The Rise of the Winter Wolf - Book 5 - Sapphire Intermission 1 (Patreon)

                                                     Outside Safe Zone 52

Sapphire finds that sneaking into the city isn’t very hard since her level is a couple thousand more than most of the people in the Safe Zone. And thanks to a skill she had gained recently that lets her elemental shift just like her father, albeit with very limited amount of range and time to do it, she manages to sneak up to the outer wall before shifting and moving past the wall into the city itself. Then she finds a dark spot and transforms back into her humanoid form while grabbing a cloak from her storage ring – a cloak she herself had made out of her own silk.

The cloak is white and covers everything she needs covered with a deep cowl to hide her face and stark white hair that stands out from the regular humans roaming around the Safe Zone city.

Before she leaves the dark spot she had found away from anyone else, she glances back to make absolutely certain that no one is in sight before creating a mirror of ice and looking at herself in it. And in the reflection, she finds her stark white hair being well hidden by the white cloak and the snow. But on the other hand, her glowing blue eyes occasionally stick out from her cloak.

Shouldn’t be an issue. Not as long as I keep my head down.

Overall, she looks like a regular girl bordering on her teenage years with her cloak down, and almost indecipherable with it up and hanging over her head. But after a second, she frowns.

Hmm, let’s try this…

Sapphire creates a little bit of snow to help conceal her face since she’s able to see through it anyways. Then she looks herself over once more and nods, making the ice mirror turn back into pure ice element that she spreads into the air once more.

That should do.

She turns around and walks over to the edge of the small alley she had entered before peeking out into the street, a street that doesn’t have very many people due to the snowstorm she had kicked up in the area, and walking into it while holding her hood down.

As she walks, she dissipates some of the storm to make it safer for the people moving around outside and a little clearer. Because she can’t experience the outside world away from the dungeon if she’s stopping their activities to help herself hide.

Sapphire just walks through the streets, finding the buildings growing larger as they get closer to the center of the city where she believes her dad said the System Totem was at. And after walking for a while, she notices more and more people beginning to leave their houses, with a lot of them heading towards the southern entrance of the Safe Zone that she had seen when entering.

Is something happening?

Out of curiosity, Sapphire begins to listen in on some of the conversations going on around her, only for her to frown at what she finds.

They’re looking for me?

From what she can hear, the people from the Void Stream and anyone watching the livestream on their own are finally going out to search for her after the storm finished. Because they all know that the only place her dad has been outside of the old world was here.

And they’re not wrong.

Sapphire’s frown turns even more sour as she hears the conversations of fans.

I really don’t want to meet with them. Maybe I should ask dad to look for an item that can camouflage me or temporarily change my appearance…

She shakes her head, still holding the cowl of her cloak down as she walks, deciding that she might not be able to interact with the people of this Safe Zone after all. But despite that, she continues walking through the city. And throughout her walk, the only people who give her a second glance through the falling snow are the guards watching over the streets.

After that second glance though, most the guards ignore her. Most of them except one particular guard that Sapphire runs into when she gets closer to the center of the city. The guard has brown hair and is wearing a set of dark gray armor with metal plates on his vitals over monster hide underneath, and he has green eyes as he steps through the snow towards Sapphire with a spear in his hand.

This might be bad.

Sapphire glances to the side while trying to keep it from being obvious that she’s doing it, but Sapphire doesn’t have very much experience with stealth, so her actions only seem to make the guard even more suspicious as he shouts over the snow, “Hey, you! In the white cloak!”

Very bad.

Sapphire identifies the man, finding him to be just level 554. Someone she would easily be able to ditch, but she knows that doing that would only make things harder on her as it would likely raise the alarm in the city.

So after a few seconds of quick thinking, she decides to just greet him and hope for the best. Because she will be able to run right away without giving anyone chance to follow if they recognize her and she ends up discovered and dislikes the attention, but if she gets listed as a suspicious person then it would cause her problems with any future visits.

She lets out a sigh before taking a deep breath and walking over to meet him halfway as she calmly answers, “Yes sir?”

The guard looks surprised, probably because he Sapphire isn’t what he was expecting if she had to guess. He even begins to let his guard down a little, likely due to her voice sounding as young as she is. So after he reaches her, he kneels down slightly to match her size and says with a nice and fatherly voice, “Are you lost? Do you know where you live little one?”

Yes! A way out!

“Yes, sir,” she says with a nod of her head, trying to angle her head so that he can’t see her eyes through her cowl. And after a second, the guard reaches over and pats her head, saying, “Alright, but make sure you ask a guard for help if you get lost, okay?”

Sapphire nods her head with a smile on her face – one that he can’t see – before answering, “Okay!”

Then she quickly scurries off, her smile growing even wider.

Success! Now I just need to find someone I’ve met from the viewing rooms.

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