"Hah... hah... hah..."
I caught my breath and stared at the massive gate looming in the distance. Arten's Gate.
There was no way I could just walk up to it. If I tried, I'd get ransacked at best and killed at worst, because no one could be outside those walls without raising suspicion. This was the border of Arten, and everything beyond these walls was considered a threat by default, since mana beasts that shifted between multiple forms roamed freely out here. As far as the guards were concerned, I might as well be one of them.
"This is going to be a colossal pain in the ass," I muttered, and then turned my frustration toward the only available target. "And why didn't you just teleport me?! You already stole an entire day of my life!"
Yeah, I'd started calling the system Stem. It felt right.
[Oh, I could've teleported you. Would you like that?]
"Wait, seriously?"
[Of course,] it replied, sounding almost helpful for once.
"Alright, then do I just—" I stopped myself before finishing that sentence, because a very important question had just occurred to me.
How much was this going to cost me?
[20 LP.]
I had nothing to say to that.
Absolute bastard.
[Why are you getting so worked up? It's just business.]
I looked back at the gate and frowned hard, because those walls were enormous, far taller than anything I'd expected.
[They were designed to keep out mana beasts of all kinds, so of course they had to be this size.]
"But how am I supposed to get past them," I muttered, gnawing at my nails as I tried to think.
[Wait, you're not seriously considering climbing those walls, are you?]
The disbelief in its tone was enough to make me feel stupid for even letting the thought cross my mind, because those walls were several thousand feet tall, and even if I started climbing right now and didn't stop for a week straight, I wouldn't get halfway up.
"So what am I supposed to do," I said under my breath, the desperation starting to creep in around the edges.
I needed to come up with something, because standing out here wasn't an option I could afford. It was already a miracle that no mana beasts had shown up yet, but that kind of luck wasn't going to hold, and if one found me now, regardless of its tier, I was finished.
I glanced toward the gate again and went still, because there were guards posted at the front, their armor catching the sunlight in a way that looked genuinely dangerous from where I was crouched.
These guards looked even more capable than the ones back at the mansion, and if they decided I was a threat, it'd be over in seconds.
I slid down against the tree I was hiding behind and let out a long breath, running through every angle I could think of and coming up empty every time.
I couldn't get in.
Unless... what if I revealed my identity?
"No, that's stupid," I said to myself immediately.
That would undo everything I'd managed so far, and on top of that, my bloodline alone was considered a threat to the empire, so revealing who I was would probably get me killed faster than anything else out here.
"So what the hell am I actually supposed to do," I muttered, grabbing my hair in frustration.
And then something caught my eye, and I went completely still.
"...Food."
The word came out on its own, and just like that, every other worry I had disappeared entirely, because that was a significantly more immediate problem.
Food.