Chapter 62

Wraine’s eyes are wide open, his eyebrows are lifted high, and his forehead is scrunched up as he blinks at me slowly, “Dear Itia almighty, you’ve lost your mind. When you told me you wanted to be a king months ago, I thought you were joking and you just meant you wanted to be rich and powerful. I didn’t know you were the most ambitious motherfucker in the world, holy shit. Damn, I’m speechless.”

Letting out a breath, I understand what he’s saying and even I’m surprised by how grand my ambitions sounded just then but it’s how I’ve felt inside for months now and it’s the basis for my resolve. “Yeah, I don’t know what to say either.”

Wraine looks back at me with a smirk on his face, “Well, if you’re dreaming, you might as well dream big, right? Alright, if that’s what you want to do, then I’ll do anything I can to help you out with that dream.” This time it’s my turn to look surprised. “What, d’you really think I wouldn’t have your back? Of course I’ll be right behind you no matter how stupid I think your dreams are. Besides, isn’t that a good enough foundation for my own firm heart? Helping you make your dreams come true sounds good enough to me already.”

I stare back at him in silence, appreciative of his thoughts but also worried about him as well. “Are you sure? Don’t you have anything you want to do? Anywhere you want to go? I don’t feel like I’m worthy of you putting your efforts into helping me make my dreams come true.”

Wraine’s smirk grows wider and stretches across his face. “And who are you to decide whether you’re worthy of becoming my firm heart or not? I’m the one who gets to decide that and you have no say in it, so fuck off. Besides, it isn’t like I’m making you my purpose for living or anything like that. I honestly don’t know enough about this world and its people for me to find something I want to do right now or somewhere I want to go. With that being said, I’ll help you fulfill that dream of yours while I search for my own purpose in this world.”

Giving him a shrug, I say, “Alright, if that’s what you want. I appreciate the help. Do you need any more time with your uncle? Or maybe you want me to give you some alone time with him?”

“Nah, I’m good. Never knew the guy except for a few stories from my dad and never got the chance to get to know him. I’d be happier if he was still here but maybe it’s better I never got to meet him. What if he turned out to be a real fucker, you know?”

“Hey, I thought the same thing a few hours ago. Let’s get moving then, it’ll be dark before we know it.”

“Alright. By the way, you mentioned Mary earlier. What are you even going to tell her? Do you even plan on saying anything to her about her dad?”

“I have no idea. That’s a whole other mess I don’t want to deal with yet. One step at a time for now, right? Just like we’ve always done.”

Getting up, I pull Wraine to his feet before brushing off my bottom of any dirt. As we’re leaving the graveyard, I notice a small bunch of purple flowers left on one of the gravestones in the second row from the front. I recognize those flowers as Werene flowers. They’re a common species of flowers in the Nasaar Kingdom and don’t really have any outstanding characteristics aside from being known as the kingdom’s unofficial commoners’ flower for displaying one’s love.

They only caught my eye because the entire graveyard looks dilapidated with overgrown weeds everywhere and badly maintained gravestones and there shouldn’t be too many visitors that come here. Seeing the carefully pruned and picked Werene flowers placed on a well kept gravestone surrounded by unkempt and broken ones is an odd sight. But it’s not interesting enough to keep my attention for long and we leave the graveyard.

We get out of the residential district before dark and get back to the compound without running into any more trouble. The entertainment district has calmed down somewhat this past month following Alister’s disappearance. Alira’s men are still combing the city searching for him and they’ve even offered a 1000 gold coin reward for whoever brings back Alister unharmed, no questions asked. They’ll still rough up people they’re not familiar with on the streets pretty frequently but at least they stopped torturing people in the open for information.

I remember seeing Nars a few days after our war with Midriver’s Finest ended and he was slowly roasting a man over an open fire in the middle of one of the district’s busiest streets. Bertrand was completely right when he told me Nars was fucking insane because he covered the man with salt and spices he brought along with him while slowly basting him with butter. The screams I heard that day still make me shiver when I think about them. And the smell… the fucking smell… Nars can’t be human. No human is capable of doing that to another person.

But can I really judge him with what Bertrand and I did to Jerome? I’m not sure, I think I’d be a hypocrite if I thought I was a better person than Nars. I’m no better than Nars. We’re both monsters wearing human skin.

Everyone’s in the pantry already having their dinner when we get there. The pantry’s smaller than the mess hall but it’s easier for Uriah to serve his food spread here than over there and we only use the mess hall to celebrate something big like last night. We finished the compound’s repairs yesterday and celebrated last night by drinking gallons upon gallons of ale. It’s also why we had time to go to the mages’ guild today since the compound was fully repaired.

It looks like it’s Riane’s turn taking care of the girls tonight as she’s carefully cleaning their mouths after each bite which I don’t think is necessary but I’m not going to complain if she’s watching over them. When Wraine and I get our food, we take a seat near Derriv, Bertrand, and Quinn who are already getting boozed up for the night. When he sees us sitting down, Bertrand asks us, “So? How was your visit to the mages’ guild?”

