“…. Viceroy Alexandria has made it clear that any acts by the crown to her southern border or its allies in the north will be deemed as acts of aggression and that until a proper investigation is performed, she will deny all attempts at requests to extradite citizens of interest. Of particular note is former famed Adventurer Zero, pseudonym “The Flowing Blade,” who vanished after a dubious quest several years prior. With recent events and the resurfacing of said adventurer, details had appeared that the once unknown adventurer had ties with a political faction within Haerasong known as ‘Nochesuki,’ a firmly pro-magic faction that has oft been known to be at odds with the royal crown and their allies. What is less known of the group Nochesuki is the history of a supposed militaristic branch of their faction, which, while never officially acknowledged, has been suggested to be the culprit behind numerous acts of violence and disruption throughout the country’s history. Alongside connections to the political faction Nochesuki, the adventurer Zero was revealed to be none other than a member of the Baster family, a self-proclaimed…”
I put the paper down, stomach still churning.
Damnit. Damnit!
I’d tried so hard, so damn hard, to prevent things from turning out this way.
So how?
The answer was obvious in hindsight: a single person had allowed for the ripe conditions that had bred such conflict.
Me.
No. Not you. You were merely the tool used by a higher power.
A power I was now looking to meet with.
“Heavenward, the High Overseer will see you now.”
I nodded toward the secretary, still unable to get over the unease I felt whenever I was presented with them. I’d met plenty of powerful figures, both politically and literally. In fact I knew every single active nizeium and ornnax grade adventurer by name.
In power alone, the secretary was no lesser to any but the ornnax grade adventurers.
A secretary as powerful as those who were considered heroes within Haerasong. And she wasn’t even an outlier; all the secretaries I’d met here had been of similar power.
Of course, that only made sense, considering who I was meeting with.
My mouth drying as I pushed through the doors before me, doors that should have been impossibly heavy to open but had been enchanted to open with no more effort than I could conjure forth from my pinky finger, I entered what looked like a throne room, if the ruler of such a nation had not a care in the world for the image they presented, random clutter strewn about as their owner jumped from project to project.
“Ahh, Dion. I’m glad to see you are fine and healthy. Last time, you seemed agitated.”
I gulped, bowing low before I dared to say anything. Within Haerasong, it would have been unheard of for anyone to see me bowing to another; I wouldn’t even bow to our own king.
But then, he was just a mere mortal, not a goddess wearing human skin.
“Sage Above All. I am pleased to see you in fine health as well.”
A lie. I would prefer nothing more than for the monstrous being to die of a sudden heart attack, but I wasn’t even sure if the woman had a heart beating in her chest.
Had one looked at the woman without context of what they were seeing, they wouldn’t have thought much of her. She was charming, perhaps even beautiful, but in a rather mundane way. She wasn’t exotic, enticing, alluring, or whatever captivating adjective one thought of. Age-wise, she looked to be in her early to mid-twenties with a surprisingly lean figure. Any woman of such wealth and power should have had more than enough to eat, plump from fine dining at every opportunity. Still, there was no such excess fat on her body. Even her smile seemed innocent enough.
That was until you realized that it was all a mask, the outward appearance entirely unrelated to the reality of the soul within the skin, like some creator god thought it ironically comical if the most powerful being in existence looked entirely unassuming, like nothing more than a pretty village girl.
“So, to what do I owe the pleasure? It’s only been a few months since you last came to question whether I was involved with the dungeon within your country acting up.”
“To which you were,” I added without thinking about it.
“Bah, neither here nor there. Just because the rest of the world has barely understood the basic principles of simple electricity doesn’t mean I intend to limit here to such archaic innovations. Speak before I grow annoyed.”
With a lightly trembling hand, I raised the newspaper.
“Yes?” She raised an eyebrow at me, apparently aware of what it said already.
Not like I was surprised; it was as if she knew everything.
“War. War is coming to Haerasong. A war that you used me to assist in setting the stage for. Was this always your intention?”
“Of course.” She shrugged.
“Why!?” I threw my hands up in the air. “I only worked with you because you said-”
I wanted to continue speaking, but I couldn’t, literally couldn’t, the words silenced before they could be said, an act of magic I could not comprehend.
“What I said was that if you did not work with me, I could simply destroy your precious country. I did not say that I wouldn’t involve myself, and as for why, well, that is simple. Complacency breeds stagnation, which has been this world’s state long enough. Furthermore, certain individuals within your country need to be encouraged if they are to reach their fullest potential.”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
I found my voice again as she released the silencing spell, furrowing my eyes as I threw out a name.
“Zero?”
“Ahh, good eye. See, this is why I decided to work with you. You are competent, all things considered. Yes, he and two or three others have the marks of proving intriguing individuals, but not if they remain in constricting conformity and suffocating adequacy.”
Zero. Damn you, Zero. If only you hadn’t been born.
The boy seemed hellbent on ruining my life. As an adventurer, he was nothing special, just another hired muscle that would act first and think never. That was until he’d gone on to murder my daughter, which, while I couldn’t forgive, I could at least look past.
Now, his very existence was apparently enough to warrant the attention of the would-be god before me, a being which had no right existing; that much power should have been held only by a true god, not a being of flesh and blood.
But here she was, deciding that bringing war to a country was of less significance than the development of a single man.
Everything. Everything I worked for. Everything we worked for! Hundreds of years of relative peace! Destroyed by a single insignificant man.
“I can understand why you may find such an outcome unfavorable, but alas, that’s none of my concern.” The Sage Above All shrugged. “But, now that events have been set into motion, you’ve done everything I’ve asked for, and as such, I will finally free you of your obligations to me. I am satisfied.”
