
Reivan leisurely headed back to the wall with his prisoner slung over his shoulder, but froze in place when Hector reached out to him through the telepathic link of their dream crystals.
Fortunately, the news Reivan received was good. Hector was able to spread the method of stopping the stone divers to surrounding knights, who then relayed it all the way to both ends of the rising wall. He apparently didn't do it himself, of course. It was with the help of the response team—knights who sallied forth to protect the construction sites and face the monstrous horde that had suddenly appeared.
It was a stroke of serendipity that those knights came at just the right time, because Hector didn't know who was nearby and likely didn't have his dream crystal linked with them. As such, he would have had to personally run to the nearest fortress and inform the knight in charge, which would, in turn, slow down the circulation of vital intel.
Reivan felt somewhat apologetic for the trouble.
After all, it was an oversight on his part. Seeing as his best friend had only recently arrived in Samsara and has since been attached to Reivan's side, Hector obviously had no reason to have communication lines open with everyone.
On the other hand, Reivan did have his dream crystal linked with every knight in Samsara, enabling him to telepathically communicate with them as long as they were within a certain distance. But since he also didn't know who was near this particular part of the wall, it wouldn't have mattered. Thinking about it, he would have been in the same predicament as Hector.
In any case, Hector fulfilled his role. And with any hope, the knights got the message out to everyone on the border and acted upon it before significant damage was inflicted on the walls. Or any of the unfinished fortresses, god forbid. Those were a lot harder to make or repair than the ramparts.
'No way...'
Sadly, good news wasn't all Hector had to bring. According to him, hordes of espers had popped up from the ground to attack the knights—which was an ongoing predicament.
Reivan dropped his prisoner and, after a moment of hesitation, stomped on the unconscious Argonian's neck, killing him instantly. There was likely no pain, which was not the kind of death the monster tamer deserved, considering how much damage those worms would've caused. But Reivan didn't have a choice.
If he assumed that the swarm of giant rock worms attacked the unfinished border defenses on multiple fronts simultaneously, then the esper's appearance would have been in sync with the moment before the stone divers clashed with the walls. Meaning it was a coordinated assault. With that in mind, Reivan was unsure if there were more forces around here.
Should he drop his prisoner with the intention of coming back for him later, then Reivan might return to nothing. Someone could free the man while he was away, or the prisoner himself could wake up and somehow free himself. Hence, the least risky option was to simply dispose of the prisoner and move on. Surely, someone else would have captured one of the tamers for the sake of interrogation. And if not, then tough luck.
If people who could use the monster-controlling artifact were rare, then he absolutely didn’t want to allow one of them to return, only to pester Samsara another day.
“Oh, fuck. It was true.” Reivan squinted his eyes as he rushed through the field of frozen stone divers.
Just as Hector said, there was sporadic fighting in the distance. The espers hadn’t attacked the walls themselves, however. Instead, they seemed to have intercepted some of the knights who were aiming to fight the stone divers.
Reivan continued to correspond with his knights through the dream crystal network, as information constantly flooded into his head. The number of espers, apparently, wasn’t very high, and every area under attack could handle itself. From one end of the wall to the other, all of the strongholds would hold. Though it was premature to admit this, everyone seemed to be confident about this.
Clearly, the espers weren’t meant to kill the knights, but to hinder them from stopping the stone divers from wrecking the walls or fortresses. Unfortunately for the enemy, they didn’t account for a freak like Reivan having the ability to discern homunculi from monsters and then subsequently surmise that the monsters were being mind-controlled by someone nearby.
As he drew closer, Reivan noted that the plague of espers raged on, despite the stone divers they were supposed to be coordinating with freezing in place.
‘Huh. Those espers must not be aware of what happened to the monster tamers…’
Espers weren’t completely stupid, otherwise, they wouldn’t be so dangerously adept at posing as civilians. From what he knew, they still had some willpower. And some were even indistinguishable from humans, personality-wise. Which either meant that the espers in this assault were especially dumb, or they didn’t have a line of communication with the tamers—nor a connection with a potential third party in charge of coordinating the assault.
It was obvious that they were working in tandem, however, since the timing was just too good. Their communication was just lacking.
But then again, maybe he was being too harsh by comparing it to the kingdom. Nobody in the current era could match Aizen on that part, because they had items that literally gave them access to telepathic communication within a limited—but very wide—range. The only thing that could rival them were smartphones with internet connection from Modern Earth, but that technology was still a bit too advanced.
