"Welcome to our city of Zhen. Even though you might think this room is just an artificial cave, it's actually a place to host people from different races." Rem said while taking bathrobes out of the amulet and giving them to the other two merfolk before drying them with water magic.
According to Xoth, humans had issues with nudity, and speaking while her gills were still filled with water was a hassle.
"Is this your home? It seems a nice place to live." Tista said to be polite. All she had managed to perceive before Rem sealed the room with earth magic were a bunch of rocks and several moving forms that might as well be fish.
"Thanks for your kindness, but I doubt you can appreciate the beauty of our city with your human senses." Mal said, noticing her embarrassment.
"Since there's only so much air, it's better to not waste time with niceties." Rem scolded him. "The reason why we brought you here is to give you the final details about your mission.
"To infiltrate Kolga, you can't move around while looking like merfolk nor humans. The inhabitants of the cursed city have a different appearance and you need to shapeshift yourself to look like them before entering."
"Why didn't you take a few corpses to Reghia, then?" Phloria asked. "Studying their physiology and modifying our bodies will take time."
"For good reasons. Kolga has lots of inhabitants, but if a few of them go missing, they are bound to be reported. By kidnapping them at the last minute we are buying you time, not wasting it." Rem replied.
"Also, because of the link with the Forbidden Sun, the corpses would have disappeared the moment I took them out the dimensional amulet. Bringing them here is the best possible compromise."
She had just finished speaking when three corpses slowly came out of the ceiling which had temporarily been turned into a softer material with earth magic.
They looked like merfolk who had gotten stuck between their underwater and surface form. They had blue skin instead of scales, both noses and gills, and they had fins coming out from where ears were supposed to be.
More fins came out of their calves, elbows, and wrist. All of them had odd-colored hair that looked out of an anime. While examining the corpses with Life Visions, Lith noticed that they all had enchanted weapons and rings.
'This mission is much more important than I expected. Judging from the equipment, the merfolk captured nobles to give us more freedom of movement. I wonder how many people sacrificed their lives to give us this opportunity.' He thought.
The group quickly undressed the dead Kolgans, storing the clothes inside their respective Scalewalker armor to replicate them. Also, their diagnostic spells were useless on corpses.
The only way they had to study their physiology was by taking a good look on them before the corpses disappeared.
"If they got here so fast, I guess that we're near Kolga." Lith said without interrupting his work.
"Correct. Zhen is one of the closest outposts. We need to constantly check the status of the mana crystals fueling the arrays and replace them." Khalia said.
"How and why does Kolga manage to expand despite all of your efforts?"
"All the crystals in the world can't compete with a mana geyser." Rem sighed. "Kolga is surrounded by cities like Zhen, but the best we can do is to slow down its advance. As for the why it's simple.
"Their Forbidden Sun allows them to grow crops and bestows upon them a long life, but they need more food than what they have. They have to feed themselves, their cattle, and the people they keep as sacrifices.
"Every time Kolga expands, its inhabitants get more soil to cultivate." Rem said.
"Right, they cannot fish because even if there wasn't your barrier, they can't get far from their sun without dying." Tista nodded. "The only thing I don't understand is how did you manage to hold out for so long against a mana geyser."
"It's because Kolga needs most of its energy to keep the water out of the city, filter the air they need and fuel their defensive systems. It leaves them little world energy to spare, yet it's enough to make them gain ground after acc.u.mulating it for long enough." Rem said.
"Kolga is one of the reasons why merfolk have so little resources for their magical research. We use all we get from the sea and our allies to keep it from spreading. The bastard who turned Kolga from a safe haven into a nightmare was one of our own, and we took responsibility for his actions."
"If the advance is so slow and there is a shortage of food, then how can they feed such a powerful ritual?" Lith asked.
"I don't know. Sometimes one of our soldiers gets captured, but we are very careful never going too close to the barrier." Rem shook her head.
"One last question." Phloria had now pink hair, light blue skin, and moved awkwardly due to the ample bosom of her new form to which she wasn't used. "How do you know the password for the array on the other side?"
"There is no array on the other side. Only a few sentinels who look for cracks in our barrier in the hope to get some extra food. They welcome any outsider with the same joy of a shark that finds a dead fish." Rem replied.
"They are really arrogant." Lith now had flaming red hair. The creature he was mimicking was shorter and fatter than his human body, making him look like Vastor's lost twin. "Good gods, how does Vastor walk with his stumpy legs?"
"You can ask him the next time you see him." Tista laughed at him waddling with every step he took. She now had blue hair, violet eyes, and a much thinner body than her own.
She joined the others who were already walking around the room to get accustomed to their new body to not arouse suspicions once inside Kolga.
"It's not arrogance so much as confidence. Killing even one of them is really hard and each second spent inside the barrier feels like having hot poison running through your veins." Mal said.
"Then how did you kill those three guys?" Lith pointed at the three corpses that had already started to rot at a speed visible at the n.a.k.e.d eye. A quick darkness spell managed to get rid of the stench before everyone started puking their gust out.
"We didn't. We created a crack in the barrier on purpose to lure some of the sentinels out. One step outside Kolga is enough to turn those monsters into easy prey." Ren said.
After a while, Khalia started to feel dizzy and soon the same happened to the others.
"Ready or not, you got to go. We almost ran out of air." Mal said, taking Tista's hand again while Ren let fresh water flow inside the room.
They left the city and in just a matter of minutes, even the girls could see a light point on the horizon that became bigger and brighter as they closed in.
Thanks to one of Solus's fourteen senses that allowed him to see underwater, Lith was the only one able to understand the nature of the source of light before almost reaching Kolga.
