[LitF] 37. Gifts (Patreon)

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"I'll watch over the unconscious people instead, master," Tamara suddenly said.

Arthur raised an eyebrow at her. "I can do that from here with minimal mana expenditure." In fact, with no expenditure, but only he knew that.

Tamara opened her mouth to say something, then closed it. She smiled slightly. "I suppose I never gave you servant training, master. And Miss Brimstone never reached the stage where she would hear what I'm about to say. It's not becoming of a servant to know the extent of their master's wealth. If it's too much, it can give birth to greed. If too little, it can brew anxiety over whether the servant will keep being paid."

The prince raised an eyebrow. "You're my only servant and take care of my finances. I don't even know how much I pay you. Or Graham, for that matter. The money you carry for me is everything I have."

"Master, Grand Knight Graham and I were paid a hefty sum to stay by your side for twenty years, including the time spent in the dungeon. Would you like to discuss your House finances now?"

"You didn't comment on the point of the matter, Tamara. You already know how much I have."

The head maid shook her head. "I only know how many coins you have with you, master, not the extent of your assets. I doubt your father hasn't left anything to you, despite how many assets he might've sold to pay for his plans. You're House Boria's inheritor. Her Highness, your sister, probably inherited from Her Majesty's side of the family."

She had a point. Insisting on it would be rude, considering she was keeping ignorant out of respect for her servant position. Moreover, there was also the matter of security and what people might learn about him from her. The prince should worry more about that, considering his family would eventually consist of more than him.

"Very well," he said.

"Thank you, master," she said and headed to the rooms upstairs.

Arthur was sitting beside Sophie on the living room sofa. The warmth of her proximity and the worry in her eyes supported him in a unique and intimate way.

He turned to look at the storage safe on top of the white center table.

His life comprehension had improved by two percent throughout the interrogation process. It came from using magic on people's brains, hearing Howard explain how he worked, and reading some of the books in the man's ring. It pushed his life understanding to 47%. He added the 200 extra free stat points to wisdom, hitting 9,650 points.

The two hundred points didn't change the prince's outlook on that chaotic world. He greatly disapproved of it yet paradoxically felt almost relieved at everyone messing up so much. The Golden King's crimes were the initial push that had snowballed everything into today's situation, but he was just another evildoer in a world filled with them.

Logically and judicially, that didn't attenuate the late man's betrayal. Reasonable or not, it made Arthur less resentful of the man. At the very least, he didn't think the king had been as greedy or ill-intentioned as Howard and Terrell.

The prince knew he might be wrong; his father might have had bad intentions. His beliefs might be just biased wishful thinking.

Arthur believed it all the same.

So, with a slightly lighter heart than after he found out about his father's sins, he moved his hand toward the safe. The object was a fist-sized cube made of wood-textured metal, meant to be as bland as possible. One facet had ten discrete dark brown digits. Arthur inputted the password.

11/01/573, his birthday, followed by 100.

The cube's edges shone slightly, and Arthur felt his domains expand into the safe's spatial fold. He could sense many metal objects inside. He lightly pushed his hand into the cube, and it went through the invisible spatial opening.

He immediately found the manifest he was looking for. It was usually provided when handing spatial rings or safes to someone who didn't know what was inside.

In theory, Arthur could push his head inside to take a look, but no one who valued their lives would risk getting beheaded if something went wrong with the safe's enchantments.

The fifty-page hardcover notebook was lengthier than expected. The first page described the safe's size and basic functionalities. The one-hundred-yard-wide spherical spatial fold was close to the limits of what had been possible in the past.

The next few pages listed everything inside without further explanations, numbering them. Then came precise drawings showing where everything was located in the safe. Following that, each item had at least one page containing a sketch of it and its purposes.

Arthur was surprised to find over fifty sets of clothing in there. His father had packed him a wardrobe of all things. There were also multiple paintings from their family and their House ancestors. That was the extent of the personal objects.

