With This Treasure, I Summon Primordial Weapons
Chapter 16: Hierarchy

Chapter 16: Hierarchy

Godric and Raven didn’t have to wait long to meet the person called Torr.

They followed Astrea for twenty more minutes before the winding roads of the melted city opened up and a massive tower rose before them.

Its size was breathtaking. Their necks strained as they searched for its peak, which hid somewhere in the darkness of the sky above.

Unlike every other building around them, the tower looked less damaged. Whatever it was that managed to melt the bricks of every other building seemed to have mostly missed this one.

Before it, a massive courtyard stretched.

There, people moved between makeshift stands. Monster hides, salvaged tools and jars of something pale Godric didn’t quite recognise all lay scattered along the crooked tables.

He took a moment to observe one of the distant trades taking place.

A man wearing what seemed like an armour made of black leather picked one of the jars with pale liquid from the table, and after an exchange of a few words, he simply walked away with it in hand.

No coins or banknotes passed between them.

"How do people pay?" Godric asked, his gaze sweeping across the few dozen people buying and selling across the courtyard.

"Hmm, it depends," Astrea replied without looking back at him. "There isn’t really a currency here, so you exchange whatever you have. A few hours of your day is usually the standard here."

’They pay by time...’ Godric pondered over the idea.

In truth, it wasn’t far different from how most currencies worked. Instead of giving your time for an hourly pay and using that money to buy things, here they directly exchange time for items they needed.

It did make him wonder, however, if just like with most currencies, somewhere was profiting from those exchanges.

As Astrea led them through the courtyard, Godric quickly noticed the way most gazes lingered on them for a moment too long.

"Everyone’s staring," Raven whispered beside him.

"They’re just curious."

Who wouldn’t be?

After years of being stranded in this melted city, seeing a new face must’ve felt like a dream.

A few paces further, they reached the tower’s entrance.

Two massive doors were already open outwards. They were made of some kind of black metal that towered high above them.

The ceiling inside was just as high. The architecture looked Gothic, with the only difference being that most of the arches looked as though they were melted together.

The entry chamber spanned across the entire circumference of the tower, with nothing but a spiralling stairway standing in the middle of it.

Astrea chuckled nervously as she gestured at the stairs ahead. "It’s... quite a climb. Sorry!"

She wasn’t exaggerating.

Twenty minutes later, and the three of them were still climbing, sweat beading across their temples and their breaths partly ragged.

"The higher the position, the higher floor you get to live on," Astrea explained somewhere along the way. "Torr is just one floor below the boss. Then come the lieutenants, and as the newest one, I’m on the 11th floor from the top!" she said proudly, as though she was sharing some great achievement neither Godric nor Raven could understand.

"Why would people wanna live on the highest floors?" Raven asked.

"Huh? Oh right, I forgot you guys are new. When the day comes, everything is buried by sand. The higher you are, the easier it is to get out of it. Depending on the monster’s location, sometimes the top two floors stay above the sand."

Godric raised a brow.

So those in power had it easy, while everyone below spent each dawn digging themselves out.

It seemed as though the corruption brought from power spread even here.

"Finally!" Astrea exclaimed between her heavy breaths.

A single door stood in front, with nothing but walls all around them, indicating that the entire floor was just one chamber.

’It could easily fit everyone from the courtyard,’ Godric noted.

Astrea knocked twice, then swung the door open.

The chamber that came before them caught Godric and Raven a bit off guard.

It wasn’t empty like everything they had seen so far. It was filled with countless pieces of furniture, each made from black wood, intricate patterns carved across them. A king-size bed stood at one end of the chamber, and a desk with a massive chair that looked more like a throne stood at the other.

On that very chair sat a man.

He had short grey hair and a matching beard. He was well built, with wide shoulders and muscles that were visible through his neatly pressed tunic.

The room and the man’s appearance told Godric everything he needed to know before Torr had even a chance to speak up.

"Astrea," the man’s gaze shifted away from the old notebook on his desk and toward the three of them.

"We have some newcomers! They just arrived!"

"Newcomers?" The man’s gaze moved between Godric and Raven a couple of times. His expression remained unchanged, almost indifferent to the arrival of two new humans whom everyone looked surprised to see.

"Leave us," Torr finally said.

Astrea blinked.

Her lips parted once, then closed shut, and she nodded. There was no sign of her usual cheerfulness as she exited the door and closed the door softly behind her.

The moment the door closed, the atmosphere inside the room changed.

As though something watched them from every shadow inside the room.

"Now..." Torr spoke up. "How about we start by introducing ourselves?"