I wondered if she was overcorrecting after Siegfried’s long absence. I decided that when this whole Kykeon business was sorted, I would give them a good half month off together. Heroes deserved nothing less.
But first we needed to actually get to the root of this.
“All right, I know we’re all having fun, but I think it’s about time to get moving,” I said after clearing my throat to gather everyone’s attention. I led our group out of the guest room we had been given and headed into the private room, situated right at the back of the Golden Mane. I had been here once before, back when I had gathered together the heads of a certain three clans in order to sort out the Exilrat situation.
Flanking the door were two of the inn’s burliest bodyguards, swords at their hips. After clocking me, they shared a silent glance, nodded, then gracefully bade us into the room.
“My, my... Someone’s dressed up nicely.”
“Oho, you look fine in a warrior’s attire, but this isn’t too bad either.”
Two people were already in the private room waiting for us. One was the boss of the Baldur Clan, colossal water pipe in tow as always, and the other was the head of Clan Laurentius, stretched out over a three-seater sofa.
Nanna was dressed in her usual mage’s cloak; Laurentius was in her armor. Well, it was no real surprise as ogres wore their armor for weddings, funerals, and everything in between...
“Apologies. We are the newest adventurers among those coming today, yet we have arrived later than both of you,” I said.
“Don’t sweat it. I’m an early arriver,” Laurentius said.
“I merely wished...to check the room’s wards...” Nanna said.
It seemed there was no deep meaning behind the leaders of two of Marsheim’s most fearsome clans’ early arrival. One was a battle junkie who wanted to claim the most advantageous position, or at least wanted to feel like she was on top of the game. The latter was raised in the College and lived surrounded by magic, and so considered the advance greetings and paranoid double- and triple-checking of the venue’s magical defenses a matter of course.
They both shared the desire to feel some sense of ease, and so they’d found themselves here thirty minutes before the meeting was due to begin.
“Go on...sit down. The meeting...won’t start for a while,” Nanna said.
I couldn’t help but sense some impatience in the way Nanna was acting. I chalked it up to her irritation that a viable solution for the Kykeon problem still wasn’t revealing itself. The intervals between her puffs were shorter than usual. I imagined she was struggling to contain the decaying hellscape within her mind right now.
Today we would hopefully succeed in assuaging some of that worry, if just a bit.
“Oh?” Laurentius said. “You aren’t late.”
“What a surprise...” Nanna added. “Who would have thought...that the Carcass Splitter would be early?”
“Like I said before, call me that again and I’ll end you where you sit, Smokestack.”
The next one to enter the room was the head of the Heilbronn Familie: the audhumbla Stefano. He was known for representing one of Marsheim’s more bloodthirsty clans, but perhaps he was more a man of reason than he let on—at least, that was what his immaculate fit implied.
I guessed he must not have been used to wearing a doublet, because his chest—decorated with a tusk on a string—was practically struggling to free itself. He must have really worked hard to get into his white trousers, too, because the seams were barely hanging on in their own right.
I was relieved. We weren’t the only ones who’d chosen to step up our wardrobe.
“She’s right though,” Laurentius said. “It’s rare to see you early for anything.”
“Well, we had some trouble with Kykeon too,” Stefano said. “I sorted out some of our affairs with it, enough to settle things a bit. Y’know what they say—parents sleep better when their kid ain’t crying through the night.”
The room was large and well outfitted for everyone, and so Stefano sat himself down on one of the couches near the center. Us four were the lowest-ranked of all the attendees and so had chosen the least fancy seats. The remaining seats were for the meeting’s host and one more. Both were luxurious five-seater sofas. Just looking at them, you could anticipate exactly what sort of people would be sitting there.
One of the inn’s attendants brought in some red tea, and we all sat sipping it in silence. Whoever brewed it had really known their stuff—another reason adventurers aspired to stay here. In the next moment, everyone with an affinity for magic glanced over at the door.
The owner of the Golden Mane respected the privacy of his clientele and so this room was imbued with various formulae, both inside and out, to prevent sounds from leaking out and the like. Despite all that magical work, we could feel someone’s presence from the other side of the door.
The furious aura of a true hero passed through layer after layer of insulating barrier and seeped into the reception room.
“Oh...man...” Siegfried said without meaning to. Everyone in the room had reacted to this potent, barely contained killing instinct.
“Wh-What the hell is this?” Siegfried went on. “I ain’t ever felt a pressure this strong before...”
My comrade really did have the right stuff. There were two types of frontliners who didn’t blanch at this kind of killing intent: the stupid or the truly talented. Siegfried was smart enough to know just how dangerous this sort of aura was.
I hadn’t been much different. When I’d told him about the meeting today, I felt death flash in my mind’s eye.
“The thing is,” I said, “there was someone I hadn’t told about the whole Kykeon business because I didn’t want to bother him.”
“Huh? There’s someone even you’re careful around?”
Excuse you, Sieg, I thought. I doubt there’s anyone in Marsheim half as self-conscious as I am!
I wanted to quibble with my comrade then and there, but it was true. You see, there was a certain hero in Marsheim I didn’t want to bother, especially because he was about to be a father.
“Excuse me, all.”
His greeting was light and cheerful. So much so that I felt a shiver trickling up my spine. Margit and I were used to his presence; we knew how to take it, but every other adventurer in the room was poised for battle.
Nanna sat stock-still, holding in the last long rip she’d taken. Laurentius had lithely slipped her legs under the table, ready to kick it at any moment. Stefano had reached for the blade hidden in his sleeve, evidently obeying the alarm bells ringing in his head. The room was meant to detect and forbid any secret weapons, so how in the world had he brought that in?
It was no surprise who had come to join us. Here was Marsheim’s great hero, the Saintly Scourge of the Limbless Drake: Saint Fidelio. He was still wearing his apron, as if he’d just strolled out of the kitchen.
You heard it here first, folks: Mister Fidelio and Shymar of the Snoozing Kitten were expecting. Apparently the kid wasn’t planned, but it wasn’t unwanted either. It had only taken this long thanks to Mister Fidelio’s long stretches away from home on his campaigns and the timing of bubastisian heat cycles.
Back when Margit and I used to help around the inn, many of the regulars had thought that they might eventually adopt, considering how long it was taking them to finally get a bun in the oven; needless to say, they were all mooning over the lovely couple now. Mister Fidelio was usually so taciturn and unfathomable, but he practically did a jig on the spot once he knew for sure.
I just couldn’t bring myself to ruin this happy scene, and so I’d decided to keep schtum about the Kykeon situation and deal with it on my own time, buuut he had found out. Or, to be more accurate, someone had tipped him off.
“Quite the illustrious lineup we’ve got here,” Mister Fidelio said to the dazed audience. It was evident from his aura that he was raring to head out and crush the poor doomed fool who’d pissed all over his parade, if only he knew where they might be. From behind him came a white figure.
It was the informant, Schnee. She had finally been freed from Kaya’s mandatory bed rest, but it had taken her only five days to really put her foot in it again.
Siegfried and I had worked hard to compile a lot of vital information, but we were still short on anything definitive to put Diablo in the ground. She had vanished on an info-gathering mission, and not only had she come back with some horrifying intel, she had also put an end to any of the concern I had been showing Mister Fidelio.
It really brought me back to my tabletop days—just how many times had I seen one PC completely ignore another due to their own personal plans? It was weird to be experiencing that here with someone else. I was a fool for thinking that it wouldn’t happen to me.
