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Chapter 206 - Rifts (Thank you for your support, Justin Stout!)
🕑 Added 2024-11-19 10:21:30 +0000 UTCWhile Regulus was heading to the new labyrinth, the next two days passed in the blink of an eye. Clarice felt bad for leaving him alone finding those who had wronged him, but soon Renna told her what she had done and that he would find help by himself. She didn’t explain what kind of help it was…
While she was thinking about that, she heard some footsteps coming from outside. She straightened her posture as she was standing behind Renna, as if she were her assistant. Soon enough, the door of the house was opened and then Arslan and Cellica entered the room, followed by two humans.
Clarice squinted her eyes while glaring at the last person to enter the room… he was the figure that defeated her unit a few days ago. A tall swordsman with black hair and light green eyes… She didn’t mention that to Regulus, but she believed that they had some sort of blood relation. Even their facial features were somewhat the same.
The swordsman looked relaxed, and it didn’t look like he recognized her. That was a bit annoying, but she was using her uniform before, so it couldn’t be helped. The other man wasn’t a warrior, he wasn’t in shape, and he had no weapons with him. Still, with his very short blond hair that was showing strains of white and thanks to the glint of his light brown eyes, one would think just by looking at him that he was pretty cunning.
“Please sit, Lord Garnier. I hope that you can find my humble house relaxing enough.”
“Of course, aside from the fact that I have to climb stairs without handles to avoid falling, your architecture is quite interesting and comforting as well. And please, just Jean is fine. I may be the lord of a region in the empire, but I am just a mediator right now.”
Clarice recalled what she knew about the man… she had heard it yesterday from her grandmother. She finally realized how naïve she had been when she targeted those two with her unit… Jean Garner, current head of the Garnier house and territory. He has two daughters, one of them who was a young woman who was starting to become famous as a magic swordswoman, and the other was older, who had married into the Dawnshield family. Her name was Joan… Gerard’s mother and one of Regulus’ stepmothers.
When she heard that, Clarice couldn’t help but sweat cold… Regulus did the right thing on leaving instead of waiting for this meeting. There were too many people here who had some certain level of connections with him… she could only hope that her brother and her insane wannabe girlfriend wouldn’t say a thing about him, but would they lie if Jean asks anything?
“I wasn’t expecting to meet the famous leader of the silver bows here, but this is a pleasant surprise.”
“I was in the area, and Cellica asked me to stay and help with the talk. Shall we get to the topic? I am sure you still have many elders to try to convince you to join your cause.”
“Hahaha! I just tried to tell them the good opportunities that will soon arrive. There is nothing definite yet. Regardless, are you willing to listen to us as well, Arslan?”
“I wouldn’t be here if I weren’t. Once again, unless you want to spend months here away from home and not manage your territory, you should start talking. We don’t have trains here. We like to keep our air clean and our trees perfectly healthy as well.”
“Very well, straight to the point then… The empire has some information that says that soon, more rifts will emerge. We are working to prevent the damage the rifts will cause. With that in mind, we would like to make an alliance with the Aeloria Dominion. We already made one with Aquarians, as you should be aware. They soon realized that this piece of information was true.”
“Rifts, you say… I wonder how they were convinced of that. As far as I know, they haven’t appeared in more than one thousand years and they appear randomly all over the world. Who can someone actually predict that? Unless you have in your side the most skilled clairvoyant that has ever existed in this world.”
“Well, we actually have it.”
Things got quiet after that, Arslan usually looked pretty amused, but now he had a serious expression while studying his guests… it was hard to believe that this all was true, he could only imagine that it was a ploy by the empire to take control over things and become the largest force in the world.
Thanks to that, everyone was able to notice that Clarice looked confused… she never heard of those things called rifts. If it weren’t for Renna, she probably would have remained clueless until the end of the talk.
“Clarice… Rifts are things like dungeons and labyrinths. They show up all around the world and when they do, the world changes. I was born a few hundred years after the last one, but the world had still yet to recover from the last one.”
“So, they are like holes on the ground the pop out monsters?”
“Some of those who know of their existence believe it, so… some don’t. I believe the empire is the former, am I right? Jean Garnier?”
“You are indeed right, Lady Renna. We have archives that tell in detail what had happened back then. Three new races emerged from the rift and caused havoc all around the world. Eventually, after a long and tiring war, they decided to move away to a secluded area of the world, where their rift emerged and expanded. Then, they created the Metallara empire.”
