Nothing really lasts forever. That was especially true of Camilla Sutton’s desire to keep her daughter and potential son-in-law out of trouble at all costs. Five days after the fire, when the entire town was appropriately swept through, cleaned up and restored to relative order, she organized a meeting between the most important local figures of authority.

In practical terms, that came down to her, the Mercenary King, Tamara, and the hero party.

“Thank you all for coming. I know we’ve had a rough few days, what will all the chaos and the cleanup, but I want to start by thanking all of you for what you did.” Camilla’s voice was still colder than strictly necessary whenever her eyes swept over Tamara, but not even the mage could complain about the level of cooperation and good will the baroness had shown with her actions in the last few days.

“Of course. It’s only fair that we help out the town we live in,” the mage said happily, lips tilting in an almost taunting smirk as she stared at the baroness unblinkingly.

The Mercenary King just grunted, looking distinctly uncomfortable. “I owe you. My job is to keep the town safe. If you two hadn’t been there, they would have managed to bring the town down. Then I’d fail my contract.”

Rowan wasn’t really sure what that said about the man who was more worried about the potential failure of his contract than about his own death, but it sure said something.

“No one could have guessed there would be two epic tiers just waiting to strike,” Tamara, oddly enough, spoke up first. “I’m sure you could have managed regardless.”

“Doubt it.”

If Rowan was occasionally dim when it came to emotions, then the Mercenary King was outright a stone.

The baroness’s smirk and Tamara’s grimace at being rebuffed were amusing, but Rowan felt it was best to push things along. “Yes, to summarize, Rest’s Remorse is safe now. That means we can focus on pushing for things to get better around here.”

“Oh? And what suggestions do you have for that, hero?” Tamara purred. Rowan could feel Olivia bristle beside him. He was pretty sure that the mage wasn’t flirting with him but she seemed to enjoy getting a rise out of everyone.

“Schools, for starters. I know we don’t have a whole lot of very young children around here, but we do have a surprising number of young adults who have not yet awakened their classes. More knowledge and experience help with getting better class offers, right?”

“What exactly do you mean when you say schools, hero?” Tamara asked. “Because I assure you, if you’re planning to teach them how to become [Scholars] and [Scribes], you’ll fail. You can’t even find teachers for classes like that around here.”

Rowan sighed, knowing she was right even if he didn’t strictly like it. “No, nothing like that. Just basic combat lessons, along with some reading and writing. Most of them want to be combat classes, anyway.”

Rowan still had those heart cards burning a hole in his pocket.

“That could work, I admit. At least it’s likely to produce some slightly more useful classes than the usual rabble we get this far out on the frontier with no proper schooling. Let me tell you, recruiting disciples is harsh out here when most are completely illiterate,” Tamara said, making a complete reversal in the span of a couple of sentences.

That brought Rowan up short, for a moment, and the way he looked at the woman changed a little. It was true enough that she was unpleasant, but he sometimes forgot she was running a mage cabal all her own. If anyone had experience with getting frontier children up to snuff, it would be Tamara.

“Do you maybe have any suggestions? Even when it comes to setting up these initial, bare-bones schools?” Rowan asked earnestly, making the mage shoot him an odd look.

“Well… I suppose I could contribute, a little. Got plenty of apprentices who would love a chance to teach snot-nosed brats. They’re fond of gutter rats, for some reason,” Tamara said dismissively but, oddly enough, without any real malice or judgment. Once again, Rowan was quite confused about who, exactly, Tamara was. He was starting to suspect he didn’t have the full picture.

“Yes, well, that would be wonderful,” Rowan said. “My other idea are public projects, like we’ve been doing already. People need jobs and some basic security in their lives, and we need people willing to work on fixing up the town. They’re not perfect for it without the right classes, but every bit helps.”

This, too, easily passed muster, even if the Mercenary King wasn’t really contributing much to conversation. In fact, his first time chiming in was when Rowan asked for more ideas on how to help people and improve the town.

“Need to recruit more mercenaries. Bunch of my men got maimed or killed this time around. Will take care of them, but been new blood too. I’d like permission to do it,” the Mercenary King said.

Rowan was briefly confused, before memories of some of his recent lessons with the baroness resurfaced. Before a major recruitment drive, the mercenaries needed direct permission from their local mayor, lord, or similar.

Naturally, Rowan had no real reason to decline. “If you can find enough people for it, go ahead. I had a rather rough time of it when looking for soldiers.”

“They didn’t know you. If you try again now, you’ll have a lot more applicants. Still, plenty of people want to join my band. Got a reputation,” the Mercenary Kind said.

