Demonic Skeleton God
Chapter 47: City

Chapter 47: City

Flain swiftly picked up Itai onto his back and ordered him to hide the zombies. Then, he quickly climbed up a tree.

Moments later, Flain heard footsteps, and soon he saw the source of the disturbance. A large mushroom-like humanoid approached the camp. Its back had purple skin, while its belly was white. Purple mushrooms grew all over its back, and its head was a single, massive purple mushroom.

Flain decided not to attack but to stay hidden instead, as his instincts for magic energy told him that this monster was much stronger than he was. While his instincts for magic energy weren’t fully developed yet, he preferred to trust them.

The humanoid stopped in the middle of the camp and stood there for a while but eventually continued moving. Once it had left the camp, Flain stayed in the tree for another half an hour, just to be safe, before finally jumping down.

There were two possible reasons why the humanoid didn’t attack them. The first was that it lacked the instinct to sense magic energy and simply didn’t notice them. The second was that it wasn’t hostile—even if it had noticed them, it chose not to attack.

Itai then summoned the three zombies from the ground again, the ones carrying the sacks, and together they set off on their journey. Itai was still tired, but it was too dangerous to sleep here.

As they moved through the forest, they stayed within sight of a road leading somewhere. Since it followed the direction the farmer had pointed toward the city, Flain assumed it led to their destination.

They walked and walked, and night was falling again. It seemed they would have to survive another night in the wilderness. However, their path soon led to a crossroads, and now the group had a clear view of a much larger road. Before long, they saw a carriage passing by in the opposite direction, and about an hour later, they spotted the city walls.

Flain’s group circled around the city, then emerged from the forest onto a different road that curved to the right—toward the city. Now, it would appear as if they had arrived from the opposite direction, making it seem unrelated to the incident.

They then crossed a vast meadow where the city stood. The city had two entrance and exit sections—one designated for people and the other for carriages.

Flain, Itai, and the zombies lined up in the queue for pedestrians. The line was fairly long, but people were being let through quickly, so before long, it was their turn to face the two guards. These guards looked much stronger than the ones from the village.

Flain’s sense for magic energy activated at will, and right now, it decided not to, so he couldn’t tell whether these guards were stronger than him. But he didn’t need to know—attacking the city was not part of his plan.

"Are the five of you together?" the first guard asked. Flain nodded.

"I’ll need to inspect those sacks," the second guard said.

Itai ordered the zombies to hand over the sacks, and the guards searched through them. Eventually, they finished their inspection and returned the sacks to the zombies.

"Alright, nothing here is on the list of stolen items," the second guard said.

"Looks like you had a pretty good hunt. I’ve never seen a crystal monster before—it looks expensive. You may enter the city," the first guard said.

They entered the city. The city had an advanced medieval style. Most of the buildings and streets were made of stone, and along the sides, there were black poles with golden lights burning at the top, resembling street lamps.

"Alright, we need to sell these things quickly before it raises suspicion. After all, there are monster corpses from a dungeon guarded by the soldiers we killed," Flain said.

"Leave the selling to me, don’t worry, I know quite a bit about it," Itai said.

"Alright, I’ll trust you. But don’t forget to take a helmet from one of the undead so the buyer doesn’t recognize your identity. In the meantime, I’ll take a look around the city. Let’s meet back here in two hours," Flain said.

Then they split up. Flain trusted that Itai wouldn’t mess things up—at least, he hoped so. As Flain walked through the city, he found it quite crowded and also noticed many soldiers. When he sensed their magic energy, he realized that if he fought even one of them, he wouldn’t stand a chance.

Flain kept walking and was intrigued by a shop with a sword sign on it, so he stepped inside. It was a large, luxurious store selling melee weapons. The prices were quite high—every weapon cost at least over 1,000 gold.

A tall, elderly man approached Flain. "May I help you with something?" he asked.

"No, I’m just looking," Flain replied.

"Ah, just as I expected when I look at your armor. I’m used to curious people coming in and buying nothing," the old man sighed.

"Could you assess this sword for me?" Flain asked.

"Alright, since I have nothing better to do," the old man said and took the sword.

"It has no enchantments or runes. But it’s made of a fairly good alloy. It might even hold up against someone at stage 4," the old man said.

Flain hadn’t realized the sword was that good. He wondered where Zehren had gotten it from, as he doubted that the lizards even had blacksmithing, let alone the ability to forge such a sword.

"You could tell just by touching it?" Flain asked.

"Yes. Since I’m both an enchanter and a blacksmith, I’ve gained a special sense that allows me to determine such things. If you’re just a blacksmith, you can only assess the quality of the metal, but since I’m also an enchanter, I can detect enchantments as well. I’m not a runesmith, but it’s easy to see there are no runes engraved on it. Anyway, it’s called the Maker’s Sense, and almost everyone has it," the old man said.

"Alright. Thanks for the lesson, but I should get going—I want to explore the city some more," Flain said.

"Don’t want to sell it to me? It’s too good for you, and you could use the money to buy proper armor," the old man asked, but Flain immediately refused.

Flain walked to the door and opened it. But instead of seeing the city outside, he saw something entirely different.

Flain blinked several times, but it was still there.

The door now led into a dark, vast hall. In the center stood a figure...