The question hung heavy in the air. The answer was obvious. He wouldn’t have gotten this far into the negotiations if he was going to say no now.
“Yes,” Freddy said. “I accept your proposal.”
“That will be all then.” Overlord Umbra got up. He turned to face Emily. “Daughter. You should have no trouble returning on your own. And when you do, you will receive your punishment.”
The whites of Emily’s knuckles showed as she clenched her fists. “I only—”
“Stay quiet. We have rules, and you have broken them.” He took a few steps forward, stopping right beside the couch Freddy was sitting on and turning to look at him. “I look forward to the next time we meet. It would be best if you told no one you met me.” He paused to let his words sink in. “And I do mean no one.”
Freddy nodded. “Understood.”
“I have no other demands from you.” He smirked. “For now. But until then, I hope you take the time to properly heal. Farewell.” And then, he vanished.
Well…
“Hypocrite…” Emily muttered, the churning locks of her hair coiling before her face, wrapping her expression in shadow.
“Hey, uh…” Freddy pointed a confused finger at the spot the Umbra Overlord had just been standing at. “I’m not sure if I imagined that, but did he just…” Freddy got up, taking a peek behind the couch, only to find nothing. “I swear to god I just saw him slink behind the couch real fast.” He turned to face Emily, finding her gaping at him.
“You saw that?” she asked.
Freddy burst into laughter. “Seriously?” He took another look behind the couch. “What, did he speed crawl behind the couch and then leap down the hallway when he was out of sight?”
“Well, yes. And then he lockpicked the doors really fast while conjuring a veil of darkness to hide the light from the hallway.”
“Are you pulling my leg?”
She chuckled. “Teleportation is pretty damned rare. Those who don’t have it have to rely on smoke and mirrors to make it look like they dramatically vanished into the ether.”
“That’s kind of lame.”
“It’s a magic trick, Freddy. It’s a lot cooler when the person you’re trying to dramatically vanish on doesn’t have absurd perception. Seriously, how the hell did you notice that? For the record, even if I know what he did, it still just looked like he vanished from where he stood.”
Freddy scratched the back of his head. “You know how a lot of body-enhancing medicine comes with side effects?”
Emily’s lips stretched into a tight line. “Let me guess, you abused your talent to consume a truckload of those?” She snorted. “You’re a lunatic. But I guess it takes someone like that to get to your level.” Following in her father’s stead, she also got up, taking a moment to straighten her sweater out. “I’ll be going, then.”
“Wait,” Freddy called. “How do I get in contact with you guys?”
“You don’t. We get in contact with you.” She smiled at him. “Just don’t worry about it. You said you wanted a break, right? Enjoy it, then. I doubt we’ll see each other before the five years are up, but if we do, don’t be shy.” Mimicking her father, she moved to the same spot, and then, with a shit-eating grin, she whispered something under her breath. And then, she disappeared.
“Okay, she can definitely teleport.” Sighing, Freddy settled into the couch. His thoughts spun, but he was too exhausted to ruminate. At some point, he just blinked, and the last bit of daylight winked away, leaving him stranded in the middle of the night, thoughts a bit clearer.
Slowly, he raised his hand, and wished the Cycle Scythe to appear. It materialized in his grasp with a metallic clang, cold to the touch. Rather than grins and mockery, the golden lips remained sealed, unnervingly so. “Hey,” Freddy called. He wanted to point the silence out in hopes it would vanish, but the words were too heavy to drag to the surface. “I have a question,” he said instead.
The Cycle Scythe made no move to respond.
With a slight downward tug on his lips, Freddy took a quivering breath and asked, “You have a thing for being honest to me and voicing my subconscious. Tell me then…” His grip on the cold metal construct tightened. “Why did I agree to join them so easily?” No answer. “Am I becoming one of them?” Again, silence. “Am I… Am I using my sacrifice… as an excuse… to distance myself from my principles?”
One of the more ordinary voices sighed. “Oh, Freddy, Freddy… You really enjoy the sound of your voice, don’t you?” A second voice spoke up. “But if you really want me to be honest with you—and you don’t—I’ll tell you what’s really happening.” A third. “You have been clinging to a delusion.” Fourth. “A clear-cut world of the haves and the have-nots.” Fifth. “Which side do you think you’re on, Freddy?” Sixth. “One of the poors?” Seventh. “Count the zeroes on your bank account and tell me”—eighth—”how much longer are you going to keep pretending that you aren’t already one of them?”
Freddy snarled. “You know that’s not what separates us. I made it here fairly.”
“Do you seriously believe that you're the only person to ever become wealthy and powerful through fair means?”
He cackled. “And how many others are there?”