When Olin overhears Bertrand’s question, he takes a seat at our table, his rapt attention directed at the two of us. I can’t take him looking at me with his bright eyes and I’m not willing to voluntarily bring up my fresh wounds myself if I don’t need to and dig into my food instead while downing some ale.

Wraine’s amused with my silence and responds, “Not too bad. We went ahead and took the magic test and found out a few interesting things. I’m pretty average for both natural talent for magic and mana capacity. I have a high affinity for wind family spells and an intermediate affinity for the fire family.

“Isaac over here apparently has incredible natural talent for magic but he doesn’t have much capacity for mana which the mages’ guild branch head, Utaz, felt was an utter shame. He does have a high affinity for spells from the light family though. We didn’t pick up any spells today because we ran out of coins but we’ll go back once we have enough.”

Quinn answers back, “Bah, who needs it when you have a perfectly good sword on your hip. The old man told me the same thing when I went there a few years ago. Said I’d need to spend at least two years just to learn a worthless spell that made a slight breeze. Might as well spend my money and my time on something more worthwhile.”

Olin’s more interested in what Wraine said about me, “Incredible natural talent you say? Isaac, how long did you spend in the mana gathering array before you lit up your brightstone?”

“I don’t know, probably less than five minutes I think.”

“Five minutes!? That’s incredible! Utaz told me when I was taking my test that I was already very naturally gifted when I lit up my brightstone in 15 minutes. But five minutes? According to my research, all the documented master mages on the continent took around 10 minutes during their tests. Five minutes is extraordinary but without an appropriate mana capacity to complement it… it’s unfortunate. Very unfortunate.”

Godsdamnit, that’s exactly how Utaz said it too. I don’t need Olin of all people taking pity on me and I try to change the subject, “Utaz also offered us mage licenses before we left. Why do those exist? The adventurers’ guild offers the exact same thing and even back then when Wraine and I first registered with the guild, it didn’t make sense to me why adventurer licenses are allowed to exist. Why do towns and cities accept them as forms of identification and traveling papers when they can be abused by pretty much anyone?”

This time it’s Quinn who jumps into the conversation as he explodes into a rage as his spittle flies all over my face, “It’s those damned nobles and their greedy little fingers. The adventurers’ guild lines the nobles’ pockets with gold coins as long as those nobles turn a blind eye toward anyone leaving or entering their territories with an adventurer license. While the nobles get fatter every passing day with pockets full of coins, the common folk living under their rule starve to death. Fucking disgusting.

“The Guild makes an ungodly amount of coins every year off those licenses and they've been handing out bribes for nearly a century now. Their reach has gradually spread to every corner of the continent and I doubt there’s a single noble in the Nasaar Kingdom who isn’t taking The Guild’s coins. The mages’ guild is trying to do the same thing but they’re fighting a losing fight. Even heard the adventurers’ guild is demanding the kingdoms and nations they’re bribing to actively reject mage licenses as travel permits. Wouldn’t recommend getting a mage license right now with that shit going on. They’re already the end-all, be-all travel permit issuer and nothing can topple them at this point.”

Bertrand chimes in to add onto what Quinn said, “It wouldn’t be a problem if that’s all they did. Merchants hand out bribes all the time to make sure their goods get through places safely and that’s essentially what the adventurers’ guild is doing. The problem comes in when The Guild fancies themselves as kingmakers and throw the weight of their coin purse around to completely fuck the countries they’re bribing.”

Bertrand pauses to take a drink from his mug before continuing angrily, “20 years ago, King Oswald decided to nationalize the adventurers’ guild in the Nasaar Kingdom and look how that turned out. He died a bloody death while his son, Aethelbrande, who fully supported the adventurers’ guild, received The Guild’s full support in return and took the throne by force. He wasn’t even the next in line but that doesn’t matter when the majority of the nobility in this kingdom can’t wean themselves from The Guild’s gold teat and they’re forced to back an incompetent fool.

“I’m sure he was dumbfounded when the adventurers’ guild flopped sides a few years ago and threw their support behind the Followers of Oswald the Benevolent. Our kingdom has been going to shit for decades now and to top it off, Aethelbrande just had to declare war on the Ribier Kingdom at the beginning of this year. Fucking idiots, the whole lot of them.”

That’s a lot of information to take in. I didn’t expect our inner kingdom turmoil to be this bad. I had an idea back in Mountain’s Toil with how wildly Kapri spoke about our king but it looks like it’s a lot worse than I originally thought. I’m going to give The Foolish Sage another chance when I have the time. This time it’s Derriv who enters the conversation by asking, “How was your trip to your uncle’s grave, Wraine?”

“It was fine. I didn’t really know him too well in the first place and we only came to Midriver to find him because my dad told me to. But it gave me a chance to think through a lot of things that have been on my mind these past few months and that gave me clarity on the things I’ve been going through.” Wraine nods his head with a decisiveness and confidence that I haven’t seen in him for a long time. “Yeah. It was a good experience.”

While everyone settles back down and starts on our food and drink again, someone speaks up, “Umm, if I could intrude on your conversation for a moment.” Everyone sitting at the table turns to look at Olin who spoke up, “What would I need to do to be accepted into this gang?”