The safe also had many letters, but they all dealt with businesses, just like the multiple stacks of documents. They contained accounts of House Boria's history, including all dirty secrets and under-the-table deals. On top of that, every debt he owed and was owed as the new House Head was precisely stated, even some debts that had been accrued to buy resources to give the dungeon. He also found he was the supposed owner of many, many companies, a lot of real estate, and more bank accounts than should be possible.

Arthur had grossly underestimated how prosperous his House had been.

That much money didn't even make sense before he read some key documents. House Boria was known for ruling a nation, but he was shocked to find it had so many enterprises that some competed with each other. They monopolized multiple industries and services in the Golden Kingdom—and a few neighboring nations. It was flabbergasting.

Charlotte had had a point all along: people living for too long could amass too many resources before a stupid heir messed it up. A longer life also gave them more time to find a worthy descendant. It wasn't guaranteed to let the dynasty survive forever, but it significantly boosted the odds.

And Jorge had been spot on: if House Boria didn't want people to get greedy over what was theirs, they shouldn't have advertised it with an alias like Golden Kingdom!

Despite all those assets, Arthur's estimated he owed people around ten million gold coins. It was still a low debt considering how much time had passed. The Golden King had signed deals overwhelmingly in his favor with little to no interest rates.

His father left a single sentence at the end of the most thorough accounting book: "There's nothing I can do about any of it except hope most of your creditors will have disappeared by the time you leave the dungeon and that enough of your debtors and assets will remain."

All the goodwill Arthur had just gained for the man was utterly crushed.

Like Tamara, the prince had thought that his father had sold most of his assets to pay for his crimes. However, the man hadn't wanted anyone to suspect anything and barely touched House Boria's resources. Instead, he had taken loans large enough to destroy multiple businesses and bankrupt countless families.

Those people had trusted him, and he crushed them with his lies!

The prince could not pay his debt but vowed to find all his creditors. Arthur would repay them somehow, even if it took him the rest of his life. Bankrupted companies would be more challenging, but hopefully, enough heirs would remain from the families.

"Sophie..." he started. "This debt..." He trailed off.

He didn't even know what to say.

He had just become one of the poorest people in the world, if not the poorest!

In fact, he couldn't believe his father had left such naive words to him. Even the Golden Kingdom had had laws to change ownership of property belonging to awakeners who disappeared for too long. Twelve hundred years was a long time. Documents could be misplaced and lost. Even powerful awakeners with 4,000 vitality points lived less than six hundred years. Those who invested that much in vitality had already been far and few between in the past, much less nowadays, when leveling up was so hard. Two or three generations might be enough for them to forget old agreements, not to mention however many had actually lived and died until now.

Too much would've been forgotten in the meantime. Only the elves, who had a longer base lifespan, should still remember—

Ah.

Arthur finally got it.

He looked through the numbers again. Most who owed House Boria were elves, while the House mainly owed humans and human organizations, who were more likely to be gone.

The Golden King had been a scheming bastard to the very end.

Sophie smiled and shook her head. "We already talked about it, Archie. Remember? I'll tell everyone about how I'm providing for a prince."

He smiled sadly. "This is different." Now that he realized his father's sneakiness about elves, things didn't look as dire anymore, but he refused to be too optimistic. "This much debt changes everything. I might never afford more than a rented house and the bare minimum to feed myself. You... You might..." It was hard to speak the following words. "You might need to work."

Be it a man or a woman, the spouse coming from the House with the higher status was supposed to provide for the one from a lower House. Even when the more elevated House fell in dire straights, its member should find a way to provide their partner with minimal standards.

Asking Sophie to work was unthinkable. Tragic. Absurd. Humiliating.

Pathetic.

Arthur felt like he had eaten shit.

Sophie smiled gently, "I doubt it'll come to that. But if it happens, so be it. I love you, Archie, not your possessions. I was training to be your maid. I'm not averse to work."

He pecked her lips. "Thank you," he said earnestly.

He had to respect her wishes, even if they were stupid. Well, he didn't "have" to, but he was expected not to unilaterally break their relationship after he had made it evident he intended to propose one day. The only acceptable reason to end things was if he found something new and undesirable in her like she had just found in discovering he was destitute.

