Arthur walked into the guild hall with Tabby at his heels. Georg’s head rose to glare towards him. “I’m surprised you had the nerve to come back here after you ran off and left your mates in a pinch because the dragon bitch called you,” Georg snapped.
“In a pinch?” Arthur’s voice was filled with worry. He’d left them in a victorious position. They had been winning. It had looked to be just a matter of tying the ribbon around the present for the legal authorities. “What happened to them?”
“Nothing. No thanks to you,” Georg gnashed.
Arthur let out a sigh of relief. “Everyone is ok?” He asked.
“Do you actually care?” Georg growled back. Then he looked down. “Sorry. I… The dragon fury got to me. They told me you left when they’d as good as won.”
“Did something happen to them after I left?” Arthur asked.
Georg shook his head. “They collected the bounty and got a train home. Still pissed me off that you left guild duties for her.”
Kiria’s scream could be heard coming from outside of the guildhall. Georg and Arthur both rushed out to see her and make certain she was alright. The youthful blond was standing on the Dorma Anima, climbing across it like a child or a monkey.
“What is this thing? It looks like a metal dragon corpse,” Kiria said. “It doesn’t smell like dragon meat, though.”
“That’s my payment for Selene’s last job,” Arthur answered. “It’s called the Dorma Anim. And you could call it an imitation Acnologia made by the ingenuity of man,” Arthur said with a grin, rather a bit too smug for the situation.
While Georg and Kiria stared at him dumbfounded, there was another shout. Kirin had found the Ark in the training ground, the great hover-battleship that Arthur had absconded with for the guild’s use.
When she had finally finished talks with the White Out Temple for the day, Selene looked at the captive duke. He was a magical engineer, and had been one of the finest before Faust had begun gathering all the magic in Edolas together. She’d let Arthur take the Ark as ‘spoils of war’, but Solamen was her captive and she would decide what to do with him.
The Ark had been somewhat impressive. While the ship was no threat to a dragon god such as herself so she had not minded letting Arthur take it as spoils of war, the fact that it existed at all spoke to his skills as a military engineer. It was much larger than an Earthland airship, though unlike them it couldn’t rise more than about 30 ft off the ground. Also unlike them it crushed what was in its path, its front a great battering ram prow meant to shatter castle walls. It was a minor super weapon.
And he had built it under the nose of old king Faust, and then rebuilt it with the sudden influx of lacrima she had handed out. He was quite possibly the distortion she wanted to create with Edolas. But how to use him?
He wasn’t trustworthy. He’d been planning to overthrow his king for years, and had just tried to overthrow her. He was an opportunist, a schemer, and a power hungry one as well. Arthur thought he was the good guy. That made Arthur unpredictable at times, but also somewhat manipulatable. As long as she didn’t cross a moral event horizon he’d probably not kill her in cold blood. And even if he was the type… Well she’d seen the way he looked at her when he thought she wasn’t looking. He appreciated her body.
Solamen knew he was the bad guy. Which made him imminently predictable, but also harder to handle. He would betray her. No matter what she gave him. No matter what she offered. No matter what else happened, he would betray her. That is if he could. Still he was too brilliant to lose.
She would banish him. Somewhere escape would be easy. Somewhere he could start producing his creations and work to rebel against her.
Elentear where magic was plentiful, and he’d have the chance to work perhaps with Spirior. She’d just have to decide what to tell him to goad him forward. Something to aim him at Arthur instead of directly at her. Just in case he managed to make something truly dangerous.
Arthur found himself slowly developing a routine after his trip back to Edolas. He continued to train Team Pax, Minerva, and even Tabby into a fighting force. He continued to fight dark guilds when possible, and go on monster hunts when not. And he continued to try and master full body dragon takeover.
The last was dangerous. Dangerous enough that Arthur traveled to a wasteland in Edolas to practice it. If things went wrong he could undergo dragonification. He stuck to the power of the shine dragon. There was a hatred still burning in the power of the Wildfire Dragon; Arthur believed it was the lingering soul of the Wildfire Dragon and its resentment against him as its murderer. Maybe it was just that lacrimas were safer than consumption of dragon flesh. Arthur didn’t really know. Only that he wasn’t certain there was actually enough dragon power in the shine lacrima to enable a full body change.
He still tinkered and tried with his potions, but it was slow going, and he didn’t have enough of their blood to make many such potions as the one that had shown success. He needed something else, and something more.