Rowan’s smile turned a little wooden, but he couldn’t deny that made sense. He was a new, untested mayor, practically asking for their lives. “Well, with that little tidbit, does anyone else have —”

Before Rowan could finish his sentence, a creature of light and fire burst through the open window of the room. What happened next was ordered chaos. In spite of the fact that no one openly carried weapons into the meeting, everyone was equipped to kill in mere seconds. Daggers and short swords were aplenty, and Rowan had no clue where Tamara got the glowing mage orb that suddenly orbited around her.

Ironically, Rowan seemed to be the only person without a weapon. He had something better. Olivia already had a whole pile of potions arranged on her arm, ready to throw.

Thankfully, before violence could break out, the fire bird started to speak.

Hero Rowan,

I am sorry to inform you that Hero Blake is currently in grave danger. He has ventured much too far into the frontier, and he and his party have been separated from their army. We have a way to track them down, but the closest reinforcements of notable strength are still months away.

You and Hero Kayla both are, therefore, charged with finding and retrieving the hero. Should he be dead already, then you are to retrieve his heart card. It must not be allowed to fall into the hands of demons.

Attached here, you will find the item that will lead you to your fellow hero. Make haste and make sure you don’t fall prey to the same hubris.

Sincerely,

King’s own Seneschal,

Patrick Rubeus

The constructs odd, echoing voice came to an end as it erupted into flames even more intense than before. When the light show finally ceased, two items drifted down to land on Camilla’s desk, showing an unsealed letter and a compass-like item made of some odd, black material.

Rowan immediately picked up the latter, finding that its pointer was stuck following some point far north. By the content of the letter, it didn’t take a genius to figure out what it was.

“How did they make this thing?” Rowan asked quietly, deeply disturbed. “Do they have one of these attuned to me? Can they track me wherever I go?”

The messenger construct had, after all, tracked him down quite well. Rowan suddenly felt more than a little sick.

Tamara just scoffed. “No, they don’t have one for you, stop looking so pale. Unless you willingly gave a drop of your blood. I’m guessing they just asked your fellow hero for one, seeing how close he is to the king.”

“Tamara is right, Rowan.” The baroness reluctantly agreed, crossing her arms across her chest. “And that was just a messenger summon, they can find their targets wherever as long they have the right name. I’m much more worried about the hero.”

“Great Hero Blake,” Tamara spat out with a bit more venom in her words than Rowan expected. “How did our paladin get separated from his army? How did they even let this sort of thing happen? And why are they sending the other heroes to risk their cards too?”

“Of course, you’re worried about the cards and not about the lives of the heroes,” Camilla snapped.

“Oh, come off it. If Hero Blake charged straight into the wastes, that’s on him. I’m just worried about what will happen if he dies and that card makes it to the demon king,” Tamara said.

“Wait, what happens if the demon king gets a hero heart card?” Rowan jumped in, suddenly more than a little alarmed.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

All of the older generation in the room suddenly looked distinctly uncomfortable, while the other members of Rowan’s party looked as confused as he felt.

“It’s a conversation for later. Let’s just try and prevent that,” Camilla rushed to say. “Good thing you trained up your army because you’ll need more than a little support to pull this off. I really can’t believe this is happening.”

For a second, silence reigned. “Do you think they’ll be enough?” Rowan asked. “I know we fought and beat an epic recently, but it was quite badly hurt, and we’re not quite at epic yet ourselves.”

“Doesn’t matter, I’m coming with you. I know there’s plenty to be done around town, but I can’t just let you venture out there on your own. It’s too much,” Camilla said.

“No.” The Mercenary King spoke up.

“I’m sorry? It sounds like you’re against me supporting the hero’s party, which, might I remind you, contains my daughter.”

“Exactly. I’m saying you should stay. There’s much you need to do here, still. I’ll go.”

The baroness’s anger changed into shock.

“You? You’re going to get off your behind and finally do something that’s not just sitting in this town all day long?”

The Mercenary King sighed as he stood. “Yes. You are an assassin. In combat such as this, you are out of your element and you know it. I should go. My entire skill set is based around leading armies into war. Monsters or humans, it doesn’t matter what we’re fighting.”

“I’ll follow the army, as well,” Tamara offered before the Mercenary King could make his exit. “None of you have mages under your employ. Having the support of me and my disciples is going to be invaluable.”

“That’s… not my decision to make. Actually, none of this is my decision to make,” Camilla admitted. “Rowan, would you prefer I accompany I? Or would you like the Mercenary King and Tamara come with you?”

The hero didn’t respond immediately. Instead, he took a moment to gauge the reactions of everyone in the room. The Mercenary King looked indifferent, if a little bored. Tamara was the perfect picture of subservient innocence and that was nearly enough to turn his stomach. However, he wasn’t stupid enough to turn away a mage, even one with strange intentions.

“Lady Sutton, you should stay in the town, these two should be plenty,” Rowan said, despite the grimace he made.

