The second fish didn't seem to be enough, however.

"One more please?"

"Do I look like your personal chef?"

"Hey - you can't keep your prisoners starving, you know, that's cruelty of the utmost kind," he said. "And - this is not me buttering you up or anything, but this is some of the best fish I've ever had! Granted - I've been hungry for quite a while, so that probably enhances the taste quite a bit."

"Yeah, yeah, I've been told that before," I said. I handed him another fish. "Do you think that mana grows on trees?"

"Hmm? Don't you regain it with time anyway?" he asked between bites.

"No - that's just a saying I heard somewhere," I said sighing. It meant that you couldn't waste it on frivolous things, especially during a time like the dryad siege.

Once he was done eating, I tied his hands behind his back with some of the leftover silk that was intact.

"The way to the capital is that way," he said, gesturing with his chin.

"And why would I believe you?"

"Hey, I want to get out of the wilderness as fast as possible, same as you," he said. "And plus, I figure, if I help you out like this- you'll owe me one, right?"

"Not really," I said, as the bear hauled him on its back as we set off.

I confirmed with a village along the way, but he was right - and by afternoon, I could just barely make out the outline of the city in the distance.

By then of course, my bear had vanished, but after a few hours, I was able to bring out the Tyrant Arachnea again.

"Please not again…" the man moaned, as we took off, moving throughout the night.

I ignored his protests and dozed off as by next morning, we were there.

I had heard over and over again that the capital was the most important place in the entire country from a militaristic point of view. It was along the easiest route to travel along if one wanted to go through the country, and most of the major roads passed somewhere near it. The city crowned the crest of a large and steep hill, surrounded by a pair of sturdy walls. The most dangerous place to be was in the spot between the two walls, where you would be under fire from both sides. And with Liberomancers, it just might be actual fire.

Without a doubt, it was far easier to defend than Arconia. It was also smaller than Arconia.

No branch of the Ragini flowed near it, so it did not have easy access to water, though this had been why the dryads had completely bypassed it while marching to Arconia. Instead, a large aqueduct was visible in the distance which was used to water the nearby fields, though with the city's elevation, it was not really feasible to construct something that might bring in fresh water directly into the city.

There was a long line to get in through the main gates of the city, and unlike Arconia which had two gates, the capital had three.

One, the main one, was for the common folk. There was a second for Rank Three Liberomancers and other minor officials like in Arconia, and there was also a third that was reserved for foreign dignitaries and the like as well as the royal family.

I had to ask someone where the gate was for Rank Three Liberomancers, and though some ordinary people flinched at the sight of the bear, one of them was kind enough to point me in the direction I needed to head in.

I couldn't walk into the city on the Tyrant Arachnea, but bears were common enough summons that the guards wouldn't bat an eyelid if I approached riding one.

While the sight of a bear might've been common enough, the guards were clearly put off by the fact that I was carrying a person with me, who had taken the chance to yell out as much as possible that I was trying to kidnap him or alternatively sell him into slavery based on whatever he thought might get him out of this situation. Both of which made no sense if I was heading right into the capital.

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'I knew I shouldn't have felt sorry for you…' I thought.

"Halt - ah, Master Liberomancer, what is going on?" a guard asked me, seeing my purple sash.

I handed him two documents, one was the invitation from the king, and the other the letter from the Liberomancer's Guild explaining how I had a demonic spell. I still couldn't read, but I did recognize the seals used to sign both of those documents which is how I told them apart.

"In case you're wondering, this man is a thief who tried to rob me on my way here," I said, pointing to the guy. "Disregard whatever he's saying. I brought him in."

"Ah, another one?" he muttered, exasperated. "Well, I am going to need a statement from you, and signed as well… you have to understand basic procedure and whatnot. I'm sorry to bother you." The letter from the king and my purple sash were enough to earn the guard's deference, and my prisoner quieted down upon realizing that no one was going to listen to him.

I nodded.