He no longer needed X-Balls to access magic in Edolas. Whether it was acclimation or the higher ambient magic level he couldn’t be certain. The White Out Temple was slowly letting the magical energy of the world rise, but it was slow going and not at the level of Earthland, or Edolas during the storm.
It was this lower level of power that made it appealing for studying dragon takeover magic on that world instead of Earthland. He was ultimately playing with fire, and making certain there was less flammable fuel laying around was useful. It was also more sparsely populated than Earthland by a substantial amount. Here he could find a wasteland and not risk people if he lost control for a split second. If he lost it longer term… Well that was a danger.
Arthur wondered if this was a steppe biosphere. It was hilly grasslands, and rather unoccupied. Especially since he’d been exploding magical energy out for the last hour and a half. He was sweating, not from the temperature - the sun was relatively cool here, the breeze pleasant, and it was if anything on the chilly side maybe in the high forties Fahrenheit. But he’d been exerting himself. Gleaming silver-white scales covered his arms, and legs, draconic claws extending from his fingers. He was stronger like this. Faster. Better. Wings sprouted from his back, scales spreading across his chest. And then he let them start up his neck and stopped. The dragon force was becoming difficult to wrestle. The pure power of destruction which could lay waste to all things lay inside of the lacrima in his chest. It was baked into his flesh from when he had committed the taboo of power. It was the power he was trying to master.
But he wasn’t there yet. He could feel his right arm changing further, pushing beyond his ability to control. It was swelling, draconic musculature spreading from his fingertips to his shoulder, making the flesh bulge as the scales grew brighter. He was clamping down on the magical force, using everything he had to restrain the change, and he managed to revert his other arm, legs, and torso before it could spread.
It took him 20 minutes to revert his right arm again. It took him another 40 minutes to convince himself he hadn’t failed completely and there was value in what he had just done. He had pushed his arm to be fully draconic. Not just a deep dragon force. This was a dragon’s arm. His arm had undergone dragonification and he had reversed it without aid of a potion. And if he could do that on command it would be a potent weapon.
Drawing on his Moon Dragon Slayer Magic he created a dimensional warp, stepping back into Guiltina, and appearing in front of the Diabolos Guild Hall. A guild hall which was in a surprisingly sorry state.
The front face of the guild hall had been destroyed, several large holes having formed in its roof. Arthur raised his keys, summoning Altair and Enif to send them in to scout ahead.
The entrance was damaged, but he didn’t see anyone hurt. The mess hall was ruined, and there was a fair deal of damage across the guild hall.
He was asking one of the guild’s serving staff, not a member but a paid servant, what had happened here, when his eyes caught sight of Enik. Enik was one of the guild’s elder members. A dragon eater, but never a true dragon slayer, he mostly did the lighter end jobs, and helped with the maintenance and administration of the building. He wasn’t really a fighter, despite his Terror Dragon Slayer Magic, but he had helped teach Arthur when he had first arrived at the guild.
“What’s happened here?” Arthur asked with a touch of panic.
Enik breathed in and then began to explain. Enik didn’t have the full story. Arthur had to get that from various sources. And before he had gotten it he had to go and fetch some real doctors.
Minerva had rushed to the scene. An explosion had pulled her out of training with Wraith, and then there’d been a scream. The main entrance had been blasted apart, and five strangers stood in the rubble. One of them held the guild’s receptionist, Ami, in his hand. She wasn’t a mage. She was just someone who welcomed those who were bringing bounties to the guild.
And then she was stone, the alchemist dropping her to the ground. Her arm cracked as it hit the ground, and the man turned to Minerva before his foot came down hard on Ami’s head, shattering it. He wore a long, black coat, his black hair long enough to almost reach his waist. His face had been garishly pale, and his teeth blacked out as he’d pulled back his lips in a broad smile. He didn’t wear a shirt under his coat, but wore it open revealing a toned, muscular chest, and a great, leering demonic face tattooed across it in silver.
“Look guys, they sent us a child to play with,” He said.
The other four members of Silver Demon laughed then. One of them was standing over the body of Gious, one of the elder members of the guild; Minerva didn’t know him well, except that as one of the oldest members he did few jobs now and mostly helped teach the younger members. Given the pool of blood, and the sword being pulled from his chest, Minerva was fairly confident he was no longer with them. She didn’t immediately recognize the other body on the floor; their shattered state made it hard.
