They could finally see the city that had only ever been looming in their anticipation but alas, it was there before them, the heart of Sephrodia Valley. Lyra, Aera, and Nivia were sticking their heads out from the side of the wagon, trying to get a good glance of the city. The three exuded awes of fascination with their expressions and sighs. The valley itself had a lot of hills within and various luxurious buildings were built on top as if they had no fear of the hills crumbling down any time soon due to the whims of nature. The city was larger than what they all had expected. It spanned further than even what Lyra could see with her Eagle Eye. It wasn’t just the size but also its grandeur that was huge. Even the most rundown parts of the city didn’t look too sordid, unlike the slums of Quinteburgh where it looked like a graveyard with buildings in the stead of grave slates. The city was the epitome of flourishing but Erin knew better than to take the city’s appearance at face value.

“It’s huge,” Siv muttered while sitting in Erin’s lap and leaning against her ample bosom.

“It certainly is,” Erin agreed and nodded.

“I heard a lot about how big it is but… it’s really different when you look at it yourself. But it is still no bigger than the capital”

Erin raised an eyebrow. “If this city is this big, how big is the capital?”

“Now that’s a city on a completely different scale, mistress.”

“Twice this city?”

Siv chuckled. “Five folds, mistress.”

“Five fucking fold?”

Siv nodded.

“How did they even manage that?”

“It took hundreds of years for it to get to that scale. But even then, it still can’t be compared to the Zagan Empire. The capital city of the Empire was believed to be half of the Yorun Kingdom in size.”

“That outrageously and insanely huge. Where’s the sensibility in that? Can it even be governed?”

“It can and the Empire is even older than the Yorun Kingdom. They persisted for a long time through the use of magic and good allocation of personnel resources. The Empire has a dozen individuals above level eighty and each of them is enough to keep the peace and order of a single region.”

Erin was once again reminded of the absurd difference between this world and her old world. Level wasn’t everything but at the same time, it was everything. Levels alone could dictate the course of your livelihood and status. People would trade an army for a single high-level individual. In her former world, it didn’t matter no matter how strong an individual was, an army would always triumph against a single individual, always. But that wasn’t the case in this world. Aedan was a very good example. Though she had yet to see his full strength, she didn’t doubt he was capable of razing an entire nation to the ground if he didn’t have a shred of good conscience.

“A power that rivals an army…” Erin mused in her heart. As someone who strived for the betterment of her abilities and prowess, that prospect did sound thrilling and enticing but everything had a price. Aedan had one too. His strength had garnered the attention of the Demons and he was forced to suppress it to hide from the Demons.

You’ll make a fine vessel too, Erin was suddenly reminded by the words of the Ashen Knight as she fell into deep thought. She had forgotten all about it until now and she had missed the chance to ask Aedan about it. It certainly wasn’t something she could just dismiss as trivial but there was no one she could turn to for any elaboration on those words of the Ashen Knight.

“There should be a library in the city, right?” Erin asked. A library, that was her solution. For a city of this scale, there had to be one and the kinds of books it had would surely be incredibly varied. She would find some answers there, she hoped, but her main goal was still the Covenant.

“Of course, there are quite a few but...”

“But?”

“Only one of them is open to the public. The other libraries require a permit if you’re not a scholar. It is what I heard from Mister Crom.”

“What if I flaunt my status as a Fae?”

“The libraries are one of the few places where one’s status as a Fae is null.”

A place with possibly a lot of state secrets was Erin’s conclusion to their uncompromising stance. This made Erin even more eager to visit these libraries if they were so tightly guarded. “How do I get a permit?”

“From a grand scholar of a prestigious institution—”

“Or from a prominent noble, such as myself, the High Lady of Valdrun,” Melissa answered.

Erin glanced behind her shoulder. “You will?”

“Of course. You are my saviour, Erin. This is the least I could do. If you have any more requests, please don’t hesitate.”

“Well then, I’ll have that permit.”

“My pleasure, Erin.” After that, Melissa beckoned for her knight. He trotted up close to the wagon on his horse and leaned his ears close to his mistress as she whispered to him.

Erin heard everything Melissa said and it was hard to suppress her incredulity over what she heard. Melissa wasn’t just getting her a permit for the libraries but also a pass that would allow her into places that were otherwise off-limits to outsiders. Going by Melissa’s grin, Erin knew she intended for this to be a surprise and it had already worked, Erin was certainly surprised.

****

Though the city was in sight and there was no more than half a day's worth of journey, they were forced to make camp for the day due to the harsh undulating terrains. The horses needed to rest and be fed, especially the horses drawing the wagon. Fortunately, their camp this time did not require them to be vigilant of their surroundings as patrols would frequent by every half an hour as they were now very close to the city. They only needed to make a fire to keep themselves warm and even that was an easy task thanks to Melissa.