Arthur knew he should break up with her anyway, for her own good. He was condemning her to a life-long punishment by not pushing her away. Sophie deserved much better than that, as as the heir of House Brimstone, she had the status to find a much better match than him.

To his shame, he wasn't altruistic enough.

So, he distracted himself by reading every piece of paper in the safe. None of the letters were addressed to him. His father didn't give him any pointers or share any plans. There wasn't even an early sketch of the agreement the man planned to break with the League. Arthur's hope of finding guidance or some leftover words from his mother disappeared.

After he was done, he checked the final items in the spatial ring. Unsurprisingly, there were an extra thousand gold coins in there, with a note that said, "In case the money with your Head Maid is lost."

Lastly, there were an armor set and a rectangular box.

House Boria's War Regalia was ironically an orichalcum armor. By all rights, the metal should be bronze-golden, but enchantments made it shine a bright golden as if it belonged to a messenger of Fate itself.

It was contrasted by the mythril used in the exquisite elven patterns throughout the armor and the broad high-bass layers on the chest and helmet. The chest layer was designed as the lion head insignia of House Boria, while the helmet was made to look like a mix of an angry dragon and a lion. The mythril was also enchanted to shine bright, though its silvery color was preserved.

The full armor was so heavy it required a considerable investment in strength to even lift, not to mention wearing it in battle without hindering one's movements. Arthur didn't have enough strength yet. Maybe one day.

The elongated container was over half his height in length, four feet wide, and two feet high. It was made of heavily enchanted blue metal with golden edges. House Boria's lion head was drawn with silver.

Arthur opened it, revealing an elevated dark red velvet structure where four items rested: a voidsteel scabbard, a thick black wyrm leather sheath, a mythril scabbard, and a mythril longsword.

The voidsteel piece was the reason for the container's enchantments. The box was the kind that allowed spatial folds to contain the alloy.

The prince recalled the painting showing the king in full war regalia, with the voidsteel scabbard visible. He now knew it to be a manufactured lie. The orichalcum armor had a detachable leather strip on the leg where the voidsteel sheath was supposed to remain glued for pictures. Without that, the metal would unravel the armor's enchantments.

In official events, the black leather sheath was supposed to encase the voidsteel scabbard. And in battle, the enchanted mythril scabbard was used instead because no one wanted the leather to be damaged and the voidsteel to touch the armor.

The sword's mythril hilt was a work of art to rival the armor. The crossguard was the wings of a flaming phoenix. The golden and red leather wrapped around the handle came from two different wyrms and had been interwoven to look like fire. The pommel was an open-mouthed phoenix head. A few grams of gold on the head and wings made for extra details.

The blade was also mythril, but with much fewer details. The magic runes for extra resistance and sharper edge were made of gold and drawn in the middle. Besides that, only the sword's name broke the monotony of a well-cast but not plain metal. It was written in orichalcum close to the edge and hilt, using Shär-Laÿon, the high-elven language.

Kalavor Shävyr.

It read directly as All are Equal in Death.

In human language, the name was translated as the Equalizer.

The words threatened to tear Arthur's heart apart. They were so cold. Were they true? Were his father's sins irrelevant? Had he gone to the same place as Charlotte? Did villains find the same eternal rest as heroes? Was death that final?

Did he have no chance to ever meet his family again because only nothingness awaited everyone after life?

He stared at it for a long time.

Eventually, the prince sighed and put everything away. The mythril sword was beautiful but useless to him because it was enchanted only for resistance and sharpness. It did nothing to him but make him look fancy. The unenchanted sword and the fire blade on his hips fit him much better.

"This was frustrating," he confessed to Sophie. "I expected too much from the man who betrayed the world."

His suitress wisely didn't comment on that. What could she say? No matter how bad the Golden King had been, badmouthing your suitor's late parent wasn't polite.

Instead, she squeezed his hand.

Arthur smiled at her, sighed again, put the safe into his ring, then said, "Tamara, Graham, pay attention."

He didn't raise his voice; there was no need to. They could hear him just fine. The only way for them not to listen to his talk about debts with Sophie was if they willingly decided against it, which servants were supposed to do.

