Traitor, scum, liar, coward... Andrew thought about how people in the future would call someone like him in the future, someone who ordered people to kill each other for their own goals.

Although his dream was to free the people from absolute poverty and the monarchy was just in the way of this end, this was no excuse for the merchant, who felt that the pressure from causing chaos was taking his wishes and turning them into in reality in some gruesome ways. Want to free the people? Sure, just incentivize them to start a bloodbath. Want to grant them wealth? Simple, just kill those who currently have it, innocent children included.

The fragile system was already falling by itself but the Andrew of the past wanted to take part in ending it once and for all. The Andrew of the past was stupid.

He was throwing stones at the plains close to the capital city, these plains - filled with grass and some trees here and there - were the only ones left intact from the machinations of humanity, the grass that reached his shin was fond of hiding good stones to throw, a pity that there were few of these stones taking the size of the plains into account, Andrew had to walk for a few minutes before finding one to throw with all of his strength.

The plains themselves were only left alone because that failure of a king ordered. Perhaps he could indeed do at least one good thing on this muddy life of his, or perhaps it was his wife that asked for him to do this. Then nevermind, he couldn't think of anything good by himself.

But strange orders of the king aside, the stones that Andrew has been throwing with Will for the past hour sure flew far. The stones themselves were normal in every sense of the word, if not minding the fact that they were flying for more than three hundred meters before starting to fall to the ground.

This was the work of 'knight magic', instead of using mana in some ingenious way to reduce its weight or make it so that the stone met no air friction, the only thing needed to make the stone go flying was Will. Wishing for the stone to cross hundreds of meters was enough for it to happen when thrown by your own hands.

It was pretty similar to the way grandmasters suddenly could travel all the four hundred meters that Andrew's stone went through in just two to three seconds. And as weird as the process for doing so, just will it enough and it shall happen. It worked even for half-assed magicians like him.

The rising sun that was glaring at Andrew from afar pulled him out of his stress-free world, it told him that he should head back and meet the friend that he had not seen for a month while waiting for the end of the war.

Exactly, a war. Rumours said that the king was preparing an army to clean the 'Third Estate' that was made by non-nobility and non-royalty, worst thing yet, apparently, they were true.

The speeches based on his wife's writing must have worked out pretty well seeing that when the populace heard this everyone wanted to invade the palace with just their farming tools and some swords. Thankfully they were able to calm down and prepare for today when the invasion of Lugubre would happen.

Andrew walked for almost half an hour before reaching his carriage and going for a few hours of traveling, the coachman as calm and patient as he ever was. He waited for Andrew with eyes closed, - but instead of sleeping - he was meditating, he maintained full focus on standing completely still until Andrew's arrival. He simply opened his eyes and nodded, jumping down from the carriage and opened the door for the merchant while standing to the side and bowing. After Andrew got in, the coachman got back to the rider's seat and made the horses move.

Inside the carriage, Andrew was - like the past few years of his life - once again being assaulted by illusions, the same old claustrophobia surfaced like a spike trap when the walls of the carriage appeared to have gained life - this start was always present on his mind for some reason - and, like a dry throat, threatened to swallow him whole.

Sweat could be felt on his back and forehead while his arms and spine started to shiver uncontrollably.

A person's silhouette appeared on the empty seat in front of Andrew, it sat there, a formless voice was whispering something, the inaudible whisper got louder by the moment.

Andrew had a headache while his eyes quickly moved from one place to another, never looking at any corner of the wall for more than a second.

Although his ears couldn't find any sound besides the rocking of the carriage, his mind transmitted the inexistent whisper to him, although he didn't hear what it said, he knew what it was about.

And so, instead of hearing that formless scream that should come after some time, Andrew heard his own voice inside his mind, blaming and threatening, asking for the reason while accusing him of having no right to do anything besides breathing.

"Ugh... Dammit!"

Andrew scratched himself all over his body while hearing his own inexistent voice, this time he couldn't contain some groans that almost came out as screams filled with fear and anger.

Only by repeating the same process of thinking about his time with Julie and Anna was he able to calm himself, assure himself that he had to keep going until the end of this chaos and once again have his peaceful time with his precious family.

The calming memories of the three of them playing together coupled with the expectation of doing it again gave the merchant the needed strength to withstand the torturing of having a faulty mind.

After controlling his almost choked breath, Andrew kept his family in his mind for some time, enjoying the memory of the month they spent together like nothing bad was going on. He also went back to when his mind started playing tricks on him, how he could simply ignore the living walls with minimal discomfort; when the silhouette didn't even appear, no wailing, no ridicule.

Unfortunately, that was the past and this was now.

He reached for a cloth that was inside the carriage to wipe off the sweat on his forehead and wherever he could reach inside his clothing.

With him back to normal, the stressed - almost depressed - merchant was able to patiently wait for his meeting with Neutral. To talk with him while watching the battlefield that they reluctantly created.

