There were many titles for Liberta, a city in the kingdom of Presia.
A paradise for outlaws, a city of criminals, a lawless zone, a place where all secrets are known, a den of barbarians where only the logic of money and power exists, a city of filth…
There are many more names, and the amazing thing is that they are all correct.
As if to prove its name, Liberta stinks from the moment you enter, with discarded rubbish everywhere.
‘Ugh, the smell… They don’t even clean up the rubbish here.’
‘I don’t think there’s anyone in this city who’s paid to take out the rubbish, it’s just people who live by the rules.’
There was all kinds of garbage everywhere, including food waste, and stray cats and street rats scavenging on the ground.
Ravi, who has a good sense of smell, was already blue in the face and could barely talk because he had to cover his mouth and nose.
Bang!
As we were walking down the street, we heard the sound of glass breaking and a chair flying out of a building.
This was followed by the shouts of people fighting inside.
‘You bastard, I told you to bring alcohol, but you just brought alcoholic water! Do you want me to drink and die?’
‘Aang, why should I give a bastard who looks like he can’t even pay to drink!’
‘Because you’re trying to take money from customers, you’re the reason this place looks like this, you know?’
‘What? You bastard, I’m done talking to you!’
‘If you didn’t finish, you’re not gonna listen to the end, bollocks!’
A customer who walks in to eat a radioactive meal without paying, and a shopkeeper who serves alcoholic burnt water after taking the customer’s order.
Elfin, who had been listening to the demented pair’s dialogue, moved forward over the chair that had flown outside with an incredulous look on his face.
‘Are you insane, or is everything like this here?’
‘Well, most of it is, isn’t it?’
‘Why do you know this place so well, anyway? Have you even been to this shithole city before? I thought even you hadn’t sunk to the level of setting foot in a place like this…’
The elfin seemed to be on high alert as I seemed to know Liberta strangely well.
In reality, it wasn’t such an odd reaction, as those who wandered in and out of Liberta were treated as the lowest of the low, the dregs of humanity, anywhere on the continent.
‘I’ve never been there myself, I’ve only heard stories and have some information.’
‘… From where?’
‘That’s a secret.’
The elfin’s guard was up, and he walked away from me a little.
The deeper we went into the city of Liberta, the more drunks, druggies, and homeless people scavenging through the rubbish.
In a lawless city like this, it does no good to have women like Ravi and Elfin standing out, so the two of them covered their faces even more with hoods and cloaks and followed behind me.
When I had walked for some time without entering anywhere, Elfin, impatient, called out to me from behind.
‘Hey, Alvis. Where the hell are we going anyway, I really don’t want to be in this city for long, and Ravi can barely talk right now because he’s so nauseous.’
‘Just a little further. Don’t worry, I know where it is.’
‘There… Should we go in? I don’t think it’s a good idea to go indoors in a place like this…’
‘I think it’s better in there than out here.’
Liberta has all sorts of dirty names, but it also has a tinnitus that highlights another side of her.
A place where all the secrets are known, a den of savages where only the logic of money and power exists.
It’s not just criminals who creep into Liberta.
Those who have been exiled for their forbidden research, those who don’t want to be found out, and those who come here to do what they want, completely free of the law.
Such people were often found in Liberta.
Surviving long in this lawless place means being able to fend for yourself, and such individuals spend their time here, away from the prying eyes of the world, studying to their heart’s content.
In Crusader Bryden NX, Liberta is a place where you never know when you’re going to get killed, but it’s also a treasure trove of information, equipment, and items that can only be found here.
The place I was going to visit was a place that sold the most high-level and valuable information in Liberta, information that could cost you a fortune if you knew how to get it right.
The structure of the Liberta was exactly the same as I remembered.
I spent a lot of time here trying to find out if there was a way for all the characters in that rubbish game to have a happy ending.
All I found out was that there was no such thing.
Moving on to the northern section of Liberta, I passed a crumbling fruit shop selling rotten fruit and turned a corner into a deeper alleyway.
