Nero Walker, Book 3 Ch.87 (202) (Patreon)

Cathleen Averett felt the rush of battle subside as she took a deep drink from her canteen. She ran her eyes over the troops, subtly judging them on how well they were holding up.

‘They’re not as weak as I thought they’d be,’ she thought to herself.

Although she would never admit it, she owed the little lord a thank you. Fighting a war, as a battle leader no less, had been a dream of hers since she was a little girl. Her brothers and sisters are currently serving across Dorchester, several on the frontlines of the war with Islangurs. But, she knew herself well enough to know she’d hate being a soldier on the line like them. But, here, now, she was the one in charge… and it was glorious.

She’d known for a while that Nero Walker was someone special, and her family had agreed to let her mentor him. They hoped that she’d do her duty and ensure that Lord Walker was joined to their family. That was why she was in Dorchester after all. The Averett’s hadn’t become one of the premier families in the kingdom without scouting the best prospects.

But, she didn’t need to think about that now. There would be plenty of time in the future to introduce the little lord to eligible family members. All the while helping him become the war god he was meant to be.

Looking toward the current battle line, she felt herself crack a small smile at the sight of kobald bodies being dragged away. Even with the occasional casualty, her forces were performing exceptionally well.

She’d worried that her unproven troops would have issues once they forced their way into the kobald’s fortifications. Luckily, they had adapted quickly. After some hard fighting, they’d managed to clear out several hallways and were now spreading through the building like poison, killing anything and everything in their way.

Soon, they’d meet up with the other human forces and make the final push into the center.

In the corner of her senses, she felt Academian Quincy release the essence-cloaking technique he’d been using. Turning her head slowly, she looked up at him and asked, “Where is Lord Walker?”

Academian Quincy shook his head in amusement at her lack of reaction. He should have known that a woman of her background wouldn’t have trouble seeing through his cloak. Maybe Lord Walker was actually blessed by the gods to have found a woman like Cathleen Averett.

“He’s just outside the entrance. Don’t worry, we’re keeping an eye on him… not that he needs it,” he replied.

Cocking her head to the side, she said nothing while making it clear that he’d better elaborate.

Holding up his hands in mock surrender, he continued, “You know the young man. He is incapable of doing nothing. When the forward progress of the formation slowed down and he no longer had anything to test his spells on, he started acting as a war healer.”

Raising a singular eyebrow in surprise, she asked, “Really? I wasn’t aware that he’d been trained to cast under those conditions.”

Chuckling, Academian Quincy said, “I don’t think he was. To be honest, we’re not really sure how he’s doing it. The prevailing theory is that he’s somehow repurposing soul remnants into his center. He is -”

Interrupting him, Cathleen’s harsh voice demanded, “And you haven’t stopped him? Are you mad? I was under the impression that you were here to help guide him, not just sit by and report the particulars of how he killed himself!”

Stepping in front of her to stop her from storming off, Academian Quincy quickly said, “Calm down and listen! He’s fine! In fact, he’s better than fine. We’ve been watching closely. He’s showing no signs of identity decay. His center is his own, and seems stronger than ever. There are no signs of undeath or possession. His mind is completely unaffected. Like I said, we’re not sure how he’s doing what he’s doing. If you think about it, it’s actually rather fascinating.”

Rather than pushing past him, Cathleen paused for a moment to look up at the man skeptically. “That… seems unlikely.”

Outright laughing at her statement, Academian Quincy replied, “You think THAT’S unlikely? We were able to watch as he, on his own, destabilized fortified essence constructs that the kobalds had prepared.”

Taking a step back in surprise, Cathleen asked in a surprised voice, “That was him!?! I thought the constructs were just poorly made.”

Smiling widely, he replied, “Not as far as we could tell. Idrius is good at ether monitoring, and she swears that she watched Lord Walker’s perception focus on the walls before they failed. Once could be a coincidence, but she saw it happen multiple times. There is no doubt he was responsible.”

Choosing not to focus on the impossibility of what she was hearing, she changed the subject. “Well, we’re about ready to push forward. We need to bring him and whoever is still outside into the halls. Go out there and tell him to hurry it up.”

