11

Giona was relaxing in his office in Unica, which after having furnished it to the best of his capabilities finally looked like an actual office. He even bought a new chair for himself, tired as he was of sitting on a hard, wooden slab that was also too small for him. That particular chair went on the other side of the table, next to the identical one that was already there.

He sighed. He missed the old times where he could just roam the planes and keep the peace, defeating evil monsters and mad sorcerers.

He looked sadly down at the pile of paperwork that had appeared on his desk as if by magic. There was no magic to sort through all those documents, or at least none that he could use, so he had to manually go through each and every one of them by hand. The death-rimed mold of time had eroded the power away from him, the sands smoothing his edge over the others until he was left with nothing but a title and the duty to man a worthless seat of power. A useless branch of the guild he once was a proud member of, in a plane forgotten by the gods and the system both.

A commotion coming from downstairs distracted him for long enough to lose track of what he was doing. This led him to take a much deserved, in his opinion at least, pause from the tedious work. Looking out of the window he saw that it was almost time to close up for the day, a time when most adventurers returned from the dungeon with their loot and cores to sell to the guild. Perhaps, then, this commotion was because someone managed to slay a high-level monster and brought back its body instead of just a core. Those events always managed to attract a lot of attention in a small city like this, although to his eyes those monsters were nothing more than ants.

He exhaled. They would be nothing more than ants, if only he could use his skills. On a whim, he checked the tracking magic on Charles’ guild token and sighed. The skill, although of a very low level, made his head spin. At least it worked though.

Of course, the strange man from another universe was in this building. Now the commotion made much more sense. Giona went downstairs to check on him, and saw him leaving the building after filling a room with bodies once again. This time the monsters were of considerable strength compared to the last time, which made for excellent materials and trade goods to sell to nearby settlements via the planar gates. It was a good haul, although the enthusiasm that all those people were showing was way too much.

Charles left, and the guild master noticed that there was a new face among the crowd. By analyzing his token, he saw that the man in full plate armor was a gold rank adventurer, probably visiting this town in order to get his hands on easy to obtain monster cores from the dungeon. He was agitating the crowd, however, and seemed keen on trying to get information about Charles. There was almost no information to get from the people, even Giona himself who knew the most about that man was aware of the fact that he actually knew him very little. But this was just as worrying, because the gold ranker did not look like a person who would wait and calmly analyze a situation.

Not discouraged in the least, just as the master predicted; the gold ranker took off running and chased after Charles as he was making his way back to his plot of land. Giona knew what was going to happen already, having seen this scene way too many times in his career. There was a fundamental difference here than most times, however, and that difference was the fact that Charles was not as weak as his guild rank or his lack of class suggested. There was trouble brewing, and it was his job to avoid a violent confrontation. And it was in his best interest as well, on top of that. He took off running after them, just a few seconds behind the man in armor.

“You. You are a thief and a murderer!”

The gold ranker took off his helmet for scenic purposes. Giona sighed loudly: the man was basically acting like a cliché idiot.

“And what makes you think that?” Charles asked in a flat tone.

That flat tone was not the same as when he was possessed by the strange entity, however, but much more like that time when he raised his unconventional weapon at Giona. The same weapon that was about to appear in just a few moments, he was sure.

“That ring. I knew the woman who wore it, and now you are wearing it while she is nowhere to be seen. You killed her and her party.”

Giona agreed with the accusations, because all the evidence pointed in that direction, but there was a very specific reason why he had not acted on that information. He was about to step forward, when the way Charles reacted made him stop.

“Suppose that is true.” Charles said calmly. “Let’s pretend that it is, just for a thought experiment. Pretend that I indeed killed a party of experienced, veteran adventurers alone and without even a scratch.”

The man in armor was not listening, instead going for his sword. “So, you admit to killing her!”

Charles sighed, a tired and worn expression creeping on his face. The expression of someone who felt alien and strange, who felt like he was among inferior people. The very same face Giona had to fight not to wear every day.

“I understand the theory, the logic, the chemical reactions in your brain that brought you on this path. The chain of choices and the branching of paths that led you to this point in time and space, here before me. And yet, I will never be able to actually understand how one man could be so stupid, even though the entire multiverse seems filled with people like you.” Charles said, then his oversized metal weapon materialized in his hand out of nowhere.

