Chapter 58: Approval

Two hours before the first golden ray of summer sunshine was set to appear above the green, rolling hills in the grasslands ten miles outside the city of Shadowfall Coast, Alex signaled to a team of orange-suited construction workers to spread the steel beams they were staking into the dirt several feet wider apart. They saluted, a gesture he took to mean they understood his instruction. The foreman, who wore a red-striped helmet, shouted orders to the five men nearest him then whistled at one a bit farther away who was carrying a bucket filled with cement in each hand. All six gave a brief nod in reply. From the fearful look in their eyes, Alex could tell that they were worried about still being around here when the dragon finally arrived; he hoped this would not lead to them rushing and making careless errors.

The same goes for everyone else, too, he thought.

All around him, adventurers, level-one civilians, and various members of the media were abuzz with activity as, under the direction of Zephyr Vextran, hundreds of people worked as fast as humanly possible to turn this atypically flat stretch of terrain into a fortification. It was here in these hilly grasslands, with a view of the brightly lit city beneath the night sky visible in the distance behind them all, that Donovan had chosen to establish their interception point for Ziragoth the Awoken. Therefore, what was normally a quiet, rarely traveled stretch of mostly short grass broken up by the occasional patch of shrubbery had now become a noisy, hectic scene. The sound of saws cutting wood, the banging of hammers, and the roar of the construction DEHVs all joined the buzz of helicopters overhead to create a symphony of industrial madness. Alex actually found himself feeling guilty at the sight of all the small animals that scurried away, clearly agitated by their tranquil habitat suddenly becoming so chaotic. The smells of burning metal, wood, and in some cases smoke also added to the overall disquiet.

Though far from the ideal time of day to work on such a complex, highly specific project, a myriad of bright, powerful work lights chased away the darkness and enabled the construction crews to work through the night, which Alex had been informed was typically not something they wanted to do. Given the urgency of the situation, however, there had been no time to wait until sunrise. This had to be done now. What they were preparing to face against required they make use of every second of time available to them until the battle commenced. If any advantage was to be had, then it was incumbent upon them to seize it; this was especially true since millions of innocent lives depended on the success of this raid—probably more than millions. In fact, if by some horrendous misfortune they were to “wipe”—a term colloquially used to refer to the death or escape of all members of a raiding party following an unsuccessful boss-slaying attempt—the consequences would be so horrifying they sent shivers down his back just to imagine. Even the very idea of a raid wipe against something like this was enough to make Alex breathe heavier.

We can’t let that happen. No matter what.

If a catastrophe of that magnitude were to occur, the T7 fire wyvern would proceed to eliminate all life in Shadowfall Coast. And then? Then it would probably move north to the Arid Dunes of Bastia before heading to Spider’s Eye Oasis, Giant’s Fall thereafter, and so on and so forth. Unless slain, the dragon would continue to roam from one densely populated area to the next until it had succeeded in either annihilating or chasing off the majority of the human population of North Bastia. And in this instance, Alex was fairly certain the political guilds would not be able to stop it—assuming they even bothered trying in the first place and didn’t simply flee to their friends in the Shores of Wrath in South Bastia. But even if they did attempt to mount a defense, they would most certainly fail. Truly, if Donovan’s raid did not succeed, the result would be a humanitarian disaster worse than anything in any recorded history book. And Alex doubted the other races were in a particularly “helping” mood given their treatment at the hands of Peter IV, thus this was one crisis humanity would have to solve mostly on its own.

For this reason, ensuring their preparations went smoothly was of the utmost importance, especially with time quickly fading. As of this moment, Alex estimated that a mere thirty hours and eight minutes remained between now and the time when the hundred-forty-seven brave men and women gathered here with him would engage the T7 fire wyvern for what would be the single-most important fight of Alex’s life. More were still on their way, too. They might even break a hundred sixty. But even that did not guarantee success. That was why it was so important that everything now went according to plan.

