Setting intro​

The End of Days was not the end, at least for those on Novita who lived through those days. It wasn’t to say that the ancients were necessarily wrong about the times they lived in, just that the passage of centuries had dulled even the most horrific of apocalypses. Scars fade, peoples repopulate, and societies rebuild. To the casual eye, it was as if nothing had ever happened.

But it did, in small but noticeable ways. Much like a healed bone, the lines were still there if one knew where to look, and some things were never the same after.

Of course, there has to be someone with the relevant frame of reference to point that out to begin with...

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Story prologue​

Life… life’s pretty good, all things considered. James thought to himself as he crawled into his bed. It’s a thought that he often had, usually more to keep a perception of the state of his life. He has a job, his own place, and generally reasonably content.Things could be better, but on the whole he was in the middle of the pack. At least, that’s what his gut instinct says in spite of everything he sees on social media and those around him. It’s best not to think of that.

As his mind drifted off to sleep he made his regular to do list for the coming day. It’s mostly the same as before, differing in only minor details.

He never woke up from that sleep. The rather unhealthy lifestyle of the average modern human being just happened to have caught up to him a bit faster than others. Just another datapoint on some statistic, another number on some document.

Nothing of importance was lost. Generic young adults are a dime a dozen, easily replaceable in the world and the multiverse.

But that doesn’t mean another world gained nothing either.

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Years later (as if time between worlds has any relevance), somewhere in the world of Novita...

“Clarke? Is your mind still here?” The stern tone of the instructor snapped Walter out of his idle musing.

“Yes, senior instructor.” Walter mumbled sheepishly, slowly realigning his head back to the front to where he’s supposed to pay attention. His mind still not fully committed, and whatever shards that were happened to be filled with disdain.

The shards of his mind that felt not fully of his own.

Those shards first appeared around a decade ago, when he was barely 6 years of age. At first there were the short bursts of incomprehensible nonsense, daydreams making less sense than his normal dreams. The doctors tried everything, including things that he found out later from the shards that were not exactly healthy for him.

That was the shards’ doing too. They only got longer as the years went by. Less intrusive, but they're there all the same. Moreover they began to paint a coherent picture. A picture of another world, a place called earth. A vastly different world in appearance if not substance. Yet for all that an undeniable feeling of… kinship? Affinity? He does not know, and the shards were as maddening vague as ever. It was as if it was the memories of him, just from a previous life in another world. In effect an almost completely different person.

“Feeling ill again?” The instructor asked sarcastically. Walter shook his head lightly.

“No, instructor.” Walter lied flatly. The instructor shrugged, going along with the obvious nonesene. They’re all like that, the children of the aristocracy. Spoiled brats going through the motions. It has been centuries and the subsequent generations of those who were willing to do unspeakable violence have become as soft as their ancestors dreamed of the afterlife. Of course, it wasn’t as if he was any better in that regard, but at least he doesn't pretend to be, unlike his students.

However, Walter Clarke, second son of the Marques of Creeksenville, was a bit different. One could say that he’s somewhat… off. Sure, there were moments of absentmindedness, but it was far less than most of the other students. That was actually one of the reasons he called him out more than the rest: at least he has the potential to not be a lost case.

The more troubling aspect of Clarke was all the weird pre-existing notions that he’s got. Honestly he has no idea where the dumb kid got them. It sure wasn’t from existing popular fiction, because none of the other students had ever even given a hint of anything like that, not even those from the other agricultural estates. Then again, the Clarke estate was a particularly outlying one and lacking much in the way of military prowess… but regardless, his notion of the viability of the arming tractors against kriegmeisters is beyond farcical, yet he defends his insanity with the intensity of the mad. At least, until he was threatened with expulsion from the class for insubordination. Still, he could still see it in his eyes: that rejection of what’s being taught to him.

Yet puzzling this insubordination did not extend to anything else outside of that particular subject: he has been oddly polite and attentive in the other subjects, sometimes even giving the occasional insightful observation.

Oh well, everyone’s a little weird at the end of the day, especially those from the frontiers.

“Well then, as you have nothing in particular to add this time, we shall continue the lesson.” The instructor said dryly as he continued the lesson of the day.

Within minutes Walter’s eyes started to glaze over as his mind began to wander off again. The pictures the shards painted of the other world refuse to leave his mind alone…

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Some months later, the harvest season. Location: the estate of the Clarke family

Walter looked on from the agrav observation platform at the orderly row of tracked tractors as they drove slowly onwards, harvesting the seemingly endless lines of grain. Though officially in charge of the harvest as part of his duties, most of the actual supervising is still in the capable hands of the master supervisor Mr. Antony Centon. Not that there’s even much of a need for such supervision, the farmers knew their craft well, and carried on with their work as smoothly as the flowing of a stream.