It was true that I had played a few campaigns where a more reconnaissance-minded player had crushed everything in our way to lead us all to a victory that was less a group effort and more their individual one. But I just couldn’t believe that Schnee had zero reservations about calling in on a powerful connection that I just didn’t want to bother, especially now, of all times.
It wasn’t as if I thought we shouldn’t bring one of our most powerful pieces into play, but I really couldn’t believe she had gone over our heads. It felt like I’d been knee-deep in a business trip, when suddenly the manager from the head office came strolling up, having heard that his assistance was needed.
I need you to understand that I wasn’t annoyed about getting upstaged and denied my time in the spotlight. I just couldn’t get on board with pushing someone straight into hell when he had a baby on the way!
Mister Fidelio wasn’t the sort of person to knock up a gal and declare that his work here was done. He had made all sorts of preparations for the upcoming birth—gladly reconnecting with an old friend to call in a high-level priest from a Harvest Goddess monastery, talking to his father-in-law about the best place to get some baby clothes made, the list went on.
It seemed that Schnee just didn’t really care about such sentimentality. She was the sort of person who waved away the GM’s warnings of lost Fame points and a reduced share of the XP, sparing no expense to guarantee the campaign reached a happy ending.
It had been all too easy for Schnee to bait out the saint’s rage on our behalf.
Nanna glared at me with a look that said, You didn’t warn me! but all I could do was evade her gaze and puff on my pipe as nonchalantly as possible.
Mister Fidelio knew that crushing the Baldur Clan would lead to chaos in Marsheim, and so he’d afforded her a “suspended sentence” of sorts. Still, those two were volatile together; we all knew precisely how little patience he had for everything that fell within the domain of mortal sin in his book, and how far he’d go to see it punished.
All the same, Mister Fidelio had accepted the situation at hand. It was incredibly reassuring to have this Level 15—a bona fide hero-class adventurer—ally with us. I knew he would easily make it through in one piece and get us the win, whatever else it cost us.
“I know I’m the only one who wasn’t invited,” Mister Fidelio went on, “but it wouldn’t be right to not pitch in my own modest strength to the cause when everyone else is working for Marsheim. I realize it’s last-minute, but I look forward to working with you all.”
Mister Fidelio’s genteel and amicable smile was the same as ever, but it didn’t reach his eyes. His powerful muscles rippled under his apron, groaning with their desire to be set free, and I could feel a slightly divine aura coming from him.
Was Mister Fidelio’s presence here today due to the Sun God’s meddling? I doubted it was the God of Trials this time, but considering the recent pregnancy, the culprit could be the Harvest Goddess too. Whatever the case, despite my own personal opinion on involving Mister Fidelio, the gods evidently wanted peace to return to Marsheim. I expected that some of their desire might have come from seeing the child of a veritable hero grow up safe and well.
“Say, Snorrison,” Mister Fidelio said. “You’re still looking a bit peaky. I would recommend you cut down on the smoking, you know?”
“Yes... You’re quite right...” Nanna said. “But please...consider what it’s like for those of us...who can’t live without some smoke swirling around their heads...”
“And you, Heilbronn, you seem well, but...”
“Yeah, yeah, I know, Mister Saint,” Stefano replied. “But it’s gotten better since I took over, no?”
Mister Fidelio’s mere presence here had completely changed the atmosphere. I was still leagues away from attaining that sort of skill. His behavior right now seemed to suggest to everyone around him that he was the zenith of modern adventuring spirit, able to quash all wrongdoing with the might of his own party, all while leaving himself the energy to afford the rest of us the time of day.
It felt like we were being rebuked by the God of Trials for not having the power to save one meager city without this man’s help.
“Quiet down, everyone.”
Another voice blended into the atmosphere controlled by Mister Fidelio. It belonged to neither of the guards outside—too calm, and not nearly bassy enough.
“The manager of Marsheim’s Adventurer’s Association, Madam Maxine Mia Rehmann, has arrived.”
It was the owner of the Golden Mane. By his side was the woman who had organized this meeting: known by the names the Lady of Ash and the Last Ember, she presided over all of Marsheim’s adventurers.
Everyone stood up and bowed to the woman who managed every thug and rogue in Ende Erde. Her haggard frame gave her an evanescent aura that overpowered her natural beauty. She seemed even thinner than the last time we’d met. I couldn’t fault her for it, really. After seeing what Margit and Schnee had dug up, it was no surprise that she’d only become more stressed out.
“Greetings all,” Lady Maxine said. “Be at ease. Let’s begin, shall we?”
Despite her appearance, nothing about the way she held herself suggested any weakness whatsoever. Her expression burned with the just desire to protect her home.
“Now then, it would not suit all of you here for me to waste time going into unnecessary detail, so I shall discuss matters as briefly as possible,” she continued. “All of you are aware of the drug known as Kykeon that has found its way into our community, correct?”
Maxine snapped her fingers. One of her bodyguards, a stout dvergr, placed a cloth-covered tray upon the table. Underneath were sheets of translucent, crystalline paper.
“Erich of Konigstuhl has brought to light a plot to leverage the drug known as Kykeon against Marsheim’s peerage and destabilize the region,” Maxine said.
The salient points were as follows: Kykeon rendered its user useless and doped out, but it wasn’t being sold for a profit. It was created specifically to slowly topple the central nexus of power in Ende Erde: Marsheim. It had been spread around in order to sow distrust among the nobility. Based on the intel we’d gathered, including Siegfried’s work undercover, we’d found out that at least a dozen noble houses had been targeted. Out of this dozen, we had definite proof that several subordinates to these houses were already active participants in the Kykeon trade.
Margit, Siegfried, Kaya, Schnee, and I had compiled every last scrap of dirt on the situation, specifically for this meeting.
Nanna had helped, yes, but she had different skin in the game. She didn’t care about noble scandals; she was just ideologically opposed to Kykeon for falling short of her own standards for brain poison. If we had died and she had survived, then all of the information we had pooled together would have been lost forever.
I was terrified of this prospect, and so I’d worked like a madman with the other four to gather enough intel to formulate a counterplan before it was too late. If we didn’t have a watertight case, then Marsheim’s upper crust would laugh us out of the room, and we’d be remembered as total crackpots for the rest of our days. We had reached the limitations of what could be done aboveboard—hence Siegfried’s fake parting of ways with the Fellowship and his undercover work.
Siegfried had done a bang-up job; he’d managed to find proof of Exilrat’s involvement in all this. Margit deserved her share of credit too. She had done all the legwork following them. Naturally we had bundled up this decisive evidence and taken it to Lady Maxine. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the end of it.
“This was all very well and good,” Lady Maxine went on. “I have discussed matters with the margrave. If we proceed as planned, we can avoid any collateral damage to the innocents in the noble community and purge the lackwits and sluggards who have already succumbed. We would all prefer not to cause any lasting harm to public order.”
We had briefed Lady Maxine two days ago. The meeting today was meant to go over everything Lady Maxine had just discussed and angle for help from Mister Fidelio’s party in the near future.
But after Exilrat’s involvement was made definite, Schnee—who had made a full recovery—had decided to look into a few suspicious characters that Margit had marked for further investigation. What Schnee had found had greatly changed the situation.
“However, we have found something that we simply could not overlook,” Maxine said. “Bring it in.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Lady Maxine’s bodyguard brought in another tray. It was a bit bigger than the previous one and also had a cloth draped over it. Whatever was underneath the cloth was far larger than the previous Kykeon sample.
