Chapter 836: 836: Silver Lady

We were on our way to the illegal city of Sendia, but we paused in the sky in front of it.

『That must be Sendia. It's bigger than I thought.』

「Nn. But it's kind of dirty.」

『I'd call it messy rather than dirty.』

After gazing down on it, we saw the outer wall surrounding the city was uneven and distorted.

It looked like a large circle with a number of smaller circles attached to it. They probably built up the city by continuously adding additional small walled areas adjacent to the original city.

It wasn't just the shape of the wall either, the materials used for the upper and lower parts of the walls were clearly different in many areas. They probably built that lower wall first and later extended it higher. There were even places where they used differently colored stone for different parts of the same wall.

I bet they just bought whatever random building material was cheapest at the time. There was no sense of consistency.

The same was true for the buildings inside. High rising ten-story buildings of completely different colors and architectural styles were packed into tight rows.

I know building standards don't exist in this world, but this was pretty awful. As a former Japanese man, I was just appalled by the lack of earthquake care.

They built everything so close together that I couldn't help but think that the newer buildings were put next to the old decrepit buildings to forcibly stop them from tipping over.

However, it was also true that the buildings had a weird aura. The distorted position of everything gave off a feeling of madness. All the complicated alleyways induced a strange fear from not knowing what could be hidden in them.

That eerie vibe came from the entire city.

Maybe it's like an isekai-version of Kowloon City? The entire city felt kinda like a combination of a slum and a red-light district.

We landed in front of the entrance of Sendia and headed towards the city on foot. But along the way, Fran and Urushi suddenly stopped.

「There's something there.」

「Woof!」

『A woman? But......』

Between us and the town stood a single woman. Her almost metallic silver hair shined in the sunlight.

The reason for our confusion was the woman's complete lack of presence. She wasn't just hard to sense, we couldn't sense her at all.

Even though we could see her with our eyes, we could not sense any signs of life or mana. She felt like an illusion or a sculpture.

We slowly approached the woman.

She wasn't moving the slightest, not a single breath. Maybe she really was an illusion?

But no matter how hard we tried to see through the illusion, she remained there.

As we got closer, I felt the air flowing around her. After looking at her feet, I saw the grass bending where she stood.

In other words, the woman was definitely standing there before us, as a real physical existence.

『She's staring at us.』

(Nn. She is.)

『Do you think she's an enemy?』

(......Dunno.)

The other reason we were so confused was that we had no idea what she wanted. Her face was expressionless, and not just that, we couldn't feel any kind of emotion coming from her.

No hostility, no malice, no hatred, no friendless. They were just there, staring at us with eyes that looked like glass orbs.

Still wary, we continued down the naturally formed road, following the same path trodden by adventurers for thousands of years.

Though it wasn't very wide, there was enough room to pass her easily enough.

「......」

「......」

The distance separating us got shorter and shorter.

After getting closer, I could recognize the features of her face. She had almost translucent white skin and silver hair with a dull sheen. What's more, it was scary how perfectly formed her face was.

And when the distance between Fran and the silver-haired woman reached about three meters, that's when she spoke.

「There is a slight hint of Overgrowth coming from that sword. Did you take in the blade's abilities?」

「......Who are you?」

「The people of this continent call me the Silver Lady.」

「Nadia told me about you. You're a golem?」

「Yes.」

The woman nodded, but Fran tilted her head. She was such an elaborately made golem that we found it hard to believe she wasn't human even after being told so.

But upon closer inspection, she wasn't blinking, and I couldn't hear the sound of her heartbeat or blood flow. In the first place, I couldn't sense any heat or mana coming from her.

Golems tended to be hard to detect in general, but she was probably built specialized in stealth to move freely on this continent.

I should have expected as much from a golem specially made by a divine blacksmith.

「......What did you want?」

「To thank you.」

「?」

「Thank you very much for destroying Overgrowth.」

「What do you mean?」

「......I have lost my reason for existence.」

「?」

Fran was confused and I felt the same way. I could understand if the Silver Lady hated us for erasing her reason for existence.

But thanking us for that? It didn't sound like she was being sarcastic either.

「Explain?」

But she never returned Fran's question.

「I shall take my leave now...」

「Oh, hey!」

Fran reached out her hand, but the Silver Lady instantly disappeared with her head still bowed. She had used teleportation.

That must be the reason why she was always said to appear out of nowhere.

『What's up with her?』

「Dunno.」

Well, at least she showed no signs of hostility......

There was something strange about the Silver Lady's face at the end there, just before she bowed her head. She didn't change her expression the entire conversation, but for some reason, I felt as if she was smiling.

Do golems actually have emotions?