Bro, I'm not an Undead!

The town was also a snow and ice covered settlement with quite the large number of people within it much like Harifrast.

The general activity with the high of the gloomy sun behind the cold, was as one would expect, the clothing and textile businesses doing well along with eateries that fumed with delectable scents that gathered crowds.

So many of these were sprinkled in every commercial corner, gathering small groups of people, local and otherwise.

The smell of fish pointed out what was most unique about this town; the sale of fish, a particular type of fish.

The Deadneck Oartail.

While it certainly was unbelievable that a town in such a cold place could be well known for exquisite fish, the trade and sale of the scaly mass was factually the best business that Blaiken had.

North of the town was a large, crescent shaped lake, almost triple the size of the town, which was quite strangely unfrozen, the waters within as calm as the flaccidness of the male third leg.

The reason for the unusual phenomenon was naturally the Deadneck Oartails that dwelled within.

They were large, five meter long fish, their heads that arched down at a peculiar angle giving the impression that they had broken necks (of course they don’t technically have necks). Their greenish white scales spotted dark marks, with their ends featuring broad tails, like the ends of oars, hence their name.

Skullius was crouching beside the lake in his Discount Human form.

He donned a new jacket, much thicker and furrier than the last one along with hairy pants that wrapped around his fit body nicely.

Around the pair of pants was a dark chain that wound multiple times around his waist, giving Skullius a rather edgy look.

“Interesting. These things are actually expelling mana containing a mild heat from their bodies with some incredible levels of control,” Skullius said.

While he couldn’t see the fish in the lake, his senses told him a great deal.

The light movements of the water spawned by the wind ran through the ground also, the swimming of the fish creating vibrations that helped him make out their shape.

The mana they produced was also tingling on Skullius’ skin, making him quite aware of their presence even without the use of [Elevated Mana Manipulation].

At this moment however, he was using the skill while applying it to the twenty some meter Inner Domain of his where everything was reflected to him perfectly.

“This was a nice detour, I guess. I should probably get going,” Skullius said.

Sila had finally relented, divulging the location of the Sacred Forest where the place he had promised could be found.

Upon getting the directions, Skullius inquired from strangers where this place was.

Given how he couldn’t understand anyone anymore, Sila who was familiar with the region, having lived in it before, had to chip in, assisting Skullius with forming simple sentences in the native dialects that people would understand.

This didn’t always work though, as the language had vastly evolved over tens of millennia and un some cases, UNCoddled had slushied the hell out of people Skullius asked as he hadn’t expressed his questions with the right intent and wording to not garner sympathetic help.

What usually followed when he asked successfully however, was people giving him a weird look, borderline hostile which was great for obvious reasons but bad because for some strange reason that Skullius hadn’t learnt yet, it gave bad face to seek this place.

Still, he had won the battle to attain the right directions, making a stop here as it was in the direction of his destination.

Skullius had immediately set off after [High Cosmetic Body]’s cooldown ended, his journey leading him to this town where he bought some clothes (pointing at what he needed from stalls), this time quite a bit of them as he wanted to have spares for emergencies.

While in town, he had felt the presence of mana from the lake and decided to investigate.

At the moment, Skullius held the Elimparidis Stone Staff as even now, he couldn’t afford to let the Centre to his core keep randomly sending mana off into the Refinery for a simplistic flow.

On the way here by paid carriage, he had been extremely focused as he continued weaving mana with [Mana Force] and [Elevated Mana Manipulation], his pace in creating the coil around his Centre increasing by a bit as he got used to it.

It seemed to Skullius that this task was so difficult because he lacked some kind of stimulus. Something to jolt his body to awaken and make it readily accelerate his capabilities. After all, this process wasn’t exactly complicated once he got a hand of it, it was just so slow.

If only he could use [HYPED] as he wished, he bet it would be faster as it had done wonders for Sila but that was impossible. He couldn’t just get himself extremely hyped about something.

‘Hmm? Who are these guys?’ Skullius thought as he felt horses approach him from the distance.

Four men rode these horses, their sleek armour which had a purple design with a golden insignia at the chest place clanking as the beasts they rode galloped to reach Skullius in the next few moments.

“You there. What are you doing here?” one of the men said with a furious look.

Skullius naturally couldn’t understand a word of the man saying. He rose and stared blankly at the man with his white eyes, his focus going to the men’s cores which had different shades of blue, their body brimming with power that Skullius was unintimidated by.

“Speak! Didn’t you hear what he asked?” another of the four men bellowed while reining in the horse that neighed and strutted under him. “Even if you are not a local, attempting to fish during the day and with the sanctioned quota reached no less, is a punishable offence, whether you knew it or not!”

These men did not belong to the Capital Service.

They were Monitoring Officers for the Family that owned this part of the lands.

The Faras Family.

As stated before, Families had the privilege of owning Territory within the nation and governing it as they saw fit.

Blaiken was one such example.

Because the town made quite the bit of money by selling the Deadneck Oartails, the Faras Family had hurriedly stepped in to ensure that the fishes were not dined on to extinction.

Rather, they started breeding projects inside and outside Blaiken while also putting a limit on how much fish could be taken from the lake at the given time.

Skullius titled his head, finding his inability to understand these guys quite interesting as well as their fury which he could feel without even sensing the contours of their faces contort.

Their mana and the air around them as well as a more natural energy that flowed from them told him much of this.

‘Are they upset because of that thing you said you heard those guys say?’ Skullius asked Sila internally. ‘That can’t be true, right? Is that really why no one is here?’ he thought.

‘Probably so,’ Sila replied.

While in the town, Skullius, and Sila by extension, had overhead with his sharpened senses that the locals believed the Deitess Listafelle to inhabit the fish from the lake once a day until the night, blessing the fish. Before then, no one was supposed to even attempt to touch the fish.

Thus fishing was only done in the night-time.

Apparently the local temple priests confirmed this and proliferated the belief.

‘Well, flesh that…’ Skullius thought.

“Let’s take this fool away! He’s obviously looking down us,” another of the men drew his sword as he edged his horse forward.

Skullius shook his head before his figure turned into a blur.

He shot past the men with brisk motion that prevented the four of them from even catching a glimpse of his figure at all!

Just like that, the three were left gaping as they couldn’t even find a trace of the Discount Human in the white of snow around.

*

…

Skullius sighed as he looked below, his <HEART> beginning to beat at a quick pace.

He was a vast distance away from Blaiken at this time as after making his escape, he had taken to the journey for his last destination with sturdy steps while weaving the ridiculously intricate ‘coding’ for the Refinery around his core’s Centre.

The sun was setting now, and while it had also been part of Skullius’ strategy (travelling at a slower speed to drag out time) so that he would at least have his Penetrator form to count on, he couldn’t have guessed that he would be having second thoughts about this whole thing.

This was because of the scene he was looking down to right now.

He had reached the place that Sila had talked about but instead of excitement, much of what he felt was apprehension.

‘Well… it’s definitely different from the Tremur. In fact, it looks more like a Sacred Forest in comparison that place,’ Skullius thought while gathering courage.