They gathered the extended family again, but this time they brought the village chiefs from the eanling and minnid villages. The two elders knew there was bad news to be shared just by reading their faces. It was decided to keep the villagers in the dark as to where the shelter's exit was located since it made no sense to place it here or there. Nero could connect to any spot where he had a persistent portal.
Nero was the one to deliver the news. "What we feared came to pass. The enemy came to Hom and slaughtered everyone there. The people from the other villages that took over the houses in Hom all died. We are not sure how the other villages are doing or even if they are alive."
"That's..." Hom's elder gasped.
"Exactly what we warned everyone that would happen," Byron's voice boomed. "And why you wisely decided to come with us. They were knights, of the fifth and sixth-tiers. There was nothing even I could do against them. Those villagers decided to stay on their own, decided to take over the abandoned village on their own. They knew the enemy was coming but decided to not believe."
"Did they burn the village?" The elder asked, hopeful.
"No," Huron replied. "But we are not going back there. We are going to find somewhere reserved in Bast we can settle. Maybe connect with other minnid settlements. Gather our people."
"We are also moving out," Byron said. "Whoever wants to go back will have to leave tomorrow morning."
"Is the enemy still there?" The eanling elder asked.
"We can't tell. We won't expose us or our hiding spot to them," Huron said. "I didn't sense anyone in range though. Anyone that wants to go will have to rely on their own luck."
"The minnid tribe will follow you," Hom's elder said.
"We're staying as well," The eanling elder agreed.
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The next morning, about six hundred people left the shelter into Hom's bloody streets. Nero set his foot down and expelled everyone that voiced strong opinions about the shelter or demanded unreasonable things. They, of course, went out and immediately started to spread bad rumors about Nero and his family.
If Nero was a callous person, he'd lure monsters into the shelter from the castle and set them free on these ungrateful people. In fact...
He waited for the portal to close and then called Huron and Crystal.
"I want to clear the castle of monsters. I'm going to lure the horde into the shelter, then kill all of them. Maybe check on Coriander's army."
"I thought you were done with that. Don't be greedy, Nero. Leave that behind," Crystal warned with a serious tone.
Nero's enthusiasm wilted. "Guess you're right. What should we do now?"
"Scout the exit next to the capital, reach out to our contacts. Get our bearings and maybe avoid seeing the King," Huron said half-joking.
"Is there a way I can avoid that? Reporting to the palace?" Nero asked.
"Amaryllis should know," Crystal answered. "They will try, but they can't force you if they can't reach you. Maybe the dwarf that fled the castle with you can answer that."
"I'll do that. Let me reach the town south of the capital, then I'll contact Amaryllis and ask the quartermaster for directions."
Their planning done, Nero took Huron to check the safety of the portal on the hill overlooking the capital. He changed the standard portal for a keyed persistent one and paid for two weeks of upkeep. With that done, he stealthed and went back to the village of Hom. Nero's intentions were simple. The people that left or were expelled knew where the portal opened. Nero couldn't move it without going outside. He stealthed and walked out. The village was deserted, the ones that returned unwillingly to deal with the gore. Nero followed the tracks, wary of some trap left behind by the knights.
He didn't discard the chance they were watching, expecting them to return. Letting the villagers leave was a liability, but one they were willing to bear because the alternative would be murder. He set five persistent portals around Hom in a star shape. Without sensing any danger, Nero went into the woods and used a normal portal to go back to the shelter and walk out of the keyed one on the hill. Like that, he moved hundreds of miles in a few seconds.
He ran toward the satellite city but not at full speed. Even though he left no tracks, the fast movement still disturbed the environment too much. He paced himself to reach the town right before the sunset. Nero posed as a traveler and Adventurer, crossing the gates and registering at an inn without any issue. Once inside the room, he brought Huron out to scan for trouble then went into the shelter.
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The next morning, Altia woke up with Nero latched to her. She tried to wriggle free but she might as well be held by a stone statue that solidified around her.
"Nero! I need to visit the outhouse!" She whispered.
He chuckled. "I'll never gonna let you go," He replied.
"Right. I know it is usually me that grabs you but can I go? Otherwise I'll go and you'll have to clean the bed."
Nero released her. Altia pouted and punched his chest. She went away rubbing her sore knuckles.
After eating breakfast with his family, Nero went back to the inn room, checked the lock and window for intrusion, then left. He asked around for directions and soon found the guild branch. Since the capital's main office was just an hour's walk away, it was an outpost rather than a full branch.
"Good morning, Adventurer," A cat-kin receptionist, quite the buxom maiden with revealing clothing, greeted him. Nero kept staring at the tip of her triangular ears, shifting in a V-pattern between both ears and the bridge of her nose from time to time to avoid looking creepy.
