Nero Walker, Book 3 Ch.96 (211) (Patreon)

Commander Dahl’s frown was so pronounced that it looked like he was squinting. As a result, everyone in the command tent was on edge.

Aides, captains, and support mages were moving around the room in a hurry, each one doing their best to get a handle on the situation. Their limited experience with war on this scale was made clear by how poorly they were dealing with the unexpected.

Unable to turn away from the blurry and confusing holographic display, Commander Dahl rapidly cycled through the feeds he was receiving from the Tower of Magic’s scrying teams. Their connection was spotty, and he’d lost contact with central command. Worse yet, what little he was seeing simply didn’t make any sense.

Tearing his eyes away from the incomprehensible images, he shouted, “Does anybody have any intelligence on what just happened?”

The entire room paused what they were doing, everyone turning to look at the commander with fear and panic in their eyes.

Almost growling, he asked, “No one? Not one of your teams has reported anything to explain what I’m seeing?!?”

From the corner of the room, one of the subcommanders in charge of handling the penal units and volunteers spoke up hesitantly, “Sir! I think I might have something… possibly.”

Everyone in the room turned toward the young captain with interest, pinning the man in place with their stares.

Glaring at the subcommander, Commander Dahl's voice cut through the room like a knife. “Well? Report!”

Firming his shoulders to stand at attention, the subcommander replied, “Right before the event, I was tracking requests from the penal divisions that voluntarily joined Lord Walker’s forces. They were demanding support for Lord Walker. It didn’t make any sense though. They reported that he personally went behind enemy lines to either cut down their ranged artillery support or take out their siege wyrms. According to what they were saying, Lord Verena was tracking him through a scry, but was having trouble maintaining the connection. The last report I heard may have placed Lord Walker at the event's epicenter.”

Another woman in the room stepped forward. “That may explain some of the confusing reports I was receiving from section M11. They reported that kobald defenses were fracturing due to some fires spreading through the kobald encampment. No one knew what was causing it, but they were requesting permission to take advantage of the situation.”

While the command tent seemed quiet, everyone was still receiving and dealing with communiques from their assigned forces. There wasn’t a soldier in the room who wasn’t able to handle the complicated multitasking required to hold multiple conversations. So, reports were still coming in by the dozen, and each one had to be dealt with. Just because the kobalds retreated, didn’t mean their jobs were over.

Commander Dahl frowned in thought, before asking hesitantly, “So, you’re thinking Lord Walker perished in the event? Possibly as a result of some ritual casting mistake he caused? With the amount of power involved, who knows what the kobalds were up to.”

Almost as if the world were mocking him, one of the commanders stepped forward and reported excitedly, “Commander Dahl! I just received a report of Lord Walker emerging from the essence disturbance. We can’t confirm it through scrying, but one of the search teams reported seeing him walk out of the aftermath.”

Raising his eyebrows in surprise, Commander Dahl ordered, “Have him report here immediately! I want to know what he saw, and more importantly how he survived whatever it was that the kobalds just did. Whatever that kobald ritual was supposed to do, he must have interfered with it. I want to know exactly what happened. We need to know what we’re dealing with.”

The entire room nodded in agreement, terrified at the thought of what the kobald's strange ritual magic might be capable of.

—--

Nero walked along as if he were in a fugue, his brain refusing to work right.

While he wasn’t feeling giddy anymore, or having trouble thinking, he was having trouble feeling ‘present’. It was like everything happening to him was slightly muted. In a way, it was almost refreshing.

He had no trouble keeping pace with the group as they made their way through the Dorchester forces on their way to the command tent. His odd mental perspective allowed him to analyze everything he saw on the way with a clear and objective perspective.

When he saw some people using telekinesis to load wagons with kobald corpses, he easily interpreted it in a way he’d never thought of before.