The shops in this alleyway were all closed and deserted, and even in broad daylight, the atmosphere was quite eerie, with the shadows of the other buildings casting a shadow over me.
‘Two turns to the right, one to the left, and straight ahead…’
As I reached the end of the pitch-black alleyway, I saw a building with only a single, fading sign on the wall.
Oddly, instead of rising upwards, the building had a staircase leading down to the basement.
‘This is it.’
Ravi and Elfin looked at the strange-looking entrance with disgust.
‘Zee, do we really have to go in here? Ugh…’
As soon as Ravi opened his mouth, the stench of the city made him gag again.
‘Dude… this is too suspicious to say the least. We can’t even call someone if something happens inside.’
‘You can’t call someone? You think you can call someone from a shop on the main street, in Liberta?’
‘That’s… but.’
‘You two can stay here if you’re nervous. But I don’t recommend it.’
Ravi and Elfin looked at each other, grunted, and eventually followed me.
Apparently they’d rather be with me, who knows something, than with themselves, who know almost nothing about Liberta.
We descended the stairs to the basement and came to a shabby wooden door with no latch.
I opened the door and stepped inside to find a very neatly organised room, a far cry from the musty smell of the city and the dusty, messy staircase I had just been on.
The room was filled with faintly violet curtains and wallpaper, the ceiling was decorated with various lunar and star ornaments, an incense burner emitting a faint scent on the table in front of him, mirrors lined the walls, and shelves were filled with divination tools, including numerous crystal balls.
‘Fuhaha… Yi, I feel like I can finally breathe, the stench was so bad before…’
‘This is… A tavern? Why is this place in the corner of a place like this still intact, when the whole place was so stinking just a moment ago?’
‘Hmph… Customers? That’s unusual.’
The shopkeeper, who had noticed our arrival, lifted her purple veil from the back and approached the table in front.
The old woman, who looked very old, leaned on a cane with her wrinkled hands and stared at us.
She looked quite grotesque, with her eyes unusually round and bulging compared to the rest of her body, as if she lacked enough leather to cover her eyelids.
The old woman quickly scanned the three of us and muttered.
‘Three of you creeping into this small place at once, overkill, overkill, overkill. Two points for two more, but… Ho-ho, a gang that likes to have some racial diversity? Yeah, +1 point.’
Ravi and Elfin winced as the old woman realised who they were, even though they hadn’t removed their hoods, and pulled their hoods tighter over their ears.
The old woman looked at me and smirked.
‘And you’re hiding a very interesting power. Another +1 point… A total of zero. Unless you can come up with something to pique this old man’s interest, I’m going back.’
And I smiled at the old woman.
‘Something to pique his interest.’
Triggers Eye of Truth. Lasts for 3 minutes and allows you to see the truth of what happened in the area. 2/3â—€
I smirked and activated the ability.
All the lies that had been woven into this space, and the truth that lay beneath them, became clear.
I lunged at the old woman in front of me and grabbed her by the nape of the neck, causing her to gurgle and shudder.
‘Shhh… Off…’
‘Alvis! Are you mad! Let go of me now!’
The old woman in my hands shuddered as if she was having a seizure, and then went limp, and at the same time, her entire body turned to powder and disappeared without a trace.
‘Eh…? What the…? What the…?’
‘Gone…?’
The old woman had vanished, but it seemed the ‘test’ wasn’t over yet.
Since I still had my powers, I immediately pulled out a dagger from my waistband and threw it at the potted plant behind us.
Although the pot was clearly real, the dagger simply passed through it like an afterimage, and at that moment, a stunning beauty with blue hair appeared from the spot where the old woman had disappeared.
‘Hahahahahaha, you’re quite a bit more than you look, okay, +1 point, that’s a total of +1 points, now let’s talk, what did you crawl all the way here to find out?’
Laughing heartily, she propped her long legs up on the table and crossed her arms.
She was Liberta’s best source of information, one of the most powerful beings in the world, and an NPC who had a large part to play in the disrepute of the game known as Crusader Brayden NX.
And then there was Linian, the cloaked blue dragon.