There was no wiggle room. There was no margin for error. They could not afford to slow down or take breaks. Every last second between now and the arrival of Ziragoth needed to be spent focused solely on the upcoming battle. And it was for this very reason that Alex was forced to call upon all the patience and restraint he could possibly muster to avoid losing his temper as a completely unnecessary issue began to spiral out of control. He quite honestly could not think of a worse possible moment to have a completely unrelated distraction pop up and create havoc. At a time when all of his attention needed to be on preparing for the arrival of this T7 harbinger of death, it was downright infuriating that he needed to divide his focus between assisting Zephyr in overseeing their vital constructions plans and…and dealing with such idiotic nonsense from the political guilds.

“No,” Alex said into his cellphone, barely able to contain his anger. “I do not know where he went. But are you aware that we’re trying to protect all of North Bastia from an impending doom that could burn down every major hub of civilization on this continent?”

“Easy now, son,” the voice of Haisel Ragora, second in command of the Royal Roses replied. “We’re throwing in everything we can to make this succeed. But a little give comes with a little take. You should know this. And it’s our image that is being hurt by this.”

Even as much as Alex despised the political guilds, he could not deny that they were supporting this raid in a way that was unprecedented for them. Anything Donovan needed, they provided: construction crews, aerial surveillance of the dragon, peacekeepers to keep the area clear of civilians, vehicles, emergency transports, and even the very materials with which they were now constructing their fortifications. Given their typical uselessness, Alex had not expected them to go so far above and beyond in the aid they provided. It didn’t matter that it was the lives of them and their people whom Alex and the others were risking their own to protect—even that wouldn’t usually be enough to get them so heavily invested in a raid operation. They seemed genuine in their desire to assist—but not without strings attached, as usual.

“I’m doing what I can to find out where he is. Right now, I truly don’t know.”

“We’re not upset,” Haisel Ragora said. “I just want to make that clear. Everyone makes mistakes. He clearly doesn’t know what he’s doing. We just want him to attend media sensitivity training as soon as possible. That’s all we’re asking. Mind you, we’ve already graciously cleared any and all bounties off his head. No one will ever come after him again. So we’re really putting a lot out there for your kid.”

Alex scowled. He could hardly contain himself when faced with the audacity of these miserable, manipulative cowards. Looking around at the scene of historic importance unfolding before him, he just simply could not believe that he actually had to deal with such a ridiculous “problem” amid a raid that was so consequential its failure could spell out the death of tens of millions. To even bring something like this up now…it was insanity. And yet, despite this, Alex was essentially forced to deal with it.

“He’s not technically ours,” Alex said.

“He basically is,” Lieutenant Ragora said. “I don’t know how you people perform your indoctrinations, but he’s basically one of you adventurers already. So this is your responsibility.”

“Mine?” Alex asked, and now he could not avoid the irritation that seeped into his words. “You were the ones who decided to claim he was a member of the Royal Roses. How can any of this be our responsibility?”

“You know the rules,” he replied.

Alex desperately wanted to debate the point, but he knew it would not be a winning argument. Among the adventuring and political guilds, there were certain unwritten “rules.” Actually, it would be more accurate to call them “laws,” as they were so stringent and so rigorously enforced that they may very well have been codified into law for all the difference it would make. Alex did not know how or when these unwritten, unspoken laws came into being, and he did not know if they were the result of some decades-old compromise or if instead, as he suspected, they had arisen naturally over the course of many years. Whatever their origin, these unwritten laws served to allow the peaceful coexistence of the adventuring guilds and the political guilds where such coexistence would otherwise be totally unachievable.

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The political guilds explicitly allowed the adventuring guilds to pursue their own interests, fight boss spawns, and move about freely. In exchange, the adventuring guilds were to do nothing to try to usurp or challenge the “established order.” Part of this included going along with whatever media narratives the political guilds concocted if for any reason a member of an adventuring guild inadvertently stepped into the spotlight, such as in Giant’s Fall, when a member of the Explorer’s Brigade single-handedly stopped a bank robbery, or in the case of the Den of Ziragoth, when Zach Calador had miraculously gone toe-to-toe with a T7 fire wyvern for one minute and forty-two seconds while the entire world watched on in awe. During these times, the political guilds would claim responsibility, and in order to maintain the peace, adventurers had no choice but to go along with it.