Instead of seeing the soldiers as being lazy, he realized that they were the ones using the situation to train their minds. While he had learned from experience that it was easier to use physical labor to do things than it was to use mental techniques or abilities, he hadn’t really internalized that knowledge. It wasn’t surprising as it contradicted everything he’d learned from fantasy novels and popular media, for some reason, it was now so obvious to him that he could no longer ignore it. Abilities and essence techniques took work, while just physically doing stuff was easy.

He also noticed other oddities that he usually would have ignored, or misinterpreted. Like the fact that everyone was disturbingly, sparkling clean while wearing ruined armor. While it should have looked quite odd to him, he instead easily interpreted it as a result of cleaning and healing spells being so ingrained into the soldiers’ daily lives. Looking around, he noted that this was what the aftermath of a fantasy battle should look like.

Cooks pulling out food from their personal space while setting up tables brought up thoughts on how people probably prepared meals somewhere else before transferring them to forward positions for eating.

Wagons being pulled by people instead of animals no longer looked stupid to him, instead, he realized the practicality of not bothering with the unnecessary hassle of beasts of burden.

Everywhere he looked, he saw situations that would have normally caused his brain to misfire due to cultural dissonance looking positively normal to him.

While he knew he should be preparing what he was going to say to the commanders, he instead couldn’t stop himself from looking at the world with what felt like new eyes.

Staring down at his pale, semi-withered hands, he frowned at the lack of any strong feelings about being so physically changed after his ordeal. ‘Shouldn’t I be freaking out a bit more about this?’ he wondered before realizing that even the question itself didn’t seem to worry him all that much.

Glancing over at his friend, Nero noted Nick’s subdued smile. ‘He must have been really worried about me. He is just happy that I’m alive. I shouldn’t have assumed he was just interested in what I did to the kobalds. He really is a good friend, he noted absently.

Looking around to the rest of the group, he reached out with his senses and tested their essence fields.

Cathleen felt worried but determined. Captain Angleton felt proud and defiant. Sergeant Blackwood felt… resigned maybe? Even the former assassin’s emotions felt like they were being broadcast across the ether. The man felt like he was shouting his zealotry to the heavens, just begging for someone to give him the opportunity to prove his loyalty.

‘What the hell did I do to deserve that kind of blind devotion?’ he wondered.

Suddenly he realized that what he was feeling was awfully similar to what he felt like when he was floating and moving through the void. He wasn’t an emotionless robot or anything, but he didn’t exactly feel things in the way a normal person would.

The answer to his unasked question seemed to pop into his head. ‘It’s cause my body is practically dead at the moment. I’m not feeling any hormones or other physical crap. I bet my dopamine levels are all bottomed out or something,’ he noted analytically.

“Huh… weird,” he muttered.

Nick looked over at him and asked, “You alright, Nero?”

Glancing over at him, Nero replied, “Yeah. I’m fine. I just realized how much having a healthy body affects the mind.”

Seemingly eager to talk, Nick said quietly, “Of course it does. Everything is connected. In your case, your soul is acting as the central pillar of your identity. Both your mind and body are a reflection of your soul’s presence on this plane. Like I’ve told you before, your soul is slowly adapting your body and mind into what it defines as ‘you’. You don’t have to worry, with some good food and a great deal of rest, you’ll be back to normal in no time.”

Nero nodded in acceptance of Nick’s hypothesis. What he was saying fit with what he was feeling, so he didn’t disagree.

Taking advantage of his current mental clarity, Nero kept up his observations and interpretations of everything he was seeing. He felt like it would be a waste to let this chance pass him by. Normally, he felt like he had to ignore half of what he was seeing just so he didn’t lose his mind.

He started noticing the differences between the tabards he was seeing, quickly assigning ranks and unit designations to things he’d never paid attention to before. Seeing tents being put up by soldiers helped him conceptualize how the army operated and why they did the strange things they did. Abilities and spells he’d never noticed became sources of information that he had no trouble mining for deeper cultural meanings.

