Ch203-Twice Is Coincidence

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Ch203-Twice Is Coincidence

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“You seem upset,” Ria said, as Sylver scratched his chin and pretended to look around.

After their conversation with the woman, Abril, they had gone their separate ways. Except Abril had sent her people to secretly follow Sylver. Sylver didn’t mind, they kept pace with him even when he used [Fog Form].

“I was hoping they would be a cult,” Sylver tapped out in response.

“Why did you want them to be a cult?” Ria asked.

As Sylver had guessed, the organization Abril was part of, was a “rebellion.” The emperor and his archaic system, where corruption runs rampant, and the strong oppress the weak and blah blah blah.

It was as classic as a rebellion could get.

On the bright side, they called themselves “Bucklers,” which Sylver was overjoyed to hear, considering they were somehow associated with the girl with the shield ancestor heritage.

Abril needed time to contact her superiors, so they could decide if Sylver could be trusted or not, and they agreed to meet at Faust’s sect if they decided Sylver was trustworthy.

“With political movements things are complicated. Are they revolutionaries or terrorists? Do they know what they’re doing? Do they have a point? Cults are way easier to deal with. They say their god, demon, spirit, or what have you, says do this and this, and there’s absolutely no point discussing anything with them, you can’t change their minds.

“Either you agree with their god and his teachings, or you don’t,” Sylver explained, as he stretched his arms out, and realized his outer spine was still curved from when he had been pretending to be an old man.

He leaned back and gained another couple of inches of height as his outer spine straightened out.

“What do you mean by “easier to deal with?” How many cults are there anyway?” Ria asked.

The suns were just about to start setting at this point in time. Between getting to Abril’s house, and then chasing after her, Sylver would have to travel all night to get home by sunrise.

“I mean, a cult might have a very interesting view regarding how people should dress, act, how they pray, all that is fine, no problems there. But then they have a fun little detail, like, “drinking hot sauce out of a child’s skull will grant you eternal life,” or “raping a toddler’s corpse will cure all your ailments,” or “why don’t we pour liquid metal into-”

“Why is it always children? Every single time, from gods to demons to cults, why is it always children?” Ria interrupted, as Sylver gave himself a moment of pause to consider how to word his answer.

“If you’re asking about the practical reason, it’s because dark magic is easier if you use an untainted soul, and the vast majority of children’s souls are untainted. Think of it like drawing a picture on an empty page, as opposed to a page where someone has already drawn something on it. If you’re an idiot that can’t incorporate the drawing into your drawing, using a blank page is better,” Sylver explained, as Ria nodded along.

“Yes, you’ve said this before,” Ria said.

“Without getting into the moral aspect of things, I like child-killing cults because when I defeat them and then experiment on them, no one at the Ibis bats an eye. I just say, “They killed and raped children,” and regardless of what I’m doing, no one tries to stop me. Children are universally loved, and those that hurt them are universally hated,” Sylver explained, with a shrug of his shoulders.

“I see… Yes, I imagine that if you defeated a political faction and tried to experiment on them, your peers might empathize with them…Evil child killers are easier to justify,” Ria said, as Sylver shook his head.

“I never said anything about evil… I don’t… Look, I’m a bit tired of explaining myself. Here’s something for you to consider Ria. When that dragon is freed, these people will lose their main means of defense. Monsters might attack them, a foreign country might try to invade them, and between just those two things, there’s a fair chance some children will die,” Sylver explained.

“I’m aware of that, yes,” Ria answered.

“Then what about-”

“I know where you’re going with this, “there’s no good or evil, just people doing their best to help themselves and their loved ones.” I just… I can’t understand destroying a whole country to save one person,” Ria said with a grimace in her voice.

Almost as if the words were causing her pain.

“First of all, I’m not destroying it. Once I’ve secured my victory, I’ll even go as far as to warn everyone, so they have time to prepare. But as I’ve said multiple times already, I’d kill them all with my own two hands, if I had to… I’ve lived long enough that I’ve already had this choice presented to me,” Sylver said.

“And you’ve found out the hard way that you’re more comfortable with the blood of thousands of children on your hands than you are with the blood of one single dear friend,” Ria said.

Her tone was vague enough that Sylver couldn’t tell if she meant it in an accusing way, or if she was simply asking a question.

