Shia’s plan required them to wait until nightfall, and it relied on a few too many assumptions for Vin’s taste. But in the end, they all agreed it was their best shot at making it into the locked down citadel. Thus, after spending that evening trekking along the outer wall and confirming it truly did encompass the entire citadel, that night Vin found himself scaling a three-story tall tree as silently as possible that Shia had grown with her magic directly next to the wall.

  The plan relied heavily on the theory that the guards manning the wall were all still level 1 or at least close to it even three months after the System reset. If none of the people inside the wall could leave, then none of the combat classes had been gaining much experience after all. The theory had been rolling around in Shia’s head ever since she saw how many arrows it had taken the guards to kill the people from the desert fragment. Not exactly the sign of a high-level warrior.

  Based on how far the guard towers were placed from one another along the wall, whoever designed the citadel’s defenses clearly did so with defenders having a high focus in mind. If the guards were indeed still low level, and if their focus attributes were still low, then Vin and Shia stood a good chance of making it over the wall without being spotted while under the cover of darkness.

  Hoisting himself up another branch, Vin glanced once more at the surprise notification he’d received that evening that was making this stealth climb far easier than he’d expected it to be.

  Title Evolution! Human Vessel (Minor) evolved into Human Vessel (Lesser). Reward: 20% of inhabitant’s stats added to your own while serving as a vessel. Allow inhabitant partial body merger for one minute twice a day.

  Some quick mental math was all it took to realize it had been just over a full week since he’d first met Alka and somehow became bonded with the ghost. The result of the title upgrade was the bonus stats he’d been receiving from Alka doubling so long as Alka or her sword was on his person, giving him now an extra 10 points in strength and 6 in dexterity, both of which were extremely helpful for scaling a tree in the dead of night.

  Reaching the top of the tree and pulling himself up onto the edge of the wall, Vin quickly made sure there weren’t any guards nearby before helping Shia scamper over. With a wave of her hand, the magically grown tree seemed to decompose right in front of his eyes, quickly diminishing in size before there was little more than a small pile of rotting bark leaning against the outer wall.

  “Decay,” Shia hissed when she saw his raised eyebrow. “Now come on, we have to get off the wall before we’re spotted.”

  Nodding, Vin gestured for her to take the lead, and the two of them ran to the other side of the wall. They made sure to keep their heads low as they moved, so Vin didn’t see the interior of the citadel until he crossed the wall and looked up.

  For a moment, he forgot he was in the middle of a stealth operation, his mind going blank as he gasped at the sight before him. The citadel wasn’t just some random, massive fortress…

  It was an entire city.

  From up on the wall, Vin could easily make out miles of buildings and roads stretching out off into the horizon. Large clusters of houses clearly designated different sectors within the city, and he could even see multiple open spaces for markets and what looked like parks of all things. Even this late at night, the streets were illuminated with thousands of lamp posts, showing a good number of people still out and about. Vin supposed in a city this size, it wasn’t too surprising that so many people worked night shifts.

  “That’s our target,” Shia whispered, pointing toward the city center.

  Sure enough, smack dab in the middle of the city was a second version of the wall they’d just scaled. Based on the number of house-sized banners decorating the wall, each one depicting different Gods carrying out powerful acts of war and magic, Vin thought they could safely assume that was the holy district.

  “I think that wall is even bigger,” he hissed, trying to use some of the buildings surrounding it for scale. “What is with these people and giant walls?”

  “Well it sounds like they had a good reason for building them if they really were getting attacked by thousands of monsters at once,” Shia replied, pulling out a rope from her pack. Quickly tying it around one of the ramparts, she gave it a firm tug to ensure it would hold their weight before giving him a nod. Not wasting any more time, the two of them tossed the other end of the rope down the interior side of the wall and made their way down. With his newfound extra strength, Vin was pleased to find climbing three stories down a rope was practically a breeze, even without footholds.

  As soon as they both touched down Alka drifted out of his body, grabbed their sword, and floated up to the top of the wall. The moment both sword and ghost left his possession, Vin felt his body practically deflate as he lost his bonus stats. It was hard to describe the sensation of losing half your strength as anything other than unpleasant.

  Thankfully, it didn't take her long to complete her portion of the mission. A small slash was all it took to sever the knot Shia had tied, and they quickly pulled the rope down after them.

