Chapter 80 - 79: Where Is the Village?
"Hey!"
Everyone froze.
A figure stood along the upper walkway of the wall, looking down at them.
Another guard appeared beside him, leaning slightly over the edge.
"You’re looking for the gate, right?"
Several survivors stared up at them.
"Yes!" someone shouted.
The first guard pointed toward the direction they had been heading.
"Follow the wall around. The entrance is that way."
Relief moved through the group almost instantly.
They had been searching for so long that finding someone who actually knew where the entrance was felt like another stroke of luck.
Kyle gave a short nod.
"Come on."
The survivors began following the wall.
Nina kept close to the others, her eyes still wandering over the black stone beside them.
Up close, the wall was even more intimidating.
The surface was smooth, without the rough gaps and uneven wooden beams she had grown accustomed to seeing around King’s Territory. It rose so high above them that she had to tilt her head back to see the upper walkway.
And there were guards up there.
Not dozens.
Just enough.
They moved along the wall with quiet purpose, occasionally glancing toward the forest beyond it.
They weren’t panicking.
They weren’t waiting for an attack.
They simply patrolled.
Nina couldn’t help comparing them to King’s Territory.
The thought irritated her enough that she forced it away.
She didn’t want to think about Tobias anymore.
Not now.
They had finally found somewhere that might let them rest.
The wall curved ahead.
Then the trees began to thin.
Someone near the front suddenly slowed.
"There."
Nina looked up.
The gate came into view.
It was enormous.
Two sections of black stone stood within the wall, reinforced with thick metal fittings that looked strong enough to withstand anything the wilderness could throw at them.
For a moment, nobody moved.
They had spent days imagining what waited at the end of the light.
A ruined settlement.
A dangerous territory.
Another group of desperate survivors.
Maybe nothing at all.
None of them had imagined this.
Kyle stepped forward first.
The others followed.
Nina’s heart began beating faster as she approached the entrance.
She wasn’t sure whether it was fear or anticipation.
Maybe both.
The gates stood open.
No one stopped them.
No one demanded an explanation.
No one raised a weapon.
They simply walked through.
Nina took one step.
Then another.
The instant her foot crossed the invisible boundary, a translucent notification appeared before her eyes.
[You have entered Velaris Village, Level 1.]
Nina stopped.
Her eyes widened.
Around her, the same reaction spread through the survivors.
Some stared at the notification.
Others looked around as though checking whether everyone else had received the same message.
"Level 1?"
Someone said it aloud.
Another survivor laughed once, but there was no humor in it.
"This is Level 1?"
Nina slowly turned around.
The enormous black walls towered above them.
She looked at the upper walkway.
The guards.
The reinforced gate.
Then back at the notification still hovering in front of her.
Velaris Village, Level 1.
It made no sense.
A Level 1 village shouldn’t have defenses like this.
At least, not according to anything Nina had ever seen.
She had lived in King’s Territory.
She had seen what a settlement looked like when it was barely strong enough to survive.
This place was different.
And they had only just stepped inside.
Nina looked ahead.
Beyond the gate, there was...
Forest.
She blinked.
For a second, she thought she had somehow missed something.
But no.
Trees stretched ahead of them.
More trees.
The village was supposed to be behind those walls.
So where was it?
For several seconds, nobody moved.
The notification remained suspended before Nina’s eyes.
[You have entered Velaris Village, Level 1.]
Level 1.
Nina read it again.
Then a third time.
Her brows slowly drew together.
"This is Level 1?"
Someone nearby said it before she could.
Another survivor turned in a slow circle, staring at the massive black walls surrounding them.
"A Level 1 village has walls like this?"
Nobody answered.
There was nothing to say.
The walls alone were enough to make the notification feel ridiculous.
Nina lowered her gaze from the towering stone and looked toward the others.
Everyone seemed to be having the same reaction.
Confusion.
Disbelief.
A few people had already begun whispering among themselves.
"This can’t be Level 1."
"Maybe the notification is wrong."
"Would the System even make a mistake?"
"I don’t know."
Nina looked back at the gate behind them.
