After traveling for a bit longer, they’d ended up setting up camp in a quiet section of the forest. That evening, a handful of people had gathered around Charles to listen to him talk. They were laughing, chatting, as if everything was right. But for each one of those, there were two or three eying Charles wearily.
He hadn’t risen to his leadership position smoothly, and it looked like there was still some hesitance on the part of the other students.
But it wasn’t any of Ezra’s concern. They were all free to do whatever the hell they wanted, after all.
Two hours passed by. He’d been assigned to the night watch. A boring duty, but someone had to do it. This was when, of course, he heard footsteps wander in his direction.
“If you wanted to talk to me in private, there are probably better ways of doing so,” Ezra said.
Charles chuckled and took a seat beside Ezra. “Well, I guess I just wanted to make sure we had some privacy.”
“Here to interrogate me again?”
Charles winced. “I didn’t think you’d just come out and say it.”
Ezra glanced at Charles, then looked back into the forest.
“You’ve gotta understand, I don’t know a lot about you,” Charles said. “I just want to make sure the people I lead are safe.”
“Fair enough,” Ezra said. “Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
Or really care about it all. It was doubtful that Charles would be able to discover the truth.
“I’m not here about that, though,” Charles said. “I’m here to ask for some advice.”
Ezra raised an eyebrow. “Oh? What if I give you bad advice?”
“In that case, when the advice doesn’t work, I would see that you either lack understanding or have ill intentions. Either one works for me.”
“Come on, then.”
Charles drummed his hands against his legs.
“You’ve been in mercenary groups before, right? How did the leaders stay in control?” he said.
So, his hold on the group was already starting to fray? Ezra hadn’t known.
He rubbed his chin. It wasn’t really to his benefit if this group fell apart. He was planning on using them during the boss fight. It wouldn’t help if they were split up
But he didn’t know anything about leadership, so what his advice even worth?
“I’ve only ever been in small groups of three to four,” Ezra said. “Nothing as big as your group. And I’ve only worked with those groups for a short period.”
“A solo player, huh? I think there was this anime about a guy like you.”
“I don’t know what that is.”
Charles’s lips twitched. “Of course you don’t.”
Ezra kept his face still, while internally his mind raged. Was that some kind of subtle hint, saying that he knew Ezra was an Otherworlder? No, it had to be a bluff. There was no way Charles had managed to figure that out.
“What do you think I should do?” Charles said.
“I’d probably kill one to demonstrate my power, but that sounds like a bad idea. A better move might be to get some small victories. Show your competence in little areas to prove you can be trusted with the big things.”
Ezra had no idea what he was talking about. He vaguely remembered hearing this in some kind of bizarre ‘Leadership 101’ class he’d been forced to take to bump up his GPA.
Charles clapped his hands together and nodded. “I’ll get right on that. Thanks for the tip, One-Eye.”
Ezra stared at Charles. “Okay, are you going to leave now?”
“Why would I do that? I have so much more wisdom to learn from you!”
Ah.
This was going to be a long night.
[Please select your class immediately! If you don’t select it within the next 34 days, the system will be forced to disconnect to prevent your death!]
----------------------------------------
Ezra woke up bleary eyed and exhausted. Charles had spent two or three hours asking probing questions to figure out more about Ezra. He’d barely managed to deflect Charles, and honestly he half-expected his name to be called out by the camp when he woke up.
Luckily, nothing of the sort happened. Ezra packed up his tent without any sort of problem from the Otherworlders. He put his tent back onto the cart, passing by Prise.
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
He averted his eyes. He still wasn’t ready for a conversation with her. He might never be, at the rate he was going.
They were soon packed up. Of course, they quickly ran into some trouble with monsters. This time it was Blizzard Revenants—reanimated corpses clad in tattered winter garments, their eyes glowing with a cold, unearthly light.
Ezra’s group hadn’t been spotted, so they had time to take things slowly and attack at their leisure. Ezra hadn’t been much concerned with them due to their low level, but Charles, of course, wanted to take things carefully and avoid any major risks. Pete, of all people, ended up being the one to challenge Charles. He argued that they should strike hard and fast to avoid being worn down or something.
Ezra had noted that Pete’s knees were shaking.
The two went back and forth, with Charles compromising and agreeing to send Ezra and himself in to test the waters.
As they approached the monsters, Charles had been grumbling the whole time.
“Who the hell does he think he is?” Charles said. “He always challenges me, and I’m getting sick and tired of it.”
“He’s just offering his opinion. You shouldn’t discourage that. The stronger you become, the rarer an honest opinion is going to be,” Ezra said.
Charles grumbled and muttered something under his breath. Ezra ignored the comment.
They engaged in battle with the Blizzard Revenants. Ezra was easily able to dodge—Charles, on the other hand, got slapped into a snow bank pretty quickly.
The Otherworlders struck, herding the group and encircling the enemies. Ezra was surprised by how effectively they worked together. They were able to use their abilities and combine them together for great effect.
By the end of it, everyone had ended up with a level, including Ezra.
[You have leveled up!]
