We arrived with a flash of light, which, thanks to the darkness of the tall walls and setting sun, meant the moment we appeared, every eye should have been on us. That said, thanks to them being busy, and a few large bonfires setup nearby, we actually got very little attention, save for some of the watchers at the edge of the area turning, seeing us, and then shrugging as they turned back, likely assuming us to have been here all along.
That was an easy assumption to make, given how many people of varying types were here. I saw humans, demi-humans and beastment, not quite in equal numbers, as it favored the demi-humans. Still, they were working side by side without complaint, save for what one would expect as, by the bonfire light, the groups of men and women slowly pounded out what was growing to be a fairly good looking city.
A few days ago, when we'd passed through the gorge, the best the walls had on them were a few dug out places, and some stone walls that had evaded the hydra's ire for the hundreds of years they stood tall and proud. Those same walls found themselves wanting when the builders arrived, and more than one had been smashed to naught but rubble under their hammers, clearing the way for more.
We stood there, several sacks around us for almost ten minutes, even having time to start going over our gear before anyone noticed us. First with a few turned heads, then finally some raised voices. Finally, from the back of a half finished building, a familiar looking rabbit-eared demi-human emerged. He stared at us blankly for a moment, before rushing back behind the building, shouting something, and then rushing back to us.
"Hero…er Lord Bowman, it is…what are you doing here? I thought your party was headed north?" he asked, stammering a little through his words as he came to a stop in front of us.
"We are, but I had a new ability I wanted to test out, one that lets me fast travel with my party. That, and our load has grown a bit too large to deal with, and I figured you would want the option of using it, or turning it into pearls this time," I said, patting one of the sacks of monster bits that Strong helpfully held up for me. That took him a moment to process, but the moment he did, Ben shouted a few orders towards the ones working, and then motioned for us to follow him.
We did so, wandering down towards the lake, finding a few people hard at work there too. Some were working at makeshift forges, others delivering and gathering ore from nearby carts, the stuff shiny and black, as the forges made it into beams, bolts, and other things. Looking at it, it was the grate I'd requested to go over the hole in the lake, being built one piece at a time by the guild members.
Beside the forges, a few larger tents, like those an army might use, were set up, several people were even sleeping inside them, despite the hammering and banging going on outside, which impressed me. I myself wouldn't be able to sleep through this I thought, but then was shocked as we went into the tent Ben led us into. The moment we passed through the flap, all the ambient noise just went quiet, even though the flap didn't close together.
Magic was a darn useful thing, was my only thought as we entered the smaller tent, setup to be a good sized office for the rabbit demi-human, with a large table in the middle positively covered in charts, maps, and blueprints. Most had markings on them, crossing out things and writing new things in their place, some of which my translation ability drew a blank on, thanks to bad handwriting, which was good to know.
Once we settled in, he began to go over the progress they'd made so far, which, to be fair, they'd only had a few days, but still, it was impressive nonetheless. The basic foundations of the Adventurers Hall had been laid, and it would be open for business by the end of this week, allowing any adventurer in Melromarc to come in for jobs, and they were already seeing more than a few come in waiting for that, mostly demi-humans and beastmen for obvious reasons.
Better, the grating for the underwater section would be done only a bit later, and they were already installing the braces that would allow it to be mounted, thanks to some aquatic type beastmen, mostly lizard-folk, who were currently hard at work thanks to the bonfires keeping everything nice and bright. They were working around the clock to get everything ready as soon as possible.
"Why the rush?" I finally asked, as one of the other guild members came in and delivered drinks. Interestingly, for me it was that coffee stuff from the castle, which I didn't remember the name of. It tasted alright here, different from the one from the capital city, which was to be expected.
"If you're after the official reason, it's simply because this area has remained unexploited for centuries, and the Guild is eager to assist in getting it back on its feet, and dispersing the debt it currently owes one of its members," he said, taking a pull on his own cup, which was not coffee like at all.
"And the unofficial reason?" I prompted.
"The current royals of this nation had nothing to do with the offer in regards to this area. That thing's been sitting in the Guild's backlogs for generations. If they wanted to, they could claim the offer was invalidated when the one who made it passed, and they'd get a lot of backing from the surrounding nations to simply reward you monetarily, and reclaim the gorge instead of honoring the original agreement," he began.
"But if there's a city already here and running, that objection would be a lot harder to get other nations to accept, given it would already be producing, and any talk of a reward would have to include that I spent money staking my claim. Make it well enough, and they'd be forced to accept, simply to avoid bankrupting themselves," I finished, and he nodded, pointing to me with a smile on his lips.
"I see you understand royalty. They don't like to share their power, at all, but once someone's established, they don't like interfering with them, lest they find it opens the door to interference with their own business," he said, downing the rest of his cup, and then going over with us the rest of the plans for the city. The 'paperwork' to the royal family was being delayed. Not purposefully, of course, simply it was a low priority given the Waves.
Most of the plans were to finish the road last, to avoid questions from the surrounding villages. The demesne's borders ran for about ten kilometers out from the gorge's walls, and would actually wind up including no currently inhabited areas, but there had been, historically, a few around here that they were already starting to plan out. It would hopefully be enough land that we could grow more food than we ate, in a few years at least.
Beyond that, the grating and the Adventurers' Hall would be finished before the week was out. From there, it would take far less time to make housing for the adventurers who were literally lining up to take on jobs from this place, as I hadn't quite placed restrictions on the type of jobs to be done, and more importantly on the type of person who could do them. That last meant several dozen were already here, just waiting for their chance to take jobs.