So with the dream crystals harvested from the Outlands, Aizen had the most superior communication channels in this world at the moment.
And its significance, he felt, was noticeable in this battle. Because Reivan’s side was able to coordinate and share information with everyone on the walls. Meanwhile, the Argonians needlessly lost all the espers whose roles were made irrelevant when the stone divers were neutralized. Now, not only did Argonians lose their tamed monsters, they also lost a considerable number of espers.
“Oh…?” Reivan raised an eyebrow as he noticed his serpentine companion.
It seemed Zee had changed its battle tactics on its own—instead of attacking the giant rock worms that had stopped moving, it switched to inhaling every esper it could find.
‘All that’s left is clean-up, huh? Fantastic.’
Reivan’s quick pace didn’t slow, but he felt less rushed now. The enemy’s surprise attack had failed, and it was up to everyone else to eradicate the remaining enemy forces.
════════════════════════════════
A few hours later, Reivan found himself in a hastily prepared command tent fit for royalty.
None of the nearby strongholds were completed yet, so nearby knights and everyone involved with the construction set up camp next to the fortress construction sites they were assigned to. There were a few completed fortresses somewhere, but Reivan had unfortunately chosen to visit an area too far from them. Going to one right now seemed a bit excessive. And besides, sleeping in a camp wasn't all that bad. He'd gotten kind of used to it, actually.
It was a nice change of pace. He just wished he wasn't doing it in a fucking wasteland where it was uncomfortably hot.
“There we go…” Reivan sat behind a desk, setting a shrunken Zouros down on his lap. Looking up, he could see Hector ducking into the tent with an exasperated sigh.
“Why did something have to happen today…?” Hector complained as he dutifully stood behind Reivan like a guard. “You said it’d be quick.”
“Hey, don't blame me for this. I thought this would be quick too… And why do you sound as if this always happens? Shit like this has barely happened at all in the time we’ve been friends.”
“I suppose that’s true, and it’s not like I’m blaming you… but damn. That was a close one. I thought I was going to go all the way here and watch the wall crumble.”
Reivan nodded, though he wryly thought that some of the wall did crumble. Or rather, they were eaten.
Though he found a solution against the giant rock worms, it had still taken him some time in order to confirm the authenticity of his theories. And then afterward, it took a bit more time before that information was sent out, despite Hector and the other knights' efforts to spread it.
Even if the dream crystals delivered thought messages instantly, they were still limited by range. As such, even if someone did know every knight currently at the border and had their crystals linked, then they still wouldn’t be capable of sending the message out to everyone because some were out of reach. That was just how expansive the wall's coverage area was.
And that was why the fortresses and parts of the wall farther away from Reivan’s location were late in providing the optimal response to the crisis.
Naturally, they hadn’t neglected their duties.
The knights already on the walls immediately charged forth to try and deal with whatever monstrosity was coming, or at least delay them. Meanwhile, those left at the nearby campsites fended off the horde of espers that had suddenly appeared to annoy them.
Once they received the message, they quickly split roles among themselves. Some scoured the vicinity in search of whoever controlled the monsters, while the rest cleaned up the enemies.
But sadly, it hadn’t been enough to completely avoid damage. A number of spots on the walls up north were literally devoured by the stone divers—just gone into the giant worms' stomachs. And a single fortress was partially damaged to a barely reparable state.
‘Honestly, I don’t think it’s that bad.’
Argonia would have gotten away with a lot more if Reivan hadn’t seen through the workings of their monster tamer. This was... better.
“Man,” Hector shook his head. “It would have been nice to have those esper-killing formations ready.”
“It couldn’t be set up just yet.” Reivan shrugged. “Most of the walls that are up right now are raised from the surrounding earth—which is, as you may have surmised, not very good hosts for enchantments. The whitestone takes a while to get transported all the way out here. And it's a bit harder to work with than ordinary earth. If we forced it anyway, we'd have to lay down all the formations a second time, after the whitestone walls are completed. It's a waste of time and resources."
'And besides... Not all of the wall is complete anyhow. There’s nothing truly solid to attach those formations to. If we set them up now, it would be thousands of small formations instead of one giant formation. Which has its advantages, but isn’t as strong.”