They stopped for an hour to recover and and eat something. Ezra had just unpacked his rations when he spotted something in the sky—a bird?
“What the hell is that?” A voice echoed in his mind.
Filamenta? What was she doing?
“The light woke me up,” she muttered.
It flew down, revealing itself to him. It was a red phoenix covered in flames, its body graceful and slender. It dived down toward him before coming to a stop, revealing that it was holding a pack of some sort in its talons. It dropped the pack onto the snow, then flapped its wings and flew away.
The camp had stopped. They all looked at Ezra with curious eyes.
Ezra ignored them and picked up the pack. He unwrapped the cloth, revealing a bunch of books with a note on top. He picked it up and read it.
Dear One-Eye,
HQ came through. They had several rare books related to Dark Seals, how they function, and the history of the Demon Lord. Thanks to my request for the fastest delivery time, a Phoenix was assigned to bring it as quickly as possible. I’ve got to admit, though, that this kind of speed is wild. It’s only been a few days! HQ must believe this has something to do with the Otherworlders you’re working with.
Best of luck,
Sen
Ezra was glad for the misunderstanding with HQ. Every bit of time he could get was valuable. He picked up one of the books and started flipping through it.
He did this while they were on the move too, flipping through the book even as they walked. Filamenta read alongside him, occasionally commenting on information or sharing her theories.
By the time he’d finished the first book, he’d learned an enormous amount—far more than the useless speculation of the other books that Sen had in his library.
First, he’d learned more about the functioning of the Dark Seal itself. It essentially described what Filamenta had stated about it in more detail. The book dived into the exact mechanics of how the Dark Seal functioned and worked. From what he understood, Dark Seals were implanted with a fraction of the Demon Lord’s power. This power was naturally hostile toward the system, infecting it like some sort of virus. It couldn’t do anything to the System itself—no, the System was far too powerful for that to work. But what it could do was screw around with the user’s connection to the system. It did this by… for lack of a better term, intercepting the signals going between the universal System and the System implanted inside every person. The universal System would have no idea what was going on, but the System inside the person would slowly be ‘infected’, one system module at a time. First, you’d notice odd flickering on your screen. Then your levels would be affected. Then your skills, until your system is essentially useless and you can only go along with the Demon Lord’s options.
One thing that stuck out to him was how much this resembled Ezra’s problems with his system—he was already infected. Despite that, the infection hadn’t spread beyond his class. His best guess was that the infection was small enough that it couldn’t do much more than restrict his class.
Of course, this begged the question: how had he been infected in the first place? Why was a part of the Demon Lord’s magic floating inside him?
For that, Ezra didn’t really have any answers. He’d asked Filamenta, but she shrugged and said that she had no clue.
Ezra also learned about the Demon Lord himself. He discovered that the Demon Lord was actually in some sort of alliance with the major power of the time, the Astra Empire. Of course, the Demon Lord betrayed this empire and razed the whole place to the ground.
“Weird. You’d think they’d be a little bit more hesitant about joining up with an eight-foot monstrosity with horns coming out his skull,” Ezra said.
“Yes,” Filamenta said. “They should’ve been.”
Ezra narrowed his eyes. There was something to her tone there. Something she wasn’t revealing.
…but he knew she wouldn’t explain herself. He’d have to get more evidence from the books before pushing her.
Ezra looked up at the sky. It was beginning to turn dark. He slapped his book together and slipped it into his cloak. He slowed his pace, allowing the group to get ahead of him.
“We have a few options,” Ezra said.
Filamenta poked up in his soul, warming it. “Oh?”
“I think that we can screw with the Dark Seal,” he said. “If we can rip the malicious elements out, then we’d just have something to separate us from the System. I bet that with a little more study, we’d be able to do it.”
“Bad idea. If it were possible to do that, someone would’ve figured it out and spread the information around,” Filamenta said. “I guarantee you that all you’ll end up with is the illusion of safety.”
Ezra frowned. “Look, we’ve got to start somewhere. I should at least look into it.”
“No, Ezra—” She paused and sighed. “Look, just promise that you won’t use the Dark Seal. I don’t want you to turn into a Demon.”
Ezra rolled his eyes. “I’m not promising jackshit.”
Filamenta’s tone turned shrill. “Ezra, seriously, I’m not joking, this isn’t something to mess with!”
Ezra stopped walking. “And how do you know that?”
“I’ve seen it happen in front of me—!“
“When? Where? I want answers.”
Ezra felt something somehow smack him in his metaphysical stomach. He winced.
“That isn’t relevant right now!” Filamenta said.
That was when, of course, he heard someone cough in front of him. He raised his eyes.
Prise gave him a wave, her head bowed and averted from his gaze.
“Hey,” she said. “I needed some help getting some herbs. I thought this might be a good opportunity to give you some tutoring?”
Ezra was quiet for several seconds. Did he want to do this…?
He sighed. He couldn’t deal with Filamenta for much longer, and really, he had to talk with Prise at some point. Now was as good a time as any other.
“Sure, why not?”