Time passed and the queue slowly moved forward. Some people walked the path Seth, but he found out by asking the caravans around him that they were Nobles, so they took the Noble Que because of course there was a Noble Que.
Eventually, Seth arrived at a place between the walls where it was under shade and there was a clear checkpoint where the guards searched each vehicle.
There was a glass window in the wall, and it seemed as though the guard here was the one Seth was going to have to get past. It was oddly high up, but it was likely a security procedure.
“Any declarations you want to make about your possessions before you enter?”
Seth reached into his pocket and showed the emblem his branch manager gave him. He passed it up to the window and the guard leaned over and took it from Seth’s outstretched arm. This would hopefully allow him to get in before they noticed the stolen goods he had in his carriage. Seth waited as his arm slowly started losing blood and Seth slowly got more nervous as the guard was looking at the emblem.
His tired eyes woke up a bit as he looked closer and right when Seth could barely hold it up anymore the guard's voice came down.
“Seems you’ve got yourself some backing. Let me see some ID?”
Seth held up the ID he had stolen well back when he was arriving at Darter. Poor Isaac, Seth gave a quick prayer. Seth knew the fate of that poor kid and could only hope reincarnation came quicker.
“Right, all good.” He said to Seth before turning his attention to the guards eyeing up Seth's carriage. “Let him in boys, no need for a search he has a pass!”
A few of them muttered, “Lucky,” as Seth slowly trotted into the city that was known as Babylon, The capital city of Historia.
Streets made of stone, houses made of brick and windows made of glass, were the first few sights that conformed to Seth's theory that these bigger cities had better access to technology and the reason as to why was not even hard to guess.
Dungeon breaks wiped cities from the map and technology was expensive so they built throwaway cities of lower-level tech to still gain access to trade routes and other things a city with a good but dangerous location could provide.
These walls allowed cities to not be invaded since ancient times and from there it had only grown. The great walls could be moved by the city owner via message to the gods and obviously a hefty donation to their subsequent church.
For now, Seth could only marvel at the sights sounds and smell of a new city, until he was told to get out of the way by a man behind him, Then Seth got back to moving. His first destination was a bank, as Seth wanted to sell of his gold for some money.
Back in Darter, he had to do this slowly and melt down the gold before selling it, but here he could do nearly anything he wanted. One of the key reasons he moved was that the police of different cities hardly cooperated with each other and the only organization that was muti-national was The Order and Seth was already a large target on their hitlist.
Trotting down the road Seth looked for a grand bank to sell his gold to and once he moved around enough and got used to the traffic Seth found a good parking spot and packed his gold into a bag before making his way into a bank.
The exterior was truly one to marvel at, large pillars and grand design made one think that this was a temple of sorts when really it was a hub of greed and selfishness. Not like banks weren’t useful but capitalism was made by the rich to benefit the rich so calling it fair was like casinos calling blackjack fair, the house always won.
Anyway, Seth ignored other world politics and returned to his own to appreciate the true beauty of architecture. The bank was called Kings Central Bank and was owned and operated by the crown.
Not the Queen, that’s a key distinction. It was run by another family member who maintained the market so that prices remained stable, and inflation did not occur. This system was obviously abused but it had lasted centuries, so it wasn’t a horrid method of economics.
It helped that the Queen's position on the throne was ordained by the churches so things like public image weren’t a need, depressions did happen, and people got upset but inversely an economic boom happened, and people were happy.
Since the Queen had been on the throne for the past 80 years people tended to just stick through it.
Seth returned from his daydream as he stared at the mighty architecture, and he walked in through a set of painted doors. When he walked in the first thing he noticed was the abundance of colour. It seemed some kind of paint had been invented and when Seth thought about it he had noticed that the Lord's Vault room was painted a dark black.
Purple, the colour of royals was what dominated the view of the main lobby and Seth could not help but feel the arrogance in the bold colours as he walked up to a bank teller.
“Hello, how can I help you today?” Cheery and professional, Seth's 2 favourite characteristics of a service worker.
He let the woman have a peek inside the bag. Gold illuminated the teller's face as the bars reflected light back into her jade-green eyes.
“So, a conversation?” Seth smiled at the simplicity of working with a smart person.
“Yes, and can you do it quickly I’m running late to a meeting.” Whatever meeting Seth just made up made him seem more professional and less suspicious, at least it did in Seth's mind.
The teller nodded and a guard brought the bag through to inside the teller's office. This bank clearly had good security and looking at the guard, who was around 40, he seemed to be on the higher-level side. That added up to security Seth stood no chance of facing. For now, that is, Seth smiled at such a thought and kept an eye out for security just in case he decided a heist was in order.
The teller only took 5 minutes and after that Seth was given 200 gold coins which was around 2 million pounds. That was a lot of money to just be handing around, but it seemed this economy was richer, and the bank teller barely blinked at handing over the sum. Seth liked to think this was how oil barons on Earth moved, just casually checking out 2 million.
Insanity. Seth was happy for the lack of security checks but that was just how this world functioned.
He used a spell of a money bag and that seemed to completely change the teller's perspective of Seth as she looked at him in a new light. Not a bad light, it seemed Money Bag was also a spell of Banker’s.
