Rory detested the fact that he was so tremendously tired at a time when he needed to be the very opposite. At least he was able to recover some when he took the time to explain to everyone what exactly had happened since last night.

Most of the others weren’t privy to his plan. Rory was partly afraid of what they might think, considering he was making a decision that directly influenced the war, and partly afraid that they might begin thinking of him as some sort of manipulative jerk. Unfortunately, he couldn’t control their judgements and he had no intention of making it worse by hiding or lying.

It was nice that all of them accepted it without complaint. Rory was a little surprised at the lack of any negative reactions, but he was glad for it too.

“Ultimately, it drove off the Invigilator,” Viv said, emphasizing the main reason why Rory had done all that.

“Yeah, I’m glad that thing isn’t here anymore,” Jerome said. He was the first person to have spotted the Invigilator coming towards the palace from his perch atop the tower. “I had no clue how we could have stopped something like that. That monster was insane.”

“That’s no monster,” Rory said. “But what exactly did you see?”

“Whatever it is, its image kept going in and out, and the whole world seemed to be acting wonky around it. I was sure I saw trees leaning away, wind blowing harder, and the ground start to rise and level up.”

Rory had felt the sensation of incredible power around the Invigilator. “That sounds insane, but it’s not untrue. I felt something similar too. Like an invisible storm was blowing.”

Viv nodded grimly.

“Well, that just makes it clearer we can’t go up against it directly,” April said.

Ned shoved his hands into his pockets. Rory wondered if they were shaking. “How long do we have before it remembers we’re still here and comes for us again?” Ned asked.

“I’m not sure,” Rory said. He looked around but didn’t see Truck anywhere nearby. “I might be able to figure it out, but I’ll need a little bit of time. Don’t worry though, we’re going to ramp up the efforts to get the business thing going soon.”

They dispersed and decided to busy themselves while still staying alert for anything further. With noon coming on, the others decided to get lunch prepared. Rory didn’t even remember if he’d had breakfast. His appetite had completely evaporated. He couldn’t think much about food, though. There were things he had to take care of.

The first thing in Rory’s rapidly forming itinerary was calling the Wraith Lord.

“It worked!” he told Rory. “Your plan actually came to fruition. Unbelievable. You are truly a remarkable being, Rory.”

“Thanks, Emerius.” Rory grinned, though he shuttered it quickly. No time to exult in his temporary victory. “It’s not over though. I need your help.”

“Of course it isn’t, and of course you do. Pray, tell me what task I must perform now.”

Rory explained everything as briefly as he could. “I know it’s dangerous to go hunting for Otherworlders, but I need to talk to Arelland as soon as possible. Your Wraiths are the only ones I can trust to get in touch with him.”

“Why did you never grant the elf one of your… devices?”

Rory got the feeling Emerius had something less flattering than devices in his mind. “He couldn’t take one. If any of the Otherworlders saw it, they’d think he was partial to us.”

“Ah, I see. That is fair. But yes, rest assured that I will send out all the Wraiths I can to find where the Otherworlders are moving and locate your elf friend.”

“Moving? Where are they moving? Actually, now that I think about, I’ve got no idea what exactly happeneed at the Otherworlders’ base after I left.”

“Ah, of course. Allow me to explain, then.”

The Wraith Lord went on to relate the events at the Otherworlders’ base after Rory’s hasty departure. With the rebels and the Homeworlders at a stalemate with the Otherworlders once more, it had seemed like the battle would once more turn tides to favour the Otherworlders.

However, Arelland’s group had recalled the plan’s ultimate intention in time. They had allowed the rebels and the humans to advance once more and take over much of the base, “forcing” the Otherworlders to retreat.

Thankfully, their timing had been near-perfect. As soon as the rebels and the humans had seemingly driven off the last of the Otherworlder, the Invigilator had appeared.

There had been no time for the victors to actualize that they had seemingly won, much less rest and recuperate enough to extricate themselves from the base, if they had so desired. The Invigilator had swooped into the field of battle without warning.