It was a heady and wonderful feeling to not be bogged down by his preconceptions. ‘Is this what it feels like to think with my soul rather than my brain? Wasn’t there a term for having trouble understanding things outside your neural programming? Mental elasticity or something? I bet there are some papers or studies on the link network I could look up,’ he thought to himself.

The thought of the link caused his mental process to stumble. ‘Why haven’t I been taking advantage of the link? Am I still hung up on the fact that it feels like mind control? Do I have some mental trauma I’ve been ignoring or something? Why can’t I look at it like the fantasy equivalent of the internet? Am I afraid of falling into old habits maybe? Wasting all my time on cat videos and video blogs of people building wood cabins in the middle of nowhere?’

Nero shook his head in wry amusement at the thought of being an emo little bitch. ‘Whatever the reason is, I should just admit that I don’t like links and leave it at that. I’ll either learn to like them or I won’t. Stressing about it is just pointless.’

While Nero was on his personal mental journey through his neuroses, the group finally arrived at the command tent.

The two guards at the entrance gestured to the entire group to enter the tent the moment they saw Captain Angleton. Rather than wonder why they were bothering to guard the tent at all, Nero’s newfound mental clarity allowed him to determine that the guards were simply there as gatekeepers and not intended for actual combat. Smiling in pride at finally having one of his many gripes about the military resolved, Nero nodded to the two guards in thanks before following the rest of the group into the tent.

‘Is this what it feels like to not have cultural preconceptions? It’s nice and all, but kind of boring. Nothing’s pissed me off, and I haven’t had anything to complain about in forever,’ he calmly observed before looking around the command tent with interest.

Nero noted how busy everyone looked while wondering why there was so little communication going on. ‘Oh, right, they are probably just talking to each other and whoever they are in charge of over the communication webs they’ve set up. That makes sense.’

Commander Dahl caught Nero’s attention as the man stomped forward, his entire posture portraying his attempt to be intimidating.

Glaring at Captain Angleton, the commander ordered, “You can wait for me outside. I’ll deal with you and your unit when I’m finished.” Turning to Nero, he looked down and practically sneered, “Now, Lord Walker, while I appreciate your help during the battle, I’d like to respectfully ask what you were thinking when you charged into the kobald encampment on your own and disrupted our counterattack.”

Nero didn’t even blink, his mind furiously processing all the little nuances of the interaction he’d just witnessed.

The commander seemed incredibly upset with Captain Angleton for some reason. Whether it was due to the captain following along with Cathleen’s command, or something else, he couldn’t be sure. But what he was sure about was that the commander was pissed about Nero’s actions and was looking for an excuse to assign blame… over what, he had no idea.

Deciding to play it safe, Nero began to reply, “Well, commander, I was thinking that -”

Nero paused what he was going to say as he felt the essence in the room beginning to vibrate. Turning around, he raised an eyebrow in surprise as the evaluators appeared out of nowhere. ‘Had they been standing there the whole time?’ he wondered.

Suddenly, the secret of their invisibility became obvious to him. They weren’t actually invisible at all, they never had been. They were just muting their presence in the ether to such an extent that they were background noise. Whipping his head around, he stared at Cathleen in amazement. Memories of all their interactions flittered through his head as he recalled her doing the exact same thing to him. Then, flashes of Rose seeming to vanish into the background came to mind as he remembered her doing it to him as well.

“Huh… so that’s how you do it,” he muttered before tweaking his essence field into projecting the fantasy equivalent of a ‘don’t pay attention to me, I’m not even here’ field.

Nero felt his presence mute, feeding more and more mental energy into the technique until he stopped feeling the resonance of other people’s attention on him. Most people were easy to deceive, but the evaluators were a pain in the ass. It took way more effort than he thought it would, but he had to admit the results were remarkable.

Scholar Idrius dropped her jaw and said, “Did he just copy our essence-shielding technique?”

The commander replied harshly, “Did who just… Wait… Where is Lord Walker?!?”

