It didn’t take me long to follow the mana trail back to Re’relihn. Considering that we’re in the city proper, Arciel must have been taken the Arcielvitzi keep within the city, a more militaristic, official building as opposed to their estate.

“Set me down here.” I ordered the carriage driver and after a moment, stepped out into the streets before the keep.

There was a gatehouse with a couple of soldiers that I started pacing toward.

“Hey, you can’t enter, this is private property…”

The guard’s voice trailed as I strode right by him. I grabbed the iron gate, and pulled its bars apart, creating a gap that I stepped through.

“Y-you’re a hero! W-wait! Stop!”

They hastened to draw their weapons and follow me. They followed me down the long walk to the keep’s front entrance, but never actually tried getting in my way, constantly ordering me to stop and leave. I reached the door and punched the handle, destroying whatever locking mechanism there was, and then I opened the door, closing it in the guard’s faces. They didn’t bother to follow me.

I feel Arciel’s mana stream coming from below, she must be a dungeon or something. I scoured the bottom floor of the keep, which was noticeably absent of any officials. Her father probably made sure that there were no witnesses to the scene of him dragging his daughter around.

I entered a room, and saw two fully armored guards besides a door that seemed to lead downward. They didn’t seem like they were expecting me and they stumbled back. I thought I was going to be able to step right by them like I did the others, but these personal guards drew their swords and stepped in front of the door.

“His lordship has requested none enter. You are trespassing on family grounds.”

I continued walking toward them, ignoring their threats. One knight moved forward to swing at me. I blurred forward and grabbed his wrists, crushing them as hard as I could, but without my own gauntlets, I risked breaking my hands trying to punch armored opponents. I shoved him away when the other knight slashed at my back.

I turned in sudden rage, punching forward at the second knight’s helmeted head. I heard an explosion as it left a dent in his helmet, he stumbled back, disorientated. It was clear these two weren’t going to place nice.

“You wanna fight for real, motherfucker…?”

I growled and slipped my sword off my back, still sheathed. The first knight tried slashing at my backside but I weaved around him and slammed the hilt of my sword into his helmet. This time, the results were more noticeable. He fell to the ground, blood seeping out of his visor. I drew my sword from its scabbard, tossing it to the floor and lifting my scabbard up as a cudgel. The second knight backpedaled, but it was too late.

I moved forward and slammed the scabbard into his neck. I heard an ugly noise, and whatever happened to the knight beneath his armor, he wasn’t getting up after that. My scabbard was broken in two though. I tossed it to the ground and then continued through the door. I doubt Riegal has any other guards. I don’t think he knows how heroes function to have realized how I was able to follow him in the first place.

A flight of stone steps lead deep underground, and I hurried down them, my worries growing stronger. It didn’t seem to be a normal dungeon, it seemed specially built for this one purpose.

I eventually reached the bottom level, and found a single room. Behind a door I heard Riegal’s voice,

“I want to give you one last chance…Dispel your summon, and concede your magic…”

Another door had its lock broken as I stepped through it, revealing a sight I hadn’t thought I would actually see.

I knew the rumors, and I had my suspicions – About how Riegal had treated Arciel in the past. But I didn’t want to believe them, that a father could act in such a way to his flesh and blood.

It was a small, circular stone room, with a shaft of light beaming from above, waters flowed around the floor from some source. In the middle of the chamber, strung from a chain and suspended in the air, both her hands bound, was Arciel, not wearing a scrap of clothing, her back exposed to me. Beside her was her father, there was a bull whip in his hand. I took a moment to look at Arciel’s back, but thankfully it didn’t look like there were any fresh wounds.

I say fresh because I did see old wounds. Scars of previous whip strikes, from years ago, that crisscrossed her tiny, thin body.

“What are you doing here!? Guards! Come to me!”

I stepped forward, staring at Riegal.

“Dispel your summon! Do it, damn it!”

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Riegal lifted his whip with the intention of striking Arciel, but I wouldn’t let him get any further than that. I charged forward, shoulder checking him into the wall.

“Get, off me!”

I saw one of his fancy amulets start to glow, presumably with self defense magic. I grabbed hold of it and ripped it from his neck, throwing it to the floor. In doing so, I gave him the time to punch me, not realizing that a ring on his hand had started to glow with magic as well. His fist impacted on my side, and I felt a sudden shock and an explosion of pain ran through me. The force wasn’t enough to send me off my feet or move me, though.

I grunted with rage and batted his hand away, He tried to further struggle, as I revved back a punch aimed at his head.

As a normal, unarmored man, getting punched by a hero at full strength was essentially a death sentence. The power that Arciel gave me improved my strength, it would probably turn his brain into mush, if not his entire head. I briefly reconsidered. I made a promise to keep Arciel safe. But killing a Grand Noble would probably cause more issues for her. I grabbed his neck and gripped it, choking him. He tried to punch me again with that ring of his, but the same trick would work twice on me as I held his arm.

