Chapter 395 - The Flames of Dispassion

The queen of Vel’khan adjusted the position of her oversized hat as the dungeon’s entrance slowly shrank away. Having spent a few hours on a cursory survey, the party was headed back to town atop the usual wagon.

It was not a hasty retreat that had driven the return, but a well established plan. The first day was only meant to verify the relative accuracy of their intel and to confirm the function of their wetsuits; they had only cleared the first of the ten floors that constituted the dungeon’s depths.

Though the easiest by far—the precise design of the floors thereafter appeared incredibly sadistic on paper—it had proven itself a challenge regardless. It was not the rank and file that gave them trouble. The mimics were certainly obnoxious, but most lacked the raw power to pose an immediate threat. Only the speaking mimics were capable of doing significant harm, but it was only by engaging in their proposals that they could link the chain of cause and effect.

Even then, even if one was to be hit by an assured attack, the mimics’ victory was hardly guaranteed. They were only good at delivering opening strikes.

The rest of the monsters were fairly weak as well. One could safely ignore the spiders and pterodactyls so long as the webs and sky were avoided. But the floor boss, or rather the floor bosses, were far more difficult to dismiss. They shared an ultimate ability that activated immediately upon a would-be fatal blow and dragged all active combatants into an alternate realm where magic was outright denied. The first to land a substantial hit thereafter would decide if the attack would land. To finish the ashen warriors, the challengers had to strike the skeleton whose near fatality had triggered the realm. Suffering a blow or attacking the wrong skeleton would lead to the deathblow’s undoing.

Though it was an incredibly obnoxious ability, it was hardly the worst to be encountered in the dungeon. The second floor’s boss dealt damage by running away. For every kilometer it fled, all individuals in combat with it would lose a tenth of their health. It was absurdly agile, and to make matters worse, there was another large monster that served as an environmental hazard that impeded any would be pursuers.

The massive four-headed snake attacked everyone who ventured outside of the designated boss zone. The boss itself, however, was subject to no such rule and could freely run wherever it pleased.

So on and so forth, each boss had a gimmick, and Ciel was looking forward to dealing with none of them. Still, it was not as if she could simply shy away from the dungeon. It was precisely because the monsters had gimmicks that they made for such good practice. Powerful fighters often had the same tricks up their sleeves. That was not to say that they could drain a challenger’s health by way of extreme cowardice, but each was likely to possess a potent ability sure to warp the way the battle unfolded.

That much was certainly true for the aspect that was Cadria’s god-king. Like the many monsters that roamed Crimson Rock, he had an ultimate ability that ignored the playbook in its entirety. Of course, though certainly far more potent, ultimates were not the only such threat. Powerful ars magnae bent the rules all the same. Ciel’s blinding shadows served as one such example. It was through their merit that they had defeated one of the Ashen Primordials. By robbing the skeletal knights of their vision, she was able to neuter their swordsmanship so the party’s other combatants could see them readily removed.

The plan was to use the same ability on the four-headed snake that patrolled the second floor’s perimeter, but only time would tell if it would prove successful.

In the meantime, the party continued to plod along, their carriage filled with the day’s loot. They had mostly intact skeletons from the ashen primordials, fresh cut leather from the pterodactyls, and a couple stray gemstones ripped off the local mimics. None of the pieces were particularly valuable—the first floor wasn’t nearly as dangerous as the rest of the dungeon, and some of the more powerful locals would visit it when strapped for cash—but the wetsuits had put a dent in their wallet and some return was always better than none. At the very least, the sales would pay for stabling their turberi over the course of their two-week exploration.

Though they had left the turtles by the dungeon’s entrance during their brief, three-hour stint, it was by no means a viable long-term solution. Food wasn’t the problem. They were fully capable of feeding themselves, but they were tame and stupid enough that, with enough time, a random passerby could easily befriend and subsequently abduct them. And two weeks, unfortunately, was more than long enough.

The estimate that came with their subterranean adventure was almost entirely backloaded. Of the twenty days, only two were allotted to the first four floors. The fifth was given the same amount of time. They had a map that detailed the path they needed to take, but it wasn’t to scale, and every mistake would set them back at least six hours. But from that point on, they figured that their progression would slow to what was effectively a crawl, and not just on account of the bosses.

