Jocelyn found the girl in front of her absolutely adorable. The young girl was blushing an adorable bright red, like a tomato, as she stuttered, “S—So, this isn’t heaven? And you’re not god?”
“No, dear child,” Jocelyn repeated, “You were just saved from that horrid establishment.”
The young girl seemed to be immensely confused by what Jocelyn said. “S—Saved? Saved by who? Saved why? Why was I healed?”
“One of the heroes saved you,” Joceylyn smiled, telling the girl warmly, “He apparently used his own funds and authority to buy you from that place, and also get you and your compatriots healed. He also saved a few other slaves,” she continued, gesturing at the woman next to the adorable girl.
The girl turned her gaze to the woman blankly, looking at the woman and then Jocelyn, and then back at the woman once more.
“What’s your name?” Joceylyn gently prodded after a few seconds.
The girl turned back to Jocelyn – tears seemed to be pooling in the girl’s eyes, but she didn’t notice. “Leco.”
—
Alastor stared at the magical parchment in front of him with sheer amazement. Astonishment. He opened and closed his mouth like a fish out of water.
Chaos Points:
102
Soul Points:
6
The points were growing as he watched. With this, he was sure – alternate personas worked. Saving desperate people worked. The slaves must have been healed – the residents of the slum must have gotten to know what had happened. There was no other way the chaos points would be growing this quickly, this rapidly, this…
Chaos Points:
107
Soul Points:
6
He let out a trembling breath. This… this opened up an entire new world to him. If the slum residents reacted like this to him massacring the debt collectors, if the slaves reacted like this to being healed… What if he made good policies as a duke? What if he massacred the monsters? What if he saved the world from the demons?
Was that why Ragnar – was he one of the top three rankers? – had targeted the demons initially? To gain reputation points? Did he only conduct the mass human massacre once he concluded this world would give no more chaos points – may it be reputation wise or achievement wise?
Goodness. He’d lost so many points, lost so much potential in the past few runs. If he could utilize this correctly, goddess, he’d definitely hit the third rank, if not the second rank this time. Maybe… maybe even the first rank.
Chaos Points:
111
Soul Points:
6
Alastor let out another trembling breath.
—
Kendall fell sweat dripping down his brow as he rushed through the twisting corridors, desperate to reach the head’s room as quickly as he could. The head would know what to do – the head would definitely know what to do.
Would he? A traitorous part of his mind asked, If you, the right hand man, are so stunned, would the head really know what to do?
Kendall didn’t even bother answering that part of his mind – his surroundings became a blur as his mind clouded up. In what felt like both an eternity yet a second, he stood in front of the head’s door. He knocked on it and opened it before the head could even reply.
The head looked at him with thinly veiled confusion, “Did you forget the concept of basic manners, Kendall?” He asked, his words fading away as he noticed how panicked his subordinate looked, “What happened?”
“The…” Kendall didn’t know how to explain the situation, all of a sudden. He tripped and stumbled over his own voice before deciding to just lay it out plainly, “Our main branch in Deidamia’s capital has been fully destroyed.”
The head blinked blankly.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
—
Alastor stared at the three teenagers in front of him – the oldest looked twenty, so not exactly a teenager, while the youngest looked fifteen. As he'd predicted, the Duke had sent one of his daughters, and to Alastor’s surprise, two of his sons. He did wonder why the Duke had sent two of his sons. One seemed plenty enough, so…
Eh, he'd never really understood the minds of these nobles. So he simply smiled at the three kids pleasantly, waiting for one of them to start the conversation.
A few seconds later, the oldest one did. “So, where do you want to go first, hero? Do you want to see the boundless landscapes of our beautiful city? Or do you perhaps want to tour our academy, acclaimed to be one of the kingdom's best? Or perhaps you want a tour of our capital in general?”
Alastor pretended to ponder about it and hummed. Eventually, he replied, “I'd like to visit your patroller barracks.”
The oldest one blinked. “Our… patroller… barracks?” His tone had turned just the slightest bit confused.
Alastor nodded sincerely, putting on a wide eyed look, “I'd heard the orderliness and discipline of Enaj’s patrollers is unparalleled amidst the dukedoms, only the royal capital’s patrollers providing a somewhat even match… I just wanted to witness their functioning once, see them all gathered together.”
The oldest one seemed both even more confused yet also pleased, “Is—Is that so?”
Before the oldest one could say anything, though, the youngest, the only girl of the group, interjected, “W—We can notify them and make them gather up, hero! Show you the true orderliness of the Enaj patrollers!”
