“Why did that work?!” It really spoke to Flaethwyn’s essential character that despite that absolute uproar and pandemonium blurring out sound on all sides, I could still clearly hear her offended screech. Okay, well, to be fair she was only a few meters away. “That creature could have slaughtered us all with a thought! What’s the point of playing along with made-up goblin rules?”

“It’s not something I would expect a highborn to understand,” Sneppit replied, also shouting but probably not audible any farther away than I was standing. “Keeping your word and upholding contracts isn’t a moral virtue, it’s something you do so people are willing to make contracts with you again in the future. Devils depend on that. Every established power and religious organization on Ephemera warns their people against ‘em; they only get any souls at all because nobody can fairly say they don’t keep their word.”

I felt a jab in my side and looked down to find Judge Rizz poking me with her bladestaff. The blade, fortunately, was retracted into its mechanical housing, so this was just annoying and rude, not an attempted assassination.

“Princess Bitch Ears has a point, probably by accident,” the Judge said. She also didn’t moderate her tone any, and to judge by how swiftly Pashilyn had to intervene and begin soothing Flaethwyn’s incipient attack of apoplexy, the noise didn’t entirely cover it. Since Rizz didn’t open her mouth unless she had something of value to say, I just nodded and forbore to comment on the fact that goblins had notably bigger ears than elves. “That was both way harder and way easier than it should’ve been.”

“How do you mean?”

She jerked her head to one side and headed toward the back of this particular public ledge, where an awning sheltered what had been somebody’s shopfront before all the…everything. It wasn’t any quieter over there, but we were less obviously on center stage and could be surrounded by my own followers, which was better suited for a discreet word than right under the eyes of all of Fallencourt.

“It’s uncharacteristic for a devil to stand their ground like that,” Rizz said, as Gazmo and Sneppit stepped over to join us and the others drifted closer. “They’re prone to abandon even promising schemes if confronted and they’ll normally flee from much less dangerous opponents than you, Dark Lord. On the other hand, that bit about selecting names off a list smelled like bullshit to me. She should’ve been able to invoke her right to all those souls just as instantly as Jadrak’s.”

“Hm. Why would she put on a show like that?”

“To answer for sure, we’d need to understand a lot more about devils than we do,” said Gazmo. “Nobody even knows what they want souls for, exactly.”

Rizz nodded. “He’s right, but an idea springs to mind—just like the elf pointed out. That devil just got to stand in front of an entire city full of goblins and prove that she abides scrupulously by the terms of a deal when she could easily have taken her souls and poofed. There’ll always be some complete dickhead who thinks they’ll be smart enough to succeed where the Goblin King failed. We’re gonna have to watch out for that in the coming days.”

“Everybody I’ve talked to about devils said they always go quiet when there’s a Dark Lord and Hero active,” said Yoshi, stepping into the circle. “Wouldn’t that suggest this was Ozyraph’s last big job? As long as we’re here, at any rate.”

“That’s what I’d assume, ordinarily,” Gazmo agreed, “but by that logic, she wouldn’t’ve stared down a Dark Lord and Hero long enough to get outmaneuvered. Something’s fucky, here.”

“Story of our lives,” I said. “But Yoshi… This is it. This is our angle, how we beat this stupid game: the Devil King.”

Everyone stared at me askance, except Yoshi, who simply frowned. My own followers and his party had all clustered close now, easily able to watch us over the front row of goblins. The city was still roaring and cheering, but the noise was beginning to abate a bit.

“And what exactly are you planning to do with the Devil King, boy?” Rizz demanded after a pause.

I grinned and punched one fist into my opposite palm. “We’re gonna fuck him up.”

“What are you talking about, Omura?” Yoshi asked, still frowning.

“I’m talking about getting out from under this stupid Goddess bullshit, this Good versus Evil thing they’re pretending to care about to keep themselves entertained. They both hate the Devil King and the Void, right? And that fucker’s stealing souls, it’s not like taking him down isn’t an obvious moral good. This is how we beat the system, Yoshi! We destroy the Devil King. The goddesses want him gone more than they want to watch another round of their eternal JRPG, surely. They’ll leave us alone if we go gunning for him. I don’t have to conquer Ephemera and we don’t have to fight each other. That’s our way out!”

