The Gamer Chapter 326 - Epilogue – the heartless Emperor (Patreon)

Heavily breathing, he looked around and was greeted by the sight of Maximillian going down on some pudding, several more plastic cups next to him. “Yo,” he greeted with an astoundingly chirpy voice. “You are alive?” John couldn’t help but ask.

“Oh yeah, I am as astounded as you are. My body was basically just a crumpled piece of paper. Permanent damage to my left leg though. Not even the apothecaries can heal it. Your elemental tried as well, no luck. It’s just shitty now. At least that gives me an excuse to walk with a fancy walking stick,” he ripped open another pudding.

“How are you this happy about that?” John had several other really urgent questions, but this one could be answered immediately, he hoped. While he listened to the answer, he went and checked on his cleaned clothes and other equipment that someone had left in a basket next to the bed. He himself was only wearing one of those white hospital sheets.

“Well, after being backstabbed by my childhood friend who let loose the empire’s worst enemy on itself, being used as a skipping stone and then also losing that best friend,” the king in his hospital gown listed, “I decided to let myself be subject to some emotion meddling magic stuff. 

“They heavily advised against it, but I really can’t deal with that shit right now. Gonna sleep on it.”

As a side effect, that seemed to make Maximillian crave sugar like a madman, going by how he ate yet more pudding.

John ignored the king further and instead fixed up his shirt with Craft as there was a giant hole were he had been eviscerated. There was no way he could have done the same for his vest, considering in what state it was.

“How long was I out?” he mumbled. It was dark outside, but that meant nothing in mid-winter. He checked his health and quickly calculated his regeneration against what he had right now. They seemed to have left him unhealed, considering that it was still pretty low.

Once more he thanked his past wisdom to raise Endurance this high. There was no way he could have survived as much as a sneeze from Thana if he hadn’t done it. As a matter of fact, this had been way too close, he should raise it some more in the future.

Anyhow, time to get out of here. He had to make sure everyone was alright, and he had wasted enough time getting clothed. Dumping his damaged vest in his inventory, he set out to find someone who wasn’t on drugs and could tell him what had happened.

‘I am way too chill about this, something about having so much Wisdom that I unconsciously realize that a few more seconds of ignorance won’t change the outcome of whatever I am about to learn?’ he wondered and checked his status to make sure HE wasn’t drugged.

The complete radio silence from his familiars ended the moment he opened the door and suddenly was assaulted by a multitude of worried bodies flying in his direction. All screaming, “Master” or “John” or both or some derivation of these words or everything at once, they went ahead and cuddled him.

“Ohyasonofabitch, whydoyamakeme worry that much,” slurred Rave and then went ahead to kiss him. “I will write this facility a strongly worded letter about their visiting policies,” Aclysia commented and claimed his mouth the moment Rave went off.

“Slow down,” John said and looked around; “Where are Th- Eliza and Lydia?” The fact that even Nathalia had turned up for this meeting made these two missing so much more apparent. He could think his part for both of them, the former being contained somewhere else and the latter dealing with mountains of paperwork because of the situation.

Still, some confirmation would be nice, and John had the feeling he would get it from the silver haired lady that accompanied Nathalia. “John, you woke up just in time, follow me,” Luna’s voice was cold and business-like towards him. Whether or not he was in good graces right now, she wasn’t sounding all too friendly.

“Can someone tell me what happened after I collapsed?” John asked; “Or, actually, what happened to you while I was down in the arena, Jane?” “Well, you are not going to like this,” Rave sighed heavily, most of the happiness that had come with the relief of him being alright vanished.

“Lydia got kidnapped,” Nia said after his girlfriend stayed silent for a few moments. “Hold up, what?” the Gamer would have stopped to have this conversation slow down, but Luna gave him a warning glance over the shoulder as she kept guiding. Where were they even? The walls were looking more like the inside of an ancient temple than a hospital.

A glance outside the window showed only a vast garden and a rather giant obelisk, that was so close John could only see the base of it. ‘We are in the central palace,’ John realized, and finally Rave spoke up again. “Yeah, so this is what happened:

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Rave looked at the gap at the sky and the atomic bubble below. “This is SO not what I thought would happen today,” she commented. “If this is your mind’s product at the current time, I am not sure about your priorities,” Lydia reprimanded her; “We need to get down there; Romulus’ survival is our only lifeline.”

“No, let the oppressor perish,” a male voice came just as a squad of three soldiers landed on the balcony. The middle of the three was the one who had spoken, a spent looking man, as if he was tired from years of too little sleep and too much excess. “Come with me, Lydia, I made a deal to get you out of here,” the man said.

“Who?” Nia just wondered and was immediately engaged by one of the soldiers. “Just a walking corpse,” the princess replied and immediately started throwing attacks out; “Who should get back into his grave!”