"I wish to speak to the guild master. Could you message her?"
The cat-kin receptionist crossed her arms but Nero kept his eyes focused on her upper head. "The guild master is at the capital. I suggest you go there. Can I help you with anything else?"
"Yes. Could I have your name?" Nero smiled.
"I'm Vanil. Pleased to meet you, Adventurer..." She fished for his name.
"I'm Zero. Could you message Amaryllis that I'm here? I need to talk to her," He said with a low voice.
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Using the guild master's name casually startled Vanil. She touched her lips but Nero was studying the creases of her forehead.
"As I told you, you need to go to the capital, sir."
Nero stared at the tip of her nose. "Vanil. I know you can contact the main branch. Tell the pixie to flutter her way over here now. I can assure you you'll be in trouble if you don't do that. I'll take full responsibility for whatever happens. Now, don't make a scene, behave professionally. People are staring at us. Let me give you the message to convey to the guild master. I expect your discretion, you surely understand."
She frowned and bit her lower lip. "As you wish, sir. Please sit over there, I'm sending a message to the main headquarters. What do you want to send?"
Nero took a velvet pouch with the crystal from Tyre's first kill. The one worth 72,250 Essence. "The message you'll send is simple," he wrote in a slip of paper. - 'Adventurer Zero requests urgent contact with the guild master. He is bearing a crystal worth ______ ' - you measure the crystal in this bag add the value to the message here where this line goes, and hand the crystal back to me. You'll understand once you see it."
Vanil took the bag and looked inside. A flash of pure crimson light came from the open pouch. She held the mouth of the pouch over her upside screen, tilted it to make the crystal touch the screen, measured the crystal, and then tilting it back to let it fall inside without ever leaving the bag. She looked at the reading and handed the pouch back with trembling hands.
"I got your message, sir. I'm sorry. I'm relaying the message to the guild master right away. Please wait."
Nero knew the crystal would have an impact. In conventional Adventurer wisdom, that would have come from a monster with a level over seventy-two hundred. There was no such thing or the world would've gone to shit already. Which meant that crystal was something that should not exist as well, but it did. Therefore the receptionist thought it was something really important.
Another receptionist, a wood elf with brown skin and green hair brought him a cup of tea and some dry biscuits. Nero gently accepted and wondered if the crystal had too much of an impact. He could swear the elven girl was trembling.
He waited for ten minutes, and then he heard the buzz of insect wings. "Nero!" Amaryllis fluttered around and kissed the tip of his nose, then hugged his cheeks. "You're dismissed, Vanil. Good job and keep those lips shut better than that decolletage!" She winked at the cat-kin. "Nice rack, by the way!"
The door slammed shut behind him. Nero held a fist in front of his mouth, trying not to laugh. Amaryllis talked and he noticed they had no privacy wards on. He could hear the faint blurb from the guild branch outside. It was probably done on purpose.
"She's a busybody of a good girl. Don't mind her. How are you?"
"Better now," Nero smiled. "My job request was fulfilled, I'd like to turn it in. I have already been paid but I wish to solve it with you instead of having some uncomfortable debriefing at the palace."
Amaryllis flew around him, appraising his new equipment. "Things went to shit, didn't they?" The pixie said the first part in a low voice then looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "Nice hat, by the way. Stylish! Purple goes so well with you, especially when it is that much purple!"
"More than you would believe. We can talk about that in a more private setting later. Everyone that should be fine is fine, but the rest... not so good."
Amaryllis puckered her lips and pulled them from one side to the other several times. "That's troublesome. But the request was screwed up from the start. Okay. Do you have a written report from the client?"
Nero took the items from his dimensional pouch. The letter was written by Tyre and signed by the prince and all the knights. The insignia from Mayleefa. Amaryllis took some standard forms from a drawer in the office and filled it, asking Nero to surrender information where it was relevant. She read everything and then wrote a full report herself. The image of the pixie, with her less than two feet of height, seriously writing with a pen on the form sheet she could use as a blanket almost made Nero laugh but he held his mirth.
"Good. Everything is in order, and by my powers, as the guildmaster I congratulate you on a job well done. Officially you are off of the hook, your job fulfilled. The signed Essence insignia from captain Mayleefa will be added to the report we are sending the palace as proof you did your job with honors," Amaryllis said that loud enough that people outside could hear clearly if they wanted. "Vanil!" She shouted.
The door opened at once and the cat-kin receptionist sashayed in. "Guild Master?"
"Thank you for your help, Vanil. Next time someone asks for me, just let me deal with the poor bastard. I'll process this request myself. Please keep matters regarding mister Zero here a secret."
