14 – The Price of Betrayal
In a few hours' time, we crossed the straits between Tristain and Albion. Because Agate and Offensive Bias had already mapped out the local area, I was able to avoid the patrolling ships near the key port cities of Albion.
It was unclear how the Albionese navy would treat a mage that could fly this far on his own power. The typical way for locals to get to and from Albion was by flying ships using wind stones as fuel, or sometimes with tamed dragons and familiars. Few other creatures were able to make a trip of several hundred kilometres while carrying passengers.
While we were flying, Offensive Bias moved the AAPV to provide support in case it was necessary, according to the plan we set out before leaving the academy.
"Have you been to Albion already? You seem to know the route quite well. It's not easy to navigate here even with a map," Fouquet said.
At the edge of Albion floated a dense coverage of rolling white fog, some so thick one might consider them clouds instead. In the distance the lighthouse of Rosais port could be seen signaling to incoming ships, but we were flying through unmarked shore on a path to Saxe-Gotha in the south east of Albion.
"I flew over to scout and familiarize myself with the terrain a couple of days ago. It's a beautiful island," I said.
"That it is. It's a real shame the politics have turned so ugly. I don't understand what possessed the nobles to revolt against the Tudors. They might not have been the most perfect rulers, but they were not so bad either. This talk of another crusade to the Holy Land is just madness," she said.
A gruff voice interrupted. "What's there to understand? Wars, rebellions, fighting…it's just a part of the way the world works. People are never happy with their lot in life, and once an ambitious sort appears and makes some nice sounding promises, they'll rally behind them to get what they think they deserve."
"I suppose this situation is nothing new to you, Lord Derflinger?" Fouquet asked in a polite tone to the self-proclaimed legendary sword.
"It's the same old, same old business everywhere you go. I've been alive for six thousand years, and in that time I've been swung by people from all walks of life. From the lowliest peasant to the highest king and even the elves for a time when I was lost on crusade. Human or elf, in the end, people are not that different."
The renowned thief perked her head up. "Were there elves in your world too?"
"No, there were none in my world. Derf's actually native to Halkegenia," I said.
"Eh? But I thought—" A particularly dense bit of condensate broke in front of her face and droplets of water spilled on her face and hair.
"That he was a legendary artifact from my world who had been in many epic battles with me? Hahaha, we got her good, didn't we, Derf?"
The sword joined me in laughing.
"The truth is I found him in a rundown shop in Tristania rusting away in a pile of rubbish. The legendary feats he performed have long been lost to the ravages of time. He's certainly powerful, but nobody around here understood what he was or how to bring out his power. But I've a better eye than most, and we decided to team up and have some fun."
"It wasn't just me, you fooled the whole academy, even the Headmaster, with that stunt…" she grumbled.
Soon, the city of Saxe-Gotha came into sight. This was an ancient city said to be the first ever built by Brimir's people on the Albion continent.
Located on a mountain, it was like a fortress with huge and thick walls in a circle around it, and inside were five main streets crossing the center that made the whole city look like a pentagram from a bird's eye view.
The tip of the mountain itself had been carved out and refashioned into an aerial port for ships.
"That way, in the forest." Fouquet pointed at a large forest which a paved road from Saxe-Gotha led to.
It wasn't long before we touched down at a tiny village smack in the middle of the forest, consisting of several huts and a cottage.
Some children were hiding behind cover and looking with both awe and suspicion as we landed. But when Fouquet took off her hood, their suspicion was replaced with excited cheers.
"Big sister Matilda!" They cried and ran over.
I waited for Matilda to greet the kids, and one of them ran to the cottage. She gestured for me to wait outside while Matilda followed the little girl to the cottage and went in.
The rest of the kids clamored around me while Agate went in to spy on the cottage.
This whole place was bringing up some vague memories I had, and soon I made the connection. There was a person whom Saito had met after dying and losing his Gandalfr runes after the battle against the army of 70,000. They revived him, presumably with the ring that Matilda told me about. It was a half-elf with ties to the royal family who'd been hiding here and running the village which was actually an orphanage.