The alchemists stopped laughing as Minerva vanished. She had teleported behind them, wrapping her foot in her territory magic as she kicked one of them across the room and into the wall with a thunderous crack. “A child is enough for you scum,” She said. But she was uncertain. She’d been training with Wraith, and it hadn’t been light training. She’d been maintaining two summoned shades, and training with high power costing summoning magic. She’d stopped due to exhaustion of her magical energy reserves, and now she was going to fight alchemists? She knew it was a bad idea.
And then her nihility constricted, squeezing tight around her leg making her howl out in pain as she felt bone crack. A man rolled his eyes. He was bald, one eye red, the other an inhuman prosthetic, and his large, fat lips a bright purple. He was dressed in an elegant robe, his body less finely sculpted than his allies, and he held a pipe in one hand. “Spatial magic, really? You haven’t heard of me? I’m hurt. I am Silver Demon’s Carpenter, and space is my domain. I can alchemize it however I wish. And that includes your magic.” The nihility field she’d formed around her leg squeezed down again, pressure from all sides gripping her leg.
Minerva didn’t dare try and teleport with his attention fully on her, but before she had the chance to think of something different a burst of sand hit Carpenter and sent him flying.
It was Cullen. The sand dragon slayer had rushed to the sound of the explosion, Pax and Orin behind him. Two months ago and they’d have run away the moment they saw 5 members of Silver Demon. Now, they stood their ground with a sense of confidence. They had defeated dark guilds in the past. Not any of Silver Demon’s level, but the guilds that Silver Demon itself recruited from.
Cullen’s mouth opened and another roar of sand shot out, only for it to reverse its flow, the direction turning around to smack hard against him as one of the Silver Demon members raised her hand. She wore a katana on her hip, and a kimono of rich, vibrant red silk. The sleeves were half-detached, showing the guild mark on her shoulder, her pale blue hair falling down her back in waves. As Cullen flew backwards his movement suddenly turned 90 degrees to slam into Pax.
“Don’t tell me you thought Carpenter was our strongest member. My alchemy allows me to transmute force. I can turn any attack you make back at you in an instant. You’re as good as beat already, so why don’t you bow down and beg for mercy, maybe I will let you live, if not…” Minerva felt herself floating up, the four dragon slayers all suddenly rising as gravity reversed for them. “Well… I can control any force that I wish.”
They fell, though, as Orin roared, a blast of snow launching at the woman. She turned it back, stopping her transmutation of gravity upon them and allowing its normal laws to reassert itself. The snow flowed back towards Orin, spreading out as it did, growing diffuse and weak as air resistance ate away at the force of the blast.
Spikes of sand suddenly exploded at her feet, several spears forming from nothing and jutting outwards. She leapt back, the spears of sand having only cut the flesh on her legs in several places, causing her to snarl. “You little shit, you cut me!”
“Strode, it’s just a flesh wound, don’t be such a baby,” the other woman said. She wore a tight pencil skirt, and a button down shirt, glasses over her eyes with red hair like a dancing fire. Her hand touched Strode’s shoulder and the wounds to her leg sealed shut.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Even as she did so the battle was actually continuing. Carpenter fought much like Minerva herself, or Arthur when he was at his best, did. He used his space alchemy to teleport himself and strike with his sword. Pax fell as a curtain of red erupted from his chest.
Minerva couldn’t stand, her left leg refusing to support her weight, leaving her as little more than dead weight. She heard the whistle of a sword sweeping down towards her head, fear spiking only for it to come to a sudden stop over her head.
“Remember, we want them to learn their place, not to ruin the harvest,” the woman called Strode said, holding up her hand having stopped Carpenter’s blow with her alchemy.
“And that’s why I’m here,” the man with the guild mark emblazoned across his chest said as he waved his hand and Minerva felt her body stiffen and freeze immobile.
Orin howled in rage, snow pouring from his mouth. It was his largest roar he’d ever performed, a powerful blizzard in the form of a beam. Strode’s hand rose, the snow reflecting backwards, shattering through walls, leaving mounds of snow laying in its path.
“You can’t win,” Strode said, before stomping on his face. “You little dragons are nothing more than our secret weapons.”
And then she went flying. Georg stood almost where she had been, one arm extended in a palm thrust. The woman had crashed through the wall, causing one of the outer walls of the guild to collapse, and the wild haired man turned towards the other 4 alchemists, a snarl baring his mouth full of fangs.
“We’re &%$*ing dragon eaters. You’re nothing but snacks,” Georg bellowed, before a blast of magical power erupted from his mouth sweeping over the four. Carpenter managed to teleport himself, avoiding the blast at the last moment.
