The Gamer Chapter 1553 – Interruption (Patreon)

“Jesus,” John exclaimed when he saw the state of his ship.

There was a hole blown into the hull, about the size of a man, near his quarters. The corridors all around were marked with the dragging marks from Tiemarath, as well as other signs of violence. The gore, for the most part, had been frozen. Chunks of frozen flesh and blood were their own grotesque sight. That he wasn’t squeamish had been one of his first blessings as an Abyssal. Experiences since had steeled him fully against such sights. Aclysia gathering up shards of flash frozen brain matter with a dustpan was, all things considered, merely unusual.

John couldn’t even pretend his exclamation was about the corpses. Literal Nazi soldiers that had invaded his property with the goal of stealing from him and kidnapping his Hailey. The only reason he would have had to lament their death would have been because he didn’t have anyone to extract further intel from. In her haze, Aclysia had tried to spare only one of them, but a cyanide capsule had taken that option off the table.

That was annoying, but his worry was still due to the state of his ship. The paintjob of the floor was plainly worth more to him than the attacker’s lives. Callous? Absolutely. These people deserved disregard. They had made themselves the violent hand of a collectivist ideology. Any mercy he afforded them was a charity, not a duty.

“My deepest apologies, Master,” Aclysia spoke with genuine grief about her poor showing. While brushing blood crystals into a bin, she continued, “My mental and movement faculties were limited.”

‘That’s a way to put it,’ John thought. Videos of Aclysia prowling the pier for any signs of the last surviving assailant were already circulating. Her dishevelled state had ended only minutes after the Connection Static debuff had actually been gone. It had only worsened Aclysia’s already violent tendencies, not created them.

Since there was no way to keep this event under wraps, Romulus hadn’t even tried. The tournament had been put on halt for a few hours, to give everyone the time to partake in the investigations. The Sons of Rome were securing the perimeter, while Fusion was investigating the ship and combed the city. Allies and enemies alike were ceremoniously keeping their head out of this affair.

There were also words to be had at a later date between him and Romulus about Lee hijacking control over the Protected Space when the attack began. It had been planned internally, including dealing with the fallout, so John knew he had to make amends to the Apex. The Protected Space was on lockdown still. Romulus was understanding enough that he did not demand his people could leave. A number of gifts and reparations for inconveniences caused would have to make up for this.

“This didn’t go as bad as it could have gone,” the Gamer said and let out a long sigh. “The loss of the Rose stings though.”

“That they went through with it even though they had to know I was around…” Lee mumbled. “They have to have had some sort of extraction point that can cut through even my control. Some kind of locally powered beacon?”

“There’s no use in speculating how they got out, for now we have to find where they got out,” John answered. The elementals were already combing through both sea and land in an effort to find anything out of order. John gave them a miniscule chance of finding anything.

They may have underestimated Aclysia’s ability to overcome the Connection Static and Hailey’s own combat ability, but they would not have screwed up on covering their tracks. The Purest Front was, as an organization, the Abyss’ premiere covert operations expert. Them underestimating the Gamer’s combat strength was one thing, but screwing up on the thing they were best at was another.

There was, however, still a chance that they screwed it up. There was also a slim chance that this wasn’t the work of the Purest Front at all. The timing was too good for it not to be, but there was always a slim chance.

All they had right now were nine corpses, all of them various degrees of disfigured. The ship was damaged, but only on the surface level. Part of their cargo, dry food for the most part, had been destroyed via flash freezing. Beyond that, the only real loss was the Rose. Which, of course, was a massive loss. Considering that the whole operation was about it, even with nine people lost, Mengele could write this down as an overall victory.

Aclysia was obviously fine and so was Hailey. The enigma engineer had been a bit shaken by the sheer brutality of Aclysia’s behaviour. That had quickly settled, though. Aclysia (among other haremettes) going a bit crazy was not new to the country gal and she had seen enough blood and guts in her life in the countryside not to be too affected. It was the first time she had seen humans taken apart like this. Her will was stronger than the surprise, though. John had prepared her for this as best he could.