Unlike the Great Wall in a certain asian country—which was built on a mountain range and had to adhere to it—Samsara’s wall was supposed to be just one very long wall that was shaped roughly like a quarter of a pizza, but just the curved crust part.
It started south before moving up into the mainland instead of along the shores, then gradually swerved right until it reached the middle of Arkhan’s eastern shores. Ideally, and very far into the future, the quarter pizza shape would come to include the straight lines too. For now, however, the crust was enough.
The territory behind the wall would include roughly a sixth of the former Arkhan—which was a lot more than Aizen’s entire land territory. It was a fact that caused Reivan some mild anxiety. After all, he would have to ensure such a large territory's security in the future, provided he failed to foist his position on someone else.
Anyway, building a wall across that border was never going to be instant. So at the moment, it had a lot of gaps in between, even without factoring in the unfinished fortresses that would go in between them. In other words, it looked like one of the incomplete drawings in children’s coloring books, where the kids had to trace the broken lines to form an actual picture.
'Hm. No, that's not quite right...'
Some parts were already made of whitestone. So the current state of the walls made it look like a very bad set of teeth. Some spots were white because they'd already been fashioned out of whitestone marble. Some were brown because those parts were still raised from the ground and were meant to eventually be replaced.
Hector grunted in realization. He’d also been up in the sky with Reivan, so he likely knew that too. “Why’d they build it piece by piece from all over the place anyway? Why not just do it like this…”
Reivan looked and found Hector moving closer and putting a finger on the surface of his desk, near the bottom rim. Then Hector slowly moved that finger up the table and curving to the right, the same curve that the real wall would eventually form, then let his finger drop off the table at the right rim.
“See?” Hector gestured at the desk before backing off to his previous position. “Seems easy, no? We go from left... to right. Simple.”
“And that’s exactly why it’s not built that way.” Reivan chuckled. “We don’t want it to be simple.”
“What?”
“C’mon, look here.”
Hector stepped forward, so Reivan began his demonstration. He pointed down at the same spot Hector had started in earlier, slowly and gradually tracing the line he had traced, only to suddenly stop. Then he looked up with a grin.
“Say we progress this way. From left to right. And you see that I’ve built the wall up to this point. I’ve already completed half of it. If you were Argonia, what would you do?”
“If I were Argonia…” Hector muttered, giving it some thought before his eyes widened slightly in realization. ”I would set up some kind of ambush along the path the wall construction is going to take. Or maybe tamper with the terrain to make it harder? Or maybe I could go all the way to the other end of the completed wall and attack that while Samsara is focused on protecting the construction crew…”
“Exactly.” Reivan took his hand off the table. “That’s why we’re just doing it randomly instead of from one end to the other. Or from both ends to the middle. We don’t want Argonia predicting where we’re going. It's meant to be confusing. We want the enemy to be confused as well.”
“But won’t our current method split up our forces even further? We have to protect every bit of the wall. It’s like we’re garrisoning the entire wall, but it’s not complete yet, so everywhere’s less protected.”
Reivan had to give Hector credit because that was a fair point and had been a subject of debate between Reivan and his staff, back when they decided how the wall construction was going to be handled.
And so, he simply parroted what had been the winning argument during the council. “See, even if we, say, started from both ends to the middle, during the construction, we’d still have to keep watch on the land that we’re planning to build the wall on. Because we don’t want enemies doing something there in advance. And those guards will be out in the open while they keep watch in the area.”
“Huh.” Hector crossed his arms and once again fell into thought. “So the way we’re doing things now, even if there are a load of gaps, at least there’s cover everywhere. Meaning the people guarding the area are safer?”
“Well, yes. And it’s also to invite Argonia to spread their forces thin. After all, the wall is so damn large, that hindering one part of it barely makes a difference when construction is literally happening everywhere. As opposed to if we were tracing a curve, they could focus on taking out that one large construction crew.”
“But that just means we have multiple tiny crews that are all pretty vulnerable, no? Argonia could just pick them off one by one.”
“They could do that, but they don’t have many viable options to realistically pull it off.”
Hector grunted in confusion. “What does that mean?”
Reivan knew that this was going to be a bit of a long one, so he lazily gestured at a decanter nearby and watched as it flew into his hands. Then he procured two glasses and poured one for himself and Hector. As he did, he glanced at his friend and began explaining the thought process behind Samsara’s plans. This friend of his would likely accompany him everywhere, after all, so it was better if he knew about these things.