  “Well, we made it in,” Vin grinned, enjoying the feeling of his first successful heist. “Now what?” As if weighing in with its opinion, the System flashed him a quick notification.

  New city discovered! 1,000 exp gained.

  Don’t mind if I do!

  “Ideally, we use the cover of night to get into the holy district as well,” Shia said as she packed the rope back into her bag. “Honestly, I’d prefer we wait a day to scope things out and try tomorrow night, but you said you want to get back to your people before then right?”

  “Yeah,” Vin nodded. “Tomorrow’s the last day before more of my people show up. We need to do this quickly and get out as fast as we can.”

  “Probably good advice for robbing any holy vault,” Alka added before handing him their sword and merging back into his body. Vin sucked in a breath as he was once more hit by the bonus stats all at once. The sudden boost was quite the sensation.

  “Then we’re on quite the deadline,” Shia frowned, squinting at the distant wall. “We better start moving. This city is big enough that it’s going to take a good chunk of the night even just getting over there.”

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Following Shia’s lead, Vin pulled his borrowed cloak’s hood over his head as the two of them left the outer wall behind them and started making their way through the citadel. Due to the sheer size of the citadel he didn’t think someone realizing they didn’t belong was going to be a problem, but better to be safe than sorry.

  As they made their way through the city, Entais quickly proved to be even more impressive than Vin had first realized. The roads were wide and neatly paved with stone, and every few dozen feet were large lamp posts that easily illuminated their surroundings despite it being the dead of night. Vin briefly wondered if they also used enchanted gemstones as a power source, but they didn’t have time to stop and find out.

  The buildings were built from a glossy white stone that looked identical to the wall they’d scaled and seemed sturdy enough to act as miniaturized fortresses if the need ever arose. Whoever designed the city clearly intended for the entire citadel to function as a defensive structure, including everything from the houses to the taverns.

  Speaking of, Vin glanced into one of the taverns they passed, careful not to show his face. Even this late at night, the tavern was well lit and full of rowdy patrons eagerly guzzling down ale or boisterously clapping friends on the back. Far more surprising than all the activity however, was the occasional set of pointed ears he spotted. Doing a double take, Vin stopped walking, staring intensely at the few sharp featured patrons grinning and drinking along with all the humans.

  “Shia,” he hissed, grabbing the elf’s attention. “Look in there!”

  Clearly annoyed at having been stopped, Shia gave him a look before taking a peek into the tavern, immediately realizing what he’d seen.

  “Those… those are elves!” She gasped, staring at her own people. As they watched, the elves continued enjoying themselves as though they did this every night. Competing to see who could drink the most, throwing dice at the back tables, even arm wrestling with some of the burlier humans and laughing when they lost handily. It was pretty easy to see that the elves were treated just like any of the other people inside the tavern, although it was strange to see them enjoying life in the city.

  “I guess elves and humans have better relations on the world this fragment came from,” Vin shrugged, watching one hook arms with a particularly hairy man as they each drank from their tankards.

  “I’m just surprised to see other elves at all,” Shia admitted, squinting at the happy tavern goers. “Look closer. They are definitely elves, but they’re a bit different from my people.”

  Vin wasn’t sure what she meant at first, but it didn’t take him long to spot the biggest difference. Unlike Shia’s elves, the ones on this fragment didn’t have teeth that looked like they were designed to make pulled pork out of any meat they ate. There were countless smiles and grins he saw from the elves within the tavern, and not one had the same pointy teeth as Shia.

  Hell, one of them was even enjoying a salad, which he was pretty certain was almost taboo for the elves from the Sacred Forest.

  While Vin watched the elves from outside the tavern, he heard someone clear their throat behind him.

  “Hey buddy. You planning on going in, or you just gonna block the door all night?”

  “Sorry! Didn’t realize I was-” Vin turned to apologize to the irritated man, only to freeze at the sight of the beast standing before him.

  Covered from head to toe in sleek, black fur, the man standing in front of him looked like someone had used photoshop to do their best to combine a cat with a human. He wore a loose tunic and pants, but every exposed inch of skin had fluffy black fur sticking out of it. The man’s face was angled like that of an animal, and he had two cat ears sticking out of the top of his head. Despite his lack of lips and inability to frown, Vin got the distinct impression the man was annoyed with him. The slanted, predator-like eyes certainly helped with that.