“All of that,” he said slowly, “is based on the assumption that you’re right. That it is a game.”

“Okay, fine, sure,” I said, waving one hand impatiently. “Say you’re right, and it’s not. Then it’s just Virya being the asshole, and this will work to keep her off my fucking back. In your version, it’s only Virya and the Dark Lord who’re the problem anyway. If Virya chills the hell out and the Dark Lord focuses on the Void rather than world conquest, then Good wins by default, right?”

“Hm.” Yoshi turned to Pashilyn, who tilted her head thoughtfully to one side.

“You know, he’s sort of right. If the Dark Crusade is doing something constructive instead of burning kingdoms and slaughtering masses, something the Goddess would approve of…then by definition, we win.”

“I’m all for kickin’ the Void’s ass, especially after what we’ve seen today,” said Sneppit, “but I gotta be the wet blanket here. The Devil King is a way more dangerous opponent than either of you; he might well prove to be a match for you both. Also, Lord Seiji, you’ve set in motion things that you can’t just stop. The Dark Crusade is building momentum and there’ll be nothing but chaos and destruction if you try to abort it.”

“I can’t do that, anyway,” I said. “Especially if we’re going to pursue my idea. Like you said, right now we’re in no position to threaten the Devil King. We both need to build power, the way Dark Lords and Heroes respectively do: he needs to grow stronger individually along with his party, and I need to build institutional strength. The normal way is that he Hero is playing a JRPG while the Dark Lord’s playing an RTS, you follow?”

Yoshi nodded; everyone else looked confused.

“Well, the Devil King was a Dark Lord; he beat multiple Heroes, so he knows how to deal with them. And he has his own power base. We’ll have to hit him with both, and that means we need both at a much higher level than they are right now. Come on, Yoshi, think about it. The Hero and the Dark Lord, joining forces? Let’s show the Goddesses something they’ve never seen before. They won’t be able to resist.”

He winced. “I hate to break it to you, Omura, but that’s definitely something they’ve seen before. The heroes and villains teaming up against a greater threat is a stock trope; it’s the most hype moment in every series.”

“Okay, fine,” I said impatiently, “even better. They’ll love it then, if it’s a classic of the genre. I bet they haven’t had a chance to see it too often in their own game. And that’s if my theory about the Goddesses is right; in the other version, this is still for the greater good and should satisfy Virya’s ambitions for this round of her conquest.”

Slowly, he nodded, his expression firming up. “Yeah. I think you’re right, Omura. Okay, let’s do it. We’ll have to stay in touch and coordinate, but for the most part we’ll need to go our separate ways, at least at first. Best not let on that we’re working together. Even if we’re against the Void, something tells me this is not going to be embraced by the Sanorite and Viryan nations, much less the organized religions.”

“That is putting it conservatively,” Pashilyn said, grimacing.

“I visit the King’s Guild from time to time,” I said, “and Aster’s still a member on the books, after all. Shouldn’t be too hard to check in occasionally, as long as we’re discreet.”

“So what is the plan, then?” Pashilyn asked, giving me a very neutral look. “In the immediate term. How do you propose to advance the Dark Crusade in a way that is not destructive to the Sanorite kingdoms?”

“Yeah, we’re all eager to hear that, I’m sure,” Zui interjected, “and speaking of which, Dark Lord, it’s starting to quiet down. You’d better address your people while the adrenaline’s wearing off and before everybody starts to crash. There are a lotta goblins out there who need to know what’s in their immediate future, just as much as the butts here.”

“My people, huh,” I mused, giving her a wry smile. “I never thought I’d hear that from you, Zui.”

“Yeah, well.” She folded her arms and grinned at me—reluctantly, but it was a genuine smile. “Can’t say you didn’t earn it, Seiji. That’s all we really needed from you, anyway: to prove yourself. Now go put on one of those shows you like so much.”

“He really doesn’t need encouragement,” Aster muttered to her.

“Yeah, but he sure as shit needs to be managed.”