“Hector, you know the people in charge of construction are really skilled earth elementalists, right?”
“Yes. Most were or are knights. Some are squires who failed to become knights, but want to put their elemental affinity to good use. So they focused entirely on honing this particular craft.”
“Great. Now, surrounded by all this barren earth, and then they also have an absurd amount of whitestone marble nearby, how difficult do you think it would be to fight a skilled earth elementalist?”
Hector frowned at the thought. “I’ve sparred with a few… And I wouldn't like my chances. Usually, they’ll just kind of manipulate what’s in the surroundings, but a shit ton of whitestone marble? Yeah… I would rather not. Maybe if they were elementary-grade or low junior-grade knights, I could take ‘em.”
Reivan nodded, sharing a somewhat similar opinion. “I agree. It would take a significant force to take them out in such favorable conditions. So Argonia would have two choices if they wanted to pick off a construction specialist: one, they send in a handful of heavy hitters, or they send in an entire army at a single point just to take out one tiny crew.”
“Uh-huh…”
“But.” Reivan raised a finger. “Because there are parts of the walls all over the place and lookout towers along with them, a large force will immediately be seen by a sentry. So truthfully, Argonia only has the option of sending in a small band of elites.”
“Makes sense…” Hector nodded.
“And they did. They did send a band of elites as assassins. Or they tried to, anyway. But they failed.”
Knights had the image of bravery, of facing overwhelming odds and whatnot. But they were few. And so, Aizen induced a healthy dose of self-preservation within them.
After all, it took a tremendous amount of time, effort, and resources to raise a knight. So every single death was a tremendous loss, even if they were still weak at the time. Growth was never a question of if, because there was no such thing as a talentless knight. Talent was requirement from the start.
No, growth was assured; it was simply a question of how fast it would happen. Given enough time, every knight would become a powerhouse. So even a weak knight’s death was seen as the death of a future powerhouse.
Knights weren’t taught to run from death, but to weigh if that death was worth it.
With that in mind, would a knight stay and fight an obviously superior group of elites aiming to assassinate him? By himself? Even the most zealous of knights would realize that risking their lives in that situation would be futile. Such a death would offer no benefits whatsoever to the kingdom.
A small group of elites, even if they managed to sneak into the camp without being noticed, wouldn’t have the power to eradicate the forces there or to deal significant damage to the half-completed structures. They’re only purpose and the only thing they were capable of doing was assassinating important people before running away.
“If you were in their situation,” Reivan chuckled with a raised brow. “What would you do?”
Hector didn’t even have to think about this one. “I’d leg it. Run like hell without looking back.”
And that was exactly what his construction crews did when Argonia sent assassins for them these past few weeks.
In the same way water elementalists could breathe underwater and even swim in it freely, those who had the earth attribute could meld into the earth. Or they could transform into earth and travel underground without making a single sound.
Gwen was also an earth elementalist. Though when Reivan fought her in an exhibition match, she never had a reason to flee. She did have the option of doing so. And there was nothing Reivan could have done to stop her if she did.
Hector also chuckled, imagining Argonians sneaking into the camp and finding their quarry, only for their prey to flee into the ground without hesitation. Or in some cases, they might have had the tables turned on them with all the unused whitestone marble lying around the camp or hidden in heavy-duty spatial artifacts.
“Seems Argonia isn’t bereft of good assassins either,” Reivan shrugged as he slowly dripped some of his wine into Zee’s gaping mouth. “Some of them escaped after their failed attempt, even when their would-be victims managed to alert the nearby knights.”
“Did we get any of them?”
“Of course. The portion of assassins who didn’t manage to escape is higher. They were too strong to capture, though. So they were slain during the chase instead.”
Hector nodded in acknowledgement before he gingerly peeked at the tent’s entrance. After confirming nobody was there or was headed to the command tent, he picked up the glass of wine Reivan had poured for him earlier and took a sip. “I didn’t know all of that shit was happening.”
“I didn’t feel the need to tell you.” Reivan took out a bowl and set it down on the ground. “Besides, it’s not the kind of thing I just… say, y’know. Doesn’t make for very good idle conversation.”
“Fair enough. That'd make for one horrible ice breaker.”
