100\% DROP RATE : Why is My Inventory Always so Full?-Chapter 445 - Routes

Lucien placed the Beastmen inside his divine energy core first.

He did not force the matter.

He simply told them the truth.

Their settlement had been broken, their enemies were still moving, and the region was no longer safe enough for recovery in the open. If they wished, they could remain under his protection until the West stabilized.

None of them objected.

Most did not even hesitate.

Murak only lowered his head and said, "Then we entrust ourselves to you, Brother Wolf."

Lucien accepted that quietly.

Afterward, he unfolded the map Murak had given him.

It was old in places, newer in others, marked and corrected across the years by a merchant who had survived through routes, memory, and caution.

It showed the settlements, the minor sects, the hidden exchange points, the caravan wells, the discreet paths used by traders, and most importantly... the places Murak’s brother had slowly subdued under the Exchange’s reach.

Lucien studied it for a while.

Then he rolled it shut again.

He did not rush.

That mattered.

If the conquered settlements had any means of sending warning to one another, then acting too loudly now would only alert the Exchange before Lucien had secured the ground beneath his own feet.

This was not yet the stage for open cleansing.

First, they needed a way to move without being seen.

So Lucien and the others continued toward Aurion, Dawnbinder’s city.

That had always been the right first move.

If Dawnbinder joined them, then he would become more than an ally. He would become the spine of their logistics.

He was Luminarch. A race of pathfinders so specialized that roads, passages, evasions, and hidden approaches were less a skill to them than an inheritance.

Their highest potential was not merely to find routes through the world, but to define routes that others failed to perceive at all.

Lucien needed exactly that.

He did not merely need safe paths. He needed routes that would not exist to diviners.

He needed movement that would not appear on the map of the enemy’s expectations.

And Dawnbinder could provide that.

"A blade unseen cuts deeper than one announced," Shadow said.

Lucien nodded once.

That was the principle.

They would not warn the West they were coming.

They would already be inside it when the Exchange finally realized something was wrong.

It did not take long to reach Aurion.

Marie slowed the Void Craft well before the visible perimeter and parked it at a safe distance from the city’s direct sightlines. Lucien stored it immediately afterward, and the group continued on foot.

Aurion looked much the same from afar.

At the gate, familiar faces recognized Eirene at once.

The guards straightened and saluted with visible respect.

Eirene spoke only one sentence.

"We need to meet Dawnbinder."

That was enough.

A guard detached from the post and personally guided them inward.

As they passed through the city, Lucien felt something close to nostalgia.

Aurion had been the first city he entered in the Big World.

In those days, everything had been unfamiliar.

Now he walked those same streets as someone who could carry worlds inside him.

The contrast did not escape him.

He saw more familiar faces too.

Among them were several of the former slaves he had once helped save from the Nephralis and the Varkhaals. Some of the humans were now serving openly under Dawnbinder’s rule as guards, clerks, escorts, and trained personnel.

Their posture had changed. Their eyes had changed. The old hunted look was gone.

Confidence had returned to them.

That pleased Lucien more than he expected.

But as they walked deeper into the city, that feeling changed.

Near the clinic quarter and the medical wards, the atmosphere shifted.

The streets were not chaotic.

Aurion was too disciplined for that.

But tension hung in the air all the same.

The lines outside some medicinal facilities were too long.

The guards there stood too alert.

And in some of the waiting faces, Lucien saw it immediately.

Dependence.

The miracle drugs had already entered Aurion too.

Enough that desperation had started to gather around the places where healing should have brought peace.

Lucien’s eyes narrowed, but he said nothing.

Not yet.

This was not the place to begin speaking before Dawnbinder did.

Soon, they reached the inner district.

Dawnbinder was already outside waiting for them.

That alone said something.

He had known they were coming before the escort reached him.

He greeted Eirene first with full courtesy, then nodded to Marie.

Then his gaze shifted to Lucien.

For a brief moment, Dawnbinder’s eyes sharpened.

He noticed it.

But he was not foolish enough to make a scene of it.

He only clasped his hands.

"Wolf friend."

Lucien returned the gesture.

"Senior Dawnbinder."

Then Dawnbinder acknowledged the rest in turn.

Soon...

Dawnbinder led them to the meeting hall.

Once they were seated, it was Eirene who began.

"How bad is it?" she asked.

