This is Intolerable
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"You ever noticed how the hinges on the doors in this castle are suspiciously well-oiled?" Elze noted. "It's like they expect you to kick them open to test if they're locked or not."
Linze sighed "Sis, please do not."
Elze knocked at the door. After a while, it opened.
Leene opened the door, dressed in nothing but an overly large t-shirt. She blushed and looked away. "My, this is embarrassing," the fairy mumbled.
Elze just snorted and walked past her into the room. "You are trying too hard to make it look like something happened. But we all know that nothing happened. Because in this here adventuring party, we respect the rule of dibs."
"It is a sacred rule," said Linze as she followed behind.
"Tch." Leene turned aside for a moment to grimace, then turned back looking all poised and proper again. "That is all that makes this unrealistic to you? Not..." Leene asked with uncertain hope - "Body types?"
Elze sighed and shook her head. "If you had tried to replace Monika in his moment of grief, no matter WHO you think you are, he would have MURDERED YOU."
"You are far too smart for that, Lady Leene," said Linze. She smiled sweetly and not at all threateningly.
"... Fair enough." Leene smiled and nodded.
"Hey, Playa!" Elze shouted into the room. "YOU STILL NAKED?!"
"I was this close to playing Kom, Susser Tod! (1)" I shouted from the balcony.
If the worst had happened, I would have gone full Dracula and taken this castle as my Castlevania. Particle Beams shaped like crosses would have erupted across Regulus lands. Irrational and disproportionate as it may be, it is only when you are willing to give everything from yourself that life actually means something. That's why it's called 'falling' in love.
The sun would never rise again. My world has ended.
Then I bounced like an orange striped tigger into the room "but now instead I'm Walking on Sunshine, Woh-oooho! It's time to feel good~!"
From one brightly-lit window to another "WALKIN' ON SUUN-SHIINE~!"
"Wait, this is worse," Elze said flatly. "Go back to being naked."
"Sis, that's - wait. I should not be objecting to that."
/"More like slipping and sliding,"/ said Monika. /"Well as long as it doesn't mean whatever gray overcast day passes for sunshine in London. I saw the original music video of that. I don't know if they meant it ironically or just actually happy that there's something going through skies in the British Isles."/ (2)
"While terrible food may be a meme, terrible weather in England is based in fact," I replied. "Even I know that much."
"What's England?" asked Leene.
"The land of angles. As opposed to Sirkland, which is the land of circles."
Monika groaned.
"Miss Monika, you're back!" Linze squealed happily.
Elze chuckled good-naturedly. "Well that bout of seriousness from you didn't last long, did it? Welcome back," she said to me.
I grinned back. "Happy to be here."
Well okay, it would be fifty/fifty that Elze would punch me in the face to break me out of the cringe zone, or she would be utterly hamming it up as a Floor Boss.
Ah, feels like a missed opportunity somehow. Maybe I really should steal a castle at some point.
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Which brings us to… breakfast.
Since Castle Zenovi was always expecting a siege they had well-stocked larders. Food helped maintain morale, and so they also had good cooks with expertise at making the most variety out of a limited ingredient list.
"Is this… chicken?" I asked. "For breakfast?"
"Bruh, Red Chicken House has chicken ALL DAY and ALL NIGHT on the menu," interrupted Elze.
"We're completely forgetting that it's supposed to be named the Silver Moon Inn, huh?" Linze sighed. "No wonder Miss Micah is so aggrieved."
Nom. Yae stuck a chicken leg into her mouth, and then pulled out leaving nothing but bone. I was simultaneously impressed and intimidated.
I carefully chewed the morsel in the mouth. Then I swallowed.
I looked towards Zorah and said "This is slow-roasted chicken, isn't it? Juicy, so tender it almost dissolves in the mouth, spices soaked clear into the meat, and skin that is less crisp than it is a crickled sheet."
She smirked at me. "Precisely."
I stood up and pointed at her "THEN YOU FAAAAIIIILLL!"
She sucked in her breath, gripped the edges of the table and hissed back "Whyyyyyyy?!"
