Yarra’s Adventure Notes
Chapter 1357 - 143 Capital of the Undead

Chapter 1357: Chapter 143 Capital of the Undead

As they walked the last leg of the canyon under the pale moonlight, the visibility was so poor that only professionals with their superior physical qualities would be able to see. Even with the girls’ current vision, anything a little farther away appeared hazy; fortunately, with Pannis’s sense of hearing and smell, they didn’t worry about dangers arriving by surprise. Walking was just less convenient. However, this was merely a pesky issue within the canyon itself, as everything changed when the adventure team approached the exit.

At the end of the canyon were a few rugged bends, and as they entered these bends, they could see faint light seeping in from outside the canyon. The further they walked, the brighter the light became. Although the intensity was still weak, at least it was no longer considered an illusion. When the team turned the final bend and stepped out of the canyon, they were greeted with a sudden expanse of open space, no longer confined by the steep cliffs of the canyon. Before them lay a vast plain. While the distant part of the plain was shrouded in darkness, the side closer to the canyon was lit by innumerable twinkling lights that merged into a bright area, slightly illuminating the sky and extending light to the feet of the group by the canyon, circumventing the nuisance of the darkness.

"Is this... the City of the Undead?" Lina covered her mouth, eyes wide as she beheld the sight before her. It wasn’t just her; everyone, including Pannis, stood spellbound by the flickering lights. The priestess girl couldn’t hide her astonishment as she stammered, "Or, or, originally I thought the Undead could only... could only... build cities like this. It’s my first time in this world to see the Undead build houses not made of bones. No, not just this world, count in both worlds, I have never seen the Undead construct houses of other materials; I thought they only knew how to use bones for their buildings."

Just as Lina had marveled, none of the buildings in this vast architectural group, which stretched as far as the eye could see, were made of bone. All visible houses within sight were built of stone. The city lacked walls—something not needed in the world at this stage. All houses were concentrated in an open area, with stones for building meticulously chiseled to the same size, stacked neatly layer by layer. A special clay mixed with sand served to bond the stones together, making the stone walls sturdy and solid. The roofs were sloped, not made from a single stone, but from many smaller stones staggered layer by layer, gradually converging inward to a sealed top. The houses had windows, slender stone bars woven into lattices through which the twinkling lights shone, casting a glow that infused the cold stone city with vivacity.

The entire city’s buildings were constructed of brick, with only the doors made of bone, which confirmed to visitors that this was indeed a city of the Undead.

"There’s something I just don’t understand." Lina crossed her arms and looked at the city comprising tens of thousands of buildings with a peculiar expression, sighing deeply, "I know, they are the Undead, but even so, is there a need to make the houses look like tombs? Look at these buildings, they are just like enlarged burial chambers. The entire city looks like the cemetery of the Holy City. Is the aesthetic of these Undead so despairingly different?"

"Uh, that is indeed a question worth discussing," Catherine said with a twitch of her mouth, unsure of how to respond. Lina’s comment was spot on. As adventurers, before meeting Pannis, they had explored ancient ruins and inadvertently entered old tombs. The stone houses they saw now indeed resembled tombs. The knight girl could only sigh like Lina and say helplessly, "Well, there’s always a gap in beauty standards between races; you can’t hold the Undead to human standards. Perhaps in the eyes of the Undead, such buildings are considered proper homes. Remember when we were on Beastmen Prairie? Some Beastmen didn’t find girls like Marcia attractive, even though she was so beautiful. Maybe it’s the same with the Undead."

"And don’t forget about the difference in eras," Pannis irresponsibly chimed in. "The most recent of these Undead lived in the Third Epoch. The aesthetic standards of that era are totally different from ours. Maybe back in the Third Epoch everyone liked this kind of architecture. These tombs, sorry, these houses are great – safe, sturdy, simply perfect."

"Isabella said she wants to kill you, and Tifa said the same thing. It’s the first time their opinions have been so aligned; I think you might be in trouble anytime soon," Lina made a look of disdain at Pannis, "No matter what, wanting to enter a city like this really challenges the mental fortitude of ordinary people."

"Stop kidding around and let’s head into the city already. You are not like Dora, that boring woman. Are you afraid of a crypt? No no no, or maybe a ghost jumping out of a room?" Vivian had just finished speaking when she suddenly thought about it and muttered, "That doesn’t seem right, in this world it’s actually quite possible for a ghost to suddenly jump out of one of these rooms. Thinking about it, it suddenly seems unimaginable for Dora to live in peace with the Undead. She’ll probably end up hating us a lot."

"That idiot, who cares about her." Catherine rolled her eyes and, pushing the reluctant Lina from behind, quickened her pace towards the Undead city.

The closer they got to the Undead city, the clearer they could see the city, thanks to the lights in each room. It was a city with no defenses: no walls, no guards, no patrolling soldiers, just a mass of houses sprawling into one another. Between the houses were streets paved with stone slabs that stretched to every corner of the city, making it more convenient for the citizens to come and go. Surprisingly, these houses weren’t just residences; from a distance, one could see some houses had stone signs hanging at the entrance. Although the writing on the signs was still unclear, by their form, it was obvious those houses with signs were different from the ordinary dwellings.

"Kenseth doesn’t seem to have told us the whole truth," Catherine said with a thoughtful look on her face before they even entered the city’s bounds, "A settlement of this scale can’t exist without commercial institutions, and having such institutions means there will definitely be currency in circulation, not at all like he said, trading solely through bartering."

"He never said that," Freya whispered, "It was just that when we thought their world hadn’t developed currency yet, he didn’t deny it."

The former and current noble young ladies exchanged glances, both breaking into bright smiles that made one instinctively clasp their purses tighter.