Written by-Silver crown
Ch-12 City of Serbs or grievance
Jinn who only has a one-year-old child physique quietly fell asleep. Nonetheless, his attempt got some fruition. Jinn had a weird Lucid dream in his sleep.
Inside the dream, pitch-black darkness covered his vision. Jinn has a feeling that he wasn't himself but inside another life form's consciousness.
A consciousness of someone who was waiting to be found. Jinn know he was inside unfamiliar data that couldn't match his algorithmic processing.
Jinn exerted his psychic power and tuned the energy wavelength. After tuning for an unknown period, he found himself surrounded by numerous grey strings. Each string carries its respective information.
The curious cat, Jinn tried to touch the nearest string to experiment with what would occur.
Jinn does not have a form. He neither has hands to touch nor legs to move around. However, his psychic energy allows him to change the corresponding format that can touch or move around in this environment.
As soon as he touched a string, Jinn felt an intense feeling of loneliness and isolation was conducted through him. As well as, It's yearning for liberation from this confined repetitious loop.
It was Jinn's first time experiencing emotions that can be conducted through a unique spiritual or data connection. Jinn was affected by a torrent of unfamiliar emotions that wasn't his. It was uncomfortable and painful. So, he quickly cut off his psychic connection.
Inside these numerous strings, it wasn't possible to find specific kinds of information. The processing itself is painful. Plus, the energy consumption is enormous. Yet, the data received isn't comprehensible.
For current Jinn, this wasn't a favorable equation to continue experimenting. Jinn decided to withdraw but he found a faint ray of light shining from a string. Again, curiosity got Jinn and he touched that glowing string.
This string shows a dream. The dream of a person surrounded by companions traveling across the realm. The journey he went on was filled with thrilling and adventurous events. Eating tasty food he comes across. Free and unbounded without worrying about what would come tomorrow. Many of the person's ambition was beyond the vastness of heaven and the might of the earth.
The glowing string was the hopes and desires that kept the data structure from being erased or collapse by the erosion of time and loneliness. Jinn found this structural type quite ingenious. He tried to comprehend its guardian code.
'One day there would be the one who was chosen. The one who would fulfill the promise and free me from this imprisonment. But I'm enough of this loop...'
Jinn woke up because of a slight vibration of the carriage. It was dawn and the caravan started moving. Jinn recalled his Lucid dream. He was sure that he didn't have any event similar in his past three life. Maybe he forgot that he was a homunculus for a brief moment.
He didn't have a program for ambition or purpose in his past life. He is just a homunculus who obeys what they are told and lives as they said.
In conclusion, the data must be from the glowing person An Shi. The scrambled memory gives the valuable key to his research. It was unfortunate that he couldn't get the memory of the tribe with ants from the string.
It took 3 days for Jinn to reach their settlement. More and more men and carriages joined the caravan along the way. Jinn was fortunate. The crew didn't discover him throughout the journey.
The caravan entered a city and the chatting become livelier and livelier. Jinn who was covering his ear, felt his cart stop. He found they were stopping at some market.
The fierce-looking men took the captives inside the cage and show them on the stage. Some men come to the cart where Jinn was hiding. They pulled out a coarse linen sheet and dropped it on the ground.
If they have sharp observation, they might see the sheet they dropped on the ground has a suspicious shape. They picked valuable things and went to the stage.
Sensing no one figured out his existence, Jinn began to move slowly to some distance. His destination was the dark alleyway so he could hide somewhere. After crawling from some distance Jinn stand up and ran toward the alley while avoiding gazes.
In these days inside the caravan, he summarized a few things to do when he settled. Jinn deployed the short-term mission as follows
First, find a place to settle down without getting caught.
Then secure food and water to survive.
Investigate his current location, and timeline and determine a route to An Shi assignment.
Make sufficient preparation for the journey.
Develop his current physical body enough to withstand upcoming travel.
When he reached the alley, Jinn saw many skinny elderly people wearing disheveled bandages. They either sat or lay on the messy narrow walkway. Some people had amputated legs and fingers.
They were observing Jinn while Jinn was doing the same thing.
An old hunched woman walked toward Jinn while dragging a cane. Unpleasant sounds were coming from friction between the ground and her cane. She pointed to a place and said
"This isn't a place you belong to, go there. Children live beside that sewage drain."
She unkindly pushed Jinn back with her cane. She hit the ground in front of Jinn's legs. Then pointed to the other side while making a shooing gesture.
Jinn walked in the direction she pointed. He saw several children with bandaged hands begging pedestrians for some food.
Some people walked away in disgust, some just kick the child out of their way. Jinn heard a buzzing sound and his vision became blurry. He heard a man saying
"This is the city of Grievance, In their native tongue this ruin city's name was Serbs."
" Once it was a city thriving with giant ants and slaves. They also have people with a strange disease."
"Mage apprentices, as you can see these ghouls and undead have strange mutations called leprosy."
"Their body doesn't have mana so the disease corrodes their body as a substitute."
"In the war, many of our soldiers died because of this strange disease and burrowing ants."
"When you got infected. Your mana started to drain an unnoticeable amount."
"But after some weeks or days, mana inside our body started to leak out like a broken dam."
"Because of this illness, we lost over a total of seventy thousand brave soldiers from mana backlash."
"Don't be afraid of this disease."
"Alchemist for the empire already found a cure for this strange disease."
"But if you didn't diagnose at an early stage, this would damage your mana storage capacity."
"Your conditions will be checked regularly in the infirmary. The apothecary will cure as soon as find the symptoms."
"This program is held not only to enhance your understanding of undead and hybrid but also to get immunity to these kinds of disease."
"Raise your hand if you have any other questions."
A brief flashback appeared inside Jinn's brain. Jinn who was holding his head like a lunatic was laying on the ground.
Skinny children with bandages looked at Jinn curiously.
Jinn controlled his unrhythmic heavy breathing. He sort out foreign information he received.
This information wasn't his. He doesn't have translated version of what the man spoke out. However, his Superb analysis program makes him possible to deduct some information.
Jinn ignored some facts he didn't know like mana or imperial alchemist. He mummed "City of Grievance?".
However, in reality, Jinn's vocal was only producing 'gu gu ga ga' baby noise. Memory fragments told this city's inhabitants are going to die or relocate. This means this city was hit by that calamity called war.
This information provides both good and bad news. It is good because he could find out the route to that glowing person. Yet, it is also bad because he couldn't guess when that event will happen.
Jinn sat down near a corner and started to collect information first. He couldn't speak a syllable but he could still listen and observe the surrounding.
These children and inhabitant people were the best specimens for the source of information. Jinn observed the children located around him first.
He analyzed what they were doing. Some of them went near the shopping district to beg but they were beaten by some men with clubs. Jinn saw a sneaky little one slip through the guards and shoplift some food and run away.
The guard who beat the kids stopped their action and chase after the thief. The kids who got beaten immediately run a different direction and wait at some corner of the street where their champion thief relayed their stolen food.
Some beggar kids tried to pickpocket a pedestrian but they get caught and kicked by that woman. She throws her shoes to the running imps that dare to steal her money.
Jinn was sitting quietly in a corner and observed every interaction, conversation, and rule. He deducted information from the observation inside his brain.