We were flying south toward the center of Hjuva where the new city for the new races, Feshahn, is getting built. And yes, we’re flying. Everyone is sitting on a [Hattrick] sword. Azu’s paper had helped me in changing their form a bit more freely, so they’re quite wide, enough to sit on.

  My team had given me an earful about my escape stunt, and now I was getting different complaints.

  Agnis, my butt hurts, I prefer getting carried by your tails, this sword is cold and hard.

  “I prefer objects to be sturdy and solid but… damn lil’ bro would it hurt to add some warmth and snow to our transport?”

  “Deca, can I snuggle in your tails?”

  Hey guys! Stop complaining! This is faster and is more efficient! Else fix your own transport!

  How about we put it up or a vote? Who votes for ‘tail transport’?

  5 hands went up. Raishin cheated by raising his tails too, but those don’t count.

  This is mutiny! I should kick you guys overboard and have you walk!

  Due to popularity vote, I had to land and carry my pain in the ass team as I always did.

  You guys are stuck in the past…

  I said as I picked up speed.

  Whoa what? You got way faster! How is flying better, as there hardly seems any difference?

  You’re just imagining things.

  My team stopped complaining and started being creepy and stroking my tails. I should figure out a better form of my [Paradox Teleport] to bring these slowpokes with me.

  Whoa! What is that!

  Raishin was pointing at large sturdy walls, covered in an impressive barrier. I think even a random guess would give the answer, though. This place was a plain, years before, now it has roads leading up to this suspiciously large city. It could only be our destination.

  Many unfamiliar races popped up the closer we got. I once made the joke about the ‘multi’ dimension merging with ours as most of the races I’ve seen had multiples of something but it seems I was correct. Multiple arms seemed to be the most common, but some had multiple eyes, ears even heads. They strangely didn’t have multiple legs or tails as far as I could tell.

  Just a question… would there also be races with multiple tails like ours? What about their equivalent of tailed races?

  Can you link us up?

  Team Hourai got linked up, and we took a good look at whatever races had gathered.

  No tailed races it seems.

  Hey Agnis, what you told us about before we entered Gavin… do you think we’re from there?

  Unlikely as we couldn’t be from there else… wed have all arrived 2 years ago, but the idea is an interesting one.

  “What did you guys talk about before entering Gavin?”

  Is this one of those things I should just casually tell them? It shook the 3 of us so that might not be a good one.

  Uhh, we’ll tell you another time Yv, it might give you an existential crisis. Let’s have you integrate better before we tell that. You hear that, Greg?

  Whatever…

  It could have been my imagination, but I caught Greg staring at Giana. It was more likely he was looking at something behind her.

  We got close enough to walk, so these slackers had to use their own legs and I lifted the illusion concealing us.

  “This surely saves on costs. Teleport gates are quite expensive.” Noelle said as she tried to slap my back, which I evaded.

  I would like to walk to the city, not get sent flying….

  “Woops, sorry.”

  The barrier surrounding the city and protecting the wall was impressive. It would take me 3 minutes to crack in my current state. That sounds weak, but I specialize in this sort of stuff. Giana might need 20 minutes. Azu might beat me but anyone else, oof, might not worth it trying.

  The construction was handled by the Yttroz Industries, so physically busting down the walls would also be a bad idea. But how is the security?

  There didn’t seem to be any security, but anyone who entered the barrier near the city gates got scanned. What it scanned for was a mystery to me. I’d have to study this barrier for. My assumption was that it will block or alert the city if problematic individuals enter.

  “A…a lot of tourism here…” Yv said as she pointed her ear toward some familiar races that also tried to get in.

  Do you think they have pizza in there?

  “Don’t be silly, Raishin, they probably have their own specialties there.”

  Giana had a point but…

  Guys…I need you to promise me something.

  “What is it lil’ bro?” Noelle asked worriedly.

  Please restrain me if their specialty is potatoes…

  Noelle rolled her eyes and Greg sighed.

  “I will [Charm] you if that’s the case, is that fine?”

  How reliable! I’m counting on you!

  What if their specialty is water?

  Don’t be ridiculous Raishin, cultures that rich wouldn’t have water as a specialty.

  We made it to the city and went through the gate. The barrier flickered a certain color whenever someone entered. Familiar races seemed to get yellow, and there were variations toward yellow-green and orange. There was red, but ones that got red didn’t get let in. Red is bad, easy to understand.

  The new species got white, grey or black.

  “Hey Deca, this barrier is strange, it has so many exotic runes.” Giana pointed out how 70% of the barrier consisted out of exotic runes. I had missed that as to me, they’re not exotic anymore, they’re still a bit difficult for Giana.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  Oh that’s interesting, thank you for pointing that out.

  After closer inspection, they had runes that were even exotic to me. They weren’t hard to figure out, but it was indeed from another dimension.

  Raishin entered first, and the barrier flickered blue. Same for Noelle and Yv.

  Interesting, do you think this barrier makes a distinction by race?

  Greg stepped through and he got a darker blue. Giana got sapphire blue, how fitting.

  I stepped in and it was light blue and jumped to silver.

  Ehh, what is this? I’m the same race as Giana, shouldn’t I be sapphire blue too?

  2 bearlike humanoids with 4 arms walked over toward me with 3 Yttroz workers.

  What did you do this time, Agnis?

  Huh? What? You saw what I did! I just stepped inside!

  “Excuse me, are you the Silver Torrent?” the four armed bear asked in near perfect Kaledonian.

  Uhh, yeh?

  “It worked! My Kaledonian name is Kai, would you mind coming with us? You and your party are welcome in Feshahn!” He snapped his fingers and the Yttroz workers approached us.