He was protecting them all as best he could. Short of locking them away from everything and everyone, protection still came with risks. Everyone knew that.

John’s fingers drummed on the wall. Momo, Delicia, Scarlett, Beatrice and Lorelei were inspecting the various bodies all over the ship. Expectedly, there was nothing to be found in terms of identifiers. Even the ethnic make-up of the assailants had been carefully chosen, coming from all over the globe, to give the Purest Front plausible deniability. John couldn’t believe he would ever find himself annoyed by Nazis that embraced racial ambiguity, but there he was, wishing they had stuck to the blonde and blue eyes archetype.

It was annoying that his enemies were competent.

‘With every minute that passes, the extraction point is more likely to trigger,’ the Gamer thought. Lee would feel it, and once she did, it was over. Finding people in the harbour was already unlikely, finding them in the actual cosmopolitan area of Rome was strictly impossible. They’d take a car to some neighbouring city, then get on a flight to some unrelated country, and that’d be that. The Sons of Rome could try to prevent this, but there were too many potential avenues to cover. Plus, for all the help Romulus had offered so far, locking down his entire empire over an item not even stolen from him was an unreasonable ask. ‘I could use some good news.’

“Knock, knock,” spoke the imperial tomboy and came around the corner.

Her appearance was unexpected twice over. Not even the Horned Rat was entering the crime scene. Openly, anyway, John had no doubt he had an eye on the situation. Whether the god of future calamity had known this would happen or not, he apparently chose to not get involved. Seeing Lu Zhi walk past the embargo when not even Fusion’s closest allies did was therefore a political move that put eyeballs on her. This was also the first time he had seen her today, period.

“I just thought I could use some good news,” John greeted her with a smile all the same. Being dour about all of this wouldn’t help him. “Although I will have to ask you to leave in a moment, for propriety reasons.”

“Well, well, but what if I have something for you?” Lu Zhi reached into the air. It rippled with the telltale sign of a personal dimensional pocket opening. She withdrew a deep blue sack, held closed by black string, and handed it over.

John had a hunch, but it was too absurd until it was confirmed. The Rose of Artifice lay within the little sack. He opened it just far enough for everyone to see. Immediately, the mood in the room and his mental network changed. ‘Keep looking for the extraction point, we may be able to catch some more rats,’ he instructed the elementals, while closing the sack up again. “Are you going to tell me how you came into possession of this?”

“I happened to be in the area,” the Heavenly Jade Empress gave an answer that had John blow the air mockingly out of his nose.

“You just were in the area, while an enemy used a previously unknown ability to bring about the perfect conditions for an attack on my ship?”

“Previously unknown to you,” the ruler of Asia responded plainly and extended a demanding hand. “The Mandate of Heaven will return your property with the proper ceremony. For now, we will continue to hold onto it.”

John considered for a few seconds, then sighed deeply. “I’ll play along, Heavenly Jade Empress,” he surrendered and placed the sack in her palm. “You’re too cute to deny.”

“It would be improper to be discourteous to us even if we were not adorable,” the sovereign answered with a smile and put the Rose of Artifice away again. “Of course, this act of favour will bring our nations closer, provided Fusion recompenses us in a manner befitting the graciousness of the Mandate’s people.”

“I will think of something. You wouldn’t happen to have the one carrying the object in your care as well?”

“Alfonse de Trastamare,” Lu Zhi gave him a name.

“The Cloak of Iberia?” John raised an eyebrow.

“It is good to hear that you are at least read up on these things, even if your spy network leaves much to be desired.”

“Fusion hasn’t had a lot of time to build the necessary connections for a spy network yet,” the Gamer defended himself. “I’m trying, believe me, but it’s not easy… Is that your answer then for how you knew this would happen?”

“In part. I’ve had spies inform me about movements and a certain powerful seer whispered to me a premonition regarding the ability of Karia. A friend of both of us, you know, the one with…” The imperial tomboy put her upper front teeth against the back of her lower lips and did some rat-like squeaks. “…and all of that.”

“…Any particular reason why you’re not saying who you mean while being clear on who you mean?”