  New Sentient Race Discovered! 7,000 exp gained.

  “What? I got something in my whiskers?” The cat-man asked, misinterpreting Vin’s stare and giving his whiskers a quick rub. His hands were more paw-like than human, but they still seemed dexterous enough for his purposes. Not feeling any food on his face, the cat person shrugged and pushed his way past a still staring Vin, entering the tavern to a large host of excited shouts and raised tankards. He was clearly a regular.

  “What the hell was that?” Shia asked, also doing a poor job to hide her gaping as she watched the cat person walk up to the bar and begin lapping at an extra wide and shallow tankard placed in front of him.

  “I think there might be more races in the universe than we first thought,” Vin said dumbly, before shaking himself out of his trance. “As curious as I am about that guy, we don’t have time to stand around and watch him all night. The sun will be up in a few hours.”

  “Right, right…” Shia said absently, her eyes still glued to the furry stranger. Taking one last look at the cat person, she seemed to almost physically tear her gaze away from the strange sight. “Let’s go!”

  That tavern goer wasn’t the only cat person they spotted as they made their way through the city, and Vin quickly realized that the race of cat people was far more diverse than humans. Their coats of fur seemed to cover the entire rainbow of colors, and some had sleek, thin coats while others were rough and shaggy. They all wore clothes like regular people, but practically all their outfits were extra baggy, no doubt to try and keep their fur from getting pinched or pulled in painful directions.

  Vin thought he did a fairly good job of keeping his gaze respectful, but Shia was another story. The elf couldn’t seem to keep her eyes off the race of cat folk, and the two of them earned more than one glare or upward turn of the nose as they walked. It wasn’t until they’d been walking for nearly an hour that Vin realized what was actually going on.

  A young cat person with a well-maintained brown coat of fur spotted Shia staring at him and froze like a deer in headlights before actually dropping to all fours and sprinting off down an alleyway. Vin went to crack a joke at the odd behavior, before he spotted the moisture on Shia’s face.

  “Shia… are you drooling?”

  “What? No!” The elf exclaimed, quickly wiping her mouth and waving off his crazy accusation as her face turned red. “Of course not!”

  “You totally are! Oh my god please tell me you’re not going to try and eat someone!”

  “I’m not going to eat one!” She said, stomping her foot and glaring at him. “I mean… I’m certainly not going to kill one. But if we find one that just happened to die of natural causes…”

  Vin stared at the elf in shock, having absolutely no idea how to even respond to that. Alka’s roaring laughter inside his head certainly wasn’t helping either. After a few moments of embarrassed silence, Shia sighed, squeezing her staff.

  “Look, my people are essentially carnivores, and within the Sacred Forest at least, generally the more intelligent an animal is the better it tastes. I can’t help but imagine how utterly amazing a race of sentient beast-folk must taste… but that doesn’t mean I’m going to go around killing and eating them!”

  Shia’s argument was weakened slightly by the full body shudder that seemed to travel through her at the thought of tasting one of the cat people, but Vin couldn’t hold that against her. He supposed he’d be reacting similarly if they discovered a race of people made entirely out of chocolate walking around.

  “Okay.” He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “Sorry, you just caught me off guard there for a moment is all. I would hope this goes without saying, but obviously I trust you not to go around eating people.”

  “Thank you,” Shia said, smiling at him. Vin noticed she seemed to be making a conscious effort to keep her smile smaller than normal to better hide her pointed teeth from the people around them. “If you catch me staring at one of them again… would you mind nudging me or something? I’ll do my best, but honestly, it’s taking most of my focus just to keep myself from drooling.”

  “I think I can do that much,” Vin chuckled. He started walking again, when a new gasp from Shia stopped him short. Praying he wasn’t going to find her drooling over a particularly plump cat person immediately after all her talk, he turned to find her frantically feeling at her hip.

  “What’s wrong?” He asked, his heart sinking at the sheer panic on Shia’s face as she desperately searched her person.

  “It’s my pouch of seeds Erik imbued with his magic and gave me for the journey,” she said, looking at him in horror.

  “It’s gone!”