The dvergr pulled aside the cloth to reveal a huge incense burner, so large that you would have to cradle it in your arms to carry it.
Of course, it wasn’t your everyday brazier. The common type of incense burner in the Empire were ash-filled things where you sprinkled incense upon a white-hot piece of charcoal. This onion-shaped device instead used water as its catalyst. In overall functionality, it was perhaps closer to a humidifier—a humidifier conceived for fiendish ends.
“What the hell’s it do?” Stefano muttered.
“It’s a magical tool for spreading infused vapor over a wide area,” Lady Maxine replied. “You put water inside, and the enchantment turns it into steam.”
Stefano and Miss Laurentius weren’t all that informed when it came to magical matters and simply nodded their heads at the explanation. However, everyone else wore a dark expression.
We had found this thing in pieces. Kaya had assembled it. When she had put it together and realized how it was used, she was almost inconsolable. She fell half into madness and dashed to her workshop, muttering about making an even more potent antimiasma mask for Siegfried, before shutting herself inside.
“The Exilrat smuggled this into Marsheim,” Lady Maxine went on. “It was separated into three parts: the lid, the container, and the bottom section. I’m not mistaken, am I, informant?”
“Ya got it to a tee,” Schnee replied. “With it all in bits and bobs, people musta thought it was just junk, y’know? It passed through a bunch of hands before endin’ up in one of the city’s Kykeon dens. Pretty darn roundabout method, if you ask me; I just took it home.”
Schnee, who had been standing behind Mister Fidelio, opened up the tool, reasoning that a demonstration was quicker than straight exposition. The top half could be taken off, the middle section had a pipe that nested inside, and the bottom was engraved with the formulae.
Schnee filled the pipe with water and a perfume before reassembling the thing. She flicked a switch on the side, and the contraption chugged to life. In the next moment the room was filled with vapor, completely stealing away our vision.
Stefano started coughing. “The hell is this?!”
“Ugh, it’s so sweet!” Miss Laurentius shouted. “What’s with this smoke?!”
It had taken less than a single breath for the room to be filled with vapor so thick that you could barely see your hand in front of you. Everyone had already inhaled the candy-like fragrance.
The tool’s formulae interleaved migration and mutation spells to ensure the vapor would cover as wide an area in as short a span as possible with just a modest and steady supply of heat.
Schnee had put in a perfumed oil made from sweet legumes—a vanilla fragrance, basically—which had set Stefano and Miss Laurentius coughing. Their palates skewed decidedly spicier than this stuff.
Now then, what would happen if we, say, put Kykeon in here instead of a lovely perfume?
“I hope this has clarified the immediacy and severity of the threat,” Lady Maxine said.
Schnee flicked the switch again, and so the vapor stopped billowing forth in an instant. We all would probably have had to sit with the choking fog for hours still if Nanna hadn’t magicked it away for us.
This was no mere hotboxing device; you could deploy one outdoors and dose a whole crowd. Not only that, Marsheim was built upon a man-made hill. If someone used it at the city’s highest point, then the heavier-than-air cloud would be pulled along by wind and gravity to cover the whole city.
Water vapor was an insidious delivery mechanism for a chemical weapon, especially at our present tech level. You couldn’t board up your windows and expect that to keep the stuff out, and any method that would create a proper seal would basically leave you stuck in a cozy coffin. There was nowhere to hide from this thing.
Kykeon was a psychedelic upper that hit immediately on exposure; the moment the wave of infused vapor caught you, you could kiss planetary reality goodbye.
What made this whole thing worse was that the weapon’s magic was just the activating agent. Once it had been fired off, the poison cloud would merely move of its own accord. Destroying the source would do nothing to disperse it.
What kind of perverse mind could conceive of something so monstrously inhumane, let alone follow through? The very notion left me feeling despondent before the first shiver of awe at its destructive power ran through me.
“Can’t the nobles hurry up and ban this junk?”
“Not so easy, Heilbronn.”
Lady Maxine didn’t blanch in the slightest at the audhumbla’s fiery remark. Despite being a mere fraction of his size, she continued to relate the facts in a measured manner.
The long and short: the government couldn’t do anything about it at this stage.
Due to how easy it was to hide Kykeon on your person, it was impossible to completely purge it from Marsheim. In addition, it was nigh impossible to verify if other magic tools like this had passed through the city gates. To begin with, it looked like a harmless onion sculpture, and an untrained eye could never determine its purpose from the disparate pieces.
Most importantly, it wouldn’t do to suddenly plunge the people of Marsheim into chaos.
“They may be the bulwark of our nation, but they are still people,” Lady Maxine said. “We cannot guarantee that everyone will hold on to a firm sense of reason and act in accordance with our plans.”
It was a sad fact of life that despite the bureaucratic hearts of the Empire’s nobles, they were still human beings. Who knew how many would head for the hills when they realized what they were staring down the barrel of?
Unlike us adventurers, if the very people in charge of running our nation were to all jump ship, then the common folk would panic as soon as word got out. If they learned that a deadly mist that would strip them of all sense could come tomorrow, no, at the next possible moment, then the city would fall into bedlam as the masses fled en masse—it didn’t matter whether their decision was measured or rash.
The local lords would then move in on a newly hollowed-out and undefended Marsheim.
If the Empire wielded its might now, then it would only worsen the situation.
“Of course, we cannot allow Marsheim to succumb,” Lady Maxine continued. “We cannot surrender to anarchy. We cannot permit the city to fall silent, waiting to be seized.”
Diablo had really set up the most diabolical plan I could have imagined. It made Great Britain during the inciting years of the Opium War look positively gentlemanly. Did the people who set this whole thing up not realize the potential fallout?
The Empire’s own College was a nest of the most eccentric mages. They wouldn’t stop with making a simple antidote; no, they would return the poison with something far worse. “If your enemy should take up a sword against you, seek retribution with a mightier sword.” The local lords weren’t so ignorant as to be unaware of one of the Empire’s favorite slogans.
“This is why I need you to maintain the utmost secrecy as you go about solving this issue. I don’t need to explain myself further, do I?”
None in the room dared respond in the negative to Lady Maxine.
We could all see what the future held if we failed. We all had our reasons to dread the outcome. Pardon my rudeness, but even Marsheim’s most unsavory clans preferred having a city of any kind to call home. After all, they were the parasites that fed off of it. If the host died, then everything they worked toward would be pointless.
There was no way around the matter.
We were a specially selected squad of adventurers who had answered the call; the only ones capable of bringing things to a peaceful end. This situation was of a kind only seen in the Age of Gods.
“If the government moves into action, many will fall into despair and panic,” Lady Maxine said. “What’s more, the nobility is too tightly bound by its legal obligations to respond promptly to these conspirators Erich has dubbed ‘Diablo.’”
Everyone in the room knew that the hand of the law was mighty but slow. If the target saw it coming, it didn’t take a genius to put together that it would be time to skip town.
Dealing with subterfuge demanded a pessimistic outlook—doubly so when you were dealing with an organized group. The local administration had to split its attention between the local lords plotting to usurp it and the agenda of a faceless network hell-bent on burning it to the ground. The worst situation would be for the enemy to self-destruct upon noticing that an escape route was no longer viable, deciding to shed as much blood as possible on its way out.
