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Nero Walker, Book 2 Ch.25 (57)
🕑 Added 2023-12-22 23:30:01 +0000 UTCGeneral Branson had just returned from the keep, and things were going according to plan. His conversation with Lord Cosgrave, following the meeting with Lord Walker, went well enough. She seemed to understand the daunting task ahead of them. He didn’t think that she would interfere with what had to be done. Hopefully, she would be able to keep the other nobles from causing issues.
Captain Angelton and the sergeants had returned immediately after the meeting to organize the training facility at the army compound in Gate 15. The proximity to the east wilds would provide the best environment for what they were planning. There was a lot to do, and not a lot of time in which to do it.
As the general approached his office, he used his link to go over the reports of the day. The mountain expedition out of Gate 3 reported success in their mission to clear out a kobald infestation. Gate 9 was asking for reinforcements, they needed more men to deal with the sewer slimes. There must be a queen slime somewhere, and they couldn’t find it. The general sent orders to Gate 2 to assist them, as the mountain facing side of the city was quiet as of late.
Seeing his aides, Private’s Neeling and Mason, standing at their desks awaiting orders, General Branson asked, “Anything to report?”
Private Neelan’s eyes went to the right of the room and he replied, “Sir, Specialist Howard insists on a meeting.”
The general turned to see Specialist Howard standing by the waiting room chairs. He projected his anger well, both with his frown and his crossed arms.
“We need to talk, Sir,” he said. There was little to no respect in his voice.
General Branson just smiled and said, “In my office. I’ll be right with you.”
Giving the general a curt nod, Specialist Howard strode to the office while waving his hand to open the doors. After passing through the doors, they slammed shut of their own accord. Both the aides gave a sneer at the disrespect, but General Branson didn’t seem to care.
Instead of addressing Howard’s conduct, the general started giving out orders. As the aide’s took notes, the general spoke in quick sentences detailing how he wanted things done. He addressed all the issues that were currently affecting his army, and the minutes passed quickly. Spending the day at the keep had put him behind schedule, and the three of them worked efficiently to catch up.
The general’s office doors slammed open, and Howard walked out.
With an angry tone, Specialist Howard started, “General, We need to di-”
The essence in the air froze. The aides felt like the temperature dropped 20 degrees, and Howard felt his control over the ambient essence vanish. It was at that moment, he knew that he had gone too far.
The general’s voice was so cold that it caused everyone in the room to wince. “Boy! You will go back into that room and sit your ass in a chair. I am busy. You are not a priority. I will deal with you in a minute. Now don’t speak. Just close the doors,” he said.
The doors closed softly, and the aides felt the essence normalize. The anger in the general’s voice seemed like a bad memory, as he returned to his normal tone and resumed giving orders. Not saying anything about what just happened, the aides went back to furiously taking notes. Several minutes later, the general finished.
“If you have any questions, I’ll be in my office. Don’t worry about interrupting, this meeting isn’t important. Also, get some food up here. I’m thinking some stew,” he said, and then went into his office.
Entering his office, the general barked, “Now, why are you here?”
Specialist Howard shot to his feet at attention. His foul mood had returned, but it was held in check.
“Sir, I would like to protest the orders that I received. There are much more useful things for me to be doing than babysitting a noble brat,” he said, clearly fighting the urge to shout.
General Branson poured himself a glass of water and took his chair behind the intimidating office desk. “Like what?” he said in interest.
Specialist Howard was expecting the general to argue, and the question threw him. “Well, there are many threats to the city that I could be addressing. I heard that the east-wilds are teeming with monster-spawns and the beasts are mutating like crazy. I could do a lot of good there.”
The general took a sip of his water, and leaned back in his chair with a comfortable sigh. “Yes, they are. Did you READ your orders? I believe this is a recurring problem with you. You are impulsive, and don’t adequately prepare for battle,” he said.
Confused, Specialist Howard split his mind so he could bring up his orders over the link while they were talking. Reading the orders again, he saw his mistake. Trying to pivot, he said, “Sir, I just meant that I could do more for Dorchester by clearing the wilds themselves.”