Reivan inched out of the chair and poured wine into the bowl. His serpentine friend had liked the wine and wanted to sip it like Reivan did, so he poured a bowl out for it. With its lack of thumbs, glasses were understandably not a tool it was proficient in using. Though Zee could do a lot with its tail.
‘There you go, bud. I gotta say, I didn’t see you as the type to sip drinks. Don’t you want to just guzzle it down?’
Zee had come to like drinking as well, on occasion. Though it had been done in large gulps instead of sipping like this. The bowl he just set down belonged to Dippy the black blob-thingy, who also liked wine for some reason. But then again, it kind of liked anything.
Hissing filled his ear as the obsidian serpent fluttered its wings proudly. Apparently, it had figured out that drinking wine slowly was more classy.
‘Well, look at you. Being all fancy. I like it.’
Reivan would never have tried to silence Zee’s nature of devouring large amounts of food, but he also wouldn’t stop it if it ever wanted to try out a different pace of consumption. Especially when the alternative involved inhaling enough food to feed a city for months.
Leaving it to enjoy its classy drink, Reivan finished his glass and stowed it into his spatial ring.
Realizing something, Hector also gulped down his own glass and stored it in his own ring. Licking his lips of any trace of wine, he then quickly returned to his spot behind Reivan.
Just a few moments later, a fully armored Dame Gwendolyn walked in with four knights trailing behind her, all of whom looked equally ready for battle at any time.
There was also what looked to be an Argonian prisoner, dressed only in a clean white tunic, his hands tied behind their back, and his ankles clapped in chains. The prisoner's head was covered by a white bag that flickered with undulating runes, fastened to their head with a rope around the neck.
Interestingly enough, there were no signs of harm on the visible parts of the prisoner's—a man, judging by the wide shoulders and the lack of protruding breasts—though his face might be bruised up.
“Your Excellency,” Gwendolyn saluted, before her nose noticeably wrinkled for a moment. Definitely because she smelled the wine. Thankfully, she made no mention of it. “I have arrived here posthaste.”
Reivan nodded and gestured the party forward. “Did you come here on Grace?”
“Yes,” Gwen admitted. “She has been a tremendous aid in my work. Once again, I thank you for gifting her to me.”
“You thank me every at every opportunity…” Reivan shook his head in exasperation before gesturing in the Argonian’s direction, purposely speaking in the common Argonian tongue so the prisoner could understand. “Who’s our friend, over here? Or is he a friend?”
It seemed his considerate use of the foreign language was well received, because the prisoner hastily nodded and started shouting. Even with his head covered by a bag that should mask perception, his excitement came through. “Yes! Yes, I am a friend! I’ll tell you everything! I'll tell you everything you want to know!”
One of the knights smacked the prisoner on the back of the head, causing the Argonian to collapse on the ground. “One does not speak to His Highness without being spoken to, you filth!”
Hector immediately straightened up a little, even though he wasn’t the target of the knight’s ire. After all, the way he talked to Reivan all the time could be misconstrued as disrespectful. In fact, it was downright treasonous by some people's standards. Though that was just how friends talked to each other, in Reivan’s mind.
‘Oof. This one’s a bit... uhm, zealous.’
Reivan sheepishly thought to himself. He met some, every once in a while. Knights who treated the royal family with a little too much reverence. And that was really saying something, because his other family thought so too.
He had lived one life as a normal but extremely rich young man in a world where equality was still thought of as a real thing, so it made sense that he felt strange about being treated with such devotion. But his father and brother had been royalty for all of their lives. They had never gone a single day outside the highest caste of the kingdom. Yet, they also felt that some knights could be too passionate. Fanatical, even.
“Sir Dastan,” Gwen intervened calmly. “His Excellency has already declared that his title as Hierarch takes priority while in Samsara.”
Sir Dastan, the knight who’d just smacked the prisoner into next week, froze in shock for a moment before he hastily knelt on the ground in apology. “I beg your pardon!”
“Pardon is given, Sir Dastan. Please rise,” Reivan off-handedly waved. “And knights should not kneel in places like this, where the kingdom needs you sharp at all times. As always, the normal salute will suffice.”
“Of course,” Sir Dastan rose as fast as he knelt, standing at attention. Even though he was wearing full-plate armor, complete with a helm, it was obvious that he was hanging on to Reivan’s every word. “I thank His Excellency for his forgiveness.”