“One must sort out one’s own problems. That is why I have used my privileges as Association manager to peer into the adventurers’ register.”
Thanks to the discovery of this magical tool, the suspicion that had cloaked the Exilrat had gone from a light gray to a deep black. Lady Maxine had taken this opportunity to leverage her full power to reveal details of the adventurers’ register to me and Schnee—swathes of personal information that in normal circumstances only the Association itself would be privy to.
Thanks to these valuable insights, we were able to pinpoint most of the biggest trade points for Kykeon in Marsheim. By collating and cross-referencing the movement of goods and money, it became clear who was most implicated in this affair.
Most of the landlords who owned the buildings that were being used were in the dark about it all. However, the other half were either connected to the old local lords or were Exilrat members who had only left the clan on paper. Thanks to Siegfried’s own personal connections with dealers and suppliers, we were able to verify the foot traffic in and out of every point of sale. It wasn’t all too difficult.
Long story short, we were ready to cast our net and bring in a massive haul.
“We must act swiftly,” Lady Maxine continued. “We’ll strike them like lightning and end things in one stroke. They must be crushed before even a single lucky fool can scuttle away to freedom. Show them everything you have.”
The manager snapped her fingers, and her dvergr attendant laid out a complete map of Marsheim on the table—a rare item, not often shown to outsiders—as well as the summation of this affair that I’d worked so hard to compile on that corkboard.
I could sense Siegfried’s surprise from here.
I told you we’d need this! I thought. And here you thought I’d just been strung out on a two-nighter.
I was genuinely glad that it could come into use now, even if I hadn’t actually foreseen this situation.
Lady Maxine continued with her explanation.
“Our targets are these twenty-one people. I want them brought in dead or alive—make sure they do not escape. There are thirty-one bases to raid. If we crush them all simultaneously, then the scope of Diablo’s abilities will be greatly hindered, no matter how much they try to sustain their covert smuggling operations.”
Likeness portraits and ehrengarde pieces were placed onto the map. It really drove home just how big the operation was, seeing all of these faces and bases that we couldn’t rat out with the Fellowship’s abilities alone. Pooling our forces together had furnished us with mind-boggling manpower. There’s no faster way to smash through a challenge than to join forces with your fellow victims.
If the Fellowship had tackled this alone, we could never have hit them all at once. We would have had to set out targets to prioritize and targets to defer when the situation demanded simultaneous victory on every front.
“Damn, that’s a lot,” Stefano muttered. “Hey, Ember, you didn’t plan these raids just ’cause it’d make things easier for you, did you?”
He scratched at the root of his horn; the Heilbronn Familie head was plainly shocked by the abundance of targets. His trepidation was natural, given the scale of the affair. Not only that, among the twenty-one were the heads of some notable no-good clans, as well as some nobles that had defected from the Imperial faction. At first glance it looked like Lady Maxine had drawn up her own personal hit list.
“Enough of that nonsense, Stefano,” the manager replied. “Look at who I’ve asked. It isn’t a big task if all of you muster your full strength.”
Indeed, Lady Maxine had gathered together the absolute minimum required forces to shatter Diablo’s structural upper hand. Of course there were people—the Exilrat and even a couple of possible councillors—that the manager would be glad to see gone, but the severity of the situation forbade any purely selfish demands.
“All I wish at this point is to winnow the gap between this meeting and the moment we strike to as thin a margin as possible,” Lady Maxine said. “How many can you ask to join the cause? It is crucial that we move into action all at once and complete the job there and then.”
“Hmm,” Stefano said. “It’s been a bit quiet recently, so give me until dusk and I can rustle up 150 bloody-minded bastards for you. That should handle about ten bases, I guess. I can double that number if you can spare a little longer for me to get the word out.”
The Heilbronn Familie were not a bunch big on high-minded moral practices like “taking prisoners,” so Stefano added that it’d be best if his people were committed against more disposable targets. If push came to shove, then the target base would have to be sorted by his own personal squad or Manfred the Tongue-Splitter—after some explanations, at least.
“I suppose...we would be about...half of that number,” Nanna said. “But we’ll be using magic...without restraint. I’d ask...you to turn a blind eye...if you would.”
“If it doesn’t put the public at risk, I won’t question your methods this time around,” Lady Maxine replied. “Fulfill your task by any means necessary.”
“Wow... That’s quite the relief... Don’t you worry, I’ll make sure they’re captured alive... You can leave...seven of these bases to us.”
Nanna blew out a rainbow-colored smoke ring. It was a wordless message that both her and her clan wouldn’t hesitate to put the full breadth of their alchemical arsenal to work. As I watched the swirling colors of her smoke I recalled that time I had visited the Baldur Clan’s manor and seen her people zonked out, technicolor froth caking their lips.
You just couldn’t top a good Cloudkill when it came to AOE combat spells. My previous life had left me intimately familiar with its agonies. They were really potent, but infuriating to deal with when deployed by the GM. Your tanky vanguard? They would all fail their checks in one go. Your squishy rear guard? Gone not long after. What was more unfair was that you remained ever vulnerable while enemies remained ever unaffected, no matter your level. I didn’t want to get started on those boss-level characters that had immunities to everything...
“I can get forty-one armed and ready at any time,” Miss Laurentius said.
“Laurentius, I appreciate the speed,” Lady Maxine said. “Unfortunately, with everyone else’s schedules, I’d ask you to ready your people by tomorrow morning.”
“All right, in that case I can get you just over seventy. The booze will have run its course by tomorrow. You can leave fifteen bases to us, and you can count on our fighters to understand how to neutralize a foe without killing them.”
I shouldn’t have been surprised, considering she was an ogre, but Miss Laurentius and her clan were beasts. Well, when they weren’t looking for solace at the bottoms of their flagons, of course. Some of her regular members could easily strike down three mercenaries on their own in a single exchange. I didn’t doubt that they could conquer these bases without killing anyone.
The members of Clan Laurentius had come together because they adored their leader. Everyone wanted to prove their dedication to her in the field, and so they would be sure to put in good work. Not only that, with Miss Laurentius revitalized once more, they all put in the hours with their noses to the grindstone so that they could sate her craving for combat.
What was less reassuring was the fact that they had zero mages and only a handful of lay priests of the God of Trials.
“We’ll deal with four bases,” Mister Fidelio said with confidence in his voice. Everyone turned to him with a look of surprise on their faces, but his calm expression didn’t change in the slightest. He looked like he had said the most natural thing in the world.
As I thought about it, I realized that, yeah, he probably would be fine. Of course I knew that the saint’s party was composed of veritable heroes, but the truth hit different thrust in front of me like this. One base per person was quite something. A well-armed group of twenty would struggle tackling three bases; two would be a more realistic number. But his party was made of sterner stuff.
They had Mister Fidelio, an invincible frontliner who could buff and heal himself; Mister Hansel, the unsinkable powerhouse who’d taken on the poison of a fallen serpent god with no issue; Mister Rotaru, an assassin so adept that even Margit couldn’t track him; and Miss Zaynab, who could neutralize dozens without even setting a foot inside the building.
It would be unfair to pit the four of them all together against a single target. Our own party had a similar formation, but they were on a completely different level. The GM hadn’t yet shouted at us to rein things in, and so they’d only really thrown enemies that were about our level at us so far.
“Oh, I’m happy with the biggest base,” Mister Fidelio added. “Don’t you worry. No matter what happens, the flames of the Sun shall burn it all to dust.”