“Yes. Because even if you feel like absolute garbage for doing it, eventually there will come a point in time where the blood will wash off, and you’ll forget about it, and move on… With a close friend, you’ll spend the rest of your incredibly long life regretting it,” Sylver said.

Ria made a sound that Sylver understood meant she wanted to ask a question but changed her mind when she realized what exactly she was about to ask.

“You want to make the world a better place, right?” Sylver asked.

“And I will need to make difficult choices if I plan to do that, I know... I would like to stop this conversation here, if that’s alright with you,” Ria said, as she shifted inside Sylver’s robe. Sylver nodded at her.

There was a different group following them.

They weren’t as good as Abril’s people. Even if Sylver didn’t have an army of shades constantly searching for people following him, he would have felt their souls focusing on him.

Abril’s guys at least suppressed their souls and presences.

Now, Sylver could lose all of them, it wouldn’t be that hard. He didn’t necessarily need them, the two books Sylver had given to Abril as a sign of goodwill, had just a few drops of a dark purple liquid soaked into the pages.

That liquid was what Sylver called his “blood,” and apart from his backups back in Arda, he was the only person with this very specific “blood” in the area surrounding the Schlagen mountains.

Meaning that, hypothetically, if the Bucklers decided he wasn’t trustworthy, Sylver could track down the two books, which would hopefully be accompanied by Abril, and if he was lucky, would be sitting inside their headquarters.

Of course, he preferred that they decided to trust him, and they worked together for their mutual benefit, but Sylver was somewhat used to not getting what he wanted and did his best to prepare accordingly.

As to the question of what exactly Sylver wanted from the Bucklers, the answer was that he wanted to find and free Fobur Plateforged. Or at least that was what he had said to Abril, and now couldn’t say he was just trying to guess a combination of words to get her to trust him.

And after he found and freed Fobur Plateforged, Sylver probably needed help finding someone else.

Depending on the specifics of the organization, Sylver might be looking for a man completely unrelated to a girl coming here by boat.

But if, hypothetically, the Bucklers were waiting for a little girl to arrive, then coincidentally their goals would align, as she was the reason Sylver came to the Schlagen mountains in the first place. Her life was in danger unless she did some convoluted bullshit, that it just so happens only Sylver would be able to help her with.

From there Sylver would offer her a potion, that would make it impossible for her to continue her bloodline.

If she refused to drink it then…

First Sylver had to find her.

***

They were keeping their distance, and oddly enough, didn’t appear to be armed.

Then again, cultivators were like mages, even butt naked, they were still “armed.”

Nevertheless, Sylver made it to Faust’s sect without anyone hassling him. During his travel he figured out that they weren’t tracking Sylver, they were following some kind of trail.

Sylver had double-checked himself and his clothing, but he didn’t find any Ki enchanted stones or anything, and he was fairly certain he would have felt it if Abril had tried to use a Ki technique to mark him.

Xalibur was sitting outside the sect gate, and a hairless Dog was chewing on a bone that didn’t belong to a human.

“I’m waiting for the seamstress to make him a sweater,” Xalibur said, with a giant smile on his face.

“What’s your angle Xalibur? Now that Dog is healed, what are you planning on doing?” Sylver asked as the man’s whole body tensed up.

Even Dog froze, and Sylver realized his tone of voice bordered on furious. He swallowed the metaphorical lump in his throat and forced himself to relax and calm down.

Ria was young and inexperienced, Sylver was misinterpreting ignorance as distrust. And it wasn’t her fault she touched a subject Sylver normally went out of his way to avoid.

“I would like to stay here. If that’s alright with you,” Xalibur answered, in a very understandably defensive voice.

“That’s your short-term plan, sure. What’s your long-term goal?” Sylver asked, as Xalibur just stared at him, with a completely blank expression on his face.

“I haven’t decided yet,” Xalibur said, with such a careful tone that it further pissed Sylver off.

Like he was some kind of manic tyrant that needed to be approached with caution.

“Fair-” Sylver swallowed another anger-induced metaphorical lump in his throat, and mentally moved along. “Fair enough. I’m glad to see Dog is doing better,” Sylver said, as he walked between the man and his beast, and entered Faust’s sect.

“He is, thank you,” Xalibur responded flatly.

If not for the fact that Sylver had just spoken to Xalibur, he would have thought he came to the wrong place. He was gone for a day.