Sighing, Alex said, “How much is this going to cost us?”

“Three pieces of Alixa gear and fifteen-thousand gold.”

Alex grunted. “The damage wasn’t even that bad.”

“Well, you told us the boy would be in his hospital bed for the next five days.”

“That’s because I honestly didn’t think he’d be up and about so soon,” Alex stated truthfully. With a gesture of his chin at the foreman across from him to indicate he was satisfied with the adjusted spacing of the steel beams, he continued, “I’ll make sure you get your gold.”

“Good. And you’ll continue to have our full cooperation.”

Alex hastily wrapped up his conversation and actually felt relief when he finally ended the call. He wholeheartedly loathed the Royal Roses. And now that they were actually wasting his valuable time on nonsense, he felt even greater contempt for them than he usually did.

Hurrying over to Kalana, who was sitting on the grass while typing nonstop into her cellphone, Alex asked, “How are things?”

She looked up at him and smiled. “I think I’ve smoothed it over.”

“Please make sure. The Royal Roses are making my life miserable over this.”

“Don’t worry. This involves me too, so um, I would’a done this anyway.”

From what Alex knew of her, Kalana had been a relatively shy girl who had not been very outgoing prior to recent events. It was for this reason he was both surprised and impressed by how naturally adept the girl was at public relations and handling herself on the world stage. It was as though she possessed some kind of natural talent for it.

“Just so you understand,” Alex told her, “I don’t blame Zach at all for this. He didn’t know any better, and I didn’t think this would be an issue.”

“I know,” Kalana said. She frowned. “I’m still a little mad though. He didn’t have to be so mean to that one girl. He’s gotta consider how people feel now that he’s super famous.”

Alex shrugged. “Aside from the unnecessary use of swear words, I didn’t see what was so bad.”

Kalana shook her head. She held up her phone and turned it his way. Alex glanced down. Then a frown popped up on his face as well. The media seemed to be really latching on to this one little story of theirs, and it was hard to believe that these were the very same reporters who, not even a full day ago, were calling Zach a hero and a savior. Now, scrolling across the bottom of the screen, it became clear that their tone had become a little more critical.

WATCH! Zachys Calador shoves fans and curses at teenage girl.

“This is pathetic,” Alex said. “Why are they wasting their time on this?”

“It doesn’t matter why,” Kalana said. “Just look.”

A young reporter wearing a blouse was standing next to a girl who looked Kalana’s age. She was smiling, though from the puffiness around her eyes, she must have been in tears until just a short while ago. With one hand holding a microphone and the other resting on the girl’s shoulder, the reporter spoke to her.

“So, what happened, hon? What can you tell us about what might’ve led to that ‘moment’ which is now going viral all over the internet.”

“Well, like I told the other news people, I saw Zachys Calador, and I…I was so excited. And I told him how I ship him and Kalana together, and he screamed the ‘F’ word at me and then started pushing everyone away.”

“For those of you unfamiliar with the lingo,” the reporter said, “the term ‘ship’ is a word used in various ‘fandoms’ that means to root for the romantic relationship of two individuals.”

“Yah, but I just want to say, please, that it’s okay now. I got a message from THE Kalana Vayra. I screamed when I saw it on my phone! She even liked one of my posts on my—”

“Okay, I’ve heard enough,” Alex said. “Please turn that off.” He waited for her to close the stream before continuing. “Look, Kalana, I’m hardest on Zach out of everyone, but even I can’t say he did anything wrong here. He couldn’t have known this would happen.”

“We’re gonna have to talk to him, though. He broke that girl’s heart, and I felt so bad.”