Reivan hummed in acknowledgement before turning to Gwen, who’d already unsummoned her own helm. “Gwe—I mean, Dame Gwendolyn. Please heal that prisoner.”
Gwen nodded deliberately before summoning a beautiful white swan, which gracefully landed in front of the prisoner. Once her spirit beast took the prisoner’s head cover off, Gwen procured a pill and crushed it in her armored palm before funneling the pill dust into the man’s gaping mouth.
Noticeably, three bloody white teeth fell out when the bag was removed, but nobody made a comment about it. Not even when the Argonian’s teeth failed to grow back from the healing process. Afterward, a light zap from Reivan had him jumping awake in a matter of seconds.
“Let’s try this again,” Reivan spoke before the Argonian finished checking himself over in disbelief. “You said you’re my friend. I don’t have Argonian friends, so I have trouble believing that. But maybe that can change, hm? Will you really tell us everything?”
“I will, I will! As long as you let me live! I don’t care if I stay as prisoner, just please don’t kill me and I’ll tell you everything I know!” the man hurriedly said, his forehead already caked with sweat. From the look of him, he was roughly fifty years old. Or maybe sixty? It didn’t matter, in the end.
Reivan quickly checked him with [Supreme Insight], finding nothing of note. Though the man was surprisingly only thirty-three years old.
‘Holy fuck, he looks horrible for a man in his thirties.’
In any case, Reivan crossed his fingers across the table and reclined, fully enjoying the comfort of his seat. The capability of bringing his favorite furniture with him everywhere he went truly was a blessing. “So you’ll speak? Gwen, what did you do to this man, to get him to talk so willingly?”
Gwen turned to one of the other knights instead of answering. “Sir Dastan, please.”
Sir Dastan stepped forward and stood at attention, though he spoke in English. “Replying to His Excellency, this Argonian dog was accompanying one of those monster tamers. He did not use an artifact himself. He has confessed that he’s an apprentice. He even tried to kill his own master, who was also his father, just to prove that he had no attachment to the empire.”
“An apprentice…” Ignoring how unfilial the man was to turn on his own father, Reivan raised a brow and internally clicked his tongue. Apprentices were not very valuable sources of information.
Interrogating them was literally the equivalent of asking a first-year recruit in the Spirit Tower about the secrets of sorcery. One could only gain a basic understanding at most. If one was lucky, perhaps more information could be extracted, but the odds were not favorable.
‘Well, it’s better than nothing.’
Reivan procured the rod he’d taken from the monster tamer he killed earlier that day. “Argonian. Do you know what this is?”
The Argonian bobbed his head vigorously. “Yes, I know! It’s an Urgantos. Skilled users can command Uraraktors with it.”
Reivan stifled a grimace. He did not know those words and they were different from what he saw using [Supreme Insight]. 'Stone Diver' wasn’t ‘Urgarak’ when translated to Argonian either.
Did that mean that the species or item name in there wasn’t always what the people on the ground were using? Or was there some grand cosmic being out there assigning arbitrary names? Maybe the real name, one which was forgotten after the passing of millennia, was translated, and that’s why it’s different from what Argonians call it?
‘Yeah, this isn’t the time to think about this…’
Moving on, Reivan waved the small glowing rod from side to side to hold the prisoner’s attention. “Is this valuable?”
The question seemed to confuse the Argonian a little. “Forgive me, but in what sense…?”
Reivan grunted. He supposed there was a need to clarify. “I mean, how difficult is it to make?”
“It is extremely difficult, merciful one,” the prisoner said, shamelessly sucking up to Reivan. “The material they are made of comes from a female Urgarak that has aged to at least eight hundred cycles.”
“How many days is a cycle?”
“Three hundred, oh merciful one.”
“A little less than a year, then.” Reivan performed some quick calculations in his head. “So one of those worms needs to be 666 years and 240 days old.”
‘What an ominous number.’
In his previous world, the number 666 had a special meaning. But in this world, it was just another number, so nobody felt compelled to comment on it.
Gwen’s gaze met his and he immediately surmised that she had a question, so he gestured for her to take the floor. “Argonian. Are there many of these worms? How many are there?”
The prisoner looked at Gwen with confusion. “Merciful one, why is this woman interrupting when men are talking?”
