419 A New Residence
Abel said to Bartoli, “You got a temporary permit, didn’t you, Bartoli? I was just told that you can bring five people with you to live in the city.”
“Yes, Master!” Bartoli bowed, “I’ll redo my identification. Please wait for a moment.”
After Bartoli re-did her identification as Abel’s servant, she came back to Abel with her new identity card.
“I’m so glad that you told me that in time, Master!” Bartoli said to Abel, “I know you gave me a lot of intermediate gemstones, but that’s twenty of them that I almost spent just there! Can you believe it? Twenty for ten days!”
“That kind of make sense now,” Abel replied, then rubbed his chin with his hand, “So that’s why they offered ten thousand to me just then. They thought I was a young boy that they could take advantage of.”
Bartoli tried to hold her laughter as she heard this. “A young boy that could be taken advantage of”? She knew exactly what Abel was doing before this. If someone managed to bully him, she would really be amazed. She didn’t think anyone could do that.
“So, uh,” Abel asked, “why did you, you know, why did you come here on foot?”
Bartoli replied, “You didn’t know, Master? There’s no carriage I can hire that’ll get me here, so I can walk to get here.”
While it had been many, many years since Bartoli had been to a city, she knew how to find her ways into one. That being said, Liante City was simply too special to gain access to.
“Oh, sorry about that. No, really,” Abel said, then let out a chocobo from his portal beast ring, “Here. She’s yours now.”
The chocobo was from the Wizard Intelligence Agency. Since the St. Ellis Wizard Union was eradicated, no one was going to care if a bird or two went missing. It was a little hard to tame at the start, but after spending some time with Flying Flame, it was now just as timid as the blue howling rabbits.”
After Bartoli got on the chocobo’s back, she started to follow Black Wind’s footsteps. When they disappeared from the crowd, everyone began to speak again.
The scribe still couldn’t believe what he saw, “Wow. So he has an intermediate wizard as his servant?”
The knight looked over the distance in admiration, “He’s a powerful one. It’s the first time I saw someone throwing a knight’s commander like that.”
The knight’s commander that Abel threw was very pale right now. He didn’t ever expect to be toyed around like this.
Right now, since Abel had no use of his old wizard badge, he was throwing it around like a toy.
Abel looked at the double staff badge that Bartoli had, “Let’s just head to where we live. And take me to get a new wizard badge tomorrow.”
Bartoli complied, “Yes, Master. An important note: most of the things here can only be purchased with your wizard points. The gemstones can only be used to buy normal food, and gold coins aren’t commonly used here.”
Bartoli already did her research on Liante City since Abel ordered her to. Liante City was like a giant company. Everyone was supposed to fulfill their role. If not, there would be almost no way for them to survive here.
As Abel walked around, he saw a lot of things that he hadn’t before. For starters, there weren’t any normal shops around here. There weren’t a lot of shops, to begin with, actually. The ones he saw were all related to combat. There were weapon stores, potion stores, and material recycling stores. Other than that, there weren’t a lot of people setting up shops here. As for the pedestrians that were walking around, most of them were occupation holders. Since the only currencies here were gemstones and ranking points, it was not easy for “normal people” to make a living here.
It took about ten-something minutes for Abel to walk to where the property was. On his way there, he had seen at least a total of twenty knight’s commanders. That was simply insane. He never expected there to be a place with this many talented people.
And, he was still in the outer part of the city. The more he walked towards the center, the more impressed, even scared, he became. The knight’s commanders he saw were all pretty young. They all had a menacing aura around them, too. They were definitely the “real deal,” and not the rich boys raised in wealthy families.
While Bartoli was not from the Holy Continent, she also came from a noble’s background, “Master, the knights here are known to engage in high-difficulty combat. As long as they can finish their tasks, they will be paid with enough resources and skills when they go back.”
“Also,” Bartoli added, “Do you notice? I don’t know if I’m phrasing it properly, but this place feels like a “factory” of some sort. Like, a factor for advanced knights.”
Abel understood what Bartoli was saying. “Factory” was a rough way to put it, but it did feel like the right description. As powerful as the knights here were, they didn’t seem to be educated about etiquettes and the mannerisms of a nobleman. If anything, they seemed like a bunch of mercenaries. It was not something like he liked to see.
“Here,” Abel stopped as he arrived at a yard, “This is where the property is said to be.”
The yard in front of them was close to the city’s inner parts. From here, they could clearly see the magic towers in the inner city. However, there was a giant magic circle that served to separate the two areas. It was quite impressive, really. If the magic circle wasn’t strong enough to hold the mana of 36 magic towers, all the normal people and knights in the outer city would all be hurt.
To be honest, Abel had only seen something like this in elven cities. Humans weren’t very good at setting up magic circles, but here, the 36 magic towers served as an extremely powerful mechanism that was responsible for maintaining the city’s safety.
On the door leading to the yard, there was a hexagon circle that was set up on the lock. Once Abel put his property bond over it, a white light flashed out. A mechanical voice then came out.
“No. 1558 bond holder, Are you here to claim this property?” the voice asked.
“Yes!” Abel replied. From what it looked like, this spirit, or whatever it was, it was something that was very commonly used inside Liante City.
“No. 1558 bond holder, your property has been on hold for 20 years. The fees you have paid are enough for it to be on hold for 100 years. So far, you have used up 7250 days with 29250 days left to use. If you need the property to be on hold the next time, please do so by activating this circle again. Remember, you are always welcome back to Liante City.”
After that, the door opened. The yard in front of them wasn’t very big, but it was very neatly tidied. Someone must’ve come here often to clean everything up.
There was one building on each of the three sides of the yard. Together, it was a square structure for three people to live in.
Abel chose the middle one for himself. It was the master’s ensuite, after all. When he walked inside the room, he saw a magic circle board that was occupying some space in the room’s corner. There wasn’t a magic gemstone on it. The original owner probably took it away.
When an intermediate gemstone was placed on the board, an invisible wall suddenly surrounded the entire yard. As it turned out, Liante City wasn’t like Cina City and Moga City. Since the original owner left a defense circle here, this could mean two things: one, Liante City was not a “pacifist city” where fights weren’t allowed, and two, there were some problems with crimes in Liante City.
It made sense, actually. With this many advanced knights and wizards around, it’d be hard to keep the peace here without the super-sized defense circle.
“Bartoli, give me your status card,” Abel ordered. After she did, he started matching it with his. He then went to do some work on the defense circle board.
Abel passed the status card back to Bartoli, “You can have it back now. From now on, you are free to come in and out of this place. Once I’m not here, you also have the permission to use the magic circle in whatever ways you see fit.”
“Yes, Master!” Bartoli replied. She knew what Abel did this for. She couldn’t follow him into the dark world, so the only thing she could do while he was away was to act as his security guard in the Holy Continent.