Arcane: The Gods Want Me to Pick a Route-Chapter 151: The First Lands—Ionia (EC)

In Zaun’s council building, Silco signed his name on a sheet of paper, then handed it to Renata.

"Submit this to the council. File it for approval by the other councilors. By evening, I want confirmation that everyone’s signed off."

Renata took it, expression blank, and turned to leave. By now she’d fully gotten used to the secretary work.

They’d agreed she’d become an official—but two years later, she was still doing Silco’s secretary duties. If she weren’t also getting hands-on exposure to finance and foreign affairs, she really would’ve raised hell.

Dangling promises didn’t come this cheap, right?

But... Renata didn’t really have a choice.

If she was being honest, working at Silco’s side was still a good thing for her. Among Zaun’s councilors, Silco held the most power after Janna—something even Logan couldn’t beat.

Logan might be called the number-one councilor, but in practice he was basically a mascot. Not that Logan had no power—if anything, his authority was enormous, because Silco was the one working for him. It was just that... Logan was way too laid-back.

After all, no one even knew where he’d run off to have fun this time.

"Spend too long with Jinx, and you turn into a little lunatic too?" Silco muttered after Renata left, rubbing his brow in disbelief—then he chuckled.

On their third day away from Zaun, they’d already started causing trouble. The very first thing they did was have Zaun sponsor a... female pirate?

Silco had heard of Sarah’s reputation. A while back, a group of Bilgewater people had approached him with a proposal: cooperate with them and get rid of Sarah. They claimed she’d been intercepting a lot of the goods being shipped to Zaun, and that she was "destroying the friendship" between Zaun and Bilgewater.

Silco hadn’t even bothered responding.

That harmed Bilgewater’s interests, not Zaun’s. You bring however much cargo you bring, Zaun pays the agreed price. If your cargo gets robbed on the way... what did that have to do with Zaun?

Besides, Zaun didn’t need Bilgewater’s friendship in the first place. Silco was a cold, practical man. Once Jinx was no longer his weakness, anyone and anything could become a stepping stone for Zaun—including the Bilgewater people who’d once helped him.

But now he was signing this agreement anyway, because it was an order from Zaun’s ruler.

If Logan was out there and couldn’t even decide something like this, then it wouldn’t just be Logan losing face—Zaun would lose face with him.

"Third day already..." Silco shook his head and sighed, not knowing when he’d see his daughter again after this trip.

— — —

In Bilgewater, Sarah received a reply on the morning of the third day after she’d sent her people out.

Zaun agreed to sponsor her—and they’d already shipped over the first batch of weapons and resources.

At one corner of the Slaughter Docks, Sarah stood with a huge crowd, eyes shining as crate after crate was hauled down from a massive ship. She climbed aboard and stared at weapons she didn’t even know how to use, along with a shipload of food, booze, and money. Excitement surged through her—color blooming in her seductive face, her teeth clenched as her whole body trembled.

To be honest, she’d expected Zaun to send cash, food, even Shimmer liquor and potions.

But she never expected Zaun to send weapons too.

Weapons were worth far more than money.

"And he said Zaun isn’t rich," Sarah hissed, half-laughing from sheer disbelief. "This is what ’not rich’ looks like? And this is only the first shipment!"

Rafen, hearing her, grabbed a gun and fired out at the sea. The muzzle jumped—one bullet snapped into the water.

He tried to fire again.

No bolt. No cycling. Just pull and shoot.

In Bilgewater, this counted as high-tech.

Most firearms on the island still needed powder packed in and a bolt worked by hand.

"Captain! There are two cannons here too!"

"What kind of cannons?" Sarah shot back instantly.

Two of her men came over, practically bouncing with excitement, hauling the pieces along. One look and Sarah recognized them—Zaun cannons. They looked like older models, dust already settled on the metal. But even old Zaun tech had to be better than Bilgewater’s cannons.

Bilgewater’s "cannons" were usually scrap iron welded together, an iron ball shoved in, and that was that.

Explosions?

Bilgewater hadn’t climbed that branch of the tech tree.

So Sarah strutted up to the two cannons, hands on her hips. Both were black, the barrels long—about five feet—narrow-bored, with an instruction sheet beside them and a stack of boxes filled with shells.

