The sky darkened as this new duo walked back towards the main city. Knox surveyed his surroundings, keeping an eye out for possible threats. Other than the occasional passing flash of movement, he saw nothing. He kept his mana cells open, so that he could hex a weapon into existence the instant the fight started. While the effort was taxing, Knox hadn't been prepared for his previous scuffle with kobolds earlier that night, and despite winning, he'd paid for it in the end. So until he could either make accessing his mana cells a subconscious feat, he'd have to keep them open whenever an attack was possible.
In his earlier fight with Leon, Knox had noticed how quickly Leon had reacted to a surprise attack, which strongly implied that he'd already had his cells open and combat ready thanks to him not seeming that much faster when they fought up close. This simply strengthened Knox's resolve to keep his cells open, despite it not exactly being healthy.
While all these thoughts ran through Knox's head, Beck took to humming to pass the time.She was not exactly good at it, whatever tune she was trying to carry sounded off-beat and awkward. And so the two walked, neither speaking to the other, and the only sound being Beck's off-tune humming.
Eventually, the duo reached the city. Beck stared up at the massive buildings, all twinkling with bright yellow light. Brightly colored neon signs were so frequent that the entire street before them was lit up.
"Wow! It's beautiful!" Beck exclaimed as she looked around and took in her surroundings.
"It's stupid." Knox retorted, then started to walk again. Now that they were in the city, his eye was more focused than it had been at the outskirts. Bright lights and a dense population were a great way to attract monsters, but no one in the city seemed to understand that.
"Why would you say that?" Beck asked, annoyed at her travel buddy's negativity.
"The lights attract monsters. So does the large number of people. This kind of display is just asking for an attack." Knox deadpanned, not slowing his pace, nor looking back at her.
Beck didn't say anything in response. He was right, but his negativity still bothered her. Rather than focusing on that, Beck kept admiring the city. Stupid or not, it was beautiful. There were some people on the streets, mostly humans, with the occasional dwarf or orc walking alongside them. The only reason she noticed them was because everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at her, even if only for a second or so. This confused her. The city seemed rather diverse, so why did everyone keep looking at her? Surely elves couldn't have been that rare, right?
"Hey, Knox?" She asked, guessing that Knox might know what was going on.
"What is it?" Came his response, once more in a flat and blunt voice.
'This seems to be his usual tone.' Beck thought, before asking her question.
"Why is everyone staring at me? Are we really that rare?"
"No, you aren't. It's just that you guys don't really ever leave that tower there. I don't know why." Knox said, pointing to a massive skyscraper in the very center of the city.
Beck gawked at the skyscraper, which was so tall that it pushed through the blanket of clouds that covered the city and continued upwards to heights unknown to the young elf. Hundreds of windows, white light leaking through all of them illuminated the skyline, and shined so brightly that the neon lights of the city beneath them seemed dull in comparison.
"H-How tall is that?" She wondered aloud. At this, Knox shrugged.
"At least nine kilometers. I've never been there, but I've heard that planes have had to alter their paths to avoid it." Knox stopped walking after he finished speaking and turned to Beck, who had stopped at the same time as him.
"Do you need help finding somewhere to stay? There are several hotels in this city." Knox asked, wondering if this offer would fall under good manners.
"That's very sweet of you, thanks. I'd like that." Beck smiled sweetly as she spoke. Knox gave a short nod and started walking down the street, moving at a pace he thought she could keep up with. Whether Beck noticed or not, he didn't know.
"Um, Knox, what's this city's name?"
"No one seems to know anymore. Nor do they care. We just kind of call it "City"."
At this, Beck frowned. Was the world really that jaded now? As she was to learn over the course of the next few days, the world was in fact that jaded. Perhaps even more so than she'd ever thought possible.
"What do you enjoy doing?" Beck's question was met with silence for a few seconds. Knox's silence was somewhat concerning, as she knew he'd heard her. Questions like this one were usually easy to answer, but he seemed to be struggling with it.
"Nothing, really. I spend most of my time training. That's how I can conjure my hexs that quickly." Knox's late answer was rather disheartening, but the second part of the answer gave Beck more material to ask or talk about.
"Oh, so you use Hexcraft. That's quite outdated, isn't it?" Beck asked.
"I do. And I don't know. She only taught me about Hexcraft." Knox deadpanned.
"Really? Didn't you learn about the other kinds of magic?" Now, Beck was more interested. She'd assumed that the three branches of magic were common knowledge. However, it seemed that she was wrong.
"No. I was taught the magic that she said was best suited for combat."
"I see. Would you like to know what the other types of magic are?"
"We're nearly there, but if you can say it quickly, I'm interested." Knox said as he looked around the area, searching for a specific alleyway opening.
"Oh, all right. Um, you already know Hexcraft, so the second form of magic is Jinxcraft. It's actually pretty similar to Hexcraft, but instead of thoughts, you use a few words to get the desired effect. It's also a good bit more powerful. And after Jinxcraft, you have Spellcraft. It functions the same, but you have to use a full incantation to get the effect. And it's even more powerful." Beck spoke quickly, and Knox nodded along, having found the alleyway and leading Beck down it while she was speaking. By the time she was done, they were on the other side of the alleyway and in front of an inn.
The inn, which was called "The Lucky Rooms", looked nice enough. It was roughly four stories tall and built out of gray brick. The windows were clean, and there were at least three rooms on each floor. This was by far one of the nicest cheap inns that could be found in the city.