Some of the insane humans had tried to attack, but they had disappeared from existence immediately. Once everyone had backed off, the Invigilator had announced that the offenders to the system would henceforth be remove. That had been all. The rebel Otherworlders were the next ones to disappear immediately, leaving no trace of their existence.

With that done, the Invigilator disappeared as well, leaving a warning for the Homeworlders to follow the system’s guidelines. Forget the humans, it had chilled even the Wraith Lord to learn how they simply didn’t exist anymore. Not in this world, at least.

The humans quickly realized that holding the captured base would prove to be far too difficult without the assistance of their rebel allies. In a display of cleverness, they looted the whole area as fast as they could, then quickly evacuated before the Otherworlders decided to mount a counter assault and recapture their base.

That was all there had been to the assault.

“Thanks for telling me,” Rory said. “I’m very glad that we didn’t confront the Invigilator or something.”

Emerius grunted. “You cannot. It is as simple as that.”

“As is becoming quite clear…”

Rory wondered if he ought to tell the others what the Wraith Lord had informed him. He decided it wouldn’t really help them to scare them even more with the Invigilator’s capabilities. They’d just have to be constantly wary.

They cut off the call, though not before Rory asked him to see if he could contact the Homeworlders too. They needed the trading deal and the letter of recognition from the humans too, after all.

But then, Rory was concerned what exactly the Homeworlders were going through at the moment. Things had to be chaotic there. At least with the Otherworlders, they’d been in control of the situation, more or less, and things had gone exactly according to the plan. One of their main enemies, the rebel Otherworlders, were now gone. They had reason to celebrate, despite suffering losses.

The Homeworlders had nothing like that. They could have exulted in their victory over the Otherworlders, but their greatest ally had just been eliminated. Considering that they had left the Otherworlders’ base soon after, they hadn’t gained anything material either.

It had been a loss, overall. A loss that Rory himself had set in motion.

The thought stuck with Rory for the rest of the day. He had lunch with the others, then tried to distract himself by helping others train with his Weaving. That helped his Sigil of Weaving grow as well. But nobody’s mind was on their Sigils. Everyone was waiting to see what came of the Invigilator saga.

Evening finally brought on something new, and quite strange as well. It wasn’t the fact that there were Homeworlders who needed his assistance. That was to be expected, despite the humans having an actual base somewhere in Hillhard.

No, what surprised Rory was the unaffiliated human dragging in the injured Homeworlders.

“Who are you?” Rory asked.

The middle-aged man was dressed in heavy trousers and a big jacket, a broad-brimmed hat covering his thatch of blond hair. There was a rifle strapped to his back.

“Name’s Warren,” he said. He jerked his bearded chin at the unconscious people tied up together. “Found these dying in one of the nearby streets, so I thought I’d drag them here before they died.”

“Well, I thank you for bringing them in, but… I still have no idea who you are.”

Warren laughed. “Oh, of course. Where’s my manners. I’m Hunter Warren. As the name suggests, I like to hunt monsters for a living. I’ve been pretty successful so far. I normally range out all over Hillhard and the surrounding areas, looking for creatures to kill… what?”

They were all staring at him. Rory was no less surprised about what he had heard so far than anyone else. This man… he sounded insane.

“How have you been travelling around by yourself?” he asked.

Warren lifted his legs one by one. “By walking. How else? Helps me stay in shape, you know.”

“No, I mean, weren’t the monsters dangerous? I’m sure you’re a great hunter, but you’d need powerful Sigils to fight some of the creatures we’ve battled against.”

Warren raised one hand. The Sigil glowing on its back had a dark-brown circle with three triangles. The image at its centre showed a bow with three, differently-coloured arrows knocked in it. “I’d say I’ve got a nice Sigil. Makes killing monsters a cakewalk.”

Rory couldn’t recall if he had ever seen a Sigil at that Tier. “Are you from Mirrorend originally?”

