“So we’re dead the moment they scout north . . .” Nick concluded as he considered the impending threat, the large dragons that were set to take over the area and destroy the frozen world around them.
“If we cannot stop them, yes, that is our fate,” Ingenga said with certainty. The ominous tone of her message and her voice didn’t seem to bother any of the knights in the room.
“So what is your proposed solution? Why have you brought us here?” Nick asked.
“To reward you for saving us,” she began at first, waving a hand and causing a knight to bring in a large wooden box with ornate carvings of flowers etched into the dark wood.
As the knight presented the box to Nick, he felt the heft of the container and could feel the slosh of a liquid within. Opening the box, he was greeted by the sight of ten golden potions, each only as big as Nick’s fist if he balled it up.
“You’ll find each of these potions is worth its weight in gold. They will increase one of your stats by a considerable percentage, allowing you to be better prepared for the battles ahead,” Ingenga explained, saving Nick the effort of activating his Omni-Trainer’s Insight on them.
“Then . . . thank you,” Nick replied, feeling a little unsure of his words. Even if he understood her purpose and agreed to a degree that her methods might truly be the only ones that could unite the people of Earth, he still hadn’t forgiven her for the deaths she had caused. However, he also had to remind himself of his position diplomatically and stop himself from lashing out.
There was no gain in anger, a fact he’d learned the hard way more than once in his quest to survive in his last life. Just by listening and being cordial, he’d already secured his people a better chance of survival with the potions she’d given him.
“Then, are we free to go?” Seo-ah asked from behind Nick, Maria and the others looking a little uncomfortable as they sat, mute, likely afraid to upset the negotiation beside her.“You’ve told us what we need to know, can we go defend our home now?”
“You all are absolutely free to leave whenever you wish. That said”—Ingenga paused, a small smile appearing on her face—“I’d prefer it if he stayed. With his abilities, I’m certain we could create a much stronger army than humanity has ever seen before.”
“I’m good,” Nick immediately responded, not even hearing her out.
“Are you confident that rejecting this offer is the right choice?” she asked, her smile fading instantly as her eyebrow ticked in visible annoyance. It was as if this was the first time she’d been refused in years.
“I am,” Nick assured her. “I need to get back to my base, to my people. I’m worried about how they’re fairing without me. When I left last time to go rescue your knights, I was told by the person managing the defenses that the attacks on the facility were frequent and growing.”
“Even if it falls to those furballs—or in the future to the dragons—so long as this bastion remains secured, we can always send aid to reclaim the lost rift. Who knows?” She looked over at the people following Nick. “Perhaps if the people from your world suffer great enough losses, they might actually be motivated to try. Maybe more than one city in one country in your entire land might actually send the forces needed to put up a fight against these monsters.”
Her words cut Nick deep as he knew them to be true, but he refused to accept them. He didn’t like the idea that the only way to succeed in a war was to let people die. He also knew, from his experiences in his last life, that the tens of thousands of people that would have to die before the government started moving was far more than he could accept. He didn’t want to see a single person die if he could help it.
“That’s even more reason I have to return,” Nick told her. “I need to try to rally as many people as I can before it’s too late.”
The twitch in Ingenga’s left eye let Nick know this wasn’t the answer she was hoping for. “Are you sure that’s what you want?” she asked. “Here your gifts can be put to proper use. You can bring as many soldiers as you want, and our victory can be assured.”
“You said once that we’re connected, maybe joined by the river of time?” Nick asked her, searching for a way out of this conversation without angering her too much. He had no idea how strong she truly was, but he knew that he should be careful. He saw, after all, the devastation she had wreaked upon the battlefield earlier.
“Indeed. The moment you journeyed back as I did, our paths were bound. Only the two of us share such a fate,” she told him. “You and I are destined now to forever be connected.”
“Then since this is my first attempt, let me try it my way. If it fails, the next time back, we can try it your way,” he told her, though he didn’t know if even after a thousand failures he’d be okay with her way of thinking. “This time, I want to believe in the people I’ve surrounded myself with and the friends I’ve made. I think we can hold out.”
She gave him a smirk as if to tell him, “Go ahead and fail,” and he knew he had won. She had relented, and he’d have the chance to prove himself and his approach right. Glancing back at his team, he could tell he made the right decision in a moment. The look of relief on their faces after he’d rejected the witch’s offer was priceless.
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“Alright, then depart. I’ll contact you when the enemy is knocking on our gate again,” the Black Witch replied, raising an arm and dismissing them. As everyone else left, Malcolm just stayed there, looking satisfied with his position at the witch’s side—that was, until the Black Witch looked at him and added, “You too. You should go with them as well.”
This caused Malcolm’s face to pale, his expression bleak, as everyone turned to watch the exchange.
“We don’t want him; he won’t be welcome back,” Nick objected. “Even if we’re working together, no one will trust him.”
