242 Make the most of the system, please! part Ryu stepped out of the white room, but not before using stealth, conceal and camouflage to remain hidden. He didn’t know where he was or how much time had passed since he fell unconscious, but the place was too different from anywhere he’d ever been to making him suspect that he wasn’t a patient but a prisoner.
Just as he expected, there were guards patrolling outside in the hallway, making it impossible for him to make a run for it and since the building was built in some sort of concrete, breaking a wall would have been pointless.
For the looks of it, the building had to be some sort of dome, but that held little to no importance.
Without knowing anything about his current situation, Ryu walked in a random direction making the most of his stealth skills. His intention was to find a big enough crowd to mix in, but first he needed to find some clothes. A naked man would stand out in any crowd.
After taking a right turn he noticed the presence of a tall man. He had blond hair and a wide frame but a slim figure. He looked nothing like any person he had ever seen before. Curiosity got the best of Ryu and he used his consider skill.
Information about that person was displayed above the man’s head.
>Beastkin (Healthy)
That was enough to give Ryu the chills. He had never fought against a beastkin, but even the shy weak looking beastkin girl he rescued was strong enough to pull him and Risa up without breaking a sweat making him realize he didn’t stand a chance against a man as tall as the one in front of him.
Ryu decided to take another way. The place was really clean, but there were no decorations. The source of light was powerful enough to light up everything, but Ryu didn’t know that model of elemental stone powered lamp.
.....
As soon as he found an empty room he got inside without hesitation. It was a small empty room without a light source of its own, making him realize it had to be a storage room. Ryu then took a minute to think about his situation, trying to understand the severity of it.
There was a beastkin, strange artifacts he’s never seen before and the building architecture was nothing similar to any place he’d ever been at. All those clues made him believe he was in the sacred empire.
The only person who ever told him about how the sacred empire looked like was Anne. She told him they used beastkin slaves and their technology was more advanced than that of the kingdom of Loudeac, besides, who else would have been able to heal him.
‘It must have been Lea, I bet she betrayed us.’ Ryu thought inwardly as he clicked his tongue.
“Hey! did you hear that?” A male voice resounded through the hallway.
“Yeah, but it was probably nothing, just keep patrolling while I check that out.” A woman replied.
He had to be in a secure location, the only answer to Ryu’s questions was that he was indeed in a prison.
Ryu’s heart raced, and so did his feet as he rushed through the hallways. Thanks to his quick movements and his skills he avoided getting found out in the nick of time, but in his rush he found himself in the outside surrounded by people.
All of them were beastkin.
People was coming and going their way across the street, all of them looked busy enough carrying baskets, rucksacks or piles of resources. Yet they all stopped at the same time to sniff the air.
“A human!” A woman shrieked pointing her finger at Ryu’s location.
“Hurry up and seize him!” A huge man wearing leather studded armor commanded a group of soldiers. They hurried up towards Ryu, not giving him any chance to run.
They pointed their weapons at his throat leaving so little space that even the slightest movement could have ended his life right then and there.
Then, a woman jumped out of the building Ryu had gone out from.
“Halt! By pointing your weapons at our guest you’re breaking the oath of hospitality.” She said coldly.
The woman was was only a little smaller than Ryu, her hair was black and she had a short pony tail, but what caught Ryu’s eye was the long pointy ears like those of a cat that protruded from the top of her head.
The soldiers quickly sheathed their weapons and the woman turned around.
“Please excuse their behavior, we’re on high alert after the last attack we received. Are you feeling ok?” She spoke to Ryu, but he didn’t give a reply. He was in a daze after the sudden turn of events.
The sudden realization that he was neither in the kingdom nor in the sacred empire had left him speechless.
“Can you understand me? Geez! They said you were able to speak, maybe our information was wrong.”
“No, hang on, I’m just trying to understand all of this. I was hurt and... poisoned.” Ryu stuttered, trying to wrap his head around everything.
“Don’t worry, the goblins took good care of you. Now you’re our guest, you’re safe here.” She tried to reassure him.
“As long as we’re safe.” Another cat like man said from behind her companion.
“Don’t scare him Saser, you’re his doctor, why can’t you have a little empathy?”
As the two beastkin chatted, it finally came down to Ryu that he was still naked and there was an entire crowd watching him. He covered his nether region and tried to look for a place to hide, but the woman stopped him by placing a hand over his shoulder as she kept chatting with her friend.
“See? you made him scared again, are you going to take responsibility if he collapses again?” The catlike woman kept nagging at Saser while Ryu became more and more embarrassed. His breath became heavy, his face turned beet red and he couldn’t get free from the woman’s grip.
“I think it’s you who’s scaring him. Can’t you see he’s embarrassed?” Saser replied.
“You’re speaking nonsense, why should he be embarrassed?” She turned back to look at Ryu who was pondering if he would have actually preferred to be attacked rather than humiliated like that.
She took a few seconds to examine his constitution and then it was her turn to get flushed. As soon as she let Ryu go he rushed towards the same building he had recently escaped from.
They took him to a storage room, similar to the one he’d been to before, but this one wasn’t empty. It was filled to the brim with clothes of different quality and they allowed him to pick whatever he wanted to choose.
Most of the clothes were really similar to the ones the people from that place was wearing, the color varied from green, brown and some yellow, but there was also a lot of clothes that looked exactly the same as the ones people from the sacred empire wore.
Knowing that people from the sacred empire and the beastkin were not in good terms, Ryu rummaged through the clothes trying to find something that fitted him.
It was clear that most of the clothes they had used to belong to people who fell in combat. There were stains of blood they didn’t bother to clean, holes the size of a dagger and slashes everywhere.
Finding something he was actually able to wear and that fitted him proved to be a challenge because the clothes that were similar to those of the beastkin were clearly not designed to be worn by humans.
“This is highly interesting... Do you think all humans take so long in getting dressed?” the catlike woman said to Saser, both of them were looking at Ryu like he was a specimen rather a person, yet their gaze upon his body made him feel awkward nonetheless.
“You can just ask him.” Saser shrugged.
As soon as Ryu finished getting dressed, he was taken to another dome-like building. If there was a crowd before, now even more people gathered curiously and they were all looking at Ryu. They followed his steps until he disappeared inside the other building.
This one was clearly bigger than the other one, not just that, its roof was taller and the doors were sturdier. There were several guards waiting on the sides of each door.
They entered a richly decorated open hall, that also had three long tables inside.
“Your majesty, the human has awoken.” Both catlike beastkin knelt down and lowered their gaze in front of a woman that looked like a human except for her vertical pupils.
There was something familiar on that woman, but Ryu couldn’t quite put his finger on it. At least until she walked down from the platform she was on and took his hand.
“Thank you!” The woman in front of Ryu had waited for so long just to be able to say those words to Ryu.