After the birth of the Summoning, Luke could no longer sleep through that night. The little feline was very energetic and loved to play, and soon Atom became a victim of his mischief. While the Summoning ran and tried to grab the horse's hooves, Atom tried not to step on him, while running away in fear.
When Luke learned to omit the Summoning, the horse finally found peace. The process of invoking the little lion and omitting him was as simple as evoking the Behemoth Axe; in other words, Luke only needed to make the order with his thought.
At one point, while Luke was watching the summoning play in the water of a small stream after coming down the hill they were on, a name came to his mind: Bastet. This was the name of a Cat God, who was in a fable that Matthew often read. Since the Summoning didn't have a name yet and Luke thought the name Bastet was very beautiful, he just named the little lion like that, and they went on their way.
After so long of traveling, now the Cardinal Realm was finally near.
Atom, Bastet, and Luke climbed the small mountains, and before the noon hour, they could already see the vast kingdom in the distance. After a verdant living field, there was a large city to shock Luke. If the half-wolf judged the walls of Oukiwa large, the walls of the Cardinal Kingdom were colossal, to say the least.
'Those things easily exceed thirty meters in height.' Luke judged while admiring the scenery and cooking a small sparrow on an improvised fire.
Besides the walls, there were many buildings that, intentionally or not, formed horizontal rhombuses, which gave the impression of the city being a totally different place from the others Luke had already had the opportunity to visit. In the center of this large city-state was a huge palace architecturally similar to the Central Palace in Oukiwa. It was also impossible not to notice the fact that from the highest tower of the Cardinal Kingdom Palace, a thick beam of light came out and rose as far as the eye could no longer see.
Mounted on Atom, Luke crossed the green field between him and the city in only an hour. His horse was so fast, and Luke could hardly appreciate the scenery, but neither did he slow his traveling companion's vigor.
Once the half-wolf approached the city's outskirts, he tugged on Atom's reins and began to enter. As he made his way to the gate of the nearest wall, to ask where he could buy an updated map of the area and use his S-Gene Skill license, Luke saw several half-beasts and almost no elves, which surprised him positively.
Also, on the outside of the colossal walls, many houses mainly looked like peasant houses, which cultivated some types of farming food, like carrots, potatoes, wheat, and other types of vegetables in their fields.
As Luke had never had the opportunity to study different types of states, he didn't understand what was in front of his eyes, but the Cardinal Kingdom was a unique place in the world. All Kingdoms have Kings and Queens, and the Cardinal Kingdom was no exception, but in the Cardinal Kingdom, the succession to the throne is not decided by bloodline but by religious rank. The person who rises to the post of Pontiff of the Cardinal Church in the Broteforge Empire gains the right to lead the Cardinal Kingdom, which is the physical representation of the faith of the great heroine of 'The Calamity', Hera. This heroine, one of the few people to master the various states of nature, had legendary skills in earth bending.
"Oh? They say the heroine herself built those walls?" Luke asked in surprise to the man in clerical garb who stopped him near the wall and told him a little about the Cardinal Kingdom.
"Yes, yes! Don't you think it's amazing?"
"Eh... it looks amazing and all... but I think it's impossible for one person to build all that by herself." Luke spoke in disbelief; after all, the walls weren't just enormous. They were also sturdy and spread out over a few miles. "Anyway, can you tell me where I can use this?" Luke pulled the Gene Skill license from his inventory and showed it to the man.
The cleric blinked twice at seeing the paper sticking out of the yellow square and was even more astonished when he saw the Gene Skill Class-S license.
"I'm a Class-E Adventurer..."
About to measure Luke from head to toe with a glance, the cleric scolded himself. He knew he was no one to judge whether the half-wolf was lying or not. "All right. I advise you to go to the Cardinal Church building and talk to some Priest to help you."
"And where is that?"
"Just follow the light." The cleric said, pointing to the beam of light that rose to just above the clouds.
"Okay, thank you very much." Luke thanked him, mounted Atom, and headed toward the gate.
However, he noticed that the wall gate was closed as he approached. There were multiple wagons stopped, forming a jam of a few dozen meters. Since Luke was the only one with only a single horse, he could easily walk up to the guards protecting the entrance and trying to calm the stressed crowd.
"Why the hell is that huge gate closed in the middle of the day!? I have deliveries to make!" A balding man asked the head guard, who was wearing reinforced steel armor.
"It's too hot here. My children are getting sick inside the carriage!"
"The eggs I need to sell will spoil!"
"Calm down, calm down! The gate will soon open, we are just waiting." The head guard replied, using a funnel to propagate his voice as loud as possible.
Luke moved a little closer and got off his horse. Beside him was a man leaning against the first wagon in the convoy, and Luke, assuming the man was the owner of the wagon, asked:
"Do you know what happened for them closing the gate?"
The man was wearing peasant clothes and had a tired countenance. "Ah, buddy... you just got here? Well, it's understandable that you don't know. There's an animal prowling the area and nobody knows if it's a bear, a mountain lion, or something worse, because three farmers have already died. Don't say I told you that, but they say it might be 'The Beast'... you know, don't you? One of those rumors that came from Oukiwa..."
Luke huffed in stress because it seemed that everywhere he went, that annoying rumor was chasing him.
The source of this c𝓸ntent is fr𝒆e(w)𝒆bnovel