What relationship did Matilda have with her?
Inside the cottage, Agate found a pointy-eared girl dressed in simple peasant clothes. She sat still on her wooden stool, almost unnaturally so, staring at the closed door without blinking.
'Um…she seems a bit weird. Isn't she a little too still?' Agate thought to me. 'I think this is what you would call giving off bad vibes. I hope all elves aren't like this.'
Meanwhile, I drew out Derflinger to show him to the kids who were awed by his new crystalline form.
Then Matilda opened the door and the half-elf girl was suddenly quite animated. "Lady Matilda, you're back! It's been a while since you last visited!" She quickly moved over and gave her a hug.
Matilda smiled pleasantly and returned the hug. "I'm sorry I couldn't visit sooner, Tiffania. Reconquista has made things difficult for me. But it's okay, we don't have to worry about them for much longer, I found someone that can help us!"
"Huh?"
"He's a very powerful mage, and he agreed to help us escape from Albion."
"Escape? But…I can't leave here. What will all the kids do?" Tiffania's face grew sad.
"We can send the kids to the orphanage in Saxe-Gotha, it'll be tough for them but they'll survive. Please, Tiffa, there's no other choice. I…failed the mission they gave me. If we don't leave, they'll come for you!"
Tiffania looked hesitant still. "Can this mage really help us escape? I heard that all the ports are under Reconquista's control already."
"I believe he can. He flew the two of us over on his own power, without a ship or a familiar. I didn't even see him use any wind stones. He's definitely a Square-class mage, and he's got a weapon that can destroy magic. Even if we had to fight our way out, he's our best shot. The only thing is…I had to promise him your ring. Sorry Tiffa, I know how much it means to you, but if it's your life or a keepsake…I hope you understand."
"I understand," the girl said and nodded.
"Eh? You do?" Matilda sounded surprised, as if expecting to have to do a lot more persuasion.
"Of course, I am the last living member of the house of Tudor, aren't I? I have to live at all costs."
"What…this isn't like you—" Matilda barely had time to process the strange words coming out of her friend's mouth before she gasped in pain and found a blade piercing her gut.
"That's why you have to die, Lady Matilda de Saxe-Gotha. You have been a friend to my family for a long time, but now that Reconquista has won, I'm afraid I have to cut ties with you to prove my loyalty to the new Emperor's rule."
I watched in shock, and a bit of admiration, as the girl viciously sliced up and drew the dagger out.
Matilda staggered, slumping against the wall and sliding down until she was laying sideways on the ground. "N-no…! You're not Tiffa!"
If the girl had truly turned on her old friend to save herself, it was a show of willpower worthy of respect, however despicable and foolish it was. It was someone that could be used…to a degree, until she turned on her new masters. That was the problem with defectors, even the ones that do so out of a good cause. One always had to be cautious about their true loyalties.
Matilda's blood was hemorrhaging out, staining her clothes red even as her face grew increasingly white. The wound was severe, penetrating the whole way through her abdomen and running up to her ribs.
It was doubtful I could save her even if I tried to provide modern medical support. Only healing magic would be able to do anything for her, and I didn't have that—which was the whole point of getting the healing ring. Amelia back on Worm never had time to invent any kind of Tinkertech-like super substance/symbiont for rapidly healing other people. My priority had been to enhance my self-healing capabilities so that was where her efforts had focused on.
"Hm, so you've finally realized. Did you really think we wouldn't know that you'd betrayed us, Fouquet?"
The fake Tiffania finally revealed her true colors. Apparently it was an imposter after all.
"Our agents in Tristain informed us of your failure to retrieve the Staff of Destruction several days ago, and even returned it to the school with that interloper. To think you had the audacity to come back here...well, at least you'll be of more use to us in death than in life."
It seems that we waited too long. Originally, Fouquet wanted to keep her job at the Academy so that they'd have somewhere to settle after escaping Albion. And I wanted to upgrade Derf and finish the lessons with Louise first. Had we come straight away, they couldn't have gotten here before us.