"This is what I plan to do," he continued.

After he was done explaining, the three approved of his plan and suggested a few changes. Tamara had already bought a telephone directory, and Arthur found the right numbers on it to call everyone he had to talk to and prepare things for his public debut into this new world.

He left the mansion one hour later, driving one of the black vans. Graham drove another.

* - * - *

Arthur flew the two black vans into the League building's parking lot, which was surrounded by a crowd of people. Reporters were the most numerous but were kept to one side by a police barrier. The law enforcement officers were the second largest group. The third was the twenty ambulances and small army of health workers.

While the League had eradicated diseases, except for a few, emergencies still happened. Unawakened health practice was meant to keep people alive and determine which medicine they were supposed to take. Specialized non-disease-related alchemical solutions weren't free.

Speaking of the League, the final group consisted of the three League workers Arthur had requested: the Regional Manager, his secretary, and the Vice-Manager. The three were visibly uncomfortable but had come after he mentioned Howard's name.

As the prince approached, he detected many unawakened special response units hidden in nearby buildings. He had told the reporters he would reveal a conspiracy, and the police were prepared to take him down to hide their involvement.

He almost laughed at it. No voidsteel guns were around, but at that distance, voidsteel would be useless even against Tamara. He and his people could deal with such a pathetic threat.

Arthur's flying vehicles caused a small commotion. People looked up and pointed fingers. He had asked for the space to park four vehicles, just to be sure, and they provided him with enough for seven instead. He landed his two and stepped out of the driver's seat.

Immediately, twenty sharpshooters shot him. Arthur looked at the incoming bullets when he felt them and simply raised his hand. He caught all twenty. He was wearing his enchanted robe, minus his helmet, and its defenses were more than enough to deal with such pathetic attacks. The bullets were enchanted, but they couldn't pierce his protection.

Twenty bullets were a lot. Arthur kept grabbing each of them, clenching his hand so they were distorted and broke, and their enchantments stopped working, then letting them fall on the ground. Everything happened ridiculously fast.

Then, he waited. The shot sounds got there an instant after he dropped the last bullet. People looked around scared, though most were staring at him and his arm, which he had moved very, very fast. He gave everyone a moment to realize what had just happened. Then, he pulled the unenchanted projectiles with an intent string and simultaneously cast twenty spells.

The slugs produced no sound as they instantly broke the sound barrier and seemed to just disappear. They would hit the shooters' shoulders. The twenty snipers had shot to kill, but maybe because ordered by the corrupt and mind-controlled Chief of Police. Arthur was giving them a warning shot.

Said Chief of Police didn't get the message.

He was present and had made plans. Someone yelled, "We have a shooter!" and all police officers reached for their guns.

Arthur never gave them a chance to do anything with their weapons. In general, unawakened guns weren't enchanted. Enchanted ammunition wasn't rare but also not so widespread as to give it to every police officer worldwide. So Arthur swiftly melted every weapon and bullet down.

He didn't even use mana for that. Two authority chains at the speed he could think were enough to melt everything before they could point a single gun at him. The unawakened moved too slowly.

Still, some people did touch or grab their guns before he got to them. Some had also already been wielding pistols or rifles. It caused hand injuries, and the police screamed in pain.

Arthur followed the melting with quick healing, even though those officers were obviously ill-intentioned. Permanently hurting law enforcement wouldn't look good in the news.

The yell of a shooter, followed by the police's screams of pain while their weapons melted, made the already tense situation devolve into chaos. People crouched, screamed, and prepared to run. If Arthur did nothing, there would be no press conference, likely the police's plan B.

So, the prince used his life domain to give his lungs and throat a lot of power.

"Be quiet and stand still!" he bellowed.

The vans shook, and a few eardrums ruptured—which he quickly healed. People panicked more but obeyed. Having your very thoughts muffled by external sound giving you a command had a way of making people comply, out of confusion, if nothing else.

In the ensuing silence, Arthur walked to the tall table filled with microphones that the media had prepared. Sophie left his van and opened the back doors, showing the dead bodies. Meanwhile, Graham and Tamara opened their own van, showing the unconscious people. Tamara gently started transporting them to the ambulances, and the health personnel came running to assist.