The weapon was completely black, with four rectangular pieces of metal surrounding a small cavity that exuded extreme, and dangerous power. There were a few blue lines running along the metal, lines that were not there before, and that made it clear to the guild master that the weapon was evolving rapidly under the heavy use. It was the weapon that Charles used in the dungeon, there was no doubt about that.

He saw the action unfold in slow motion, yet unable to do anything in the face of such power. He was too weak and his power had left him for the most part, leaving him only able to witness but not to act. He saw the man raise the front part of the weapon and slowly squeeze a piece of metal with his finger.

The sound was deafening. Like a thunderstorm all condensed in one single, fatal moment. The deliverance of death. There was a silence that followed the sound, just as deafening, and then a thud as the lifeless body of the man hit the ground pulled down by the weight of his armor. Armor which did nothing to protect him, which disappeared along with everything else in a round hole the size of a head in his chest.

The body disappeared inside the very same ring that was the reason this fight happened in the first place, and Charles walked away without batting an eye.

This time, however, Giona decided to get a better look at the ring. He paid a heavy price for it, old wounds and aches acting up until he felt like he was going to roll over on the ground in pain. But he saw a name. Meyreen. It was a ring from a noble family, the very same family that was here in Unica a few hundred years ago.

“Crap.” He said.

He was holding his chest in pain, even though it seemed to come from everywhere at once. He tried to recollect himself, and waved a hand.

“Change of plans. I want you to make contact and take him to the tower.”

“Why?”

“You’ll understand. If he survives, of course. If not, then it means that I was wrong. In that case you take the ring and come back.”

“Why not just take the ring?”

“Because, my dear, that man could be worth much more than a mere ring to us. Even if the ring appears to be, by all means, what we were looking for all along.”

***

Just when he thought that the day couldn’t get any worse, the universe conspired to prove him wrong. There had been some sort of silver lining to killing that man, namely the fifty levels gained at the cost of a single rod of tungsten strengthened metal, the last one of the original few that were brought over from his universe.

A rod that was now gone for good, because there was no way that it survived the impact intact. And there was no way to even know where it landed. The commotion that followed brought upon Charles a series of events that ultimately led him to where he was now.

He was sitting inside a small fortification along the walls of the city, where the guards had taken him as soon as he tried to cross the gates. It was basically torture via boredom to him, who had to make do with the holograms the LAI provided him with to pass the time. He could have shot his way through, but the action was a tactically unsound choice, according to the LAI, because of an 84% probability of causing a large-scale conflict between him and the law enforcement of the whole town.

He chose peace, for now.

“Relinquish your ring.” Said a nameless guard, who was not backing his words with his body language, shaking as he was.

“No.”

“Show us what’s inside, or we will sequester it.” Said the guard next to the first.

He was saying a different thing than the other man, doing nothing except irritating Charles further. There was another man in the room, watching in silence while sipping on a cup of wine. A smart man whose life choices led him to live the stoic life, Charles thought with respect.

“No, I don’t think I will.”

“Look,” began the previously stoic man. “I don’t want to do this, but you need to be searched. And we know that you are carrying more than you are willing to declare inside the ring. Just dump the stuff, and then we’ll search through it.”

Charles rolled his eyes. “Even if I wanted, I don’t think that we can reach the millions of MU needed even with all four of us together.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Bullshit!” Yelled the other guard, who had worked up the courage to stop shaking. “Bring in the Severance.”

The second worthless man scuttled away and returned soon after, carrying a small gem embedded on a brass base. The two put mana inside of it, and immediately Charles felt that the space inside his own ring started to destabilize.

“Guys, I’m warning you. You don’t want to do this.” He said.

The two guards drew their spears and pointed them at him, and he realized in horror that he could not take out anything from the ring, gun included. The space was now fracturing and rupturing, making it impossible to access it in the orderly fashion that he was used to before.

“Silence!”

“Alright, let me just-”

The ring collapsed.

***

Giona was about to reach the small stone tower where Charles was being questioned by the guards. The sole fact that the man was not on a killing spree was like a gift from the gods, because he knew just what could happen if Charles decided to do so. He knew that the guards were incompetent in this town, but he never expected them to try and question a man who had just killed a gold ranker without breaking a sweat.

Alas, this was what was happening, and it fell upon him to make the best out of the situation.

He heard the voices come from inside, and was about to step into the room to get the soldiers to stand down, when he felt a gigantic artificial space merge with real space.

He watched in horror as the room exploded outwards. Mountains, literal mountains tens of meters high of rocks, sand, gravel, wood and a lake’s worth of water appeared in the cramped space of the room making it blow up like it had been hit with a tactical spell.