He placed the money in the bag and Seth could immediately tell the weight drop. He was sad he didn’t get to use it in the last heist, as it was mainly jewellery he stole but when he converted that to cash he would get to use it properly.
The money bag went in Seth's hand as it swayed up and down. Seth was walking happily out of the bank like he had just won the lottery. He was sure the authorities had been in a mess since Seth had robbed the Lord and now he was going to sell any evidence that he had. Making him completely free from being hunted.
Unless it was The Order, but it had been a long time since he had been termed a Demon and apart from a task force being made he had seen and heard nothing.
Seth continued his day with a smile on his face; Ignorance was bliss, after all.
Whilst Seth was smiling somebody was not and this somebody had a bloody knife in his hand.
“You could have just rescinded your class Greggy but look at you now, knife in the gut. I see your blood spill to the floor. The city thanks you for your sacrifice and you may die now.”
Locke had gone through a transformation and unlike most mid-life crises he had ended up with bodies in alleyways.
Once his target had slumped to the ground Locke got out a note-list and crossed a name off. Before it, you could see seven other crosses of names. Locke had been busy and clearing the streets of their worst was not easy.
Yet Locke had seen in the past few months a reduction in crime level that had made him ecstatic. This was likely due to the end of the war, which when Locke had heard about it after his psychological change had made him rethink his goals, but the crime never stopped so Locke started to do overtime work.
Another thing he had noticed was his change in levelling speed. After his case with that Thief, his levelling had slowed to a snail's pace but now it was increasing like it was on speed.
Name: Locke
Class: Demon Of Judgement/level 26
Skills:
= Demon’s Intuition (Mastery/ Intermediate 4/1000)
= Judgement (Mastery/ Beginner 14/100
Locke had gained a new skill and boy was it a good one. Judgment made him 10% stronger when doing an act of justice and that was it. The only downside was its cost, unlike usual skills since it was so strong he needed blood to feed its hunger.
That’s why he used it had only upgraded to a small margin but at this rate, it would only take a few years to upgrade. When the voices returned, they told him that years were unacceptable. They sounded so loud, yet sweet and persuading that Locke felt himself falling to their words more often.
At first, he decided to kill once a month, but the voices wanted more, and Locke could only fall to their whims when they spoke too much. The thing they wanted most was Thief's blood.
Whoever those voices belonged to Locke felt as though the Thief had done something to them and as he had a grudge he found himself keen to spill it. Yet, that coward had run away, and Locke had no choice but to stay in Darter he would need a promotion before he could go to Babylon.
Locke was a detective and finding out where the Thief was going was child’s play, let alone the fact he had Demon's Intuition which could help him out.
The Lord also knew this yet for some reason that alluded the police force he decided to not chase down the Thief. It had apparently changed the man to see a world that was better and a month ago he publicly thanked the Thief.
He had also announced the existence of a bastard child which was a shock to all, but Locke cared less. For now, he shared his knives and waited for his chance to move to Babylon. He wanted Seth dead and at nearly any cost he would make his dream a reality.
Elsewhere in the wide world was a large brick and stone tower. It was around 50 stories tall and resembled a lighthouse in aesthetic.
Yet this was no lighthouse and any ship who saw it would move out of courtesy for those that owned it. The Tower of Order was the beacon that shined hope onto the Eastern Continent, or so the papers said.
In the top office of the tower was a bearded man named Iza Rathmal Epizeuxis and he was a continental superpower.
Judge of Evil and Good was his class and he was level 145. He could have ruled a higher-level kingdom at that level but instead, he decided to set up an organisation that would benefit his own class.
He was watching the thunder roll over the stormy waves as they hit the edges of a white cliff. Iza had a frown on his face, the weather was rather concerning.
He moved back and looked at his desk to see what news could cause such an event.
A Lower-level kingdom had been razed to the ground by a dungeon break, he would have to send extra forces.
A rebellion had fallen a monarch in a mid-level kingdom, it was sheer stupidity that had brought them there, but Iza was forced to send forces.
Some good news, a new pistol had been developed that was cheap to produce and fairly strong even in the level 40s, so Iza approved a plan to get them shipped out.
And finally, news from just this year was a Demon had been born, and a task force had already been set up, but they were stalling. Fear had stopped these people from doing good, so Iza sent orders of execution and replacement and he even put his best commander for the job. She had been rising through the ranks faster than Iza had ever seen before and before he died he hoped to see another Judge rise to take his mantel.
Iza sighed as he sat back on his chair and reminisced about the days when he rose up in the world. He had killed many, too much to even count and now it held him back.
His methods were simply wrong but at the time they were perfectly alright. It was a scheme by those Gods to keep humans weak and Iza was a good example of who they had foiled.
He fell asleep to the sound of the lightning continuing. A storm was brewing and Iza was going to try and keep the peace for as long as he could because he loved peace. Ever since he was born in a war-torn country, that was always his goal and for as long as he lived he was going to make his dream a reality.
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As always, have a nice day.
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(50+ Chapters Ahead)
That night Iza had a nightmare, the contents of which haunted him until his death.