His face turned red and he struggled, kicking me and writhing, breathlessly trying to speak.

After a moment, I let his body fall loosely to the ground. I looked down at him, before giving him a hard kick to his stomach and spitting on him.

I turned, and was stunned again in seeing the sight of Arciel. She look back at me out of the corner of her eyes, her gaze dull. Her had that been styled into twintails before now hung loosely over her body. At her feet was a pile of her clothes.

I stepped forward and grabbed the chain holding her arms up. They snapped, and I caught Arciel as she fell the ground.

“It’s alright now.” I said softly to her.

I grabbed her coat from the floor and wrapped it around her as I held her close.

“You…really came.”

She tried speaking normally, beginning to say more, but her voice faltered as she began to cry.

I held her quietly in my arms for a long while.

“I grew up with three younger sisters.” I began, “They always got up to the stupidest stuff…We all thought they were supposed to be boys since they were such troublemakers. Even after getting injured playing in the road, or slipping on rocks, they never stopped smiling and playing stupid games.”

Arciel had stopped crying, and she looked up to me. “That’s probably because…They knew you were there, looking out for them, when they fell.”

“Eh, I don’t wanna give myself too much credit…It’s what anyone would have done.”

She averted her eyes, with a small smile.

…

It was a large debacle that blew up in the Arcielvitzi family’s face.

After making sure Arciel was safe and sound, Fifio’s family, at the behest of Fifio and Jeremiah, had quietly alerted the city garrison to what had happened. The keep was soon crawling with soldiers, and Riegal was, for the time being, put behind bars pending an investigation.

Andestine had once been a more evil place. A place where this kind of behavior on the part of the nobles was accepted quietly at the top rungs of government. I was half expecting Riegal to walk away a free man, but it looks like he’ll be going through the works.

It was thanks to the head councilman of Andestine. The high council was made up of a small number of delegates that were elected by a congress, and given oversight over the different sectors of Andestine. The newest head councilman however, had ruffled feathers with his total reform of the government in the last decade. People whispered that he was a dictator under their breaths.

But if this is the result of his power grab, of his radical reforms, that a man like Riegal is actually persecuted, I’m all for a little bit of autocracy.

Riegal argued over and over that he was being unfairly treated, and that may have very well been the case – He seemed to have a history of disserving people and now that the barrel of the law was pointed at him, no one was sticking their necks out for him, and the dogpile had begun.

Regardless, Arciel was safe, and that was all that mattered. We stayed at the Heroes Chapel again in the immediate aftermath. Oddly enough, Arciel requested another bed in her room for me, and told me she wanted me to stay with her. I was in no position to argue, but it was certainly weird to have her treating me this way. I knew she was scared though. I won’t tease her, at least for a while.

A few days went by in relative peace. I had to urge Arciel to leave her room and get out into the sun every day, and she was still in a state of fear and shock, but at least I could still make her smile.

It was when we received correspondence from the 153rd knight platoon that our brief peace was ended. The 153rd was the unit that me and Arciel had been assigned to before, to chase down Alisson into Freigat. Me and Arciel alone had returned to the homeland at Riegal’s behest, we were essentially plucked off the frontlines on the whims of a noble. Looking back on it though, it may have saved our lives –

Because we learned that the 153rd had been wiped out. The news had taken months to reach the homeland. Only one survivor remained, another summoner that me and Arciel were good friends with. The old man made it out and lived to tale. The news brought a certain panic among the higher echelons. The details of the engagement and the battle between the 153rd and Alisson were fuzzy, some people were saying that Sidonia had a whole army hidden in the north, an entire base of operations. Everyone seemed to underestimate Alisson, and leave him out of the equation. I think he destroyed the 153rd alone along with his little apprentice.

We couldn’t exactly ask the single survivor for details, he was resting and was probably under a gag order for the time being.

That was all to say, that the government mobilized us hero-summoner pairs in flurry to try to be proactive, put another way, to make themselves feel better about losing an elite unit.

Me and Arciel got a pretty bad pick of the lot. We were to head to the south of Andestine, where a tunnel had been discovered that may lead to an obscure island, way south of Andestine. I had heard some rumors about a small scale invasion going on, but the secrecy of Andestine’s military operations were pretty good, so I didn’t know exactly where it was going on. If I had to wager, that island was probably it.

Me and Arciel were to head there alone. Through the tunnels. Whether it was Riegal using the last of his influence to try and kill us, or sheer incompetence, Arciel and I were going to face a lot more danger for seemingly no reason. They were just using us like canaries I guess. That’s all we heroes are at the end of the day. Disposable, killable things.

***