How could I possibly forget the Dragonewt who started this mess!

That’s right; we stumbled straight into what looks like a mix of a ritual chamber and an office. The Patriarch is sprawled onto the desk, and the fact that my lifeforce detector doesn’t pick up anything despite him being in its range along with his lack of reaction tells me he’s probably dead.

I guess that’s what happens when you try to compete with a literal demon.

See the bastard dead brings me relief, but a hint of dissatisfaction lingers at the bottom of my heart since I wasn’t the one to put hiS MiseRaBle liFe to An End.

I freeze for a second; I can’t let this murderous voice of mine slip into my thoughts like that.

We carefully approach the Patriarch; he isn’t an opponent any of us can take lightly. The possibility of this being a ruse to lure us into lowering our guard is also there, and it wouldn’t surprise me with how scheming the Scalebound are.

ShOoT HiM!

Honestly, I would’ve been surprised if this voice didn’t go into a frenzy since this lizard is on the top of my ‘most hated person’ list. I agree that shooting him now will act as a much-needed stress-relief, but shooting a corpse doesn’t sound like something a sane person would do.

Each step I take is slow and deliberate, all my attention is on the immobile Patriarch, and I almost expect him to spring back to life and blast us to smithereens.

Steve is the first one to reach the Patriarch, and he kicks him as hard as he can. The Dragonewt flies and slams against a wall, but he still doesn’t react.

"I think he's actually dead," Steve says while poking the corpse with his foot.

If only…I’ll believe it once I see it with my own eyes.

I reach Erdis' corpse and point my gun at his head while flipping him over with my foot. My mouth distorts in disgust at the sight: His eyes have melted in their sockets, and his long-sleeved robe is covered in dried blood.

“This is finally over," I mutter before relaxing my shoulders.

The target on my back is finally gone, and I can finally relax…

It would be nice if this was true.

My recent actions probably made me an even bigger target compared to before. At this point, I'm beginning to think that I'm purposely looking for trouble.

I'll have to admit that my final goal isn't going to be agreeable to a lot of very powerful people, but still… The situation is probably already so bad that I wouldn’t be surprised if someone tries to murder me as soon as I leave this compound.

ShOot HiM!

And I need to take care of this guy too. Having a voice in your head isn’t that fun, especially when it tells you to murder everyone you meet. From what I already know, it seems like doing what the voice wants is the only way to silence it. But indulging it doesn't seem like a viable long-term plan for me.

Rip hiM tO ShrEds!

Well, just this one time won't hurt.

Right?

I place my gun into the corpse’s mouth and pull the trigger a couple times. Immense waves of satisfaction course through my body each time I pull the trigger, and I realize that I emptied the magazine when the empty gun clicks.

“What the f-”

Riley is interrupted by a Rewind, and I’m back to the moment before my totally justified desecration. At least the voice in my head is silenced.

But what really worries me is how good this felt. It can’t possibly be only because of the voice, and a part of me also clearly enjoyed it.

“So, should we go out now?” Riley interrupts my dark thoughts and hoists the corpse on his shoulders. “I think my mom should be done by now, so she’s probably waiting for us.”

“I don’t suppose you need me for that, right?” I ask. Meeting with Alice isn’t a good idea, especially now when I gained a new tenant in my head.

Riley nods, “Probably not, but with how your relationship is going… I would try to make up with her.”

"I doubt she'll ever not hate me, especially since I declared my independence," I say.

Steve sighs, “I can understand the reasons behind your choices, but challenging the Enforcers like that will make you a target. I don’t remember much from our history lessons, but I think there are no precedents for successful revolts against the Enforcers.”

“Thank you for the warning… But I’ll have to try. The Enforcer system is beyond redemption, and it needs to go. The Families are supposed to protect people but they oppress them while hoarding knowledge and wealth. How many times did you actually go on missions to maintain order, and how many times did you go and kill someone just because he threatened the monopoly of the Families, or he was a political opponent?” I ask Steve and he remains silent.

Making Steve and Riley re-evaluate their world-view might give birth to a reformist group in the Enforcers, or cause factions to fracture and side with me. I’m almost certain that our friendship conflicts with the loyalty they have to their Family, and with how their mother treated me… I think my tirade can tip the scales in my favor.

At least I hope it does, I don’t want to fight the brothers and I need as many allies as I can get my hands on. After all, I can’t change the world on my own and I’m bound to fight against Enforcers again so I’ll need help.

But first, I need to make sure that my intentions are clear to any potential Enforcers that might want to join my cause. I don’t really have anything to lose since the loyal ones can’t possibly hate me more than they already do.