Sophie had her armor on except for her helmet, like Arthur. Graham was armored from head to toe. Tamara was in her maid uniform; she had insisted.

The reporters took pictures, and a couple even filmed everything. Arthur wondered if the Tome of Laws was outdated and if cameras were more common outside the film industry than it stated. Something to look into at a later date.

The prince looked at everyone and waited for Sophie to get beside him, a couple of feet behind, before addressing the expectant and scared crowd.

"I am Arthur Willoughby Naerith-Tracey Boria the Third," he started after tuning his voice down. He still left it loud enough that everyone could easily hear him. "I was once the crown prince of the Golden Kingdom, which became the Avaria Regulated Region. I stayed in a dungeon for twelve hundred years and only recently returned. Upon my arrival, the League of the Fated Races hired me to investigate strange occurrences in North Lake City. I have uncovered a network of people kept under mind control by a level twenty biomancer called Dwight Howard."

Arthur used his life domain to make the unconscious man float from the van with corpses.

"Here he is," Arthur continued, leaving the man floating upright beside him. "The dead people in that vehicle were part of his security detail. I didn't kill them. Their death was caused by some of the mind-controlled victims in the other van. Said victims are being transported to ambulances and are alive and well. Some of them were about to be used as test subjects for illegal research when I rescued them."

He paused to give the unawakened some time to digest his words. Arthur went straight to the point while raising many questions on purpose.

The Chief of Police and the League's Regional Manager wanted to say something, but the prince froze them in place.

Moments later, he continued, "These victims wouldn't have been captured or disappeared without the help of the network I just mentioned. Someone would've noticed something was wrong sooner if the network wasn't in place. It has people from all areas of public administration and private practice. Four of the people present have been under Howard's mind control: the three League workers and the Chief of Police. I'll now release them of it."

The four widened their eyes but had no chance to do anything before Arthur prehended their bodies and cleared their minds of all hormonal influence and synapse corruption. He made them unconscious and the process painless, but rewiring their bodies and brains wasn't subtly done. They would suffer from migraine headaches for weeks.

"It is done," he said as the four fell unconscious. He made them float before reaching the floor and pushed them to Tamara. "I didn't deal with their false memories because it would take too much mana. The League's National Headquarters will dispatch a team to deal with them soon. The victims need dedicated biomancer care to go through the delicate healing process necessary to recover their memories without suffering lasting traumas."

He had called the National Headquarters. They hadn't promised to dispatch anyone to North Lake. In fact, they had thought he was prank calling them even after he identified himself, and they confirmed it with the Regional Branch.

Arthur hadn't insisted. He could only do so much to help them if they didn't want his help. And if they didn't come after his words?

Well, they wouldn't like his plan B.

The news was shocking, and the people present had no idea what to do. A few reporters opened their mouths as if to say something, but no matter how professional they were, they failed to produce anything under such outlandish claims.

"I'm allowing the victims to undergo a health inspection with the local health workers, just so the media can be assured of their well being. They are allowed to call their families and meet them here. Except for the SRT members, every victim is an illegal awakener and will be taken to a high mana region after I'm done with my business. No one is allowed to leave this place. William Graham, my level sixty-eight grand knight, will ensure this command is obeyed."

The armored man heard his name and approached. Then, he just stood there. Staying in the open wasn't as safe for the victims, but it was safer for Arthur's people, who would easily see incoming threats. Enclosed spaces could be the death of an awakener these days.

"Tamara Lauquenbur, my level thirty biomancer maid, will care for the victims health." He pointed at Tamara, who was still helping the unawakened health workers carry people to the ambulances. "Meanwhile, I'll move around the city to free every other victim from Howard's mind control. I'll return here now and then with the new victims so they can be checked by the health workers, then await for the League to arrive. Whoever the League sends will decide what happens to my investigation results and the people affected by this criminal."

Arthur paused again. A reporter finally got his bearings and opened her mouth to say something, but he raised his hand for her to keep quiet, and she acquiesced.