Dawnbinder did not waste time pretending otherwise.

"The poison has entered Aurion," he said.

He explained it plainly. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

There had been a sudden increase in travelers, caravans, independent practitioners, and outside merchants entering the city over the last stretch of years.

Many of them arrived already touched by the miracle drugs. Some came desperate. Some came stronger than they should have been. Some came seeking treatment for conditions they could not name.

Worse than that, smaller merchant cells had already begun smuggling the drugs into the marketplaces under false descriptions and private deals. Aurion’s formal laws had never endorsed them, but that hardly mattered once desperation and profit found a place to shake hands in the alleys.

Dawnbinder folded his hands.

"I tightened inspections where I could," he said. "But there are limits."

Marie leaned back.

"You mean you couldn’t go around forcing every merchant to open their storage rings."

Dawnbinder’s mouth curved faintly.

"If I did that, I would solve one problem and create three new ones."

Lucien agreed.

A city built on trade could not survive if its ruler turned every transaction into an assumption of criminality. Dawnbinder needed authority, yes. But he also needed legitimacy.

If trust collapsed, Aurion would weaken itself before any enemy had to do the work.

So his choice had been rational.

Difficult. But rational.

Then Eirene told him about the cure.

Not everything. Only what needed to be said.

That it existed.

That they could produce it.

That the West did not need to remain a hostage forever.

Dawnbinder’s reaction was rare enough to be memorable.

For a brief moment, he looked genuinely stunned.

The cure alone shocked him.

But when they moved beyond that and Lucien explained the broader plan... to overturn the Exchange’s hold region by region, beginning here in Sareth... Dawnbinder’s astonishment turned into something else.

Calculation.

Then interest.

Then something close to excitement.

And when Eirene finally asked, in her calm, direct way, whether he had any intention of joining them—

Dawnbinder did not even pause.

"Yes," he said.

Marie laughed.

"That fast?"

Dawnbinder’s expression grew a little too pleased with itself.

"I am Luminarch," he said. "If this succeeds, history books will speak of roads and turning points. It would be regrettable if my race were absent from both."

Then with less humor and more truth, he added...

"My ultimate goal has always been the restoration of my people’s name. If the world is changing, then it is better to stand where the change is made."

Lucien nodded once.

That answer was enough.

Lucien then gave him a sample of the cure.

A storage ring.

Dawnbinder received it, checked the contents once, and immediately called for a guard.

When the man entered, Dawnbinder handed him the ring and said, "Take this to the afflicted under our watch. Quietly first. Prioritize those already showing dependency strain."

The guard saluted and left at once.

That, more than words, confirmed Dawnbinder’s seriousness.

He was already moving.

Then they turned to the map.

Lucien spread Murak’s markings over the table and pointed out the settlements and minor sects that had fallen over time to the Exchange’s hidden conquest.

He explained the need.

Routes that would let them enter without warning every compromised node in advance.

That was where they needed Dawnbinder most.

At those words, Dawnbinder laughed.

It was not mocking laughter.

It was the laughter of a man who had just discovered that his favorite private obsession had finally become useful on a continental scale.

He touched the map.

At once, another pattern lit up over it.

Dawnbinder smiled.

"During my years ruling Aurion," he said, "I developed a hobby."

Marie stared.

"A hobby?"

"Yes."

He tapped the map again.

"Path-making."

Then he explained.

Over the centuries, he had been constructing route-networks across the Sareth Region. Luminarch paths. Routes engineered not merely for travel, but for absence.

They did not stand out to spiritual sense. They did not gather the kind of environmental memory that diviners liked to read. Some bent through natural blind spots. Some through patterned redirections. Some through landmarks arranged to mislead perception.

And even if someone stumbled onto one, that would not help them much.

The routes responded to authority.

Without Dawnbinder’s recognition, most of them were useless.

To outsiders, they would feel like dead terrain, broken tracks, or meaningless detours.

To him—

They were an entire hidden circulatory system laid beneath the region.

Hundreds of years had been enough to build something absurd.

By the time he finished explaining, the room’s mood had changed.

The last major worry in Lucien’s immediate plan had just disappeared.

It had been the right choice to come here first.

Now they had medicine.

Now they had legitimacy.

Now they had hidden roads.

And that meant the Sareth Region was no longer merely where Lucien stood.

It was where the Exchange would begin to lose the West.