It felt longer, but only a day had passed since Dimitri had declared the orphanage to be most likely safe. Not that it had changed anything. The banners were still red, which meant Tom was restricted to the cloying isolation of the system room, but he hoped that this meeting would change things. The unknowns, unsurprisingly, worried him the most. Judging by the chatter that slipped from the volunteers towards the children, and then into the gossip mill, the particulars of this attack had been unusual. Tom knew, in his heart, that his existence had triggered this. He was not responsible as such, but at the same time he kind of was. Each of those deaths added to the contribution he had to make. He had a lot to pay back.
Impatiently, he sat outside Dimitri’s office – or, at least, the bit with his adult mind did. His treacherous body was happily playing with some monster figurines.
Hopefully, he was about to find out the truth about what had happened.
The study door opened. “Ah, Ta, it’s good to see you. Please, come in.”
His body responded and followed Dimitri’s directions.
“It was only supposed to be a week between follow-ups, but I was otherwise engaged for a bit there. Sorry about that.”
His body said nothing. Everyone knew that Dimitri had been away, doing important stuff. After all, it had been he who had brought Eden back to save them.
Tom tensed as his body passed the room’s threshold into the study. Last time, because of the wardings in place, he hadn’t even known about the hairy assassin until he was inside the room with it. He knew Eden had gone through and eliminated them, but, deep down, he still expected Danger Sense to trigger.
Nothing happened.
Surrounded by metal walls, Tom sighed in relief and watched on the screens as the other man triggered the wards without fuss until they glowed.
“Sit, sit,” Dimitri insisted.
Tom was getting much better at speeding up speech and then skipping sections. This way, he could follow conversations in real time even while handicapped by the time dilation.
“I’m not going to beat around the bush. I know you’re a reincarnator.” Dimitri said firmly. Then the caretaker’s eyes went wide, and he clutched at his neck. A pained cough escaped his lips.
Instantly, Tom took control of his body. That declaration, as per the title descriptions, meant that the current environment was protected and safe to be himself in.
“Shit, I should have known better.” Dimitri complained, wincing as he coughed hoarsely. “That is not a workaround, and I admit I’m a bit of an idiot for trying. The title does not like being used as a canary in the coal mine.” He coughed again, and Tom saw a splash of blood on his hand. “I should have expected that. Coming to the more pleasant things, Tom, how are you?”
Healing magic wrapped around his throat, but Dimitri still cleared his throat uncomfortably. “And, of course, it can’t be healed. I think she took me abusing the title as a form of blasphemy.”
Tom wasn’t sure what to say.
“I’m serious about my question. Mentally, how are you holding up?”
“It’s frustrating. Especially not knowing. What happened? Why did you revert to green banners when you did?”
He sighed. “The Ladorin, the second species, were new.”
Tom hesitated. He was surprised by that admission and not sure how to take it. “What do you mean? Are they some sort of construction? A summons? Because they couldn’t be a new species, surely?”
“Not new new. We know of them as a species, but this was the first time they were used against us. They’re a terror race from deep in the Underground. As in, literally years of travel away from here. The logistics to get so many to attack was impressive.”
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Different facts weren’t coming together properly in Tom’s head. Years of travel meant this must have been pre-planned. And if it took that much lead time, then he was off the hook. “Are you serious? Years of pre-planning! That means this raid wasn’t related to me?”
“Oh, wrong conclusion. It was definitely about you. The priests are stirred up.”
“But you said years. Did they teleport?” According to his knowledge of Existentia, teleporting over that type of distance was impossible. An ancient power might have a solution, but Tom doubted it. When Dimitri said years of travel, he was not talking in terms of a mortal person. The standard was to use rank thirty-two, which meant they were eight times faster than a human. The assassins were clearly stronger than that, but not enough to make that sort of distance trivial.
“No, or, at least, not much. They were positioned between our towns, and, when the ritual got a lock on you, they moved. It only took four days to reach us, which is still scary, given that it would have taken me weeks.”
“Do you know, or are you guessing?”
“That hypothesis has been priest-confirmed. So, we know. The fact you had sixteen rank-hundred assassins and four support staff waiting for you to emerge for years is worrisome. However, I think such an investment goes beyond the level of reasonable. Hopefully, this will cost the responsible GOD a lot.”
“Did you say rank-hundred?”
Dimitri nodded.
“But then how did you defeat them? Eden can’t be that strong. You’re not rank-hundred, are you?”
Dimitri laughed. “No, I’m not close to that, but if Eden took them on, then she might have been able to kill them all. No, the cleanup was trivial for a different reason. It was because they need to hide from our divination magic, they made an oath on the GODs not to harm any human apart from reincarnators and to avoid my Danger Sense equivalent; a specific oath not to hurt me. They were literally unable to fight back.” Dimitri chuckled darkly. “It was good experience. I like enemies that are sworn not to hurt me”.
“Why would they go to that extreme?”
“Do you know why I’m in this role?”
“To keep me, us, safe?”
“Exactly. I don’t have a precognition affinity, but I have high-tiered and highly-levelled skills. If anything comes into the orphanage that is a potential threat to me, I would feel it instantly. Our enemies are not stupid. They understand that, and, to counter it all, the assassins that come in, take an oath not to hurt me specifically, and, more widely, any locals with precognition abilities.”
“That’s genius. They’re totally exploiting the system.”
“That’s frustrating, is what it goddamn is! It’s why we needed to wait for the adventurers to get back. They returned, and we killed the Cotalda as usual. We thought we were safe then, like every other time, but they had brought a new species to help them. Both higher-ranked than before and with stronger racial gifts to protect them. We eliminated the Cotalda, relaxed, because we thought we were safe, while the others remained watching and ready to eliminate any reincarnators who let their guard down. It was a diabolical plan.”
“A false sense of security,” Tom whispered. “A strategy that could only be deployed once, before we adapted.”
“Exactly,” Dimitri agreed grimly. “They set a trap that they’ve been priming for forty years while waiting for you to emerge. I reckon that, at any point for the last couple of decades, they could have pulled the trigger and wiped out a generation of reincarnators. Those sixteen could have been split across all three orphanages. You can’t imagine the disaster that would have caused. Instead, your emerging had spooked them into coming here. And if it wasn’t for you having an unreasonable Danger Sense, they would have got everyone. Their plan would have worked. Of course, they would have cleared only one orphanage instead of three, but it would still have been devastating for us.”
“It was more than just Danger Sense.” Tom told him.
Dimitri crooked his head curiously. “What do you mean?”
“I could see through their illusions.”
“See through! No, impossible. You’ve got to be kidding me. How the hell could you do that? Eden didn’t suggest you had anything like that in your old life.”
“Because I didn’t. I think… um… You know, my status is screwed, but in this case I’m pretty sure it’s a title I just gained. Danger Sense told me they were there, and then they were testing everyone in the isolation rooms in an attempt to scare a reincarnator out. Frighten them and leave them effectively broken for ages. The pseudo-system room’s acting skill had my body staring almost blankly at a camouflaged one for twenty minutes. The pseudo-system room has crappy time dilation, but it lets you replay a memory perfectly. That’s what I did. I replayed the scene over and over again.”
Dimitri burst out laughing. “That’s awesome. I would never… that’s so funny. They came to kill you, and all they did was rank you up. Speaking of which, I gather you earned these outside the trial?”
“Obviously.”
“So you don’t actually know what you’ve got yet.” He was instantly digging into his spatial bag to produce the ritual status screen. “It might be too late for you to get the names, but in the time we’ve got before you have to leave, you can probably make fifty or so attempts. If you’re lucky, you might hit the right one.”