“I’m just being cute about it.” Lu Zhi manifested her fan and hid her lips behind the jade. The green of her eyes shimmered with amusement, then subtly changed to give her a serious air. “It appears our proposal for the unification of our realms has been found out by the Horned Rat. For now he has enabled actions that support our wishes.” The fan folded up for a moment. “That’s the royal ‘our’. Unless…?” She gave him an alluring wink.

John would have warned her about how direct she was, but Nightingale was a large part of the lockdown. Information wouldn’t leak out from here. “We’re moving in a good direction,” he said warmly, only to change the topic back immediately. “This isn’t the time, though. So the Horned Rat is helping to push us together… I suppose I couldn’t convince you to annoy him by just giving me the Rose and the mercenary without the surrounding rituals?”

“We must refuse. The great conspirator has, as ever, aligned his interests well with ours. We stand  to gain nothing from denying him, besides denying him, and much to gain from playing along with his game.”

“Fusion and the Mandate grow closer, a counterforce to Romulus that grows ever stronger. The Purest Front is weakened. The Illuminati keep their hands clean of the affair, to weigh in however they want…” John did not like playing along with the Rat’s schemes, but like Lu Zhi he was bound by the simple reality of the situation. As the Horned Rat liked to say, John did not need to like him to recognize that their interests remained aligned.

Frightening was just that the god seemed to have some idea where their continued alignment was going. If the Gamer wasn’t careful, he may find that their lines did not run in parallel, but that the Horned Rat was ever so slightly pushing his trajectory in a certain direction by offering all of these points of least resistance.

“Maybe denying him just to deny him isn’t the worst idea,” he thought out loud.

“Would you want to create a world you hate just to say that you cannot be controlled?” the Heavenly Jade Empress asked. It was a genuine question. As a fellow ruler, one in charge of a society with many more expectations for her behaviour, she must have been asking herself the same question at times.

It was all too easy to have the contrarian instinct kick in and not do something just because it was expected that they did. They were rulers, who could stop them? The answer was bound in the fact of their position. They were rulers and good rulers were the kind of people that could stop themselves. Bad rulers were those that did not hold themselves accountable.

John would just have to keep a close eye on where the Horned Rat was expecting him to go and whether, after a hundred steps, he hadn’t strayed off the path he had first walked. “I wouldn’t want to create a world I hate,” he answered, “but I don’t know if I can create a world I love if I’m not free.”

“A good answer. I’ll think about that.” Lu Zhi turned her wrist and the folded fan disappeared. “If you would, please inform Romulus about this happenstance. We humbly advise that you seek a public trial with the leadership of all ten members of the Divided Gates present. A swift and eventful affair. We will transfer the item and prisoner at the appropriate juncture.”

“The return gift?” John asked.

“A pledge for such will suffice. We are leaving further negotiations to my prime minister, Xi Pang.” Lu Zhi’s smile turned apologetic. “I’ve been putting the man in his place a lot these past few days, so I’ll be using this affair to appease him. Do please show him a good level of respect. And I mean actual respect.” The imperial tomboy made a few tossing gestures. “Not the kind of respect you might think he deserves. I need him happy. If I go home and he’s throwing a tantrum, that’ll be so annoying.”

John was of half a mind to push that job onto someone else, but the only two other people high enough in rank to lead such negotiations would have been Momo and Beatrice. Somehow, between those two and himself, he saw himself as the best party to do friendly negotiations with someone insufferable.

“I’ll oblige… do these negotiations include the transferral of the west coast?”

“Let’s keep that can of worms under wraps still,” the Heavenly Jade Empress answered. “This will be a good starting point to engage in the kind of friendliness that then flows into that particular exchange.”

“Savvy,” John complimented.

“Of course.” Lu Zhi got on her toes and the two of them exchanged a quick kiss. The ruler of Asia let out a girly little giggle. “With that, I shall take my leave. For propriety reasons.”

John let her have the last word. He only watched her leave with ever-growing infatuation.

That woman was too dangerous to be left unloved.