The Silver Calamity - Book 1 - Chapter 3 - The City (Patreon)

                                                                                                        Silver

Before our hands can touch though, the view outside of the window instantly changes. Instead of the waves of the dimensional barrier, the view outside of the window shows the beautiful sights of the city.

Spread out for as far as I can see from the tram, which is riding on a set of rails above the city, large buildings reaching around three or four stories in height filled with people stand on either side of parallel streets. And high above the streets themselves, I occasionally see floating blue structures with portals inside of them.

Dimensional Rifts.

Around the rifts are security guards armed with magic swords and magic armor, standing guard against any monsters that might leak out of the rifts.

Apparently I’ve been staring out of the window for a while now as Flare chuckles and asks, “First time seeing the city?”

I turn back to her and nod my head.

The Dread Sovereignty was an incredibly dark place. Dark skyscrapers towering high into the sky everywhere you can see, with no legal ways in or out of the sovereignty, and no ways for the poor to get out of the slums.

But this place. This place is different.

I don’t see any slums; I don’t see any noticeably poor people.

Although that’s probably because the city of hunters is, well, a city for hunters. And their families and friends that is. And being a hunter is a very profitable job.

Assuming you don’t die during the job that is.

“Let’s go get our rewards,” Flare suddenly says while turning around to walk towards the first car.

I smile at the mention of money before immediately following after her, ahead of the other two guys in the car.

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After getting our rewards from the very apologetic tram conductor, we leave the tram at the stop and begin walking through the relatively crowded streets of the district. From what I can tell, everyone seems to be in a hurry no matter where they’re heading, and a lot of people have weapons on their person.

“Traversing the city can be a bit of a chore sometimes,” Flare suddenly begins speaking as we continue pushing our way through, “new rifts are opening practically all the time throughout the entire city, so hunters are always rushing about to be the first ones there to claim the rift. But they normally end up being left out as the closest hunters to the rifts are always the ones who get to them.”

“A lot of people don’t even bother trying to get to most of them unless the rift happens to be in the same area and is the same Tier as them,” Sparky adds in while pushing some Tier 1 hunter out of the way as the man nearly runs into him.

Huh. I knew this city was known for its massive number of dimensional rifts, but this is still a lot more than I’d expected. And it certainly explains why the other powers in the universe have so much trouble getting information from the neutral city. Because even without the city’s neutrality policy of not giving out any of the hunters’ information to outsiders, it would take years, maybe even a decade just to find one single person in this massive plane.

Certainly the best place to hide from the Black Calamity.

A faint smile makes its way onto my face at that thought.

We continue pushing our way through the streets for several boring hours, passing by quite the number of both higher Tier and low Tier dimensional rifts along the way, before we finally stop in front of a five story building. It has a red lightning bolt logo displayed in a rather large size on the wall, with two fancy looking doors and no windows anywhere on the building. But what catches my eye is the nameplate above the doors.

Crimson Hall Guild House.

“Welcome to our guild house!” Flare says while spreading her arms out to either side of her after stopping in front of the door. She then turns around and grabs the handles before throwing the doors open, releasing the sounds of dozens of people all talking at once.

I slowly follow her in with the other two behind me while taking in my new surroundings. The entry hall is literally just a large gathering area, with two large bars on either side of the room, several large tables spread throughout it, and a few receptionist desks at the end of the hall. Meanwhile the majority of the people in here are around the same size as Flare and Zach, being around five foot eight or nine or so, with their own sets of magical armor making the area filled with mana everywhere I see.

“Hey, Flare is back!” I hear someone shout, following which quite a few more shouts of welcome spring up from other people – who I’m assuming are all members of this guild. Flare on the other hand just grins at them all and waves.

Actually, now that I think about it, what position does Flare have here anyways? She’s Tier 3, and clearly had the right to negotiate my joining. But most guildmasters that I’ve heard of were at least Tier 4 – partially because that’s the minimum Tier to start making magical gear, making it one of the best ways to raise the massive amount of funds needed to make a guild, and partially because of the strength it gives them.

Guess she must be a higher rank in the guild?

Looking through the people around us as we walk through the room towards one of the desks, most of the people here are Tier 2, with only a few Tier 3s amongst them. Which proves my point that she can’t be the guildmaster.

My thoughts are interrupted once we get to the desk and… completely ignore it, walking right to the stairs behind it?

Apparently Zach notices the confusion on my face as he leans in and whispers, “We’re going to see the guildmaster.”

Huh. Wait a second, what?

Is it normal to take a rookie to… actually nevermind. I’m just going to let things play out.

We climb up three flights of stairs before going down a long hallway and ending up at a fancy looking door. One that Flare just straight up opens and walks through while saying, “Heya old man, I’ve brought a rookie!”

Maybe this guild just has a thing against formality?