Five days go by in the blink of eye.

After sending out Aiko and Val Helena on their emissary missions, Gilly and I set to rebuilding the city’s infrastructure. It was in a lot worse shape than I figured and I realized quickly that nearly all the city’s resources had been diverted to the military already. Despite that, the rear guard was in shambles and Maxis had little equipment to work with for training the new recruits. Thankfully Black Top saw to that shortfall by hammering out some cheap swords and armor before switching his attention to cannon production.

My brother took to the surrounding areas with the new recruits, teaching them the basic of combat while leveling them up in the country side. With over 400 strong it was a lot to manage, but I was impressed by my brother’s tenacity and together with Lady Diana they slowly whipped them into shape. Not only did this help our war effort, but it added the city as well, bringing in new raw materials from their hunts and monsters drops in the area.

While they busied themselves with that, Gilly and I used the new resources to make improvements to the economy. We reopened the markets and lowered taxes and gave a royal grant to all the merchant guilds. The response was miraculous and nearly overnight the city seemed to come alive again.

By the third day Aiko returned with good news. She’d successfully convinced the Elvish kingdom to re-established the peace treaty and the trade routes to the East. After a day of celebration of their own, the Elves then sent Aiko back with gifts of rare herbs and potions. I returned the favor by releasing several key items from Braxus’s horde based on Aiko’s suggestions.

Val Helena’s mission turned out to be far from easy in comparison, but made for a much more entertaining story as she recounted her adventure over dinner in the royal dining room a day after Aiko’s return.

The Hill tribes were not a kingdom per se, so even rounding up the chiefs took extra effort. A few of them even remembered Val Helena from our time in the North and were wary of reprisal, but thankfully the gifts rare metals we sent her with went a long way towards gaining their trust. To truly gain their respect however it boiled down to old traditions that Val Helena was forced to take part in.

Thankfully for her it turned out to be a blast.

“It was sort of like the Guild house pvp tournament back in New London,” she says in between bites of a huge rack of yak ribs she brought back with her from the trip to the north. “But way more scuffed! No real rules expect no weapons. Pure fists and pile drivers. It was freaking awesome!”

Val Helena then lets out a goddess laugh as she recounts performing rodeo clown like antics in the ring, facing off against full-blooded giants twice her size. But at level 95 plus they were barely a match for her and she trounced them with such ferocity and glee that they immediately named her the tribal queen of the southern territories, which to them meant she had equal standing. Her first order of business was to re-establish the trade routes and even before Val Helena’s return, Gilly and I saw a huge jump in the city’s resources coming in from the north.

“So how are preparations going?” she asks after finishing her story.

“I say we’re 90% good to go now,” Maxis says. “The new guys are all level 85-ish. I don’t think we can get much higher than that with the monsters we can find around here.”

It was true. As much as I wanted to hit level 99, the monster level and density just wouldn’t allow it in the time we had. Even after five days of exping in between my royal duties I’d barely gained 5% into my next level and was sitting squarely at level 97.

“It’ll have to do,” I say, studying the character stats on my HUD. “Besides, with the cannon support they might not need to rely on pure fighting skills alone. How are we doing in that department, Black Top?”

“Got a hundred of ‘em packed and ready to go,” the gnome says in between sips of a frothy ale. “They’re heavy as heck though. So we’ll need more pack animals and carriages to transport them.”

“Consider it taken care of,” Val Helena says. “My new title of Barbarian Queen of the South comes with twenty mammoths. My prize for winning the tournament.”

Gilly laughs slapping the giantess on her huge shoulder. “Way to go, Val!”

“It appears we’re all set then,” Aido says as our laughs die down. “Are you prepared though, Reece?”

The elf stares at me with her piercing violet eyes and I can tell she means me personally when she asks the question.

“As massive as this army is,” she continues, “at best it will simply nullify the Goblin Queen’s horde. The real issue is going to be dealing with her. And I don’t think we’ve fought an LM as powerful as this zombie Goblin Queen before. Even the Shadow King, as brutal as he was, was like ten levels lower.”

The thought has me returning to that desperate battle so many weeks ago. I’d survived by the skin of my teeth, literally double digit hitpoints from death every second, with only my Shadow Copy spell to keep me alive.

