"Into this room!"

The guard sent us gruffly into a small room that looked like an interrogation room. Savia and I sat down at the table and waited for someone.

The guards took their time, and it felt like an eternity had passed when one of the guards came into the room. The guard took off his helmet and sat down across from us.

He was in his mid-twenties, and his hair was brown and of medium length. He sighed and looked at us with his dark brown eyes.

"Let's get this over, quickly."

He looked annoyed, as if he didn't want to do this, but was forced to.

"Names?"

He read from a sheet.

"Siana, Savia."

First, Savia pointed at me and then at herself.

"Well."

The man wrote our names on the paper and moved on to the next section.

“You have already mentioned your profession, as I can see. Then... which state do you belong to?"

The man looked severe, but Savia had to laugh.

“If we were spies, we would have pre-made background stories. We don't belong to any of the countries."

That was obviously a lie. My last name wasn't "von Tyrn" for a reason.

I looked over at Savia, and she shrugged her shoulders with an expression on her face that said, "Doesn't matter."

“Without citizenship, huh? Well, that's unusual."

He wrote it down again and went on.

“Let's see... What is still open? ...Ah! Here below. Crimes... As if a real criminal answered truthfully."

"Correctly."

Savia grinned.

"What do we have to wait for?"

I was confused because that was all the questions, and the guard wanted to pack up.

"The weapons are checked for crime reports."

Savia answered me before the guard could answer. My question, in turn, piqued the guard's curiosity.

"New?"

Savia answered immediately and prevented me from answering myself.

"Yes, she is."

"Is that so…"

The guard wrote something down again before getting up and leaving the room. We were left alone again.

“And how was the first impression? Strange, wasn't it?"

"A little, but that's exactly how I imagined it."

Savia patted me on the shoulder.

"Then now comes the fun part."

Simultaneously, the door was slammed open, and 10 guards in full gear rushed in. At first, I thought they wanted to take us prisoner, but they bowed to us instead.

"What's going on here?"

I asked Savia, perplexed.

“I once saved the life of their feudal lord. Does that mean we can go?"

After explaining the reason to me, Savia addressed the guards.

"Naturally."

The only guard who was wearing a different armor answered. A near guard immediately handed us our weapons, which he held in his hand before they gave way to us and let us out.

When we arrived outside, the guard, who went through the questionnaire with us, was already waiting.

"Forgave me, but because of your merit th-."

"Name."

Savia interrupted him immediately.

"Sieggald."

“Good, Sieggald, show my sister the city. I have something to do."

She grabbed his shoulder and leaned over to him. She whispered something to him, but for some reason, I couldn't hear it, yet I could watch all the color drain from his face.

"I understood!"

He saluted overzealously, and Savia turned to me.

“I'm going to look for a job for us, so take care. I have already told Sieggald to take you to the Stumbling Horse Inn after you have seen enough."

She gave me a light hug and left me alone with Sieggald.

"Where should we go first?"

Sieggald looked at me expectantly.

"Hmmm…"

I had to think about it first.

"I choose the market."

He nodded.

"A good choice."

With a wave of his hand, he pointed in the direction in which it should go.

A fairly wide path led into the city center. The way was paved with massive stones, and the houses mostly had three or four floors.

"Isn't it a problem for you to leave the guard post?"

"Oh, don't worry, we've been overstaffed since that one incident at every one of our city and district gates."

He answered the question without emotion, which gave me no idea what kind of incident it was.

"What is this incident?"

He paused for a moment and looked at me, puzzled.

“Oh... new, right? Strange creatures have been appearing for some time now. Not just here, but in many regions. Of course, I can't speak for the whole country, the region, and so on, but I think it affects every place... Everything since..."

Do I have to pull everything out of his nose!? Wait a moment! If I asked him about this "event," he would notice that something is wrong. Damn it!

I didn't show anything and tried to change the subject.

"What kind of creature was that?"

"Oh... just a new kind of shapeshifter..."

Some kind of shapeshifter... Think about it... There were two types of shapeshifters in the game. One species could imitate other animals and adapt their behavior. Unchanged, they looked like a colorless slime... They were often referred to as Icoslim, which stood for incognito slime, a type of slime...

The second type was the mimic, a humanoid being without any physical characteristics. It had equated intelligence with a human and could copy any humanoid race, but... they had no knowledge of the actual people they were imitating. They should try to live and multiply like a parasite among the different races...

"Neither mimic nor an incognito slime... What made it special?"

He gave me a quick look.

“It has been declared confidential, so I am officially not allowed to tell you anything more than this. But if you ask me, after the market, I would visit the art district, which is where the creature rioted. Maybe some of the residents will tell you something."

I nodded and whispered a "Thank you."

The houses got bigger and bigger, and the residential buildings became shops. The streets were reminiscent of some of Europe's countless old towns. This was already clear to me before, but the city was exactly like in the game. Now it was necessary to check if the people were too. The problem came with people I knew because the only named NPCs I knew were the feudal lord and a dealer for special weapons.

"Do you know what kind of shop you want to visit first?"

"I heard about this shop with special weapons... where can I find it?"

Sieggald looked insecure but only nodded a little confused. Without further ado, he directed me through the crowds that moved back and forth between the shops. The street became more and more crowded, and stalls stood in the middle of the road.

"Right, this way."

He turned onto a side street and stopped a few hundred yards away. In front of him was a shop called "Kuno's weird weapons store." The shop's lights were out, and it seemed closed, but the "Open"-sign was hanging on the door.

"Is the shop permanently closed?"

Confused by its appearance, I turned to Sieggald.

“Well, most lost interest in the weapons after the first generation of Kuno's weapons hit the market. I think the shop is not doing as well as it used to be, but Kuno should be able to answer you more precisely. He tells every visitor the story of how successful his shop was in the past."

In the game, it was the most popular shop...

I walked up to the door and slowly opened it.

*krrr*

The door opened with a deafening noise. A cloud of smoke crawled over the ground and throughout the opened door. As I looked further inside, I could see that the whole store was a 10cm high fog on the floor.

What's going on here?

I went in cautiously, leaving the door open so that the fog could go away.

"Kuno?"

I looked around but couldn't see anything in the shop area. I jumped over the counter and entered the store's warehouse and forge. The forge was out, and the fog didn't come from her. Next, I examined the storage cabinets.

Nothing...

I looked for the stairs to the upper floor.

"Is everything OK in here?"

Sieggald entered the house and called further inside.

"Nobody is here. Do you know where the stairs go up?"

I kept looking around while waiting for an answer. Suddenly there was a duller sound from the shop area.

"Everything OK?"

I turned and went back to the shop area.

Sieggald's body lay motionless on the floor.

“Anesthetic gas? Or poison gas?"

I picked up Sieggald off the ground and threw him out the window. With a clang and a bang, Sieggald landed on the floor. I could hear some screams of surprise, but I didn't have time for that. Without any consideration, I kicked all the doors open. After the third door, I finally found the stairs hidden behind a small side door. The door was too small for humans, but I kicked it open because it was out of the norm.

The door was definitely made to measure.

I ran up the stairs. They were also covered in fog on every step.

I opened door after door and looked for the bedroom. The very last door led into the bedroom. Kuno was lying on the bed, and next to him was the source of the mist.

A sword with an oddly shaped blade was the source of the mist. The blade was convex on both sides, and there were two stones in the center. One of them was red, the other gray. Both were glowing, with the fog only coming from the gray stone.

Hmmm…

I threw Kuno over my shoulder and jumped out of the window with him. We ended up just outside the crowd that had gathered around Sieggald.

The people were frightened and screamed in shock, but they calmed down when they saw that I was holding someone in my hand.