A Sinner’s Chance

The final stretch of the journey into the city of Eldora was uneventful. Being part of a duke household meant that we were exempt from a large portion of the check-in procedure, such as waiting in the growing line of merchants and other travelers that had come to the city. The interior of the city was overwhelming at first, a wide road led to the city center but it was packed with carriages and pedestrians alike. The roadside was crowded with shops and other commercial enterprises, ranging from stalls to large buildings. As we began to advance down the road Marian began to explain the layout of Eldora to me.

The city was spilt into five districts, Commercial, Common, Academic, Royal, and Labyrinth. We were currently in the Commercial District, it was the busiest and most crowded area of the city as all the shops and other entertainment could be found in this area. The Common District was home to the residential area, along with areas of natural beauty and the slums. The Academic District was for the Academy and all it's related facilities, while the Royal District was home to the royal palace and the villas of the higher ranking nobles, such as ourselves.

The most famous area of the capital was the Labyrinth District, and it was one of the reasons that the Academy was considered a great chance for any who could make it in. It was home to Adventurer's Guild and the Eldora Labyrinth, which was why the city had been named Eldora, rather than after the Rymiz Royal Family.

This was my first time hearing about a labyrinth, and as Marian described it I thought it was exactly as I thought it would be, a multi-floor monster infested loot generator. It wasn't known how deep the Eldora Labyrinth went, but the deepest anyone had made it was the seventy-third floor. Supposedly it was a trial left behind by the Cardinal Gods as a method of giving strength to the populace to battle against the Invasion.

Both Kali and I were visibly excited at the prospect of the Labyrinth, but our hopes were shot down when Elaine told us we had to be at least 14 to enter, and on top of that one needed to be at least D-Rank adventurer. We were surely going to be able to go in and explore it, as unless we decided to take no combat related classes the Academy urged students to become adventurers to gain real-world experience, and many teachers would take any qualifying students on a trip into it.

Since our father hadn't given us any real instruction on which classes we could attend and was only really wanted us to befriend the Hero and other important individuals it was up to us to decide how we were going to be spending our time at the academy. While I wasn't super keen on repeating the process of going school, there were at least more interesting and useful choices here than I'd had back in my old life.

It didn't take too long for our carriage to leave the Commercial District and enter the Academic District, though the change was gradual and rather subtle. The closer we got the younger the surrounding patrons became and the more frivolous the shops became, until we crossed through a wall and into the actual district itself. We were forced to go through a more thorough inspection, it was almost like the academy was its own separate country.

Crossing through the walls felt like we were entering a city inside the city. Unlike the Commercial District it was more spacious, quieter and less congested, there were open plains along with areas of dense trees. In the distance there was a large building that was flanked by two sets of buildings with towers at their center. A third tower rose behind the large building and I assumed a third set of buildings would be at its base like the other two.

As we drew up to the center building I could see that we were not the only noble family to be here today, as evidenced by the several other carriages with crests upon them. Of the crests I only recognized three, the ones that belonged to the other dukes. Like how our crest was a Phoenix, their crests were also in the image of their guardian spirits. A large feathered bird surrounded in green representing the Roc, a humanoid made of rock atop brown earth for the Titan, and a sleek blue scaled serpent as the Leviathan.