Shaking his head, he said, “He doesn’t know we’re there. And besides, you don’t necessarily need him with you. I’d like to see how long he can keep up the healing. Hopefully, we can determine how he’s actively casting when the ether is so chaotic. Although we’ve seen him discovering how to actively war-cast, for some reason, he isn’t using the technique anymore. By our count, he’s already resuscitated 36 people and healed over 200 more without showing any signs of straining his center. It’s nothing short of remarkable.”

Cathleen stood there in stunned confusion. She knew for a fact that Lord Walker wasn’t even level 20. What the academian was saying simply wasn’t possible.

Rubbing his chin in thought, Academian Quincy ignored the look on Cathleen’s face and continued, “I’m going to see how long he keeps it up. Besides, he’s using tier one healing spells to regrow limbs and I want to figure out how he’s doing it. You go on and enjoy the war. We’ll keep an eye on him.”

Not knowing what to say, Cathleen nodded numbly before turning around and walking away. There was no point worrying about the little lord, he could take care of himself. And it wasn’t like the evaluators would let anything happen to their science experiment anyway.

—--

Nero was surprised to find how positively ‘chatty’ the soldiers could be. The moment he joined the small column, he’d asked a few simple questions to curb their curiosity about where he’d come from. In response, he’d learned more over the past ten minutes than he’d had in all the conversations he’d had with Nick since he’d arrived.

‘These simple folk are my people,’ he thought to himself.

The woman walking alongside him had responded to his simple question concerning the battle hub with actual USEFUL information.

She’d said, “The battle hub? Oh, they aren’t brought into forward combat zones. Leadership is supposed to handle their own communications when we’re on the attack.”

A few more questions had Nero learning about all kinds of things he’d been wondering about.

First, there was the battle hub, which turned out to be nothing more than the fantasy equivalent of a mobile cell network. It was a massive crystal contraption that was mounted on a giant wagon. It worked like a private military network so commanders could coordinate their defenses and aid in the organization of supplies. When on the offensive, it wasn’t practical to drag them along.

Which of course led to the explanation for what the leadership used instead. Without the battle hub, the people in charge had to keep relatively close to each other so that they could communicate through private connections like the ones Nick had shown him. That in and of itself explained why units were kept relatively small.

That then led to a basic explanation of the military’s command structure. At the top was the city’s general, which was an elected position in Dorchester. As all officers were knights, a bunch of people up at the knight’s fortress were responsible for choosing who’d represent them. To Nero, it sounded like a bunch of warrior monks crossed with knights templar.

Below the general, there was the command staff. They were creatively called commanders. Apparently, there were tons of them, and were more or less the bureaucratic arm of the military. They didn’t fight and were instead responsible for strategy and organization. The woman explained how there were many types of commanders, and they all had their own titles. Gate ‘blah blah blah’ Supply Commander, Training Coordination Commander, Field Commander, etc. All of whom were referred to as commanders, while the automated translation magic took care of the details.

It worked the same with the next rung of the hierarchal ladder… the captains. They were the lowest rank of the knights and the entry into the ranks of leadership. The woman made it clear that not all captains were the same, and there was a strict command structure that needed to be adhered to. However, as a grunt like her, he didn’t need to worry about it.

Then came the sergeants, which was the highest rank a common soldier to rise to unless they were willing to train to be a knight. They served under captains and were the ones who actually interacted with the common soldiers. According to her, it was the most respected position as they had to balance politics with good sense… which was something knights had beaten out of them during their training.

Nero enjoyed listening to her babbling and found her comrades continually correcting her hilarious. There was no history lesson or greater meaning in what she was saying. It was simply a factual breakdown of things he was only roughly familiar with.

She even gave a really quick breakdown of how to refer to groupings. In general, ‘units’ could mean anything from a 5-man team to an entire platoon or division. It boiled down to ‘unit’ being a term for deployment. For example, ‘Take your unit and go attack that hill over there’ meant that whoever was in charge should take whoever was under them and go. When someone asked, ‘What unit are you with?’ they were asking who you were deployed under, not your immediate superior. Like everything in this world, it was both super simple and super complicated.

‘They really do take the translation magic for granted here. Subtext is simply part of their language,’ he thought to himself.