The man in the long coat acted fast, grabbing the fifth member of Silver Demon and pulling him in front of him, petrifying him. The roar still managed to leave burns across his limbs, the front of his petrified guildmate - despite being heavily reinforced by his alchemy - was deformed and melted by the sheer energy of the roar. The petrification alchemist fell to his knees, howling in pain from his burnt limbs.
The woman in the pencil skirt put her hand on him, and his wounds sealed shut, appearing instead across Georg’s body. “I think you’ll find that we’re more dangerous than dragons, and when you started going after our affiliates you bit off more than you could chew.”
Carpenter appeared behind Georg, his sword plunging through Georg’s chest. The Diabolos guild master’s hand wrapped around Carpenter’s throat, and they both disappeared as he used one facet of his dragon slayer magic to separate them into a sub-dimension safe from the attack by all 4 of the alchemists at once.
“Wiene, turn Fisher back to flesh and blood. We’ll need him,” the woman in the pencil skirt barked.
Orin and Cullen weren’t just going to stand still and let this happen. Pax might have been petrified before Georg had interrupted them, but with Strode and Carpenter out of the way it was now their chance to do something to change the fight.
Orin blasted with his snow, a flow of it washing over the two. Cullen’s sand make magic was more effective, weapons and spikes of sand rising up. The unidentified woman, and Wiene were forced to move and dodge, until Strode’s foot struck Cullen in the head knocking him to the ground. “We’re supposed to be teaching them a lesson, not letting them fig-” She broke off mid word, doubling over before rising to stand erect once more but the look on her face was different.
Cullen howled out. The brief diversion she had created was enough to buy Wiene time to turn Fisher back to flesh and blood. And the still unidentified woman had touched the badly burned alchemist, transferring his wounds to Cullen making him fall, covered in heavy burns.
That was when Carpenter and Georg reappeared. Carpenter howled and fell to his knees, while Georg, bleeding from a half-dozen sword wounds, remained standing. His four beast dragon slayer magic included Misaki’s azure dragon slayer magic. His dimension blue was not quite as potent. Trapped in a dimension where he could not move, Carpenter had transmuted control over it, reversing its effect to immobilize Georg. It had not made the resulting fight easy, but it had helped equalize things. Even so now that all the sensations of the space came crashing down magnified by its strange time dilation, Carpenter was unable to stand from the sheer pain. Georg, though, remained on his feet, ready to fight despite the terrible agony he had to be experiencing.
The unidentified woman rushed towards Carpenter hand outstretched. Suddenly she flew backwards, slamming into the wall.
“Sorry, using her alchemy isn’t easy. She’s a poor fit for me,” Strode said looking towards Georg. Though Georg had already vanished from where he was standing.
“It’s enough, Wraith,” Georg said, as he pulled his hand out of the unidentified woman’s chest. It had plunged straight through, gore covering his hand and forearm where he had simply slammed through her torso. She wouldn’t be a further problem.
“*%&$,” Fisher said. “Carpenter, get us out of here!”
Wiene’s hands swept outwards and Georg and Strode turned to stone. “Keep calm, you second rate piece of shit. We’re Silver Demon, we can handle this.” He reached down, touching Cullen and turning the mage to stone. He glanced about looking for Orin, but he couldn’t see him. “Oi! Coward! Tell your guild that if you don’t want us to finish you off don’t mess with us again! We’ll be taking your master as security!” He turned to look towards Carpenter. “Time to do your place-swapping,” He said. “I think we’ve got enough-”
Georg’s mouth moved, his magical power forcing the transformation from his body with the sheer magnitude of his power, his mouth opening just a little to release the blast of power into Wiene.
“Carpenter, now!” Fisher screamed as Georg’s body fully reverted to flesh at the moment of the blast. All that remained of Wiene was his knees and lower legs, the rest obliterated in a pure wave of destructive energy. And with his death the statues that had been made from Strode, Pax, Minerva, and Cullen all also resumed their living flesh.
And then the room changed. It was as if two spaces were overlapping. Carpenter’s alchemy had superimposed another location over the damaged Diabolos guild hall, and for a moment the two places were one and the same. The other place, a stone building with windows looking out over the sea, was growing more and more substantial, and then Minerva could see it growing insubstantial along with Pax, Cullen, and the Silver Demon alchemists, including Strode who had been possessed by Wraith. Georg launched himself towards Carpenter only for Fisher to swell in size. His skin split and broke, red muscle fiber showing on the outside as he grew. Bones burst from his fingertips, long, blade-like spikes appearing as his body twisted in instants into a combat form. Georg wasn’t using his dragon slayer magic - he’d tapped the dragon force slightly to free himself from the stone, and right now if he used his magic he would spiral into full dragonification and he knew it - and that meant he wasn’t fast enough. Fisher caught him, the alchemist’s bone-talon cracking from the force of the punch when he grabbed Georg’s hand. And then Georg was passing through them. The momentary unity of places created by Carpenter’s alchemy was over with. Georg and Minerva were left in Diabolos’s guild hall, and the others presumably had been transported to whatever place that Carpenter had superimposed over it for those brief moments.
