Chapter 99

Opal’s body with Pops

We end up fighting quite a few zombies as we get closer to Canton, and I decide it’s better to just go naked until we get close enough. I already lost two shirts to zombie claws and gross bits. Luckily Pops doesn’t seem to mind and just told me to get dressed before we get to the city. I smash another zombie’s head by stomping on it and Pops says “Seeing you fight like that puts some fire in my old bones.” He then uses his hammer to break the leg of another zombie near him, finishing it off with a crushed skull. I noticed that the zombies don’t always die if I squish parts that aren’t their head, but once it’s mush, they’re dead for sure.

After we push past the large concentration of zombies we stop running into them at all. Pops thinks it means we’re getting close to the city, and has me put new cloths on. I have one more shirt if this one gets ripped, but I only lost one pair of shorts so far. So my butt should be covered for a while at least. It’s unfortunate since it’s one of my favorite parts.

I finally get to see the city Pops was talking about, and it seems huge. I don’t know how they managed to build such a big wall around such a large area. We’re standing on a small hill overlooking it all and I can’t help letting my mouth hang open. “It looks like they had to build the wall around the center of the city. Walling the whole thing would have probably been impossible. The fact that they can maintain that much of a wall must mean they have a very large number of people who survived.” Pops says. Is that really not the whole thing? Humans are more impressive than I thought.

“So do we just walk up to their gate and ask them about the meeting thing you mentioned?” I ask him, brushing aside my thoughts of squishy humans. He answers “That’s the plan, let me do the talking. We’ll tell them you’re my lover, since it’s mostly true. We have had sex a few times, and that way they should underestimate you even more.” I ask “So why is it important that they underestimate me? I’m not sure I understood that part before.” Pops sighs and says “We can hope that they are friendly and genuine, but if they aren’t, you’ll be able to surprise them in an emergency.”

I guess that makes sense. I think back to when I got caught in a net since I didn’t know how it worked, and how I attacked Arhu and ended up caught because I didn’t know what he could do. So I’m the net or Arhu in this situation? I shudder a bit. Well, I’ll only have to surprise them if they end up being bad people, so I guess it’s fine. I choose not to think about those two situations and tell Pops “Okay, I understand. I’m Pop’s lover and we like having sex with each other.” He laughs and says “That’s the spirit, let’s hold hands as we approach them.”

I nod and grab his hand as we make our way down the hill, and towards the large gate. His hand feels a lot rougher than Amber’s, but I’ll still be careful with it since he doesn’t have Firm. I probably won’t be squeezing his hand like I do with my wife’s. As we get to the gate someone in front of it greets us. They are wearing a white and red uniform with some metal parts covering their chest and forearms. Above their head it says -Guard- Lvl 32, so I wonder if they’re working towards a 5th tier or just keeping their primary from tiering up. I know it can be bad to tier up right away if you don’t have the stats from other classes.

“Hold there, I don’t recognize you two. What business do you have with Canton?” The guard asks and I see other guards on the walls looking our way. This gate is really big up close, I wonder if I could even jump over it. Probably not, I’d have to do the wall instead. I’m not going to do it now of course since that would be rude. Pops hands the guard the letter from the messenger and says “I got this letter asking for a meeting to discuss working together with your Landowner.” The guard reads the letter and stands straighter saying “So you’re a Landowner from the frontier, let me get my supervisor. We don’t get many visitors.” He then turns around and heads into a small door to the side of the gate.

I wonder why they’d have a door there, since they could just open the gate. Maybe it’s too hard to open the gate every time, so I ask Pops about it. He shakes his head and says “Having the gate open all the time is a risk since it would take longer to close. With the door they have a smaller point of entry to protect if something happens and it should be a lot easier to close and bar from the inside.” That makes sense, so the gate is slow enough that zombies might get in if they attack.

The guard comes back with another guard, but this one has more metal pieces over his uniform. It looks kind of fancy, and I wonder how much I would need to upgrade my Armory to get that. The guard does a slight bow to Pops and says “Respected Landowner, we have someone running to inform our leader of your arrival and prepare. Do you mind if we check you and your companion for any weapons and leaving them with us? I assure you they will be returned to you once your meeting has finished.” Pops hands over his hammer and says “I understand the need for security, my lover doesn’t carry any weapons but you can search us.” I nod since I’m not supposed to talk unless asked something.

The supervisor guard starts patting Pops in places and the first guard we met approaches me and says “Excuse me ma’am.” before her starts patting me the same way. I don’t think it’s sexual, and he doesn’t do it long. Maybe it’s because I don’t have a lot of cloths that weapons could be in. After he’s done he stands by the other guard and says “She doesn’t have anything.” His supervisor then asks “Do you mind if we check your bags as well?” Pops shakes his head and says “Go right ahead.” He hands over his large pack with food and a tent, so I hand over my pack with some shorts and a shirt.