She handed the manual to Rafen. After one glance, he started issuing orders and working the setup immediately.

"First, add Shimmer potion as the power source. Then load the shells—up to three at a time. Then ignite."

He followed the instructions, directing people as he went.

At Rafen’s shout of "Ignite," the cannon boomed—loud enough that Sarah reflexively clapped her hands over her ears. She watched the shell punch out through smoke, carving a perfect arc through the air.

It flew a full kilometer before splashing down.

"This power, this speed, this range... f*cking beautiful," Rafen breathed, unable to stop himself.

Bilgewater sea battles used cannons mostly to intimidate. Their iron-ball guns had such terrible range and accuracy—thanks to the weight—that they often couldn’t hit anything beyond a few hundred meters.

But this cannon...

It reached absurdly far.

As Rafen was thinking that, the distant sea suddenly erupted—spray blasting upward, followed by flames flaring across the surface.

The water was on fire.

On the Slaughter Docks, it wasn’t just Sarah’s people. A whole crowd of Bilgewater locals saw it too—mouths hanging open, eyes wide, staring like they’d forgotten how to breathe.

Miss Fortune was already terrifying: clever, decisive, fearless. In two years, she’d built a force that could stand with any of Bilgewater’s big names.

But she’d always had one weakness.

She was poor—so poor that many of her people still relied on blades.

Now it looked like even that weakness had been erased.

Sarah stood there stunned. She’d never imagined the shells would explode—let alone explode and then ignite the sea.

If that hit another ship... a ship made of wood...

She didn’t know it was because Shimmer burned so easily, making it an excellent fuel.

And as for explosions—hah. This kind of bomb had been something Jinx figured out when she was fifteen. Exploding was the whole point.

If it didn’t explode, that would’ve been the weird part.

The funniest part was this: the cannon that just shattered Sarah’s understanding of the world had actually been dug out of a dusty corner of Zaun’s warehouse by Silco.

It was obsolete by Zaun standards.

A weapon Zaunites didn’t even bother using anymore.

Staring at the two cannons, Sarah murmured, "Logan... Jinx... just how strong is Zaun now?"

"You can give away weapons like this?"

Then she turned, radiating confidence, her smile bright as sunlight.

"Load every weapon onto our ships!"

"Everyone gets to pick a weapon they like!"

After giving the order, Sarah looked toward Ionia.

Logan and Jinx had left Bilgewater the day before yesterday. Sarah hadn’t tried to stop them. Now, gazing in Ionia’s direction, she smiled to herself and thought:

"Now I’m even more confident I can make it to your wedding."

"Friends—see you next year."

Half a month passed in a blink.

During that time, word of mouth spread through Bilgewater, and Sarah became both the most powerful and the most dangerous person on the island.

Because those two cannons—mounted on her ship and guarded at all hours—were an enormous threat to every "important figure" in Bilgewater.

People said the range was several kilometers. Dock workers swore they’d seen shells land a full kilometer out, explode, and set the sea ablaze. And Bilgewater’s highest points—were they even a kilometer high?

Obviously not. Even stacking the Upper City and Undercity together only reached a few hundred meters. For an island, that was already a miracle.

But now, the big shots didn’t feel like it was enough—because it meant they were well within Miss Fortune’s striking distance.

No one wanted to fall asleep at night, hear one thunderous boom, and die without ever knowing why. Their sleep quality didn’t need to be that good.

So once news of Sarah’s new weapons spread, people who’d tried to assassinate her—and the enemies who had grudges against her—quietly packed up and left Bilgewater.

Just like Gangplank had been "driven out."

Tonight, the sea wind carried cold and the reeking stink of fish, rolling over all of Bilgewater—so strong that even the heights of the Upper City could smell it.

In the island’s uneasy silence, a single command rang out somewhere:

"Move!"

Firelight flared in the Upper City—on Gangplank’s turf.

Even though he’d left Bilgewater, plenty of his operations and men were still here.

These days they’d been "well-behaved," sure.

But being well-behaved didn’t mean a certain beautiful lady would spare them.

Sarah felt zero guilt about killing Gangplank’s people. If anything, it felt satisfying.

"Bang—!"

