Chapter 94: Blue Armbands

  Who knew that traveling in a group capable of conquering a city came with its privileges? Getting attacked on the move had already been fairly rare, but with six royalties together nothing bothered them.

  As they made their way south there were fewer and fewer Radioactive Portals, not that any were noteworthy. Ezio’s party wiped them out in no time, they were in more of a hurry than Teresa’s party. Distance was being covered much quicker in the open terrain than it had been in the forest. Only a day had passed since encountering the robots, but they were already approaching Arconette.

  The ground became far less porous, turning into a substance that seemed to be a mixture of clay and soil. As they finally left the Contaminated Zone’s radioactive radius for the first time in a while, the city became visible.

  Modern limestone houses were spread out for miles with large sections of wooden huts sprinkled in, both completely clashing with their aesthetics. Roads and sidewalks were present between structures, but they would randomly transform into a dirt path in the middle of intersections. With her Perception Teresa was able to spot a scene that felt completely surreal.

  With so many people who were all capable of leveling up and getting their own skills, there was bound to be some variety. Some people walked on the sidewalks in full suits of armor with a pair of headphones on listening to music from what was likely their phones, while others ran on the road itself, replicating the speed of an actual car. In the distance there was a lake with a river running out of it into the wilds beyond the city.

  Around the perimeter of the city a wall was being built out of what looked like massive bricks half the size of a person. There were plenty of people capable of carrying these around, but what caught Teresa off guard was spotting a construction worker using . He set down a brick he was carrying near a crew of people, pulled two more out of thin air, then left to presumably get more bricks.

  This wasn’t super common, but she spotted three people who definitely had . Everyone had Tutorial gear at the bare minimum, which was the same as it was at The Mall but seeing the modern architecture and how many people were just going about everyday life was crazy. At The Mall there were only tents with some construction projects starting as Teresa left. For a moment Teresa felt jealous that Arconette got to start with actual housing while The Mall was essentially an overcrowded campground in the middle of monster infested woods.

  Then again, The Mall was farther from the Contaminated Zone. Arconette was right on the border. Of course the Contaminated Zone was spreading and was getting closer to The Mall, but it was not nearly as close to Chernobyl as Arconette. It had taken a day of travel to reach the Contaminated Zone from The Mall, here it took a day of travel to reach Arconette from somewhere relatively deep in the radioactive wasteland.

  Over the last day Teresa had contemplated whether it was a good idea for her to visit Arconette at all with something tracking her, but she was pretty sure she had a good idea of what it could be now. At first Teresa had wondered if there was a skill that monsters could get, but that wouldn’t explain why she was being consistently tracked from so far away. Then she wondered if someone might be using on her, but there was nothing in the description of the skill that mentioned a target noticing they are being tracked. That one was probably just wishful thinking, because when she came to her most recent conclusion it just made too much sense.

  It was probably that damn cult. This was their way of letting her know they could find her whenever, to remind her of their existence. They were tracking her and there was nothing she could do about it, but that’s not all. When Teresa had first felt like she was being tracked, the sensation had come from across the Contaminated Zone.

  Which would mean at some point, whatever was tracking her had probably already seen Arconette. There had been an ongoing issue of people going missing in the city, which lined up with the goals of the multiversal factions a little too well to be purely coincidental.

  The group made their way to a specific road that was accessible through all the construction surrounding the city where there was a heavy concentration of armed guards. All of the construction workers themselves were armed, though Teresa noted something else that was interesting.

  Blue armbands. A small portion of the population wore a blue armband on their left arm by the shoulder. At first Teresa thought that meant they were considered police officers or something, but some of the construction workers had them as well. Once Teresa saw which construction workers had the armbands, she was pretty sure she put two and two together.

  Only workers she had witnessed with had armbands. Was it a way to signify how far in the Tutorial someone got? If that was the case, why weren’t Ezio’s party wearing any armbands? Were there different colored armbands based on how far you got in the Tutorial, like a difference between stage one complete and stage two?

  “What’s with the armbands?” Teresa asked as the city rapidly grew closer.