“Admit it, Freddy. You’re on the other side of the fence now. And things no longer look so clear.” Every mouth sighed at once. “Take a long moment to think about who ‘us’ and ‘them’ really are.” Another voice chimed in. “And then forget about it. The world isn’t as simple as that. It's time to grow up.” With that, the mouths went silent again, even losing some of their golden luster.
Freddy knew he wasn’t going to get anything else out of it.
Releasing his mental grasp on it, he let it coil around his arm again.
And then, right there on the couch, he slumped back, sinking into the sweet silence of sleep.
***
The following two days passed by in a blur, and then, finally, after much waiting, the investigators finally arrived.
A lanky man with sharp features stood outside Freddy’s apartment, flashing some kind of medallion at him. The object was releasing a subtle five-star aura, one that he recognized—it was the empress’s essence signature. “Freddy Stern?”
“Yeah, that’s me.”
The man nodded. “You should already know who I am, then. Come.”
Freddy followed the man to the adjudicator’s compound, and there, he was met by a number of familiar faces, and a couple of unfamiliar ones.
As for the people he knew, it included Georgie, Emily, Matt, the adjudicator, a handful of Valhalla folk, and the three-star mercenaries.
Lucas was notably absent, which Freddy wasn’t sure he should be surprised about. On the one hand, he had been a member of Freddy’s party and had made rather notable contributions to the defense efforts even after he left. On the other hand, he was just a newly minted two-star, which was well below the level of power of the people present.
For the people he didn’t know, there were a couple of three-stars, and more notably, the other two investigators.
One of them was a short woman with cropped brown hair, and the other was a lady who looked almost fifty.
The investigators were all four-stars, just like the adjudicator. And just like the adjudicator, they really didn’t look the part of ultra powerful archhumans. Their looks were so… ordinary. They weren’t ugly or anything, but they simply didn’t have the supernatural presence of more accomplished four-stars.
This spoke volumes of the path they had taken to get there.
It had been a safe one. Supplemented with elixirs, gathering aids, and sheer time. These are people who have taken the less risky path to power, always achieving the bare minimum.
And that was why they were out here prancing about the freezing ice deserts of the North and not lounging in castles like those who made Lords and Ladies.
The investigators were the same people who had been sent after who they presumed to be Nahar, and had continued to chase whoever was trying to deceive them even after Nahar died.
They had failed to track down their target.
After a quick debrief on who they were, what they had come to do, and how successful they had been, they started the interrogation.
One by one, they were taken to a private room, where they were thoroughly battered by questions about what exactly happened.
Freddy got an uncomfortable number of questions related to Sophia. The investigators had clearly gathered prior intel, and the fact that Sophia had made the flesh golem wasn’t exactly a secret.
Thankfully, those in the know got their story straight beforehand.
For all they knew, Sophia had used a specialized talent to create a flesh golem she could manually operate in combat—which was well within what life-affinity archhumans were legally allowed to do. But when the flesh golem was used in the fight, those freaks had used their square-pupil powers or whatever and made it go wild.
Due to her lack of experience, Sophia hadn’t known how to protect her creation from such means.
Afterwards, having felt guilty about what happened, Sophia fled.
The story was both close to the truth and significantly more believable than what actually happened. Still, Freddy could sense that the interrogators weren’t exactly buying the whole thing. But that was more Sophia’s problem than Freddy’s. Which he wasn’t sure how to feel about.
After an exhausting day of in-depth questioning, they were all gathered again.
The lanky man stepped forward. “Thank you for your cooperation. As for those of you with notable contributions to the defense, you will be appropriately rewarded within the following three months. Now…” The man’s gaze sharpened as he stared straight at Freddy. “Other than the adjudicator and Freddy Stern, you are all free to go.”
Freddy’s blood went cold. The adjudicator nodded reassuringly at him. They had expected this to happen.
The room slowly cleared out, and once Freddy and the adjudicator were the only ones remaining, the man continued, “You two have 24 hours to conclude your business in Repentawa. Afterwards, you will be coming with us. For your own good, I highly recommend you appear here at this same time tomorrow. That will be all.”
And with that, the three of them departed, leaving Freddy and the adjudicator alone.
After a few moments of tense silence, the adjudicator got up. “Well. I don’t know about you, but I have some loose ends to tie up before they take us.”
Freddy clenched his fists. “We’ll be fine, right?”
The man hesitated. “You don’t have any reason to fear for your life, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Killing me isn’t the only thing they can do.”
After a long, drawn-out sigh, the adjudicator turned to meet Freddy’s gaze. “I have had a lot of patience with you. The people we are being taken before won’t. Just… please go along with it, no matter what.”
“You say that like you expect them to do something I’m not going to like.”
