The geometry clown hadn’t stopped.
Crow sat on the hot springs bench with his arms resting on his knees, steam curling past his face, and listened to the low, disjointed snickering still drifting through the cedar walls from whichever dark corner the thing had wedged itself into.
“...geometry... hehe... geometry...”
He’d stopped trying to locate the source. He’d stopped caring about the source too. At some point during the last 11 minutes, the sound had simply become part of the room, like the hiss of water on hot stones or the distant creak of the palace settling against itself.
Crow stood, draped the towel across his shoulder, and pushed through the hot springs backdoor that led to the change room.
Cool air met him in the corridor; it was a little temperature shock, because the air there was the ordinary temperature of a hallway that hadn’t been filled with steam. He moved through the change room, dressed without ceremony, and left the geometry enthusiast to its private geometric theories.
The kitchen found him the same way it always did: smell first, sound second. Something sizzled somewhere inside. He settled onto a stool at the central block.
Sophia was already there, her back to him, managing three things at once with finesse. She set a plate down in front of him before he asked, bread, something cured, an egg that had stopped being fully warm but hadn’t committed to being cold. A cup followed. Black. Still too hot.
She didn’t speak. Neither did he. He worked through the plate methodically, similar to the way a man eats when he needs fuel fast, and let the silence hold.
Normally she’ll say something, but I understand. After what happened with her and Alice, I’d be shy too if I were in her place. Yeah, I can see the tips of her ears turning red... never mind. Better leave her alone.
When the cup was empty, he stood, rolled his shoulder once, and left. The corridor outside his quarters felt longer at this hour, or maybe just quieter. He pushed the door open. Black and gold velvet covered the walls. Across the room, a raven sat perched on the balcony, black marble, or obsidian; only the architects must know. It stared at him for a few brief seconds before spreading its wings and vanishing into the night.
Crow saw it, but simply looked away, dismissing it as just another common bird of the estate. The enormous bed dominated the center, its scarlet silk sheets folded perfectly, and undisturbed. The fireplace in the corner still held enough embers to cut the chill.
Crow dropped into the chair near the hearth, elbows on knees, and stared at nothing for a moment.
Then he raised his right hand and looked at the ring.
[Don’t look at me like that.]
The Sage’s voice surfaced with the cautious energy of a man who had learned, recently, that silence was expensive.
[I know that look. It’s the ‘I need information and you’re going to provide it’ look.]
“Status.”
A pause. The ring pulsed once.
[Fine, fine. No need to get dramatic.]
The window opened.
***
[Status]
Name: Crow (former name error) Soul Level 12
Title: The Spared One / Heavy Hand
Class: Soul Devourer / Grim Reaper
Situation: Pensive and Rested
STR 50
DEX 34
CON 59
INT 22
WIS 27
***
[Learned Skills]
Hand to Hand Combat level 6 (+1)
Swordsmanship level 1
Persuasion level 3 (+1)
Grim Reaper Manifestation level 1 (new)
One-liner level 1 (new)
***
[Passive Skills]
Quick Reflex – Your body reacts faster than your mind. Dodging strikes has become instinctive, though it doesn’t guarantee good efficiency against all foes.
Enduring Soul – Your spirit refuses to break, allowing you to resist despair and pain, can continue fighting at low HP without losing consciousness. Physical wounds still hurt, but giving up was never an option for you.
Soul Devourer – Consume the essence of defeated enemies to restore a fragment of your own life force. The hunger is insatiable, and every bite carries a faint whisper of the fallen with the memories of them.
Frail Existence – Your existence is weak, you are not a full Grim Reaper. You cannot sustain your full power in the physical world, most skills are locked. Requires more Souls to stabilize.
Questionable Charm – You are seducing too many girls, through questionable means, for some reason luck is on your side in this matter. How did you even obtain this skill???
Smooth Talker – Congratulations, you’ve reached a level of audacity where common sense no longer applies. You can provoke, charm, or confuse anyone with a few syllables. Most people use blades to fight, but you can just use your mouth. How... efficient? (New)
Grim Reaper’s Aura – A faint aura of death emanates from you, slightly unsettling nearby foes.
??? - */*+-/*-/2/32*-1*-/ 2/-*/123-*/
ERROR!
The user has a bugged passive skill. Its information cannot be accessed, because one does not naturally exist in this world.