"With all due respect, you don't need to tell me that, guild master," Vanil protested.
Amaryllis "Right, right. Zero, let's have a cup of tea elsewhere, shall we?"
The pixie vanished but Nero felt a weight on his shoulder and the tiny hands tugging his ear. He left the guild branch and walked down the street, following her tugs while they talked with whispers.
"Let me guess, Vanil has lips looser than her morals," Nero said.
"Yup. This evening, the whole capital will know you completed your assignment. Turn left here."
He walked down a less-crowded street.
"How's everyone?" She asked.
"We evacuated the whole village plus the eanlings. We tried to bring the other nearby villages with us but some didn't want to come."
"I used [Clairvoyance] on Hom yesterday," She said. "I was worried it was your people. I couldn't identify the race of the bodies."
"Everyone that matters is safe, somewhere else," Nero stretched the words and the pixie hummed that she understood what he meant. "Everyone else is dead. And you owe me an explanation on the overflow thing."
"I can see glimpses of the probable futures, just that," She downplayed her ability. "I tried to rush you into it, and I'm sorry. We're here. Enter this shop."
It was an apothecary. Nero entered and Amaryllis canceled her invisibility.
"Greetings, can I help you..." An old woman trailed off as she caught sight of the shoulder rider. "Mary! The usual?"
"Yes, please!" Amaryllis beamed.
They were led into the basement where a maze of tunnels and doors greeted them. The old woman had a spring on her foot and no Arbitrium, Nero noticed. They entered a room furnished with a fancy tea table and two armchairs.
"I hope you enjoy your stay. The tea will be served soon," The old lady said and withdrew.
A hum and a low buzzing sound took over the room.
"Okay, spill the beans, Nero," Amaryllis said, concern visible in both her face and voice. "What the fuck happened there?"
Nero explained it to her, the full director's cut version with deleted scenes.
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"By the demon lord Maou's panties!" Amaryllis cursed. "You'll have to leave the kingdom, kid."
"Is it that bad?" Nero asked, knowing the answer.
"It is worse. You can't show your face before the court, ever. They won't use a truth-teller soldier with a lousy first-tier Skill, they'll use a [Truth-Seer] with a proper fourth-tier Class and a bunch of Skills to wring the truth out of you even if you don't say a word. And once they know what you can do, your life is over."
Nero put a hand over his neck.
"No, not like that. Worse. They'll force you to make and farm Dungeons for them. I bet Xander has a list of people he would like to personally murder over and over. Not even Zuni and I would be able to keep you safe unless we go to war."
Despite the casual use of the King and the Dean's name, Nero got the gravity of the situation. If everyone he loved was telling him the same thing, he'd be an idiot to go against it.
"There's the issue with the party of knights from Coriander traveling through the countryside."
"Yes, I'll report that along with all the betrayal, double-crossing, and backstabbing that took place. The village of Hom was decimated by raiding enemy soldiers. Now, give me the bodies."
Nero nodded. When he looted the battlefield, the bodies of the enemy commanders and the knights from Bast were stored whole. Nero handed over the corpses of the knights, including Calder, Mayleefa, and Valanaegornif. To stand in for Tyre's corpse, Nero took out the [Monster Bag] and produced the corpse of the Dungeon boss. It was a mutated version of Tyre but was still recognizable as the prince.
"Loot the bodies, remove all the contents from the pouches. If you have [Essence Manipulation], you can also see what they have and loot their Dimensional Pouches. Keep everything to yourself," Amaryllis instructed him.
Nero did that, taking what he could from the dimensional pouches. The three big shots, Calder, Valanaegornif, and Mayleefa had a lot of things. Calder in particular had several documents but Nero kept those. Bast didn't deserve enemy intelligence and there might be something important regarding his sister in those. The others also had a lot of papers and letters, but he handed all of the documents from the Bast knights over to the pixie.
"How are we explaining this?" Nero said, referring to the mutations."
"Mangle the body. Saw off the left arm and the right hand at the wrist. Stab the back and I'll infuse the body with nightshade poison."
Nero turned his bayonet on and inflicted wounds on the Dungen boss' body. Amaryllis used a syringe to inject poison on the body, causing the meat to rot. They stabbed the back with Valanaegornif's swords, and a damaged leonal body was ready to stand in for prince Tyre. Amarylis stored all the bodies in her own pouch.
"I'll deliver the bodies to the palace. I hope they won't press the issue further, but if they do, I'll make sure they know it is a fight they don't want to buy," She declared.
"Thank you, godmother," Nero said, hopeful but a bit disgusted by the state of the room.
She followed his sight and shrugged. "They'll clean it with magic. Don't worry. Now, get a portal going. I need to hug Rin!"