Arciel wasn’t looking forward to it. The weakest monster beyond the sixth floor was at least on par with the level thousand leviathan on which she had honed most of her skills; the strongest dungeon monster in Vel’khagan’s vicinity was but another weakling before the forces they faced in Kryddar.

She didn’t even want to imagine how much they would struggle in Cadria.

But at least for the time being, there was no need to worry. She only needed to direct her focus to the task at hand.

___

Virillius Augustus narrowed his eyes as he looked over the map his spymaster had laid upon the table. The heavily detailed atlas provided an almost perfect overview of the nation’s southernmost appendage. Reconstructed in vivid detail, it highlighted every single village that dotted the rulerless march.

As some of the people were nomadic—the caribou-based cervitaurs that often wandered the nation never settled in one spot for long—the precise boundaries were not drawn in, but rather illustrated upon the map through a set of crystal pieces. They had just been placed in the most up-to-date locations, arranged by the spymaster as Virillius entered the room.

The god-king had recently taken to managing the domain himself. The task was not meant to be his. It clearly belonged to a marquis, someone a little lower on the social ladder with less on their plate and far more free time, but the last two rulers to take the helm had both found their ends abroad. To the king’s dismay, there was no one else qualified to seize control. The locals were unlikely to accept rule from a neighbouring lord, courtesy of the differences in provincial law, and none of the remaining candidates qualified for the position of governor. Too much esoteric knowledge was required, and it was only the late Timaois and his officers who knew so many of them by heart.

To Virillius’ dismay, exactly zero of the aforementioned officers had happened to keep their lives. Porcius, the man he had appointed to take Timaois’ place, had rounded them all up and taken them on a foolish quest to seek revenge for their master—a problem that had annoyed Virillius to no end.

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It was the exact opposite of what he had anticipated that the man might do, and to make matters worse, Porcius had never clued Virillius in on the plan’s existence. The king had only learned of it courtesy of the public announcement made just in advance of the army’s departure.

By then, it was already too late to put a stop to the scheme. To call it off at such a late stage would only cast aside the loyalty of those who served the Pollux march. It was largely a function of the peaceful status quo. There was no other front that he could claim demanded more of their attention, nor any other way to redirect their hostilities without biting himself in the hoof.

The whole scenario was a headache and a half, and Virillius wanted nothing to do with any of it. Granted, the same could be said of the march management that had come following Porcius’ demise. Virillius had never once wished to govern. Unlike his father, he lacked the necessary talent. He was much happier when his uncle was king, or at least he had been, before he discovered the traitor’s deception.

Fortunately, there was a much different task on that day’s agenda.

Unfortunately, it was just as much of a pain.

As per the spymaster’s reconstruction, their surveillance network was without a single clear hole. They covered the province in its entirety. Every road was watched, every forest was covered. They had men placed in every town, village, and city; no stone was left unturned. Some of the other nobles had even invested their own special forces to further bolster the network. And yet, Constantius remained uncaptured.

It wasn’t like he was simply eluding them. Virillius knew that his brother was hopping from town to town and city to city, going wherever he pleased without any concern for the beefed up security. The only constant was that he never strayed too far from the southernmost border. How he managed the feat was yet an unsolved mystery, and Virillius was beginning to suspect that he only revealed his presence for his own amusement. It wouldn’t have been even the least bit surprising. Constantius had always been the sort of degenerate to bask in another’s frustration, even if it came at the cost of a threat to his person.

Coincidentally, it just so happened that Virillius was incredibly annoyed, not that he would ever let his brother’s antics get the better of him.

The best shot at victory was simply to go and resolve the situation in person. He knew Constantius far better than any of the agents involved, and he knew that he could catch him so long as he managed to find a fresh trail, just as he did back then. Alas, he was subject to the same problem that had prevented him from acting on Porcius’ stupidity. Too many people would lose face, and perhaps even turn their allegiance against him, even if placated for the immediate future.

Ironically, it was his daughter who cemented his rule. If not for her acts of rebellion, the very warlords who had always wished for his rise likely would have suspected his motives.

