Isaac's eyes turned into pure death flames as he regarded the soldiers that had come to fetch them. The one in the front was as strong as Lenna, probably a bit older too, though he lacked even mildly potent spell casting. A warrior through and through. He was most likely a higher level, either nineteen or twenty, in order to be on the same power level as Lenna. The noticeably smaller soldier was brimming with mana in a way that only a mage in the high teens could. Isaac estimated seventeenth level, which would mean that they were new to ninth level spells, or eighteenth at the highest. Either way, they would be annoying if they had to fight. The other two were around Edward's level and felt and looked similarly as strong.

In the two seconds it took for Isaac to observe and process all of that information, the horses that held said soldiers aloft all panicked and bucked. The leader got his horse under control almost immediately but the other three were still fighting with their horses after Isaac had finished and returned his eyes to normal. "Soldier, who are you to speak to me in such a manner?" Isaac questioned the leader in a deliberately calm and measured tone.

The leader locked eyes with Isaac. After a moment, he bowed his head slightly without breaking eye contact. "I apologize for any perceived slight, my Lord." The guard told him with words that, if the undertone of suppressed violence was anything to go by, he did not mean in the slightest.

"I can see into your heart." Isaac stated simply. "But even if I was blind and deaf, I would still know that you just lied to me." The guard went to speak but Isaac waved him off. "I will arrive when and where I see fit. You may escort my mate to our room, I always know where she is." With those final words, he vanished as his shadow reached up and swallowed him whole before it steamed out of existence from the midday sun. Isaac wanted the soldiers to know that he was not someone that they had authority over, and he also wanted them to treat Lenna with the respect that she deserved, he just hoped that he wouldn't actually have to fight anyone until he was fully healed. Speaking of healing, Isaac was back up to fighting shape, against platinum level threats anyway. Forcing his way through a Reality Bubble or Shield was still outside of what he could safely do, but he definitely had enough mana at his disposal to turn a person into black dust.

The leader gave one quick sweep of his vision to look for Isaac but when he couldn't find him, he turned his gaze to Lenna. His men continued to fight with their horses for another few seconds before they settled enough that they could return to proper formation. During that time, Lenna was assessing them without the benefits of Soul Sight.

Lenna looked between the soldiers for a moment before she turned her gaze to Walter. "Thank you, Walter, you can come see us for your payment when you are finished." She told him.

Walter nodded. "Yes, my Lady, I'll see ya later." He told her and quickly mounted Copper. "Gypsy, follow them until they reach where she's staying, then come let me know. Copper'll be waiting for me at the stables."

Gypsy nodded once and walked over to stand just behind Lenna in a way that gave the impression that she was hiding from the soldiers in her shadow, though that couldn't have been further from the truth. Gypsy was using Lenna to break line of sight so the soldiers wouldn't know what hit them if she was forced into action. 'Follow' for the great fox meant 'Shred anything that even remotely threatens' when it was in relation to anyone but Walter himself.

"This way." The leader told Walter and turned his horse to the side. He gave a quick nod to his men and then a deep one towards Lenna. "Until next time, my Lady." He bid her farewell as a knight would to any other noble woman. He then left with Walter and Copper hurrying behind him. The two horses were not moving at top speed but they were clearly in a hurry. Apparently being late and pissing off whoever they were going to meet would not bode well, for the soldier at the very least.

Lenna looked between the three that had stayed behind. The larger one dismounted and offered her his hand to help her mount his horse. "My Lady, it would not do to have an honored guest walk while her protection rode." He bid her with a voice that was a bit deep for an elf, around as deep as Lenna's herself. The pale horses all were clad in shining brass chainmail that made them shine like the sun in Lenna's vision. If it weren't for her lenses turning nearly completely black, she probably wouldn't have been able to see at all.

Lenna nodded and stepped forwards. She took his hand and then planted her boot in the stirrup and grabbed the saddle horn. For a moment she wondered if taking the horse was a good idea or not, but seeing as he had offered, Lenna didn't want to seem rude for no reason. Especially with what she was about to tell them. "Thanks." She said to the soldier and used his steady hand to help push and pull herself up onto the saddle. The horse took her weight without moving in the slightest, probably because she was lighter than the soldier but wore heavier armor so they more or less balanced out, or maybe the horse had calmed down enough that its training was finally completely taking over again.

