Chương 31: Chapter 27 - Unknown Light

After several days of traveling, they finally arrived at the Free Trade City of Beasts. The moment Luan and Torou stepped out of the carriage, they were greeted by a scene unlike anything they had experienced outside the city. Beasts of countless races and there were even humans walked alongside one another through the streets, with no obvious signs of hostility between them. Some were merchants carrying goods, others were travelers moving in groups, while many simply went about their daily lives.

Voices overlapped from every direction, creating a constant murmur that filled the streets. Merchants called out their wares. Customers haggled over prices. Carriages passed through crowded roads, and beasts of every shape and size walked beside humans as though such a sight were completely ordinary. Luan and Torou both stared. Even though they had visited the city before, the difference between this place and the world outside it remained enormous.

Their respective tribes were already considered large settlements, but they couldn't compare to the sheer scale of the city. There were simply too many people, too many buildings, too many streets, too many things happening at once. The city seemed to stretch endlessly in every direction, swallowing the travelers who entered it. Luan slowly looked around.

"Every time I come here, it still feels overwhelming." Torou nodded.

"I understand." Luan stood at the edge of the street, letting the noise pass over him. He'd already been here before, but it still hadn't fully settled—the fact that this place was real, that it actually existed, and that he was standing in it. He'd dreamed of this when he was younger, the idea of a vast city that you could walk for days and never see the same face twice. He'd never told anyone about it. Now he was here, it felt bigger. Scarier. More real. Neither of them spoke for a while. They simply watched.

For beasts who had spent most of their lives surrounded by their own tribes and the wilderness, the Free Trade City of Beasts represented something much larger: civilization. A place where different races gathered under the same laws. A place where goods from distant regions could be found. A place where information traveled alongside merchants. And now, it was the place where they intended to advertise Dendron's new shop. Luan eventually looked toward Torou.

"We should find an inn to stay at for the night." Torou simply nodded.

"All right." The two began walking through the city. By then, night had already fallen, yet the city showed no signs of becoming quiet. If anything, the streets seemed to become even more alive. Lights illuminated the roads, shops, and buildings, casting a strange glow across the city. Dendron looked through Luan's eyes, his attention immediately fixed on the lights. Curiosity stirred in him. The city, the lights, and the sheer weight of it.

He'd lived in cities his whole life, and he'd never thought twice about them. They were just where people went to be around other people—nothing special, nothing worth noticing. Now, seeing one from the perspective of a tree that would never walk its streets again, it looked like something out of a story.

"I used to take this for granted," he said to himself.

"Every day." The thought settled somewhere beneath his bark, quiet and cold. He shook it off. He then turned his attention back to the lights. The light of his former world had been completely different from what he was seeing now—electricity, wires, bulbs, power sources. Those were things he understood. But these lights were different. Dendron activated his Soul Eye. The world changed.

He could see the currents of spiritual essence flowing through the surroundings, weaving between buildings and people, yet the source of the light remained strangely ordinary. It was simply a piece of metal. Not glass. Not crystal. Not some rare spiritual material. Just metal. There were no wires attached to it, no visible source of energy, and—more importantly—no spiritual essence core inside it. The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement. Yet it was glowing.

Dendron's curiosity intensified. He couldn't resist asking.

"How does this piece of metal emit light?" His voice echoed through Luan's mind. Luan glanced toward the glowing object.

"That..." He scratched his head.

"I'm not quite sure." Dendron's curiosity immediately grew.

"You don't know?"

"In fact, I've asked about it before." Luan looked up at the glowing metal.

"When we first arrived here, I asked one of the elders about it. They said it was some kind of merchandise created by a merchant."

"A merchant?"

"Yes." Luan continued.

"When spiritual essence is poured into it, some kind of formation activates and causes it to emit light." Dendron stared at the object again.

"A formation?"

"Yes."

"But how does the formation produce light?" Luan hesitated.

"The answer to that is unknown." Dendron fell silent. Unknown. That word immediately caught his attention. He scrutinized the glowing metal again through his Soul Eye—he could see the spiritual essence around it, could even perceive the flow of energy entering the object, but the exact mechanism remained beyond his understanding. It was fascinating. The world he had entered after death wasn't simply a primitive fantasy world filled with beasts and magic.