Heavy Hand – Your hand is heavy. Whether you’re swinging a sword or just trying to give a “friendly” pat on the back, things tend to break. You should probably stop touching things. Or people. (New)
Crow read it, closed the status windows, and leaned back against the chair with a heavy sigh.
“Serious? ‘One-liner’? Why do I have yet another skill based in talking?” Crow asked. “And how did I get this?”
A message window popped up in front of Crow.
[Well, it is exactly as written there. These are skills you have acquired, it’s not a magic system; you only have here what you can already use or have learned yourself. The first time is always difficult, but from the second time onward you already know it, that is why it’s level 1. Mastery comes later. It is quite simple, really: your tongue has become so sharp lately that you can now taunt others with just a few syllables. Congratulations!]
“Right... now be quiet, I need to think.”
[Ok, ok.]
The Wise Sage responded quietly, then closed the message pop-up.
The fire cracked once, throwing a brief orange bloom across the ceiling.
She wants to use that golem as a bomb. And the Hero walks into whatever we point him at because that’s what Heroes do. Dutiful. Relentless. Designed to finish the story regardless of the cost.
He exhaled through his nose.
The story finishes with him either dead or winning. Those are the only two outcomes built into this world’s logic. If it ends with him dead... the rest follows. The party falls apart. The fronts against this kingdom and the monsters are going to collapse. The world ends. Lily—
He stopped that thought where it stood.
She’s alive. She has to be. Tomorrow, I will discover the truth.
The fire settled.
So I have one job on this expedition: make sure the Hero survives the bomb, along with his party. Whatever that requires. Alice thinks she’s sending a small gift to make the Hero take some time off. But what she’s actually doing is threatening to end the world faster.
The corner of his mouth moved.
But I have a plan... If that works, I change the outcome. Maybe not the whole story. Maybe just 1 page. But 1 page is enough to start.
He pressed both hands against his face, dragged them down slowly, and stared at the ceiling.
I can’t wait to retire from this military life, or should I say, forced conscription. I just want to find a farm and start chilling.
He didn’t believe that was possible. But thinking about it helped. He moved to the bed and after some minutes he fell asleep.
Next morning...
“Geometry…”
Crow bolted upright in bed.
Nothing, absolute silence.
“Ah, it was only a dream... seriously,” he muttered.
The knock came exactly when he expected it wouldn’t.
Crow opened the door.
Sophia stood in the corridor in full maid uniform, posture impeccable, silver tray balanced across both forearms with the practiced ease of a professional. On the tray: a sealed envelope bearing the royal insignia, and, inexplicably, a small arrangement of dark flowers he couldn’t identify.
“Her Majesty requests your presence in the Royal Banquet Hall,” Sophia said, with a note of formality that lasted approximately one second before her eyes found his throat and stayed there. Then she began to drool.
Give me a break.
Crow snatched the envelope without opening it. “The flowers are a bit much.”
Her head snapped back up. “They say you need to give them while they’re alive... and... just kidding!”
“Very funny Sophia… very funny. You can carry them yourself.”
“I carry many things personally.” She blinked, daub of drool appearing at the corner of her mouth. She caught it with the edge of her sleeve before it reached the tray. “Shall we?”
He gestured for her to lead. “Lead the way.”
She did, gliding ahead with those soundless steps that still unsettled him almost every single time, her heels making no contact, as if the floor were unwilling to report her presence. Crow followed her through the upper corridor, down the broad stair, past the gallery of unsmiling portraits and the double archway draped in dark brocade, until the smell of food reached him, real food, warm and properly prepared, not the functional fare of the kitchen at odd hours.
The Royal Banquet Hall opened ahead.
Long table. High ceilings. Candles burning in iron brackets at measured intervals, their light catching the edge of the silverware laid out with the kind of precision that suggested someone had used a ruler. Alice sat at the head in the royal dress, one leg crossed over the other, a small cup at her right hand.
Across the table, arranged at respectful but operational distances, sat the ones Crow had expected and a few he hadn’t.
General Darius occupied the seat nearest the head of the table, broad through the chest, his armor still on, the bearing of a man who treated meals as logistical exercises. Berthold sat further down, elbows off the table in the rigid way of someone raised on protocol, his eyes moving across the room with the practiced assessment of a man who catalogued exits.
Sharon stood near the sideboard, not seated, her black hair tied back, the maid uniform replaced by something closer to light field dress with dark fabric and clean lines. She’d spotted Crow’s arrival before he cleared the doorway. Then she averted her gaze.
