The carnage around him was… interesting. They had successfully killed quite a number of people. Then again, Rometo was with them, and Aiden doubted there was any problem the renowned [Time Walker] and acclaimed descendant of the [Demon King] could not do.
His mind was still somewhere lost on the nature of Rometo’s heritage. Even now, after having a one on one conversation with the [Enemy of the Order] and discovering something possible that may or may not be what he thought it was.
Red right hand, he thought, his mind unable to conceal its worry from him as his face did from the world.
Ted was squatting on the ground. In looking down at him, Aiden saw the charred lines in the grass, the curves and turns, a triangle in a circle. They looked familiar enough.
Ted got up before Aiden was done looking at it. He held him with both hands, eyes screaming of pain and relief. Then hugged him.
“How?” he asked releasing him, confusion in his eyes. “I’m sure I failed.”
His words implied that he should’ve succeeded, that he believed that success was a chance. It begged the question of if he had done such a thing before, tried to summon an actual person.
Aiden’s attention focused on his brother, ignoring everything else around them for a moment.
“You did,” he confirmed, “and we will have to talk about that at some point. But, more importantly, what happened—”
A painful cry ripped everybody’s attention from whatever it was that they were doing. Eyes moved focusing on the source. Fjord dropped to his knees, then fell to the ground, hand grabbing at his chest. The pain was clear, strong.
Aiden was already moving. “Elami,” he commanded. “I need you over here.”
Still, he got to the boy before the [Healer]. In a moment, everyone was present, even Telma. However, there were eyes around. Rometo and Valdan specifically focused on everything else.
Elami dropped to Fjord’s side checking him. His hands moved over him, touching his chest.
“Where does it hurt?” he asked.
Fjord’s mouth opened but all he did was gasp in pain.
Aiden frowned. This was going to be a problem if their [Healer] could not simply heal him. The only time a [Healer] asked questions when it was time to heal was when the problem was beyond their ability to simply heal.
“Shouldn’t you be able to do something?” Feira asked, her tone worried.
Elami frowned and Ted looked worried for a moment. Ted’s worry was what worried Aiden more. What did Ted know that left him worried.
In the end, Elami sighed, as if he would rather not do what he was about to do. Then his hands glowed green and he held them over Fjord. Only when Fjord’s pain reduced to only a pained look and no sound did Aiden finally step back.
The group still remained around waiting, hoping. While they did, Aiden focused on the corpses. He walked away from the group and over to the nearest one.
He went down on a single knee and reached into the woman’s gambeson, moved past it and into the vest. His hand found what it was looking for and wrapped itself around the pendant. He ripped it free from her body and held it up to the sun.
“Acul tribe,” Rometo said, standing next to him. “And a soldier of insignificant repute.”
Aiden said nothing to that. His eyes moved around, looking for the corpse he wanted to find. They settled on a large man.
“I killed him,” Rometo said casually. “His level seemed to be the one that would give your team a problem, so I intervened.”
Aiden nodded, still thinking. “He was the strongest of the group?”
“Yes,” Rometo confirmed, nodding, but said nothing more.
Aiden could see the man testing him, trying to figure him out. If the man there was the strongest of the group, then he wasn’t who Aiden was looking for. Fjord’s pain had grown silent, not nonexistent, but simply without sound. Taking it as a good thing, Aiden walked over to another corpse. He knelt down and studied the face of the person.
It was a man. He had sharp features that some women would consider handsome. Rometo’s footsteps were loud in the crushing of the grass beneath his feet as he walked over to him. Aiden knew for a fact that the man could move more silently if he wished to.
“A handsome man,” Rometo observed. “Would you say he is the one you are looking for?”
Aiden reached into his vest and pulled the pendant from the rope that kept it hanging around his neck. “Who said I was looking for a person?”
He looked at the pendant, held it up to the sun, and met the same thing. The man was not who he was looking for. Rising, he got back to his feet and cast his gaze around once more. He was not looking for the strongest, and he was not looking for the weakest.