  “That’s what you're curious about?” Jake asked, but Ezio seemed to approve of the question.

  “It’s our first stage of weapons control, though we’re getting a lot of pushback on it. Some think that nobody should be allowed to wield weaponry in the city without a license, while others say it’s an unfair policy that favors mages who don’t need a weapon to be dangerous. For now weapons are still allowed within the city, but anyone with the skill needs to wear the armband.” Ezio explained.

  “Why ? I feel like would be more dangerous if anything.” Teresa asked.

  “With you can smuggle a lot of dangerous items into the city. Everyone is expected to go through a routine inspection upon entering, but we haven’t figured out a way to tell if someone’s is empty, so a full inspection on anyone with a blue armband is temporarily considered impossible. They are monitored a little extra within the city limits unless an exception is made.” He continued.

  “That sounds a bit dystopian.”

  “I agree, I hate it. We had one incident involving someone with and now everyone with is considered a flight risk, but until we can figure out how to properly check someone else’s there will always be a major security risk that we can’t afford. Not everyone who performed well in the Tutorial are good people, can you imagine if someone with superpowers brought in a gun? We could stop them pretty quick, but the vast majority of people here would not be able to hold out against that.”

  Stolen novel; please report.

  Oops, that reminded Teresa of the fact she actually had a gun in her . It was just a handgun that she had gotten from some bandits that had been trying to rob a party of sick and disabled people, but she hadn’t really found a use for it yet. There were only five bullets, so if she did use it then it would have to be sparingly. It was paradoxical, monsters powerful enough to warrant using a gun were probably bulletproof, but monsters that were vulnerable to small arms fire had their threat come from their vast numbers.

  The gun wasn’t even the most dangerous thing in Teresa’s either, not by a long shot. Should Teresa tell them about that? They said there wasn’t a way to tell if someone’s was truly empty, but that might have been a lie. This all might be one big test to gauge how trustworthy Teresa and her party were, she couldn’t make a bad impression.

  “Uh, I have a gun.” Teresa admitted. “I have a few things actually that might be considered pretty dangerous in my .”

  “Well you’re going to be with us anyways so it’ll be fine this time.” Ezio said.

  “Are you sure we shouldn’t check her?” Mordecai asked concerned, but Ezio shook his head.

  “The same issue is still present. She could say she has a gun, hand it over, then secretly keep another in her . The issue isn’t just that someone could be heavily armed, it’s that someone could be heavily armed and we wouldn’t know. I was already operating on the assumption that Teresa likely has an arsenal of her own floating around in her Soul, her confirming it changes nothing.” Ezio countered. “Although I do appreciate the heads up.”

  “Where are your armbands? You guys beat the Tutorial so I know for a fact you all have too.” Teresa questioned.

  “Exceptions can be made, especially in our case. Let’s get through the security checkpoint and head to the town hall, hopefully it’ll be quick.”

  The group reached the city after just a few more moments and were briefly stopped by a few armed guards. They had basic Tutorial gear on, but some were equipped with rifles rather than bows or swords.

  “We’re all heading through.” Ezio said simply to one of the guards. The guard nodded and waved to the others, and just like that the group completely skipped the inspections. They walked past the guards and for the first time since the Tutorial Teresa was in an actual city again.

  Just a few roads over she spotted a group of teenagers racing each other at speeds that would qualify them for the Olympics. One home had turned into a restaurant with multiple people dining inside with floating lights illuminating the interior. Some workers were paving roads, using carts of a black tar substance, shovels, and some mages using to heat it up once the material was set.

  As they went deeper into the city the conditions seemed to improve even more. The restaurants became nicer, the roads were more consistently paved, it was also more heavily populated. Many of the limestone structures were actually multiple conjoined homes. They functioned as essentially very nice apartment buildings. With Teresa’s high Perception, she found herself accidentally eavesdropping on a lot of conversations inside buildings well out of earshot. She did her best to ignore them, trying to limit her Perception to the area immediately around herself.

  There were a few huts scattered amongst the limestone buildings that had a drastically different architecture to them. The walls were made of many sticks wound together with a thatch roof. Many of these locations were actually stores, and Teresa spotted one that caught her attention. Before she could say anything, Preston asked about it first.