Actually, come to think of it, the real problem was that I made the mistake of returning the Staff of Destruction for the reputation boost with Tristain, not realizing that they already knew Fouquet's cover identity. If I never returned it with 'Miss Longueville' in tow, then Reconquista wouldn't have known that Fouquet had necessarily betrayed them.
The imposter smirked darkly and pulled out a white doll from under her skirt, kneeling down to let it drink Matilda's blood.
"W-wha…di…yo…Tiffa…!" Matilda struggled to form the words, and coughed up yet more blood.
"She has paid the price for your treachery, dear, and soon you will go to join her. Just lie there quietly and savor your final moments."
A short moment later, the doll grew in size and formed a replica of Matilda, to the silent horror of the original.
Outwardly, I showed no sign of having noticed anything wrong while playing with the children.
The doll was a dead giveaway for the work of Myozunitonirun. Such gargoyles were known as alviss, and you could find them on the Academy grounds too, but Myoz took their use to a whole new level. It was a type of magic that differed from golems in that they didn't necessarily need to be directly managed by the caster's will, and could act on their own. But they were also far more expensive in willpower for that reason.
Using it to infiltrate and make clones of other people though? That was not in the normal Halkegenian mage's repertoire, as far as I knew.
If Tiffania was an imposter, then what about the children? I eyed the kids around me carefully, and Agate drew my attention to the one girl which had led Matilda inside the cottage. There she stood silently in the corner, seemingly unphased by what had transpired.
'If the real Tiffania is dead, they probably took the ring from her already,' Agate thought. 'This was a waste of time. They beat us to the punch.'
There were four Void mages who should have awakened in this era, one for each of the Brimiric nations of old whose ruling lineages descended from Brimir himself. Albion, Tristain, Gallia, and Romalia.
There was some significance to the presence of the four Void mages, who each would have one of the four legendary Void familiars. How that would be affected if one of them died was unclear to me, but this incident made me more than a little frustrated.
Not only did we lose out on the ring, which Myoz the master of magical artifacts would definitely recognize, it felt like Reconquista stole a Void mage from under my nose whom I could no longer study.
As the fake Matilda exited from the cottage and came towards me, it was clear that Myoz had plans for me too.
If I quickly defeated Myoz's alviss, it might be possible to stabilize Matilda's wound with the medical supplies onboard the AAPV, until I could get her to a Water mage for healing. As a temporary ally, I could at least do that much. On the other hand, Matilda herself wasn't particularly valuable to me, so why take the risk?
A confrontation in what was clearly a prepared ambush was disadvantageous, to say the least. While I was eager to test Derflinger's might against worthy opponents, Myoz was not a foe to be underestimated. Even worse, I had hoped to be able to avoid Myoz until I could launch a surprise attack on Cromwell for the Ring of Andvari. Myozunitonirun was like a Tinker—the more they could analyze their opponents and prepare appropriate counters, the more dangerous they would be.
There was also the possibility that Myoz had something other than a fight in mind. In the best case, an alliance with Myoz could be very rewarding. Out of all the Void familiars, the Mind of God was certainly the most useful and versatile, especially when considering that my main goal at the moment was to collect powerful magical artifacts I might be able to make use of on other worlds, as learning the native magic appeared to be a lost cause.
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[Agate]
Analyzing...
We know very little about Myoz's capabilities, and not knowing means it's inherently risky to face them in battle. But caution carries its own risks. Had we attacked Cromwell right off the bat instead of trying to get the smaller prize of the healing ring first, we would have retained the advantage of surprise. Now Myoz is aware that we are willing to work against Reconquista, maybe not as a full enemy yet, but the fact that we got involved in Albion at all is something they would be wary of if they were prudent.
Because we also know very little about Myoz and its Void master's motivations, a negotiation would be similarly difficult, though there's no question of the rewards being the largest and most immediate. The Ring of Andvari is impressive, but one must ask how did they get a hold of it? And if they were willing to give such a powerful artifact to a puppet, what does that mean for what else they might have access to, or would share with an ally? Even these alviss are very useful.