The guard looks through it a bit and hands it back to me saying “It’s just clothes.” to the other guard who says “This looks clear as well.” Pops and I put them back on our backs, and the guards both bow a bit towards Pops. The one with more armor says “Welcome to Canton Sir Landowner, if you’ll follow us we can take you to the meeting hall.” I nod and Pops answers “Lead the way.” He then grabs my hand again and we get lead through the small door.

When I get to the other side of the door I can see a large stone that looks like it can be rolled in front of the door. That must be how they block it off during an attack. I should tell Jessica about all this so we can do it too. It seems smart at least, and it wouldn’t hurt to try. They also have this small room inside their gate which seems like it might be useful. We just have a small building to the side of our gate in Opal’s Home. I wonder what the little holes in the walls here are for, but I can ask Pops later.

As we leave the room and enter the city, I’m surprised again by how big some of the buildings here are. It was hard to tell from so far away, but they definitely have more than one or two floors like the ones we use. They also look cleaner, so I think Sapphire would like it here. We get led to the biggest building I’ve ever seen, I have to look really high up to even see where it stops. I count the windows going up it on the outside… 12, does that mean it has 12 floors? That seems like a lot. When we enter it’s see-through doors, we’re greeted by a tall man in fancy looking black and white clothes.

The man in fancy clothes bows to Pops and says “If you’ll follow me Sir and Ma’am, I will take you to your audience. You guards are dismissed.” The guards then turn around and leave the building. The fancy man starts leading us up some stairs and says “Sir Hunter had just started a meal when you arrived and has asked that you join him there for the discussion.” Pops says “That’s fine, I could use something to eat that isn’t dried meat.” I should probably eat too, since Amber has told me it a few times. Probably.

We walk up a lot of stairs. I stopped counting since I’m not very good at it. The fancy clothes man who’s title is-Butler- Lvl 42, finally has us leave the room with all the stairs, and we are led through a hallway. It’s well lit from the giant glass window at the end of it, and I can see things I think are called paintings on the walls. It’s another thing that I’m not sure why I know, but I definitely think these are called paintings. They look like flat vision that doesn’t move, screens but representing people and things instead of words. I get a bit distracted by them and feel Pops pulling my hand forward. Oh right, I follow along and ignore the paintings for now.

When we enter the next room the first thing I see is that it’s really bright. It does have two of the large windows. I can tell from here that we are pretty high up, and I want to go look out them, but I better stick with Pops for now. The next thing I decide to look at is a large table with a man sitting in one of the chairs. He doesn’t seem to be eating yet, but he stands and says “Please, join me. You may call me Hunter, I’m in charge of Canton right now and a hungry man.” Pops sits down and motions for me to sit in the chair next to him.

I carefully sit down so the chair doesn’t break, but it seems fine. I won’t wiggle though, since that has broken a few chairs already at home. As I settle in I look at the man who is the Landowner of such a big place, and above his head it says -Guardian Hunter- Lvl 53. So Hunter was part of his title and not his name I guess. Pops says “I’m the Landowner of Dragon Roost and my name is Derrick. We got your letter from a messenger that said you were interested in cooperation.” Hunter nods and says “Thank you for coming, by the name of the Land I assume it’s not anything large like Canton?” Pops shakes his head and answers “We’re just a small camp near Maternus. Do you mind if I have some of this food while we talk, it looks delicious?” It looks fancy at least, I didn’t know that food could look like it tasted delicious. Odd.

“Of course, as you can see, Jensen made entirely too much for me again.” Is Jensen the name of the fancy cloths man? He then turns to me and says “May I know the name of your lovely companion?” I look at Pops who says “Her name is Opal, she’s my lover, I hope you don’t mind but I can get a bit jealous.” Hunter laughs and says “Oh that’s completely normal for a beauty like her. I’ll restrain myself from being flirtatious. Now Maternus… where was that again?” The man who I assume is Jensen walks up to Hunter and whispers in his ear. Hunter then says “Oh you folks are off in that direction. The messengers we sent to find places that way haven’t returned so I wasn’t expecting visitors from there. This is great news! Jensen bring out the soda for our guests, they must have had a difficult time getting here.”

I see Pops perk up and ask “Did you say soda?” Is that something good? From Pop’s excited expression it probably is. I pick up and take a bite out of the bread in front of my seat. It’s surprisingly tasty, so maybe I can ask them to teach me how to make it.