“As the land-scarce nation of the Five Lands,” said one of the men in attendance, “we believe that this development can only be of great benefit to us. It is unlikely that these people of Old Orb, if their words are true, will have their eyes set on our lands. Even if they are indeed eyeing our territory, the fact of the matter is that we cannot provide any semblance of a dignified living space for them.”

“I concur. We should support them. As immortal troops claimed to be capable of rivalling that of the demons, their participation will only serve to lighten the strain the Five Lands face in logistics,” a woman chimed in.

As the torrent of comments began to pour in, Gaius found that the Western Holdings were, by and large, treating Hereward’s reinforcements as yet another way to rebalance the power differences.

By now, he was very aware that those reinforcements were from Cybral. The very people that the old gods had sacrificed themselves to save. The people that Gaius himself had interacted with in his three years of unconsciousness.

He didn’t quite know if the sorrow and anger he felt stemmed from his position as the Abyss Sovereign.

That, however, was an irrelevant detail at this point.

Gaius understood that the government of a nation placed their people first and foremost, but this was his people they were talking about. Besides, in the first place, wasn’t Cybral a better world? Just what was Hereward thinking when he brought them up over to Orb? And now that they had been revealed to the world, what sorts of exploitation would the people of Cybral be subjected to?

As he stewed over the miserable state of affairs and his disordered emotions, a set of gentle hands wrapped around him. Isabelle, who had noticed his distress, had moved to help, but he knew that it was just a stop-gap measure. The irrational sorrow that had engulfed his mind was not something that could be dispelled easily.

Struggling to control an urge to bellow, Gaius found himself angry at his own helplessness. This was not a problem he could solve with force or strength alone. It just wasn’t an option.

“There are more and more things that I alone cannot solve,” Gaius murmured. “My daggers can’t make things go the way I want to. Nor can my power.”

“It’s natural,” Isabelle replied. “In the past, it was just me and Nakama. But now, there’s so many things in your orbit that you want to protect. At some point, using force stopped being an option. I know you want to protect those people, to make a peaceful world for everyone. But that’s not possible with strength alone.”

Gaius clenched his fist, and then let the strength drain out of it. “Is this despair I feel?”

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“It’s probably a despair that sovereigns feel,” Isabelle replied. “The feeling one gets when things devolve out of their control. When people march towards their own destruction, despite everything you’ve done.”

“What’s it like?” Gaius whispered.

“My grandmother might be able to tell you,” Isabelle answered. “But it was painful to watch. Time and time, I told her to let them be, but she wasn’t having any of it. After my father passed away, she had to re-assume the reins of leadership, but the fervour of the Second Extermination never ended. More and more joined the Second Extermination, leaving behind an ever-shrinking family.”

“Oh.” Gaius could picture that scene vividly. A teenager hovering around an old lady as she worked on documents, her aged face watching as groups of young men left with weapons.

“To be honest, the fact that our territory was robbed was nothing short of a blessing for grandmother,” said Isabelle. “She was overworking herself really badly. If not, the upstart Lumari would not have been able to take her prisoner.”

As he cheered Isabelle up, Gaius couldn’t help but note that the roles had changed. Now that he wasn’t paying attention to the proceedings within the Court of Hallows, the flood of dark emotions had subsided, but that was not something he could avoid. He owed the old gods of Orb this much; those beings who had sacrificed themselves to buy hope did not deserve to watch their children schemed against.

“I’m an idiot at times,” Gaius muttered.

“A lovable one,” Isabelle added.

“Adding a nice adjective doesn’t make me less of a fool, though.”

“But if you can’t even abandon people who are related to you through the machinations of gods, I’m dead certain you won’t abandon me,” Isabelle replied.

“You know how to say the sweetest things.”

“That should be my line, though.” Isabelle sighed. “So, what do you intend to do? Or will you just watch?”

Gaius turned his gaze away from the Court of Hallows, ignoring the agony he felt as the Court of Hallows unanimously decided to make use of the reinforcements from Cybral. “I am too inexperienced, so I will just listen.”

Isabelle’s fingers wrapped around his own, but she said nothing.

It was those little acts that made him glad that he hadn’t walked alone after all. Closing his eyes, he enjoyed the gentle warmth from their intertwined hands, while forcing himself to listen as Queen Hyperion closed the meeting. It was hard to hear too; they hadn’t pulled their punches in phrasing the way they had arrived at the conclusion to “support” the people of Cybral in getting their own piece of land. Words like ‘exploit’, ‘make use of’, ‘take advantage’ and ‘tools’ were thrown around carelessly, to the point that Gaius had a feeling that he was listening into the meeting of a villainous cabal.

If someone distributed today’s proceedings to the public, Gaius had a feeling that some level of public outrage would occur. Of course, since public opinion was usually worthless, that would be it, so doing such a thing was simply pointless. The Court of Hallows would then track down the culprit, and then do whatever they wanted to that poor fellow.

Before long, the Court of Hallows adjourned, but Gaius and Isabelle didn’t deactivate the Hallowed Oath. After all, Queen Hyperion had invited them, which could only mean that she wanted to talk.

As they watched the projections of the Western Holdings’ nobles wink out, the scenery around them blurred for a few seconds, clearing up to reveal a blue-haired woman.

Queen Hyperion had summoned them — literally, in some ways — for an audience.