And then Georg collapsed, scarlet flowing freely from the wounds across his body.
Georg was badly wounded, Minerva’s leg was broken, 3 members of the guild and 2 of the servants were dead, Pax, Cullen, and Wraith had been abducted, and Silver Demon had demonstrated the ability to attack the guild whenever they wanted.
Georg instructed Arthur on how to call back the guild’s heavy hitters but they were scattered across Guiltina and their return would take time. Which left it up to Arthur to protect the guild. No one else was there who could put up a real fight against Silver Demon.
Orin’s cheeks were stained with tears. The young man fuming with self-recrimination and rage. He had run and abandoned his friends, and now they were captured. Arthur had never seen his magical power this high, his grief and rage chilling his snow from light and fluffy to solid ice. But it was all wasted emotion and power. He couldn’t do anything to Silver Demon from here.
Minerva’s leg was bound to a splint. The doctor had checked on it. She’d walk again, but not any time soon. Her tibia and fibula both had been broken. He knew how fragile her sense of self-worth was, how badly such a defeat had to be weighing on her.
Arthur placed his hand on her shoulder. “There was nothing more you could have done,” He said.
“There’s something I can do, though,” Shesaid. “When they moved, the space alchemist’s attention was on the task at hand. It wasn’t on me. I left a bit of my space in that place. If you help me I think I could find where it is and take us… and then you could go and deal with them.”
Arthur hesitated. If he went the guild was unprotected, but if he went his counter attack might be able to take out Carpenter. Georg wasn’t lucid enough to be asked. The only other people around were kids, or old men.
Arthur realized that the weight of the decision was on him. It was his power that could do what needed to be done. And his responsibility to decide which course of action was right for that power; he couldn’t just leave it to others.
Minerva was looking at him. She was waiting for his decision, trusting it would be the right one.
“We’ll avenge your injury,” Taberius said. “With Arthur’s magic and my sword, those vile serpents of sin shall reap the fruits of their iniquity. We will see if demons bleed silver or red like everyone else, and they shall know that there is no safety in injustice and wickedness.” He drew his sword and flourished it as he spoke, a firm conviction and fury in his voice.
Arthur wasn’t so certain. He still remembered the fight against Grimoire Heart. He couldn’t have handled that on his own. The reasonable, rational course of action, the one that put the guild in the least danger, was waiting. With Suzaku, Misaki, Kirin, and Team Skullion backing him he’d have some help to make sure that there was someone to cover his back if he ran into a type of magic he couldn’t with raw power.
But he still remembered the cannibal feast. It might already be too late, they might have made Cullen and Pax dragons already. But there was the very real chance that they hadn’t and waiting would mean they would.
“Tabby, if I go, I go alone,” Arthur said.
The exceed glared up at him. “They have hurt my friend,” He said, causing Arthur to wonder at what point Minerva had become Tabby’s friend. “They launched a dastardly surprise attack upon my comrades at arms unprovoked,” Arthur was fairly certain that actively hunting down their associated guilds and underlings in surprise attacks counted as provocation, “Upon my honor as a knight I cannot allow these perfidious fiends to go unchastised by my blade. Their odious deeds must be met by righteous retribution!”
“Tabby, I can’t protect you while I’m there. This isn’t like the little rebellion in Edolas. I will need everything I’ve got and more.”
“Precisely: and more,” Tabby said glaring at him. “Have you forgotten so soon the wound you received to your back? You may be my master, but Sir Arthur, your guard is sloppy at the best of times. You will be facing foes with unknown powers. Varied powers of the utmost danger and terror. You will need someone there to watch your back. Someone who if the worst befalls you can provide you with the assistance that you need in your dire moment of peril. If you are petrified, you will need someone to slay the vile sorcerer and free you of their bewitchment. Verily you are powerful, and your strength of will and purpose may give you a chance to resist such dark enchantments, but what if not. What if you can merely resist but not overcome? My blade goes with you, and my hand which wields it, because to venture forth alone is to ensure your destruction, and I’d rather die by your side creating the chance at victory, than to die hiding after you fail.”
