I tried to convince her, I really did. Unfortunately, there was no changing her mind. Emeri had gotten it into her head that we owed the inquisitor, the man that had imprisoned us, the truth. Apparently, she was convinced that the man would change his mind once he learned of our quest, of what we had uncovered.

As you can imagine, I was far less enthused by the idea.

“Ems, you’re jeopardising everything we’ve uncovered for the sake of a stranger! What if he turns hostile?! He’s wont to do so after all the fighting and killing we’ve been doing, don’t you think?”

“I’m doing this because of the things we discovered, Arthur. The world deserved to know about Helios’ life and that includes the church. Besides, even if he turns hostile we can subdue him. As he’s only barely teetering on the brink of death, I doubt that he poses a threat for the foreseeable future.”

I turned pensive, hearing her argument. In part, she was right. When I looked over to the inquisitor’s unconscious body, it became clear that he was still grievously wounded. The chances of him recovering enough to fight us on even footing were… slim. Before I could think of a way to refute Emeri’s proposal, she continued.

“Think of the path forward, Arthur. With the inquisitor on our side, we could explain things to the rest of the church!”

From the desperate gleam in her eyes, I could tell this was more personal than she was letting on.

I reminded her of this, though perhaps I was a little heavy-handed.

“If you weren’t prepared to sever your relationship with the church, you should never have gone down this path, Emeri. You made your choice. Attempting to have your cake and eat it too could cost us both our lives.”

My words seemed to hit her like a hammer, making her frown. Her response was just as venomous as my own had been, however.

“If you cared so much about your own safety, then perhaps you shouldn’t have followed me down this ‘path’!”

I sighed and bit back whatever I was about to respond, before lifting my hands in surrender.

“Fine. Wake him, then. I just hope this gamble of yours works out.”

“They have until now, haven’t they?”

She replied, rather petulantly.

I took a few more alchemical substances to heal the inquisitor adequately and wake him up, but once he finally did Emeri wasted no time to shut him up with both hands.

“Be quiet, and listen. We saved your life, you owe us that much, at least.” She commanded with fervour.

Her greeting succeeded in keeping him quiet and I watched in amazement as the previously overpowering tier 5 classer hesitantly nodded his head.

The next half an hour was spent listening to Emeri regale our tales upon the helpless man, even making me feel sorry for him past a certain point. Emeri allowed no interruption or distracting reaction, giving him a death glare whenever he would gasp or attempt to say something.

By the end of her story, the inquisitor had recovered enough to enter into a debate, but Emeri’s fiery temper quickly shut his measly attempt to disprove her down.

“Explain our motivation then, if we’re lying. Why would we betray Dalius and keep you alive?”

When no answer came, Emeri snorted.

“See? As unbelievable as the truth might sound, it is the only way to explain what happened. Besides, it explains many incongruencies in the holy texts…”

I tuned Emeri and her conversational partner out as they began to talk religion. The details of the ‘holy texts’ were particularly mind-numbing, even to clergy members. I, for one, had never remembered much about Helios’ teachings besides the obvious ‘be kind’ and ‘hate undead’ parts.

In an attempt to escape their drivel, I decided to head into my mental palace, where I set about repairing as much of the damage that our campaign into Alterian had wrought.

It took several hours to get it back to where it was before, the repairs so necessary that I felt my mind tighten after I was finished. Not in a bad way, though. It almost felt like… things that I kind of knew before had now turned into things that I intrinsically understood. Before, I had known that killing was bad. Now, I had a better understanding, a belief, even, as to why.

In a sense, my mind palace was as restricting as it was empowering, but as long as it kept me sane and protected from the system’s machinations, I was happy to continue the practice.

Besides, seeing the roses bloom with such splendour was always an experience. I was still wondering what part of me they represented, though.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

I ‘woke’ with a dull sense of wonder, realising that Emeri and the inquisitor were still not done, though Emeri assured me that she had almost convinced him of her argument, despite the older man’s sputtering protest that followed this declaration.

Sure enough, not ten minutes later he agreed to act as a liaison between the church and us, which would hopefully result in something positive…

A few days had passed since Emeri had managed to convince the inquisitor to our cause. After agreeing to sign a system-binding contract, the man had taken us to a personal safe house of his in the capital, which turned out to be his actual house.

The villa complex was built by the sea, in the richer part of Alt capital. The lack of servants made it a comfortable place to stay for Emeri and me, while the inquisitor went about gathering intel at what was probably the largest cathedral in the world. Said cathedral, which acted as the headquarters and training centre of the church, was simply known as ‘the pantheon’. From there, the pope ruled over Alterian with an iron fist. I wasn’t going to lie and say that the presence of a hostile tier 7 so close by didn’t fill me with dread. Unfortunately, we had nowhere else to go. For now, we could only wait for the situation to die down. I expected our stay here to last a few months, but with the weather as nice as it was, I didn’t necessarily see this as a bad thing…

Halfway through the day, I decided to take a break from training and decided to head to ‘the pool’, a puddle of water that people were meant to swim in. Why the inquisitor had had it built I couldn’t quite understand, but apparently, it came as standard with each opulent home along the coast.