And yet the sect looked unrecognizable.

Previously there was only 1 building, that was empty and disheveled, and now it had a fresh coat of paint, another floor, and there were oddly shaped wooden training dummies littered throughout the courtyard, that had been divided into rectangular sections.

There were 6 rectangles in total, and all 6 were occupied with children repeating the exact same series of motions, in near-perfect sync. Every single time they hit the training dummy, even though their fist moved slowly enough that nothing should have happened, the target spun as if they had punched it properly.

If anything, the targets were spinning significantly faster than what their small bodies should have been capable of producing.

[Human – Winter Constellation – 54]
[HP: 17,410 – 61%]
[MP: 0 – 0%]
[Stamina: 1,340 – 4%]
[Corpse – Inferior]
[Soul – Petty]

[Human – Star Of The North– 63]
[HP: 13,662 – 52%]
[MP: 0 – 0%]
[Stamina: 3,711 - 6%]
[Corpse – Inferior]
[Soul – Common]

The 3 kids on the left side of the path that led to the house all had the [Winter Constellation] class, while the 3 on the right had the [Star Of The North] class. They looked significantly better than the last time Sylver saw them, but there was something off about them.

He didn’t know how to put it into words, but they moved almost as if they didn’t weigh anything. As if they were ethereal. Their eyes were unfocused in a way that suggested they weren’t fully here, and yet their souls felt perfectly fine.

Sylver turned around as two girls carrying a heavy-looking box politely nodded at him. Sylver’s [Dead Dominion] perk let him know there were 9 small bundles inside the box, that felt to be some sort of organ. He stepped out of the way, and they quickly disappeared into the house.

Mora was sleeping behind the house, and Sylver decided not to disturb her.

With a furrowed brow, Sylver used [Fog Form] and materialized in the underground room that hadn’t been there yesterday.

The walls were perfectly flat, they had been dug, and then clay had been used to smooth them out. Similarly, the floor was made out of glossy clay, as was the ceiling. There were 2 holes for ventilation and a single ladder that provided a way in and out of the boxed-in room.

Off in the corner, Faust was mumbling something to himself, as 9 spherical glowing organs floated around him, and gradually condensed until the apple-sized glands became as small as a grape. They disappeared into the cauldron Faust was standing over, and he finally turned his head to look at Sylver.

“How did it go?” Faust asked, as Sylver materialized himself a seat out of his shadow and did the same for Faust as he walked over to him.

“I’m waiting for them to decide if I’m trustworthy or not. They are a rebellion and call themselves Bucklers. I messed up and now I’m going to have to find and rescue Fobur Plateforged. That guy we were supposed to meet when we came here,” Sylver explained, as Faust nodded along.

“On the bright side of things, the emperor is 100% dead. I know you didn’t believe me the first time I said it, but they wouldn’t deceive people like this. Playing dead is for- these people wouldn’t do that,” Faust explained, and Sylver could make an educated guess as to what Faust had initially wanted to say.

“Have you seen his corpse?” Sylver asked as Faust shook his head.

“I haven’t… But I genuinely don’t believe they would fake it Syl.  They have delegates from the west arriving today, there is no conceivable reason as to why they would embarrass themselves in such a way,” Faust said, as he turned his head to look at the bubbling cauldron, but then turned his head back to face Sylver.

“To hide their sick emperor?” Sylver offered with a tired voice.

Delegates, fantastic, more moving pieces to worry about.

“The succumbing to poison thing, that might be bullshit. But they would sooner actually kill him, than fake his death. The new emperor has already been initiated, it’s official Syl,” Faust explained, as he patted his robe, but couldn’t find the sheet of paper he was looking for.

Sylver sat up so quickly that he nearly catapulted Faust away from him.

“You said the delegation is coming from the west?” Sylver asked, as Faust walked over to one of the wooden tables and searched through the papers that were spread out on it.

“Southwest. They’re from Longaeva. Doesn’t say anything else, just that they will be walking through the southern path,” Faust read out, as he handed the sheet of paper to Sylver.

Sylver read the words on the sheet 10 times as he closed off his sight and concentrated. Most of the text was regarding the various stalls that would be available on the southern path. Given how closed off this whole place was, every single official guest was cause for celebration.

“I’ve heard that name before… It’s… What else is there Southwest of here?” Sylver asked.