The death of Fouquet would be a shame, and we'd have to bring the bad news to the Academy at some point, as our story was that we were escorting 'Miss Longueville' to Albion to take care of some personal business, navigating through the dangerous war torn land. It wouldn't be impossible to save her, but it would also be difficult. We won't find help in Albion, which means we'd have to transport her back to the Academy water mages for healing. Whether she can even survive the trip is an open question. But if she is saved, she may be more amenable to working for us, now that she has lost Tiffania as a motivation, and perhaps she'd want revenge on Reconquista.
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A/N: Kaleidus is finally coming up against the real players in the the FoZ universe. Thanks to all reviewers, as always, I appreciate the feedback.
Onto specific responses:
This-Mickey-Seems-Iffy: Pairings in the sense of somebody the MC actually likes romantically? If it happens it'll be a long time away. As Amy realized in Worm, he's narcissistic, like actually loves himself kind of narcissistic, and not the meaning which most people use as an insult about arrogance. But he's not above using relationships to achieve some purpose, as shown in the first chapter in the prequel when he was with Angel and later when he talked to Agate about his
Artyom-Dreizehn: Glad you think so. I always prefer to read intelligent scheming characters, and writing them too, even though it's harder.
FerunaLutelou: Saito will experiment with his powers on his own. I didn't write it out explicitly, but they also did experiments during training. Part of the whole reason MC wanted to help Louise was to study her and her familiar. So far though, the results of the Gandalfr experiments haven't been particularly relevant to the plot. According to the MC, he seems rather weak. And, as long as they aren't stupid enough to leave the safety of the school, they'll probably be fine. Will Henrietta once again ask Louise to go on a very dangerous mission, now that she wasn't the one to retrieve the Staff of Destruction?
SalemTheSpeakerOfTruth: Completely agree.
ThatGuyReturns: Haha...thanks.
Imotekh: Possible, though I don't know the Attack on Titan setting very deeply. But is there any good reason for MC to want to stay there, when considering his goal is to amass interplanar power?
TheOnlyKing: Well, I'm glad this sequel met your expectations. MC is a relatively big fish in this world, though that won't always be the case going forward.
Great Dullahan: Thanks! I really appreciate the very extensive feedback. It's true there's not that much character development. The MC doesn't care that much about people besides their use to him, he doesn't take that much time to explore their character unless he needs to. Panacea was the other main character of the prequel, so that's why she got so much attention, because for a long time Amy was indisputably the most powerful and important guarantee of his safety. Not even Taylor came close, if Amy wasn't there to enable her. Thinking about decisions, it's true that I haven't put him in a position where he had to make a really tough choice. Because moral choices aren't difficult for MC, the difficulty has to come from somewhere else. I'll definitely think about how to do that more, and hopefully this chapter is moving in the right direction.
The reason that he has formed even weaker connections with the new cast is because he is less dependent on them. In Worm, MC was really a small fish in a big pond. Here...he thinks he's the big fish now. As for canon deviation, that's going to start in a big way from here.
Is he asexual? Not exactly. Amy had it right back in Worm. He's biologically straight but is so narcissistic that he's not attracted to anybody else beyond the surface physical, which he's very good at ignoring, even subconsciously. He might indulge in physical lust at some point, though what passes for beauty for him is pretty unreasonably high considering his backstory on Earth from the prequel first chapter. He actually hasn't met anybody close to Angel's combination of beauty and ability since leaving Earth except maybe Victoria and she was off limits for obvious reasons. More likely however, is for him to use other people's feelings towards him, which he did in the past.
About power...actually for MC it basically is the end rather than the means. His reasoning on why he needed power was pretty dubious-there could be any number of random people trying to kill him like that Planeswalker, so he had to be stronger than all of them. The reality is that he was pretty bored of life, saw an opportunity to gain unlimited power and thought, why not? An adventure unlike any other and "a new story" to end the boredom and once again experience the climb-to-the-top excitement he pulled off the first time in mundane Earth. This was all in Ch1 of the prequel, so I wouldn't be surprised if most readers forgot all about it. He was speaking partially from the heart when he talked about adventure to Henrietta.