It shouldn’t have surprised him that the command structure relied on translation magic to cover the details. It saved time and kept things from getting too confusing. Of course, without the relevant information to understand it, all he’d been hearing was the basic designations for someone’s rank and various synonyms regarding troop deployment. Not that he’d been listening all that closely to hear the subtle distinctions anyway, but that was neither here nor there.

All of that information took only a few minutes to explain, and Nero couldn’t help but mentally curse Nick for his overly wordy lecturing style.

Right as he was about to learn more about service terms and how people signed up for the military, they unfortunately got to their destination.

Everyone quieted down as they made their way into a large room filled with soldiers going about their various tasks. Some were distributing food and supplies, others were taking a seat and having a breather. He noticed that a bunch of them were stacking dead kobalds onto carts using telekinetic abilities. Interspersed throughout the room were healers going around trying to help who they could.

From what he could tell, the healers seemed to be struggling to stabilize people before the injured were led back through the halls so they could get to the actual field hospital. Rather than jump in himself, he decided to hold back and see what else he might get up to. ‘They look like they have it handled… more or less,’ he reassured himself.

Staying with the group, he followed along until the sergeant he’d talked to reported to the resident captain.

Saluting with a fist to her chest, she said, “Captain Nellis, We’re back to full strength and ready to be redeployed. But, before that, we ran across a lost elite.” Gesturing toward Nero, she waved him over.

Stepping up, Nero looked up at the man and said, “Captain, sorry to trouble you, but I seem to have misplaced my unit. I need to find Captain Angleton if that helps narrow it down for you.”

Captain Nellis didn’t seem all that interested in helping, and instead of answering the implied question said, “For now, just stay with Sergeant Borgin’s team. We’ll probably meet up with your unit when we breach the inner defenses. You can rejoin them then.”

Without another word, the man turned to the woman who’d allowed him to tag along. “Sergeant Borgin, you’re to take over the push into the hallway on the right. The moment you find a hallway leading to the left, I want you to hold it and request reinforcements. We should be getting close, and we don’t want them breaking out.”

“Understood, Sir. Consider it done,” she said before turning around and addressing her 20-troop team… well 21 including Nero.

While the loose column of troops came to attention, Sergeant Borgin shouted, “You heard the captain! I want a 5 wide formation heading into the hallway. Make sure to leave room on the sides to let whoever we’re relieving get past. Keep your heads down and shields ready. Call out any ranged attacks the moment you see them and don’t get the people behind you killed. Let’s move it people!”

Nero took his place in the back, excited to get back into the battle. Healing was fun and all, but getting in on the action was what he’d come out here for in the first place. Being an adventurer was about putting himself out there and staring death in the face while laughing.

Reaching into his personal space, he pulled out a buckler and readied the sword on his hip. Looking up at the ceiling, he lamented the fact that there wasn’t going to be a shield protecting him this time.

As they made their way through the wide hallways, he watched as injured troops and dead kobalds were dragged back to the room they’d just left. Up ahead, he could already hear the fighting. Between the hisses and screeching kobalds, he could hear humans shouting orders and the sound of clashing metal. His heart began to speed up and his palms began to sweat.

‘I’m never going to get tired of this feeling,’ he told himself as his face involuntarily began grinning.

Spreading out his senses, he felt around the essence flows to get an idea of what he had to work with. Like before, he could feel the ambient essence beginning to become more chaotic and unusable the closer they got to the fighting. It was already difficult to work with, but now it was becoming impossible.

He didn’t want to rely on the combat casting he was doing before if he was going to be in melee, so he decided to form his mage armor. Spreading out his senses, he felt the walls trying to disrupt his grip. He couldn’t even ‘see’ what was happening outside of the hallway he was in, but he could tell that the essence out there was still there for the taking.

Copying what he had done before, he grabbed what he could and collapsed it into his essence shield. Letting his center percolate through the collected essence, he imbued the edge with a film dedicated to his protection. He felt the ‘spell’ snap into place and a section of his mind dedicated itself to its upkeep. All the practice he’d done came together in a symphony of skills that made the process painless. At worst, it felt like he’d picked up something heavy and was dedicating part of his attention to making sure he didn’t trip.

By the time he was done, they had arrived.

The frontline took over from whoever was there, and they spread out to two rows of ten, filling the hallway. The troops they’d replaced took a breather behind them. All in all, there must have been more than 50 or 60 humans crowding the hallway. In front of him, his essence field showed him the kobald forces.