Giving the young man a smirk, the general said, “No you didn’t. You read the part about being assigned to a training unit with a focus on a noble and jumped to conclusions. I’m going to be blunt, because you need to hear it. You’re an idiot.”
Specialist Howard bristled, but held in his response.
Seeing that he wasn’t going to be interrupted, the general continued, “You act without considering the larger picture. This assignment will be good for you. You probably didn’t even bother to notice the NAME of the noble you’ll be training. The boy is a thinker. He is a self-trained mage. He’s killed men in combat, and won an assassination challenge in the arena. Unlike you, he acts with intelligence and forethought. In addition to helping him with his magic, I want you to watch him. Learn from observing him. Do not ask him for training or explanations, because the moment you show weakness, he’ll exploit it. He sees a great deal, and I don’t want to give him another level. I wouldn’t have sent you if the arch-mage himself didn’t subtly ask for you to be given the assignment.”
Shocked, Specialist Howard tried to parse through what the general had just said. “It’s the kid that’s been on the news? Why’s he training with an elite monster hunting squad?”
Shaking his head, the general replied, “THAT’S what you took away from what I just said? Dear gods man, you need to stop spending all your time on spell manuals. If you don’t start paying attention to what is going on around you, then you’re going to die. Not everything attacks you from the front.”
Placing his water to the side of his desk, the general started moving papers on his desk. His patience with the young specialist had ended. He had more important things to deal with.
Without looking up, he said in clear and firm voice, “Just go and pack. I’m not discussing this with you anymore. Since you clearly can’t think for yourself, just follow your orders.”
Specialist Howard could see that the general wasn’t going to say anything else. Without any other choice, he offered a quick nod and left the general’s office. Without glancing at the aide’s outside the office, he walked quickly into the halls. Specialist Howard had a lot to think about.
The general though, he went back to work, the specialist quickly forgotten. Dorchester had many things happening, and Specialist Howard didn’t merit any more consideration. The man was a talented mage, but he was incapable of being anything other than a weapon to be pointed at an enemy.
-----
Nero was enjoying his dinner. While he ate, he used his link to re-read the first book he had read when he got to this world. Specifically, he was going over the section on condensing experience into growth.
When he first read it, he thought it was spiritual mumbo-jumbo about how to meditate. Yet, after all he’d seen, he realized that it was very literal. It was difficult for Nero to treat things like ‘internalizing your feelings’ as a scientific principle. Regardless of how annoying it was, Nero knew that he would have to start meditating and playing by the rules that made up this world. It was time to stop being a whiny-little-bitch and start treating his personal growth as an important facet of his new life.
With his new perspective, Nero started understanding what the author was saying. Every experience resulted in a person absorbing essence into their center. Understanding how that essence fit into a person’s personality matrix, or identity, was essential to leveling. The faster the person internalized that growth, the less experience was lost to the ambient ether. If Nero didn’t start examining what he experienced, he’d lose the essence that he gained from those experiences.
Rubbing his forehead, Nero closed his link. As important as it was, it was too philosophical for Nero to really understand. Instead of worrying about it, he focused on enjoying the rest of his meal, and tried to let the deep thoughts marinate. Hopefully, some clarity would come with time.
When he finished, Nero went to drop off his dishes at the bussing station. Curiously, Nero noticed that a lot of people were staring at him. After dropping off his dishes, he headed back to his room.
Along the way, he started to pay attention to how much people were staring. Nero saw small groups whispering to each other. People’s smiles were a little wider than usual when they offered their polite nods in greeting. It seemed like he was garnering a lot of interest, and he didn’t like it.
After hurrying through the halls, he eventually got to his room. As he closed the door, blocking out the people in the halls, Nero exhaled like he had made it through a mine-field. “What the hell was that?’ he wondered.
Nero knew that Vera was busy. He remembered her going into great detail about everything that she was doing. It all seemed important, even though the specifics were lost on him. Imagining her response to him asking, ‘Why are people staring at me?’, made Nero shiver. Asking her was not an option.