  “Is that place selling what I think it’s selling?” Preston asked, a wide smile on his face as he looked at a hut. On a booth outside there were multiple water bottles on sale with green, red, and blue liquids inside of them. Inside the hut Teresa spotted what looked like a cauldron, though she couldn’t get a good angle to see much more.

  “Petunia runs that booth, she’s one of the few people who managed to get a class that involves alchemy. She makes potions, but they wouldn’t be too useful to you. They restore either HP, Mana, or Stamina, but there’s a big level difference between us and the target audience. For low levels they’re great, but anyone who’s made it to their class change will struggle to get as much value. If you don’t have a lot of Stamina, Mana, HP, or whatever, then they’re great. Her best potions can restore 100 of a resource, but there’s a limit on how many you can have over a period of time. You can’t just drink ten potions back to back, you’ll get extremely sick.” Ezio answered.

  “Dude, potions are actually a thing.” Preston said, looking at Jake. “You want to give it a try later?”

  “I don’t know man, I don’t think you can make a potion in the microwave. This might be out of your league.” He responded teasingly.

  “I think I could do it, I was good at chemistry!”

  “You got a B- in that class.”

  “Yeah, exactly, I’m fantastic at chemistry.”

  After a bit more walking Teresa spotted an open area around a tall, black monolithic structure with hieroglyphic writing all over it. There was an entire block of space for just the monolith, with several armed guards all around it. From the way it was set up, Teresa couldn’t tell if they were there to protect the monolith or if they were there to shoot anything that might appear from thin air.

  They continued through the city for a few more blocks before they arrived at their destination. The town hall was just another building like any other, which Teresa supposed would make sense. Most of the buildings in the city were pre-System, though she was kind of curious where exactly these buildings had come from.

  “Here we are. Once we go inside, we’re going to see several members of our government in session. I’m warning you now, it’s going to be heated, especially when you bring up the abductions. You will be scrutinized, they will doubt you, and you will need to explain your background.” Ezio warned. Teresa took a deep breath and shrugged, mentally bracing herself.

  “I’m good.” She said, figuring she had enough experience dealing with Jonathan to handle something like this. Ezio nodded and opened the front door to the building, and immediately Teresa heard arguing. She hadn’t heard anything when the door had been closed just a moment ago, even with her Perception. She mentally noted that as they entered the building.

  “We need another currency! The System’s money is too hard to come by for a normal citizen, we can’t expect everybody to be hunting monsters and selling their cores!” One man was yelling angrily.

  “Nobody would use another currency, there’s nothing backing it! We would also need to worry about printing, which would cause another drain on our resources.” Someone argued back.

  “What we have isn’t working, there’s a drastic dollar shortage. There is simply not enough System money in circulation to hold up our economy, with how things are now monster hunters are the ones who decide how much a dollar is worth since they’re the only ones who can make an income from the System itself. Prices are everywhere and there is no set standard. We have to pay construction crews, logistics managers for food distribution, we need to subsidize the cattle farms to the south, pay guards, all of this with an unreliable income from taxes. We only have a sales tax in place now since there’s not enough people with a salary to implement an income tax. A temporary currency issued by us could alleviate some of these problems until the economy stabilizes.”

  “Ahem,” Ezio began, clearing his throat. The room fell silent as the new group entered. “Apologies for the interruption, but we have an urgent matter to discuss relating to the missing persons situation. This is Teresa, along with Jake, Preston, Sarah, Mathew, and Thomas. We found them deep in the Contaminated Zone, and we fought against Cher together briefly.”

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you all.” Teresa said, stepping forward once the introductions were done. Multiple pairs of eyes were on her, with fifteen people outside of her own group being in the room. Welp, it was time to get this out of the way. Ezio and his party seemed alright, the city didn’t have any obvious concerns within asides from what they were there to discuss, and having seen what Arconette had to offer she felt it was about time she did her job as an Ambassador. “We come from a settlement called The Mall…”

  They really needed to do something about that name.