With the Goblin Queen’s powers, this fight could prove to be much worse.

But I have something far more powerful than just Shadow Copy now.

I check the timer of my new ability.

Zenkai

Assume Kono-Zemsu form for 1:00 minutes

Special Conditions: Must be near death or dying.

Cooldown: 100 hours

Zenkai cooldown: 00:00:00

“Don’t worry,” I say. “I’m ready.”

* * *

Bruce frowned at the neon washed high-rises stretching into the rainy night sky.

The rain itself pelted his face and it was still somewhat perplexing to him how real it felt. Despite him being in the virtual shard his mind couldn’t tell that the rain he felt on his face was all an illusion crafted by Dennis. Bruce had to admit the man had talent when it came to virtual architecture. It was the same Neo Thai setting Dennis had taken him to before, but now it was an isolated standalone version.

Or so Dennis had claimed.

The software engineer was standing next to him in the night rain, along with Evelyn.

“So, what do you think?” Dennis gestured to the city bustling with at least a hundred people in the general vicinity alone. They were in a night market, with dangling incandescent bulbs festooned through a patchwork of tarpaulin covered stalls. The din of buying and selling mixed with that of loud chops of cleavers hitting cutting boards as the fish mongers and butchers prepared their wares.

Evelyn, who was dressed in a chic blue jumper and holding a clear plastic umbrella above her head nodded wide-eyed. “It’d certainly address Cedric’s sensory deprivation issues, that’s for sure.”

“Perhaps a bit too much, don’t you think?” Bruce said as a pushcart full of writhing eels rolled past him. “You couldn’t come up with something a bit less cluttered so we can keep an eye on him easier?”

Dennis laughed. “You say that like all these people are real. It’s pure simulation, Bruce. They can be turned off and on at will.”

“And you’re certain he can’t access the main shard hub from here, right?”

“Only a sliver of the main shard AI processor, less than 0.002% in fact, is being appropriated to create this splinter reality. Other than that, there is no direct connection to the Shard servers at all. It’s on a completely independent set of hardware.”

That gave Bruce little comfort. Dennis could be lying about everything.

And probably was.

Still he couldn’t let on that he knew any more than he did. “Fine. Allow Cedric access as you see fit, Evelyn. I believe you were going to make it a part of a reward program or something?”

She nodded. “Cedric has been calmer these last few days. Stopped talking about the feast thing or whatever it was. For a while there he was regressing quite rapidly. But he finally seems to be stabilizing now.”

Cedric’s regression was no doubt Bruce’s own doing. His last conversation with him especially. Bruce desperately wanted to continue it. Cedric had warned of the sacrifice and the Feast but only afterwards, following Bruce’s conversation with Carl did it dawn on him that Gilly, Reece and all the other scouts they had sent to the surface in the past could be those sacrifices.

Bruce needed to know more.

Were they truly being sacrificed on the surface?

And if so how?

And more importantly, how could he stop it?

Dennis was still perhaps planning to make the entire population a sacrifice, but that had become secondary to Bruce now. He needed to protect Gilly and all the others. Part of him wanted to make a command decision to prompt another broadcast and bring his Gilly home. But without knowing how these AI’s truly worked, he could be dooming her to death instantly as well as the rest of Citadel.

Bruce eyed her vital signs, ever present in the corner of his vision. As much as he wanted to act, he couldn’t risk trying to save her now, or everyone else, without more information first.

But with Cedric possessing a link to this construct—one completely created and controlled by Dennis—Bruce couldn’t fathom a way how. The whole point of the first set up with Evelyn was to keep Dennis away from Cedric. But now Dennis would have as much access as he wanted…or perhaps needed.

Bruce needed to find some way to communicate with Cedric before Dennis did something to silence him for good. But as for what he wasn’t sure.

“I’ve seen enough,” Bruce said as he prepared to log out. “I’m sure he’ll enjoy it.” Bruce then paused as he heard the disdain in his own voice. He had to remember the game of cat and mouse was still at play here. He dug deep to give Dennis a smile.

“Nice work, Dennis,” he said as genuinely as he could manage. “Thanks for getting this done so quickly.”

Dennis returned the smile, but with perhaps far better acting skills than he.

“I aim to please, Bruce.”