Ben admitted that might tip the hand, but right now, he was more concerned with keeping the kingdom running, than keeping this a secret. Everyone in this room knew that the Second Wave I'd be fighting, the Third overall, would be soon. I confirmed that with a glance at my clock, which still had hours, and so I gave theme that figure, which had Ben quickly pulling out that bar thing and sending the info out to the rest of the Guild.
That information helped them to start deploying forces in certain areas, and he asked directly how many people I could transport with my fast travel skill, which I had to admit, I had no idea. That would be for testing later. For the moment, I was more worried about getting to my destination, which was still a ways off from where we'd stopped for the night. However, I'd come here because camping out was getting annoying, and why bother when we can hit an inn and resume from our stopping point in the morning?
He saw my point, and offered one of the tents here, though he admitted it would be a tight squeeze. I thanked him for the offer, but, with the short break…well almost half an hour, but still, I had enough SP for another jump, and my third destination was set to the capital city. If I was spotted there, it might take even more eyes off this place, especially as everyone heard the Bow Hero was hopping all over the country.
From there, he informed me that I wasn't the only one doing that, though the others were having to actually walk. The Sword Hero, Ren, had been seen in the east. His party had already contacted them about a 'Dragon of the Hills', a monster that had been causing problems since the First Wave of this present set, the one we weren't here for. Before that, he'd been an inconvenience, but nothing terrible. Since then, he'd been a terror, and there was a good thirty gold bounty on his head.
The Spear Hero, Motoyasu, had been causing trouble, supposedly. He'd done all sorts of idiotic things while hunting the occasional monster. Including setting a forest on fire briefly, and flooding another village when he'd fought near a dam close to it. He hadn't bothered to clean up either, of course, and was currently still moving away from the capital towards a place in the west, or so they'd heard, which was currently having problems with a famine.
As for the Shield Hero, Naofumi? He'd acquired a chocobo…er a filolial. It was a large avian thing, which he had used to win a race against Motoyasu on a dragon. That was a feat as while they were faster on a straight away, filolials usually couldn't carry as much as a dragon, nor were they as agile normally. Regardless, since then he'd taken mostly jobs from merchants, moving about the nation, selling goods and doing odd jobs.
That…was quite the information dump, honestly, and Ben admitted, we Heroes were the talk of the whole world, and were being watched, even when no one was following us. News about us was going to spread fast and wide, and the Guild, given the parties of three of us contained members, had a vested interest in keeping up with what we were up to, just in case it might reflect badly on the Guild.
Not that he thought I would, he assured me quickly. I waved it off. It wasn't like I ignored public perception. I wanted to free the slaves because it was the right thing to do, sure, but confronting the King, and most especially his daughter the way I had done had likely put me one level above Naofumi in their eyes, and when they learned of Sanctuary? It was a toss up on which one of us would be held lower in their esteem.
He admitted that was true, but said whether the Royals liked the Guild didn't matter in the long run. The Guild itself was too indispensable for its work protecting the common folk. It was their opinions that would matter far more. If the Guild ended up losing their support, they could close Halls, or even force the Guild out of the nation entirely, and given the situation, that was to be avoided at all costs.
When we were done working out a few bits of paperwork that he had me sign, mostly approvals for things, as well as a bill of sale that had our latest cache of monster parts added to the debt the Guild owed me, we made to leave. I had him gather everyone together before we did so, the large crowd of around two-hundred or so workers and laborers looking at me expectantly for some heroic speech or another.
Instead I changed my Bow to one of the balloon forms. In this case the one I got from the Legion/Purple one, and then fired above the crowd, giving them a small boost to their strength for the evening, and telling them that I appreciated all their hard work. They looked a bit disappointed with that at first, as the shimmering bubble popped over them, raining down little motes of light that absorbed into their skin.
Mind, then they got to work again, and I could see them smiling, as, while the boost was only about fifty percent for them all, that was enough to make the labor that much easier for the evening. That done, I transported my party and I back to the capital, landing, as it happened, in the room with the Dragon Hourglass, which shocked the nun who was doing a nightly sweeping of the room.
I apologized for intruding so late, and soon shuffled myself and my party from the chamber, passing the Pope, who seemed amused at my arrival, and suggested I reset my destination for outside whatever inn I would be using. I thanked him for the advice, obvious as it was, and then with my party, returned to the inn from the first few days. Luckily, it was far less crowded now, and the innkeeper even smiled at us.
I tossed a gold piece his way, far more than what it cost, and asked him to make a set of three rooms available for us for the foreseeable future, and meals whenever we were present in this place. He quickly tested the coin by biting on it, then boggled at the payout, before rushing about, getting some servers to clean the three best rooms in the inn, one for myself and Lucia, one for Fast, Strong, and Shadow, with the final one for Souka and Ray.
I was asked, privately by Ray, why I had arranged for us to sleep in those groupings, and laid out that it was mostly a size thing. The brothers would want to sleep in the same room, thus is came down to pairing myself with Ray or Lucia, and Souka would have the other. If she wanted, I could switch the two, but she accepted that, she just wanted to make sure it wasn't because they were Demi-Humans.
With all that sorted, we enjoyed a good meal, and then retired for the evening, all seven of us quite grateful for the beds to rest on, rather than hard ground. In the morning, we'd trek north some more, and then again the next day, before finally arriving at the border between Melromarc and the nation to its north. There, we would finally arrive at our destination, and see what lay at the end of the road.