“I don’t understand why,” Alex said. “He used profanity, yes, but it wasn’t as though he’d insulted her.”

“It wasn’t about what he said. It was his tone of voice. I know my Zach didn’t mean anything bad. But when you’re really famous, it doesn’t take a lot to really hurt someone else. You don’t understand how it feels to be our age and have someone you really look up to speak like that.”

“But she didn’t even know who Zach was until yesterday afternoon. No one did.”

“It doesn’t matter. That’s just how it is.”

Alex rubbed his chin as he mulled over her words. He still could hardly believe the media was wasting precious time on this “controversy” as they were calling it, nor could he believe the Royal Roses were so incensed about something of so little consequence. Things like “public image” and “public perception” were not the sort of concepts an adventurer was meant to concern his or herself with. Honestly, this whole situation was downright bizarre—from the beginning to now. The fact that the media were actually running opinion polls on Zach was also partially what made it so surreal and bewildering.

Initially, the boy had a 97% “approval rating” from the general North-Bastian public, which cut across age, region, and gender. The three percent who claimed to disapprove of him were people who were so off-put by the foul language he’d used during his duel with the dragon that even Alex felt they needed to lighten up. Yet, things seemed to change after his most recent media “appearance.” A short while ago, Zach had apparently left his hotel, pushed his way past some people, and he’d given voice to some choice vulgarities in the process. The result? Now, 81.4% of people approved of Zach, with 75% strongly approving. His drop in popularity had apparently come from mothers with teenage daughters as well as women more broadly, particularly older women.

Bafflingly and inexplicably, this little drop in support seemed to send the Royal Roses into a kind of panic that almost rivaled their reaction to Ziragoth. In fact, from what Alex could tell, they almost seemed to care about this more. It was as though they viewed Zach as some kind of golden-egg-laying goose whose value needed to be maintained for whatever dark purposes they intended to use his name for. Thankfully, Kalana had done—actually, was now doing—what she could to smooth things over. And the GSG had once again been hit with a fine over Zach despite the fact that he wasn’t even a member of their guild.

“Where is he, anyway?” Kalana asked without even looking at him. Her eyes were glued to her screen, where she continued to type away messages in what Alex hoped would appease the Royal Roses at least for now.

“I have no idea,” Alex said. “He probably just went for a walk. I’m sure he’s fine.”

“He did always want to see Tomb of Fire. You’re right. He’s probably just walking around the city. Still…I worry about him. I wanna go back to him.”

“You will. Soon.” Alex softened his voice. “Kalana, I’m sure he’s fine.”

“Yeah. I know.”

*****

“Holy fuck I’m going to die!” Zach cried as a massive explosion of pure electricity launched from the bristles of a gigantic electric toothbrush forced him to dive out of the way. At the same time, dozens more zombies converged upon him, and approaching at great speeds behind them were several more of the mummy-mounted, winged skeleton horses.

Things were bad: so bad. His Unleashed Phase was not going to last much longer, he and the Elves were almost pushed back to the hill he’d slid down, and to make matters even worse—to add insult to injury, Fluffles and Chumpkenwiffles were still fucking fighting! Yeah. For real. They were still fighting. Those two idiots were indulging whatever personal animosity they had towards one another—despite having only met a few moments ago—and were ignoring their friends and allies in order to streak across the sky and take shots at one another. In fact, the entire sky was lighting up with constant flashes of alternating blue and red light as Fluffles, who had at some point transformed himself into a giant brown cat with white, fluffy wings, continued to wage some kind of epic battle in the air with Chumpkenwiffles, whose loud, angry barking Zach could hear even from all the way down here.

With one arm, one eye, and most of his equipment so badly torn it was a miracle nothing had broken, Zach swore and blocked four different shortsword strikes from three different mobs as they continued to press him farther and farther back. This could get ugly.

Unleashed Phase Duration

1:57 Remaining

Continuing to back away, Zach regarded the chaotic field of battle and hissed in anger. Maybe he should've waited for Rian and Lienne after all.