"Because chickenjoy is supposed to be a twenty-four-seven treat and if you're making the customer wait for more than five minutes, you're doing it wrong! Fast and affordable, crisply-licious, juicy-licious! That is the Zahli-Bee waaay!"
"Kuh. You are changing the goalposts again, cheater!"
"If you want to compete at my level, then GET ON MY LEVEL!"
"If that is a challenge then you would be a fool to think I would not ACCEPT IT!"
Lydia groaned. "Don't we have more important concerns than this?" She then looked up from her laced fingers in a Gendo pose towards her liege. "Also, Mistress, please. No more mysterious black substances."
"Whoa, so you can't even cook?" I gasp exaggeratedly. "Wow all your womanly charms really just went to Zanac, huh?"
"Mistress we're still eating, please do not flip the table," Lydia spoke up hurriedly.
Zorah jumped onto her chair and pointed "I WILL DESTROY Y-"
WHAM.
Elze slammed her fists down onto the long ironwood table. "CAN WE JUST HAVE FUCKING BREAKFAST, YOU BUNCH OF RABID MONKEYS!"
On the left side of the dining table, from Zorah's perspective were me and the girls. She had the head position on the long end of the table, while to her right sat Lydia. Her other retainers did not join us for breakfast since unlike Team Zah theirs was not a relationship of quasi-equals in an adventuring party. I was as far away from Zorah as possible because if we were right next to each other we would probably start to kill each other or (as other may fear) start to make out.
Blech.
That would just be all greasy lipstick. I still had no idea of what Zorah looked like under that cakeface, nor any interest in finding out.
Zorah squinted. "I will not be disrespected as such by a guest in my own castle."
"If you act like children I will treat you all like children!" Elze clapped a fist into a waiting palm. "I will fucking SPANK the both of you, JUST FUCKING TRY ME."
Lydia glanced at Elze with a mixture of pain and envy. Then she turned towards Zorah and said carefully "Mistress, part of the duties of a noble is to be a good host. They have taken our bread and salt, and rules of hospitality behooves as to have tolerance. As I said prior, we have more important things to talk about."
Zorah grumbled and sat back down, muttering under her breath. If she wasn't noble, then she was nothing.
I leaned back and took a deep breath. "We may work for the same guy, but we are entirely different departments. I'm just waiting for a reply from the capital, anything after that is on a need to know basis."
"How mercenary of you," Zorah sniffed.
"Lady, unless there's an army of darkness coming down the Gap, I'm not interested in staying in this old castle any more than necessary. I got my own stuff to do."
"I do not know how, but you defeated General Bazoar. He is the weak point in that summoned Demon Army! You may not leave before telling us how!"
"Bazoar is immune to all magic and direct attacks, but the Demon Lord is immune to all magic but NOT physical attack. Of course, killing it would just desummon it and maybe Bazoar could just resummon it again?"
"No. A demon spends essence to remain in the material world. Killing a demon in this plane will cause enough backlash on its being that it would take some time to be able to translate into this plane again," said Leene. "Less powerful demons are easier to summon for this reason. They are available again in a matter of years instead of centuries."
I waved "Well there you go."
"And yet I notice you have not spoken just how it is you managed to survive that Demon Lord," said Zorah with again squinty eyes. "How much filthy lucre do you want for this information, mercenary? Will you not stand and fight?"
"I got places to be and people to talk to and people to keep safe. I have a grudge and I will RIP AND TEAR, but not in defense of this castle. If I don't have mobility that ruins the whole point of my DPS build."
"Fufufu," Leene chuckled with an indulgent smile. "You're somewhat of an idiot aren't you, boyo?"
Then suddenly the door to the dining hall was kicked open with a loud bang.
"ZAH PLAYA VON CHARA!" Charlotte yelled into the room. "IS ZAH PLAYA VON CHARA HERE?!"
Leene perked up "Well look who brought the whole package!"
"EEEK!"
"Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, woman!" I screeched out. "How are you here already?!"
-.
Zorah squinted and mentioned evenly "Even at best speed trading fresh horses at every stop you should have taken at at least three days."
