Chapter 16: In His Highness’ Service (5)

The hunt for Casval went on well into the night, at which point they lost track of him.

Simon should have kept Meredith by his side and sent Leonard instead to warn Dassein. However good a soldier he might have been, Leonard lacked the enhanced Perception stat that might have allowed them to track the flying traitor into the night.

“It would be unwise to approach the Redhands’ territory at night,” Leonard advised. “Our information may be accurate, or it may be lacking. No soldier should underestimate his foes or enter their territory under unfavorable conditions.”

Simon begrudgingly agreed. Knowing that Casval was likely related to the Redhands’ recent activities should prove useful on its own, even if they failed to find him in their camp in the morning.

Since they were far away from Beleth, the group elected to set up camp in the Tellurian plains until morning. Leonard had thankfully anticipated a long expedition and brought tents for the trip, alongside rations. Agnes Firewand started a campfire with magic and then raised a ring of magical, smokeless purple flames around the encampment to shield it from anyone daring to approach. Simon found them quite soothing to look at, the same way he liked watching flames in a fireplace. It just eased his nerves.

The group then settled in for the night. Cassandra and Lorimor read documents by the fire, while Firewand listened to Eole playing the oud—with orders to strike her down should she try to magically charm anyone. As for Simon, he decided to practice using the Gladiator Class with Leonard, wielding the burning sword Dassein entrusted him with.

The difference between a Gladiator and the Overlord became quickly apparent the moment they clashed blades. While passive Perks provided benefits at all times, stats only revealed their true power when the user donned their outfit.

Gladiator was faster than Overlord, but its lower level made it feel slower in Simon’s hands. Leonard didn’t even need to use his pavise to stop his strikes; he simply parried them with his own sword with casual ease.

“You lean too much into your Class, Your Highness,” Leonard said, his voice deepened by his Dreadnought armor. “Medium proficiency Perks only offer passable skills. It will allow you to use acceptable moves, but nothing says Your Highness’ talent cannot exceed them.”

Simon lunged forward, expecting to clash blades again, only for Leonard to sidestep his strike and kick him in the leg. The blow threw him off balance and caused Simon’s face to become intimately acquainted with the ground; something which Eole delighted in, considering how her laughter echoed throughout the camp.

“One must make use of the unorthodox, especially Class wielders,” Leonard said before planting his sword in the ground and offering Simon his hand to rise up with. “Is Your Highness unhurt?”

“I’m fine, Leonard.” Truthfully, Simon preferred a trainer who pushed him rather than coddled him. Perhaps it was the Gladiator in him. “I still have much to learn.”

“Your Highness’ willingness to do so will serve you well,” Leonard said. “Most people with Classes rest on their laurels and rely on the knowledge their Perks grant them as crutches, when they ought to surpass these limitations through training. Every individual with medium proficiencies fights the same, which makes their moves predictable and easy to disrupt.”

“So training to use unorthodox moves will give me an advantage because their Classes haven’t taught them how to properly react to them,” Simon guessed. “Is medium the lowest proficiency level available?”

Leonard nodded sharply. “To my knowledge, there are three levels of proficiency: medium, which grants skills equivalent to a trained soldier; advanced, which is comparable to a specialist; and perfect, which turns the user into a true master of the craft. I am currently at advanced proficiency myself, though I have crossed blades with warriors further along the path.”

“And you matched them by training and experience alone?”

“To a point. The gulf between each proficiency rank is vast indeed. However, there are many, many factors that decide a battle’s outcome beyond one’s skill with a sword.” Leonard glanced at the grass beneath their feet. “For example, the ground is rather slippery here, which makes it easier to knock an enemy off-balance; fighting another while facing the sun might blind you at a critical time; and so on. Your Highness needs to maximize all these tiny advantages before battle even begins, and if taken by surprise, you must learn to adapt on the fly to seize them. Only then will you achieve victory.”

“I understand.” It was refreshing talking with a clear expert in his subject. The likes of Thalas could pester Frightwall’s master-at-arms at will whenever they wished for pointers, while Simon had to be content with books. “Is that why you are so fast for a Dreadnought? You somehow managed to mitigate your Class’ slow speed?”

“Your Highness is sharp.” Leonard smiled faintly before removing his glove and revealing a silver ring on his finger. “I have a Ring of Stat Balance, which debuffs one of my stats to improve another by the same amount. In this case, I weakened my S-ranked Vitality to improve my D-ranked Agility. The Dreadnought already boasts multiple damage-reducing Perks, so it wasn’t that much of a trade-off.”

Impressive. Leonard had basically optimized his Class by covering its main weakness without sacrificing any big advantages.

“Customizing your Class with magic items also provides the benefit of surprise. Few of my foes ever expect a Dreadnought to charge at them in melee before they can react.” Leonard cleared his throat. “But we will continue this discussion and our training another time. Your Highness should get some rest. I will take the first watch for the night.”

Gladiator Level 3 Perk: Brave Heart I (Passive): You gain Immunity to Terror.

“Interesting,” Simon mused as he cancelled the Gladiator outfit. He immediately felt as if a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. The Class took a lot more of his mana to stay up than Overlord. “Merely completing this training session levelled up my Gladiator Class.”

“Most professional gladiators train under a lanista before they take the stage, so I suppose I have served you in a similar capacity.” Leonard bowed. “Rest well, Your Highness.”

