Chapter 274: Academy Above the Clouds
Above the cloud line, the road narrowed into a series of exposed switchbacks.
Cold wind swept across the bare stone and pressed Martin toward the mountain wall. To his right, the slope fell away into a white expanse, and the cloud cover made the drop look bottomless.
Rias climbed several paces ahead without slowing. Wind snapped the hem of her black coat and whipped loose strands of red hair across her face. Whenever the road split around a shelf of stone, she checked the carved signs before choosing a route.
Martin glanced back down the road, though Endless Rain had disappeared beneath the clouds several turns ago. Angel remained safely inside her pocket dimension. Before leaving, he and Rias had agreed that summoning her anywhere near Just Die after the attack on Kumoe would be reckless. Martin had explained the danger to Angel and asked her to stay inside until they returned.
Angel had watched him in silence before lowering her head and giving a reluctant squeal. Martin had taken it as agreement, though she continued staring at him until he sent her into the pocket dimension. The road could barely fit two people, let alone a Dragon Turtle nearly the size of a house, but knowing she was close did little to make keeping her confined feel right.
Rias glanced over her shoulder when he looked back again. "You can still turn around."
"And leave without learning what Just Die is doing here?" Martin faced the climb again. "Their Beastslayer nearly killed Kumoe. We don’t know whether he’s the only one."
Rias slowed until he caught up. "Then we finish the investigation without summoning her. If this becomes anything more than an alchemy visit, we leave and report it. Angel and report it stays inside and out of Just Die’s reach."
Another gust struck them, forcing Martin to brace one hand against the rock. He stopped looking back and followed Rias along the inner wall. By the time they rounded the final switchback, Mountain Risen spread across the slope ahead, its buildings and training grounds stacked from the lower cliffs to the summit.
[You have entered Mountain Risen Monster Hunter Academy as an outsider registered under another Monster Hunter Academy.]
[Your affiliation, nickname, and guild are now visible to everyone on academy grounds.]
Roads zigzagged between broad shelves cut into the rock. Freight platforms rose through vertical shafts on chains thicker than Martin’s arm, hauling ore and timber toward openings higher in the mountain. Others descended beneath the weight of monster carcasses and sealed cargo boxes. Orange forge light flickered inside deep cave mouths, while hammer blows rang through the stone at uneven intervals.
High above the forge caves, dark pines crowded a sheltered terrace around a steaming mineral pool. It was the only patch of green Martin could see anywhere on the mountain.
The wider shelves served as training grounds, with heavy safety nets strung below them to catch anyone who slipped. Guardians dug in their heels to halt weighted sleds barreling down steep ramps. Duelists and assassins chased each other across narrow stone pillars, using drops and blind angles that no flat training hall could reproduce. Higher up, rangers fired at targets moving between hanging chains and sheets of rising steam.
A freight platform passed overhead and scattered dust across the road. Martin squinted through it. "Damn. They built a whole city into the mountain."
"And we’ve only reached the lower levels." Rias pointed to a tunnel mouth beneath the nearest lift. "The alchemy quarter is through the eastern tunnels, but we’re not going there yet."
According to a map fixed to the cliff, the route Rias had chosen passed through the lower markets before turning into the warmer interior of the mountain. Martin traced the eastern path with one finger. "You want the people watching the entrance to see us wander around first."
"The people selling access may tell us even more," Rias said first."
"The people as she started toward the nearest market shelf. "Cassandra authorized an investigation and nothing more. Before we show anyone why we came, I want to see who gets waved past the lines and whose crest appears whenever a rule changes."
Martin let his hand fall from the map and followed her into the lower market. Nearly every stall sold equipment for steep terrain. Hooked boots hung beside reinforced climbing line, and the next seller displayed shields whose ridged undersides could bite into stone. Matching armor carried extra reinforcement wherever a falling climber was likely to strike rock. Farther along, preserved monster parts filled the counters. Their tags identified where each part came from and what crafters could use it for, along with warnings about unusual resistances.
A dark shield at the next stall had three retractable spikes. On a road like the one they had just climbed, Martin could drive them into the stone before a monster knocked him over the edge. The shield tempted him, but the matching climbing armor was a risk he could not justify. Worldshell Carapace had rejected the Broodtide set hard enough to flatten him, and Martin had no interest in buying another complete set before he knew which pieces the bound armor would accept.
The stall’s price window changed when it read Martin’s visible affiliation. The shield’s local rate vanished, replaced by a higher outsider price and a separate cliff-recovery deposit. Together, they made the shield far less tempting.
"The deposit costs almost as much as the shield."
"You get it back if we don’t have to send a lift crew after you or your equipment," the stall keeper said. "Visitors don’t maintain the climbing roads, but they still expect a rescue when a monster throws them off one."
Rias copied both rates. Two stalls later, Martin spotted the same academy charge beneath another merchant’s crest and pointed it out. The equipment and seller changed, but Mountain Risen still found its way onto the receipt. Rias added the second stall to her notes without asking him to explain.
Rias had little interest in the equipment itself. She compared the guild crests with the posted prices and watched which guards controlled each queue. At one training post, she read every access rule and stayed long enough to see how two arriving groups were treated.
By the third shelf, Martin had stopped watching the equipment and started noticing who was never made to wait.