“Would you say that you are looking for a person?” Rometo asked, ever trying to be cryptic.
The problem was that Aiden found it tiring. Being cryptic had ended for him ever since he’d left Bandiv. He did not have to hide what he was capable of anymore, neither did he have to hide what he knew.
So, he turned and looked Rometo in the eye. “You understand that anything you learn from your time with me is not to be shared with any current, new, existing and or nonexistent member of the Order, right?”
“And,” Rometo added in a hushed voice, “I have told you that I am no longer with you for the sake of the Order. The master is playing his games but there remain things far beyond one man and his organization.”
Aiden scoffed. He couldn’t stop himself. “Your master is more than just one man and his organization, and you know that.”
He walked away now, heading over to a new corpse. His eyes darted to the gathering. He saw relaxed shoulders. The tension that had surrounded the group was gone. Whatever Elami was doing, it seemed Fjord would survive. The question now was why he had been hesitant to heal the boy.
“You are suspicious of your [Healer],” Rometo said.
“Uhuh,” Aiden replied. He made the word come out more as a sound of no commitment. To Rometo, it sounded as if he was asking the man to go on.
“It is understandable.”
Aiden’s eyes settled on the new corpse. “Is it?”
“It is.” Rometo nodded. “The Order is very much aware of the circumstances that led to your union with the [Healer].”
“And what did the Order deduce?” he asked, settling on one knee and studying the features of the woman on the floor. “What does the Order think?”
“That you did not find your [Healer].”
Aiden stopped to give him a flat look. “You don’t say, Sherlock Holmes.”
“I…” Rometo frowned. “I do not know who that is.”
“I know.” Aiden ignored him and returned to the corpse, reaching into the vest like he had done with the others. “What else did you deduce if you say that we didn’t find him.”
“His meeting with you was also not a coincidence,” Rometo expounded.
I see. It was good to know that the Order was confirming his suspicions.
“Before your arrival in Trackback,” Rometo continued, “there was no [Healer] by the name of Elami in the city.”
Aiden nodded absently, holding up the new pendant to the sun. Nope, not you either. He looked to the next corpse. “Then the Order did a wider sweep, didn’t it?”
It would be standard procedure. If something appeared out of nowhere, the Order would track it back, find its origins.
“Who ordered the sweep?” he continued. “Standard procedure? Torat?”
Rometo shook his head. “The master.”
That was interesting, but Aiden did not allow it to show on his face. It was interesting enough, but that could be explained away as the master keeping a tab on the summoned potential heroes of Nastild. It also made him wonder if the master was making any headway with the key and the giants in the frost mountain.
“What did the Order find?” he asked.
“Nobody by the name of Elami.” Rometo looked back at the crowd. “Whoever your [Healer] is, I would argue that he is not who he says he is.”
Aiden nodded, easily agreeing with it. He’d seen the man’s name and class and level, but system messages could be faked. In fact, the moment Alobam had called him glamoured he’d been a hundred percent certain that Elami’s system information had been faked. The problem was that Elami had caught him at the right time, played his cards right.
It had been simple. He could either lose Valdan in a bid to satisfy his curiosity or save Valdan and let his curiosity lie.
The answer had been simple. Then, unless Ted was lying to him, Elami was not someone from Ted’s past.
Aiden looked to the next corpse and paused.
“Poison,” he blurted out.
“What about poison?” Rometo asked.
Aiden’s mind was already working. What were the chances that meeting Elami was the plan the master had put in place and not meeting Rometo.
Without missing a beat, Aiden ignored the corpse and turned to Rometo. “There is a very specific type of poison that the Order is known to use. It has a fatality rate so high that a month or two ago I would’ve said it was a hundred percent.”
“What about it?”
“What are the chances that this specific poison could get in the hands of a person that the Order did not intend for it to get in the hands of?” As far as his knowledge of the Order went, the possibility was zero.