She shrugged. "Well it turns out if you throw Alan ahead of you far enough…"
Alan collapsed face-first onto the stone tile floor, one hand remaining up, flipping the bird to life and the universe in general.
Throw him far enough, he could set up a series of portals with the horses and carriages only limited by waiting for how long it would take him to land. The way for him to survive was to make sure that he's going to fall INTO a portal and so come out the previous portal at an angle that turns a deadly drop into a fall of a couple of feet.
"Holy shite, man. Why are you still alive? Your wife had better be the best lady, enduring this level of abuse from your sister-in-law is way out there!" I said to him.
"I have nine children and my wife is independently wealthy enough to support even more," he replied dully while still kissing the floor.
"Ah."
"Six of them are twins. And she's pregnant again. Triplets this time."
"HOW IS YOUR DUMBASS SELF STILL ALIVE?!" I screeched out. "Actually, on that note- this has to be intentional because I know contraception potions exist. Are you compensating for your luck as a man in other ways?!"
Alan flopped around. "It is a mystery."
"Ah! The fecundity of humans and their suffering, most of it self-inflicted, never ceases to amuse me!"
"Yeek!" Charlotte abruptly lost her poise and cowered in place.
I reached out and bopped the fairy on the top of her head. "Sit your bony ass down, Leene. You know Charlotte is under my protection."
Leene pouted. "As you wish."
"You… you hit Master." Charlotte's eyes glittered. "No one hits Master…"
I grimaced. "You will find that is actually a large part of the problem…"
Charlotte hiked her skirt up and set out into a dead run, stepping over her brother-in-law, before jumping onto the dining table. ("My spine!", Alan wailed.) Clack! Clack! Clack! - went Charlotte's shoes as she crossed the length then she drop-tackled me right off the table.
"Ah, my knight! I dedicate my bones, my body, and my life to do as you please!" said Charlotte bawling in gratefulness, as she tried to kill me by suffocating me between her breasts.
"MY SPINE!" I wailed.
"... This man is scum," said Lydia.
"Total scum," agreed Elze.
"How noisy. What improper guests you are," Zorah sighed. "Once again this castle is full of noise and chaos...!"
She scoffed - even as she tried to hide a fond smile behind her ostrich-feather fan.
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Charlotte and her crew wasted no time re-assembling the Chappa-ai Ring Gate. We emplaced it high up in the throne room within the highest tower of this weird-ass Castlevania style castle (which was a separate thing to the combination/throne feast hall in the lower levels).
Then in a few hours, with a satisfying ka-whoosh, the Ring Gate to Mismede opened.
Alan stepped through first, setting up a [Portal] tag just in case.
There was no need to connect to the Alephis Gate, since Charlotte and company had come from Alephis the Duke of Ortlinde already had all the advance warning he needed to emergency mobilize the soldiery if necessary. Alephis Gate was already connected to Berge Gate in Mismede.
Lyon Blitz poked his head out of the strange watery wall.
Castle Zenovi was a dour place of cold stone and even harder men, but enlivened with lush carpets and draperies and paintings of men and women wearing garishly bright clothes with far too many tassels. Truly, Zanac Zenfield's self-proclaimed title as the King of Fashion was a well-earned miracle coming from this family with zero sense of style. It was not even the sort of gauche lack of taste like what a commoner might believe an opulent aristocracy might revel in. No, it takes *confidence* to stick to this sense of aesthetics.
Deep reds and purples contributed to a style one might consider Gothic - with an emphasis on "Goth", as in Ostro-goths, ready to move out and sack Rome at a moment's notice. Considering that the strongest land power in this continent was Fantasy Rome, this was not actually all that unbelievable.
Lyon saw us sitting nearby on a table filled with mid-afternoon tea and pastries. Zorah sat with her arms crossed and almost pouting on one end, while on the other end I sat with my fingers laced together in a Gendo pose. Only those that could be trusted - or had any interest - in high level intelligence and extended debriefing talks were allowed into the room.
Immediately that ruled out Elze and Linze, who could be trusted would be very quickly bored all to heck by all that talking. Yae would be more interested in eating the scones. For much the same reasons, Zorah's surviving retainers begged off attending. Zorah only brought them out in fit of pique because I had insisted that my party could all be trusted with this information since they had all met the King of Belfast and Mismede before, and Zorah called me bald-faced liar and insisted then of course her own people were double trustworthy.