I sat stone-faced, trying to register what she meant.
After several seconds of stunned silence, I finally found my words again.
“Just like that?” I questioned.
“Yes.
“Meaning?”
“Meaning, as I said, you’ve fulfilled your side of the deal, and so I shall fulfill my side of the deal. On my honor as the High Overseer, I shan’t bring harm to your lands.”
I gulped, recalling something like eight years ago when the woman appeared before my office desk, forcing me to my knees with her presence alone. I’d known instantly that there was nothing anyone could do to defy her. So I’d capitulated, doing everything I could to ensure she would never turn her wrath upon the world or, more importantly, Haerasong itself.
And now, she’d granted me the one thing I’d desired, a guarantee of safety from her, not for myself, but for the country as a whole.
And it had only cost thrusting us into civil war.
“Just… one question,” I uttered, wrapping my mind around everything.
“Yes?”
“Everything you had me do, was it always just to lead to this? Your desire to see the formation of the Sentries, was that for this?”
“Of course.” She said flippantly. “Ironic, isn’t it? Those Sentries, meant to help secure city safety, allowed others to move around more discretely.”
“But the program never even fully rolled out! It was only tested in Dunehold!” I raised my voice, trying to deny that something that seemed like an innocuous suggestion had always been born from darker machinations.
“It was the uncertainty it brought that mattered; lifelong guards and their ilk would find themselves less concerned with executing their jobs well if they weren’t certain whether they’d even have that job in the coming weeks or months.”
I remained silent, thoughts chasing one another, trying to make sense of a situation I’d already understood but did not want to accept.
It’s my fault.
I had failed my country, but had I any other choice? My options had been to work with her or risk the nation being razed by something that couldn’t be fought, that existed beyond what mortals should be capable of.
It’s still your fault.
“If it makes you feel better,” The Sage smiled at me, an alarming smile that spoke of so many things I couldn’t possibly know of hiding just out of sight. “Now that you’ve been freed of your obligations of our partnership, you may do as you please. Go, do your best to hold back the oncoming tide.”
“And you won’t involve yourself, regardless?”
“Of course, that was the purpose of our agreement, was it not?”
I couldn’t believe her, but had she any reason to lie?
It’s not natural.
She went against the natural order, a force of nature more than a living thing.
But.
But she hadn’t lied to me, something as powerful as she had no necessity to lie, had never told me a lie, save for a lie of omission.
“Fine. Then, I must thank you for your hospitality.” I forced myself into a low bow once more, hating every second. “But I must be going. Perhaps war can still be prevented.”
“Sure, do try your best.” Again, she flashed me a smile that reminded me of the maw of a shark, ready to bite me in two. “The more rocks thrown into a still pond, the greater the ensuing ripples.”
Turning around, I left behind the throne room, exiting into the waiting room just before the throne where the Sage had met me.
“I hope your audience with Her Highness left you satisfied.” The secretary nodded to me. “Unfortunately, I must regretfully inform you that we will be terminating all special privileges now that you are no longer an active partner with Her Highness. Among those is that our borders will be once more closed to you. We apologize for the inconvenience.”
So I’ve been kicked out?
I had no issues with that; I wanted to spend no more time in the foreign lands than I’d already had.
“If that’s the case, would it be possible for you to send me directly back?”
“Certainly, we have the means. We can route you to an existing interpolation gate within your borders, or if you would do us the service of waiting an hour, we can temporarily redirect one of our newly constructed interpolation gates to open a temporary spatial tunnel directly to your office.”
“I can wait.” I smiled as pleasantly as possible, a skill I’d honed over decades spent rubbing elbows with high-ranking nobility or other important figures.
Behind my smile, dread filled me as I instantly latched onto something the woman had said so casually.
Recently constructed?
Ring Gates, or ‘Interpolation’ Gates as they were apparently once known, were ancient magical constructs that we’d barely managed to cobble together to a working state, our knowledge of them so pitiful it took everything we had simply to keep the still operational ones functional. Not even Varana, which had the most advanced magical research facilities in the world, knew how they properly worked, at least not past theories that all logic dictated was an impossibility. The Gates were of immense strategic value, but with our knowledge of how they operated barely scratching the surface, the idea of recreating them was as fantastical as humans growing wings and gills so that they could spread domain over the land and sea.
And yet, I knew I hadn’t misheard her. Newly constructed.
It wasn’t enough that the Sage was some ungodly entity that had transcended time with the power to wipe us out like a child would an ant. No, she was so vastly knowledgeable of things we thought impossible; there was nothing we could do if she had ever decided to be done with us. We had neither the strength of might nor the gully of the weak, for she trumped us in both.
I made the right choice.
My actions would cost the lives of hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of my fellow countrymen.
But I’ve always been the one to make those decisions.
The value of the individual meant nothing in the face of the greater good. If presented with the same choices, I’d repeat them in a heartbeat. Thousands dead was still better than Haerasong left a forgotten crater at the bottom of the sea.
I made the right choice.
Rationalizing, I knew, but that didn’t mean it was wrong.
“Plus,” I mumbled quietly now that I was alone, the secretary had walked off to inform whoever oversaw their Ring Gate system of my request. “There is still a chance.”
War was all but inevitable; the tides of fate had flowed against us, but those tides hadn’t reached the shore yet. There was still a chance to dampen the worst of it. A hasty seawall was better than nothing, after all.
Lives will be lost, but it may not be for naught.
At the thought of lives being lost, one face flashed to the forefront of my memories, a brief smile flickering as I imagined that damned Rook lying unmoving in some dungeon cell.
And maybe if we’re all lucky, he will be among them.
Comforting myself with the single silver lining, I sat down.
All I can do for now is wait and see.