What made things way more unfair was that Mister Fidelio wasn’t just a physical warrior: he could also call on his faith to summon fire. Most parties had a keystone member, without whom the whole formation fell apart; his, to the world’s chagrin, could stand on their own individually as tremendous hazards to life and limb.
“Many apologies, but we only have twenty people to field,” I said. “I suppose we could handle two bases.”
I was the modest newbie here. I needed to give an equally modest estimate. Our core members had improved a lot over the course of the summer, and Siegfried had also gotten used to leading people; we would have no issues if we split our clan into two groups. If I was being honest, we were pretty much obliged to give some of the bigger targets a wide berth, given that part of our objective was to make sure nobody fled the scene.
“Very well,” Lady Maxine said. “The Association will also be sending its own forces. On a tactical level, it would make sense for people from the Heilbronn Familie and the Baldur Clan to join them, so please spare a few dozen. You’re up for the task, aren’t you, Hubertus?”
“Of course, ma’am,” replied her bodyguard.
As soon as I heard the name, a shiver ran through me. This dvergr serving the Association manager was the Hubertus the Deranged?! He was a living hero who was on the same level as Saint Fidelio or Manfred the Tongue-Splitter! He had been offered knighthood as recompense for his work as an adventurer, but he had turned it down of his own free will, earning his epithet.
Judging by the atmosphere, perhaps he, unlike me, didn’t simply enjoy adventures, and instead he and the manager had... No, no, stop that—such speculation is below you, Erich!
“I’ll divide up the bases,” Lady Maxine went on. “An aide will deliver notices before long.”
“That’s all well and good,” Nanna said, “but what about...the sewers?”
By only telling us where we would be attacking just beforehand, we could reduce any possible damage even if there happened to be a spy for Diablo lurking undercover. Everyone was aware of this and would take sufficient measures, but Nanna’s concerns lay elsewhere—with the network of paths that lay beneath our city.
Marsheim’s sewers were not as well maintained or guarded as the ones in the capital, and so it ended up being the nesting place for the homeless and those who wanted to conduct their affairs out of sight of the law. Just like the hideout that Siegfried had been using, hidden routes like old derelict wells provided the perfect escape route. Of course, you would have to crawl through filth that you couldn’t be sure was mud or feces, but it beat dying.
“You don’t need to worry about that,” Lady Maxine said. “I’ve used my connections and requested that a branch office of the College run a ‘full examination’ of the waterways. It will be carried out at the same time as your jobs.”
“Aha...” Nanna replied. “You’re using the slimes...to block the paths... How clever...”
Lady Maxine hadn’t overlooked a single detail. Marsheim’s share of the calved-off daughter-clones of Berylin’s “Presidents of Pollution” would have every angle covered.
The College was a huge organization and the Empire was vast, so they had a number of branch offices around the country. They were kind of like branch schools, really, and were set up to make sure infrastructure continued running and to collect data from around the Empire. Full-time magia often found themselves working in places like these instead of the College.
In some regions where they had promising mages but couldn’t afford to send them out to the capital, some of these offices leaned more into the educational facet of their role. Specially nominated tutors were sent from private schools, yes, but the most important implication of these branch offices was that there’d always be a magus within reach.
If Lady Maxine had secured such help, then the slimes—who only roamed a small section of the sewers to conserve their energy—would be flushed through the whole system to give it a full clean. This would make the sewers a no-man’s-land. Not even a mouse—no, a flea—would be able to escape the slimes. Anyone foolish enough to jump in there to plot their escape, would find themselves dissolved by the alkaloid tide, not even leaving their bones to mark where they fell.
I was impressed with the level of bureaucratic power that Lady Maxine could bring to bear. It was one thing to realize you needed a magia’s support, and another, far greater task entirely to coax one into doing what you wanted. Lady Maxine wasn’t merely the previous margrave’s illicit child, nor was she simply the current margrave’s older half sister—she was a brutally intelligent woman. That made her terrifying.
When I’d turned down her offer of peerage, maybe I shouldn’t have brushed her off so strongly. Maybe it would have been better to win her favor and add her to my connections column...
“I realize that some of you might have some qualms or your own ideas about this whole affair,” Lady Maxine said. “But this is for the benefit of all of Marsheim—where each of you have chosen to call home. This matter will be resolved in utmost secrecy; you will not be praised for your deeds in public, nor will you receive evaluation from the Association. I am afraid your only reward will be in coin.”
“I have no qualms if I am given food, drink, and a place to battle,” said Miss Laurentius. “I would say that most everyone here would prefer money and the safety of their city instead of glory, no?”
After Miss Laurentius’s question, everyone voiced their assent.
Mister Fidelio was fighting for his wife and their inn.
Nanna was fighting to destroy her ideologically abhorrent competition.
Stefano was fighting for his turf.
Siegfried and I—well, our reasons were pretty obvious by now.
It was simple, really. Everyone had their own line drawn in the sand which marked where their values lay. Life was defined by the struggle between those whose lines were mutually exclusive, between whom there could be no coexistence, save the coexistence between conqueror and conquered. Whether one resorted to bare blades or not, this was an adventurer’s way.
If we saw a little extra scratch in exchange for keeping our digs clean, so much the better. Honors weren’t unwelcome, but they didn’t amount to much if you couldn’t keep your house in order and your nose clean.
“Very well,” Lady Maxine said. “I will expect you all to fight well. You are dismissed.”
After the manager’s solemn final words, my fellow adventurers made their way out of the room. They had preparations to make, after all.
We too would be going out to rally our troops...but first we had a little explaining to do. The fight between Siegfried and I had been decided more on a whim than with any concrete awareness of the consequences, and so we had inadvertently caused a lot more pain for our Fellows than we had intended. We were both pretty disheartened at what was to come, but had resolved to receive a good punch from everyone as penance for what we’d done.
If I was being totally honest, I was a bit jealous of how much everyone admired Siegfried. This experience had taught me that I would never have been able to form the Fellowship of the Blade alone—maybe I would’ve only been able to scrabble together about half of our current number. If both leaders of our precious Fellows had pulled such a prank in ill taste, then I envisioned a bloodier scene today than what would come tomorrow.
As I decided that I would start off with an honest and direct, “I’m sorry,” Lady Maxine called out to me.
“Erich, a word please.”
“Yes?”
Siegfried stopped and glanced over at me with a look of confusion, but Kaya and Margit read the room and pushed him out. With the door closed, Lady Maxine indicated that I sit opposite her. I knew that I had foisted quite the volatile load onto her lap, but I didn’t think it was fair to receive a personal lecture about it. If I hadn’t done anything, then who knows what state Marsheim would be in right now?
“I have an order for you...” Lady Maxine said. “No, it would be more fitting to call it a request. Don’t die tomorrow.”
“I had no intention of it,” I replied.
My words came a beat late. I’d almost embarrassed myself by blurting out, “You what?”
I was a swordsman heading into a kill-or-be-killed situation. That meant that I would make decent preparations to minimize the chance of me falling in battle. However, with the situation as it was, I couldn’t help but feel uneasy that she was so direct in this request.
In our circle, no amount of preparation could guarantee you’d walk out in one piece; if your number was up, that was it. This whole Kykeon business was especially dangerous. Who knew when a cloud of vaporized poison could come from the sky to wipe you out, leading to the Bad End before the truth could be brought to light?