Without any better ideas, Nero decided to check in with Nick. He hadn’t spoken with him in a while, and he could use that as an excuse for the call. Maybe Nick knew what the hell was going on.
Opening the connection, Nero felt Nick accept the ping.
“Hey Nero, I’ve heard you had a busy day. I’m sorry I wasn’t at your pledging ceremony, something important came up,”Nick said as he picked up the ping.
“No problem. Vera and I had it handled. You doing all right?”asked Nero. Nick’s psyche seemed a little nervous to Nero.
“Yeah, everything’s fine. Or it will be. Listen, how much have you read about city levels? Or essence density?”asked Nick.
Nero could sense that this was going to be a full-on conversation, and wanted his question answered before they got into it. “Hold on Nick. I got a question first. This may sound weird, but just bear with me. Do you happen to have any idea why people at the center are staring at me? I’m wearing the noble clothes you gave me. I changed the theme to gray, does that mean something that I don’t know?” he asked.
Surprised, Nick responded, “No. Gray just means that you’re a neutral. Houses and people wear that color to show that they haven’t picked a side. You’ll have to choose your house colors at some point, and those will mean something. But that’s not what your asking. Have you checked the news?”
Nero asked, “What news? Is there a paper on the link or something?”
Nick chuckled over the link. “Nero, are you capable of opening a separate connection while using the link to hold a ping?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never tried. What do you want me to connect to?” Nero asked.
“Just open a connection to the city directly. Not the center hub, focus on connecting to the city hub,”Nick said patiently.
Nero took a seat at his desk and closed his eyes. Focusing on his mental gymnastics, he made sure to keep a tight hold on his connection to Nick. It took some effort, but he was able to split his attention, and open a connection to the city.
Directing his thoughts to Nick, he said, “Okay, I got a city connection open. Now what?”
Nick replied, “Focus on opening the section for current events.”
Dutifully, Nero opened the a pathway to ‘current events’. There were headlines for different news stories and sections highlighting the different gates. It was the equivalent to city news, along side local news. Scanning the top stories, Nero immediately saw what Nick was trying to show him. There was a big picture of Nero kneeling at the steps to the throne. There were several stories about him, and profile pieces on Dorchester’s newest noble.
Shocked, Nero fumbled the connection to Nick. Luckily, Nick stabilized the connection. Nero felt Nick’s amusement clearly.
“I’m guessing you’ve found out about your newfound celebrity,”said Nick.
“What the hell Nick? There’s videos of my pledging ceremony. I don’t remember seeing any cameras,”Nero said as he tried not to panic.
“Camera’s? Most of those are memory engrams from people who attended the meeting. Cameras were probably there, but those don’t record the feeling of being there. The news usually avoids using them,”said Nick.
“Nick… I have to go. This is a little too much to take in right now,”Nero said. His heartbeat was pounding in his head, and he felt like he was about to have a panic attack.
“Calm down Nero. Just try to meditate and breath. Maybe get some sleep. It’s not that big a deal, you’ll see. Also, make sure to read up on essence density. It’s important. I’m sure you’ll feel better in the morning, but ping me if you need to,”Nick said, and then ended the connection.
Nero sat in his chair, mentally staring at the numerous articles about his time since he arrived in this world. They even had an in depth review of his actions in the noble war, and the arena. He was city wide news. Just imagining what the section for Gate 7 local news said about him gave Nero the shivers.
The fact that there was ‘news’ was something Nero hadn’t considered. Was there entertainment? Movies? Web-shows? Did this world have a Youtube equivalent? How much had Nero missed?
Putting his head between his legs, Nero cut the connection to the city-hub. Taking deep breaths, he focused on calming down. Clearing his mind, he concentrated on his breathing. After several minutes, he got up to go to his bathroom for some water.
Standing at the sink, Nero threw some water on his face and looked at his reflection in the mirror. The panic in his eyes was gone, and only shock remained. Staring at himself in the mirror, Nero calmed down.
‘I guess I’m a celebrity now. It might be time to revisit that t-shirt idea. Clothing lines are big money,’he thought to himself.