There were civilizations here that possessed knowledge he didn't understand, and apparently, some of that knowledge had already been turned into everyday objects. Dendron continued staring.

"Does it only work inside this city?"

"Yes." That answer made Dendron even more interested. He looked down the street.

"And what about the rest of the city? Is everything illuminated like this?" Luan shook his head.

"No. The farther you travel toward the outer edges of the city, the fewer of these lights you'll see. There are places where you can barely find any at all."

"Why?" Luan considered it for a moment.

"Some say it's simply about money—that the people near the outskirts can't afford as many, so fewer get installed. Others say the light itself doesn't reach that far, that whatever powers the whole thing has some kind of range to it. Honestly, no one's ever told me which one's actually true." Dendron remained silent.

Even something as simple as lighting could reveal the difference between people's lives—or maybe it revealed something else entirely, some limit built into the city itself that nobody had bothered, or dared, to look into. Either way, the city wasn't equal. Those who lived closer to its center had access to things that those on the outskirts did not. Dendron's gaze returned to the glowing metal.

"Do you think these can be replicated?" Luan's expression turned serious.

"No."

"Why?"

"The city has a law against copying them." Dendron's attention sharpened.

"What happens to those who try?"

"They're executed." Silence. Dendron continued staring at the light. Ordinary metal. No visible power source. Activated through spiritual essence. Only works within the city. And anyone who attempts to reproduce it is killed. The more Dendron thought about it, the less ordinary the object seemed. There was clearly something deeper behind it—a formation, a source, a method of construction, something that Dendron didn't yet understand. His curiosity only grew.

Unfortunately, there was nothing he could do about it tonight. Luan and Torou continued walking through the streets, passing numerous stalls, shops, and inns, until they found one that seemed suitable. They entered and approached the woman managing the front desk.

"We would like two separate rooms and a meal for two people." The woman gave them the total price, and Luan paid without hesitation. They were shown to a table to wait for their food. While they waited, Luan and Torou quietly observed their surroundings. The inn was considerably livelier than the outside world—several groups of travelers sat around different tables, drinking, eating, and talking about whatever had happened during their travels. Then a conversation from a nearby table caught their attention.

"Did you hear? Jack the Killer was killed." Another man looked up from his drink.

"Jack the Killer?"

"Yeah. That wanted criminal who's famous for being incredibly strong out in the wild."

"I heard about that recently." The first man leaned closer.

"But there's something interesting about it."

"What?"

"The person who hunted him." The second man raised an eyebrow.

"Who?"

"Apparently he was called The Crazy Bounty Hunter." The second man's expression immediately changed.

"Isn't he the one who was a wanted man in the Ardueno Empire?"

"Yes." The first man lowered his voice.

"The man with the scar around his left eye socket. Cold demeanor, and always walking around like he doesn't care about anything." The second man laughed.

"A man? You might as well call him a madman." Several people at the table laughed.

"Who the hell kills someone just because they destroyed a flower?" Luan and Torou exchanged a glance. Neither of them knew who the man was, but they were interested now. The conversation continued for a while, with the drunkards exchanging rumors about the bounty hunter and the strange incidents associated with him. Before long, their food arrived. A woman approached their table with a smile.

"Here is your food, sirs. A set for two." Luan nodded.

"Thank you." The woman placed the dishes on the table before returning to her work, and Luan and Torou ate their meal in silence. Eventually, they finished and stood, tired from the journey, and decided to return to their respective rooms. However, neither of them could completely shake the conversation they had overheard. Especially one particular statement. As Luan entered his room, the drunkard's words lingered in his mind.

"If you see a handsome man with silver hair, a monocle over his left eye covering the scar, and a cold face, and suddenly the air around you feels heavy and suffocating..." Luan stopped. The description was strangely specific, and the voice of the drunkard continued to echo in his memory.

"You have three seconds to pray to whatever god you believe in." Luan's expression turned serious. And then came the final part.

"If he twists his iron cane, you're already a weed about to be pruned." Luan stood silently in his room. He didn't know who the Crazy Bounty Hunter was, why the man had killed Jack the Killer, or what kind of person would kill someone over a flower. But one thing was certain: the Free Trade City of Beasts was far more interesting than he had expected. And somewhere within this enormous city was a man whose name was already being whispered in taverns. The Crazy Bounty Hunter.