"I'll say this only once: I'm evoking the Awakener Emergency Act to have my demands legally met. Any attempt to hinder me or my people, or to take custody over people officially under my custody, will be considered an act of aggression and dealt with extreme prejudice."

As if on cue, one ambulance started moving. It got precisely one yard away before Graham got before it. He had 2,000 agility and 3,000 strength points. He punched the vehicle head-on, and the metal was torn apart.

The engine liquefied as his flaming fist heated it beyond the melting point.

The knight then walked to the driver's seat, ripped the door from its sockets, and punched the driver unconscious. He took the man from the vehicle, brought him to the empty space behind Arthur, dropped him on the ground, and declared, "This man is under arrest."

The crowd had mouths agape with shock. The prince gestured to Sophie as if nothing unusual had happened.

"This is Sophie Brimstone, heir of High House Brimstone. She will explain my investigation in detail and answer your questions while I save the other victims."

Without further word, he put the Howard on the floor, floated a few yards into the sky, and almost instantly broke the sound barrier as he shot himself toward the next victim.

* - * - *

Arthur hadn't stayed in the level 33 dungeon long enough to recover any mana, yet he had used a lot of life mana and some metal mana. Working on Howard's mind, especially, had taken a toll. Fourteen percent of his life mana pool, two percent of his metal mana pool, and still less than one percent of his death mana pool were gone.

Freeing Howard's victims from mind control would cost a lot of mana that he would rather not, but he had to do it for the League.

Now that Howard or his mansion's personnel couldn't be contacted, it was only a matter of time before the man's crimes were revealed for political gain. Arthur agreed with the sick bastard in one thing: Terrell had been seeking to use these crimes for his agenda all along. The only way to soften the upcoming blow against the League was to free everyone before Terrell's narrative was in place and provide an alternative narrative instead.

Hence Arthur's ongoing plan. It was simple and could be divided into four parts.

One, he would free every victim of mind control to gain public goodwill.

Two, he would reveal the identity of everyone who was part of Howard's mind-control network, despite them being victims. That was the only way to ensure the crime network was dismantled.

Three, he would be very public about it, shouting to the four winds that he had solved this crisis on the League's orders.

Four, he wouldn't act timidly. The League needed shows of strength, and he was giving it to them. He also would rather not deal with suicidal idiots that might think they had a chance to kill him if he didn't make it clear he was mighty and willing to use his power.

The plan wasn't perfect. Things could go wrong. It was still the best he and Tamara could think of. They only had Howard's perspective on the world and lacked personal connections and the political knowledge to formulate a better course of action.

More importantly, although his primary goal was saving the victims, strengthening the League was only his third priority. The second was protecting himself and his people.

His actions would make it considerably harder for Joint Command to persecute him for his father's actions.

Arthur had guessed during his interrogation that the League probably hated the late Golden King. The man's actions had started the entire chain of events that led the world to its current circumstances. Moreover, back then, even as the king gave resources to the level 95 dungeon to build new entrances, he also made a deal to put the dungeon and the orichalcum deposit under the League's care. Now, that deal was coming to bite them in the back.

The Golden King had royally screwed the League, even if the latter hadn't realized it then, blind as they had been by all that orichalcum.

Arthur wanted to fight for the League, but what if they would rather fight him? What if their anger at his father's crimes spoke louder than their gratitude for solving their issues? What if they set the whole world against him?

Could he survive that? Should he? Protecting himself meant an immeasurable number of deaths.

Therefore, he was giving the League a gift and a warning. He was trying to save their image while making it clear that he knew they weren't saints—and he was willing to take the law into his own hands. He had revealed his life magic ability and Graham's level to make it clear that he was powerful and not to be treated lightly. And he kept his own level secret, a hidden threat for them to worry about.

It was now up to them to decide if they would rather have him as an enemy or ally.

Arthur would see what would happen. Until then, he would focus on saving people. Even if his plan didn't work, clearing their minds from Howard's influence would still be a good deed to be proud of.

He shot through the skies at peak speed, trusting the city map that Tamara had acquired and that he had memorized.

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