Crow found a seat toward the middle of the table, approximately three meters from Alice, and settled.
A servant placed a plate in front of him without being asked. He ate.
Alice watched him for a moment.
“Everything is ready,” she said, to the table generally. The words carried the weight of a queen. “The expedition departs after this meal.”
General Darius set down his cup. “The messenger?”
“Dimitri confirmed the delivery two hours ago.” She tipped her head slightly, dismissing the follow-up before it surfaced. “The Hero will be in the realm soon.”
Crow kept his eyes on his plate.
This food is too good, holy...
Berthold’s fingers tapped once against the table’s edge, quiet and precise, more thought than sound. He glanced at Alice with the angled attention of a man waiting for his opportunity.
“Your Majesty. Before the expedition departs, I’d like your authorization on a separate matter.”
Alice’s eyes shifted to him.
“I have some ideas for improving our intelligence architecture,” Berthold continued, voice measured and unhurried. “The current situation about the Hero’s movement, the border activity, the secondary houses in the north and all of it requires information we don’t currently have access to.”
He paused, apparently organizing the next sentence with some care.
“There is a guild. Human-operated. They call themselves Limpeza.”
The name landed in the room with a degree of density. Darius’s jaw tightened fractionally. Sharon didn’t move, but something changed in her posture, anyone that didn’t knew something about it could understand, because the expression they did when heard about it was sufficient to know.
Limpeza? That name sounds familiar.
“An information and enforcement organization,” Berthold went on. “Old roots. Significant reach inside human-controlled territory. They don’t advertise their services to non-humans, but they sell to whoever pays correctly. I have reason to believe they maintain a permanent presence in the Hero’s city.” A beat. “To make contact, I would need to go there directly. Infiltrate, in the loosest sense. Arrange an introduction through the right intermediary.”
Alice considered him for a moment. Her expression yielded nothing.
“You’re asking permission to walk into the Hero’s city,” she said,
“I’m asking permission to walk through it,” Berthold said. “The contact window would be short. The mission’s requirements are… too specific. I won’t be specifying them further.”
The silence that followed wasn’t hostile, but it was definitely the silence of a woman who was unhappy.
Crack.
The sound was sharp, like a small firecracker. A hairline fracture spidered across the fine porcelain of General Darius’s cup. Tea began to weep through the clay, staining his glove.
Darius didn’t look at his hand. He kept his stone-cold gaze on Berthold. “You won’t be specifying them further? To your Queen? Because they are... too specific?”
Alice raised her free hand, palm open, a silent, noble command that cut the General’s indignation short.
“Granted,” she said, and lifted her cup.
Berthold inclined his head. His fingers stopped tapping.
Crow ate.
Whatever he’s not specifying... I’ll find out when it becomes my problem. And it’ll become my problem for sure.
He finished the plate, declined the second offering, and set his fork down.
Alice’s gaze found him across the table. “Sharon will accompany you as field commander for the expedition. Her orders carry my authority in the field.” A pause, precise as everything else. “Try not to destroy anything I’ll need later.”
“Naturally,” Crow said,
You’re the one who shouldn’t destroy anything, Alice.
He pushed back his chair, the heavy wood scraping against the stone floor. He offered a brief, respectful nod to the head of the table; though it wasn’t quite a bow, it was enough to satisfy protocol, and then he turned to leave. The heat of the dining hall and the smell of expensive wine faded behind him as he stepped back into the cooler air of the stone corridors.
Sharon found him in the corridor outside the hall some seconds later, as the meal dispersed into movement and logistics. She fell in beside him without preamble, matching his pace.
“T-the expedition leaves from the inner courtyard,” she said, “Your gear?”
“Already on.”
She eyed the hilts of his Zweihänder and Claymore, nodding to herself as if checking a mental list. She didn’t say another word.
They descended through the palace in silence. At the lower level, near the courtyard access, Sharon stopped at a set of iron-banded doors and pushed them open.
The inner courtyard spread before him. Cold air. Grey sky pressing flat against the towers, like always.
And the two golems standing in the center of it.
Crow stopped.
Golem 4 occupied the left side, motionless on its platform. The faint violet light bled from behind the 4 on its chest, steady, rhythmic, patient as a held breath. He didn’t look at it for long.
It was the other one that caught his eye.
This guy again? They’d better have fixed his head.