by a master blacksmith who put days worth of blood and tears to create this weapon. Made from the silver fragments of an ancient combat golem from the Dark Covenant Era, combined with 6 different metals to make the alloy that was used for the sword. Although it may look simple, this sword packs way more power than your average sword that was made with the same materials.]
Just the stats of the sword were enough to make make Soren almost drool on the display, but after seeing the stats on the other weapons, he saw that the sword was the strongest weapon in the shop.
'So this is their main attraction.' Soren thought to himself as he looked at the Strength of the One sword and compared it to the other weapons. Although the other weapons weren't too shabby, all of them paled in comparison to their best weapon, by a mile. After looking around for a little while, he decided to leave and have a look at some of the other stores.
A decent amount of them were either restaurants or cafés, but the rest were shops that sold all kinds of stuff, from clothes to sundries and even more. 'If you are looking for something, this plaza has it.' That was the motto that Soren could think of as he was looking around the plaza with Lavenza.
After some more time exploring around the time, the sky started to darken and some of the shops started to close down.
"I guess it's starting to get late, shall we get going Lavenza?" Soren asked Lavenza as he was patting her.
"Kyuu~, Reny~." Lavenza answered enjoyed the feeling being patted.
After that quick moment, the two of them decided to go back to Rohan's house to rest, but before going there, they decided to go have a decent dinner with the reward they had earned. As for what they ate for dinner, they ultimately decided to eat some clam ramen instead at some of the other restaurants they had seen. Although Soren had some money to spare and enjoy a more luxurious meal than clam ramen, the meals at the restaurants were a bit too expensive for his liking. For the majority of them, you would need to pay at least 2 or 3 iron coins if you wanted to order a full meal, while the others would require silver coins for at least 1 dish, so after seeing those prices, he was put off from eating at a restaurant and decided to stick with something more safe and cheaper.
'Is it just me or is everyone a bit more cheery than usual, or are there more drunk customers than usual who were laughing their butts off from the weirdest of jokes ?' Soren thought to himself as he was looking at the atmosphere that was cheerier than usual.
"Shaun, is it just me or is everyone looking cheerier than usual?" Soren decided to ask the food stall owner, Shaun.
"Hmmm... Can't say for sure. I've been hearing rumors for some new training grounds or some new hunting area, but nothing concrete cones to me." Shaun answered as he pouring another bowl of clam ramen for another customer.
"If you are wondering about that young man, I can answer for you." The man who just received the bowl talked after Shaun gave him the bowl.
"The reason everyone here is happy like winning the lottery, is because a new hunting ground is available as of now. Well, technically it will be available in a week or so because the veterans and the Sea Knights are doing one final sweep of the area to mark it safe for exploration and hunting. Because of that, a lot of adventurers and hunters are excited for the new ground and finding all kinds of rare monsters and hidden dungeons." The man added with a confident tone on his voice as he eating a bit of the food.
"Really? Where's the new hunting ground then?" Soren asked excitedly.
"It's east of Crystalia City. Before, the area was very small and there was barely anything to hunt, hence why there was almost no one to explore it, since what's there to explore when there is nothing? But ever since the alarm a week ago with some super powerful monster appearing there, all the lower rank adventurers and even some of the veterans, started to reconsider if there is truly nothing out there, or if everything is hidden somewhere even deeper than expected." The man explained happily as he continued eating his food.
"So that means...?" Soren asked slowly for confirmation as he was looking excited.
"Yup, new dungeons to explore, new monsters to hunt and you know the drill by know." The man explained happily as he was finishing his meal.
At that moment, a sudden thought came to into Soren's mind:
'If there was nothing there to explore, since almost no one seemed to explore east of Crystalia City, why did he say that the east area was very small. Maybe it's small too for their standards, but there was an entire ruined fortress that had an undead leviathan under it, so I don't expect for it to have gone under the radar. So then...'
Soren was deeply in his own thoughts for this entire situation. But before he could theorise more, he decided to ask one final question to the man that was leaving.
"Can I ask one last thing sir?"
"Sure, what is it?"
"How big was the explorable area?" Soren asked with a serious and thoughtful expression.
"How big huh... Maybe around 2-3 kilometers at most? I'm not sure really but from everyone who I know that has tried going towards that direction, I know that they couldn't go further than that." The man explained with a thoughtful expression as well.
"Why's that?"
"Hmmm... I don't really know to tell the truth. I did ask a couple of times, but everyone said that there is nothing past that area." The man explained with a confused and thoughtful expression.
"I see. Thank you for the information sir." Soren thanked the man with a happy expression.
"Glad to help kid. Take care." After that, the man left the stall and Soren decided to finish his dinner as well and put his brain to work after he was somewhere more secluded. After the two of them finished eating their meal, Soren paid Shaun for the meal and returned back to Rohan's home.
After entering, Soren and Lavenza saw that the house was dark and empty.
"I guess he is still out for the day." Soren commented with a serious expression as he was looking around. After looking around, he decided to sit down on the couch and sort out his thoughts and information about what he knew up until now and what goals he wanted to have right now.
For starters, he decided to attempt to solve some of the discrepancies that he knew and that he learned just a little while ago. For starters, the fact that the area east of Crystalia City was going to be open for exploration after a full check and clean up of area in a few days, was obviously a lie for Soren. He was one of the very few who knew of situation with the appearance of King Geius, but the real truth was that the 2 kilometer area was just wrong in the first place. He wasn't sure why everyone thought that past a couple of kilometers there would be nothing, but there are still things of importance, such as the fort that took quite a while to reach. To even reach it, you would need to swim for quite a while, at least a few hours, so just the existence of that fort shows the contradiction of the current situation.
The next question for it though was a whole another story. 'Why did no one know of that fort?' was the next big question. The existence of Lavenza is not a valid answer since Laventhign only hid the fact of Lavenza's existence, despite thinking that she died 500 years ago, but she never hid the existence of the garrison back then or now. It could be that since it's been 500 years since then, the knowledge of the existence of that has faded into the rivers of time, but he felt that there was more to meet in the eye.
The last question he had though, was reason why everyone thought that the east area of Crystalia City was small. Unfortunately, he had no idea about that, but he had an inkling that it was connected with the fort and its circumstances in some way. shape or form.
"So in the end, it's all about that stupid fort." Soren said emotionlessly as he was laying down on the couch and was staring at the ceiling.
"I guess I'll have to add the 'Solve the mysteries of the fort' in the list of my things to do, just like 'Find Pallas City', 'Get rid of the red book that tries to kill me' and 'Explore the world'." Soren spoke sarcastically was looking at the ceiling and rubbing his head from the headache he was getting.