"Can you handle this by yourself, or do you need my help to get a room?" Knox asked as he opened and held the door open for Beck.
"No, I think I can handle it myself. Bye, Knox. Maybe I'll see you around?" Beck inquired as she went inside.
"You might. Thank you for the information." Knox nodded to Beck and let go of the door.
"Now, it's time to follow up on that hunch." He thought as he walked away, blending into the shadows and slinking off into the city's backroads.
This hunch was little more than a simple guess about the location of the kobold base. While he was battling the kobolds earlier that night, the masked mage had noticed something about the group. All of the kobolds smelled the same. It wasn't something he'd been able to fully focus on while fighting them, but he had noticed that all of them smelled like rust. Now, rust was not uncommon in this city, but what really stood out was the secondary, more subtle smell. The foul smell of motor oil and grease.
Most people in the city abandoned the usage of cars after the price of gasoline skyrocketed, and using alchemy to create gasoline proved to be extremely ineffective. But where were those abandoned cars? The old city junkyard. It was abandoned, due to a newer yard having been set up a couple months back. The old yard had been rather far out of the way for most people, and the conditions there were less than satisfactory, so when the new yard had been opened, no one hesitated to leave the old junk to rot.
More evidence of the junkyard being their location actually came from the sword kobold's thievery of that man's wedding ring and keys and bullets. Knox had been to the junkyard on numerous occasions. Other than the large amount of cars there, there was actually a very small amount of usable metal there, as most of it was rusty and corroded. The kobold had obviously taken them for usage of some kind, likely for smelting.
The junkyard had smelting stations that were used to melt metallic waste down back when it was still functional. The junkyard also provided a large amount of space with a significant amount of hiding spots, which kobolds seemed to be a big fan of. All of this culminated in Knox's hunch, which he strongly suspected to be correct.
Assuming he was right, he would need to scout ahead and form a plan. Luckily for him, his stealth skills were quite good, and he currently smelled quite a bit like a kobold, so finding him wouldn't be easy. Unfortunately for him, telling the city about them was virtually out of the question, assuming he was right.
Not only were they known for underestimating kobolds, hence the lack of guns that could pierce kobold skin, which had consistently shown itself to be bulletproof against smaller calibers, but they were also unlikely to trust Knox. He'd only been in the city for a few years, and he hadn't actually talked to much of anyone, meaning he had no reputation to fall back on for believability.
Streetlights passed on his right at an alarming rate. Knox was running. Morning came closer with every passing second, and while kobolds were normally nocturnal, they had adapted to have day guards. He was exhausted by this point, having kept his mana cells open for nearly two hours at this point, so a fight would not be in his best interest at this time.
As he ran, the street lights became less and less frequent, meaning he was nearing the outskirts of the city, and thus the old junk yard. Now his thoughts turned towards the new information he'd gained in the terms of magic.
"So, two other branches exist, huh?" He thought, pondering what this could mean for him in the future. It was unlikely that he could learn these new branches, given how long he'd been using Hexcraft, but this didn't mean he shouldn't learn what they could do and how they were used so that he could counter them in combat, as a battle against another mage was inevitable. When factoring in how she spoke about Hexcraft, that made him think that he just might be at a disadvantage against other magic users.
Now he was officially in the city outskirts, with the old junk yard in his line of sight. He increased his pace, now gliding over the sidewalk silently as if he were flying. Knox stopped when he reached the chain link fence surrounding the yard. Old rolls of rusty barbed wire were wrapped around the top of the tall fence. It seemed to be about five meters tall, perhaps five and a half when counting the wire. Gauging the distance, he bent his knees slightly and sprung into the air, sailing over the fence and the wire and landing silently on his feet with the greatest of ease.
He slunk into the shadows, and began searching around, slinking from one junk pile to the next, searching the areas around each one thoroughly, trying to find any signs of life in the area. After searching the last junk pile on his side of the yard, Knox stopped to catch his breath. Glancing around, he caught a flicker of movement in the corner of his eye.
A wide smile spread across Knox's face. Assuming it wasn't some yard dog, he just might have been right. Dashing in the direction of the movement, he crossed the several meter distance in mere milliseconds. Such movement was not exactly wise, as his steps could be heard when he moved at such speeds, but Knox decided to play into his assumed luck at this time.
Luck was on his side, and he reached the location without being seen or heard. The movement had come from a large pile of junk that he had yet to search. Peeking around the edge, Knox saw exactly what he wanted to see. Half a dozen kobolds sat on the other side of the pile, trying to start a fire. Looking further, he saw even more monsters, all performing different tasks. The area past the junk pile was loud, and there were many bright flashes of light from active forging stations.
How had he not seen all of this? Reaching out with his mana, Knox quickly deactivated his power when he realized just what this was. The kobold camp had been hidden by a reality shroud, or a magical curtain that defied the hold of reality itself to keep something hidden. He knew very little of these, but his teacher had used them in their training sessions. She'd said that they were much too powerful for a weak mage like him to ever use.
After feeling the amount of mana used to build this barrier, Knox quickly realized that something was wrong, and that he needed to leave now.
Knox crept away, making sure to keep his steps silent again. If whatever had cast that was still here, he knew that he'd never stand a chance against it, at least not in his current state.
Weaving between junk piles and slinking through the shadows, Knox managed to make his way back to the fence without being spotted. Without a second thought, Knox leapt over it again and slunk away from the yard, unnoticed by anyone or anything.
As he left, Knox was nowhere near as happy as he felt he should have been. Just who, or what, had enough power to cast something like that?