We walk down toward the safe zone appearing below us, linking the border of three biomes, and the air pressure shifts in very odd patterns. The earthy air from the mountainous forest region mixes with the cold air from the snow biome, but it is completely thrown off by the dry and hot air from the desert.
The safe zone itself is no larger than 2 kilometers wide, with countless dense white strands of ether protecting it from the outside.
My unaided eyes can't see through it from here, but as we get closer, my natural aura can understand the tightly packed commands a bit better. I can tell it's some kind of barrier, like within the Exile Zones, to keep certain Lords out and let others in.
Ren doesn't slow down and walks right into the shimmering white barrier.
As I walk through right behind, I feel the outer shell of an avatar I've created react with this shimmering wall of ether commands, and a notification rings in my inner ear.
[Welcome to Safe Zone 022089!]
When I hover over these options in my mind, more tabs and information about each open up, yet my attention is far more captured by the scene around me.
Ava and the two wolfmen walk in right behind me, and we make our way down a wide, open road.
On each side of this open road, buildings that look like they're built from the rock and trees available as resources in these mountainside and desert environments line the streets.
Even the road beneath our feet seems to be made of stone and flattened naturally.
Despite the outer appearance of a low-technology society, this small town is deeply saturated with ether, mana, and divine threads.
My vision fills with system commands, labeling each of the buildings around me as [Dining and Lodging], showing the ether pricing per night, and even open shops labeled [Trade Center] with market prices for loot most commonly collected in these three zones around us.
Three large buildings in the center of the zone are labeled [Adventurer's Hub], [Crown Cycle Lab], and [Arena]. They seem to be built out of a denser, foreign material.
If my mind didn't move hundreds of times faster than the average 5th Class Lord, I'd be having a massive sensory overload right now.
From inside this small dome, the outside wilderness is completely visible like clear glass, unlike the protective shield that blocks what can be seen from the outside. There are also very subtle shifts in the ether commands on my avatar shell that connect me to this safe zone.
Not only is this connection allowing me to see the prices and functions of all the shops, but a small drop of ether comes out from its external pool to create a pressure-activated ether barrier. If any attacks were to strike me now, this zone would protect me—I'm certain of it—up to at least the strength of an Average 1st Class Lord.
I can't help but grin as we walk through the street that isn't exactly empty.
A few heads turn our way, as Ava is quite the sight to see walking through these parts. There are a few wolfmen and desert lizardmen that stand up to 3 or 4 meters at most, but the Goblin Queen in our party towers over everyone else on the street.
The sight of two small humans—myself and Ren—is out of the ordinary as well.
The only other race I manage to pick out in the crowds that walk in and out from the public spaces are humanoid rabbit creatures, with large pointed horns coming out from their foreheads.
It's a ranked up transformation of a horned rabbit monster that I've never witnessed in a dungeon before...
"Come on, we're already standing out enough. Less staring would let us fit in more..." Ren whispers to me, tilting their head toward the center of town in the direction of the Adventurer's Hub.
We pass a few hundred Lords at most while walking through the small town to its center. The majority are 4th and 5th Class Lords, but as we get closer to the larger buildings in the center of the town, a few 3rd Class Lords pop up in my vision.
No one approaches us directly, but the amount of side eyes and whispers we get is hard to keep count of.
Ren seems used to it, far more unbothered by this attention compared to the stress Ava and I put them through. Then again, if I recall the countless safe zones this Lord has been through over the years, this must happen in all of them.
It would make sense that societies of races tend to stay near each other... but it does internally raise the question of how or why Ava and I were sent here and not to a zone more closely related to humans or goblins.
We walk into one of the three large buildings in the center of town labeled [Adventurer's Hub]. There is no physical door, but just like the barrier around the safe zone itself, we can't see inside until we enter.
About two dozen other Lords, split up into parties of 2 to 5, all turn our way when we walk in. They all stand and sit around circular tables that line the sides of the room. Some have pop-up windows that show up in my vision, requesting party members of a certain level, class, special skill, or fighting proficiency.
They even have quests and bounty rewards floating above their parties to show what they're after, mostly in the three biomes that connect to this zone. I see a few seeking materials from the swampland we were in earlier, and a few other biomes that I haven't seen before that must be off in other directions.
The ceiling of this open hall is quite high, almost 25 meters, making our footsteps echo slightly as we walk through. Although, the building itself is easily three or four times this height, meaning there must be higher floors. Yet, I don't see any stairs or elevators.
The back of the room is curved, and there are five receptionists behind a black curved counter. Two of them are the horned rabbit race in their intelligent humanoid forms, while the other three are desert lizards.
Ren's footsteps speed up toward the Lizardman on the far right side, and I follow with a rhythm of nonchalance in my steps, looking around, making eye contact with as many random adventurers as I can for my own amusement.
Ava's eyes track the countless quests and bounties that line the free space on the walls, unclaimed and marked with time limits and payout prices in ether or avatar upgrade rewards all over them.
Xaden and Togi awkwardly walk behind her with their heads down, and a few moments later, the five of us stand in front of the receptionist and come to a halt.
A pair of sharp yellow lizard eyes look each one of us up and down, and the bronze-scaled receptionist speaks up, looking to Ava as she seems to be the party leader.
"Not from around here, are you? The closest Goblin Settlement is over seventy safe zones away..."
Its gaze shifts down to Ren, then over to me, and stops on the two wolfmen before he speaks again.
"I want to hear it from the locals... you're from the party that was off hunting that serpent bounty earlier with your pack leader, aren't you? What happened?"
They both perk up, and Togi starts nodding excitedly, while Xaden replies to the receptionist.
"That's right! The Serpent Bounty! Boss sacrificed himself to save us!"
Togi jumps in, remembering what they were chanting earlier. "Yeah! Boss killed the serpent to save the pack!"
The Lizardman gives a grunt of approval, then begins scrolling through a list of bounties, and meanwhile, Ava reaches into her ether storage to pull out the black scale and rest it down on the counter between them.
"Here's proof... That black snake is dead."
She pulls one of the holographic bounties off the walls that she was looking at on the way in, then pulls two more seemingly random ones in front of the Lizardman and pulls out all of the soul weapons we took off the trolls back in the swamp biome but leaves the blades taken off the wolfman's body in her inventory.
The Lizardman's eyes move faster left and right as the quest boxes begin to scan and register the loot placed under them. They make audible dinging sounds once they're complete, and the live quest boards all over the walls shift slightly to reflect the changes.
"Well, it appears that is the case... This was a 2nd Class Bounty Request. It has a special reward sequence that I can't personally verify. I'll need to contact our safe zone admin. Please give me a moment."