The proxy war with Vel’khan was considered by his supporters to be a genius move. They viewed it not only as proof of his thirst for conquest, but also a manner of demonstrating their national prowess on a continental stage. After all, the colosseum was open for observation, and interested foreign nations were already reserving their spots. At the same time, it promoted competition within the ranks and drove the nation’s warriors to refine their skills. Many chased the goal with rabid ambition, climbing higher and higher in hopes of becoming one of the many champions that rose above the rest. And not only that, the format ensured that Virillius would fight. He would demonstrate his absolute power and separate those worth challenging from those whose value was worth no consideration.

The man in question, however, was less keen on becoming a spectacle. He had always had eyes on him. That much could never be changed, purely on account of the nature of his role, but it felt like there had been far more of them, ever since he had taken up his uncle’s throne.

It was stifling.

His people were constantly on the lookout, always trying to interpret his intentions in hopes of acquiring his favour. He almost wished that he was less petty. But that much, he knew would remain unchanged. He would always be petty, when it came to the matters of his lost beloved.

On most weeks, he would have been able to look forward to the afternoon at least. Claire should have been due for a visit, another training session, but the fake had approached him earlier in the morning and informed him of her absence. Apparently, she was too busy with a dungeon to spare any time for his attempt at education.

He wanted to curl up in a corner and put himself to sleep.

There was nothing to look forward to.

Perhaps, he was in need of a break—a brief sabbatical to refresh his mind and relieve the stress that came with his duties. But alas, there was no such opportunity. His schedule was packed full of things to do, and he had recently taken on even more responsibilities to better use the time he had once dedicated to determining his brother’s location.

He was in desperate need of more scribes, but they were almost impossible to recruit. It wasn’t like he could simply grab people off the street even if they had all the right abilities. The nobility was sure to take offense if a commoner with no battle prowess was to enter a position of political power, not to say that they would necessarily do a good job even without the objection. Cadria had a long history, and not all the cultures therein were quite as unified as one might have imagined. There were many subtle nuances and taboos, and it was only really the nobility that bothered to learn them all.

Though bluebloods were far more qualified in general, Virillius was just as incapable of hiring them outright. Conflicts of interest were far too rampant; it was almost impossible to separate an aristocrat from their family affairs.

It didn’t help that the noble houses were further divided into factions often with no relation to their vested financial interests. He would have to employ a roughly equal number from each faction to ensure that no one group was picked on or allowed to get out of hand. It was an impossible task, even more daunting than tackling all of the paper work almost entirely by his lonesome.

Virillius was so desperate that he tried to pawn some of it off on his butler—one of the few men he trusted with all of his affairs—but Cleveland had promptly refused, much to the god-king’s dismay.

That was what brought him to the status quo. Tired, annoyed, and pushed past his limit, he could only stare at the map before him with his face as frozen as ever.

“Is something the matter, Your Majesty?” asked the spymaster. The man in question was hardly the sort of creature that one would expect to work for the secret service. In his line of work, cottontails were typically considered to be the most successful. They were not only native and incredibly abundant, but also small enough that they could easily go unnoticed.

The spymaster was none of those things. Standing at five meters tall, he was well above average for a thoraen warrior. One would typically expect his size to come with a fair amount of bulk, but he was surprisingly skinny, with his arms looking more like noodles than they did a set of limbs belonging to any sort of ogre. It was obvious even through his suit, which fit so loosely on his body that it looked like it would fall right off his shoulders.

“I told you not to call me that,” said Virillius.

“I know.” The spymaster smirked. “I figured it’d get your attention, since, you know, it looked like you were spacing out.”

The moose frowned internally. “I have been… busy lately.”

“Yeah, tell me about it,” said the spymaster. “So? What do you think he’s up to anyway?” He turned his eyes back on the board, specifically at the piece that was meant to denote the location where they last sighted the king’s dear brother.

“I don’t know,” said Virillius. “We’ve no way of knowing what’s going through his mind, especially not after he’s been so quiet for so long.”

“Should we send more men then?”

The king paused. “Yes. Find him as quickly as you can.”

His brother’s motives were irrelevant.

Either way, he would eliminate the conniving bastard before he crossed his daughter’s path. He could not be allowed to involve her in his schemes.