Kojiro, victorious in his fight against the Second Dark Apostle, raised his hands in the air and began parading around the Great Hall. A smattering of applause filled the large room as most of the sorcerers present began to clap. One group of sorcerers remained motionless, and I figured that they were the ones assigned to Talwar. As for the Dark Apostles, none of them clapped, naturally.
“Look out, everybody. The strongest Dark Apostle is coming through,” Kojiro said as he ambled across the Great Hall with his shoulders back and his chest forward.
“There’s no way you’re the ‘strongest’ Dark Apostle,” Poldra scoffed.
“Well, there’s no proof of that right now. The only evidence we have of power levels right now is that I’m stronger than Talwar. Until further evidence is presented, I am the strongest.” Kojiro spoke with a tone dripping with self-satisfaction.
“You got lucky,” Talwar said, pointing at Kojiro. “I would have kicked your ass if I had remembered to conserve my mana.”
“Maybe,” Kojiro said. “We won’t know unless we fight again. As soon as I regenerate all of my mana, I’ll throw hands again.”
Throw hands?
Talwar opened his eyes and stopped looking at his Menu. “By the way,” he said, “why haven’t I regenerated any mana yet? Aren’t we supposed to have Enhanced Mana Regeneration?”
“About that…” a man’s voice cut in from the large open doors to the Great Hall. I turned and saw that Melkior, the Fifth Dark Apostle, had just arrived. “...I think I know the answer. We regenerate mana at an incredibly high rate. I believe that Enhanced Mana Regeneration increases our mana regeneration by a factor of ten. This means we regain all of our mana in twenty-four minutes rather than the usual four hours…”
As he spoke, Melkior and his sorcerers began placing a number of maps and other objects on the head of the table in the center of the Great Hall. Talwar and Kojiro’s fight had collapsed a central part of the table, but the outer sections of the large table were still level.
“He’s yapping again,” Talwar whispered to Kojiro as Melkior spoke.
“Bastard acts like he’s in charge,” Kojiro complained quietly.
Based on this short interaction, I could tell that neither of the two Dark Apostles held any ill-will toward each other over their fight. They had probably known each other for long enough that they wouldn’t squabble over something so small. It was funny, to an extent. Considering that we were the “bad guys,” I had been expecting the other Dark Apostles to be a bunch of mustache-twirling super-villains who would start a blood-feud over the smallest disagreement. From what I had seen so far, the Dark Apostles were a group of relatively well-adjusted people who had been placed in a bad situation. We had our disagreements, but we didn’t try to kill one another over them.
“If a Dark Apostle has, say, 600 mana points, then he will regenerate 25 mana points per minute. This is equivalent to about 1 mana point every 3 seconds.” Melkior kept explaining. “In comparison, a Revenant with 80 mana and no Enhanced Mana Regeneration regenerates 1 mana every 3 minutes. Now, this mana needs to come from somewhere, the air specifically. At maximum efficiency, mana can only be pulled from the surrounding area at a rate of 1 mana every second. Considering that there are eight Dark Apostles and forty high-level sorcerers present, there is a very high demand and a very low supply for mana. With so many powerful characters present, we’re probably limited to regenerating 1 mana point per 10 seconds.”
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“And how do you know this, oh great philosopher?” Kojiro asked sarcastically.
“I asked the sorcerers,” Melkior said as he dumped a small pouch of shogi pieces on top of a map he had recently placed on the table.
“Hold on just one second. I have a question.” I cut in. Something Melkior had just said didn’t make sense to me. “Most of us are still at maximum mana reserve. Why does our mana regeneration interfere with their mana regeneration?”
“You still pull mana from the air even if your reserves are full,” Melkior explained with a frown.
“So we’ll weaken each other if we all deploy to the same battlefield,” Svenheim said as he scratched his chin.
“Yes, and I took that into account when I wrote up our deployment plan last night,” Melkior said, subtly shifting the subject toward the maps and other aids he had brought with him to the Great Hall. He had also brought a large cork board on wheels which held up a large vertical map of Rubigo and Merkopia. The map was held up with thumb tacks, so it was easier to see it from a distance.
“Deployment plan!?” Talwar shouted.
“My boys and I aren’t obligated to take orders from you,” Svenheim said with his arms crossed. As he spoke, Araki walked up to stand next to Svenheim, Talwar, and Kojiro. Evidently, Svenheim was the de facto leader of that small group.
“Perhaps I misspoke,” Melkior said with his hands up in mock surrender. “These are merely suggestions. If you want to do something else, then I certainly won’t prevent you from taking your legion elsewhere. I merely wish to present a framework upon which we may plan our next steps.”
Svenheim looked sidelong at the three other Dark Apostles with him. Araki shrugged his shoulders and Kojiro looked annoyed, but didn’t immediately say anything.
“All of you are in agreement that we need to deploy to Rubigo, yes?” Melkior said in a placating tone of voice.
Svenheim turned to Kojiro and said, “We might as well hear him out, don’t you think?”
I sighed. As much as I didn’t like it, it was my turn to be the voice of opposition. I said, “I thought the plan was to negotiate. ‘Deployment’ sounds like we’re going to war.”
“Don’t be such a bleeding heart, blondie.” Talwar spoke to me, and Kojiro chuckled. I wasn’t sure if he merely meant to insult me, or he legitimately didn’t remember my name or number.
“Negotiation is still Plan A,” Melkior said. “It is my suggestion that we have a Plan A, Plan B, and Plan C.” Melkior looked over at the First through Fourth Apostles.
Svenheim grunted and said, “Makes sense.”
“Plan A is negotiation. We’ll try to convince them to… well… not kill us. Plan B is a qualified war with strong rules of engagement. We’ll designate certain zones where Revenants absolutely cannot go and only engage with them there. When engaging with Revenants, our goal will be to scare them off and injure the Revenants who do not retreat. We’ll only kill where necessary. And the last…” Melkior suddenly stopped talking. He grit his teeth and stared off into the middle distance as if he knew what he had to say, but he didn’t want to put it into words.
“And?” Svenheim asked. “What’s Plan C?”
“Plan C is total war. Our goal will be the complete eradication of all Revenants and any faction or individual that might help them.”