Lydia stood behind Zorah, calm and proud as a dutiful adjutant.
No one stood behind me. Leene had a high enough rank that she would be useful here, but she sat on a chair off to my right. One could almost say it was a place of honor as a lord's right hand, but really it was just at stabbing range. Her smug catlike grin revealed that she knew it, and relished more the fact that her presence was annoying me to distraction than taking it as an insult.
My left cheek involuntarily twitched at random.
Lyon's eyes communicated 'I don't know what I was expecting, but I probably should have expected this'.
He turned back to report the all clear.
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The first to come out again was Yumina. She was still wearing her princess gown with a silver tiara on her pale blonde hair. Her expression brightened on seeing my red outfit. "Sir Zah!"
Her gaze then quickly and expertly took in the rest of the room, and seeing Lydia standing behind Zorah and the blank spot behind me, without even prompting she quickly stepped away from the ring and moved over to stand at my back in her position as the most trusted adjutant.
Zorah's thick painted eyebrows went up.
Then silently, and yet with a booming presence, King Tristwin Ernes Belfast stepped onto Castle Zenovi. Quickly and with almost panic Zorah stood up to show respects, while behind her Lydia flinched in place and squared her shoulders to attention.
I placed my gloved palms on the table and with almost languorous slowness pushed off. I breathed out as if tired.
While Zorah loudly proclaimed her hails and welcome to His Highness, I met his eyes behind the blank lenses of my eye mask, smiled wryly and reported "Tristwin, we have found ourselves in a bigly intolerable situation."
Zorah curled up her lips and was about to scream at me to show respect to his majesty, but the king just chuckled and shook his head indulgently.
"If it's you saying it, then it must be tremendous," he replied as he sat down on the chair that Zorah hurriedly crab-walked to offer to him.
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Let's skip the debriefing for sake of expediency.
Zorah reported about what happened and the state of her House, and begged forgiveness for their failure. Tristwin offered his own sympathies for the death of their patriarch and a renewal of their oath and the trust of the crown.
Then it was my turn to recount what happened at Alpas Castra.
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King Tristwin clutched at the armrests of his chair. His wrists were shaking. "This is truly disturbing news. How can one prevail against such… unfairness?"
After that, Zorah had to ask "So he is not only immune to magic, but can devour magic? So how did YOU survive?!"
And my answer: "Because the thing had *range*. It had a minimum spherical range from where it can passively or actively drain magic, and an attack that it could throw out like a wave or a net, pulling in magic from people and magic tools. Most people get knocked out when all their magic is drained from them, but if someone had a large enough magic capacity they can stay awake long enough to get out of range.
I tapped my blank lenses. "This is where being technically blind actually helped. I could sense the disturbance in the air from the magic drain appearing in a cone. And even when it does it, my magic refills almost as fast as it was drained after the effect is done."
"That… is not how magic capacity works. That is not how magic capacity works at all," said Zorah.
I continued: "The problem is not the Drainbracer, it's the Blockbracer. Without the anti-kinetic passive shield effect, you could just fill the air with enough heavy ballista bolts and call it a day."
Zorah hissed "Do not ignore meee…!"
Leene said as if Zorah had never said anything "From such artifacts are heroes named and nations founded. A Holy Sword brought the Rammish Theocracy into being, and a Sword of the Undying created the Lestia Knight Kingdom. It is a pity then, that a Shield Hero could end up the foundation of a new and terrible dynasty."
"But those two together… he is invincible," King Tristwin hummed and rubbed at his bearded chin. "As you say, Matriarch Leene. Though perhaps we are fortunate that another hero exists in such a time."
I raised my hand. "Imma stop you right there. Beating his ass into a draw probably counts as a loss for that egotistical meathead, and it is inevitable that he would try to take his revenge against all of Belfast. You don't have to worry about me leaving you in the lurch - I have my own revenge to eke on that asshole…
"But he is *actually* Regulus' problem."
