Nero Walker, Book 3 Ch.41 (156) (Patreon)

General Branson sat comfortably in his chair at the war room’s conference room table, ignoring all the bustling soldiers attending to their duties in the background. With his brow furrowed in concentration, his hands folded in his lap, he carefully studied the holographic screens in front of him.

He had brought up recordings of every confrontation between his forces and the kobalds since the beginning of their conflict. Several screens displayed the events that had occurred under the mountain, starting with their first contact and ending with a current view mountain gate defenses. But it was the screens displaying their most recent engagement that kept drawing his eyes. ‘If this wasn’t even their main force, then how many kobalds are actually down there in that mountain?’ he wondered, the question causing his jaw to clench in anger.

Once again, he saw the rift the kobalds had opened evaporate into the ether as though it had been nothing more than a simple construct. Every single time he saw it, he felt a chill run up his spine at the completely unprecedented sight. Not a single mage they’d consulted had a single theory as to how ST24 had managed to do it. If the rift had closed, or been disrupted, he’d have applauded them for their success. But this… this he didn’t understand, and that feeling was not something he was used to.

He’d been surprised to find that it was Captain Angelton’s group who’d poked the hornet’s nest. From what he remembered, he’d specifically ordered them to an area that was projected to be a safe place for the elites to gain some much needed experience and to hone their skills before they were thrown into the front-lines. But, to be fair, he hadn’t paid much attention to the postings as he’d had more important things to deal with than the training program he’d implemented to help deal with the essence shift.

He didn’t even want to think about Lord Walker and all the nonsense he’d caused over the past few weeks. He’d hoped the young man would stop causing him headaches, but it seemed like that wasn’t going to happen.

His attention snapped to one of the commanders who called out, “They’ve made contact! The mages in Gate 22 have isolated the essence stream and reopened communications. We have ST24 reporting in as we speak!”

General Branson sat up in his seat. ‘Finally!’ he mentally growled. He’d been waiting for this. “Put them through. I want to talk to them,” he ordered.

The entire room quieted down while the commander relayed some orders through his link and everyone got ready to hear what the unlikely heroes of Dorchester had to say.

The commander leaned over the table and said, “ST24, are you hearing me?”

The central control crystal on the table lit up, and the room heard an audio processed voice reply, “Yes, sir. The connection is stable.”

General Branson stood up and sternly gestured for the commander to sit down so that he could take over from here.

“This is General Branson, who am I speaking with?” he asked, his tone carrying every inch of command he could muster.

The voice replied, “This is Captain Angelton, sir.”

The general couldn’t stop himself from grinning a little. He should have known the man wouldn’t die so easily. If any of ST24 would have managed to make it out of there, it would have been him.

“Give me a comprehensive after action report, Captain,” ordered the general.

Over the next several minutes, the entire Dorchester command staff listened to Captain Angelton relay the events of the recent battle from the captain’s point of view. There were shocked gasps, and incredulous stares in equal measure. It sounded unbelievable to say the least. Not a single lost soldier? A fresh crop of recruits led by a few seasoned sergeants? Total troop compliment of measly 103 soldiers fought off an army and performed a raid to close an active portal?

While every major topic was covered, very little detail was actually given. The captain highlighted the enemy numbers, and how he organized his troops. However, he made no mention of how he broke the kobald illusion, closed the portal, or cleared enough of the enemy to retreat after being completely surrounded. With those questions unanswered, the report was lacking to the point of being nearly unbelievable.

The captain finished his report, adding, “For now, the kobalds are leaving us alone. It doesn’t seem like they consider us worth the effort of trying to kill us. From our cave exit we can see several groups watching and waiting to see what we’ll do, but they’ve stopped actively attacking us for now.”

When the captain abruptly stopped talking, the silence from the command staff immediately filled the room. Several people exchanged looks, wondering how everyone else was feeling about what they’d just heard. Many of them sharing condescending looks of disbelief.

As no one was saying anything, the captain’s stern voice seemed louder than usual when he asked, “Do you have a questions, or require any clarifications, sir?”

The general almost chuckled. Even though the captain wasn’t in the room, he could still almost feel the man’s pride warring with his anger at having been given such an impossible mission. While the general understood how the man felt, there were things he needed to hear that the man wasn’t saying.

“I’d first like you to explain how one of your elites managed to pierce the kobald’s illusion technique, captain,” said the general, his voice leaving no room for misunderstanding what he was asking.

Seemingly expecting the general’s interest, the captain immediately replied, “In order to answer that, sir, I’d have to respectfully request protection for my soldier under the ‘unique service accords’.”

The entire room gasped as if the captain had just told them the populators themselves had intervened. The ‘unique service accords’ govern how the kingdom of Oglivarch treats people with mutations or skills that put them at the level of a national treasure. No one in Dorchester has ever qualified for that privilege, and as such the captain’s demand seemed so ridiculous it was almost insulting.

However the general was perfectly aware of who the captain might be talking about. He’d known there was something off about that young man, it’s why he put a natural observer right next to him. It wasn’t like the head of the Henning’s Tower of Magic showing up to watch over the young man wasn’t enough to rouse his suspicion.

