Chapter 222: The Monologue

Chapter 222: The Monologue

Jon was almost asleep when he heard the crash.

He had just finished meditating for the night—something that had been somewhat difficult, considering his squad’s failure to locate the fugitive this evening—and had gotten into bed, closing his eyes and hoping for a more productive tomorrow. While he hadn’t found the man, he had at least gotten a couple leads. The fugitive was located somewhere in this town, and frequented that adventurer’s guild, so it would be most likely that simply spending some time around the area would turn him up eventually. The sooner that happened, the better. He was aware of the catastrophes that regularly occurred from giving the man enough time to prepare.

It was while he absent-mindedly pondered tomorrow’s plans that the sound echoed through the building.

Jon instantly bolted from his bed, throwing sheets from his body as he rushed for the door. He’d stationed guards throughout the building to ensure they couldn’t be ambushed, but if they’d failed...

Flinging the door open and dashing into the hallway, he glanced down either end of the hall to see who was there. Right then, someone shouted. It was one of the guards who’d been stationed in the hallway. At the same time Jon heard the shout, he also saw what the man was shouting about. The entire wall had been busted down. Standing there in the hole at the end of the hallway, silhouetted by the soft light of the night streets, was a man in glowing white armor. He looked up, and Jon stared at the man’s face, rage etched into his own.

Jon instantly sprinted at the fugitive, who, in turn, turned and started fleeing. He was out of range for Day of Judgment, and that was going to be his main weapon here. Shoving guards and furniture alike out of his way he charged, his target completely having fled the building at this point, running right into the street. Jon briefly wondered why the man would have even come here if he was just going to run at the first sign of confrontation, but concluded that whatever his plan was, it didn’t matter. Jon’s sole goal was to kill him, and all it would take to do that was getting within a few paces. And the fugitive probably didn’t even know he had the capability to kill him like that, so Jon was the one with the informational upper-hand, here.

He trampled over a fallen ally who had failed to get out of the way in time. Sacrifices would be made. A half-dozen other soldiers were bursting out of their own rooms by now, looking around to see what had caused the commotion.

“There he is!” Jon shouted as he chased after the fugitive. “Get him!”

The fugitive was running fast—probably some sort of Dexterity-enhancing Spell. But Jon had some enhancing Spells, himself. He began to cast one just as he ran through the hole in the wall, bursting out into the open streets surrounding the building.

Instantly as he came through, the fugitive turned around to glance back at him. Jon could just barely make out a smug grin on the man’s face, and had to fight off a scowl of disgust from creeping into his own expression. That man was an absolute disgrace.

“There he is!” the fugitive shouted at the empty surroundings. “Get him!”

Instantly, the streets burst to life. From behind every building, popping around every corner, stepping out from behind every tree was an adventurer, all of their weapons trained on Jon. And then they attacked.

“You’re not convincing me to fucking kill myself!” I said.

“The sooner you die, the sooner everyone is safe!”

Gods, I thought, is he just fucking dumb? Is this some sort of last-ditch effort to get me to surrender?

“Arlan, behind you!” the voice of Index startled me, and I turned to see one of the adventurers I’d hired, one of the high-Strength Melee-Types, standing behind me.

“Hey, what are you—”

He put out his hands and shoved. I stumbled backward as he stepped to follow, then he lifted a leg and kicked me in the gut, pushing me further back. The bastard was trying to get me into Jon’s range!

I hurriedly cast as many of my curses as I could on him, but before I could even finish mentally running through them all, a Sorcerer from the backlines saw what was happening and shot an Explosive Firebolt in our direction. Not aimed at my betrayer—aimed at me.

I tried to duck below it, but it was aimed at the ground by my feet, so there was nothing to dodge. Instead, it hit the dirt and blew me back even further. The Sorcerer was thankfully not so high-Level that he could throw me away like Erani’s Firebolts tended to do, but I still stumbled backward, and glancing behind me at Jon, I saw him making a mad dash for me in my moment of weakness. Normally, the wall of Classers fighting at the hole in the wall would’ve blocked him from leaving, but I was seeing a notable lack of resistance in those people. Some seemed to refuse to fight whatsoever, while others seemed reluctant enough for Jon to rush by before they could make up their minds.

I tried stacking as many Expedites on myself as possible and making a mad dash for survival, but before I could take more than a few steps, the bright light appeared above me and crashed straight down. I activated Time Loop before the pain of death reached me.

In the dark space, I would have definitely called Jon all kinds of mean words if I’d only had a mouth to say them. The fucker wasn’t talking to me, he was talking to my allies. I was so used to just fighting alongside Erani and Ainash—people I could actually trust—that I’d forgotten some people could be swayed into acting against their allies through some stupid monologue.

I tried to calm myself down, which was actually a little harder to do when I wasn’t capable of taking deep breaths. It wasn’t their fault, really; I mean, Jon had basically threatened them by saying the Demons would come after the empire next. Which, he was probably lying with his whole “they’re already geared for war” comment, saying whatever he could to convince them to change sides. It was my fault for being too single-minded and chasing down what I’d thought was a sure avenue to victory without considering the people around me. The more people in the fight, the more variables.

I felt myself beginning to fade, and moved to pick a time to go back. If all I had to do to beat Jon was win an argument, then so be it.