Sinful took them through the wide main street. The city was not less crowded than Thereath. Because it was always nighttime, every building had many artificial lamps to provide enough light.
“In Sangrod cities, you should avoid going through the alleys. Even in a busy shopping neighborhood, there were not that many lightings in the alleys. With the sky always dark, such places conceal unwanted dangers hiding in the corner. By the way, why do you want to go to the city hall?”
“I am on a quest,” Jack simply answered.
Sinful took Jack around the business district to browse on shops. Jack was again hoarding the ores. Sinful was rather confused why someone bothered buying so many common ores? Were common ores expensive in Themisphere?
Jack noticed many of the natives were human. In fact, he had not seen any native Vampire. Even the patrolling soldiers were human.
Some shops were selling various ingredients and materials, but Jack didn’t keep track of which was not available in Thereath. Some sold trade goods, seeing those reminded him of someone. He asked Sinful to show him the way to Tranviste’s Zone Portal.
Once he established the link, he informed Jeanny of this good news. They could now access another country where their members could visit, unlike Larabar. But he still asked them to set a limitation so only core members or those they trusted, for example, those veterans who had fought bravely with them against the coalition, to have access to this town.
At this time, Jeanny and John were already back at Heavenly Citadel. They had successfully raided the Giant Beehive. Several casualties occurred, but they received an abundance of rewards from clearing the monster settlement.
Jack then contacted Dylan Fairdeal, telling him that the guild now had access to a city in the Sangrod Empire.
Jack received his reply soon, “Incredible! I seriously have my doubt about why they let someone like you be the leader. Now I see your redeeming quality. Perhaps there is still hope for this guild. I originally want to just quit once I finish establishing the trade routes, but I guess I can stay.”
“Can you please be a bit less condescending when you talk about someone who has brought you benefits? And I hope you are just kidding about leaving the guild after getting the benefits. I will hunt you down, I’m not joking. I vouched for you to join the guild, don’t embarrass me!”
“I am just joking, haha.”
Peniel said to Jack, “Tell him that if he leaves the guild. All the teleportation links he established during his time as a guild member will disappear. He has to go back again to the cities and re-establish the links. So he cannot abuse the guild’s trust by taking advantage of guild’s features like that.”
Jack relayed the information to Dylan.
“Ah, damn!” Dylan replied.
“What ‘ah, damn?’ Are you truly planning that? I tell you, I’m truly going to hunt you down and cut you to pieces if you betray the guild. Don’t test me!”
“Don’t be so serious, man. I’m just joking. Aren’t you the one who likes to joke with me? I’m just treating you the same. You don’t like it now, do you?”
“I will get you back for this.”
“We will see.”
“So, are you coming over now?”
“No, I’m still in the middle of a caravan transport. Will head over once this trade route is completed.”
Jack closed the chat. When he came out of the Zone Portal, he asked Sinful to take him to the City Hall. He thought he had seen the city enough.
“So you came from the Republic of Palgrost?” Jack asked Sinful while they were on their way.
“Yes, I am from a city called Doghbarum,” Sinful answered. “Weird place. Their city is as if sculpted from the mountain. The place was more like a series of caves than a city. The folks are plenty friendly. The natives I mean, not the players.”
“You have native friends there?” Jack asked.
“Yeah. I’m pretty popular there. I am like the friendliest dwarf outworlder there,” Sinful claimed.
Another player dwarf passed by at the time. In this city, Jack had seen some dwarf players. Only minuscule compared to vampire players, but it was still a decent number. Sinful called out to the passing dwarf.
“Hey, dwarf! How are you doing?”
The passing dwarf player just gave him a nod as a reply.
Jack laughed, “do you also greet your native dwarven friends in Doghbarum like that?”
“Yeah. They like my friendly nature,” Sinful said.
“Do they…?”
While they were chatting, Jack noticed a large building that was crowded. Strange thing was, they were all players. “What’s that place?” Jack asked.
“Oh, that is a peculiar place. It was built by a humanitarian group of players. The place is called Missing Outworlders Coordination Center. You know how when we were pulled into this world, we were pulled randomly to different cities. Many of us don’t know if our relatives or families are also pulled into this world. But after this long, we can assume that everyone has been. Yet, we don’t know where our families end up. That place collects all the outworlders’ information and helps them connect with their lost ones. You only need to go there and give them your info, who you are in the real world and who you are searching for, then they assign someone to be your friend. Once they get info regarding the person you are looking for, they will give you a message through the friend system, then you can be reunited.”
“Wow! That is a very good and noble intention. Doing that will take up a bulk of their time. That means they won’t be able to level up.”
“They don’t care about leveling up. As I said, they are a bunch of humanitarians. They considered it their calling for connecting and helping others.”
“How do they afford the cost? They will need coins for their works, won’t they? I mean, how do they even buy that building they are using?”
“Same as in our past world, donations. Their social works had helped quite many players, who were more than happy enough to give them regular donations. Even one who is not benefited from them is inspired enough to donate some coins to their cause.”
“I am inspired. Let’s go in and have a look,” Jack said.
“You have a family you want to look for?” Sinful asked.
“No. The funny thing is, I have managed to find my one family member out of sheer luck. I’m just curious.”
The inside was very hectic. There were lots of tables where people were queueing. Sinful explained to Jack that those were the ones who were recording the info. Jack inspect and found the player staffs were indeed low-level. Most of them were mostly below level 20.
“So many people,” Jack muttered.
“Yeah, imagine a warzone where people trying to find their missing relatives. This is the entire world, man. Makes you wonder why all this happened,” Sinful said.
“Indeed.”
Why they were watching the vigor of the place, they were startled by a series of cries.
“Mother!”
“Daughter!”
A middle-aged woman and a teenage girl were running towards each other. They hugged each other as tears streamed from their eyes.
“I finally found you! I’m so glad!”
“I’m sorry, mother! I shouldn’t say the things I last said. I thought I have lost you forever.”
“Oh, daughter. It’s me who should apologize. I shouldn’t have pushed you so hard in your study.”
“I’m sorry, mother! I fear that awful conversation has been our last.”
“I’m sorry, child. You can do whatever you want, you don’t need to study if you don’t want to.”
“Now that we are together, I want to say I’m sorry about what we last talked about.”
“It’s really was my fault to have pushed you to study so.”
Jack, who was nearby the two, said to Sinful, “this is very touching and all, but did you notice that they don’t actually listen to one another?”
The mother and daughter who were still hugging turned and gave Jack a look.
“Holy crap! You didn’t listen to each other but you actually listened to me?”
“Can you please be a bit more sensitive?” Jack heard someone chiding him. He turned and saw a late-aged woman in a robe. Jack used Inspect and found she was called Florence, a level 19 Healer.
This healer came to the mother and child, she gave a few encouraging words. The two thanked Florence to have helped the two find each other. Florence said she was happy for them. Florence informed them that they were still looking for the father and brother and that she would inform them once they received any news. The two thanked her again before leaving, still hugging each other.
“This is a very noble operation you people are running,” Jack said to Florence once the two left.
Florence gave Jack a side-eye. “Do you need something? If you are here just to make fun of people who need help, then I suggest you leave.”
“Ahaha, you misunderstand. I admit I do make crude comments sometimes, but I by no means imply any disrespect. I actually admire your works.”
“Really? Then how about donating some coins to us then?”
“How about I give you access to a new country?”