In fact, as he looked around the table at his commanders, all of whom looked angry at the implication that they weren’t trustworthy enough to hear the captain’s report, he felt like sneering at the fools. At least one of them should have been able to piece together the clues that were right in front of them.

“Very well, captain. A dedicated line will be opened to through a scry connection. Expect someone to contact you within the hour,” he said, then closed the connection.

The commanders all looked at him in confusion. Standing up from the leaning position he had taken over the table, he looked them all in the eye and said, “If anyone feels like their familial or social responsibilities would force them to divulge what might be information protected under the relevant accords, I’d suggest you figure out a way to avoid being in the room for that communication. Am I understood?” he asked icily.

Seeing as the general seemed to be taking the situation seriously, they all nodded in unison. After all, violation of the ‘unique service accords’ was considered treason against Oglivarch. The only reason most people even knew of the accords was due to the fact that, in the past, one of the kings of Oglivarch executed three of his own children for ignoring them.

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Completely oblivious to the repercussions his casual remarks had caused, Nero collapsed onto his bedroll.

Not even having bothered to take off his armor, he let himself fall into the pillows he’d borrowed from Nick and Vera’s house. While he was mentally congratulating himself on his foresight, he closed his eyes and let his mind wander in anticipation of finally getting some sleep.

Unfortunately, his rest was put on hold by an uncomfortable sensation radiating from his center. After his mind delicately poked his meta-physical insides to figure out what was wrong, he eventually recognized the problem. He was surprised to find that he was overflowing with experience and needed to level in order to release the soul-bloat. ‘Even with how much has happened over the past few days, this seems a little faster than what I was expecting,’ he thought to himself.

Reaching out to connect with his soul-space, he once again found himself on his cobble stone path, now surrounded by new memory clouds filled with images of battle and blood. Unlike last time, the sky was now overcast and filled to the brim with storm clouds. Looking up, he could see the occasional flash of lightning, each of which gave him an uncomfortable feeling of something being wrong, or possibly unbalanced.

Considering how little he knew about this place, he wasn’t liking the implication of his inner world being so uncomfortable. Yet, as he wasn’t one to worry about things too much, he figured he’d start going through the memories, hoping that it would fix whatever meta-physical bullshit was wrong with him.

Like always, he ran into the standard self-realizations he’d come to expect.

His interactions with Nick showed him that he was finally learning to ask for help. However, the fact that Nick used that trust to probe Nero’s secrets reminded him why his typical level of cynicism and caution were a completely valid life-choice.

He chuckled at the memory of the flaming squirrels. Winced at seeing himself getting punch drunk by overusing his brain when he was practicing his mage-armor. Was once again confronted with uncomfortable fact that he found Rose so damn attractive. Chided himself for taking Cathleen for granted, despite the fact that the woman continued to do everything in her power to fade into the background. But mostly, he watched the battles and judged himself on his performance.

Seeing the war happen from a third person perspective was enlightening, to say the least. He was confronted with the fact that it was just so much easier to swing a sword than it was to overcome someone’s essence field with a spell. Yet, he couldn’t deny the utility of magic in the arena of war. Large scale destruction and defense were essential to their success in the battle. Unlike what he’d expected, there was no clear division between spell casters and fighters. It was all just a mishmash of techniques trying to find the most expedient way to perform an action.

Magic was almost like a cheat code that borrowed a person’s inner strength in order to alter the world around them. But it was far from perfect. In fact, for the most part magic was nothing more than an illusion so powerful that the person getting hit with it believed it was real. There didn’t seem to be spells which directly affected reality at all. Aside from rare cases where a spell caused a secondary efft, everything magic did was temporary, and overly complicated. The fact that it was easier to chop down a tree with an axe than it was to cut it down with a spell was kinda depressing. For an aspiring mage like Nero, he felt like the world’s magic system was rather weak.

On the other hand, it really fit with the aesthetic of a fantasy world. Eccentric mages whose views on reality were a little skewed made a lot of sense in a world like this. Nero couldn’t help but imagine wizards in towers playing with spells, altering reality to create alchemical creations which were able to contain the fleeting wisp of impossibilities. While he was unhappy with the fact that he wouldn’t be raising towers of stone with his magic, he was able to appreciate the almost ethereal quality that the magic of this world seemed to embody.

Speaking of the ethereal… Nero took some time to isolate the memory cloud where he started being able to perceive souls. It turned out that it was after he figured out what the shamans were doing. After isolating and understanding the soul stuff they were using to power their portal, his visual range seemed to expand to allow him to see the souls still clinging to bodies all across the battlefield. It happened so naturally, he hadn’t even noticed it at the time.

His perception field was really becoming powerful. He was even starting to be able to tell the difference between his various fields. There was perception field that was like a third eye, perceiving the world around him. Then there was his essence field, which was more like a bubble of his personal reality which he was projecting onto the physical plane. But there was also a third field he couldn’t put a name to just yet.