They had just walked through an entrance that could have belonged to a fortress.
Yet the System had calmly informed them that they had entered a Level 1 village.
A village.
She almost laughed.
Then another notification appeared.
[Please pay your entry fee within 15 minutes.]
The confusion immediately shifted into silence.
Nina stared at the words.
"Entry fee?"
A man beside her groaned.
"Of course there’s an entry fee."
Someone else asked, "How much?"
The notification changed.
[Visitor Entry: 5 Copper]
[Temporary Residency: 100 Copper | Valid for 30 Days]
[Permanent Residency: 10 Gold]
Nobody spoke.
Nina blinked.
Five copper.
She looked at the notification again, almost certain she had misunderstood it.
"Five copper?"
The woman beside her nodded slowly.
"For visitors."
"And one hundred copper for temporary residency."
"For thirty days."
A few survivors exchanged glances.
The numbers were so different from what they had expected that nobody seemed to know how to react.
Then someone finally said, "That’s cheap."
The word hung in the air.
Cheap.
Nina’s thoughts immediately returned to King’s Territory.
She remembered standing before those gates.
Remembered the System notification.
Remembered the price.
One hundred copper for a visitor.
A hundred.
Not five.
Her expression hardened.
"And temporary residency was one gold," she said quietly.
Several people turned toward her.
Nina continued.
"For thirty days."
Someone sucked in a breath.
"Here it’s only one hundred copper."
Nobody needed to explain the difference.
The comparison was already sitting between them.
One hundred copper just to enter King’s Territory as a visitor.
One gold to remain for thirty days.
And ten gold for permanent residency.
Velaris was charging five copper.
One hundred copper for a month.
And the same ten gold for permanent residency.
A man gave a disbelieving laugh.
"How was Tobias charging that much?"
The question wasn’t directed at anyone in particular.
No one answered.
Nina stared at the notification.
Five copper.
She could afford that.
More importantly, anyone who had managed to survive the journey here could probably afford it too.
Her eyes drifted toward the enormous walls again.
That was what bothered her.
How?
How could a village with defenses like these charge so little?
King’s Territory had barely been able to protect them, yet its prices had been far higher.
She remembered the wooden walls.
The gaps.
The screams beyond them.
The Beast Tide tearing through everything they had once believed would keep them safe.
Her fingers tightened around her knife.
Someone beside her muttered, "Maybe the Lord here isn’t trying to squeeze every copper out of people."
Nina glanced at him.
The man shrugged.
"Just saying."
Another survivor looked toward the buildings beyond the gate.
"We should be grateful they aren’t charging more."
That was true.
Nina couldn’t deny it.
She looked down at the notification again.
For the first time since leaving King’s Territory, something felt strangely different.
They had entered a territory.
A real territory.
One with walls strong enough to make her chest tighten when she looked at them.
And yet the price to stay was almost laughably low.
She didn’t know who ruled Velaris.
She didn’t know why the place was so different from King’s Territory.
But she was beginning to suspect that whoever had built this village had very different priorities from Tobias.
The notification remained before her eyes.
[Please select your desired entry status.]
Nina hesitated.
Then she selected Visitor.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then the notification disappeared.
She looked ahead.
And frowned.
There was no village.
Just trees.
Nina blinked.
She looked to her left.
Trees.
Then to her right.
More trees.
She slowly turned around.
Trees.
The massive gate was still visible behind them, but beyond it stretched the same dense forest they had spent the last several days walking through.
Nina stared.
"What?"
A few survivors had already begun looking around.
"Where is the village?"
Someone asked the question quietly, almost as if speaking louder might somehow make the buildings appear.
Another survivor pointed ahead.
"Maybe it’s further in."
That seemed reasonable.
After all, they had only just entered.
They began walking.
The ground beneath their feet was still covered in leaves and soft earth. Branches stretched overhead, blocking portions of the sky. The forest looked no different from the one they had just left.
Nina glanced back.
The gate was already beginning to disappear behind the trees.
She looked forward again.
Nothing.
No houses.
No market.
No people.
Not even a small clearing that looked as though humans had settled there.
Just forest.