“Okay, yeah, that one I’ll give you.”

I turned my back on them, patting Yoshi on the shoulder and tipping Pashilyn a wink, and then stepped back toward the center of the wide ledge, where the broken ends of the blown-up bridge to the Core Tower stood. There I hesitated, getting my first shock as the new overlord of Kzidnak.

There was a balcony over the main door to the tower, the one currently inaccessible due to the bridge being out. It was in an ostentatious position from which some fancy rich person could stand to gaze out across their domain, which anybody running that tower would undoubtedly consider Fallencourt to be.

“Whoah,” Nazralind said from behind me, noticing what I had. As others did too, the quiet spread further, the already-lessening cheers trailing off into mutters.

On that balcony stood a dark elf.

She was pretty, of course, that was hardly worth noting when it came to elves; in terms of facial structure she had the same generally pointed features as Nazralind and Flaethwyn, just with skin of a medium brown rather like the local lowborn, instead of the peculiar crystalline beige of the Fflyr elves. At least, the parts that weren’t purple or glowing white; this woman had some crazy tattoos. Her right arm and at least half her torso had been inked to a deep amethyst color, while her left was covered with spiraling patterns of markings in white that were faintly but definitely luminous. We could see a lot of this artwork because she wore tight wrappings around her chest and hips that would be fairly modest for a swimsuit but a strange choice of attire in any other circumstance. Her hair was stark white, and cut short in a messy style.

The dark elf held herself with a stiff spine and raised chin; I could only describe her bearing as “regal.” She caught my eyes and bowed to me, once. Not too deeply. Clearly satisfied with her day’s work.

Right. I’ll deal with you presently.

“Despite everything, I owe Jadrak a debt.”

My voice reached across the city, because of course it did. The goblins, already quieting down, settled further, clustering to the edges of their balconies and bridges and windows, thronging every ledge, watching me intently. It was the kind of immense social pressure that was a lot of people’s deepest terror; the kind I thrived on.

“I’m a stranger to this country—to this world, in fact. Let me tell you, before coming to Dount, I’ve never seen anything like the oppression, the persecution, the poverty and prejudice that plagues this damn place. The brazenness with which all these problems are caused by a few elite assholes, clearly for their own personal profit. Looking at this, I had no idea how to…fix it. I’ve been afraid to promise people anything better, because life keeps reminding me how cruel it can be, just when I dare to think I’m beginning to make progress. I have done my best to gather those who need me most The most persecuted, the poorest—I’ve done what I can to help them, but more than anything I can do, it seems that what helps them the most is each other. Being together, combining their talents and efforts, rather than being pitted against each other in a never-ending dogfight for the amusement of overbred highborn.

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

“But that’s just…a bit, here and there. Looking at the system, the size and the scope and the violence of it? Yeah. I have not been going around preaching hope, because if there’s one thing I hate it’s being made a liar. I have been offering vengeance, picking up people who’ve been kicked while they were down, and telling them I can’t promise anything except a chance to kick back.”

I hesitated, glancing around at the sea of intent green faces surrounding me.

“It’s heartbreaking, how all of them are willing to accept that. Like it’s better than anything they ever hoped for.”

Tilting my head back, I looked up at the stalactites hanging above us, letting the silence hang for another moment.

“Yeah… I owe Jadrak. He showed me where that leads. Thanks to him, I understand now. That is not enough.”

I slowly turned, not in a full circle as I had a wall to my back, but in a slow arc that let me gradually face every part of the city.

“Make no mistake, Jadrak was not wrong about the need. Everything that’s wrong in this country is wrong on purpose. The injustice that permeates every aspect of Fflyr Dlemathlys is deliberate and systematic, protected and promoted by the people sitting comfortably at the top of it. They have to go. As much as we might wish it, nothing will get any better unless blood is spilled!”

Another roar went up around me, causing a prickle of unease to penetrate the euphoria of showtime. This…this was what they reacted to. Just like all the others up top. They’d been trained to do it by similar speeches from Jadrak, I’m sure, but still… I was trying to make, ultimately, the opposite point here.

It’s almost as if generations of oppression creates deep, abiding rage that can never be truly dispelled.

