The conflicts among those underground races—the ambitious Red Horn Tribe, bent on swelling the kobold population, and that high-aspiring King of Kobolds.
Luge turned these thoughts over in his mind, quietly watching the bonfire.
Seeing how many people were about, and how some would glance his way with curiosity from time to time, he pulled up his hood. The firelight fell across his face, and the hood's edge cast a slanting shadow.
"If you've got anything you want to trade, you might take a look at that lizardfolk camp over there," the fire man said, suddenly turning to Luge. "There are quite a few low-ranking apprentices there who quietly set up stalls, trading off the little odds and ends they've got on hand."
The words made Luge's eyes light up. The step into the supernatural world he'd longed for—it would begin with a kobold browsing a market.
But then another thought struck him: the lizardfolk, the kobolds' old enemies. Though these fellows had now become the outright subordinates of some apprentice, would his approach draw instinctive resistance, or even an attack?
Even as the thought crossed his mind, he was already on his feet, walking that way.
He still deeply craved contact with the supernatural world beyond the Half-Man and his companions—and now that he'd heard there were low-ranking apprentices like himself, he simply had to go take a look around, ideally to get his hands on a few interesting spells. He could also sell off a thing or two at the right moment; for instance, the several notebooks in his storage pouch from that apprentice wizard's research on Fire Bolt.
He tightened his hood and gradually closed in on the two unusually tall lizardfolk.
The two fellows guarding either side of the entrance twitched their noses and looked over with curiosity, but neither dared make a rash move.
Luge passed through without trouble. He even paused deliberately along the way, just to take in the two stinking lizards' conflicted, dumbstruck looks.
What met his eyes were some tents, along with a few strange, square little huts of golden metal.
He was first drawn by the smell of food, but soon shook his head and headed for the stalls lining the street. The camp was a little larger than he'd imagined, roughly split into three streets—there was even a tavern on a corner, and one whole street was given over to scattered vendors.
Luge took note of the dress and bearing of some apprentice wizards. To borrow a phrase from Kaliu's diary, they were plainly wild wizards, set apart in temperament from apprentice wizards who'd received an orthodox inheritance. Most wild wizards, apart from the rare ones who'd stumbled onto some wizard's legacy and thereby set foot on the path of wizardry, were those whose aptitude had fallen short and been turned away by wizard organizations.
Strictly speaking, he was a pure wild wizard himself.
Sauntering along, Luge came to a stall and suddenly found it laid out with all sorts of things he didn't recognize—dry goods and wet, jars and bottles, and some unfamiliar, shriveled limbs. The stall's owner was an old man in a threadbare wizard robe; he showed little enthusiasm at Luge's arrival, merely sizing up his height and the face beneath the hood with some curiosity.
Luge gave it a couple of glances and moved on.
What he needed was the kind of goods he could make sense of—things with writing on them, like books or various scrolls.
Soon a likely target appeared, and there were a few scattered figures before the stall, murmuring among themselves.
His small figure immediately squeezed in to watch the fun. Everything struck him as novel now; cooped up in the kobold den, he hadn't seen this many people in ages.
One sweep of his eyes over the stall told him what they were discussing. Books they were indeed, but brand-new ones, titled The Truth of the Mystery City Revealed. A thin volume cost five magic stones—and that was on the condition that you leave an arcane mark on the stall's contract, so it couldn't be shown freely to others. Without leaving a mark, it ran to seven magic stones a copy.
Luge could tell the seller simply wanted to make the sale at seven magic stones, which was why he'd set the two prices so close. And most apprentice wizards chose the same way; no one liked casually leaving their own arcane mark on a contract.
What he lacked most was information of every kind—when the elf and the others chatted, he couldn't get a word in edgewise.
He promptly fished out seven magic stones for a copy.
He walked on, now and then drifting into the corners to see whether the Half-Man might seize a chance to appear. He'd already decided that shortly he would leave by the exit on the far side of the camp and sit alone somewhere quiet for a while.
Stopping before a middle-aged man who was plainly a wild wizard, Luge looked over the spell books on the stall. They were clearly different from the books he owned, lacking a certain refinement and gravity.
"A private hand-copied edition, absolutely no unauthorized alterations. The first half covers the basic spell models, and the latter half holds reflections and insights..." The stall owner flicked his robe as he spoke to Luge.
Luge raised no objection; his eyes darted swiftly among the several books.
Unfortunately, even after quite a while, no stir of spiritual resonance came.
"May I pick one up and take a look?" he said.
The stall owner made a gesture of invitation.
Among these few pitiful books there was actually even a Fire Bolt—clear enough proof that the boss's business couldn't possibly be good.
Luge glanced it over a few times and found it only grew more dubious the more he looked. In the end he chose just a single copy of the zero-ring spell Light; a minor spell like this, surely, would pose no problems.
"Fifty magic stones."
The stall owner spoke, and Luge was taken aback.
Unfamiliar with the going rates as he was, this was only a hand-copied edition, and no rare spell at that—apart from wild wizards, presumably no one would even give it a second look. He had magic stones in his pocket, but this was no way to spend them. This he absolutely would not stand.
"I've got something good here," Luge said, taking out one of the Fire Bolt notebooks. "Don't rush—you can have a look."
Frowning, the stall owner took the notebook.
From what Luge understood, among wild wizards Fire Bolt was a spell with a very high solidification rate. Even if the stall owner had no use for this notebook himself, he could certainly take it to resell, or even copy it several times over and sell the copies.
The stall owner's expression never shifted—but that was the best possible reaction, a sign that he was holding it in check.
"Two hundred magic stones, and that Light spell is yours. You can pick one more here besides." The stall owner said no more; closing the notebook, he spoke slowly.
"Three hundred magic stones, and I'll forgo the spells."
Luge knew he might be losing out a little, but he couldn't be bothered to haggle further—he'd long since read what this notebook held.
The stall owner put on a show of hesitating, then at last agreed with a pained air, handing Luge three of those large magic stones, the same kind Baonte had given him before.
He browsed around once more, then left the camp by the far side and sat down somewhere no one was about. He opened the Truth of the Mystery City Revealed he'd been itching to read, all the while waiting for the Half-Man to show himself.
This so-called "great revelation"—the moment he opened it, an air of unreliability hit him full in the face.
To begin with, it actually listed, right off, three so-called conjectures. One claimed it was an otherworldly demon-city left over from ancient times; one claimed it was an alchemical device crafted by some mighty wizard of even remoter antiquity; and the last was more absurd still, declaring flat out that it was a city of eternal life—become one of its residents and you could live forever, but the price was that you could never leave the city again.
Of the accounts, Luge was most taken with the wizard-legacy one. It said this involved a strange world—the World of Knowledge. Back when the Nightmare World was first discovered by wizards, someone had put forward a hypothesis: since the subconscious minds of countless living beings could bring the Nightmare World into being and serve as the pillars upholding its existence, then might there not exist an even stranger world—one born of boundless thirst for knowledge, of countless minds—the World of Knowledge?
In the end, thanks to the wizards' efforts, this world—strange past all belief—was proven real and named the World of Knowledge. Yet, like the Nightmare World, it was far from as pleasant as imagined.
Chapter 68