“Then with force!” the trio engaged them. They fought for a little, the enemy clearly not caring for more than separating Lydia from them. The princess got overzealous in fighting the spent man, and once enough distance was brought between Nia and Lydia, the supreme Fateweaver showed up and teleported them all out.

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“…and that’s when Thana started to slaughter every single one of the Bloods in the arena; the two fighting us also went down there,” Rave finished. John pretty quickly filled the gaps. “That was her father,” he mumbled. “Indeed,” Luna frostily added; “A father she told everyone was dead. We don’t know exactly what happened, but the fact that they had access to an artefact whose seal wasn’t broken tells the story for her. Her father plundered her mother’s grave to get the key to get them.”

“You people should know that Lydia would never side with such a thing,” John said. “I agree,” the lunar goddess nodded, “which is why I am not accusing her of it. Nobody who knows her is. However, lying about her father's death to grant him one last thing is the only explanation of what happened there.”

John had no retort to that so he instead went on the next issue. First, he should complete the picture for everyone who hadn’t been on the floor when shit hit the fan.

“I already informed them all of your side of the story, master,” Aclysia said while he was getting busy opening his mouth. For once he was happy not to have to talk about himself; this was a chain of events he wasn’t keen on recalling in detail.

“Great, onto the next question then: where is Eliza?” John repeated half of his initial question. “You will see her in a few minutes,” Luna promised, and John looked to everyone else for information. From Nia to Nathalia, they all shook their heads.

So they followed the pale goddess in her night-sky dress until they reached a gigantic door. Gesturing for John to open it, she stepped aside. He did as requested and cautiously touched the door handle. The moment he opened the door a slit, it flew open, like an automatic door on crack, announcing his arrival with a loud ‘BANG’ as the door slammed close against behind them.

It was a gigantic hall with rows upon rows of people sitting on benches or standing on elevated platforms, some of which were flying under the dome with an artistic representation of a green haired deity, which he recognized as Gaia, sleeping on top of a golden sphere with the word ‘Beginning’ carved into it.

The hall had lots of side-entrances, but of course John had no such luck, he was at the main one, and the path between him and the end of the hall was covered only by a purple carpet. 

Everyone’s eyes wandered towards him, Luna informing everyone that he had arrived didn’t help. “John Newman, stand-in for Lydia Augusta the fourth of house Hohenzollern, marquise of Brandenburg, electress of Brandenburg, marquise of Pomerania and Silesia, princess of Lübeck, princess-marquise of steel and candidatum secundus for Germaniae Rex.”

‘Wait, stand-in for what?’ John asked himself, the question drowning out his wonder about the changes to her titles. The answer was found in one of the two things at the end of the hall: Eliza, wearing her tattered black robe, wrapped in chains.

The blood mage turned her head and looked at him with disbelief in her eyes. Evidently, the news that he was well hadn’t reached her. He ran down the pathway to get to her. “Are you well?” he immediately asked, ignoring everyone’s eyes and embracing her.

“How can that even be the first fucking thing you ask me?” she returned the question; “I… what I did…” “Not you,” John interrupted her; apparently his words before passing out hadn’t been effective. However, his eyes wandered to Romulus standing with his back to the two of them, to the whole hall in fact, was more important as of this moment, “We will have a lengthy discussion about this later.”

“We can proceed,” the voice of the emperor barely carried through the room, but from atop the podium he stood it naturally spread making it necessary to speak loudly. He was touching something that John couldn’t quite see from his lowered position. “John Newman!” the voice of Sol, the goddess wearing her usual golden plate, was like the merciless heat of the desert sun; “Thana…”

The word made Eliza scream and shake in her chains, trying to get her hands free and claw at her head. That caused quite the ruckus amongst the onlookers. “Do not call her that, her name is Eliza,” John told Sol; “The name you just said will just bring out that other thing.” Even the solar goddess had to respect that threat.

“Well then, Eliza Newman is accused of treason and being of threat to the safety of humanity. You shall speak in her defence.” Is that what this was? A trial? How long would this take? “Judgement will fall within this court session and before the eyes of the world. Weigh your words,” Luna added to her sister’s words.

John’s mind raced as he did exactly that. Threats of his own grandeur would only get him killed. He couldn’t back that up right now; he wasn’t powerful to just convince a whole nation of doing as he pleased yet. Not even if what he wanted was just. He had to convince them that killing Eliza would be the wrong move.

But first he had to make it known that she was innocent. “I, and everyone else we knew, were always told that human gods don’t exist,” he told them, “Eliza had no idea what was inside her. As a matter of fact, she didn’t even know who she really was!”

“Maybe, but that doesn’t change the fact that she is dangerous now,” Luna told him. Half a minute of silence. Of course, the moon goddess was right. It seemed that Eliza was in control, but as that scream just now had demonstrated, Thana was still somewhere under that surface.