Nick started laughing out loud, calling all sorts of attention to himself before holding up his hand in apology while continuing to giggle behind a fist.

Nero felt the strain on his mind and decided to let go of the technique, coming back into other people’s perception fields as if he’d always been there.

“Sorry about that. I just wanted to see if I could do it. That technique is weird but effective. It’s like pretending so hard that you’re the dullest person in the room until everyone else just agrees with you and stops caring that you’re there. Henceforth, I shall declare it the “Wallflower”. Does it work on scrying too? Or does that technique trump it?” Nero asked calmly but with a hint of interest.

While everyone stared at him in astonishment, Academian Quincy replied, “Lord Walker, perhaps we can discuss that at a later time. Right now, we should probably clear up the misunderstanding around the essence disturbance you caused.”

Jumping on the opportunity, Commander Dahl’s harsh voice rang out, “So, it was you. Did you at least record the ritual you interrupted, or were you too busy playing hero to acquire any intelligence?”

Nero looked over at the man, his confusion evident on his face. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. What ritual?”

Fuming, the commander replied, “The kobald ritual you interrupted that nearly brought down the entire building! Do you have any idea what could have happened if we hadn’t gotten so lucky? You could have wiped out the entire expeditionary force!”

While Nero was currently incapable of his usual scathing wordplay, Academian Quincy was not.

With a tone full of mockery and contempt, he replied, “Lord Walker didn’t interrupt a ritual, or whatever other nonsense you’ve incorrectly assumed. The essence disturbance was caused by a singular spell on par with a tactical group spell from a team of level 70 war mages. I’d recommend watching your tone and thinking before you speak. While you are currently out of contact with Dorchester command due to the ethereal interference, We are not. You should expect word of your coming tribunal to reach you soon. Therefore, I suggest you focus on your defense rather than Lord Walker’s methods in achieving an overwhelming victory over the enemy.”

Nero currently had absolutely no idea what Academian Quincy was talking about, but he decided to go with it. Turning back to the commander, he offered the man a blank stare, daring him to say something.

Unfortunately, the moment was ruined by the essence in the room going all ‘wobbly’ again.

Turning around to stare at the disturbance, Nero noticed that aside from him, very few people noticed what was happening. The evaluators all straightened up in anticipation of something, while a few people along the sides who were dressed in mage robes did the same. Nick of course also noticed, as Nero felt the man’s essence field tense up in worry.

A golden flash filled the room as Archmage Jennings and several other people Nero didn’t recognize appeared.

While Archmage Jennings muttered something about the essence being particularly ‘divergent’ or something, Nero’s attention was locked onto the giant of the man standing next to him.

All the soldiers in the room snapped to attention, saluting with a fist to their chest while their eyes bulged out of their sockets.

Commander Dahl handled the giant man’s arrival particularly poorly. Nero couldn’t help but feel the commander’s essence field shaking in fear and panic as he muttered, “Grandmaster Lancel!”

Stepping forward, the grandmaster’s presence swept over the room like a storm, battering everyone’s essence fields like turbulent ocean waves assaulting a coast. “Commander Dahl, you have been charged with violating the knight’s code. What do you have to say for yourself, boy?”

Stuttering in confusion, Commander Dahl weakly replied, “What? Sir, I’m not sure what you're referring to. I haven’t been charged with anything. I mean, I haven’t done anything to merit such a charge! I just won a decisive battle, there must be some sort of misunderstanding.”

The grandmaster’s presence held the room so strongly that no one was able to say a word. Nero however seemed unaffected.

With interest, he reached out with his essence field and tried to understand what was happening. From what he could see, it was like the giant man’s essence field was pushing down on the individual essence fields of everyone else, completely ignoring the essence in the ether. It was like a directed effect on their identities. Nero couldn’t even call it a technique, it was more like the giant man was so much more ‘real’ than everyone in the room that everyone else felt like background actors. Had Nero not been currently under his weird state of mind, he would have probably found it incredibly intimidating… or possibly insulting… probably even annoying.