Not bad for an industrial feudal world, not bad at all.

There it is again, that weird thought brought upon by the shards, where did even the word feudalism come from? Certainly not what he had been taught in the academy. The world and society just works the way it does. That’s all he had ever known, and his father before him, and his father before him, on and on for generations. The world worked in a fair manner, an appointed role for each and every person, the comfort of knowing that tomorrow will be like yesterday… well, barring the rather high chance of violence. Which is why there’s a handful of kriegmeisters on standby, their imposing and jarring bulks standing silently a short distance away. The household guard units, and in the event of actual fighting, he would be piloting one of them.

A task that he hoped to never actually do in real fighting conditions.

He himself will be the first to admit it, he absolutely sucks at piloting those mechs. Despite all the schooling at the academy and even some lessons from his older brother Martin hasn’t really made any noticeable impact. By this point his parents had already given up on him ever achieving any sort of glory in the fields of battle even as a mere standard warrior.

Hence supervising the harvest. Normally it would be an insult, a punishment for those who are not worthy of being on the fields of battle or tournament. And he felt the sting, even if the shards imply otherwise.

Weird thoughts in the head or not, it still sucks to be seen as a disappointment, especially by family and community. What makes it worse is that, if he admits to himself, he’s okay with not being good enough to be a real warrior. There’s enough of those already. Martin’s already the one, and he himself merely a spare to the heir, and like most spares his upbringing was more of a support role at best and something to be tucked away in a corner when the time comes.

The issue though, was that he was even failing at being a backup. As a member of the nobility, it is his duty, no, identity, to be a warrior. To be able to hold his own on the field of battle, to win glory for his family and country (though the latter being far more abstract, given the dysfunctional and deadlocked nature of the Imperial Grand Council and how pointless the whole thing being most of the time).

And at the end of the day, he was a product of his upbringing.

“Dreaming of your struggle wagons again?” Antony asked, with an air of bemusement. Walter shrugged.

“Not really.” He replied. “I was thinking, thinking about my future.”

“Really now?” Antony asked.

“Yes really.” Walter answered. “Soon I will be of the age of adulthood, and… I felt as if I’m not prepared for such shouldering of responsibilities.”

Antony chucked. “You and everyone else since time immemorial, and here we are all the same.” He patted the teen on the shoulder. “You’ll be fine enough.” He assured the young soon to be man.

In truth, the supervisor thought of the younger Clarke as overly dramatic, just like the rest of the aristocrats if he were to be honest. The world in a sense could be described as ‘stably unstable’. Yes, wars are as common as spats between the various noble houses, if only because the vast majority of them are caused by them in the first place. Despite the impressive display of agricultural productivity they are overseeing at the moment, the threat of food insecurity is always on the minds of many, especially those who do the actual work. Again, most of those fears stem from the same source as before...

Human life would be so much more sustainable if there’s no human factor, or at least no human factor from the top. But then there’s the horror stories from the lawless continuous trash fire that is the Turiac People’s Directorate so it’s not as if the alternatives are necessarily better...

However, at least young Clarke here is a lot more sensible than most of his counterparts, being far less obsessed in martial glory or bloodlust, and actually seemed to be content with managing agriculture and the household. It would probably have been better for him to have been born a girl. Then there at least wouldn’t be those same expectations of battlefield competency forced onto him…

… but then again, he does have that weird interest with the whole arming of the tractors. So there’s some battlelust in him yet, regardless of how misplaced it is.

It’s understandable to a certain extent, the Clarkes were not a rich family by any means, yet as Marques they were expected to possess martial prowess… which they don’t really have on the material side of the equation.

Not after that debacle a couple of decades ago.

“You’re probably right.” Walter nodded in seemingly agreement, the words more to convince himself than anything else. It’s reassuring to hear that from another actual human being, as even though the ramblings of the shards have been screaming the same things for a while now, but in his head they didn’t sound all that sane.

It was at that moment when the two were interrupted from the ring of a call from inside the agrav platform.

“Wonder what could it be…” Antony muttered as he picked up the receiver. A short conversation followed between him and whoever’s on the other side of the line, which Walter quickly realized was his father.

Even before the call ended he knew what was about to happen. “War is coming?” He asked rhetorically as Antony put the receiver back in its slot.

“Some scribes and bards will call it that years later, but I doubt it’ll be anything too exciting.” Antony shrugged. “It be like that these days. Look on the bright side though, you’ll get to make up a good yarn to brag about to all your friends when you come back.” He flashed a casual smile, which seemed genuine enough.

Walter simply nodded, though he wasn’t as confident as the supervisor. Beneath all the pomp and festivities of most conflicts lies violence and bloodshed. Somebody has to die, often overly pointlessly so.

He hopes he won’t end up being one of those unfortunate ones.