Kaijin Fighter: So I Have to Make Monsters, So What?-Chapter 1207: A Bizarre Bazaar

"Hey...are you okay, man?," Lythero asked in a hesitant tone of voice towards Antonio. "You look kind of...horribly haunted."

"..."

"Okay..."

Antonio had gone silent, after he was asked to repeat his past, much to the confusion of Lythero.

In sharp contrast, Zhen Liu looked incredibly nonplussed over the fact that their stalker had become mute. He recognized a soul searching gaze anywhere.

"Okay, this guy is going to need a couple of moments to process his memories coming back in an unexpected way," Zhen Liu observed out loud as he got up from his spot next to Antonio and began to walk back towards camp. "Let’s just give him some space to mentally recover then go from there."

"Uh..."

Lythero looked back and forth between Zhen Liu and Antonio a couple times over before letting a deep sigh and following the former back to their original campsite.

"Okay, I guess time does heal all wounds or something like that?," Lythero asked.

"More or less, yes. But this also depends on whether or not Antonio there is made of sterner stuff. It’s not often one learns that their whole life was a lie, let alone be told that it was due to an purposefully planted parasite," Zhen Liu explained. "We just got a give him space."

The way back to the camp was relatively short, but it was in that small wall that they decided to broach a rather important topic: how they were going to handle that new wandering ruin, [The City of Mirrors].

"So can your Kaijin also go in, or is there like a weird rule affecting them?"

"Nah, they can go in... although, if this is anything like the last time I did this...you may need to take point."

"Not a problem...think we’ll run into anyone we may need to worry about?"

"Well..."

...Speaking of those funky mirrors...

Most of the time, when wandering ruins are involved, it’s every man for themselves both in and outside of them.

Warriors from all over the world will gather and compete with one another in order to raid these ruins faster than anyone else, and claim the rate and powerful treasures that litter these places. In some dark cases, some warriors simply lie in wait near a ruins’ exit in order to catch the weakened warriors by surprise and take the loot without anyone being the wiser.

Wandering ruins were lawless areas, where the best and worst of cultivators gather in order to improve themselves.

That is...unless they ended up popping up in the territory of a powerful faction and/or city.

At which point, they become significantly more bureaucratized and commercialized.

"Single file line please! The more orderly you keep this, the easier it’ll be to assign your group number for entry, thank you."

"Healing elixirs! Enhancement pills! Blood coagulating powders! Come and get your medical supplies here before your next raid!"

"Four thousand? Four thousand?! I fought a giant, mirror covered hammer tailed lizard that reflected my attacks and attempted to cave my skull in to secure this Silver tiered [Mirroring Cuirass]! It’s at least worth six thousand!"

The entrance to the wandering ruins known as the [City of Mirrors] took the form of a crystal pagoda that looked incredibly out of place surrounded by wild, unkept jungle. At least, it was unkept jungle for about a week before the people of Amber Shore discovered the place.

Once this discovery had occurred, the people swarmed the location like locust. Initially, there was bloodshed, violence, the usual, until the local powers that be pooled their efforts together with the master of Amber Shore to establish order in the area.

In the blink of an eye, the local jungle had been cleared to make way for a boomtown of sorts.

Large tents, hastily built structures and the occasional shelter type aether treasure, clustered together around the crystal pagoda as warriors, merchants and everything in-between gathered far and wide for the sole purpose of making a profit or plying their craft in general.

Places like this was where desire and ambition collided with another in unexpected ways, sometimes good, sometimes bad.

It’s also a place where old enemies and old allies meet, not necessarily on the same side.

...

Shortly after the Zhen Clan and the Kaijin reunited from their respective scouting missions, and rouse their reluctant guide awake from his nausea ridden stupor, the combined forces made their way to the encampment that had surrounded the entrance to the [City of Mirrors].

When they arrived, they had found the place to be even more bustling than the market in Amber Shore.