Simon thanked him for his service, but decided to check on Lorimor and Cassandra first before going to bed. The two were sitting apart from the group, with Cassandra pointing at the sky and Lorimor taking notes based on whatever she told him.

“I see you’ve been getting along,” Simon said upon approaching them. “I hope he hasn’t been too much of a bother, Cassandra?”

“Not at all, Your Highness,” she replied with a faint smirk. “I am always pleased to meet another student of the Dark.”

“As am I, Lady Cassandra,” Lorimor replied, and for once he sounded absolutely sincere. “It is so rare to see a young woman with an open mind.”

Perhaps I should have introduced him to Duchar earlier after all, Simon thought. He guessed the two creeps would have had much to talk about. Glancing at Lorimor’s notes showed that he was recording the stars themselves, most specifically zodiac constellations.

“Are you practicing astrology?” Simon inquired.

“Whoever wrote the documents Your Highness entrusted us with certainly did,” Lorimor replied. “From what I gathered, the author was charting the movement of a celestial body due to visit our sky one year from now.”

“A celestial body?” Simon blinked. “You mean a comet?”

“Most probably. According to these notes, it will appear in our sky roughly one year from now and cross the constellations. The calculations are so accurate you would believe the author had seen the object with his own eyes.”

Because he probably did, Simon thought. It would make sense that some of Balzam Magnos’ reigns lasted longer than others, likely even extending further beyond their present time. Simon wondered if his assassination could have been a random stroke of luck on the murderer’s part during his father’s final reign.

“From what I gather, the author associated each of these ‘demonbarrows’ with a constellation and believed that the comet crossing that particular part of the sky would let them magically locate these places,” Lorimor concluded. “It’s pity the author failed to explain why they believed that.”

“The movement of celestial bodies has a great influence on magic,” Cassandra replied. “The elven astrologer Arimander predicted the Year of the Doom long before it happened by studying the stars. The demonbarrows must magically resonate with the constellations.”

In short, Father was likely trying to locate these demonbarrows by studying this comet’s movement and then observing how it reacted to magical signatures across the world. The main mystery remained why he was so intent on finding these places. Was it linked to that ‘bring down the sky’ commandment Simon had found in his father’s archive?

He was starting to wonder if he should even be investigating all this. Balzam Magnos’ magical obsessions might have nothing to do with the conspiracy aiming to wipe out the Magnos bloodline as far as Simon could tell.

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“If Your Highness would allow me to return home, I am certain my muse would help us decipher this mystery,” Lorimor said in a blatant attempt to deceive his new liege. “She possesses knowledge beyond compare.”

“I would be curious to meet with her as well,” Cassandra replied with a smile, as if the prospect of meeting some demonic entity was an entertaining academic pursuit rather than a deadly trap. “Only the most powerful of fiends can aspire to merge their essence with a human vessel’s flesh and soul.”

“You can forget it,” Simon said, immediately shooting it down. “Until you provide more results–”

White hot light illuminated the night in a flash.

The ring of flame around the camp intensified all of a sudden, the fire’s brightness growing so intense it almost hurt to look at it. Agnes Firewand and the others bolted to their feet, while Simon instinctively called upon the Gladiator Crestone to transform.

“What is happening?” Leonard asked, his Class outfit on.

“Someone is crossing the barrier,” Agnes Firewand said with a scowl before calling upon one of her Crestones. Her outfit changed into sleeveless, form-fitting, dancer-like robes of deep red and pitch blackness. Flames swirled around her arms, and a fire-shaped golden ornament appeared above her head. That had to be the Pyromancer Class outfit.

Crossing the flames? Simon could hardly believe it. The ring was a few meters thick and so hot that it should incinerate anything touching it.

And yet Firewand was right; a figure strolled through the flames with purpose, their shadow untouched by the fire.

“Your Highness, they call you?” a female voice called out from the flames. “I was wondering who were the rats chasing after me all day long.”

The figure walked out of the fire and into the camp without a single burn. Simon briefly mistook the stranger for Casval, for the resemblance was uncanny. Clad in golden scale armor covering a green tunic underneath, they boasted the same lilac eyes and blonde hair as Casval, alongside that fair and emotionless face that Anna had found irresistible. They could have been twins, if not for a small detail.

The stranger was a woman.

“You’re not Casval,” Simon stated the obvious.

“Are you another fool chasing after that failure? How boring.” The woman sneered in disdain, her gaze cold and steely. “Your hunt was for naught. I already ate him.”

She uttered those words so casually that Simon almost failed to pick up on the horrifying implications.

Thump.

Simon stared at the woman in disbelief. She felt wrong, somehow. Although she bore no weapon, she showed no fear or unease. There was something off about her, something reptilian in her unblinking stare and posture.

Thump, thump, thump.

My heart hurts in my chest… Simon couldn’t explain that sensation of dread coursing through his veins. Lorimor and Cassandra appeared to share that unease, the both of them having frozen in place. Every instinct in me tells me to run… like I have entered some beast’s den.

Eole appeared to recognize the stranger too, for she had prostrated herself onto the ground before her, her entire body trembling like a leaf in the wind. The only ones unaffected were Leonard and Agnes, and even then they had quickly moved in front of Simon to shield him with their bodies.

“Your Highness,” Leonard said, his sword and shield unwavering. “Take a steed as soon as Firewand brings down the barrier and run. Run and do not turn back.”