Large boulders came dropping from the sky and landed on top of houses and people. Clouds of dust rose into the air from the piles of sand and dirt that were burying people and animals alive under tons of materials. Water flooded the street and washed everything away.

A large rock formation as big as a house crashed into the wall of the city, making the already weakened structure come crashing down and leaving behind only a huge gaping hole in the city’s defenses. The rest of the more volatile materials were carried away by the raging wind that so much displaced material caused.

He could hear cries of people; wails of children desperate mothers, and he saw growing pools of blood under many of the dropped stones. It was the scene of a massacre, and an involuntary one at that.

Charles stood in the middle of the mess, gun in his hand now, completely drenched in water from head to toe. His eyes were burning with rage and hate. He looked at the guards, and at Giona.

“Now you’ve done it.”

His ice cold voice was not betraying even the smallest hint of the molten inferno of his soul right now. Only his eyes allowed a small peek into the inner world of that man right now.

The guild master rushed forwards and waved everyone away from Charles. The damage was already done, but he would try his best to avoid causing even more death and suffering. He was confident that they would be able to put the man down eventually, but not before many lives were lost. Perhaps even his own life, something he was not willing to pay for the safety of a village like this. If it came down to having to choose between the village and helping Charles, he would choose the latter.

The man had given Giona enough proof of the fact that he was going to become a major power in this plane, or even in this universe, and he wanted to be a part of that.

“Wait!” He yelled.

Charles turned to face him, sending a shiver down his spine with just a gaze.

“Speak.”

“It’s evident that it was the city guards who wronged you. I offer, in the name of the city of Unica and of the Guild of Adventurers full reparation for the damage done to you.” He said.

“It’s acceptable. Put everything back inside and then we’ll speak again. The food and the water will have to be fresh of course, and don’t forget the money and the equipment. If I only so much as see a grain of sand missing, you’ll hear from me.” Charles said, and tossed the ring to Giona. “And be grateful that I’m not asking for compensation for the inconvenience that they have caused me.”

He walked away then, towards the setting sun and out into the forest close to the city. He disappeared there, and was not seen again apart from the occasional tree falling down and being dragged back to his property.

“You are letting him go? And offering to pay back the damage to his things?” The head of the guards, now arrived at the site panting and sweating, yelled at Giona.

“Look, my friend.” Giona stepped towards the man and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Do you like your city? Do you value your life?”

The man gulped, but nodded.

“Good boy. Now, go fetch as many mages and mana crystals as you can, along with workers and carts. We’re filling this ring back to full, and it’s not going to be easy.”

“What about the dead people.” The guard asked, looking at the tens of dead this event caused.

“Dead? I don’t see any.”

“But-”

“Or at least, this will be the content of the official documents, and the utmost truth whenever that man is around here. Am I clear?”

The man did not reply.

“AM I CLEAR!” Giona yelled, infusing mana into his voice and making everyone double over in pain.

He was weak, perhaps, but not in this city he wasn’t. Not even in this whole plane he could be considered weak, and in fact was among the top powerhouses of the place. It was just the plane itself that was the issue.

He coughed hard, even spitting a small amount of blood. He was lying to himself, building sand castles in the air by pretending that he was still worth something. The truth was different, he knew it, as even using this little skill made his insides turn and twist, hurting worse than a stab in the gut. But it had its effect, as the guard didn’t notice his distress.

The guard paled, but then began to shout orders left and right to his men to begin working immediately.

Giona sighed, put the ring on his finger and stared at the gigantic empty space inside of it. He wondered just how Charles even managed to fill it, and what good he could make out of this disastrous situation. How in all the hells could he even try to fix the damage done, and perhaps even come out the better in his relationship with that violent and dangerous person. Being around him was like trying to swim in a caldera of a volcano, trying to reach the treasure beneath while doing your best not to die.

Nothing Giona had not done before already, just that this time the lava was just a metaphor, and the stakes as well as the treasures were much greater. He’d also have to nurture and help Charles grow, investing resources while trying to smooth his temper, but it was still worth it. If there was someone who could figure out a way to heal him and restore his power, it was him, and then everything would definitely be worth it. Giona only had to figure out what the price for that would be, but no matter whether it was gold or a lifelong friendship he was willing to pay it all. Today’s events, despite how unfortunate they were, showed him what could be his first step back to power.