King Tristwin nodded. "And he seeks to rebel against Regulus, which would normally not be an immediate concern except that he has revealed his desire to slaughter through Belfast and offer it as a blood sacrifice for the manpower… demonpower… to eat and digest the Empire."
The king hummed. "Could this possibly be linked to the treason poison plot by Count Balzac? Had Regules actually been ROUSED all this time to conquest? I find myself suspicious why General Bazoar was so garrulous revealing his plans to you. Might he be laying a false image of his dissatisfaction against the Emperor?"
"But we have Count Alpas as a witness to his perfidy!" Zorah hissed.
I shrugged. "A man that is already rebelling and is willing to feed people's souls to demons isn't going to be stopped by the legality of things. If he's already ready to fight the Legions, the order to be arrested means he's just going to kick it off early. And for all his personal power… nothing about it really painted him as very smart."
"He is but one man. Not even a mage. There is only so much that can be done with the swing of a sword," said the king. Rulership was not something that could be done merely on the point of a sword. If it was just that simple he would have started executing his cretins long before they gave him a good enough excuse.
He continued: "The Demon Lord's army is the greater threat… and if he moves against Belfast then first he must have enough souls to sacrifice. But you said he wanted to fight Belfast in the first place as an easier target to fuel his usurpation. What allies could he have to support his seizure of power? Otherwise one might as well create a desert and call it peace."
I nodded. "Therefore we are incentivized to help Regulus not devolve into a bloody civil war."
King Tristwin gave out a hollow laugh and palmed his face. "What strange fellows does politics make. Just yesterday we were preparing to go to war against Regulus, now we must save them from themselves."
Then with a sharp glare "But still we have not fully rooted out traitors in our midst. It is terribly convenient that Belfast would have been so weakened by my death and the war with Mismede right at the moment General Bazoar was looking for many souls to offer as a summoning sacrifice to his Demon Lord. There are powers in Regulus that seek to harm us, this General Bazoar is but the most obvious of them."
I shrugged. "I know. While I would be happy to face him again, I think just waiting for him to make a move is a mistake. Tristwin, I *can't afford* to have this drag on. I have somewhere else to be." I briefly nodded towards Leene. "I have a *major* favor to repay, and it's not on this continent."
"As one might expect from a faithless mercenary…" Zorah growled, and with a tone of… disappointment?
The king relaxed on his chair and nodded. "I see. This is your 'intolerable situation', then?"
We stared at each other in silence for a while. Unfortunately in a battle of wills between a monarch and a guy wearing blank white eyepieces, there could only ever be one winner. He looked away and sighed. "As you are not one of my vassals, I cannot speak to you about loyalty - but I have no doubt about your good will. Then your mission remains the same. Wherever you might go - take Yumina with you.
"That even should the worst happen, the royal succession of Belfast remains intact. I want my daughter to be safe, avenging us and recovering the throne is not a priority."
"Father!" Yumina cried out.
Zorah made some sort of demented gargling sound like she had been retroactively slapped in the face and humiliated.
"Tristwin. You did send tools inscribed with tracking magic with your trader-spies into the capital of Regulus, right? Even when you recall them due to an unstable political climate, they should have discreetly left those ground positioning stones behind, right?"
"Of course."
"Then I request permission to pre-emptively invade Regulus and kidnap their Emperor."
Zorah made some sort of whistling noise like an over-boiling kettle and then slammed her face down into the table. Wham.
Splinters flew.
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/ The lowest circle of hell, given to those who have acted in treachery
/ Where the suffering comes not from ever-burning flame
/ But the cold; dark and deep, and utterly silent
/ Utterly alone even amongst the multitude
/ Of wretched souls wrapped in ignominy
/ There is a greater noise in absolute silence
/ There is a greater chaos in being utterly blind
/ For when lacking all outside stimulation, the mind begins to devour itself
/ And manufactures for itself torments
/ Cold as the grave, death without release
/ But as long as I can hear your voice -
/ This shall be heaven to me.
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This is intolerable.
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(1) youtube watch?v=6kguaGI7aZg
(2) youtube watch?v=iPUmE-tne5U