Aksel and Yve were taking a chance that could either make their future or probably be their doom.
Following the five Rues, as they had come to know was the name these unbranded people called themselves he was slightly worried for his safety and slightly excited to find people of his kind.
Aksel and Yve were led towards the right side of the gate, away from it where there was a small hole in the wall. Unlike Aquilo which had a hologram surrounding the city that was supposed to work as a fence, this massive city had an actual wall. It was tall; really tall when they reached it, that one would never even dare to climb it.
He noticed the first two Rues that he had still not interacted with crouch and easily slip past through on the other side. Then one of them peaked over and did an okay sign and turning to look at Aksel and Yve the arrow lady said, "You are lucky that your first time in this city isn't going to be a difficult one as there isn't anyone nearby to catch us but please be quick in your movements."
They hadn't had time to do their introductions yet as they had feared getting caught at an awkward time when the working drones or a branded was on-site to take a look around at the work.
Noting the gruff man enter first, Aksel volunteered to go in next before Yve and found a grey-colored box blocking his way just after coming out and taking a step.
He looked back to see where he had come from only to see that the wall looked completely plain and unharmed from this side.
'They must have been using holograms.'
He thought slightly impressed and turning to look to his side he saw the gruff man beckoning him over to the other end of the giant box where he then saw him enter the box easily. Checking if the box was a hologram as well, or not he took a few steps to the side to give way to whoever was entering next and touched the grey box that was completely solid. He continued to trace the slightly rusty metal until he felt his finger leave the surface and enter it.
Another secret hologram door was waiting for him and stepping through the passage where the gruff man had entered he found the space inside to be a barely tall enough space that was surrounded on all corners by metallic sheet walls.
Thinking them to be hologram doorways as well he touched them only to find that they weren't and looking around he wondered where the gruff man had gone.
"You cannot open the secret door on your own," he heard a voice whisper closely in his ears, and almost jumping from the sudden fright of someone sneaking up on him he turned around to find the dagger woman with her two bleached ponytails, laughing at his reaction.
"That wasn't funny," Aksel huffed slightly embarrassed to have reacted in that manner but brushing him off she said, "It was."
Turning away from him she did something that he couldn't see and suddenly, with almost no noise at all the base of the floor opened up revealing a circular mouth of a passage that led somewhere down.
"Do you also stay in the sewage system of this city?" He asked slightly disappointed to not have met with a cooler base and laughing at his expression the woman just instructed him to follow her inside.
He noticed that instead of stepping down she had jumped at once into the dark passage but not wanting to take risks he followed the stairs down until he felt nothing more and jumping down the slight height he landed on the hard floor.
His eyes hadn't adjusted to the darkness of the tunnel but he felt a hand on his shoulder pulling him back and away from the hole that was still open letting in some light.
Soon after he saw Yve astonishingly looking down through it and then she started climbing down. When the last bow lady had also jumped down there was a glow that emerged from beside him but before he could check out what it was. He noticed the manhole closing and a hiss of it sealing tightly and concealing itself in the ground was heard followed by dim lights lighting up the tunnel.
The tunnel seemingly went on for long and the end of it wasn't visible as the path curved but Aksel was impressed by the system that these Rues had and how clean it was down here even though it had been a similar sewage system like back in Aquilo.
The circular tunnel was clean from top to bottom unlike the moss-grown tunnel with murky waters that he had to encounter back in Aquilo. Here the cemented walls were only covered in a slight sheen of dust but the light bulbs that shone on them from above were completely clean making it possible to extract maximum lighting from them even though they were comparatively dimmer in nature.
Even the air inside the tunnel didn't feel heavy and stale but had a refreshing cool texture that felt soothing to breathe in.
Noticing the look on Aksel's face the dagger lady laughed and said, "Don't need to look too shocked we take turns maintaining this, after all this is our home."
Nodding at her Aksel complimented, "Your hard work paid off."
"We are now safe so let's start with our introductions," the bow lady stated from behind him and when she received a nod she said, "My name is Sasha and I have been a Rues in this city for the last 4 years."
Immediately after her, the bleached hair girl jumped in front of both Yve and Aksel as she introduced herself, "I am Renee and I have been a Rues for 2 years."
Aksel was astonished to hear these numbers; he hadn't expected this place to be filled with Rues that had been living in hiding for so long. If they had been able to evade the Branding System then these people must have been far more progressed in both their fighting and living techniques.
Not to forget that they seemed to have been able to use technology like the System as well.
Taking the lead when Yve noticed Aksel lost in his thoughts she said, "I am Yve. I have been living as Rues for the past three months and this is Aksel, he just recently entered through the door about a week ago."
"Oh you both are younger than me," Renee giggled walking ahead and making them follow behind her.
Aksel was glad to make their acquaintance but aside from these pleasantries, there was one very impending question that he had been hesitating to ask, scared of the answer that he might receive.
Before he could gather enough courage to ask Sasha who was walking in line with Yve he heard her asking a question, "But how did you two come here? I was pleasantly surprised when I spotted you two sitting on top of that crate."
"It's a long story," Yve said glancing at Aksel beside her as she continued, "Daren, another unbranded back in Aquilo, and I had been living a quiet life alone until last week when this guy suddenly appeared and toppled our worlds."
"Why? What happened?" Renee who had started taking interest in the conversation turned to look at them and prattled as she walked backward.
"He insisted that he needed to get out of the wretched city and find a place where we could be free of the Branding System. He wanted to get away from this life as he believed that there must be a place from where we were picked from and then sent to be forced to live like this."
Suddenly all attention was on him and nodding Sasha said, "You are smart and curious for a person who was suddenly thrust into this mad world not long ago."
Unable to stop himself any longer Aksel asked, "So, do you think that there is a place like that? An outside world without the System? I had thought that Aquilo was the only city that they controlled but after finding Novus I am starting to doubt my theory."
"Well you are the first one in a long time that has arrived in our city and frankly you are the first unbranded I have ever seen who had escaped the System and made it so far, I don't know much about people before me but if there is another city like us then there's a probability that there are more of these as well," Sasha said gravely but Aksel could sense her sentence to be incomplete and pushing her he asked.
"And?"
The attention was now completely on Sasha who looked at all the expecting faces and then putting back her hair behind her ears she said, "I didn't want to give much hope to anyone but you might be right about a place that is yet not ruled by the System but no one knows how far and where it might be."
The term Novus was ringing in his head as something that his memories entailed but about what it was he couldn't properly pinpoint. He decided to look into it later, for now, he was still happy with the answer that he had received.
There was still hope for freedom.