“There are countless rare poisons in the Order, Aiden,” Rometo said while someone sighed in relief where Fjord was being healed. “Many so rare that most would believe it unique only to the Order.”
“Don’t bullshit me, Rometo,” Aiden hissed, voice still hushed. “I’m talking about the darkness in a glass. Liquid night. I’m talking about black blood.”
The poison had many different names in the Order, but nobody knew what it truly was. There were speculations in the Order but Aiden had never gotten an outright confirmation. Valdan’s current mana affinity all but confirmed the speculations Aiden had had in the Order, though.
Rometo stepped up to him. “How do you know those names? You are not supposed to know those names.”
“Knowledge is my business,” Aiden said firmly. “And my business is knowledge. Now, I need an answer. Is it possible for it to get into hands that the Order does not intend for it to get into?”
“Liquid night is not like all the other poisons, Lord Lacheart,” Rometo said emphatically. “It does not get into the hands of anyone that the master does not want it to get into the hands of. If it gets into someone’s hands, you best believe the master made sure that it got there and it is to be used for the exact purpose the master wanted it to be used for.”
“You make the man sound like a god,” Aiden said in disgust, knowing very well that even to him, the only thing above the master would have to be some kind of a god.
“Not a god,” Rometo shook his head. “But understand that the master is a being that courts fate. Nothing will happen that he does not know or plan.”
Aiden’s frown deepened. It was just as he’d thought, exactly as he’d known. Valdan had not been poisoned by some stroke of luck that the Order had nothing to do with. This was going to be a problem. For one, he clearly was not going to go to war over Valdan almost dying. For all he knew, Elami was also a part of the master’s plan.
A growl slipped from his lips, and he turned away from Rometo, running a hand down his face. Even in this life he was still playing in the palms of beings he did not understand, making moves he did not know. He’d hated it in his past life, and he hated it in this one.
He waited for a moment, allowing his displeasure to calm itself down before finally returning his attention to Rometo.
“I’m tired of these games we play,” he said. “I’m looking for the leader of this rag tag group. They are from the Acul tribe and groups from the Acul tribe do not move around without a leader.” Rometo opened his mouth but Aiden cut him off. “Their leader is not the strongest, neither are they the weakest. It is the way with the tribe, it cuts the weak and does not centralize power.” He stepped into the man now, pointed a warning finger at him. “Do not play with me or lie to me. You saw them fight, you watched. You would’ve figured it out. Now point me to the leader.”
Rometo held his gaze while the eyes of the remaining people looked at them, watched them, waited to know what would happen.
“Has anyone told you, Lord Lacheart,” Rometo said, ignoring the others as Aiden did, “that you know far too much for someone of your situation?”
“You do not know my situation.”
“But alas, I—”
Aiden cut him off with a single word. “Point.”
Rometo sighed but obeyed. His hand moved, and he pointed at a corpse in the distance. Aiden moved past him without meeting his eyes and walked over to the corpse. Without wasting any time, he bent and slipped his hand in the vest. The body was already cold. He grabbed the pendant and ripped it from the body.
Like he had done with the others, he held it up to the sunlight. Jackpot.
“Was I right?” Rometo asked.
Aiden walked past him, heading for the group. “You weren’t wrong.”
When he got to the group, his attention moved between Zen and Feira. Fjord remained on the ground but his pain was gone now, his face looked peaceful.
“In very dire situations,” Elami said, explaining an answer to a question he wasn’t even asked, “my healing can have certain side effects.”
Aiden made sure he didn’t look at Valdan. “Side effects like what?”
“Like putting the patient to sleep.” Elami looked displeased. “Fjord was on the verge of death. I brought him back.”
Aiden kept his eyes on the [Healer]. “As a [Healer] should. How long before he wakes up?”
“Maybe an hour?”
“Is he safe to be moved?”
Elami turned his attention to the mountains in front of them. “I assume we will not be riding our jepats through that chaos.”
“We will not,” Aiden confirmed. “We will be moving through the mountains, climbing. The jepats are not suitable.”