But if you asked me, with our upcoming full-scale raid tomorrow morning, it was Diablo that had fumbled their save. There was a one-in-eight chance that a hero-class adventurer would come knocking on one of their warehouses, ready to pulverize everyone inside before they could even rattle off a predeath haiku.
“It is thanks to your efforts that Marsheim’s most prominent clans have come together to deal with this situation, despite everything.”
“All I did was ask for help because, as much as I am loath to admit it, I lack the ability to solve it on my own.”
I wasn’t putting on false modesty. The scope of our problem was far out of one person’s or even my clan’s ability to bring it to a safe and happy conclusion. Our enemy was neither flawless nor invincible, so there probably was another route available to us, but I decided that if we were the main cast of this campaign, we were obliged to take the requisite measures.
The only thing that had surprised me was Schnee’s move to bring Mister Fidelio into this, but I had accepted it by now. There was nothing more uncool than a pack of fledgling adventurers letting the world end because they wanted to test their skills and grow from it. Marsheim had many heroes it could count on. If I were the GM in this case, I would flip out at my PCs and ask why they were pooling together so many NPCs against me. It was getting so bloated that I would be thinking about tagging in a co-GM.
We adventurers weren’t at fault, though. The gods of creation had built a world of monstrous complexity and didn’t seem to regret it one jot.
“That’s a great feat in and of itself. You are protecting Marsheim and what it stands for.”
“I’m not quite so sure. All I had thought was that if this situation goes badly, then how would I be able to remain an adventurer here in Ende Erde?”
The Empire’s western frontier had so many adventurers because it wasn’t a completely safe place to be. Although the Empire’s influence was here, they still hadn’t managed to achieve complete law and order. I sensed that if Marsheim fell and all of Ende Erde was enveloped by chaos, then the whole direction of the campaign would shift. It would turn into a veritable war game. I was happy with leaving this genre at the table—I didn’t want to witness that kind of hell firsthand.
“I would have thought that measures were being taken because His Imperial Majesty is concerned about his people here in Ende Erde,” I said.
“I do not believe that is the case,” Lady Maxine replied. “There are more than you think who would not subscribe to that way of thinking either.”
The woman whose hair was probably more gray than black at this point let out a long, deep sigh. In that moment, she seemed even smaller than before.
“The Heilbronn Familie has improved since Stefano took over,” Lady Maxine said. “Even still, they are a group of barbaric thugs. I expect they would switch sides if they thought it would be the more expedient means to protect their turf.”
“He doesn’t seem so coldhearted to me...”
“I aided in his usurpation, so I have won his obedience in this case, but the older members within his clan are most likely not staying quiet.”
The Heilbronn Familie might have been adventurers, but at heart they still bore the long history of organized crime in Ende Erde within them. They were happy to live as they always had, as long as the administrative powers left them be.
Stefano was comparatively young and had won his leadership by killing the previous head in cold blood. His incredible might allowed him to maintain his hegemony, but the fact of the matter was that the clan still housed many old-timers—hot-blooded warrior types. They might have been bothersome for Stefano to control and deal with, but the clan would cease to exist without them. It wouldn’t do for Stefano to act like a certain brush-bearded fellow who had eliminated the majority of his army all for the sake of stabilizing his hold on the power structure beneath him.
The Heilbronn Familie were feared for their power and violence, but they were not an all-powerful singularity.
I was surprised with how Lady Maxine had just casually mentioned that she was involved with Stefano’s rise to power. I didn’t really want to dig into the nitty-gritty of her involvement there. I was certain as soon as I probed the matter, I’d receive a dozen dirty requests as a result.
I understood the logic behind her decision. If there was something foul but you weren’t able to destroy or simply leave it, then all that was left was to engineer the best compromise you could stand.
“The Baldur Clan can’t be trusted either. Nanna is here due to her own personal moral compass. If she found something to swing her the other way, then I am sure she wouldn’t mind seeing Marsheim burn,” Lady Maxine went on.
“If she were offered the option to continue her research elsewhere or given even higher privileges than now, then she wouldn’t hesitate to take it up...”
“You have a keen eye. She settled here because it fit her needs at the time. Although she has clawed her way up to the position of a clan leader, she has no love for this city.”
The College dropout, whose pet hellscape only grew ever larger, saw Kykeon as a crime against good taste, fit only to be expunged. However, her rage was founded on an alien set of personal standards.
This was only speaking in hypotheticals, but if those sheets of translucent paper housed a drug that angered her less, would she be working this earnestly right now? Who could tell—maybe Diablo would try to reach a compromise by telling her that they would halt production of Kykeon and instead work together to create something that fit her ideals.
Nanna said that there was no better place for research than the College. I could tell that she was far from satisfied with her current output or the research funds that came from them. If a research facility abroad of comparable quality to the College offered her a position, then she might bring her whole clan in on the plot. She was pouring her efforts into filling a bowl with a hole in the bottom, and I doubted that she minded what measures were necessary to refill it.
“I suppose the only half-reasonable group is Clan Laurentius,” said Lady Maxine. “But you and I both know that ogres tend to fall victim to their whims. No one can tell what they would do if it meant satisfying their hunger for battle. Anything could happen.”
“Right...” I said. “If it meant fighting a worthy opponent, they could be compelled to switch sides. It’s not unheard of.”
Miss Laurentius proclaimed that her battle lust was relatively low compared to other ogres, but from what Ebbo, Kevin, and some of the other old guard of Clan Laurentius told me, she was prone to blood-drunk conduct in the field. She had put a target on me to sate her cravings and was working on improving herself once more, but I wondered what would happen if she found a truly worthy foe here on Marsheim’s side?
It was a situation that our good rapport had been won by upping our friendship meter, but one false step could make her Diablo’s mercenary, still blazing with the urge to battle me or Mister Fidelio to the death.
It sounded ridiculous, but that was just how ogres were. Because it was rare for a worthy foe to be born outside of their race, they had at one time been terrible enemies to one another. The ogres had then banded into tribes, which had then in turn resulted in all-out war and the subsequent extinction of a number of these groups. The history of ogrekind was painted in blood; knowing this, it was easy to imagine someone turning coat just to sate their desire for battle.
“Finally, there’s Fidelio,” Lady Maxine said. “It’s true that we have owed one another countless favors, but...he has no love for the government.”
I could only hold my silence here. He was a powerhouse of an individual and an upright person, but that meant that he didn’t really understand the heart of the common person who lived day to day. This wasn’t to say that he didn’t think of them at all. But when it came to making concessions with one’s enemy in order to minimize loss of life, he would never, ever choose the path where his suffering would benefit his enemy.
It wasn’t that he couldn’t—he merely chose not to.
It didn’t matter if we found out that the leader of Diablo was someone who should be kept alive for political reasons. The saint would continue in his righteous rampage, offering no quarter to a bald-faced sinner.
The Baldur Clan toed the line of what the saint could bear, but Mister Fidelio wasn’t going to show any mercy in the Kykeon crisis. Especially now, of all times. He was more on edge than a lion protecting its cub. Limp logic like “this will result in fewer deaths in the long run” wouldn’t sway him now.
“He isn’t a bad person, but he is utterly useless in political matters. In fact, I’ve been avoiding him. I’d felt it would be better to not associate with him.”
Lady Maxine’s brow furrowed. I was surprised to hear such a thing straight from her lips.
“One thing I would like to clarify is that I wasn’t unaware of the plot going on in Marsheim,” she continued. “But I never saw it so clearly as you did; certainly not enough to think to give it a name.”