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"Of course, my Lady." The soldier replied and took the reins so he could guide the horse on their return. Lenna and her escort started their slow trip through the city immediately. They had been going for less than a minute before the soldier spoke up again: "My Lady, I am afraid that we must insist that you remove any non-detection related items or spells from your person. It is standard protocol."

Lenna nodded in understanding. "I understand that it is your orders, however, I cannot comply. One of the non-detection related items is my wedding ring, and the other is my helmet that also allows me to see. The helmet will come off when it is dark enough that I do not have to squint, and my wedding ring will never be removed from my finger." She stated clearly and concisely.

The soldiers all stiffened and the horses stopped, well, all of them save for the one that Lenna was riding. The soldier that had been guiding her looked at his hand and realized that the reins had been removed and were now being pulled along by nothing that could be perceived. It was enough to make the hair on the backs of all three of the soldiers' necks stand on end.

"Maybe we can stop for lunch, on our way to the residence?" Lenna questioned over her shoulder. It took a moment before the soldiers all caught back up to her, one flanking her on either side and the other walking next to the reins. The one that was walking tentatively reached out and took the reins again and looked mildly surprised when he was met with no resistance. Isaac could hear his swallow from right next to him.

Isaac was relaxing and taking in the sights as he walked along with Lenna and the soldiers. He looked down every alleyway and was surprised to see not a single homeless person or piece of detritus. Everything was spotless, so spotless in fact that Isaac had a feeling that the people in charge had decreed it so, with a very high level of punishment awaiting anyone who broke said decree. As they walked deeper into the city, the housing turned into businesses. After a while, the businesses turned back into housing again. This happened three times on their way towards the center. Each business district catered to a different income bracket and was also organized into groups based on type of trade, good, or service.

One side of the street was tailors while the other side sold fabrics, or one side was leather workers while the other was armorers, or one side sold tanned hides and skins while the other sold the meat from those same beasts or monsters. The placement and patterns that the businesses and housing showed up in could not have been unplanned. Everything just seemed so completely clean and micromanaged that Isaac couldn't imagine living in such a place. The people weren't much different.

On the outskirts the people were dressed in tan or ivory colored clothing that was often undyed or only dyed just enough to stay with the color scheme. Those people also never had any children with them. Inside the next residential district, separated by the first commercial district, there were poorer families. The next few residential districts had the occasional child as well, but the last one did not. The final district was instead pure wealth and opulence on display.

Through verdant stained glass, enchanted with golden runes of protection and strengthening, there was a literal mountain of gold inside of one of the buildings. Four hundred coins wide at the widest part and at least thirty feet high, that was where the window stopped but the mountain kept going, the coins were stacked. The building that it was in was twelve stories high but with the way that the rest of the city was, Isaac had to wonder if the entire building really was just one large bank.

The building that Lenna had been brought to had countless windows up and down its sides that reflected everything with a vibrant green hue back into the world. With the seeming privacy provided by the windows, it was safe to assume that the building was where most important people stayed in the city. The spire was even more grand and majestic from up close, up close being no closer than one hundred feet, as that was the radius that soldiers, just like the leader of the group, were standing at attention in full direct sunlight.

The group had not stopped for lunch, as Lenna had mentioned doing, because the soldiers had insisted that there would be fresh food where they were going to be staying and that the food there would be better than the food that they could get at any of the common restaurants.

Isaac had thought about stealing something, just one thing, like a piece of fruit or something, just because of how perfect the entire place was. The longer they were there, the more perfection was put on display, the more the citizens secretly flinched or avoided the soldiers when they got too close, the more it made Isaac's skin crawl. There was such a thing as 'too much perfection' and it was on display the deeper Isaac looked into the city around them. He never strayed far from Lenna and her escorts but he was still able to see through the ivory and brass to see the bruises and nightmares beneath.

A saying came to Isaac's mind and brought with it a bit of a headache: "One must suffer to be beautiful." And a city was no different. Part of Isaac really wanted to understand the situation in its entirety but another part of him, a wiser part of him, realized that it would be a bad idea to get involved in such a situation. Reminding himself of that fact, Isaac decided that he would leave well enough alone. He had chosen to settle in the first major city that he and Lenna had arrived in, which also happened to be a human city, and that human nation was his home. In Altia, Isaac was comfortable getting involved, flipping the game board, and leaving the decent people in charge to pick up the pieces and reset the game correctly before they chose new people to sit down and play it. Isaac decided right then that he would not be getting involved in other countries' problems and politics. If only that decision would have lasted after he became a demigod, or before that for that matter, but that was only once, so did it really count?

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