For a long few moments, I let them yell, keeping my head high and my expression stern. Only once the energy began to flag on its own did I raise my hands for silence. The quiet accelerated and spread at my command, reasserting my control.

“But that cannot be the point.”

I gave them another three beats to chew on that in quiet.

“Everyone here today has lost something to Jadrak’s revolution. Lakes of goblin blood have been spilled in the last few days—and all of it by other goblins. You’ve lost loved ones, lost homes, lost jobs and opportunities, and the bitterest part? All if it was for nothing. Jadrak’s uprising was doomed from the beginning. He knew it, and if you’re honest with yourselves, all of you do, too. Is this better than the way things have been?”

Another grand pause to let the question hang in the air.

“We will have to fight. We will have to sacrifice. There is no way around it. But above all, we have to strive for something more. In the coming days we will build it together. It starts with this, a promise from the Dark Lord: wherever I rule, no one is better than anyone else. An elf, a goblin, a human, a beastman, all are just as valuable. Everyone deserves the chance to succeed according to their own aptitudes—a fair chance. That is what I’m offering.”

This time, the roar was louder and continued longer, which was heartening. Vengeance was not to be underestimated; it could keep people going when everything else betrayed them.

But so could hope.

God, I hoped I could keep it alive.

“I’ve seen it work on a small scale, just gathering together prostitutes and bandits and homeless outcasts: people are stronger together than the same number of people could be alone. The same is true on a larger scale. I’m going to make a very difficult, very painful demand of you: forgiveness. The bad blood in this country runs deep, the grudges are well and truly earned. But in my Dark Crusade, I require that they be let go. We will work together—lowborn, goblins, beastfolk, everyone who’s been denied their fair chance. We are only kept down as long as we’re kept at each other’s throats.”

Another pause, raise my chin, deepen the voice.

“We all know whose throats we should be at. And together? We are coming for them.”

I stood at the center of the renewed uproar, letting it wash over and through me, letting myself be seen by my people. Calm amid the storm, in control, a presence of reassurance they very much needed after this week.

Heh, my people. What a peculiar thought. Well, now that I considered it, now that I’d gotten to know them, I found I felt more kinship with the goblins than the Fflyr. It was like they reminded me of something I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

Above, the dark elf caught my eye again. Seeing me glance up at her, she inclined her head once in acknowledgment, gracing me with a faint smile of approval, then turned to go back inside.

Oh, yeah. We were gonna have words. Very soon.

“Boss, this may be more complicated than we thought,” Biribo muttered next to my ear. “Tattoos on Savin elves tell a lot about their social rank and accomplishments—I’ll coach you on all the details later, but the short version is I would not expect to see that much ink of that quality on an elf that young outside the Savindar Empire itself. And they’d be highly placed within the Empire, not what passes for a big shot in an isolated little colonial city-state. We might’ve been too hasty in assuming this one is from Shylverrael.”

Savindar… Fucking great. While I was desperately in need of some kind of backup, given how inevitably Lancor was going to home in on me after the Inferno… Well, I had not forgotten the story of Dark Lord Yomiko. Was I strong enough to prevent a whole-ass empire from turning me into basically their pawn?

It wasn’t even a question. Definitely not. At least, not yet. Yet another reason I needed to work fast.

“Well,” I said, putting on a smile as I rejoined the group and nodding politely at Pashilyn. “Does that answer your question?”

“I’m afraid it does,” she said. Oddly enough, she seemed more exasperated than alarmed.

Not so her counterpart.

“Have you utterly lost what passes for your mind?” Flaethwyn hissed, practically vibrating with barely-suppressed rage. “You dare to stand there preaching the overthrow of the entire kingdom, right in front of us, and then expect us to ally with you?!”

“Flaethwyn, have you ever taken a moment to step outside your privileged perspective and considered that maybe the kingdom needs to be overthrown?”

“Omura,” Yoshi protested while Flaethwyn jibbered, too enraged to form sentences.

“Amell.” The alchemist actually jerked as I turned my attention on her. “You need to tell them.”