“Actually, I might as well come with you since I need to clarify certain points with your mother," I say.

Riley raises an eyebrow, but I interrupt him before he can say anything, "Don't worry, I won't cause a scene or anything like that."

Well, I might do. But I can always fall back on the Rewinder if things go wrong.

He takes a long look at me and sighs, "All right, but please try to defuse the situation." he says before grabbing my forearm. We sink into the shadows and reappear in front of the Scalebound palace; it takes me a few seconds to stop feeling nauseous.

The Portal Gun is definitely better than Shadow Walking on that front.

I glance at the group of soldiers surrounding us, the annoying dwarf is nowhere to be seen and his soldiers are in the process of leaving the area. Looking around also reveals that they didn’t take any prisoners, and it wouldn’t take a genius to understand what that meant.

Some resting soldiers notice us and gasp. Their astonishment quickly spread through the rank and Alice soon walks towards us. She smirks when her eyes glaze over the Patriarch’s corpse but her happiness comes to an end when she looks at me.

"I see you found that old bastard. Did you-"

“Sadly, he was already dead when we found him. Beelzebub wrenching his control on the chimera is probably what killed him.” Riley interrupts her.

She shrugs, “Well, it doesn't really matter as long as he's dead." she focuses back on me. “But what is he doing here?”

"Well, I need your confirmation that you'll grant me my independence without any repercussion on your part," I say while surveying the curious soldiers. Some look angry, most of them don’t care about me, but I think some are intrigued…

Or they are just looking at the Patriarch’s corpse; it’s kind of hard to tell. I hope it's the former. That would mean that my attempt to spark the creation of a reformist faction might not just be a pipe dream.

The lean Werewolf grits her teeth, “Again with this nonsense! I’ll let it go since you got rid of Beelzebub, and I made a promise. But don’t test my patience too much or-”

“Or what? You said it yourself, I killed Beelzebub so do you really think threatening me with violence will work? My little something didn’t work against the demon, but can you say the same about you?” I say while pointing at my shotgun.

I don’t have any MH Shells left so I really hope she doesn’t call out my bluff.

She clenches her fists, “You… I’ll let it slide. But don’t ever except kindness from me again. It doesn’t matter if you’re a friend of my sons, I’ll-”

“Once again, you seem to have misunderstood something. I'm only asking to be courteous because I'm going to be independent either way. And why does it matter to you anyway? You're probably going to annex the Scalebound's territory, so why are you so attached to a small area in the middle of nowhere? Are you really willing to sacrifice your men again just to heal your wounded pride?” I interrupt.

This got a rise out of some people. It looks like her plan lowered the Matriarch’s reputation quite a bit.

She clicks her tongue, “Get out of my sight now!”

I smirk, “As you wish.” I aim my Portal Gun at my feet. “But before I go…I created my independent zone because Families are oppressive and corrupt. Enforcers in their current form are nothing more than glorified thugs, and I won’t bend the knee to tyrants like you!” I declare before sinking into a portal.

I think I caught a glance of Riley and Steve hiding their face in their palm, but it must be my imagination.

"Well, at least this is over for now." I sit on the sofa in the middle of my living room and sigh.

What should I do now? I could rest, but it’s kind of impossible now. So I might as well do something productive, like checking out what I stole from the Scalebound.

I teleport in my basement and land just in front of the pile of treasures I plundered from that vault. I grab the marble wand and press it against my forehead. Some images start to appear in front of my eyes, but they quickly flicker out of existence and leave me with a painful headache.

It disappears after a few moments, but I wasn’t too worried about potential backlash.

I bet it's due to my lack of mana.

A bit of research confirms my suspicions. The tool requires a minuscule amount of mana to function, so it can’t work properly since I have none.

Just my luck, now I’ll have to manually go through all that stuff and try to figure out what it is by spending long hours on the HiddenNet. I can't really ask anyone to use the wand in my place since they might try to swindle me.

Great, tedious cataloging is exactly what I needed!

Man, I would be the best wizard ever if I could fuel my spells with sarcasm.

Well, all is not lost. At least I think I can use the Scanner to find what the materials are, but I’ll have to test every single item.

Yeah, let’s do that. At least I’ll keep me busy for a while.

I teleport in front of the Scanner and configure it to only scan my house. I would’ve liked to narrow it even further, but it looks like the device can’t scan a smaller area.

Oh well, it shouldn't be too troublesome. I don't really have a lot of esoteric materials here.

