When I went to visit the castle, I was unfortunately turned away, as apparently they were closing for the day. It still looked early to , but I supposed that the ruler had other things he'd rather be doing than kingdom managent.
I certainly can't complain. I left the branch duties to Llewel and the island to Vee.
I inquired about finding a place to stay, and instead of an inn, they pointed to a house I could stay in. The house, while small, had all the essentials and even a housekeeper golem, responsible for cleaning and basic al preparation. Sadly, the golem couldn't be kept because it belonged to the house, but it left a positive impression of its usefulness.
Overall, I rated my first day in Keld as positive; the people were friendly, and the golems' positive aspects were on full display. The city was safe from golem defenders, the people were fed by golem workers, and the golems even took care of your day-to-day activities.
In fact, things felt so positive that I couldn't help but wonder if this was so kind of propaganda or advertisent campaign. Maybe Keldenar wasn't busy, and everyone was forced to stay at least a day before seeing him, so they could see what his kingdom could offer.
Well, if that's true, it's certainly working…
I spent most of my evening testing the house's golem. I thought it might have been a potential spy, but I soon found out it had no way of sensing magic. Other than household chores and upkeep, it had no other functions. Seeing that, I spent my free ti poking around with magic creation until I went to sleep.
The next day, I woke up bright and early and thanked the golem before departing. I spent so ti wandering around, waiting for people to wake up while observing the city at work. When I ran out of things to do, and I felt it was ti, I approached the castle again.
This ti, I was let in and escorted by a rather embellished guard golem; however, whatever fanciness it had was swiftly ruined when I saw the golems becoming more and more lifelike as we went deeper. There were tis I could've sworn they were people, only to double-check and see the truth after using a few sensory traits on them.
I arrived in what must have been the audience room, lined with guards and a large throne at the end, raised on a set of steps. Leisurely lying on it while being fed grapes from a servant was a man in his late twenties who looked sowhat out of place.
Rather than wearing a royal garb, he seed to be wearing a mix of leather, a chain shirt, and a cloak. If not for the crown on his head, I would have thought so adventurer had fallen off a cart and arrived here.
As for the rest of his appearance… I could only describe him as weirdly average? He had short, unkempt black hair and brown eyes. However, what gave pause was the sheer presence he exuded, as if I felt instinctively threatened by him. Feeling that tingle, I quickly swapped my Emblem to [Apex Hunter] and had my suspicion confird.
Worthy!
I was a bit startled by that; I hadn't expected it to count him, since he wasn't human. Or was the ruler of a human, regardless of their race, considered its apex? Even so, I knew he was a diamond-tier adventurer, but with all my evolutions and variety of classes, I hadn't expected to be on the lower end.
"Hey! Welco, welco, sorry I couldn't see you yesterday, thank you for coming," he said politely as he suddenly sat up and patted his hands against his pants. "I'm Keldenar, although my friends just call Keld, and yes, I know that's a bit weird considering the kingdom na… But, please ignore that."
"No problem, I enjoyed experiencing the city. I'm Syl."
"That's good, great even," he said with a smile. "You're the first elf here, Syl, so I was hoping you'd like it. I can only imagine what secrets the elven cities hold; it probably makes my humble kingdom look like so backwater village."
"Not necessarily… The golems seem far more capable than the animated plants we utilize, as they can only perform the most mundane of chores."
"So you do use plants… I figured it was either that or maybe animals, or even animal people…" his speech drifted, and he suddenly snapped back. "Are there animal people?"
"We do sotis enlist the aid of [Bonded Companions]... As for animal people, do you an werewolves?"
Keld sighed and shook his head. "No, not werewolves… I was hoping there would be beastkin, or sothing similar. I guess the gods weren't lying to ."
He's spoken to the gods!? I thought only [Experints] and [Dungeon Masters] did that?
"Anyway. I'm really glad you ca; I never could have imagined that one of the fabled elves would appear in so backwater adventurers' guild. You were invited quite so ti ago. I was worried you had changed your mind."
"I was a little preoccupied, unfortunately…"
"Oh, I'm not complaining, even if you took years, I'm just glad it finally happened. I tried reaching out through the dwarves a few tis, but I was always turned down. Then there's the fact that half the humans are terrified of elves as if you're the boogieman, or worse, and it certainly makes trying to find out anything about you guys almost impossible."
The way he talked gave a strange feeling. It almost reminded of Vee.
"Anyway, let's see…" he suddenly said and seed to be interacting with sothing only he could see. "You passed the test by inflicting several afflictions on my golem, which I had never even seen before, and then struck it with water of all things.
You were a Shadowcaster back then. Which, despite the na, is not involved with shadows; no, that's an Umbral Mage… Now you're an Elentalist? Can't say I've heard of that one before, although the na is pretty self-explanatory."
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Keldenar continued to ramble a bit as he stared off into nowhere. I wondered what ability he was using to recall all this information and cross-reference it with my current situation, and yes, I was hiding my Riftmancer class under Elentalist.
When he finished whatever he was doing, he looked at . His eyes seed to flash, and I suddenly felt naked, as if he'd seen straight through and actually had to resist the urge to try to cover my core with my hands.
"Huh? That's not right…" Keldenar muttered and seed confused. "Not an Elentalist… Riftmancer? What the heck is that…?"
I felt a chill through my core. He had actually seen through my [Identity Fabrication], which had never happened before. Yes, there was a slight penalty for making up information, but considering I actually had levels in Elentalist, it should have been absolutely minimal.
However, what he said next sent reeling; I could never have seen it coming.
"Wait. You're actually a sli?"
I felt like my world had abruptly shattered, and my worst nightmare was coming true. My emotions were in turmoil as I was forced into a fight-or-flight response. My heart and mind wanted to flee, but my gut wanted to silence the witness, permanently.
