Discordant Note: Crescendo | TBATE

Chapter 239: What We Can

Thank you to my beta reader and editor, GlassThreads!

Arthur Leywin

Blackbend City was bustling with life as I stepped from the teleportation gate platform, the summer air pulling at my cloak. I put a hand over my head, making sure my signature auburn locks were hidden, alongside my mana signature.

"This place is different than what I expected," Sylvie said, her little fox form stuffed in my coat. Her ears peeked out a little as her slitted gold eyes peered over the milling crowds. "That man could have been nicer, too."

Sylv, of course, was referring to the gruff guard who had demanded to see my lower back upon leaving the teleportation gate. I'd complied, but the massive brute of a man could have done without the death glare or the killing intent.

Things are tense now, Sylv, I responded with a mental sigh, my eyes tracking over the city. Everywhere I looked, people bustled about with their chores as they sought to add to the war effort. Nobody can afford a slip.

Blackbend City was one of the core, integral parts of Dicathen's supply chains. Located at the headwaters of one of the Sehz River's mighty tributaries, it served as the go-between to the Wall–and by extension, the Beast Glades beyond–and the rest of Sapin.

Furthermore, control of the river that coursed along Sapin's southern border was sourced in the iron-walled city. Needless to say, it was a critical military and strategic outpost, and it showed in every action of the townsfolk around me.

Burly men hauled metal plates and scaffolding to the edges of the ringed walls, then were waved on by soldiers. Armed mages and contingents of the Triunion marched through the cobbled streets, reassuring the women as they worked to chisel arrowheads along the main thoroughfare.

They're carrying resources for the construction of the underground train to the Wall, I thought, weaving through the crowds.

My eyes lingered on a group of three adventurers as they hauled the corpse of a mana beast to a designated station for processing. Nothing would go to waste in that body, I knew. The tendons would be used to string bows and tie fletchings. The meat would feed a few families easily, and the fur would make resistant armor. The bones could be whittled and sculpted into arrowheads, or ground up for use in mana-conductive artificing.

The haunted expressions of the adventurer party and the blood staining their clothes told me that they were far from content with their victory. No, an aura of misery clung to them like a gravity spell that weighed down only their hearts.

Immediately, I knew why such dread ensorcelled the three. I could read it in how the conjurer nearly stumbled into a tall, lanky augmenter. She'd been expecting someone else to be there to stop her, but they hadn't. Another close-combat fighter belatedly turned, opening his mouth to scold the conjurer, but his maroon brows fell as he looked at them with defeat, unable to muster the strength. I could see the lines of loss carved into his brows like a meticulous sculpture, the emotion unwilling to escape. The final augmenter just looked away, ashamed.

They'd lost someone in their party.

I paused for a moment in the middle of the street, flashbacks of Jona as he mourned over Cedry sparking in my head. I watched as the three remaining mages tried to pretend that the gaping hole in their hearts didn't exist for a short time.

"It won't work, Arthur," Sylv thought to me, her emotions muted. "The reason you're here... It won't help. You know that."

I ignored the dragon stuffed into my tunic, instead inhaling the scent of industry all around. It was different from the bloodied corpses of the massacres I'd been to barely a few hours ago. Oil, freshly cut wood, metal, sweat, and grime from workers' bodies... It all meshed together in a tangle of wartime society.