While I wasn’t much of a swimmer, bathing in the sun did suit my tastes, I found. There was something about lazing around bare-chested that made the experience feel rather freeing.

I was surprised to see Emeri join me by the poolside a bit later, evidently having seen me leave the training ground a bit earlier. She had come dressed in a formfitting dress that I hadn’t even known she owned, making me blush and look away.

She giggled lightly, but didn’t say anything as she laid down on the reclining chair beside mine.

For a drawn-out moment, both of us just enjoyed each other’s presence and the sun, until I broke the silence.

“…Do you even just want to… stop?”

“…Stop? Stop what?”

“You know… all of this. The fighting, the training, the killing…”

“Why? Don’t you enjoy that stuff?” she asked pointedly.

I cringed, shaking my head. “I enjoy a good fight, sure. But the resulting death just makes me feel numb. No, I just… I guess I’m just looking at how far we’ve come and am left wondering ‘Does it get any better than this?’ Initially, I was so set on this path because it felt like the only way forward, you know? A way to leave that small town and start my own life, away from all the struggle and hardship that my family underwent during my early years of life. Now, I’m not sure which way to go anymore.”

“We’re kind of in the middle of something big, Arthur. We can’t just walk away.”

“I know, I know. But I’m not talking about that. This situation will blow over eventually, they always do. I’m just thinking… what next? What if life just continues to go the way it has, always grasping for something but never getting it? At what point do I stop and say: ‘I have it. I have what I went looking for when I set out.’”

I looked over to Emeri, and found that she, too, was deep in thought.

“We’ve only known each other for a little while, Arthur, but I’d like to think I have you all figured out. The way I see you, you don’t like sitting still. You like seeing and doing new things, feeling the thrill of battle and going as far as you can feasibly go. You can’t do any of those things by resting on your laurels. You might grow weary of it at some point, but something tells me you’re far from reaching that step. For now, just enjoy your break.”

I chuckled.

“It doesn’t feel like much of a break, considering that we’re vacationing a stone’s throw away from a possibly incensed tier 7.”

As I waited for Emeri to respond to my quip, an aged male voice broke the silence and answered instead, coming from above us.

“I’m afraid it’s not much of a vacation at all, if those are your criteria.”

I looked up in shock, finding the origin of the voice sitting on the fence and staring down at us. He was an aged man who looked like he had lived for millennia, though his beard was surprisingly well-kept. His excessive white and gold robe, as well as the ocean of mana that roiled off of him, gave away whom I was looking at. The pope.

“You didn’t actually think you could hide from me in my own city, did you?” he japed, going through his beard with his hands.

As I mentally prepared myself for an escape, a new person joined the pope by standing on the fence above us. I breathed a sigh of relief as I immediately recognised him.

“Stop scaring them, Myers. Remember our agreement.”

“Ah! But of course!” the pope, ‘Myers’, responded smoothly. “I wouldn’t dream of hurting your pet project! Wasn’t he around the last time we met, too?”

“In a way.” The dry man responded lamely, mirroring the pope by combing through his far less impressive stubble.

Surprised by his presence and thoroughly caught off guard, I spoke in a way that I immediately regretted, blurting out the first thing that came to mind.

“Aren’t you supposed to be working on my castle?”

I felt my face heat up the moment I realised what I said and the dry man was just as unimpressed. The pope had a humorous glint in his eyes, as the dry man puffed up and huffed at me.

“And I would be, if it weren’t for your penchant for causing chaos wherever you go! Do you even realise what you’ve done this time, boy?”

Before I could respond, Emeri regained her courage and replied in my stead with righteous fury.

“Revealed the true life of Helios, that’s what! Something you all should have done centuries ago!”

Apparently, the outburst was just as unplanned as my own had been, because Emeri followed her bravado up with a whispered apology right afterwards.

Myers chuckled lightly. “Actually, your efforts have come as a boon to the church. Helios’ tale of bravery and sacrifice will only serve to ingratiate him further to his followers, if worded correctly. I imagine that wasn’t the result your co-conspirator Dalius was hoping for, correct?”

Emeri mutely shook her head, starstruck by the pope’s presence.

“No, the real issue with what you have revealed is that the system itself has reacted to your actions, somehow.”

“…What?” I responded lamely, not seeing what he was getting at.

The dry man took over, explaining what had happened.

“Child… I don’t know how to say this, but something related to Helios and the system resulted in the continental barrier that we know of today. That barrier has kept all of us here, locked away from the rest of the world that we only know exists through ancient records. However, as of several days ago… the barrier is no more.

For the first time in millennia, we are able to explore other continents.