Chapter 55

“Hey! Hold on! Calm down! He’s a leveler!”

The Elf gave her a look of disbelief. “Girl that’s a monster, a fuckin dangerous looking one. Get behind me, quick.”

This was not going quite how Lyra had planned.

Rain approached and positively loomed at the guard who for his part unconsciously started moving backwards toward the gate, the spear trembling in his hands.

“I ... Am not a monster.” said Rain, trying to be unmonster like. He was not very good at it.

The guard just stared up at him, jaw hanging.

“It’s true! He’s not a monster. He’s a, uhm, leveler from up north, you just aren’t familiar with the race, that’s all.”

“He looks like he’s about to eat me!”

“I’m not about to eat you,” said Rain. The Elf looked like he didn’t believe him in the slightest.

Opal piped up “Well, not ye-” a large paw slapped across her mouth, which being Rain’s size covered her head entirely. A muffled unintelligible voice continued to speak from behind the paw.

“Er, ignore her, she’s just a misbehaving slave, you know how it is,” said Lyra, attempting a casual laugh which sounded incredibly awkward in the stand off.

“Listen girl, I don’t know why you thought it was a good idea to dress a monster in some clothes but you aren’t fooling anyone. That’s a monster clear as day. If this is just a convoluted way to get around the restrictions on large monster slaves being allowed in...”

“Have you ever seen or heard of a species of monster like him before?”

“ ... Well, no-”

“Then how do you know for sure! He could just be a particularly aggressive looking leveler!”

“That’s-”

“And frankly it is incredibly racist of you to assume that he is a monster, didn’t your Mother teach you any manners? Is this the kind of welcome that Lynthia’s best put out for an extremely incredibly disgustingly wealthy merchant looking to flood the town with gold and riches?”

“Now wait a moment, I’m no-”

“Is Lynthia full of racists? Because first impressions are important and your impression is of an uncouth Elf judging others by appearance. What next? Are you going to call me a slut for being part Elf? Huh?”

“I’m a bloody Elf!”

“Yeah, well, that just makes it twice as bad!”

Lyra stepped forward as she spoke, berating the Elf with her words, practically beating him over the head with her commentary. She finished with staring him down with her hands on her hips.

The guard ran a hand over his sweaty brow.

“Look, I’m not going to let you in, period. This is not a normal situation. If half the guard hadn’t gone off with the Inquisitor leaving us undermanned I’d be looking to arrest you for trying this, as it is, just ... go away with that giant feral looking thing following you around.”

Lyra set her lips in a line. “Fine. You want to play it the hard way, I see how it is.”

She beckoned at Rain and he removed his paw from Opal. The Goblin smiled as she saw Lyra beckoning and skipped over. The guard looked at the Goblin suspiciously and gripped his spear.

Lyra snorted contemptuously and dove her hands into the pack. And then she began throwing gold at the guard.

“Wha- what are you doing!?”

“I’m bribing you! What does it look like! Take this! And this! And this!”

Gold and gems showered around the guard, bouncing and pinging off his armour. A few gem-encrusted necklaces landed on his spear and dangled comically from the tip. It was when Lyra stepped up and placed a tiara on his head that the guard started to crack under the onslaught. His fingers trembled with the rings Lyra was placing upon them as the spear fell from his hands to clatter on the ground.

“This is, you can’t just do this!”

“Well, I am doing it guard guy, so you better deal with it!”

“This is so much money!”

“I know! And all for the small small price of overlooking my leveler friend over here’s outward appearance!”

“...”

Lyra was standing at his shoulder now, whispering in his ear.

“You know you want to, just look how that gold glitters, just think of all you could buy, yes, just think, imagine all the whores and booze you can get your little guard guy mitts on, you could do anything with this, hell you could buy happiness with this.”

Lyra broke the guard’s will with a whimper.

He began scrabbling on the ground snatching up all the gold and gems into a bag.

The sheep girl gave him a smug smile as he stood back up, his face flustered, the tiara on his head askew.

“Fine. You can bring it in ... As a leveler.”

“Great!”

“I will still need to check your level however.”

Lyra rolled her eyes. “Really? We’re still doing that?”

The guard looked slightly offended. “I do have some professional courtesy you know. If the town Ranker commands to check for high levelers coming into town then it is the guard’s job to enforce it.”

“Yeah yeah I know. Rankers are always so paranoid.”

“Well, it keeps things safe for the town, if a Ranker is going to be challenged for his rule its best it’s done out in the open to reduce collateral damage. Personally, I think anyone willing to challenge Bane is literally clinically insane, even those with levels above him are scared to challenge him, but hey, I’d rather not take the risk.”

The guard fiddled around with a velvet pouch on his belt until he produced what appeared to be a black glass sphere about two inches across. Inside the sphere he held in his gloved hands was a white number, the number 1.

“Simply let this level orb touch your skin and it will display your true level.”

The guard made to hand it over to Lyra when Opal snatched it from his hand.

“Do me!” she said holding it up and staring at the number.

The sphere remained inert and unchanging.

“It doesn’t work on monsters, obviously. Please take control of your Goblin slave. If you can’t control it I will be forced to confiscate it and potentially put it down.”

“Hey screw you, you manual breather!”

“Opal give it here, just let me show him my level and we can go.”

“Boo.”

Lyra took the orb from the Goblin girl. As she did the number in the sphere began to change, ticking up from one to two and so on. It began to warm in her bare hand as the orb worked and she handed it back to the guard. After a second or two of the number ticking up it came to a stop on the number fifteen, fifteen for Lyra’s fifteen levels.

“Hmm. Fine. You didn’t look like you were a threat anyway.”

“Hey!”

“Very well, you can pass.”

He stepped aside and gestured at the open gate.

Rain paused as he stepped by the guard. He looked down at the orb in the guard’s hand. He knew what it was, it was a brand in his past life, definitive proof of his humiliating level one.

Not sure what he was thinking he held out a paw, his digits spread.

The guard looked at him warily. “What do you want monster?”