“Freddy, we’re going to be taken before the Council of Imperial Adjudicators. Nobody ever walks away from that in a good mood. But I assure you, you will walk away in a much worse mood if you don’t keep your mouth shut.” He sighed. “They’re not going to respect you. They’re probably not even going to believe that your contributions to the fight against Nahar were so significant.”
Freddy’s jaw tightened.
“See that?” He pointed at Freddy’s face. “That’s something you should avoid showing before them. Even if they do something infuriating—and I promise you, they will—keep it straight. Remember, even if they take the city from you, or fine you, or even if they put you in prison, as long as you have that talent of yours, you will be wealthy and powerful.”
“What if they send me to the frontlines?”
“They won’t do that unless you seriously piss them off.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“No matter what they choose to believe, it's undeniable that you have the kind of potential they’re looking to nurture. Turning people into new Lords and Ladies is the empire’s priority above all.”
“But I have three spirit abilities. Won’t they take that to mean I’m unlikely to ever ascend?”
He shrugged, and then smirked. “Unlikely, yes. But I need you to understand what these people will see when they look at you.
“They will see a two-star bumpkin who had, somehow, with no education or background, managed to significantly contribute to taking down a double-talented four-star. What they think you lack, their minds will be unable to resist filling in. They will see an uncut gem, ready to be polished into something truly remarkable. They might bully you a bit to make you feel like you have to work for your place in the empire, but they aren’t going to turn you into an enemy.”
Freddy stalled at that, feeling some of the tension leaving his shoulders. “I see.” He remained silent for a moment. “What about you, then? You’re down to the second star. I doubt you’re going to keep your job.”
“You aren’t wrong about that.” Rather than frown, the adjudicator seemed strangely smug. “I’m thinking of getting myself a severing elixir.”
“And that is…?”
“Right. I sometimes forget how ignorant you are. You see, when you go down a star, you can only go back up the same path you’ve already taken. It’s faster than getting there in the first place, but you’re ultimately just getting back what you’ve lost.”
Freddy straightened a bit. “You don’t mean…”
The adjudicator grinned. “Exactly. A severing elixir severs that path, leaving you without an easy way back to where you were, but also giving you a chance to do it over.” The man looked over his hand. “Your friend has a truly absurd talent. I’ve had it tested, and would you look at that… My biological age is… zero.” He looked back at Freddy. “All the hidden injuries I’ve accumulated over the years are gone. I’m practically a newborn. Add that to the funds I’ll acquire by selling your organs and the experience I’ve gathered over the years, and well… I’d be a fool not to give it a shot.”
A determined look settled over the man’s features. “This time, I’m not going to settle for mediocrity.”
Freddy scoffed. “Good for you, I guess.” He offered the man a fist bump and grinned. “If you ever need a buddy to help you with a dungeon or two, I’d be glad to carry you.”
The man snickered while returning the fist bump. “You little shit. I’m still an adjudicator, you know? You should treat me with respect.”
“I do respect you.” Freddy turned serious. “When push came to shove, you proved you’re serious about doing your job. I think you’ll make a fine Lord one day.”
The man’s expression softened. “And I think you will be a mighty fine Overlord, yourself. Now…” He turned to the exit. “I do have some loose ends to tie up. I’m sure you do, too.”
Freddy nodded. “I’ll have to take a stop at Valhalla.”
They parted, and Freddy did as promised, heading straight to Travis’s office. He found the man leaning against his desk, holding some kind of letter in his hand. He didn’t seem surprised when Freddy walked in. “Everything went well?”
“Sort of. I’ll be taken away tomorrow. Got a trial to be put through.”
Travis’s expression fell. “Is it related to the city?”
Freddy nodded. “They might even end up taking it from me.”
The man looked ill at that. “Then—”
“Listen.” Freddy took a step forward and put a hand on the man’s shoulder. “Even if they do, I’ll still send money over. I’m not going to let this city rot.”
“Money…?” He perked up. “Does that mean…?”
Freddy nodded. “Yeah. I probably won’t be coming back.”
Travis smiled as his gaze fell. “Thank you, Freddy. For everything.”
“Don’t be too quick to thank me yet. If I do keep the city, I’ll be taxing you for wiping your ass in a decade.”
The man chuckled. “I’d even limit myself to one-ply if I could pay you back for what you’ve done. That aside”—he waved the letter in his hand—“I have something for you.” He handed it to Freddy, who accepted it with a raised eyebrow. “You know, I found it suspicious when Lucas wasn’t there for the gathering. That boy had done some serious work, even if he’s still on the weaker side. And now I’m starting to think there’s more to why he didn’t show up.”
Freddy looked at the letter in his hand, turning it over and finding a little “TO: FREDDY” written in the bottom corner. His expression darkened as he realized something.
It was written in Sophia’s handwriting.