SWNOVELXO Chapter 13: City square
Zane walked into the city, and right off the bat, the nostalgia hit him. He couldn't remember the last time in the game he came to Raven City. When compared to other cities and kingdoms, it was very lackluster, and top players like him could have absolutely nothing to do here.
The stone houses, the cobblestone streets. They had some massive structures made of black bricks and more, but those were special buildings with difficult purposes.
For now, Zane wanted to understand the current state of things with players. What plans had been made and how they had adapted to the situation.
After seeing those ones out in the forest, he had a feeling some of them had taken it well and were already looking to grow. Sadly, he basically ruined the growth potential of those ten completely.
By the time they managed to gather any resources to fully heal themselves, others would have surely leveled up and gone far ahead.
Zane saw a few people walking around, doing one thing or the other, but so far he had not seen any players.
Though the people around kept looking at him and Lucy and whispering, some men couldn't keep their eyes off Lucy, and most of the women would look at Zane, say something, and then giggle.
'I guess being this good looking draws attention, hehe, I could really get used to this.' Zane thought, a hidden narcissistic part of him crept out. But one had to be realistic, who wouldn't love it if he got so good-looking he pulled looks from across the street? In Zane's mind, anyone that said they wouldn't was a liar.
After walking a few minutes, he decided to ask around, so he stopped in front of a man who was about to cross the road. The man was a middle-aged man with some grey hair, a rough stubble on his chin.
"Hey," Zane called out. "Good day," he greeted.
"Yeah yeah, what do you want?" the man asked, turning to see who it was. But the moment his eyes landed on Lucy, he quickly kept quiet and the frown on his face shifted into a very creepy smile.
"Ho ho, young lady, sorry for my rude behavior just now," the man said and tried to hold her hand and kiss it, but Zane stretched his hand and stopped the man.
The man shot Zane a cold look, but when he looked into Zane's eyes, something in him screamed for him to back off, so he took a step back.
"What do you want?" the man asked. His anger at Zane wasn't hidden at all.
"The Chosen, I heard a lot of them came to this city, so where are they?" Zane asked.
"The Chosen? What would someone like you want with them? They are the Chosen of the gods, normal people like us shouldn't get too close to them," the man said.
"That's not what I asked. Where are the Chosen?" Zane asked again in a serious tone.
The man frowned. He didn't like the tone Zane used, but he could tell that Zane was very powerful, and if he did something careless, he might end up dead.
"Head to the city's square. The count and governor of Raven City called on all the Chosen to speak with them. They should all be there now," the man said.
'The city square huh, if that's the case, then I'm sure the governor simply wants to get in the good graces of the players and also recruit some of them,' Zane thought. He already knew where the future square was, so he headed that way, leaving the man there.
"I pray you die, you stupid brat," the man cursed Zane under his breath, but Zane heard it easily. He turned and smiled at the man, then kept walking.
"Master, shouldn't I kill that man for insulting you?" Lucy asked.
"No, if we start killing everyone that says something bad about us, we will butcher the entire world," Zane replied.
The middle-aged man, on the other hand, was shaken by the smile that Zane showed him, because the moment Zane smiled, he allowed his fangs to come out.
The man was horrified, believing that Zane was some sort of monster. He felt the need to tell someone, but who would believe him? And if he did, then maybe Zane would come after him and kill him.
The man rushed across the street and vanished into an alley, still filled with fear.
Zane paid attention to the man's reaction from where he was, and when he saw the man rush away, he smiled.
After a few more minutes of walking, they finally arrived at the city square, and just reaching there, they saw a massive crowd gathered. The entire square was filled with people.
And right off the bat, Zane could tell that sixty to seventy percent of the people that were here were players, and the rest were citizens of Raven City.
He looked around from where he stood. Being about six feet two in this body, he could see above the heads of almost everyone.
The players were talking to each other as they waited for the count. He also noticed that some of them had gotten some reasonably ranked weapons and gear.
There was only one way that could have been possible, and that was that they had played the game before, so they had knowledge of it.
Those were the people to be feared right now—those who had played the game, and especially those that had played till ascension. They knew the path to take to reach the very peak.
While he was watching them, the count finally came on the small wooden makeshift stage at the center, close to the fountain of a massive Raven bird.
He was a relatively short man with a large beer belly that pushed on the red robes he wore. His jet black hair flowed down to his neck. And beside him was the guard, the knight—a young man with white hair and blue eyes, tall and handsome in a full fitting armor.