The mysterious field was like a combination of fields spread out across the dimensions, anchoring him to all levels of the world. While his mind’s eye worked through his perception field, it was this third field that seemed to give him the ability to understand what he was seeing. It was like a tuning knob on pair of binoculars which allowed the user to clear up the image. But it also seemed to enhance his physical presence, making his essence field denser, or ‘realer’, than it should be. Even with all of Nick’s lectures bouncing around in his head, he still couldn’t figure out what to call it.

Before long, he was finished with his personal review. After blinking a few times at the fact that he’d run out of memories to integrate, he examined the path below him and the forest around him, not liking what he was seeing. The shadows looked a little too dark, and the stones below his feet seemed more like rocks. What used to be an idyllic path toward his future was more like a half-arsed representation of an ‘adventurer’s path’ on the road to the ‘big bad’. It just didn’t seem as real as it used to be.

By now he’d come to realize that everything in this world had some sort of corollary to the spiritualism of his old life, so he tried to look at it through the lens of a hippy.

Standing on the path, he hopped a few times while shaking out his hands to get into the right head-space.

‘OK… So my inner world is possibly all screwed up. What’s my inner world? It’s my projection of who I am. Am I not happy with myself? Nope, that’s not it. I’m still awesome. Maybe I’m not being ‘true’ to myself or something….Oh God… am I becoming a caricature of myself? Is this some stupid ‘learn to be my true self’ thing?’ he wondered, then looked around at the cliched fantasy forest all around him.

Taking a deep breathe, he tried to come at it from another angle.

He let his mind blank, and just tried to listen to his soul-space, just like he would listen to the world around him when he was back in reality. Almost immediately, he felt sensations and hints assault his mind. He could feel his hopes and dreams about being an adventurer, his desire to be a reality altering mage with a tower of his own, and his unhappiness with being forced into situations that he was entirely uninterested in. It was almost like his soul was complaining that it didn’t get the Christmas present it had asked Santa for.

His eyes snapped open, and he saw the soul-space for what it really was. This was his soul. It was disgustingly obvious now that he thought about it. Nick and Jennings had told him that his soul was influencing his personality, and that he needed to align his mind, body, and soul over time.

The irrefutable conclusion he came to was that his soul was currently at odds with his circumstances, and it was up to him to tell it to grow the hell up. He’d made some great strides in adapting his body to the new world, and his mind was growing at a decent pace with all the new information he was getting. However his soul was acting like a kid whose parents moved to a new town and it was starting to act out because it didn’t like its new school.

‘Adapt of die, Nero,’ he told himself, doing his best to embrace his new identity with every fiber of his being.

Closing his eyes, he felt the block disappear and his level adjust to his new reality. Embracing the choice in front of him, he channeled his new star into his pillar and felt his ‘adaptability’ make him a little more open to change.

Name Nero Walker

Level 15

Race Human

Growth 0%

Tier 1

Condition 100%

Age 14

Center 100%

Body 4

Mind 5

Soul 2

Confluence 11

Stars 0

Pillars 2 / 1

Body 4 

Base/Operative/Level Stress

Presence 22/39.6/1.2

Durability 26/46.8/0.1

Recovery 47/84.6/6.4

Speed 25/45/7.9

Adaptability 47/84.6/3.9

Power 24/43.2/5.2

Mind 5

Base/Operative/Level Stress

Weight 32/64/14.1

Control 39/78/19.2

Field 36/72/36.4

Precision 55/110/29.2

Endurance 65/130/26.1

Focus 61/122/43.2

Soul 2

Base/Operative/Level Stress

Size 29/40.6/6.1

Density 101/141.4/8.2

Intensity 76/106.4/3.3

Pressure 27/37.8/7.5

Harmony 24/33.6/36.8

Adaptability 270/378/6.5

Not only had all of his stress levels grown, he felt like all the extra potential found little pockets of his soul to slip into. Almost as if there was more than one use for the experience he’d collected. ‘If it’s really just potential, who knows what all it can do,’ he told himself.

With a smile on his face, he watched the surrounding forest’s feeling of improbability fade, and once again become the perfect embodiment of ‘the unknown’. Below him, the path became solid once more, and the stones gripped his feet like they refused to let him slip. Above him, the clouds parted, and shafts of brilliant sunlight broke up the shadows and filled his inner world with a peaceful feeling of upcoming adventure.

Shaking his head at the ridiculous cliché he was living, he tried and failed to hold back his grin. ‘This world is such a otaku/nerd paradise, I’m really hating myself for loving it so much,’ he halfheartedly complained in his head.

Looking off into the distance, he promised himself that he would stay true to his path and embrace the craziness of the world around him. There was so much to understand, so much see, he wouldn’t let himself be held back by anyone’s preconceptions, his or anyone else’s.

‘The world may be stupid, and the people here just begging to be mocked, but that doesn’t make it any less real. I’ll focus on the way this world actually is, and not just what they tell me. That’s how Gamers find hidden quests, speed runners find exploits, and Einsteins develop relativity,’ he reassured himself with a grin.

Mentally patting himself on the back for his productive session of self-reflection, Nero closed his eyes and finally drifted off to sleep.