“W-what? Me?” Poor kid looked even more nervous than usual, which was saying something. “Oh, I don’t…I’m not…”

“Your friends are good people,” I said as gently as I could and still be heard through all the hubbub. “They don’t mean any harm, they just don’t know. I’ve worked with other highborn on Dount—slavers, basically—who thought of themselves as basically decent people. They meant no harm to anyone and thought they were doing the right thing. It took having the reality of life for lowborn forcibly brought to their attention before they even considered that they needed to change. These people grow up in a bubble, they have no idea what the realities on the ground are for most people in this country. A lot of highborn are absolute monsters, but I do believe a lot would help to change Dlemathlys if they just understood.”

“But I’m not… Lord Seiji, you’re talking to the wrong person.”

“I’m sorry to dump this on you in particular,” I said with complete sincerity. “It’s a shitty thing to apply that much pressure to someone, and genuinely, I’m sorry. But none of us asked for this mess we’re all in, we just have to do our best. Yoshi’s from a different planet, and these two are noblewomen. You’ve all been hanging around with King’s Guild adventurers and aristocrats, I’ll bet. They have no idea. Somebody needs to make them understand it, and you’re all they’ve got, Amell. I’m so sorry about your friend; he would’ve been perfect. But it’s all down to you now.”

“Hey!” Suddenly, Flaethwyn was in front of me, hand gripping her rapier, and for once the expression on her face made me pause. I was accustomed to her temper tantrums of various magnitudes, they seemed to be part of how she oxygenated her blood, but this was different. The anger on her face was cold, focused… All too relatable. “Amell is a good girl, and she’s already been through a lot. She doesn’t need any more stress from you. Back off.”

I actually did, if just by a step.

“You know, Flaethwyn…”

“Oh, don’t even start—”

“I think this is your finest moment.”

She blinked, startled, then squinted suspiciously.

“After everything we’ve been through and all the shit I’ve given you, turns out it’s standing up for a friend that makes you snap. There’s hope for you yet.”

“Conzart addressing the mutineers,” she hissed. “So help me, Seiji, I’m going to— You know what, I don’t believe it’ll be the destiny of the Hero or the virtue of the Goddess’s followers that does you in, in the end. Someone is going to put a stiletto through your eye just because you are such an ass.”

“Flaethwyn, your country is a shithole.” The sheer bluntness made her lean back, grimacing as if she might get some of my commoner on her tunic. “I recognize you’re attached to it, but Fflyr Dlemathlys is an absolute nightmare to live in for most of the people who have to. Only an evil tyrant would build something like this on purpose. If you really care about Sanora’s virtues, about being Good, you’d do something to fix it.”

“The Goddess herself ordained—”

“Come on, there’s no way you’re too religious to know those are fairy tales someone made up to defend their power structure. Sanora doesn’t care about this country or its laws. I don’t think she cares about much of anything, but if you disagree with that, then you have to see the gap between the ethics the Convocation teaches and what happens out there. You don’t want me to topple it and start guillotining aristocrats? Then do something to prevent that becoming necessary!”

“That is not a small thing you ask,” Pashilyn said quietly.

I shrugged. “Obviously; neither would be rolling the heads in question. But if you’ll leverage your positions to figure something out, I will be more than happy to work with you. Things have to change, but I’d super love to do it without killing anyone else if possible. I am really tired of killing people and I’d much rather not, anymore. Help me out.”

Pashilyn tilted her head, blinked once, and then slowly smiled at me.

“Hm. You know… You really are a good person, Lord Seiji.”

I ignored the various noises made by Flaethwyn and my own treasonous followers.

“That is the dumbest thing anyone’s ever said to me. And just to throw that into context for you, I used to work in retail.”

“I’ve known my share of nihilistic misanthropes,” she said, still smiling. “Real ones; when one grows up among aristocrats, one grows accustomed to such people. You parrot some of their rhetoric, but you lack their…ennui. A man like you, who is so infuriated by the injustice of the world? Well. You must have believed deeply in people, once, to be so disappointed by them.”

I think the worst part was how Aster and Zui looked so…delightedly impressed.

