Chapter 128: Opening Salvo (2/2)
Vainqueur snorted as he returned to his Monster Poker party, wondering who could possibly try to spy on him right now.
Wow, crisis averted! And for once, Victor didn’t have to play mediator.
The Vizier found it rather relieving, standing on the roof of a house while still invisible. Although he would remain incognito until the festivities ended, he allowed himself a moment of rest.
Scrying attempt negated by [Mini-Circlet against Greater Divinations].
Goddammit, had Grandrake taken levels in a divination-oriented spellcasting class?
Speaking of spellcasting, now that he had access to Tier IX, there was a spell he had been dying to try out for a long while.
“[Za Warudo]!”
Time stopped.
To Victor, the world appeared covered by a purple lens, muting every color. Sound abruptly vanished, people stopped moving, and Vainqueur never finished playing his card.
“Nice,” Victor said. “I could cast a few spells in the—”
Time resumed, the world returning to normal.
Victor hung to his scythe in disappointment. The spell actually lasted ten seconds, instead of stretching much longer.
“Vic! Vic!”
Kia’s voice calling him from below. Victor looked down, to find his [Paladin] friend below, drunk, bloodied, and looking like a mess. “Wait, you can see me?”
“I could hear you scream your spell’s name, dummy!” she replied clearly drunk as Happyland. With strength and skill he wouldn’t expect from someone in her state, the knight quickly climbed the house to join him. She extended her hand, touching his face. “Here you are!”
“That’s my nos—” Victor complained before she accidentally put her finger in his eye. “Hey!”
“Sorry!” Kia apologized, sitting next to him while managing to grab his shoulder. “Why are you hiding from me?”
“I’m not hiding from you, I’m hiding from everyone,” he replied. “I just wanted some quiet.”
“Quiet is for people who don’t have fun!” Well, her current state broke the picture of a perfect Paladin she usually projected, but at least she seemed to enjoy herself. “Vic, I, I got the level! I got the level and I can taste the beer! Punched that minotaur and that giant squid to kingdom come, it did the trick!”
“That’s great,” he replied, although he worried about her hangover. “Just don’t insult Seng again.”
“I knew who she was deep down, but I hated it!” Kia blurted out, putting an arm around his shoulder. It reminded him of his old university parties when his fellows ended up so drunk that they started rambling random shit at him. “I hated it because when I looked at Seng, I saw myself!”
Realizing that she would drunkenly confess him all her sins—and not leave him alone—Victor sighed and patted her on the back. “It’s okay, Kia. It’s okay.”
“Vic, I’m just saying, I, I know one day we’re going to fight, and it’s going to be glorious, but I’ll be sad too. Because I’m having fun hanging out with you and Vainquy? Can I call him Vainquy?”
“No, you can't, and I don’t want to fight you.”
“Vic, you’re my Sasuke,” she told him with what could pass for a straight face. “I’m Naruto, and you’re going to be my Sasuke. We’re going to fight and then I will beat you, then you will be redeemed.”
What the Happyland? Was that how she felt deep down? “Beating up someone into agreeing with you is not redemption,” he protested, ”That’s bullying!”
“I was afraid when my boyfriend drove our car into a car too,” she replied, apparently not really listening to him. “But I kept thinking, and I realized it was not a car, but a truck. Did he drive into the truck, or did the truck attack us? Now I know the truth, Vic. I know the truth.”
“That trucks are out to kill us?” Victor joked. He remembered Allison mentioning that one of them had killed her under embarrassing circumstances, sending her to Outremonde.
“Not trucks, Vic!” Kia replied, her eyes so feverish that she looked possessed. “The truck! It’s always the same truck! It’s a conspiracy-driven truck that sends people to other worlds! I kept warning Kevin, but he never believed me!”
Victor chuckled.
But doubt crept into his heart, so he tried to remember how he died.
He had been shanked in an alley trying to protect a girl from being mugged, that was certain. However, Victor struggled to make sense of the memories that followed; people gathering around his body as he bled to death while half-delirious; the sound of an ambulance carrying him away to the hospital; the feeling of a deadly crash sending his body flying, and headlights rushing at him to—
…
“We were all killed by the same truck?” he shouted, causing a few people to look up at the roof. Since only Kia was visible, they probably thought that she had lost her mind.
“It’s Truck-kun,” Kia blurted out. “It’s a serial killer car, Vic. A serial killer car!”
Thing is, at this point in his life, it wouldn’t surprise Victor much. “Still, I’m not going to fight you,” he replied. “I’m not a saint, I admit it, but can’t I just confess my sins to you and then get right back at it, like a civilized person?”
“That’s not the [Paladin] way,” she replied. “I would love to have an on-and-off switch though. Not the good part, the lawful one.”
“Isn’t there a flexible good class equivalent?” Victor suggested. “Then again, so far, Mithras hasn’t punished you for associating with us.”
“Yeah, I asked him. He considers you guys a necessary evil, and since it makes me happy he’s giving me some leeway. He’s horribly blunt, but he’s pretty nice. You know Gardemagne wants to help against Prydain?”
“Really?” Victor’s head perked up. “How do you know that?”
“Kevin sent me a message. Mithras wants a new crusade, and King Roland wants to stop the Wild Hunts.” She put a hand on her face, before regaining her bearing. “We really need that [Plot Armor] Vic. We need it extra thick.”
“We’ll tackle the dungeon contest when we have the time,” he promised, letting out a yawn. “Damn, I want to sleep. Today was exhausting.”
“Huh?” Kia said with a frown, “I got a screen. Somebody tried to scry me.”
“Somebody is trying to scry on the both of us?” Victor realized. Who could—
Intelligence check successful.
The fomors. It could only be the fomors, but why? Why did they want to know their location?
“Hey, look!” Kia pointed at the sky. “There’s a new star up there!”
The Vizier glanced above him, watching a greenish, fiery falling star making its way from the west.
“What the Happyland is this?” Victor wondered as the star seemed to get closer and closer, aiming for Vainqueur’s castle on Mount Murmurin. They weren't the only ones to notice this phenomenon. Wotan and Grandrake, who oversaw a fight between a Valkyrie and a kobold, both glanced up at it; the fomor seemingly more bothered than the wyrm. Even Vainqueur interrupted his victory dance over his latest card battle to look up.
Luck check—
“Vic, get down!” Kia screamed while forcing his face against the roof, her reflexes taking over. The shining star hit the north side of the mountain, the one opposite of Murmurin.
The flash that followed was blinding.
The earth shook, a brutal shockwave spread through the air, and the city's windows all exploded at once. To Vic, it seemed that the entire country trembled. Minions screamed at the sudden explosion, although the mountain protected the city from the blast; even Vainqueur was shaken by the mighty explosion, although he hung on. Wotan looked at the impact point with a shocked face, his lone eye widening in surprise.
Victor himself could only watch in terror, as the night sky turned ablaze.
A gigantic, mushroom-shaped mass of fire erupted behind Mount Murmurin, a dire warning of things to come.