This caused the Black Witch to chuckle a little as she set her gaze upon Malcolm. “That’s fine. Very well. He can stay. He looks like he lacks muscle, but I’m sure we can put him to work in the stables until he’s strong enough to help with other chores.”
This seemed to be a second slap in the face to Malcolm, who clearly thought his mind was valuable enough to put above manual labor. Nick took pleasure in the man’s shock, written so evidently on his face, and waved at the traitor before turning his back on him, only pausing for a moment as he had a thought: What about his fellow cult members? How will we know who was working with him and who wasn’t? Was Kaylee working with him?
As the flood of doubt washed over Nick, the Black Witch seemed to read the emotion. Without even saying a word aloud, her voice was in his mind: “Just compel those around you to reveal their colors. You have the ability. Use the tools you have to make your people reveal who they really are.”
Nick flinched at the thought, wondering if Malcolm himself had been compelled. He gave the witch a half-hearted smile in response, just to be polite, before quickly turning to leave the potential trap that was Ingenga’s citadel on ice.
No one in the group said a word as they made their way back down the corridor, through the gates, and out of the citadel. The eerie silence felt heavier than any weight Nick had ever lifted in the gym. He couldn’t help but spare a glance to his left and right as he walked through the battlefield, the thousands of monster corpses being roughly harvested as the Black Witch’s knights wasted no time in cutting open and gutting the creatures for their essence fragments.
However, even as they worked diligently to salvage the crafting materials, the meat, essence fragments, and furs of the monsters, the human dead were left untouched. Nick felt strange, seeing the monsters cleared away as the human remains, often gored, half eaten, or frozen in place by vulpe magic, turned blue and purple atop the red snow, untouched by their comrades.
“I guess with the cold as bad as it is, there isn’t that big of a rush to salvage the remains of the fallen, but it still feels wrong,” Adele commented as they passed by the dead bodies.
“The remains of the fallen . . .” Nick said, his mind flashing for a moment back to thoughts of his own grandfather’s remains, also left untouched as they stood watch in the middle of the city, his pride and victory enshrined and frozen in solidified mana for the world to see.
“With the dire need for essence fragments, they probably have to prioritize the enemy corpses first,” Seo-ah noted, incidentally answering his thoughts like she was reading his mind as she gazed at the dead multitude.
“Yeah, I guess some things can be left for the moment . . . and returned to when you have time,” Nick replied, his mind still on his grandfather’s mana petrified person.
“I hate that the w—” Reggie cut himself off and glanced around to see if any of the soldiers were close enough to listen before continuing, “I hate that the, uhh, their saintess is right. I know it’s only been a day, but how come more people haven’t come through our rift? Shouldn’t we have heard from someone that the main base is now secured by hundreds of elite government agents or something? Have they really not sent anyone?”
“There might not be government people, but the priests like Kirill and the others were already there. Bureaucracy moves too slowly to help the people,” Adele chimed in, chest puffed out with pride, “but the church sure doesn’t. We are on the scene before your local agencies can even file the necessary paperwork. That’s how we get that good PR and grow.”
“It sounds less altruistic and more manipulative when you phrase it like that,” Topaz pointed out, snickered at Adele’s immediately shocked expression.
“What? No, we wouldn’t . . . I’m just saying, the PR is just . . .” Adele seemed to be verbally stun-locked for a moment before finally saying, “The PR is just a boon that helps us raise more donations to take care of orphans, the homeless, and many others in need.”
“Speaking of boons that could help us . . . are we really not able to take the essence fragments here?” Reggie griped. “All this crafting material, those bones, that—”
“I mean, we’re taking the big bear’s stuff. That was our kill. So were the bridge ones,” Nick firmly stated. “She can keep what she killed, but we’re not going home empty handed, in essence fragments or loot.” He gestured to the box that they’d been gifted.
“Ha, here I thought you’d give everything to her just cause she’s pretty and— I mean, conventionally attractive and . . . and . . .” Reggie came to a hard halt as he looked at Christina. “You know, not as attractive as Christina but . . .”
He kept trying to salvage the situation—awkwardly—until the whole group chuckled at the poor blacksmith.
“Reg, it’s fine. I got eyes too,” Christina assured him. “Even I know a zealot can’t beat an archon.”
“What?” Topaz asked, glancing at Nick in confusion.
Nick shrugged. “In StarCraft, the archon is a better unit than a zealot.”
“Well, only in a one on one,” Christina quickly noted. “But zealots can move a lot quicker once you get the right upgrade, and they don’t cost gas, are a lower tech and—”
“We don’t need the explanation. We get it,” Nick told her before she went into a full-on, rambling unit comparison. “We just need to get our essence fragments and get back to the base before they get hit by an attack wave they can’t handle.”