Stretching down the hallway, there were hundreds of the little buggers with some of the taller ones interspersed throughout the horde. He didn’t see any shamans, but he assumed they were there and just too difficult to make out. The essence in the ether felt stretched and under tension. There was a distinct feeling of ‘wanting to kill’ pressing down on him, and it was setting his teeth on edge.

Slipping into the front of the formation, Nero took over one of the melee positions and began crossing swords with the kobalds directly. He used his buckler to blunt attacks before countering, easily cutting down whoever was in front of him. Block, slash, step, lean, counter, step, etc. On and on it went.

Every step forward left kobalds under his feet as he and the rest of his new party pushed forward. While his body went through the motions, his mind concentrated on staying focused.

Yet, intrusive thoughts continued to try and distract him. ‘I should have asked for their names,’ he thought to himself as he went over the conversation he had with the chatty soldier and her friends.

But, as the battle progressed, he was able to keep it together. While the soldiers around him continued to cycle out after taking some small injuries, his mage armor protected him. Every once in a while, he’d knock back the kobald in front of him to gain a few seconds so he could replenish his essence reserves.

As his center began to deplete, he didn’t even think before replenishing it with the soul potential floating all around him.

The battle became a haze of blood and gore, and his focus became more and more precise as the seconds turned into minutes and then possibly into hours. Time became a hazy concept. He felt his muscles began to burn while his movements slowly became more labored.

Suddenly, he felt himself being yanked back by his armor. The last thing he saw before being swung around was another soldier taking his place.

Panting heavily, his eyes struggled to focus on Sergeant Borgin staring down at him. “Snap out of it soldier! Take a rest and focus on recentering yourself.”

He let himself be led away from the fighting before being propped up against a wall. Letting his arms hang down at his sides, his grip on his sword began to weaken. Almost as if he’d done it a thousand times before, he resheathed his weapon without even thinking about it. Another quick mental gesture had his beaten and battered shield back in his personal space.

Looking around, he realized the hallway they were in was distinctly different than the one he’d begun fighting in. The fires along the ceiling were closer together, and the black spell stone walls now looked more like cave walls than castle walls. Had they made it into the tunnels and he hadn’t noticed?

Using his field, he took a closer look at the wall he was leaning against. He ran his hand over the rough stone to aid his mental focus. While it looked like a cave wall, he could tell that it was all part of the same spell construction that made up the rest of the tower. ‘We must be much closer to the center,’ he concluded.

From what he could sense, it was like whatever was creating the construct was slowly pushing updates throughout the tower. If enough time passed, and with enough deaths, the entire tower would end up looking like this.

‘They really are a fucked up species, aren’t they. How could they use their own dead as construction materials,’ he wondered in disgust.

“You doing alright there little man?” a voice asked from his right, breaking him out of his thoughts.

Looking up, he saw the chatty woman he’d spoken with before. For some reason, he felt glad that she wasn’t dead.

“I’m good. You look like you could use a shower and a break yourself,” he said with a smile.

Returning his smile, she gave his shoulder a friendly squeeze before replying, “Yeah, for a simple-minded invasive species like the kobalds, they do put up quite the fight. But hey, from what I hear, we’re almost at the tunnel entrance. Depending on what we find, I’m guessing we’ll either blow it or temporarily seal it so we can use it as another ingress point.”

Nodding along, he watched as she used a wet cloth to wipe the blood off her face. As difficult as it was to judge ages in this world, he couldn’t help but wonder how old she was.

Before he could broach the subject, the chatty woman said, “Alright, I’m going to meditate for a bit and calm down my center. You should too if you can. Who knows when we’ll have another chance.”

Nero stopped himself from interrupting her and watched helplessly as she walked off and took a seat along the wall. Shaking his head at the awkward thoughts in his head, he closed his eyes and leaned back against the cold stone wall.

Taking a deep breath, he was about to sink into himself when he felt the briefest brush of a request for a connection. Frowning in confusion, he tried to see who was trying to contact him. The mental probe was so faint that he couldn’t figure out who it was.

With a shrug, he reached out and stabilized the connection. As he wasn’t sure what would happen if the connection was an attack, he cautiously held the connection with the metaphorical tips of his mental fingers, ready and waiting to drop it if it turned out to be a threat. But, the moment the connection stabilized, he recognized Nick’s mental presence.