Tamara shot him a winning smile, and the Mercenary King simply grunted.

—

The next day dawned bright and early, the first rays of the rising sun illuminating quite the procession on its way out of town.

An army, a thousand strong, was marching.

Rowan’s soldiers were naturally there, but the addition of another five hundred troops under the Mercenary King’s banner were more than welcome. They did wonders to calm Rowan’s flip-flopping stomach.

Of course, he was entire uncertain how to feel about the groups of mages floating well above the army, observing the march with boredom or indifference. Tamara’s disciples apparently preferred to spend their mana so they didn’t have to walk. But Rowan noticed the fact that she had a full fifty apprentices under her.

Rowan bitterly wished they could use horses or any other mount to speed up the journey ahead of them. Unfortunately, the only thing they had was the odd tracking device and their own feet. No regular animal was going to survive within the wastes for very long without getting corrupted, and even tamed beasts would be driven insane in no time.

“Hey, I know things aren’t exactly in our favor, marching deep into wastes, but we’ll be fine,” Olivia whispered, nudging Rowan with a playful smile.

Rowan couldn’t exactly reciprocate. “It’s not that. It’s…” He trailed off, terrified to even share the fears that had gripped him upon the announcement of the danger Blake was in. The Stalwart Hero was nowhere near as indifferent about the whole situation as he pretended to be.

“You can tell me, you know? I keep telling you that.”

“He’s my friend, Olivia. My best friend. I have no clue where I’d be without him, and now he’s stuck somewhere in the middle of the wastes with hordes of monsters after him.”

It was true that Kayla had changed. Rowan wasn’t sure how or why, but the woman he met only had a vague resemblance to the person he called friend once. Blake, however, had gone out of his way to warn him of approaching danger with his letter.

Even if he’d changed, it wasn’t to the extent that Rowan would struggle to recognize the man anymore.

“We’ll find him. If a hero dies, trust me, the kingdom will know,” Olivia said. At a questioning glance from Rowan, she clarified. “I did a bit of reading, yesterday. The previous mayor didn’t have an amazing library, but it’s satisfactory enough. When a hero dies to demons, there’s some kind of an oracle.”

“Do you know why they were so worried? About the demons getting Blake’s card?”

Unfortunately, Olivia shook her head. “There’s only mentions of a ‘calamity’ that typically follows the death of a hero when it happens at the hands of demons. There weren’t mentions of the event outside of that. It’s like the authors didn’t want to write it down.”

“Well, at least we know it’s extremely bad then. Maybe we can press the Mercenary King or Tamara for an answer, or —”

“Lord Rowan.” The Mercenary King’s deep, booming voice cut off the hero, and the pair looked up to see the man approaching.

“Yes? Is there already a problem with the troops?” Rowan asked. That would have been a real impressive feat, if for no other reason than that they were only starting to approach the wastes proper.

“I would like to formally request to both be included in your army, and that I be granted the right to stand in as the acting general of the troops until you are ready to step in yourself,” the Mercenary King said. Rowan felt like there was more at play than it seemed. He hesitated to reply but eventually nodded. “I need you to verbally acknowledge my request, your lordship.”

“Why? Why is this so important that I need to officially and verbally approve it?” Rowan’s eyes narrowed, and he was already scanning for ways to make distance from the Mercenary King if the worst happened and combat broke out.

“A lot of my class effects and cards are tied into empowering and leading an army. However, I can only affect those who are officially under my command,” the Mercenary King explained.

“Are you telling me the system stops you from using your cards if you don’t have official authority over the troops? How is that even possible?”

“I do not know. All I know is that it’s how it works. I suppose it’s the solution to being able to affect more people than just your own party.”

“But Marcus has a defensive aura ability, and he can use it on anyone he wants to?”

“I am not a system scholar, your lordship. I cannot give you the answers you want. If there’s a difference, it’s due to both my ‘monarch’ style class and the fact that I don’t have a defined range at which I can buff my troops. They just need to be marching under my command.”

Rowan sneaked a glance at Olivia, who gave him a little bit of a nod.

“Okay then. Lucius Orgrim, I officially accept you as part of my army, and name you general of my troops whose authority is second only to my own.” Rowan paused. “Would that work?”

The man grinned, some of the tension falling off his shoulders. “Well, let’s find out, lad, shall we?”

It was Rowan’s turn to grunt in dissatisfaction. “What happened to your lordship?”

“Eh, I’m technically under your employ right now, lad, but it’s bad for business to act too unfamiliar. Still, seeing as I’m your right-hand man, right now, let’s get this started. March of Heroes.”

The Mercenary King’s voice echoed through the air and every soldier and mercenary gave a little jolt. The mercenaries seemed used to it, most of them grinning, but Rowan saw the way the soldiers were suddenly glancing around in confusion.