The grandmaster stepped forward slowly, approaching and subsequently invading Commander Dahl’s personal space. “Oh, I’m sure you’ll hear about it soon. I’m currently having the investigators pour over the records of all command decisions that have been made in the past year. They’ve already discovered enough evidence to have in front of a tribunal for your actions, but don’t worry, you won’t be alone.”

Archmage Jennings, seemingly unhappy with being ignored stepped forward and flared his presence as well.

“The grandmaster was eager to come see you in person. Rarely has a Knight of Dorchester shamed his order so badly that it required his presence to sort it out. I believe there hasn’t been a reckoning of this magnitude in centuries… if ever,” the archmage declared mockingly.

The grandmaster turned his head to stare at Captain Angleton. Noting how the captain was standing proudly at attention, his right hand firmly planted on his chest with a stoic look on his face, the grandmaster couldn’t stop himself from smiling slightly in approval.

“I remember seeing you in the training yards. You have grown into a credit to the order. I want to thank you for your courage and dedication to the code. If it weren’t for knights like you, I’d never have known how far the order has fallen,” declared Grandmaster Lancel.

Not moving an inch, Captain Angleton replied, “I did nothing more than duty demanded, Sir.”

The grandmaster’s stoic face cracked even further into a smile before he asked, “And I hear that you have formerly requested to have your rank dismissed and your oath to Dorchester vacated so that you may join the personal forces of Lord Walker? Is that right?”

Nero’s head snapped around, the surprise at what he was hearing almost enough to knock him out of his current headspace. ‘Say what now?’ he thought in confusion.

“That’s correct, Sir. After witnessing Lord Walker defy orders and earn the loyalty of so many through his noble actions, events have given me no choice. When others buckled under the pressure, he rose up to face them. When he saw the injustice of our coming doom, he took it upon himself to defy our ill-planned fate. Even when he wasn’t on the front lines, his actions saved countless lives by healing and resuscitating soldiers by the hundreds. And when the siege wyrms appeared, and all hope seemed lost, he personally charged forward to end the threat to our troops. His magics and tactics turned the tide of the battle, sacrificing himself for the safety of those around him. He has proven to me and many others that he is the knight’s code made manifest. I have chosen to serve him along with many others, and whether it is as a deserter or an adherent, it does not matter. I will follow him,” Captain Angleton declared proudly, his strong voice nearly shaking the ether with its intensity.

Nero could feel the captain’s determination mixing with the essence fields of Cathleen, Nick, the former assassin whose name he still couldn’t remember, along with Sergeant Blackwood, and many others. There was a reinforcing effect that bounced back and forth between them. He might not have noticed if he hadn’t been looking for it.

Thoroughly stunned by what he was hearing and sensing, Nero had no words. The weird state of being emotionally distant helped maintain the blank look on his face, while his inner turmoil was kept surprisingly subdued. Instead of freaking out as he should have, he instead stood regal and calm in the face of such a blatant misunderstanding of his motivations.

Grandmaster Lancel stood tall and proud, his face carved from stone. “Very well. I’ll personally see to it that your request is granted, along with any of your troops that choose to follow you. From what I’ve seen of the battle you just fought, I find myself wishing I was a couple of hundred years younger so I could join you,” he said, a sense of longing tinging his voice.

Turning to look down at Nero, he said, “Lord Walker. The archmage was kind enough to show me his personal memory engrams of your battle, and I must say that you have earned your titles and my respect with your actions. While I may not understand exactly what you’ve done, I can only applaud your creative application of your unique ability and thank you for your aid in the defense of the city. Rest assured, whatever support you need to get back into fighting shape, you shall have. The army of Dorchester will stand with you, and with our support, you can rest assured that the Council of Leadership’s charges of war crimes will be dismissed by morning.”

Nero looked up at the man in confusion before turning to Archmage Jennings and asking curiously, “War crimes? What war crimes?”