Demon City, Dragon Heart Series Book 13

Sedent City wasn’t particularly large. It had a population of no more than three million people, which, even by the standards of the backwater Baronies of the Red Phoenix and White Dragon regions, was considered barely more than a large village. There were a few central avenues that went through the city’s only square, forming a six-sided star, many streets, alleyways, as well as one-story and two-story houses, shops, taverns, and hotels. Of course, it had a rich district as well, where well-to-do merchants, healers, and artifactors lived, and a poor district, or the slums to be more precise, where you couldn’t take a single step without feeling a dagger-sharp gaze on your back as someone planned out how to rob you. So, all in all, it was a very ordinary city, and it served as the central hub for the surrounding farming and hunting communities. Its Governor was the only true cultivator in the whole area. He was an elderly, contented man who’d found peace with his latest young wife and the countless offspring that his numerous past wives had already given him. As the citizens liked to joke about in the taverns, the age of the Governor’s wife always remained unchanged, which wasn’t true of the wife herself. He would get a new wife practically every year. The citizens lived a quiet, stable life. The officials didn’t steal so much that the people rose up in revolt. Taxes weren’t high enough to stifle the population. It was an ordinary city with the most ordinary stone-and-wood architecture, sandy roads, broken sidewalks, smelling of tea, vegetables, manure, and dust. Even the Governor’s palace, which wasn’t far from the central square, was ordinary. And in this realm of the mundane located between two huge regions, it was quite strange to see a lively crowd in the ‘Ruffled Cat’ tavern, a low building shaped like a barrel of booze. It was currently very noisy and busy on the ground floor. The guests, men and women of all ages, drank, ate, and had fun. They, and the bards who played on the stage, belted out songs until they were hoarse and clinked glasses together. Gustav, who was sitting at the bar, was very puzzled by what was happening. For the past forty years, he’d been travelling through the vast expanses of lands too poor or insignificant to tempt the rulers of the White Dragon or Red Phoenix regions. All together, their territory even surpassed the two regions combined. Of course, there were always local ‘forces’ around: sects, family clans, or city-states like Sedent. In the regions, it would’ve been an insignificant small fry, but out here, it owned large tracts of land with forests, lakes, rivers, and cultivated fields. Gustav, who had grown up on the outskirts of the Red Phoenix region, liked these lands. True cultivators might’ve been rarer here than even in the Baronies of the Empires, and alchemy and artifacting were only at the level that the local practitioners and peasants demanded of them, but there was a spirit of freedom here. Today, he could feast at the ‘Ruffled Cat’ of Sedent, and then go wherever he liked, through forests and mountains, rivers and valleys. It was a paradise for any wanderer looking to find themselves and their true path. Who was Gustav? Well, this was too complicated a question to answer with an empty stomach and a dry throat. “Madam proprietor,” Gustav waved at a burly, middle-aged woman. “Is there anything to eat for three silver coins?” “Three?” The hostess of the establishment thought about it. “I can offer you a pint of stale booze and the remains of yesterday’s rabbit roast.” “Yesterday’s? Isn’t there anything fresher to be had?” The hostess chuckled and leaned her elbows on the counter. Gray had already conquered her hair a little, and she was definitely stout, but Gustav still found her attractive. He himself was no longer young, already about 120 years old. He had plenty of scars and gray hair to prove it, too. So, the two impressive breasts that peeked out from the neckline of her corset made Gustav drool no less than thinking about yesterday’s rabbit roast did. “Take a closer look... but not at my cleavage. If my husband sees us, he’ll beat both of us half to death.” “Is your husband truly so strong?” “I don’t like weaklings,” the hostess smiled a little wryly at him. “All the fresh meals cost at least seven silver coins today.” “Seven silver coins? For that money, I can have dinner in the best local brothel, and two young, buxom girls would be warming my bed as well!” “Maybe it would’ve been so on any other night,” the hostess didn’t argue, “but not today.” “And what’s today?” “The anniversary.” “Whose anniversary?” “Not whose, but of what,” the hostess corrected him. One of the customers almost fell atop the bar and slapped the broken varnish that covered the oak planks with a sweaty palm, leaving two silver coins behind on it. The hostess, despite the splendor of her form and the heaviness of her body, deftly put them away and poured the man a glass of booze. The satisfied customer went back to his company to sing and dance. “What are your guests celebrating?” The hostess narrowed her eyes at him and rested her elbows on the bar again. Gustav swallowed. It seemed like this woman simply enjoyed teasing him. It probably reminded her of her youth. “You’re from the Red Phoenix region, aren’t you?” “How could you tell?” The woman snorted and adjusted her apron, causing her breasts to wobble... And Gustav’s eyes did the same. “Sedent isn’t far from the White Dragon region. We get a lot of people from there. And today, they are celebrating the seventy-fifth anniversary of the battle at Dragon Ridge.” “The battle at Dragon Ridge? I’ve never heard of it.”