Grabbing onto the connection firmly, he reached out and solidified it.

The moment he did, he heard Nick shout, “Where are you? Are you alright? Cathleen said that you were with the healers. What are you doing in the tower?”

Nero felt some of the tension in his muscles release as he heard his nerdy friend ranting. He could practically picture the man standing there with his hands on his hips and a furious scowl on his face.

“I’m fine, Nick. Calm down. I couldn’t find you guys, so I went with whoever was heading toward the action. It’s no big deal. Besides, I’m sure you have been having your own fun. Where are you by the way? How are you contacting me through the walls?” he asked.

Nero felt Nick sigh through the connection. “Nero, spell constructs are only difficult to directly penetrate. Alter your perception field to ignore them and you can see through them pretty easily. It’s just a matter of essence filtration and interference mitigation. Considering your natural talents in essence identification and general ethereal perception, you shouldn’t have any issues figuring it out.”

Nero dropped his head in defeat. Although he wouldn’t trade his friendship with Nick for anything, it was impossible to get used to the man’s lecturing tone and incomprehensible gibberish.

“Just tell me where you are so I can come over there and smack you,” he demanded.

Nero felt Nick’s amusement over the connection. “Head back away from the fighting then take the first two lefts, then an immediate right. Go past three doors on your left, then take the next left. That’s where we are. By the way, how did you get lost? We registered with the sergeant at the end of the first hallway under the unit designation ‘Walker’s Wackos’. What designation did you try to use?” he asked.

Nero heard the word ‘Sergeant’ but understood that he meant ‘Coordination Sergeant’. In awe of the nuance of the magic, he wondered if one day he could somehow use it to directly learn stuff from Nick’s lectures. For example, could Nick say, ‘Create the spell form’ and Nero would get an idea of how the spell form should be carved. ‘That would be both freaky and overpowered,’ he thought to himself.

Shaking off the pointless line of thought, Nero replied, “Nobody told me about a coordination sergeant, so I didn’t ask. And before you say anything… don’t… just don’t. I’ll be along shortly and you can rant and rave about me not reading whatever it is I should have read when I get there.”

Nero felt Nick bristle a bit, then heard him reply, “Very well. We’ll be here.”

Feeling the connection thin a little, Nero could tell that Nick had pushed it to the back of his mind. Copying him, Nero felt his side of the connection slip into the background noise in his head. ‘Cool,’ he thought.

After taking a quick glance at the cute, chatty woman who was currently in meditation, Nero walked up to Sergeant Borgin. The sergeant was coordinating replacements along the lines, and pointing at various places that needed to be reinforced.

Waiting for the right time to interrupt, he said, “Sergeant, I just wanted to let you know that my unit contacted me, and they’re nearby. So, I’m going to go reunite with them.”

Nodding quickly, the sergeant replied, “Understood. You were a credit to your training while you were here. It’s no wonder you made it into the elites.”

The sergeant turned away, seemingly done with the conversation.

Taking a breath, Nero interrupted her again, “Sergeant, sorry, but one last thing. Could you let that woman over there know where I went? She was kind enough to answer a few questions for me, and I don’t want her to worry.”

The sergeant barely glanced at where Nero was pointing before replying, “Will do.” and then returned to what she was doing.

Walking away, Nero looked over his shoulder and thought about his brief time with the chatty woman and the rest of the unit. In a way, it was like a little break from the life of a noble and all the crap that came along with it. It was nice to be one of the common folks.

For a moment, he let the thought of what his life could be like if he had made different choices percolate in his mind. He could fight alongside some good-looking women, earning his daily wages and spending his weekends in the pub. Over time, he might end up having a few kids and buying a house. In his mind, he imagined a basic but good, normal life.

But there was no magic… no real adventure.

Letting the daydream slip away, Nero walked down the hallway with a renewed sense of purpose. He was a mage in the making and the Walker in ‘Walker’s Wackos’. He already had the life he wanted, and he be damned if he gave it all up to be ordinary.

Stuttering to a stop, he thought, ‘Now, Nick said it was two lefts, then a right, then past 3 left, and then another right? No… that wasn’t it…’