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"Oh man, there are a lot more people than we anticipated being here," Zhen Tai commented as he checked out the foreign bazaar. "And the air smells way spicier here than it does back home too. Smells good though."

"Speak for yourself," Springer(Sprindermain) retorted as he did his best in clearing up the air around his nostrils while keeping his nose pinched. "My nose is way too sensitive to this stuff. It burns."

"I thought...wait, what?"

Zhen Tai was about to poke fun at Springerdermain’s comment, pointing out the fact that he didn’t even have a nose to begin with. Only to be rendered silent by the sight of Nefera(Nepherage), Mira(Screamira) and Raquel(Razorstella) doing the exact same thing.

Needless to say, this was a very curious sight.

"Uh...are you guys okay?," Zhen Xing asked as he stared at the unusual behavior. "This doesn’t look like normal Kaijin behavior. I thought you guys were immune to things like...spicy pain and such."

"No, no. This is definitely normal behavior," Razorstella explained. "We are still immune to that kind of stuff."

"Then why the face?"

"Them," Nepeherage answered while pointing in the direction of a group of people.

"Huh?"

Ding!

"Oommm..."

[Bleh!]*4

The people that Nepeherage had pointed to were a group of Buddhist monks in the middle of a public prayer/meditation session.

The monks were using a joss stick to time their meditation and had one of those prayer bell things to help them get into the right mental state.

To everyone else, this was either an enlightening moment or just an odd curiosity.

To the kaijin though, this was torture.

"I don’t know about y’all, but I swear nails on a chalk sound better to me than this," Screamira commented.

"Meh, I’d say they’re about the same," Razorstella retorted.

"Wait, you guys are weak against...prayer?," Zhen Xing asked with a confused look.

"No, not prayer," Nepeherage corrected. "Buddhist conviction."

"Huh?"

"Every Buddhist’s ultimate desire is to achieve Nirvana, the elimination of self and the extinction of all personal desires," Springerdermain explained. "A contradictory desire if ever there was one."

"As beings made of [Chaos], we’re also technically desire incarnate," Razorstella added on. "Meaning the desire to not desire is poisonous to us."

"And every little action and prayer these guys do is laced with that contradictory desire. Making the [Chaos] that compose us act haywire," Screamira explained further. "And eventually return to the void."

"The what?"

"To put it as bluntly as possible, we don’t get along with the concept of [The desire to not desire], and everything true Buddhists do practically drips this stuff like a towel soaked in a swimming pool," Nepeherage truncated before adding on an addendum.

"As such, we’d appreciate it if we could get the hell out of here and find out how to get into the ruins sooner rather than later. The inability to use our senses like normal sucks major ass."

"Right, right!"

With this in mind, Zhen Tai and Zhen Xing directed their attention towards their slightly unwilling group leader, Olstenna the Ignarii.

The Aetherii warrior was not paying attention to the rest of the group at this time, his eyes instead focused on the surrounding people and the bustling bazaar, as if he was waiting for something to happen.

"Hmm."

A couple moments later though, he gave up and finally noticed the two young masters staring at him.

A part of him wanted to burn their faces off...another part of him knew he wouldn’t be able to do anything without the kaijin eighty-sixing him in an instant.

As such, he decided to play nice.

"Is something the matter?"

"Neither of us recognize any of these factions or symbols," Zhen Xing answered. "So we’re not sure who were supposed to be talking to in order to get inside of this wandering ruins, without getting shanked in the process."

"Do you recognize any of them?," Zhen Tai asked as a follow-up question.

"Oh. Well, if I remember correctly...," Olstenna mumbled as he wracked his brain around to the time he rolled into Amber Shore.

"If memory serves me right, there’s only two major factions here in Ambershore. The Silver Jungle Dragon Shipping company, and the Golden Gorilla Union. The latter has been around since the port’s founding, while the former is an up and coming power that began to threaten their hegemony. So the fact that they both agreed to jointly manage this ruin is weird, now that I think about it."

"Huh...is there a chance that we’ll end up running trouble with either one of them?"