Elemental Cats

After seeing the mountain in the distance, it only took the group another few days to reach the town.

Yellow Sparks had developed nicely in the time that Toz had been away. It no longer looked so bland and lifeless, even in the middle of the day. More houses had been built, and more non-explorers had settled down thanks to the cheap land.

Although there weren't any things unique to Yellow Sparks that could be made into a local specialty, there was an overall pleasant atmosphere in the area surrounding the town.

With the added attention that the excitement in the nearby mountain range had brought to the town, a lot of newcomers had arrived since Toz's last visit.

Not just an explorer outpost anymore, but a proper town with professions other than explorers and merchants.

The tiny house that fit both the explorer guild's branch office and a bar had been completely demolished and replaced by two larger buildings. A proper guild office and an affiliated inn just next door. With more employees than the mother and son duo, the branch also possessed the capabilities needed to keep up with the increased influx of people.

The group of four entered the building and sought a meeting with a higher-up. Thanks to Amanda's relationship to the manager and the entire group's credibility, it was quickly granted. Although Toz was about to be left behind by the receptionist since no one knew him, but they were sure he wasn't a part of Amanda's trio previously. Thankfully the other three vouched for him.

Since the trio had never done anything like it before, it brought some attention from the others nearby. Considering they were in the guild in the middle of the day, they were probably bored and looking for some way to pass the time. Gossipping about how the manager's sister walked in with a handsome young man was fun enough.

When Amanda's nephew heard the rumors, he got curious and with the excuse of bringing refreshments, went to the meeting room to see it for himself.

When he arrived at the room, he saw his mother carefully inspecting a rat. That alone was weird enough, but the entire atmosphere in the room was incredibly dark. And based on the way everyone stared at the rat corpse, it seemed to be because of that.

When Nander, the receptionist, entered, only his mother and the black-haired young man took notice of his presence. His mother was working and kept a professional attitude and moved the rat away from the table to let him put down the tray of biscuits and juice.

Toz, on the other hand, greeted him with a nod before he got up and started looking around the room holding a biscuit.

During their talk, the five of them had been seated on two sofas on either side of a small table that was in the middle of the room. With the back to the window and with perfect view over the entire room, including the door to the left and the bookshelf on the wall opposite, were a desk and a chair.

It was the manager's office. Either, there was no proper room for meetings alone, or meetings with the manager took place in her office.

The meeting paused naturally, after Toz finished telling all the details about what he had been through in the wasteland. After the trio saved him, he had given them a rough outline, but they had never heard the full story.

Of course, now that they heard something unbelievable like that, they didn't trust Toz's story immediately, but after he swore and even guaranteed that the story wouldn't change in the slightest if they questioned him with a truthseeker, they were bound to at least consider the reality of the situation.

Although truthseekers weren't absolute and could be fooled, since all of them had different inclinations, it would take different methods to fool every one of them, some used different ways to feel the emotions through the mage's mana, and others could simply tell lie and truth apart based on how the mana in the surroundings reacted. It was impossible to come up with a method to counteract such mysterious methods on the spot, and there was no way Toz could know which truthseeker he would be up against, so it was very likely he wasn't lying.

None of them could find a reason for him to lie either. After a quick investigation, what Toz had said could be confirmed. Either trying to find some encyclopedia with information about the rat, or mobilize a couple of scouts to search for proof in the wasteland.

The problem was that they needed to act fast. As a branch manager, Amber was used to dealing with stressful situations, but it was her first time encountering something that, according to speculation, threatened the wellbeing of all creatures on the plane.

After a few minutes had passed since Nander left the room, Maber gathered her bearings and started writing a letter. She couldn't tell Toz's entire story in a single message, so she shortened it down. Although she only wrote that a few witnesses were warning the guild about a serious rat infestation with possibly fatal consequences, she did her best to make sure the emergency of the situation would be understood by the recipient. She also wrote what Toz had told her about the rats.

Toz had started looking around the bookshelf for books detailing various beasts hoping to find a clue about the rats they were dealing with, in order to possibly find a weakness or a way to deal with them. He found a few interesting facts about other rodent type beasts but none of it relevant to the situation they were dealing with.

Instead of wasting his time at the guild, he said goodbye to the others. Amber agreed but said that because he was an important eyewitness to a possible calamity, he had to stay within the town for the time being.

Toz agreed and with the help of the guild booked a room at the affiliated inn for an indefinite stay. He had planned to hole up with the cats and focus on training for now.

After their blood-paved escape through the wasteland, where they had overdrawn their mana and abused their mana pools a bit, they had gotten closer to the next level when they recovered. It was to the point where Mindle had already reached the second level.

After Toz had brought his fire element to the second level, he had focused all his efforts on reaching the third level with it and was making rapid progress. Despite having focused on his third element, he wasn't far behind Nil, with Lucy in the lead, almost having finished the second level.

Although the mana wasn't as dense in the middle of town as it was in the wilderness it wasn't at a level it was impossible to gather enough for training. With some extra gold to the innkeeper, they even got an elemental room with stronger fire mana for Toz and Mindle. The other two were satisfied that it had more mana than a neutral room since there weren't any metal or shadow rooms.

It would be best for all three of them to reach the third level, but even if only one of them did, it would greatly boost their fighting capabilities. And if Toz was the one to break through it would be even better since he was already their main fighting force.

Aside from the weakness they had felt during both times they had been attacked by the rats, they also felt the need to grow stronger quickly in order to have a say in the preparations against the rats. Toz had only managed to talk with the branch's manager thanks to a fateful meeting with her sister.

Without that, he would have needed to wait a lot longer and even if he guaranteed he was telling the truth by using a truthseekers reputation, there was a very low probability of the manager listening to him and requesting a truthseeker to come.

Just fining Toz wouldn't be enough to compensate the truthseeker for their valuable time if it turned out to be some kind of weird joke. And if the truthseeker determined the truth by relying on the person's reaction to questions, it could still be a hallucination that Toz believed was absolutely true.

Since many truthseekers determined the truth based on the person and not the world surrounding them, even their acknowledgment of Toz's story might not be enough to rush an investigation led by proper Scouts.

Although an investigation will be made, no matter what, there's a difference between scouts at the fourth level, at a minimum, with a sense of urgency and some low level explorer taking on a side gig from the guild.

Although reaching the third level wouldn't instantly make people listen to Toz, it would at least make people look in his direction, and hesitate before completely disregarding his thoughts.