  “Whoa! We got lucky to meet you sir!” They all went for a handshake.

  Uhm, explanation please?

  “Well the Feshahnians have fostered a great relationship with the Yttroz Industries and a large part of the capital they’ve gained from selling Hourai rubies went into making the city, the city emblem even contains one. So they have decided to also regard you as an important figure!”

  Deca, can you check if I still have a curse on me?

  “No curses on you. Just your achievements. Let’s see where this goes!”

  The workers kept talking about this mega project that was nearing completion, about how Barusu and Damian had personally joined in the construction which had drastically increased the morale.

  Here I wanted to go to a city where nobody knows me… hey guys, how about it? Shall we move to another continent? Azu’s stories about Nesher sounded cool.

  Oh yes! Let's turn them into jungle babes! I want to see the jungle babe vibe on Noelle!

  I was quite shocked. Noelle blushed, and Raishin seemed to be aware that he was responsible.

  Aand they started becoming gross and complimenting each other. At least this is better than fighting.

  The city was earth themed. As long as there’s no sand, I’ll be fine, but Noelle’s mood was the best I’ve ever seen.

  Structures of beautiful crystals, structured rock formations and pleasant brown and golden brown tones intermixed with the wide array of colors from the crystals. We got lead through the city wall corridors, but there were moments where we could look out into the city.

  “Hop on to these teleport pads. We’re going to meet the mayor of this city.”

  The teleport pad looked dodgy as if some amateur had put it together. I stepped on it, as I didn’t want to make a scene. Exotic tunes or not, the magic was still put together as bad as the native magic circles. At least, dimensions are consistent in sucking at magic.

  We got teleported into a room with more teleport pads and some 2 headed lizardmen took over, and the workers went back. For races from a different dimension, they look quite normal, besides having more arms and heads than normal.

  Wait… eyes also fall in the category of ‘multiple’… Why do I keep falling for this shit?

  My filter didn’t reveal any issues with the dimensional fabric howeber.

  “Ohh some VIP guests! The mayor did wonder how long it would take before he could meet you!” “Come come! We want to show you what we got from the Yttroz Industries!” Said one head after the other. Does this count as 1 person or 2? Do they both have names or go by one name? They have slightly different voices.

  I’m so confused…

  We got to another teleport portal. A teleport pad room is quite smart, actually. Yttroz Industries knows what they’re doing, so not surprising. Another teleport went out, and we got placed in a large outdoor garden.

  Whoa, those are some shoddy illusions.

  I broke them, they did crack like normal, but a large part unraveled like some cheap tapestry. Quite odd. We found ourselves in a large room filled with webs after the illusions unraveled.

  “Oh, that’s unexpected.”

  Noelle and Yv screamed. Noelle hid behind Raishin and Yv hid behind me. Giana also backed off a bit.

  A creature revealed itself, a creature with 8 enormous thin hairy black legs with 8 glowing rings on each leg, 8 eyes and large mandibles.

  It was hanging upside down and was the one that had just spoken.

  Uhm, we’re not in time for dinner, are we? How about a vegetarian meal, just today?

  The large creature descended to the floor and used illusions to assume a more human appearance. He did have 4 spiderleg like appendages sticking out of his back. He had 2 sets of eyes and wearing glasses on every set.

  If someone with glasses is called a ‘four eyes’ does this categorize as an ‘eight eyes’? The glowing rings on his limbs still lingered, but most were covered up by the neat suit he was wearing.

  Interesting, let me guess, your race is quite special from where you came from, maybe quite… mythical.

  The mayor adjusted his glasses, all of them. “Barusu did tell me that you were intelligent, I wouldn’t have expected to find a race quite similar to mine this soon after becoming a mayor.”

  He made a hat appear out of webs and a sceptre with a cane with an enormous ruby on top descended from the ceiling, lowered by spider silk.

  He grabbed it, twirled it and tapped the tip of it on the floor with style. “My name is Shiminu, but you can call me Shim. As you have guessed, my race is one of the ‘Legged beasts’.

  Raishin raised his hand.

  So you have 8 legs, isn’t having 2 legs quite normal? Are there 9 of you?

  Uhhm Raishin you could say the same for the single tails of our tailed races… Should you be just telling us this Shim?

  He casually walked around and twirled his scepter. This is bad, this guy has so much style that I already like him.

  “Well we are probably in the same boat as you two, instead of being hostile, I thought that a friendly welcome would be beneficial. Its just…. You broke my illusion, frightening the ladies there…”

  Oh… sorry… my bad. I won’t interfere anymore, do your illusion thing.

  Shim pointed his scepter to nowhere in particularly, and webs shot out and weaved an illusion. Quite different from how illusions work from our dimension. It gets formed and breaks like glass. Shim seems to be literally weaving illusions. It looks cool but could be quite disturbing if you’re arachnophobic.

  The scene returned to the open field with a table and chairs to sit around. There were tea and cookies. This guy had surely studied up on how things are done in this dimension. Unless they also use tea and cookies there.

  We sat down and Raishin and I instantly went for the cookies. I was sandwiched between Giana and Yv and Raishin was sandwiched between Noelle and Yv.

  Uhmm you chicks are making it hard to eat cookies…

  Agreed… we need some cookiespace!

  The chicks didn’t seem to budge and were wary of Shim.

  Excuse their manners. I am Gregory Sheru, this here next to me is Noelle Yasmin, that is Raishin Tourai, Yvonne Faer, Agnis Hourai and Giana Kahlua. I am quite interested in your race and the legged beasts.

  Shim skillfully poured tea. “Very well, would you mind me talking about your races after I finish? I have heard some concerning things about them.”

  Very well.