“In other words,” I said, “you left the discretion to us, despite the danger it might pose?”
“That goes without saying. If I knew nothing about this plot, then I would have to live the rest of my life with a board around my neck that said ‘utter dunce.’”
Lady Maxine was a manager of adventurers. As evidenced by Hubertus the Deranged, she had a number of loyal pawns under her control, so it was complete nonsense to think that she had been sitting on her hands this whole time. This was a realm that I wasn’t privy to understanding—Marsheim’s political situation was a huge mess—where something had rendered her unable to act openly to resolve the Kykeon issue.
“But thanks to your initiative, you created an opening that allowed me to be involved. Legitimacy and reason are important values even among your own.”
“Yes... I suppose that no one wants to be looked on with suspicion when they’ve done nothing wrong...”
I hated this web of expectations—these unspoken laws that dictated what you could and could not do. I understood why it was necessary, but it just ticked me off on an emotional level.
We adventurers could eliminate a terrifying foe and bring things to a happy ending, simple as pie, but that didn’t fly for people bound by their social standing. If some idiot who didn’t know the situation came along and said, “Huh? You acted of your own accord without consulting anyone? That’s illegal, no?” then you would have far bigger things to worry about than the issue you were previously trying to solve.
Those in power naturally had an equally large responsibility, but no one wanted to end up causing their own early retirement.
“That’s why I ask that you do not die. If we lose you, this alliance goes with you. My biggest worry is that the enemy will seek to target you first or drive you apart somehow.”
“I suppose if I’m the clasp holding us together, then that means I should act with a bit more panache, to prove my ability to hold my own.”
“I would call you less of a clasp...more of a clamp.”
Now that was quite the compliment.
I had merely been trying my best to get along with my fellow adventurer while squirming my way into bringing this situation to an effective and efficient end. But to be told “You’re important” by someone as impressive as Lady Maxine didn’t feel all too bad actually. My grandma had told me to make sure I received as much pocket money and as many compliments for my achievements as I could in life.
“Then I’ll do my part in forming the wall that will keep Marsheim safe. Safety here enables me to adventure farther afield, after all.”
It wasn’t completely my style, but why not show off a little?
“I’m counting on you to fight well and return alive. I am not the only one who has seen just how important you are.”
“I will take on the honor of the task and enter the battle with your words fully in mind. You can look forward to a positive report tomorrow.”
I gave my best and coolest smile before leaving the room.
Why didn’t I pick up on what Lady Maxine was really saying back then? In hindsight, if I were the most important part of our alliance, then that also meant that I was the weak point. People in my circle—no, most people nowadays call that a “flag.”
[Tips] Although adventurers often align themselves with the affairs of their country, they are not reliant on their nation. To put it bluntly, there are many adventurers who don’t actually care who is in power as long as they are free to live their lives.
“I’m so glad! I’m so happy!”
“Big Bro! I believed in you, Bro!”
As two men, both a whole head taller than him, cried tears of joy as they held him in a tight embrace, Siegfried wondered if he might have preferred getting held down and beat senseless the way he’d expected.
When he had come clean about his performance—something that he still didn’t believe was all too convincing—to his Fellows, he had been ready for fists, bootheels, or even knives to come his way, but instead he’d received warm embraces and hot tears.
“I tricked all of you for Marsheim,” Siegfried had said. “I’ve been dishonest, and it’s your right to make me pay for it.”
He was about to go into a whole spiel about how he would understand if they needed to get their frustration out through their fists, but then Mathieu—the werewolf and one of the founding members of the clan—swallowed him up in a big embrace. Siegfried was known for his agility, able to spring away at any moment in battle, but Mathieu’s embrace was too quick for the hero-hopeful to even try to escape.
A thick arm twisted around his neck and the musky, sweaty smell of Mathieu’s fur and clothes filled his nostrils.
“Ohhh, Bro! You’re back, Big Bro Sieg!”
The next impact that came only a beat later was Etan—an audhumbla and fellow member of the Fellowship’s old guard. He too bent down and embraced the clan’s second-in-command with outstanding speed. No, it would be more correct to say that the pair currently held him in an inescapable bear hug.
“Ngh... S-Stop that!” Siegfried said, forcing the words out. “L-Look out!”
The comparatively small hero-hopeful twisted about, flailing for safe footing. His foot came hard down on the floor of the clan’s rented room in the Snowy Silverwolf before crashing straight through the floorboard.
It was no surprise, really. Both Mathieu and Etan measured around two meters. Not only that, Etan was heavily built, alone weighing way over three hundred and thirty pounds. Siegfried had the grit to bear all that power and joie de vivre without being crushed to bits; the floor wasn’t quite so tough.
“We’re g-gonna...faaaaall?!”
The brave floorboard was hanging on, despite Siegfried’s foot stuck in it, until a bunch of other Fellows joined the scrum. It gave in, letting loose a deafening crash. Siegfried, who had been trying to escape, found himself halfway in the floor. Now trapped, he could only let the dogpile wash over him.
Erich thought for a moment that his comrade had died in the crush—Etan and Mathieu alone could easily pulp a man between their pecs if they tried—but he breathed a sigh of relief as he saw a limb wriggle free and heard his friend’s infuriated shout. The clan leader considered lending a hand, but decided to leave them be.
“They really do love our second-in-command...”
Erich had outstretched a hand, ready to break up the scrum, but brought it to his head. He started to brush his golden namesake. From his eyes, it was plain to see the pangs of jealousy he felt at seeing how easily his friend came to be loved by so many.
“It’s because Big Bro Siegfried is so casual around us. It makes it easy for us to tease him back.”
The one who had spoken was Gerrit, who’d returned to the Snowy Silverwolf before Erich’s meeting with Maxine had ended. He hadn’t only been helping Siegfried on his undercover mission. He’d been occupied with work that only he could do.
Firstly, he’d been sent to ally with his father and convince people that the Fellowship of the Blade was a boon to Marsheim’s nobility before anyone could start spreading any dirty rumors. Erich didn’t have any kind of powerful political backing here in Marsheim, and so Gerrit’s familial connections were key in securing the kind of support the Fellowship needed. These connections would play a key role in the raids tomorrow. Maxine had also explained the situation, and so the guards would turn a blind eye to any acts of barbarity committed by a certain handful of clans. Even if their prescribed targets screamed and asked for help as they fled the scene, none would aid them—even as a knife was plunged into their back.
If you were going to impinge on someone else’s rights, then you needed to butter up those that had the power to ignore your misdeeds. Erich had picked his jobs until now quite carefully for the express purpose of accumulating political favor, to be called in at a moment like this.
This time, Erich had Gerrit, who felt like he owed his boss a favor. Gerrit had been terrified of being cast adrift without a job or place to be. Now he wouldn’t hesitate to pull some strings to shut the mouths of the captain of the guard or of the elite squadron.
Along with that, Gerrit was as compassionate as he was well-connected. While Erich and the other three were in their meeting, he’d preemptively told the Fellowship about his situation and helped to redirect some of their ire toward him instead.
Erich had told Gerrit countless times that he wasn’t a bad person for being a spy, but the young man couldn’t help but paint himself in a negative light. For this naive son of a noble, faking his name and reporting about his boss behind his back was nothing less than high treason.