“I sure am. Why’s that?”

“Nothing.” Rory swallowed, pushing aside his questions about the strange man. “Here, we’ll take them off you. Thanks again for bringing them here.”

“I imagine you’ve heard what’s been going on outside,” Viv said.

Warren raised his hat a little higher with his thumb. “I have. Tragic, that. All that effort and still failing to take the Otherworlders’ base from them. Ah, well. You win some, you lose some.”

“Yeah, unfortunate timing with the Invigilator’s appearance,” Rory said.

“Well, I’ll be heading off now.”

Warren nodded at them and headed away back the way he had come. Rory waved to his departing back, somewhat confused by the meeting.

There were people who weren’t struggling under the system’s constraints. They didn’t have to keep fighting in the pointless war, didn’t have to force the system to recognize them by setting up strange system-approved business, or anything of the like.

For the moment, Rory and the others pulled the unconscious Homeworlders to the infirmary in the palace. Some of the palace people clearly had second thoughts about helping the same group who had assaulted Rory a few days ago, but they pushed past the feelings and did their best to heal the unconscious people up. It helped that none of them were anyone Rory recognized.

It also helped that Evelyn and the other healers were determined not to discriminate. Healing was something that everyone deserved, no matter who they were.

For his part, Rory was aware of the kind of opportunity these people represented. As soon as they were well enough, they could function as the intermediaries Rory needed to set up the trading deal with the Homeworlders.

When they finally regained consciousness, Rory was there with all the questions his mind was brimming with.

“Are you feeling alright?” Rory asked.

They hadn’t been overly injured, as far as Rory had been able to see. A couple had broken limbs, one of them had a nasty wound around the gut area that had released a lot of blood, and another had a nasty bruise on the back of her head. Evelyn had been able to fix them up pretty well.

“I’m fine,” the older man said. “I’m Michael. That’s Evers, and that’s Lily.”

The ones he had pointed out still hadn’t regained consciousness. That was fine. Rory only needed one of them to talk to.

“What happened to you all?” he asked.

Michael needed a moment to answer, probably collecting his thoughts. Rory’s head would have been scrambled after waking up from an injury that had caused him to lose consciousness like that. As it was, he was impressed the Homeworlder was able to answer him relatively quickly.

“We were one of the ones who were assumed dead and just… left there,” he said. Michael stared down, expression twisting as his memories hammered into him. “I can’t believe they left us like that. We were still alive. A lot of us were. They didn’t have to be that afraid, the cowards.”

Rory blinked at the sheer vitriol in his voice. He could imagine the chaos in the middle of a big battle like the one they had gone through. But it still seemed insane to Rory that they could leave their comrades behind, especially when they didn’t display any fatal injury. It seemed they had taken lack of consciousness as the reason for death.

“How’d you all get out of there?” he asked.

“The Otherworlders were returning when I regained consciousness.” Michael looked like he was being forced to regurgitate terrible memories. “I found these two waking up not far from where I was too. We were in terrible condition then. Evers’s arm was broken, and my leg wouldn’t support my weight. Lily was constantly woozy and verging on losing consciousness again.”

Rory felt sorry for him. “You don’t have to tell me everything if you don’t want to.”

“I do want to. We still did our best to sneak out of there, even when the Otherworlders came looking. Despite our best efforts, we would have been caught and probably killed, but we’d come far enough away from the base that Warren decided to help.”

“Who is he, exactly?”

“A deserter. He got strong thanks to our help, but then abandoned the war effort. A co—”

Michael stopped himself. Rory figured whatever he had been about to say no longer held up under the fact that Warren had saved them from the Otherworlders single-handedly.

Rory was just about to start into his foray about getting a potential trading deal from the Mirrorend, when there was a shout from outside the palace. It almost made him laugh. That shout was becoming far too familiar. Someone had come to pay Belcourt palace a visit.

When Ned ran into the infirmary, he only had one word on his lips. “Arelland.”