He was certain he had heard that name before, it was at the tip of his tongue.

“I honestly have no idea,” Faust said, as Sylver felt a tug in his stomach.

“You know I’m on the lookout for the shield girl coming here, why didn’t you warn me?” Sylver asked, as Faust just shrugged his shoulders.

“You said she’s coming through the northern river, I didn’t think you meant she’s coming here today. And-”

“I didn’t say anything, an ancient dragon said it. Its sense of distance and time might not be perfect. Especially since I got the feeling it got all of its information from some kind of clairvoyancy. For all I know, the girl is already here.

“Except I can’t find her if she’s already here, because that would require inspecting the shoulder of every single woman in this whole region,” Sylver explained, as he was already in the process of sending a tendril of fog out of the room, and towards the sect entrance.

“Well, how was I supposed to know that?” Faust asked, and the question caused Sylver to lose whatever anger he may have felt towards the man.

“That’s a very fair point… I’m sorry for shouting, I’m going to go see the delegation. Are you alright? Is there anything you need help with?” Sylver asked, as Faust just shook his head.

“We’re good Syl. I should be strong enough that we won’t need Mora in a couple of days,” Faust said, as Sylver nodded at him, and disappeared.

***

A part of Sylver was tempted to make a large loop and ask the people following him what they were up to. He was certain now, both groups were following Sylver’s “trail,” and not Sylver himself.

In his haste, he forgot to ask Faust if was marked somehow, but he had to assume Faust would have said something if he was. So they were using something Sylver couldn’t detect.

But he didn’t worry about it too much because Sylver was sure that if he cornered them, and politely asked for the specifics regarding how they were tracking him, they would be more than willing to explain it to him.

With [Fog Form] Sylver arrived at his destination in mere minutes. Or at least, he got close enough that he decided that he needed to walk the rest of the way, so as not to arise suspicion.

As Faust had said there was a festival to welcome the delegates, stalls sold weird-looking food that filled the air with a sickeningly sweet aroma. The crowd was so dense that only the fact that Sylver was actively gently pushing people away from himself using his magic prevented them from shouldering him in the gut as they walked.

The southern path was named so because it was a straight path without any room to get off it, from the barrier, straight to the White Ring. Gates that Sylver assumed would normally be open, were tightly shut, and interest enough, guarded. The guards weren’t holding their weapons in their hands, but they were armed, and ready, even if they were wearing festive-looking clothing.

The bright-colored cloth did well to hide their wooden armor, even if it made them look bigger than they actually were.

With his height, all the brightly colored cloth in the world wouldn’t hide Sylver, even when he compressed his bones to their limit, he was still a head and a half taller than these people. And that was with him craning his back like an old man.

The general reaction to Sylver’s presence wasn’t great to begin with, but it became much worse when people saw the sect symbol hanging on his arm. Sylver was tempted to use an illusion to make it look like the symbol of a different sect, but that would mean starting shit with whichever sect he was impersonating, and Sylver didn’t want to bring Faust any trouble until he was ready.

Normally Sylver wouldn’t give two shits about people having a problem with him.

In this case however, he needed to ask someone whether the delegation was still in the process of arriving, or if they were already halfway to the White Ring. And word of a member of the “thieving sect” spread so quickly that Sylver couldn’t get the shopkeepers to so much as look at him, let alone talk to him.

Luckily, Sylver had a friend who didn’t mind pretending to be part of a different sect and wasn’t as tall or memorable as Sylver was.

Regretfully, Sylver hadn’t had the foresight to bring any jade with him and couldn’t buy Spring the clothing he needed. He wasn’t proud of it, but he ended up having the shade find some clothing being dried on a drying rack and borrowed it.

Spring noted the exact house he took the bathrobe-like garment from and made a note to ask Faust what a fair price would be to pay for something like this.

After that, it was a simple case of finding a dark corner to pull Spring’s skin-suit out of Sylver’s [Bound Bones] storage, have Spring enter it, and then give him a couple of seconds to put his stolen clothing on.

Due to Sylver’s size, he was able to literally do that in a random corner. He just stood in a corner with his back against it, and ever so slightly puffed up his robe to completely hide Spring from the people staring at him.

While Sylver waited for Spring to change, he burned the Green Rabbit sect’s symbol onto a piece of wood and handed it to Spring to put on.