Arthur’s mouth was dry, his tongue heavy. He couldn’t answer, not immediately.
“And I am coming as well,” Orin said from the doorway. “Pax and Cullen are like brothers to me. I’m not letting them get turned into dragons, and isn’t this exactly what you were training us for?”
“If you’re counterattacking now, you can’t leave us out,” Enik stated walking up behind Orin. The oldest, surviving, member of the guild now. He was only a few months older than Georg, but he was visibly old and mostly retired. “It was our guild which was attacked too.”
Andre, and Wei, the two other surviving members of the guild’s mostly retired elder generation - the ones who had gathered around Georg as adults when he first founded the guild - stood beside Enik. Arthur had never seen them clad for ‘battle’. He wasn’t sure any of them were still in fighting shape. They’d all helped him some when he had first arrived in the guild. They knew techniques, but even before he had become a proper dragon eater his magic power had surpassed theirs.
“No,” Arthur said. “Someone needs to watch over the guild. And even if I need someone to watch my back there’s a minimum strength needed not to be too much of a liability, or even not to be collateral to my attacks.”
They all stared at him. “There’s not a man or woman in the guild who isn’t rarin’ and ready to go,” Enik said.
“But who is here that could accompany a dragon hunt? Because going up against Silver Demon is going to be worse than a dragon hunt.”
Andre and Enik looked down and away, their pride hurt. They had barely accompanied them in their youth. They knew they weren’t a factor in such a fight now. Wei frowned. “Of the people currently here, and not incapacitated only you, Nebura, and Orin,” She said.
“My lady, how dare you leave out me and my blade? Dragon or demon I will cut them down!” Tabby protested.
“Are you even a mage?” Wei said.
“Better. I am a knight,” Tabby said standing tall, for a waist high anthropomorphic cat, and proud.
Arthur was torn. He wanted to save Pax and Cullen. They were his friends. He’d spent most days in the last months teaching them, working with them, eating with them, living with them at his side. He’d honestly spent more time with them than anyone else in the guild - other than Minerva - at this point. They were good kids. And he didn’t want them to be turned into rabid weapons. And the time to prevent that could already have ran out, or be ticking down quickly.
But it was also possible that they wouldn’t even do so any time soon. It was possible he had time to wait for Georg and Minerva to heal, much less the few hours it would take for the Dark Dragon Knights, along with Team Skullion, and the team which was operating under Suzaku, to return. With their strength combined, taking out Silver Demon would be easy.
He could have Minerva share the geographical location with him. Wait for the others to return. And then he could go out and take down Silver Demon with the benefit of numbers.
Or he could purchase the perk For My Friends, and he could take Orin, Nebaru, and maybe Tabby into a death trap, and hope to fight his way through with his own personal power. It’d be dangerous. It’d cost him 300 points, and mean he’d no longer have the point reserve needed to buy Edomagic if that proved necessary to combat dragonification.
He hated the weight of the responsibility. If he took the former, safer option and something happened to Pax or Cullen he’d forever blame himself. Wraith was an adult and a ghost, he’d already had a long, full life, but Pax and Cullen were young. They deserved the chance to live and thrive. If he took the latter and something happened to Orin or Nebaru because of him he’d feel guilty but they went in voluntarily. The danger, though, was that he’d fail and thus increase the chance that something bad did happen to Pax and Cullen, and the rest of the guild, and it’d mean he’d not be there to stop Acnologia.
“Minerva, show me where they are. We’ll need the info in case they find your space and destroy it,” Arthur said.
“Wait, are you going to let them get away with this?” Tabby stated. “We must strike back.”
Orin glared at him, hate and rage in his eyes. Arthur knew the teen didn’t hate him. Not really. But he knew he was going to have to put up with a lot of resentment for this choice. But it was the adult choice, the mature choice, the right choice. At least he told himself it was, and that it wasn’t just the cowardly choice.
But the idea kept ringing hollow. “I can’t do it alone,” Arthur said. “I need someone to watch my back.”
“You’ll have my blade,” Tabby said.
“Someone I can trust to be there when I need them and not just die. These aren’t disgruntled off-duty soldiers armed only with knights, these are alchemists capable of magic capable of threatening me at my best.”
Tabby flinched.
“You have me,” Orin said.
“Not enough,” Arthur said. “Minerva, if Wendy could fix your leg could you fight?”
Minerva’s head jerked up. Arthur was going to risk going back to Fiore.