Reivan turned to Sir Dastan. “Softly, please.”
Acquiescing, Sir Dastan smacked the prisoner on the back of the head, with noticeably less force this time. But still enough to knock another tooth out.
‘Is it that easy to knock teeth out…? Or does this guy have gum problems?’
The Argonian wasn’t even knocked out, just dizzied from the blow.
“Answer her questions,” Reivan commanded, his voice ten degrees colder this time.
Trembling slightly, the prisoner gingerly nodded as he struggled into an upright position. “I dare not boast that I know of the full number… But I know that there are many.”
Gwen, seemingly unaffected by the earlier disrespect, continued to question the Argonian. “Even ones that are as large as the ones that appeared today?”
“No, no. The big ones are males that have lived for at least three hundred and sixty cycles.”
Reivan once again performed some quick calculations, and it came out to 360 years. Which was quite a long time for a creature to reach maturity.
‘So these worms shouldn’t be as common as homunculi. The empire is old, however, so it wouldn't be strange if there were a lot. But they also can’t throw these things around willy-nilly.’
“I’ve taken all of the worms today,“ Reivan said. “Will this be a big blow to the empire’s war effort?”
After some thought, the prisoner shook his head. “I do not know. The method of controlling the Urgarak was originally a method only my clan’s bloodline was capable of, a long time ago.”
“And that has changed?”
“Yes… According to the scrolls, we were forced to divulge it to the imperial family when my ancestor’s tribe was integrated into the empire. They took a number of our young men and never returned them. Since then, our blood has been infused into the imperial bloodline, so all of the princes and princesses should be able to do it too… Even the Urgarak we used today were provided by the empire. They were not ones we raised ourselves.”
‘Jesus…’
It didn’t need more confirmation, but the Empire of Argonia didn’t just conquer the lands it now held; it devoured them. Their strengths were absorbed and their weaknesses ignored, as the culture that birthed those strengths were washed away to be replaced by the empire’s own.
That was Argonia. A land of both strife and opportunity, where the winner could take everything.
‘So it’s true that every single member of Argonian Royalty can use every bloodline ability in their lands through controlled breeding.’
Likely, it wasn’t only this prisoner’s bloodline that the imperial family bred into their own. The ruling clan had likely taken in every single special bloodline they could find.
It had probably missed some, he soberly thought.
The lands Argonia conquered were so vast that it was impossible to find every single special bloodline, especially if they didn't particularly like the empire—which was an emotion that a lot of ethnic groups in Argonia felt for the empire in general. Also, there might have been more secretive clans who were already hiding their skills way before the empire started expanding.
Aizen had some as well, honestly, and they preferred being hidden to practice their arts in peace.
In any case, Reivan asked the prisoner a few more questions and sent him away, along with the other knights. Only Hector and Gwen remained with him inside the tent.
Reivan sighed. “Argonians, huh? Still a backward place, in many ways.”
Gwen nodded. “I was there for a time, before I was rescued and brought to Aizen. So I expected this. In any case, Your Excellency, what will we do with the other prisoners? Quite a lot were caught, but none of them wished to talk.”
“Just ship them off to Grimharbor for confinement and isolation.” Reivan procured more wine as he shrugged. “Maybe they’ll break eventually and we’ll find out more. The talkative guy didn’t lie a single time, but he also didn’t know a lot of what we wanted to know. He was an apprentice though, so I wasn't exactly expecting much.”
“Then I’ll take them with me when I go back—”
“No,” Reivan interrupted. “Just gather them up for me. Zee can swallow them along the way. Then I’ll bring ‘em with me to Lageton and we can ship them off to the Penitentiary from there. No need to trouble yourself over it.”
Gwen dipped her head slightly. “Thank you for your consideration. I’ll have them gathered immediately.”
She already had her dream crystal pocket watch in her hand, so the arrangements were likely being made as they spoke.
Last Edited: June 08, 2025
Should he drop his prisoner with the intention of coming back for him later, then Reivan might return to nothing
Why didn't he just have Zee nom him?
Tftc!
i believe it could be cause zee was busy with the worms and the espers but yeah thats a good point!
@Kamillah This is the explanation, yes. Zee was busy swallowing up the espers and gobbling up the worms.
Some people will do anything just to live thats for sure
thanks for the chapter! more please!