Clarice opened her eyes widely when she heard that… how was it possible that such a thing actually happened? She had heard about those beings and they were indeed weird, and that would explain why.
“Where did they come from?”
“No one knows aside from them.”
Renna shook her head… even if her long-lived grandmother didn’t know, it was very unlikely that anyone else knew. Clarice tried to recall what she knew about them, but she only knew about a single faction of them. They were the alloyed guard.
The Alloyed Guard is a group seeking to create a unified civilization composed entirely of living metal beings. They believe that their kind represents the pinnacle of artificial evolution and aim to build a society where all aspects of life are governed by their unique attributes. Their goal is to establish a new order where living metal beings dominate. There are rumors that they keep expanding their territory using some unknown magic, but that kind of rumor has yet to be confirmed.
“We have been keeping an eye on them for a while and they aren’t doing anything odd, apparently… but their land keeps expanding by the use of metal. They have the knowledge and the technology to turn all kinds of things into metals and the process takes quite a lot of energy and their main source of energy is magic trees.”
Arslan, Cellica and Renna wondered if that was also true. It seemed like another convenient piece of information used to round them up instead… that kind of technology was frowned upon by the elves since it destroyed trees, after all. The smoke released was also bad for the air…
“Is this why the dwarves have been allocating more and more towers on the border?”
Arslan went straight to the point… that would explain a lot. They were getting ready for another large-scale war, but they were acting like the rift couldn’t appear in their territory for some reason.
“I believe they are just getting ready for us to attack the Aeloria Dominion. For them, it would make more sense if we and the aquarians targeted you all first.”
The elves’ territory was indeed in the way, but they still could invade the dwarven territory through the sea… while attacking the dwarven cities would be difficult since the aquarians wouldn’t be of much help, it wouldn’t be impossible.
“Naturally, we are planning to negotiate with them as well, but it would be a lot more convenient if you all agreed to work with us. As you should realize, our recent actions only had the goal of making sure that the nuisances wouldn’t get in the way.”
Taking over the Skarnash Tribelands and almost wiping out all the orcs, goblins and ogres was just another footstep for the empire. They were willing to go that far to reach their goals. It sense that they couldn’t turn them into allies, they wouldn’t be able to do their pirate stuff, after all. Who would they target if they turned their neighbors into allies?
“I see… while it makes a lot of sense, it was all very convenient for you all. Still, I am willing to believe you if you can show me that this clairvoyant of yours is indeed the real deal.”
“That can be easily done.”
Jean Garnier took from his pocket a piece of paper and then handed it over to Arslan. When he opened and read it, he opened his eyes widely in shock and then his expression darkened. Then he handed the piece of paper to Cellica. She acted the same way and then handed it to Renna. Clarice finally had the chance to read since she was behind her grandmother and her expression of shock was quite hard to miss.
It was the Arslan schedule of the previous month… It mentioned who he talked to and what he did as well. It made one think that he had been watched, but it also told details of his actions when he was alone and some of his thoughts as well. There was a period of one day that information about him became empty, but soon it resumed afterwards, when Regulus left the area.
Meeting with Jena Garnier.
The letter will change his mind about the alliance.
He will agree to give information about Regulus Dawnshield.
He will notice that Renna is hiding something about him.
“This much should be enough to prove the skills of our clairvoyant, right?”
“Who would believe this crap? You are only trying to influence his decisions! It is clear that you have spies here!”
“I showed similar pieces of paper that convinced the other elders it would be quite the achievement to spy on them without being noticed for over a month. Regardless, as you can see, whenever Regulus Dawnshield is involved, our clairvoyant can’t predict things well. That is why we had a bit of a hard time in the Skarnash Tribelands. If he keeps roaming around, there is no telling how much trouble he will cause us. He needs to be stopped in order for the next rift not to destroy the world, as we know.”
Comments
عاصم الاحمدي
reincarnation his benefit like no one see your fate
Dragondragon
The grandma has been alive for a very long time no way she is going to trust an empire that has been enslaving her people to have the elves best interest at heart
MagicWafflez
wow. just. wow. they're going to target him with that kind of trumped up bullshit. grandma better not give him up >:( it's not a favor if you immediately betray him dang it!
Zero
His -> this
Zero
Her-> his