Three people sat at a table in a house owned by a merchant that supports the uprising, this being the third person. Everyone was quiet, Neutral was - as always - looking at his teacup, with a plate on its side now; Andrew had his eyes closed and head low as if trying to sleep; the merchant was simply looking upwards at the sky, the cloudy wheater enforced the gray colors at the afternoon of the city, hiding the sun from the soon to come bloodshed.

The reason why there was such a small meeting at the land of the nameless merchant was that both Neutral and Andrew figured that the place should be close enough to the 'prison' for gunshots to be heard and, since the merchant had friendly ties with the populace by being one of the leaders of the uprising that managed to survive for two years without being discovered by the king, this residence should, supposedly, be relatively safe.

This 'raid' at Lugubre should - according to the original plan - be happening one month from now, however, the rumors about the king preparing his army to attack the members of the Third Estate's Assembly pressured the influent members and angered the populace, this coupled with the speeches promoting freedom and equal rights to everyone has sent everybody - royalty friendly or not - into an anxious mood, some fearing that the mob would attack them and others worried about the response of the king to an attack such as the one happening right now.

*Distant shouting*

The sound of dozens of thousands of people shouting and making an uproar at the distance could be heard by now, they had already invaded the weapon stash and should be armed with guns now, this 'army' was overkill against Lugubre which had barely a hundred guards defending it. The shouts kept their presence for almost half an hour but the trio sitting comfortably at the table showed no reaction despite this being the reason they were there to begin with.

Andrew paid no mind to the shouts while he kept his head low, close to a sleeping position. He was - somewhat - trying to get close to sleep. For whatever reason, only when he slept in the middle of the day would his mind be fully focused on thinking, and to think he wanted right now.

Neutral explanation on cycles was - to make things simple - chaotic at the very least. When telling thoughts like those, it was common for him - and any wise person for the matter - to add examples on what his observations were based off.

But for the first time in his short two years with the noble, he got no example, just an explanation. Andrew wondered for what reason would this be the case. It surely wasn't that Neutral had just thought that at the time and said his thoughts like a child would without planning to argue.

He then decided that the most probable reason was that there was simply not something to compare it to, which was agreeable since the cycles he seemed to talk about would casually span for several lifetimes of a person at the very least.

But hell! He was not a grandmage to be able live that long!

'But then how did he reach such a thought? Surely he's also not one too, or else he would not be even talking with me because worldly affairs wouldn't concern him. Then just how?'

Andrew was completely lost in thought before the first gunshot echoed throughout the city. The sound seemed to snake through the air and flow along the barely planned roads that randomly spread everywhere. The somewhat slim, two-stories high buildings ignored everything that happened as always.

The people involved, however, were screaming curses and barking orders, not that Andrew could make anything in the mixing of thousands of roars and hailing to the people.

At this point, Neutral was already looking somewhere besides his teacup and the nameless merchant was looking at the origin of the battle. The noble looked at Andrew and then to the other merchant, and as if he had made a decision after careful pondering, he spoke.

"I believe this sets the rest in stone, it is pretty clear to me that this show of power will end up with success on our part. I will also take this chance to announce my leave from this country to the two of you, all that is left for me to do in this place now is to get a friend of mine that was locked in that 'prison' and leave with him."

"I see." Answered Andrew with a sigh, the bags under his eyes seemed to grow heavier in his head. "The country will miss you. Though perhaps someone with a status such as yours would never be fully trusted again... truly a pity that."

"It was nice knowing that wherever we are there is always a good person to greet us, even if said person is buried beneath the dirt of others. But I guess that there's no other place for wise people such as yourself to achieve something nowadays. As our friend said... it's truly a pity." Commented the other merchant while nodding his head in a calm demeanor, respect engraved in his voice while the fight made its presence even more publicly in the background.

"Well, don't think in such a pessimistic view. With just a little luck someone truly worthy of your respect will rise between the freed people. This not happening would truly be a pity." Said Neutral, appearing to be hopeful and - at the same time - nostalgic.

Neutral's face ticked at something inside Andrew, he felt something from this but he couldn't quite pinpoint it. It was just like the times when he knew a deal was successful with a contact before they even reached the end of it but he didn't really know what caused it. This feeling made Andrew realize that, whatever was running inside Neutral's mind right now, influenced the noble to give some kind of hint, but again, Andrew couldn't pinpoint what exactly what it was.

The stressed merchant saw a headache incoming by trying to make sense of something without the proper explanation, so he decided to drop the feeling for now.

After two hours of shouts and shots, cheering drowned every other sound in the district. The fight ended, and pressure seemed to fly away from Andrew's shoulders, but he knew that this was just the beginning. Now that the power of the populace has been shown, the only thing needed was to wait for the king's response and act accordingly in order to counter it, the last goal was to dethrone the king and end the monarchy in the country.

Andrew feared an attack in his country during the time it would be weak and unstable, but he guessed that other reigns would think twice before invading the home of hundreds of thousands of blood lusting peasants and risk the same ending inside their own house.