I start the scan without any filters and it finishes within minutes. I grab a piece of paper and write down all the names that popped up. I recognize a few names in the forty or so names in the list, and they almost all belong to high-grade materials that even I would be hard-pressed to buy in meaningful quantities.

There must be millions of Credits worth of stuff in there, and that's not even counting the items.

The Scalebound’s wealth is really mind-boggling, and this was just a small vault. Who knows what could be hiding in their main vault? I’m saddened to think that the Wolfheart will probably take everything.

Note to self: Find a way to breach secure vaults.

I bet a thermal drill isn’t going to cut it… And I probably cannot afford to wait half an hour to pierce the door.

But I already have my plate full with the spell jammer, since I still have to find that Clan hoarding the Starmetal and find the Frostcrystal Roses. I also need to find a reliable source of the essence of emptiness to make more MH Shells and find a way to make proper spatial containers. Not to mention that I’ll have to somehow find time to recruit people to my cause. Addressing the murderous voice in my head should also be of some concern.

How ironic, a time traveler doesn’t have time to do everything he wants.

Ah, I have too much to do!

First thing first, let’s finish with the list of materials.

Ten ‘real’ minutes later and I finish printing a small booklet detailing all the possible properties of the materials I stole.

Of course, it didn’t take me ten minutes, it would be too easy. Instead, I wasted almost twenty-four hours searching the HiddenNet.

Searching for materials on the HiddenNet is atrocious; typing a name gives you thousands of different results.

It was getting so annoying that I had to teleport everything away until only one type of material remained, and I eliminated results based on the material’s appearance. Even then, every type of material has at least four different descriptions.

I'm so fucking spent!

I head to my fridge and grab a beer before sitting on my sofa and gulping down the beverage in one go. Then I Rewind again and savor the same beer again. At this point alcohol doesn’t do anything to me, I can only enjoy the taste so I might as well drink the same beer over and over again.

I take a deep breath and look at my ceiling, searching for the materials destroyed all the remnants of motivation I still had.

And the worst is that I’m not even finished!

Testing all the potential probabilities is going to be a nightmare…

I need a fucking vacation…” I say to myself.

But I can’t afford to do that for now. My battle against Beelzebub and declaration of independence probably made all the Families very aware of my existence.

Speaking of Families...

Riley gave my number to Steve, and the two keep respectively sending me worried messages and outdated memes.

I tell Riley to not worry about a thing, and send some funny pictures back to Steve.

Well, I should be fine for now, but let's not waste too much time.

I teleport in front of the treasure pile and grab the first item I can find.

Three hours passed since I started testing the items. Some of them had cooldown periods depending on the settings, so that’s why I couldn’t do what I did with the materials.

So, on the items: Most of them are weapons that can have various effects, but they are ancient and pretty inefficient since they can barely absorb any ambient mana. I discovered it when I did some research on the runes on the artifacts; they looked like a regular absorption rune but lacked details. Apparently, they were an ancient version no longer in use because of its pitiful rate of mana absorption.

The sets of armor are useless to me since I can’t wear them; they are way too big and heavy.

But the more interesting items were the small glass orbs filled with liquid since they had pretty impressive effects. One caused a burst of lightning, one turned into a column of fire…

I’ll have to admit that I got a bit carried away when trying to combine them together. I pondered about researching them in more details, but I already had too many things to do. Furthermore, my initial research revealed that it was an ancient method to make certain spells. Today they have their niche applications but they are otherwise seldom used since their potency is lacking.

Well, at least I'm partially done with the treasury.

A noise reaches my ears and makes me jump in surprise.

What’s that?!

I grab my Field Pistol, look around to find any potential threat… and realize that this is the noise of a helicopter flying over my house.

It looks like I'm getting a bit too paranoid. But better be safe than sorry. After all, I haven't heard a single helicopter since I live here, so-

Isn’t that noise getting louder?

I take a deep breath and activate my armor before teleporting on top of my roof. I spot two black Huey helicopters landing at the edge of my barrier. Their landing location is too suspicious to be a coincidence, so I sit on my roof and point my gun at the vehicles.

It can’t be Enforcers; they wouldn’t bother with helicopters. So who could it be?

Maybe it’s the government that found out about my time travel or some kind of magical CIA? At this point, it’s very unlikely that it’s the government since it still hasn’t come after me despite my less than discreet actions. But we never know…

A dozen figures wearing red hooded robes come out of the vehicles, and someone who I assume is their leader steps forwards and raise a megaphone. “John Thomson, please come out! We mean you no harm! We are the Order Of The First Flame and we want to swear our allegiance to you!”

W-What?!