“Hello, can I advise John on a little thing,” there was a squeaky voice that spoke into the quiet. John looked at the normal sized rat with a four-horned skull for a head with disbelief. “Don’t stare at me like that, Newman,” the Horned Rat threatened him with the voice of a rubber duck.

John would have burst out laughing if the situation wasn’t as bad as it was right now. “You have only just been allowed back into court because of your help in the accident, don’t push it, Muris,” Sol shouted him down. The little rat made several bows, “Of course, your radiancy, shall I get some tea while I am doing rat business?”

“You can-“ “Let him speak to the Gamer,” Romulus interrupted in a quivering voice.

“Thank me that Romulus is such a good-hearted fellow,” Richard snickered once he reached John and had climbed up the Gamer’s arm. “How the hell can I convince them that Eliza is best left alive?” he asked the Horned Rat. He spared himself the ‘not a problem’ question since that was already clearly not the case.

The eyes of the court, filled with all kinds of fantastical beings and humans of all yokes of life, stared at him with judgemental eyes. It was pretty clear that they hadn’t liked what the uncut live-broadcast, according to information that Momo shared with him, had presented them. ‘Damn that Jeff fucker,’ John thought.

“Here is something you don’t seem to know about gods: When we die, the faith that makes up our power doesn’t just vanish. I am sure you can figure out the rest from here,” the Horned Rat giggled and scurried away as quickly as he had come.

Indeed, he could. “Do you think she couldn’t reform in another body? The goddess of genocide, I mean,” he presented his argument to the celestial judges; “Because if she can, you are better of with the enemy you know than the enemy you don’t.” “It could take aeons until the next god of this yolk forms,” Luna threw in.

“Yes, but Eliza has control!” John said; “Right now, she is in control, and I will do my best for her to stay in control. I will take the responsibility of teaching her, I swear to all deities in existence if I must!” He was putting all his eggs into one basket here, but he didn’t care. He would not fail to save Eliza again, no matter what name or horrible monsters she carried with her.

Sol and Luna looked to Romulus for judgement. “Eliza Newman is pardoned,” he finally said and with a flick of his fingers, the chains around her disappeared.

A storm of dissenting voices broke loose, crying for that judgement to be rethought. “She is a monster!” “Who knows what she will be capable off if left to realize her potential further!” “Why would you let the walking apocalypse live?” “Have you stopped caring for us, Romulus?” “Are we all just bugs to you?” “Why won’t you protect us?!”

“ENOUGH!” the voice of the emperor shook the very building and choked the air from the lungs of everyone else. They probably had more complaints, but the air to voice them just refused to move. “John Newman is right: she will reform because of atrocities man has committed in its wake. The longer it takes, the stronger she will be next time. We should be happy that it has ended with her only massacring those that opposed us,” the emperor finally turned.

Tears were streaming from his one intact eye, and he still hadn’t changed his toga. The simple piece of clothing was torn and damaged in numerous places, most obvious of which was the hole in his chest giving view to the hole in his heart.

Now the complaints finally ceased in earnest. “They attacked my city,” the heartless emperor spoke, “they threatened my people,” he looked with grief at all of them, “they killed my friend,” he reached once more for the thing that he had been standing in front of. John stood up and decided to see what it was.

It was a wooden casket, painted in a marvellous blue with a black eagle resting upon a white flag with black upper and lower borders. Behind it, a two-headed god of an eagle was sitting on a pole, picking at the wood like a dog that refused to leave its owners grave. Frederik, emperor of Rex Germaniae, had been killed during the invasion.

“They abducted his granddaughter,” now Romulus voice slowly rose into anger, “they tried to have me killed, my colosseum is ruined. Following the incident of Pompeii, I retreated into solitude to heal my damaged soul. I saw how well things worked even in my absence, so I chose to not intervene even when I had healed.

“I thought a new time had begun, one where I only had to act as a figurehead. When the extremists in my empire moved around, I let them go unhindered because they seemed to be of no concern. I was wrong, so wrong, and this girl down there had to pay the price in my stead. My friend had to pay the price in my stead! NO MORE!”

Everyone took a breath at once as the air unfroze and the emperor raised his fist into the air. He had been clenching it so hard that crimson rivers were running down his arm from between his fingers. “If the Blood of the Proletariat wants destruction, then destruction is what I shall bring onto them! Sons and daughters of Rome, my allies and my vassals. Subjects and friends. We will desolate them, we will get back Frederik’s granddaughter. Let us cast aside differences for just a few days, for that is all I will need to eliminate these maggots and their bases. To war!”

“”TO WAR!”" the hall shouted in unison, so loud that John imagined he could hear the city itself scream it.

Up next: Author’s Note.