Brom
Brom looked down at the coffin and didn’t know what to feel. Should he be sad? Should he be scared? Should he be enraged? Instead, as he looked down at his father’s partially mutilated corpse in the coffin, he just felt numb.
His mother had died on the battlefield when he was young and he didn’t have much memory of her. He at least knew he hadn’t seen her body, as it had never been recovered.
But his dad shouldn’t have died.
His father was the youngest of the Bronze Legion’s subleaders, and the one with the most potential. Especially during the years before the giant System hosted auction, his dad should have been in closed door meditation, not reinforcing a battlefield controlled by two other subleaders. And his father had been powerful, while the force he was up against was not. Even if his army was wiped out, his father should have been able to stay alive.
Most importantly, his father was not a coward. His worst wound should not have been on his back.
Brom wasn’t an idiot. He could see what was happening. And he knew his life was probably at risk as well, given his father had most likely been killed by one of the other subleaders of the Bronze Legion.
But, with his father lying dead in front of him, he just found it difficult to care.
“General. Um, Brom.” Darra Jur, Brom’s assistant in the War of the Chosen and in regular life for the last several years as well, tried to speak from his side. “What are we going to do?”
“What do you mean?” Brom didn’t even look at him.
“With the fighting over the last month, over half our soldiers in the War of the Chosen have died in the real world and we need to figure out what to do.”
Darra didn’t fully grasp what was happening, so he was trying to distract Brom by having him focus on the War of the Chosen. He was a good subordinate. And a part of Brom roused from thinking about what would happen to Darra if he didn’t get out of his funk and do something.
Still, it wasn’t a large enough part to matter.
“There’s nothing we can do. There were too many deaths in the main War of the Chosen army as well, so the Legion petitioned the System to have the two armies face each other so they could combine.”
“Isn’t that just asking all members of both armies to be annihilated?”
Brom looked back at Darra and didn’t hide his confusion.
“I’ve been by your side from the beginning, General.” Darra’s tail swiped a bit sheepishly. “It’s not hard to guess Summoner became the general before the start of the war.”
A bigger part of Brom started to rouse to life as he thought about what would happen when Gregin Laan, the great-grandson of the subleader who’d now likely take over the Bronze Legion in the future instead of his father, asked for Summoner’s surrender. And he almost started laughing.
Still, this wasn’t fair to Summoner and her compatriots either. The Bronze Legion’s second army should have lost in the first round given who their opponent had been, and only hadn’t due to the hard work of Summoner’s group, yet, with power in the Bronze Legion having shifted, now probably almost ninety percent of his remaining men would turn on them.
Gregin Laan and most of his commanders were from the Bronze Legion’s hardline faction. They’d never studied diplomacy and likely wouldn’t think twice about angering the Vin Clan, the Forest Cauldron, and, probably most dangerous for the Bronze Legion in the future, whoever was behind Summoner and her group.
And they also wouldn’t think twice about killing him.
Now roused enough to start truly thinking, Brom really had it sink in just how much danger he was in and the training his father had given him over the years finally started to kick in.
He could wallow away if it was only his life on the line, but it wasn’t. There was Darra, who they’d likely kill no matter if he ran away or not, and a few thousand people they would certainly kill if he remained, but might spare if he ran.
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“Darra, go inform my dad’s chamberlain to prepare a funeral procession to take my father to the teleportation platform. We’re going to have a public funeral for him on his home planet. Make sure we invite all the subleaders and the General as well. This is going to be a big event.”
Darra looked at him in shock, not understanding why he’d done a one eighty and decided to make such a large spectacle when he’d previously been planning a quiet ceremony. But Darra wasn’t stupid and he certainly caught on to some of his reasoning.
“Do you have a specific date in mind?”
“Set it for the day after the next round of the War of the Chosen is set to end.” Given how disruptive it could be otherwise, how long each round of the War of the Chosen would take was public knowledge precisely so events like his father’s funeral procession could be planned.
“Yes, General.” Darra bowed to him before leaving and Brom turned back to his father’s corpse, squeezing both hands hard enough to make them bleed so he wouldn’t fall into an inactive daze again.
