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“I don’t know the name of the duchy…” sighed Lucifer.
“Then why do you hype me thinking that you know it?!” I asked. “A-Anyways, Emeraldine, time to wake up.” I began to caress Emeraldine’s head and used my possession once more, turning on her brain and waking her up with a slight shock to her head.
“UWAH! …Eh? Ah… What happened? Did I just fell unconscious?” she asked.
“Yes you did! It was totally that! That’s exactly what happened back then, right, guys?” I asked to the other two.
“Yeah, definitely.” Said Lucifer. “You’re such a slacker…”
“Indeed, you fell asleep! I really am disappointed on you.” Said Partner. “But I guess it is all forgiven because you’re… erm… our favorite elf girl!”
“Yeah, right. That! Now that you’re awake, we should move down and do some shopping.” I said. “Lucifer, move us down please.”
“Sure.”
Lucifer moved down into the ground as he let us jump out of his back, and then he transformed into his humanoid form once more, he modified his draconic parts, so he looked like a lugubrious human at most. Now that he was alive, he wasn’t that pale, but he seems to just be naturally pale.
“Agh, I still feel a bit dizzy…” sighed Emeraldine.
“Come on, the duchy is right in front of us, keep moving, you’ll get better eventually.” Said Partner. “Let’s go.” Partner began to help Emeraldine move over the snow-filled field we found ourselves in, which was surrounded by pine trees everywhere.
The large duchy was surrounded by enormous rocky walls that extended over almost 40 meters, and they were tightly guarded by many guards spread all around, who made big bonfires to keep up with the snow and freezing temperatures. I am sure those bonfires were conjured with some magic because no matte row much wind and snow there was, that fire was not dissipating.
The duchy seemed to be surrounded by an artificially made river that was completely frozen now, maybe they had fishes there, it connected to other rivers we saw around, but they were all just frozen, I am sure there is still unfrozen water below the ice cape, and we even saw some fishers making holes in the ice and fishing some fish from there, Takeshi would love to talk to these people I guess, as a natural-born fisher.
The people we saw were mostly humans, elves seem to not fare good in very cold temperatures, but there were still exceptions, we also saw a big amount of beast-kin walking around towards the duchy, they were all wearing robes, but their natural fur also helped them resist the freezing cold temperatures.
We saw some beast-kin we never saw before, such as Buffalo-kin who were big, almost being two meters, with a lot of fur over their backs, arms, and legs, and two big horns atop their heads, then there were white-colored fox-kins that were quite pretty, and coiled their own bodies with their big and fluffy tails, they seemed to be named Snow Foxes, while there were also a few Ice Wolf-kin, that were like Snow Fox-kin but for wolves, they also have fluffy tails and a lot of fur to protect themselves, but not as big of a tail as the fox-kin, we even saw a pair of polar bear-kin, who were just as big as the buffalo-kin, and covered in fluffy white fur.
“There is a lot of diversity in here, none of these people are enslaved either…” said Emeraldine. “I am beginning to like this Kingdom.”
“Yeah, this Kingdom accepted other demi-human races, they were originally just another racist human Kingdom but when they were forced to adapt and survive, a King surged, one that was even willing to cooperate with dragons and demons to make his people survive, and over time, the discrimination towards other races slowly faded away, and just for the sake of survival, they ended turning very open-minded…” said Lucifer.
“I see, so it is the “If you pat my back, I pat your back too, scenario?”…?” I asked. “I suppose that the harsh environment as a common enemy for everyone does forces people to unit for a single purpose.”
“Yeah, meanwhile, the richer Kingdoms are just way too filled with resources that they must find a way to direct the hate and anger of the population, so it is not directed to the corrupt governments. And what better way to do it than by discriminating demi-humans and making slave a daily life thing?” sighed Emeraldine.
“I guess it is all about circumstances and the situation at the moment, everybody is different at the end…” said Lucifer. “This Kingdom slowly turned into an open-minded one that accepts most other races easily, slavery is very rare too, although not completely nonexistent.”
“Hmm, oh! There we are, the gates!” I said.
We quickly moved towards the gate, now that I saw my group, we all looked like freaks. Partner, Lucifer, and me all looked like some sort of Vampire, while Emeraldine looked way too holy to be with a trio of goth-looking weirdos like us, but that she was completely comfortable with us only made it more prominent, while we all wore dark clothes she wore some green and brown clothes with a lot of fur to warm herself from the cold temperatures, the rest of us were pretty cold resistant so we didn’t really need to wear anything too big to warm us up, we just wore normal clothes for the most part.
This is why a lot of people was looking at us as we struggled to move across the annoying snow below our feet, until we reached the gates, which were being protected by a group of guards.
When it was our turn, the trio of guards looked at us from shoes to head in silence. They were two old humans, a woman and a man, and the other was a young adult man with some surprised look on his eyes.
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