Suddenly, the entire castle began to tremble, and Keldenar actually looked away from and to the ceiling. He seed genuinely puzzled, and with his attention gone for a mont, I made my move.
With an internal vote of two to one, I fled, and since I didn't have the ti for a long-range teleport or the desired range for my [Personal Rift], I chained together a combo of [Blink] spells.
"Oh! That rift! Din—" the rest of his words were cut off as I vanished from the room.
To my relief, nothing stopped my spell. It was the largest chain I'd ever created, but it sent straight out of the city. It was risky to teleport blindly, but sohow I had escaped by going up first and then away. Now that I felt sowhat safe, my terror quickly turned to rage.
Shit, shit, shit! I can't believe this. What the hell, after everything, I just get outed in such an absurd manner!
It felt unfair. I'd always been overly cautious, and even the elves hadn't seen through my shapeshifting; so why could one human adventurer do so? Unfortunately, I had no answers. I just wanted to get out of here while I left, figuring out how to deal with the aftermath for later.
My main form is now compromised. This couldn't be worse…
I was busy setting up for a long-range teleport when I suddenly felt sothing trigger my [Spatial Sense]. It felt vaguely similar to a teleport, but also not that, as it appeared to be both arriving and leaving at the sa ti. I ignored my curiosity about the phenonon and continued retrieving a set of coordinates to Glimrock, which felt both safe and far enough away.
"Wait!" Keldenar's voice cried out; he had inexplicably arrived on the scene.
I couldn't believe my eyes. He was supposed to be a golemancer; he shouldn't have been able to teleport.
Wait, he's also an enchanter. Did he recreate sothing by studying the guild's teleportation platforms?
I raised his threat level a few tis in my internal evaluation, and was suddenly glad I hadn't chosen to teleport directly to the island. There now seed to be the possibility that he could reverse engineer my coordinates by studying my teleportation point, risking our location.
I shouldn't have taken apart [Stabilized Fluctuations]. This must be how he tracked down. I'll have to make sure I properly conceal my coordinates before teleporting back to Vee.
Naturally, I ignored whatever he had said and was still rapidly formulating my escape spell. I was about to cast it when suddenly the spell in my grasp fizzled into nothing.
"Oh, thank the gods, I finished enough of it before you ran away," Keldenar said, sighing with a look of relief.
While he was relieved, I was in utter turmoil. Sothing bizarre had happened, and I couldn't reach any of my usual coordinates. My mind was racing as calculations were being made, and I tried several spells until I reached a rather terrifying conclusion.
He's sealed the entire region!?
It was similar to the prison Vee and I had lived in while with the elves: coordinates inside the room could be tampered with, but you couldn't reach outside at all. Even my [Landmarks] spell showed the locations as "unavailable," with the sole exception of Keld; the rest were all grayed out.
I wondered if this was the ability of a ruler, or sothing he'd done with enchanting. I suspected it was the forr, as using enchanting to seal an entire countryside seed far too unbelievable. With flight no longer an option, my heart and mind beca turncoats and were firmly settled on fight.
My [Personal Rift] manifested around , granting swift, pinpoint accuracy across all the coordinates it covered, working in tandem with [Spatial Sense]. With this, there was no need for [Position]; I could skip straight to [Positioning] if needed.
While I didn't know what the golemancer class was capable of, I had fought a summoner, and they seed sowhat similar. Therefore, I felt like they both suffered the sa weakness—decapitation. The golems and summons might be strong, but take out the squishy human behind them, and it would all fall apart.
I was taking the aning of decapitation quite literally as I used [Spatial Severing] to imdiately go for the throat. [Rift Rend] was stronger, but not nearly as subtle, and I hoped to finish it off in a single blow.
"Whoa!" Keldenar yelled as he suddenly jumped backward, narrowly avoiding the dinsional cut. He seed unable to see it, yet sohow he sensed it.
"Thank you as always [Danger Sense], best points I've ever spent," Keldenar chuckled as he unconsciously rubbed his throat.
Seeing that subtlety had failed, I cast [Rift Rend] with the help of several [Sub-Cores]. Together, we unleashed a barrage of rapidly advancing cuts across space that together should have ford an inescapable net.
Keldenar's eyes widened, and then he abruptly vanished. In his place was a rather plain-looking golem, which was instantly sliced apart.
I quickly turned around and saw him standing a lengthy distance away from . However, he was admiring the aftermath of what happened to his golem rather than looking at .
"If not for [Castling], I would have been in a sticky situation there…" Keldenar nonchalantly comnted, still not looking at . "Looks like [Dinsion Magic] isn't to be ssed around with; no wonder ordinary people can't buy the affinity."
While he seed obsessed with his now-dead golem, I was replaying what had just happened in my mind. It had all happened within the range of my [Personal Rift], so despite it happening at seemingly imasurable speed, I had still caught it.
He summoned a sacrificial golem and then instantly traded places with it…
I had never seen sothing like this before. It must have been a skill, as I hadn't sensed any magical fluctuations at all. This also explained how he caught up with , as he must have traded places with one of the patrolling golems.
Suddenly, I had dozens of questions, but the focus was on what the maximum range was on the swap or the golem summoning, as both were crucial for to find out if I had any hope of defeating or escaping from this opponent.
Going off how the gods usually balanced things, I imagined he couldn't summon golems anywhere. The swap probably had a limit too, but he'd already shown it could reach my location in almost no ti, at least within his kingdom. I wasn't sure if either had a cooldown between activations; I certainly hoped they did.
Fortunately, I just so happen to specialize in large-scale explosions… If I force you to flee a great distance, I can make my escape.
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