* * *
Mila
“So, any good ideas, Mila?” Diana asked after having shared her senses while Brom explained why so many Bronze Legion soldiers had died in the real world and why those that were still living weren’t wearing their law armors.
“For us in the War of the Chosen, not really.” Mila, still disguised as Sarra Lin’Talic was sitting in the center of their camp, and the feeling she was getting from the coran soldiers was not good. “There are people here with bonds to those in the other camp, so the other army knows our location and will be arriving soon, not giving us time for anything which could bring this situation to our favor without risking annihilation.
“Aalam should have given you a plague for use against corans rounds ago. I think we’ll have to risk recruiting whoever we meet in the next round, so just release it.”
Diana sent an image of her secretly doing so, hiding her actions with her yin spirit’s stealth effects.
“As for Brom’s situation,” Mila continued, “What do you think about recruiting him?”
“He’s talented, at about the same tier as Nitya and Irena, and he has good leadership skills.” Diana sounded contemplative. “I’m not sure how he would interact with our primarily human force, though. Also, I don’t think he’d be able to bring much more than himself and Darra.”
Mila thought for a second. “He’ll be the one entering in the coordinates when he leaves the Bronze Legion’s capital planet along with his father’s corpse, right?”
Diana asked Brom and Mila listened in on the answer.
“With this type of procession, it would be me, Darra, my father’s chamberlain, my father’s coffin, and four guards, all of whom would be D ranks. My father’s chamberlain is also a D rank non-combatant.”
“And I’m assuming the guards would be hostile?” Diana asked at Mila’s direction.
“Two would be from our household guard, both of whom I trust. The other two would probably kill me if I ran away.”
“Alright.” Diana nodded her head. “What can you offer us for helping you?”
Brom made a twitching movement with his tail both Diana and Mila had come to learn meant nervousness. “All of my father’s universal credits have come into my possession, which includes 13 A rank universal credits as well. I’m willing to offer up half of them for—”
He stopped as Diana, at Mila’s direction, raised her hand. “Universal credits aren’t of much interest to us. Do you have anything else?”
Brom shook his head.
“Alright.” Diana nodded at him. “Then here’s our counter offer. We help you and you join our force. Then we will help you rise in power and, if you manage to take back the Bronze Legion in the future, it will become a subordinate force to ours.”
Brom’s tail started twitching in a different way, one which interacting with corans over the last few years had taught Diana and Mila meant uncertainty. “Sorry, but I’m pretty sure you’re Diana Alvaro, correct?”
Diana just nodded. It would be weirder if Brom hadn’t figured at least that out by now.
“I’m looking for your help because I know you have a world with access to the System teleportation network which no one can access without your permission and in a location no one knows. My guess has been, given the obvious power of your group, that you have a larger force behind you, but I’d rather not get involved with that force if possible.
“I have contacts in several powerful B rank forces and will try to join one of them.”
Diana smiled slightly. “I’m not making this offer on behalf of my master or any larger force, but on behalf of the force I lead which is based around my home planet. Yes, we’re smaller than a B rank force, but we’re also in the shadows, so we won’t fear the Bronze Legion like any existing B rank force you might join.”
Brom looked around the tent they were in, his detection skill likely enabling him to sense the locations of Nitya, Irena, and Isaiah, as well as possibly Aalam, through the fabric. “You are all following paths which the Bronze Legion would never allow, thus your current level of strength. How confident are you in being able to advance?”
“To C rank, easily.” Diana didn’t even hesitate. “The weakest of us were evaluated as B+ rank talents in the tutorial, and all of us have races with far higher affinities than what we need.”
Brom blinked a few times, a sign of startlement. But Diana raised her hand again.
“We don’t have much time before the general of the other army arrives.” She handed him a vial of green liquid. “First, take this. It’s an antidote to the plague we’ve already released.”
Brom immediately drank it.
“Then here are the identification number and passcode to our teleportation platform.” She gave him the numbers. “But be careful, as the passcode will only work for three days after this round finishes or until you arrive.
“Now all you have to do is fake the same symptoms everyone else will start developing in a few hours and there shouldn’t be anything else you need for our cooperation.”