Yet none of the Fellows had been mad. In fact, they’d reacted much like Erich had, realizing that little harm had been done by this illegitimate noble son’s sneaking about. After all, Gerrit had eaten at the same table, tasted the same experiences as the rest of them, and had made it through brutal training that seemed worse than death itself. They had seen blood and death on the battlefield together. These shared experiences had made the clan more empathetic to their Fellow; they’d been kind and said how cruel it was for his father to put him up to such a heartless, thankless job.
“Oh?” Erich said. “Am I really that unapproachable?”
Maybe it was because Gerrit was such an honest and straightforward sort that he tried to respond to this curveball that Erich had thrown. Normal people would regard Erich’s catty remark as a bit irritating, or perhaps even an abuse of power.
“Uh, well, how do I put this...” Gerrit replied. “I feel that you command...a lot of our respect.”
“Well, judging from our backgrounds, I think you’re far more worthy of respect,” Erich said. “You have noble roots! I’m merely a born and bred farmer’s boy. And, hey, we’re not that different in age!”
No matter how boyish a grin Erich could give, the fact was that he had acquired a roster of permanently active traits that made him taxing to be near. This was compounded by his powerful sword skills that would allow him to cut down anyone in the room with ease.
It was true that the rookies also got beaten up by Siegfried during training, but their second-in-command wasn’t as flawless as Erich was. Siegfried inspired a sense of kinship before respect.
The pair were like a wild dog and a wolf. A wild dog was dangerous, but it was still a dog, so you might think it was cute. A wolf, on the other hand, was fundamentally dangerous—there were probably few people who would rub a wolf’s belly if one dropped to the ground and rolled onto its back.
“And I might have a bit more experience with my blade, but I’ve only been an adventurer for just over a year!” Erich continued.
Goldilocks had once more forgotten the consequences of his build—even now he was still considering purchasing Absolute Charisma—and told Gerrit that he wouldn’t mind slinging shoulders with him. All without the awareness of just how much courage it would take anyone to do that.
“Uhh, umm, well, I, how do I put this...”
At his core, Erich’s sentiments hadn’t changed much from his previous life. He had spent a whole lifetime with his friends at the table, and even as he was acting out that beloved hobby for real, these experiences would never truly disappear from his memory. He loved that easy mood among college friends where you could talk as much shit about one another as you liked—as long as it never crossed the line, of course.
Naturally, the sad truth was that there was no way that the experiences in a fictitious TRPG campaign could ever truly map onto the real experience. In this life, your wounds from training took days to heal and each meal was your reward for surviving a battle you fought tooth and nail to survive. Although Erich had asked his Fellow to banter with him with the same ease as he did during that beloved hobby of his past life, evidently it wasn’t so easy.
“Graaah! Enough of that! Who the hell decided I needed to build up my resistance to being crushed to death?!”
The sound of flesh striking flesh saved Gerrit from the awkward situation. Siegfried had finally resorted to more physical measures after deciding he’d had enough of being squished.
Siegfried used his knees and elbows to get in good hits to avoid any unnecessary pain—to himself, of course—as he fought his way to freedom. When he finally stood up, he looked utterly exhausted. So much so that he wasn’t sure if this had proved to be a more taxing endeavor than actually being beaten up by his Fellows. He was like a cat who had been played with by a bunch of children that didn’t yet know the meaning of restraint. His shirt was pulled down past his shoulder, and his hair, which was scruffy to begin with, was tousled beyond compare. Upon his cheek were the beginnings of a bruise, left by a collision with someone’s shoulder on the way down.
“I thought I was gonna suffocate!” Siegfried yelled.
“But Bro... We were just so happy...!”
Siegfried had forced all the perpetrators onto their knees, but it was evident from their faces just how overwhelmed and overjoyed they were at Siegfried’s return. They loved the Fellowship not just because of one of their two leaders; they loved the banter between Erich and Siegfried, the earnest training they received from the two of them. It wasn’t because they got them good jobs or had connections to decent clients, but because of the sheer fun of their mentors’ dynamic. If they were here, then none would regret giving up their youths to blood and mud, even if a death in battle awaited them at the end.
It had been this love that had made seeing Siegfried and Erich beat each other up before their second-in-command lost his soul to Kykeon too much for them to bear. If this situation had continued for even half a month longer, the Fellows would surely have lost a fair bit of their roster to resignation after teary resignation.
“Dammit, I really am sorry! It was my dumb idea and I’m sorry! But please, guys, stop cryin’ already! Oh, and we’re gonna have to cough up some cash to fix the floor. I’ll pay half and you guys can cover the rest, so please!”
“Oh, Bro!”
“Hee hee, you look so happy, Dee,” Kaya said. She was able to see the smile playing on her partner’s lips as he switched from apologizing to lecturing.
“Oy, Kaya! Enough of that!”
“Dee was lonely too, you know?” Kaya went on regardless. “He always looks so happy when he’s training and working with all of you.”
“C-cut that out!”
This was probably the biggest reason all the Fellows looked up to Siegfried—whenever he was with them, he just looked so happy. Just like how a moody and snappy boss made you feel equally depressed, working under someone who took real pleasure in the labor with you made you feel affection for them.
“Ohh, Bro!”
“Grah, hold it right there, Etan! You’re bein’ way too intense!” Siegfried snapped. “And you, Mathieu! Don’t you dare stand up, or I’ll whup you again!”
Siegfried returned the affection he gave with kindness in equal measure. If someone was worried about something, he’d furrow his brow in concern or offer to drink away their woes beside them.
Erich, on the other hand, was not only a skilled swordsman, but he never let his mask slip. No matter how many pints he pushed back, he would look completely fine, with that easy grin always on his lips. His air was somewhat aloof—distant maybe—and although that inspired the clan’s absolute faith and trust in him, it made it hard for his Fellows to open their hearts to him in the same way. It was easier to relate to someone if you could see at least one flaw.
“Oh! Big Sis Kaya, I’ve got a question I’ve had for a while,” Martyn said, raising his hand, while Etan and Mathieu went to give Siegfried some more bear hugs. “You always call our big bro ‘Dee.’ Is that some kind of nickname or something? Boss taught me some easy words to read and write and I noticed that the word ‘Siegfried’ doesn’t have anything like ‘Dee’ in it at all. Is it maybe an Orisons-based name?”
Maybe the easy atmosphere Siegfried’s return had brewed had allowed Martyn to ask this question that had been playing on his mind for a while. The hero-hopeful froze in the midst of kicking Mathieu away and pushing Etan’s mighty snout out of his personal space. His face was filled with shock, perhaps at the fact that it had taken until now for anyone to ask.
“Hee hee, well, you see, it was a man called ‘Dirk’ who asked me to come on an adventure with him,” Kaya said.
“Huh? But...I thought it was Bro who asked you to come with him, Sis?”
“Oh man, they’re going there, and she’s actually gonna tell them... And now, of all times,” Erich said. He placed a hand on his forehead and looked up at the ceiling. He had tried so hard to deflect the topic whenever it had come up, hoping to ensure no one cottoned onto the link between “Dee” and “Siegfried.”
Maybe Erich was at fault for wanting to give them an education. Martyn had been hard at work learning to read and write with the earnest desire to support Erich with administrative tasks, but the color drained from his face as he realized he had asked something that maybe shouldn’t have been asked.
“C’mon Kaya, I tell you this all the time! Call me Siegfried! Or at least Sieg!”
“No way,” Kaya replied. “I don’t know anyone by that name!”
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