“My dear Lady Pashilyn,” I said in my most pleasant tone, “just in case we don’t get to speak again for a while, I want you to know: I do not enjoy your company.”

Her smile only widened. “What a shame. I think we could have the most fascinating conversations.”

“I can’t believe you people won’t just let me stab him,” Flaethwyn complained.

“Flaethwyn,” Yoshi said suddenly, “I owe you an apology. I’m sorry, but I haven’t been a very good friend to you.”

She stared at him, blinking. “Oh, um. I…?”

He drew in a deep breath, visibly steeling himself. “You’ve been there for me from the beginning, the one quickest to correct my mistakes. You’ve saved me from a lot of self-inflicted problems. And I… I’ve been too nervous and too…weak to do the same for you.”

Flaethwyn herself was starting to look nervous, now. “I’m, ah, I’m not sure—”

“I promise I will do better,” Yoshi said seriously, holding her gaze. “You’re important to me. So I’ll help you realize when you’re being incredibly unpleasant. Which is frequently.”

The elf now looked like she was trying to swallow a particularly sour caltrop. It was one of the most delightful things I’d ever seen.

Yoshi stepped forward, lowering his voice, and gently touched her on the arm. “And if we were going to push you out of the group over it, believe me, we would have long ago. That’s not happening, Flaethwyn. I…I can’t lose anyone else. Okay?”

She inhaled, sharply and a little unevenly, and then managed to nod.

“Good. Thanks.” Yoshi smiled. “Now please stop being mean. You’re acting like him.”

“Hey!” I protested when he pointed at me. “What did I ever do?”

The resulting uproar consisted of so many overlapping voices I could only pick out the odd snatch of comprehensible language.

“—where to even start with—”

“—ahahahahaha HAA!”

“—oughta kick him right in—”

“—never missed a single opportunity to be—”

“—own personal fuckin’ Conzart—”

“—that mouth every minute of every—”

“I am also yelling!”

“—is why nobody wants to—”

Sneppit loudly and repeatedly clapped her hands together until order restored itself.

“All right, yes, it’s all very entertaining, but we all got more important shit to do. Lord Seiji, we’re gonna need you to stick around for a while and help get all this mess organized. Meanwhile, no offense meant and in all seriousness thanks sincerely for all your help, but it’s probably best if we get the rest of these butts outta Kzidnak before they start making things any more tense. Can we get somebody to guide them to a surface exit?”

“I’ll show ‘em out,” Judge Gazmo said. “I’m used to ‘em. They’re okay kids, mostly.”

“Hell yeah, I like these butts!” Fram said cheerfully, giving Amell a swat on the ass which caused the alchemist to gasp and leap away. “They’re funny. Sometimes on purpose, even!”

I held out my hand toward Yoshi. “Think about what I said.”

He stepped forward to clasp it with his own, meeting my eyes a lot more steadily than he would have not so long ago. “You think about what you said, too. We’ll stay on Dount for a while; the King’s Guild here has plenty of odd jobs for a group our size.”

“We should probably dawdle a bit on the way back,” Pashilyn added, “just to decide on what to put in the report. The King’s Guild needs to know the Goblin King is no longer a threat, but I think it’s best for everyone if we omit…large parts.”

That was definitely a moment of tension, but I nodded and released Yoshi’s hand. “I trust your judgment.” I kind of had to; it wasn’t like I could control what they did, and asking for the kind of trust I was wouldn’t work if I didn’t offer it in return. “In fact, you should probably just take credit entirely. It’s not like anybody’s going to contradict you. We’d better keep contact sparse, but I’ll reach out to you at the Guild soon.”

The city was beginning to quiet around us, the assembled goblins finally turning away from the spectacle—a lot seemed to be holding impromptu celebrations, but doubtless many would be starting to pick up the pieces of their lives. They were going to need help. In fact, there was a lot that had to be done—so much I hardly knew where to begin.

Well, actually, no. The one thing I did know was where to begin.

“Sneppit,” I said after the last round of goodbyes, as we watched Yoshi and his team vanish into a tunnel avenue with Gazmo and Fram, “know a private place nearby? Somewhere with a door and passable soundproofing. You and I need to have a talk.”