He couldn’t blame them. A well of energy seemed to be opening up in the center of his being.

“Forward, march!” the man barked, and Rowan’s eyes widened to the size of saucers when his leg lifted without him even meaning to do it.

Rowan had a feeling that he could fight off whatever was happening, but when his strides took him much further and much more steadily across the terrain than he could have managed without serious engaging his dexterity stat, he didn’t.

The sheer ferocity of the march and the unified movement of the army should have been an impossibility. A glance at Olivia revealed that she was keeping up effortlessly with the more physical classes.

“How? How are you doing any of this?” she asked, barely paying attention to the ground she was covering in record time.

“First time seeing a true commander or ruler class at work?” the mercenary teased, a huge grin on his face. “Why do you think I’m stuck out here on the frontier, lass? Because I’m utterly indispensable for the defense of one of the shabbiest frontier towns? No offense, lad. It’s just the truth.”

“Why are you here, then?” Rowan’s curiosity got the best of him, even if he did feel like he might regret asking the question.

“Can’t have two monarchs in one kingdom. Thankfully, [Mercenary King] is not a class that demands territory or the like. But it’s still a monarch class. No king is going to let me take root in their domain. But, I’m too useful to just get rid of. So demon duty it is for me.”

Rowan considered the man then. In spite of the grim things he was saying, he felt that Lucius was still perfectly relaxed, and even satisfied with his lot in life.

“Why take such a class, then?” It was Olivia that asked the question, but Rowan was just as curious.

“I needed a way to lead and protect my men. They put their trust in me, count on me to help them secure a good life for their families. Why shouldn’t I take the best class to help me do just that? Consequences be damned.”

Rowan could respect that. The man looked gruff and guarded most of the time, but with all the new information, Rowan couldn’t exactly blame him. It was probably hell navigating the politics of having a ruler class without any land or legitimacy for such a claim.

“Thank you for telling us,” Rowan said.

The man gave him a look, before breaking out into a small. “No problem, hero. You know, I wasn’t sure what to think, at first. Especially when you took a bunch of hapless civilians into the wastes. Still, you’re alright, lad. Keep it up.”

With those words, the Mercenary King rushed ahead, taking a leading position at the head of the army. Amazingly enough, the effect they were under got an additional minor boost, and Rowan scoffed.

He didn’t mind being ‘supplanted’ as leader, as long as the benefits of that were apparent. Plus, even a temporary reprieve from his duties was welcome.

—

If anyone tried to explain the gulf between powerful epic classes and their lower tier counterparts before their march, Rowan would likely have scoffed. Sure, the difference was supposed to exist, but describing it as ‘insurmountable’ was surely false.

Unfortunately, the actions of the Mercenary King proved the true strength of epic classes quite thoroughly.

Two days. Their march continued, unhindered by any sort of breaks, for two days. Two days of no food, drink, rest, or sleep. Just mindless marching to the will of the Mercenary King.

They didn’t even run into any trouble. The hero’s army had done an amazing job pacifying the region’s more powerful monsters, and the leftovers took a single look at the overwhelming mass of humans and booked it.

And Rowan couldn’t even tell where the time had gone. One second he was still falling into the rhythm of the march, and the next, they were finally being told to slow down and recuperate. The funny thing was, he wasn’t even excessively tired.

His legs ached a little, and he could go for a hearty meal, but there was no gnawing hunger, muscle pain, or his new energy storage card going wild with desire for sustenance. Just a gentle easing out of the march.

Needless to say, all of the soldiers began to look at the Mercenary King in a different light.

“I hate seeing him use that card. He tried to use it on me once, too, and I threatened to burn him for it. I won’t have anyone using mind control effects on me, no matter how mild or benign,” Tamara proclaimed. The mage landed on her feet from the platform and then grimaced, looking at the dirt with the kind of disdain typically reserved for one’s worst enemies. Considering the fact that she was still wearing an expensive, beautiful dress, that wasn’t necessarily far from the truth.

“Not everyone has a floating platform to use. I’m surprised you decided to come down to join us lowly mortals,” Rowan said, a bit more coldly than he necessarily needed to.

“You really don’t like me, do you?” the mage sighed, rolling her eyes. “I’m not surprised, not with Camilla acting as your mentor, but I’m really not your enemy, Rowan. Is there anything I can do to prove that to you? Anything at all?”

Rowan was about to thank her for the offer when a thought came into his mind.

“There is one thing. How fast is your flying construct, exactly?”

“If you want me to fly ahead and try to reach Hero Blake before the rest of the army, I’m afraid I’ll have to decline. If he’s been ‘cut off’ from his own army, the number of monsters there is not negligible. Nor are they likely to be weak.”

“Oh, no, don’t worry,” Rowan assured her. “I have something slightly different in mind.”