Dungeon Raider System-Chapter 650: The fabled city of Cibola Part 1
Noticing Uriel's expression, Nika scanned her surroundings in high alert as though expecting an enemy to pounce at them at any moment, though once she confirmed they were safe she didn't feel better in the slightest.
Everything about that place gave her the chills, the strange holes buried in the ground and the yellow tape encircling them made her think of a crime scene and her first instinct was to hide inside Uriel's shadow.
Uriel didn't mind this or the fact that his friends were taking long to arrive and took his chance to inspect the place in hopes of finding something he missed last time. All the ancient artifacts he found in that burial site were priceless cultural remains, but not even the Ulfberht sword that looked promising as a weapon could be stored in his museum.
The reason why some artifacts could be stored inside his trait while others couldn't had always puzzled Uriel, but more than that it frustrated him to no end. If he had the ability to store anything he wanted inside his museum he wouldn't need to keep buying stuff he needed from the souvenir shop at the extremely high prices it displayed.
"What could be the difference between the artifacts I can store inside and those I can't?" Uriel pondered out loud walking around the area until he casually stumbled upon the mysterious city gates. They were low enough that Uriel could probably jump over them, yet the carving of a bison on the wooden wall prevented him from doing it.
"What's the matter? Do you want me to go inside and open the door for you?" Nika nudged on Uriel a couple times trying to snap him out of his reverie, but he wasn't reacting. Uriel's eyes were wide as a full moon and glinted in a pale blue light. His mouth opened and closed trying to speak, yet no sounds came out his mouth.
Nika expected him to blow up in a rant about archaeology that would bore her to death followed by him running full tilt at the door to open it, yet Uriel's face paled and he took a few steps back.
"This is bad, this is really bad." Uriel muttered, the sound of his voice barely reaching Nika who barely kept her head outside his shadow, managing to hide right in time before a group of people appeared from behind.
They were too many to count in just a glance, but there were a couple things that didn't add up. They all seemed to be hunters, yet their presence was so faint Uriel doubted if they were real people.
The other weird thing about that group was that they all dressed like members of the society, yet they didn't come from the floating islands but from below the fog barrier that separated day from night in the second world.
If anything, the only thing that seemed normal about them was that their clothes were ragged, their armors torn to pieces and they all had bags under their eyes as though they spent one too many nights awake.
"I'm sorry, Uriel." Medusa apologized prompting the woman by her side to give her a powerful nudge on the ribs that caused Medusa to bend forward and fall face first on the ground. Her arms were locked in a strange alloy contraption at the height of the elbows and another at the height of the hands leaving no wiggle room.
"I... uhm..." Luna pondered if she also needed to apologize. On the one hand, she too was caught by the society which could be considered a mistake. But on the other hand, even if she wanted to put up a fight, she was so tired there was nothing she could have done against their enemies and hence she wasn't really at fault.
"Well, well, look what we found here. When I saw that bitch fly around the city I knew she couldn't be alone, but this is so much better than I expected." A young man with sharp features, a nose too big for his thin face and hateful eyes said as he took a step forward.
"Let my friends go!" Uriel growled at the same time he took the Red thread of fate from his museum and lowered his center mass. In response, the man with sharp features and those who followed him pulled out all sorts of firearms at Uriel making it obvious he was at a disadvantage.
"You can't bring a knife to a gunfight." The man scoffed at Uriel's pointless bravado, not realizing Uriel was actually getting ready to strike.
"Don't do it! They have tier 3 weapons!" Medusa warned.
Uriel had no clue as to what she meant by that. He had been shot at multiple times by all kinds of firearms and the most they managed to do was to bruise him up a little. Besides, even if their weapons were powerful enough to pierce through a heavenly rank hunter's skin wouldn't change anything if they failed their shots and Uriel wasn't planning on staying put.
But things changed when instead of pointing towards him, the young man with sharp features pointed his handgun at Luna.
"I'm sorry." She apologized without hesitation this time after realizing that, no matter if it was her fault or Medusa's, she was being used as a hostage against Uriel.
"Drop the weapon on the ground and let's have a civilized conversation. Tell me, Uriel, how did you deactivate the trap?" The young man asked.
"How do you know my name?" Uriel scowled trying to figure out if he faced that man before. freēwēbnovel.com
"Come on, do you seriously not recognize me? And here I thought we were pals, I'm hurt," The man placed his hand over his chest in feigned pain, then looked directly at Uriel in the eye. "I'm Kenny, we took Pangiotis' class together, do you remember me now?"
"Nope, doesn't ring a bell." Uriel earnestly replied after failing to recognize him.
"We had the same incompetent instructor," Kenny snarled offended after he realized Uriel wasn't faking it. "of course you don't remember me, why would you? The great Uriel Sage who went from a bottom feeder to Tina's boyfriend and even became the teacher's pet. Why would you remember the student that got kicked out from college for being unable to find an instructor."
"Benny!?" Uriel's eyes widened in shock.
"He's been telling you his name is Kenny all this time, you silly." Medusa chuckled.
Contrary to Medusa, Nika wasn't amused by the encounter. She did remember Kenny and she knew she was the one responsible for him being kicked out of college. Not that she cared about it one bit since he cheated in his spar fight against Uriel, but she didn't like being called incompetent.
"Don't even think about it." Uriel said inside his trait the moment he noticed Nika was getting antsy inside his shadow.
"But he called me incompetent!" Nika pouted.
"You're injured and won't be of much use in a fight unless you take advantage of the surprise element." Uriel's ethereal presence faded from the museum as soon as he finished speaking. To those outside it looked as though Uriel spaced out for a moment and didn't think much about it.
"Whatever, I don't care if you remember me or not. I just need your help to open the gates, if you do this for me I'll let you and your friends go." A crooked smile Kenny didn't bother to hide was painted on his face.
"Not a chance, do you know what kind of place is that? If you truly were in the same anthropology class then..."
"Who cares about its name!? What matters is what's inside. That place is filled with artifacts!" The woman by Medusa's side exclaimed with a maddened look on her face.
"On the contrary, its name is really important. This is the fabled city of Cibola, supposedly founded by a Portuguese bishop that supposedly made it to this continent before Columbus." Uriel shook his head as he explained, hinting there was more to it.
"Don't you want to see what's inside? Don't you want to help us discover all those treasures?" Kenny said trying to pique Uriel's curiosity.
"Of course I do, but I've been feeling something odd about this place for a while and now I saw its gate I figured out what it is. While the bison in its gate proves it must be Cibola, I'm also sure this place wasn't built by a bishop. The carved stone, the cliff dwellings and the architectural style indicate this place was built by the Anasazi." Uriel sentenced making Kenny frown.
"But that's impossible!"
"Impossible or not, there's enough evidence to support it." Uriel replied.
"What does it matter who built it!? Every minute we spend here is a minute wasted! We could be getting truckloads of treasures by now." The woman spoke with an enticing passion that would have convinced Uriel if not for a single detail.