Alastor donned his puppy eyed oh-i’m-so-amazed-by-you look that he used for such situations. “Oh, really? C–Could you do the same for the soldiers and the academy, too?”
The oldest son’s expression turned somewhat troubled, but before he could say anything, the girl nodded vigorously. Seeing that his sister had agreed, the oldest sighed, and muttered, “I… I guess we could teleport to the border and… make them temporarily assemble? That’d work… As for the academy, that should be easy.”
His tone gradually brightened up – probably realizing this was pretty doable – and he smiled, “Meanwhile, let’s give you a comprehensive tour of the capital!”
—
Enaj’s capital was pretty… standard. There were good areas, where the buildings consisted of Ragnar’s innovations – they almost looked like Earth streets. If not for the roads still being that of cobblestone and vehicles being a weird hybrid between a horse drawn cart and a car – a mana vehicle – he’d have thought he was back on Earth. Then again, there was a noticeable absence of skyscrapers and that general look Earth had, so maybe he wouldn’t. Not that he’d use Earth or any singular planet as a reference for anything, really. His scope was much wider – but well, Earth was a good reference, being the closest world to this world.
That’s why Earthlings were the ones who popped in as heroes, after all.
There were more mediocre areas where the cracks began showing up – they had to pass through some such areas during their journey in the mana vehicle, and poverty finally began showing up. Or well, normal people did. People who had to work, people who burdens weighing down on them, people who life left a trail on. These streets were less showy, yet still clean.
They’d made sure to avoid the slums like a plague, during this ‘trip’ of theirs. The noble heirs could hardly show their important hero the dark side of Enaj, after all. Especially to a wide eyed, unfamiliar-with-the-world innocent hero who believed Enaj was an amazing place, for some reason.
But even touring the slums would have been more interesting than this trip, Alastor had to admit – the tour of the capital was surprisingly boring. The only reason he even kept up with it was because he had a plan. And visiting the slums was reserved for a later time in that plan.
Nobles – at least these nobles – lacked creativity. So they showed him the usual stuff – high class noble styled restaurants, high class noble styled places of entertainment such as horse riding places, archery places, you get the idea. And it was all very, very boring. Alastor didn’t really blame them – his boredom probably had to do with the fact that he’d seen places such as these thousands of times, and had witnessed things these kids couldn’t even imagine.
Then again, there were a few places he appreciated. Like that one bookshop they took him to, for example. It was peaceful, nice, the books were beautiful – he could probably spend an hour or two there relaxing if he really wanted to. Collect some books, pile them into a bookshelf – hoarding was a hobby he never got tired of. And that one cat cafe. He liked it too. The cats were cute, even though he had no plans of hoarding them. He liked those two places better than the other locations of entertainment they’d taken him to.
But now, finally, it was time for the main attraction – apparently all the patrollers had gathered up to let their lords carry out a ‘routine sightseeing check’. Which would have sounded more reasonable and grander if it was the duke himself doing it – feel like there was a purpose behind it, but right now, with the kids being the ones who were going to do it… Then again, the heir himself, the oldest son, was also tagging along, so it didn’t seem fully like they were messing around.
The three teens introduced themselves pretty early on into their sightseeing trip – why they didn’t do it as soon as they met him, Alastor didn’t know, but hey. At least they introduced themselves eventually. The oldest one, the heir himself, was called Marvin, his brother, the second oldest, was called Alexis, and the girl was called Page.
Marvin flashed a smile at him – it seemed he’d caught Alastor staring – and Alastor smiled back. Page raised her cup and took a sip of her wine – Alastor imitated her and took a sip of his apple juice, leaning back into his luxurious leather seat.
“It’ll only take a few more minutes,” Marvin broke the silence, “We’ll reach there before you know it.”
Alastor nodded politely – he didn’t really mind staying in this mana vehicle for however long it took. It belonged to a noble, after all, and the luxury showed – not the slightest bump or discomfort. It felt like he was sitting on a fully stationary seat. Not to mention the litany of books and snacks and drinks available within the rather large space, which only made it an even more bearable experience.
He couldn’t help but get curious. What were these kids’ past? Did they commit any sins? Alastor had originally planned to check them during the time he checked the patrollers, but hey. He had a few minutes to burn.
Chaos. Retrieve information of the targets from the previous runs’ World Core Extraction. Compile a list of sins committed.
When the translucent screen flickered into life in front of him, though, even Alastor was surprised – it seemed these ‘innocent’ kids were not as innocent as he thought. Which, well, he’d never thought they were innocent – they were nobles, after all. But still. It was definitely a mildly entertaining revelation.