The High Lady of Valdrun took a stone slate carved with magic inscriptions from her subspace storage that was enchanted onto the wedding ring she was wearing. Of course, Erin had noticed it before even without using Appraisal since she could sense magic emanating from the ring. She didn’t know it was specifically a subspace storage spell but she could sense Spatial Magic since she had that Magic Art now. Anyway, the stone slate was actually a campfire made portable. With just a touch and a few seconds delay, flames appeared on the slate and it had a quick-cooling function after the fire was doused. It cost around twenty gold in the market. To repel the monsters, the nobles would use a monster-repellent dust that one only needed to throw into the fire and the smoke would do the rest. The monster-repellent dust ranged from a single gold per pouch to ten gold per pouch depending on the quality. It was way beyond what Erin could afford but she didn’t need any repellent. Her presence itself was already a repellent. As for human threats, they still need to resort to the classic way of having a person stand guard.

After a light supper, Lilian continued telling the stories she had been telling since they were on the wagon. As Melissa and her daughter were very interested in her stories, no one could complain. Erin pardoned herself from the camp with some meek reason, that no one pointed out, and headed off into the trees. She found a large boulder some ways from the camp and climbed on top of it. She sat cross-legged and straightened her posture, assuming into her meditation. With her eyes closed, she summoned her stats window into her sea of consciousness. It was still a queer sight for her to be “seeing” despite having her eyes closed. She looked through her stats thoroughly, feeling a great sense of accomplishment witnessing how filled the window was. She was currently level forty-one and she had six points remaining in both her Skill Points and Ability Points.

Erin allocated all six of her ability points into Arcane, raising it all the way to fifty-five. The reason for that was Spatial Magic. It was a Magic Art that required more investment than any other Arcane Arts she had acquired so far. A single level required a total of four points to be raised and if the pattern was to be followed, level five onwards would require double the points. It was a very handy Magic Art but the consumption was heavy on her magic vigour and also her mental vigour. Warp alone took a third of her Mana pool and if she wanted to have Mana left for other spells, she could only use warp twice at most. Increasing her Arcane stat would decrease her spell’s Mana consumption and increase the limit of her magic vigour. If she wished to utilise her Spatial Magic more, Arcane was the stat she needed to focus on.

As for her Arcane Arts, she raised Spatial Magic’s level by one, consuming four of her skill points at once, and poured the rest into Mystic Tail Arts, raising it to level five. A new array of knowledge surged into her mind as these two Magic Arts increased in levels. And when the flood of knowledge ended, Erin opened her eyes, beaming with a smile. She had acquired a spell that she had been longing for ever since she saw Aedan using it. That spell was Vault, the subspace storage spell. She immediately hopped off the boulder and picked up a few stones that were around the size of her palm. She then tossed the stones into Vault. The space rippled as it swallowed the stones. On the fifth stone that she tossed, it bounced right off the space. Four palm-sized stones were her current limit. There wasn’t much space but she wasn’t expecting there to be a lot in the first place considering Spatial Magic was only level three. Still, this was a tremendous gain. She barely used any Mana when using Vault. She only needed to sharpen her focus. Four stones' worth of space was more than enough to store valuables such as money.

After she finished evaluating her Spatial Magic, she moved on to Mystic Tails Arts, where she had gained two new spells. The first spell was simply called Steel Tails. It basically just hardened her tail. She tried touching her tails while using Steel Tails but she didn’t feel any changes to the texture. But when she hit the ground with her tails, she could definitely feel the change then. Steel Tails increased the defence of her tails but not its strength. So, it was more of a defensive ability than an offensive one. As for the second spell, it was called Mesmerise. It was a spell that allowed her to daze her opponents and the duration of the daze was dependent on the Magic Art’s level and also her Arcane value. She was too thrilled with this spell as Lust could do the same trick but better.

“Erin!”

Erin veered her gaze suddenly to the voice that called out to her in a manner that was just as sudden. “Siv? Lyra? What’s wrong?” she asked.

“What do you mean what’s wrong?” Lyra asked back. “We heard a loud noise.”

“Oh,” Erin muttered and glanced over at the small crack she made on the ground. “That was nothing. I was… in over my head for a moment there.”

“See, mistress is fine, Lyra,” Siv said. “You are too paranoid for your own good.”

“For very good reasons, Siv,” Lyra retorted.

“What about Nivia and the rest? I hope I didn’t startle them too much.”

“You didn’t, mistress. Lady Melissa and her guards were certainly startled but Lilian immediately calmed them down by assuring them it was nothing. Lyra was the only one who was truly worried.”

“And what’s so terrible about that?” Lyra shot.

Erin chuckled. “Forgive me, Lyra. Your concern is understandable. I am well aware that I am reckless but it is a part of me, Lyra. So I can’t change that.”

“I don’t expect you to,” she said and threw herself into Erin’s arms, wrapping her own arms around Erin.

“Lyra…” Erin breathed. “Is there another reason that you would like to share with me for rushing here other than to ascertain my safety?”

Lyra impishly gazed up at Erin’s eyes. “Like you can’t smell it off me already… idiot…”

Erin simpered and leaned into her ears. “I want to hear it directly from you, Lyra,” she whispered.

“...Fuck me,” Lyra uttered softly.

Before Erin could ask, Siv had already come up beside her and threw her arms around Erin. “Me too, mistress. I want your love too.”

“And so you shall have, my dear Siv,” Erin promised, wrapping an arm around the waist of the Wolf-kin who was in heat.