“Then I will advice that we wait until the boy is awake.”
Aidne gritted his teeth behind his lips. This was the problem with suspicions. Suspecting people led to suspecting their actions. Even now, he suspected every single information the [Enemy of the Order] had given him. The man said that he was seeking to make something eternal, that the Immortal had been nothing more than a failure, a greater success than what Aiden was actually looking to have done to him, but a failure nonetheless. But how much of it was true. The only beings as far as Nastild was concerned that were close to eternal were the gods. And even Nastild believed that the gods were only eternal because they had yet to be killed and not because they could not die.
But what mattered most was a single question.
Do I want to be Immortal?
To walk battlefields unafraid of dying. To know that he would always be there to protect those that he cared about, to send Ted home, to meet his parents once more. Did he want to be immortal?
He pushed the question aside and turned to Melvet. “How well would you say Feira’s lessons have been going?”
Melvet’s attention moved to Valdan before she answered. “Feira is a quick study. She also has no false modesty, mind you, it does not make her arrogant.”
Aiden nodded as she spoke. That was a good thing. What most people did not understand was that false modesty was a sign of arrogance. It was what a person adorned themselves with when they thought they were above even the praises they were receiving. In some cases, however, it was a sign of timidness. A person garbed themselves in it when they were not confident enough to live up to the expectations set upon them by others.
“I would say her training is coming along quite well,” Melvet finished.
“How well would you say she can level up by the time she has to deal with all this shit?” he asked, Feira standing at the corner displeased to be talked about as if she were not here but unwilling to speak up.
“I would say faster than her brother,” Melvet answered. “Why?”
Everyone waited, very much aware that there was a reason for his questions. Even Rometo stood with them now, waiting.
Aiden looked down at Fjord. The boy was already fit for this life. He knew the risks and how to navigate them. He was also the strongest of the three weakest members of the group. In truth, Aiden’s decision was supposed to be a no brainer.
He turned and held the pendant with its rope out to Feira. It was a jade green pendant, round as a coin. However, where it differed from the others was in the blue dot just at one end of it. it was a dot that could only be seen when held up to the sun.
Aiden had intended on getting one should they ever get into an altercation with the Acul tribe. In fact, he had been hoping to get into an altercation just so that he could get one.
“This is for you,” he said.
“So, you really did know,” Rometo mused.
Aiden ignored him as Feira reached out for the pendant. Aiden waited until she took it.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Within these mountains two tribes stand at the edge of a war. The Acul tribe and the Vanti tribe. They do not have any claim to these lands, but they have hate for each other and see the mountains as viable hunting grounds or whatever it is that they want from this place. The Acul tribe, however, have a rotating leadership position. The leader must never be the strongest of the group but a person of sufficient potential. What you have in your hand is something worn by the leaders of a group, crafted delicately and specially. They think it is unique and important but it’s not that unique and important.”
“And it does what?” Zen asked.
“It helps,” Aiden answered. “Stored in that pendant is hopefully nine or ten levels worth of lifeforce. You can use it in one of two ways.” He paused, seeing a curious light in Zen’s eyes along with a plan. “You can either absorb it over time and level up or you can use it in one go and gain a temporary boost in strength.”
Feira looked at the thing as if it was treasure from the heavens then looked at him. “Wouldn’t it make more sense for Zen to have it?”
“If I wanted Zen to have it, then I would’ve given it to him. Zen does not need it, not yet.”
“What about you?” Valdan asked.
Aiden almost laughed. Right now it would do him no good. Also, at the rate he was leveling up, having one of those things was just a cheat code he didn’t need as compared to the others.
“If we get into more problems with these people, then maybe I’ll get my hands on one of them,” he explained. “Besides, the pendant can hold up to ten levels of life force. That doesn’t mean that this one has up to ten levels of life force, for all we know the user must’ve drained some.”
Besides, I have my eyes on something else.
The one important question that he had finally had an answer.
Did he want to become an Immortal?
Yes.