It was still a bit of a 'he-said-she-said' thing with our testimonies, but it was my good luck that they found that the guy had been convicted for several crimes before this had happened. Given that, they didn't doubt what I had said whatsoever and let me through after taking him into custody.

"One question," one of the guards asked. "Are you by any chance… the Spider King of Arconia?"

I sighed. That name still felt very strange to hear. "I didn't pick that title for myself, but yes…"

The other guards, most of whom up till now were playing some kind of card game in the background, shifted their attention to me upon hearing that.

I was asked a few other questions - not part of the official questionnaire for new visitors coming into the city, but about the recent siege of Arconia. I tried to keep it succinct, but it still lasted over fifteen minutes as they kept interrupting me and piling on questions while I was narrating it.

"Is it true that you slew twenty thousand dryads with a single spell?"

"It was at most six thousand, and I used multiple spells," I said. The number, based off rumors, had apparently jumped up from ten thousand to twenty thousand. Next they were going to say that I had wiped out the entire dryad army by myself and that too with a single wave of my hand. It did feel nice to hear some of these stories initially and I found them somewhat amusing back then; but the more they became exaggerated the more I was beginning to dislike them. But there was little I could do about that- fanciful tales like that traveled far faster than someone like me could correct them. At last I had had enough and said, "Apologies- but I have some things I need to do within the city. Will this take much longer?"

They seemed to get the hint and then waved me through inside, and they did tell me where the Liberomancer's Guild was - which would be my first stop.

The city, at first glance, did not seem that much different from Arconia. There were a few more guards scattered around, and the humans made up a slightly larger proportion of the population than in Arconia, but were still a minority. There were familiar sites all around - shops selling fish, bookstores, people walking their axolotls.

One thing that was significantly different however was that the city felt far more crowded than Arconia - because it had been built primarily from a militaristic point of view, and had to be restricted to this hill, space was of course quite limited. I saw far more multi-story stacks of buildings than I had in Arconia, and some of the alleyways were so narrow that people living on the higher floors could reach out their windows and shake hands with their neighbors.

From my own rough estimate, I guessed that the city was about a third the size of Arconia when it came to land area, though I had been told its population was under half of Arconia's. The air also felt more… stale, for lack of a better term, maybe just because we were far from the river and the sea. I had been to cities like Chicago and New York back on Earth, and the air sort of reminded me of the air there - and not in a good way; but in that it also smelled of that strange mixture of pollution, waste, and garbage.

I still somehow managed to nearly get lost despite being given clear directions by the guards - I was used to knowing where I was going after having been in Arconia for so long that I hadn't been paying too much attention where I was headed until finding myself somewhere completely different from where I was supposed to be. In a way the somewhat familiar surroundings made things more awkward- as if I should've known where I was going but didn't.

The attention also didn't help with matters - for one, I hadn't run out the timer on my bear summon yet, so I was still riding it into the city. This was not an entirely unheard of thing even back in Arconia, but it would naturally still draw quite a number of eyeballs. Secondly, people noticed the purple sash - I had half a mind to remove it, given that I was now outside of Arconia and so people wouldn't recognize who I was if I took it off. On the other hand though, removing it would mean I was just another foreigner, and I had already experienced how that felt for a while and had no desire to repeat that.

At least people respected me when they saw the sash- and that respect meant that I could usually get help if I wanted to.

The Liberomancer's Guild was a bit harder to find than it was in Arconia, because surprisingly enough the building wasn't as lavish or large as its sister back in Arconia. It still radiated an air of stately elegance and history - the kind that very old buildings, those that had stood for several centuries did, but it seemed to be designed more for practicality than elegance just like everything else in the capital.

I 'parked' my bear outside. There was an area for summons that the Guild had, which is where I left it. There was a giant lizard in the pen as well, but neither animals so much as flinched as I put the bear there. Of course they wouldn't - they were summons after all.

With that done, I headed inside.

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