Armed with a good sect’s name, the woman selling honey-soaked bread candy went as far as to give Spring a free sample, after she had told him the delegation had passed this area half an hour ago.

Spring thanked her and met up with Sylver, who was already walking towards the White Ring.

“I’ve sent shades ahead, but with all the Ki barriers everywhere, they’re boxed in. They would need to fully materialize to pass through, and even if there weren’t too many people around, they would probably trigger alarms,” Spring explained, as honey leaked out of the bottom of the paper cup he had been given, and traveled down his arm, onto his sleeve.

“Does Longaeva sound familiar to you? I’m so sure I’ve heard it somewhere before,” Sylver asked, and then had to wait for Spring to finish chewing.

“It does sound familiar, but apparently it wasn’t important enough for us to make a note of it. It’s an elvish name, but that doesn’t mean much, since elves invertedly ended up naming everything,” Spring said, as Sylver scrunched up his face as he continued digging through his memory.

“Elves named everything?” Ria asked.

Sylver gestured at Spring with his finger and made the honey unstick from his sleeve and hand, and had it float back into the paper cup, which Sylver sealed up to stop it from leaking.

“They were the first mapmakers,” Sylver answered, as Spring took another bite from the honey bread thing.

“They didn’t name everything, but most city names were originally elvish. New cities/towns are named in Eirish, but they’re typically named after their founder. Arda for instance was named after the king at the time. Longaeva is an old name, but that’s all we know about it,” Spring answered, as he finished his honey bread with one last bite.

“If that’s all we know about it, why does it sound so familiar?” Sylver asked, as he continued walking through the dense crowd, and was doing his best not to shove anyone too hard out of his way.

Sylver could feel they were close to the delegation, even if he couldn’t actually see them. There was so much ambient mana in the air, that Sylver felt some of the tension in his shoulders ease away. He could tell by the scrunched-up noses of the people nearby that felt the same thing he did but weren’t having a positive reaction to it.

There were 5 large carriages, with a roof and wooden walls colored a light shade of green. They were being moved using a very simple enchantment on the wheels. People wearing similar colored green robes walked alongside the carriage, and now and then would stop for a moment to buy something that caught their eye.

Sylver kept his distance and watched as the people walking outside the carriage brought food to the ones sitting inside it.

As one of them was reaching up to give a satchel of breadsticks through the carriage window, a small gust of wind made the man’s hood flutter, and Sylver saw what he should have guessed from the way the mana in the air felt.

Elves.

Fuck.

Now there were people that could potentially call bullshit on Sylver’s bullshit.

On the bright side, there were now people here that Sylver could offer some of his gold to. With a newfound optimism, Sylver continued making his way forward, and in a couple of short minutes, he found himself walking right next to the carriage at the very end.

Sylver turned his head out of habit, to look at the elves sitting inside the carriage.

When the door opened and the woman locked eyes with the spot where Sylver instead had bandages, she dropped the cinnamon bun she was in the process of biting into a moment ago. The muscles on her jaw tightened so much that Sylver could see pulling against her skin.

They just stared at one another, and Sylver very nearly tripped over a man because he wasn’t paying attention.

He wasn’t paying attention for 2 reasons.

The first was that he was surprised to see Rosa here.

The elf he had given an Eldar tree sapling to, from the dungeon he had found Faust and Bruno in. Sylver didn’t have any hair right now, his face was covered, and he was significantly taller than he had been back then, and yet he could see recognition in Rosa’s eyes, clear as day.

The second reason Sylver wasn’t paying attention was that he realized why the words “NEGATIVE MOUNTAIN” didn’t make sense in the context the dragon said them.

Because the dragon didn’t say “negative mountain”, as Sylver had assumed, it had told him its name.

Twice.

“Gorr” roughly means mountain, and “Ynych”, roughly means none or negative.

Gorynych.

A part of Sylver hoped it was a coincidence that Rosa had asked him that name, just before leaving, but the less optimistic part of him didn’t believe the two weren’t connected.

But considering the elves lived westward of Arda, months of travel away from the Schlagen mountains, Sylver made an educated guess that Rosa wasn’t here just to see the sights, and enjoy a cinnamon pastry.

NEXT CHAPTER 

(Ch076 in case anyone needs a refresher. Sylver met her in Ch071)