On a long sloped ramp cobbled together from broken bridge boards and splintered timber, Rafen fired from hundreds of meters away, the shot cleanly dropping a man in a bunker who’d been holding a flintlock.

"And that f*cker calls himself a sharpshooter?" Rafen grinned, then threw his hand forward. "Masks on—push into Gangplank’s blockhouse!"

"Yes!"

Sarah was in the crowd too, two pistols in her hands. She wore an overcoat and a captain’s hat, and her smile was all cold edges as she gave the order:

"Wipe them out. Every last one of Gangplank’s dogs."

"He looked down on the Lanes, called it a kennel, didn’t he? Fine."

"When he comes back, the only place he’ll have left to crawl into is that kennel in the Undercity."

With Sarah’s command, her people surged forward, weapons raised, climbing toward the heights.

— — —

The First Lands—Ionia.

This eastern island continent overflowed with natural beauty and primal magic. Its people lived scattered across many provinces, taking life as it came. Peace was in Ionians’ nature.

But ever since Noxus brought war to Ionia, everything changed.

In the southern regions scarred by the fighting, rage twisted old beliefs. Violence began taking root in that once-gentle land—much like the polluted environment the war left behind.

Bondweave Village—one small village on Navori—was among the rare southern settlements that hadn’t vanished during the Noxian-Ionian war. It wasn’t big, only a little over a hundred residents, but it was still a village filled with all kinds of people.

Ionians who’d returned after the war.

Vastaya who, driven from their tribes, had entered human society.

And Noxians left behind in Ionia—people who’d failed to make it back home.

In the afternoon sunlight, a furry little head poked out from a wooden window, peeking down at a woman standing outside.

He had a pretty, deep pink hair color—leaning red, but not quite as bright in the sun. A pair of chubby animal ears stood out, tucked tight against his hair. He stared with big eyes, looking stubbornly annoyed.

Outside stood a woman with smooth gray-white hair that fell to her waist. She wasn’t tall—around five-foot-three—but her figure was striking. Dressed in simple flax-colored cloth, she looked up at the window with a gentle expression.

"Sett, come down. It’s time. You need to deliver this to the repair shop owner."

"But Mom, I don’t want to go!" Sett shouted back.

At his age—around ten—he was in the phase where he hated social niceties, and besides... he didn’t have any goodwill toward Ionians in the first place.

Sett was young, but he understood plenty. The people here weren’t good.

Kids his age bullied him because he didn’t look like them. Other women ostracized his mother—because even though she had huge claws, she was breathtakingly beautiful. Men would throw flirtatious looks at her, and then the chattering women would whisper behind her back and accuse her of this or that.

Sett hated all of it.

"Be good, Sett. I told you—you’re going to Piltover for college someday. The repair shop owner has the kind of knowledge you need. You have to learn from her while you can."

"Mom... she—she’s really dangerous," Sett said, his little face scrunching up in worry.

Bondweave Village’s repair shop had opened not long ago. The owners were a young couple: the husband gentle and handsome, the wife pretty and cute.

But Sett knew it was an act.

Because it was the only repair shop in the village—and because the owner’s craftsmanship was incredible, while her husband was polite and easygoing—the villagers accepted them and let them set up on the far end of the village. Not in the center, not because the villagers were stingy, but because the sound of forging would’ve been too loud.

It was precisely because the woman’s skills were so good—and because she knew all sorts of strange, unfamiliar things—that Sett’s mother kept sending him there. She wanted him to absorb knowledge early, build a foundation, and prepare for getting into Piltover University someday.

But... university?

Me?

Sett felt a headache coming on.

Still, when he saw his mother’s eyes lower and her head dip slightly, Sett panicked.

"Fine, fine! I’ll go, okay? I’ll go!"

"Seriously..."

He barked the word at her, then vanished from the window. A rapid patter of footsteps followed.

A moment later, Sett—just over five feet tall—stood beside his mother, face full of gloom.

"Give it to me. I’ll go."

"That’s my boy." His mother smiled softly. "You have to be good, Sett. This opportunity is rare. I want you to live in Piltover someday—to have a better environment."

"I know... I’ll go." Sett sighed.

"But Mom... you really don’t know..." He couldn’t finish, because he knew that even if he said it, she wouldn’t believe him.

But the truth was—

That repair shop’s owner really, really was terrifying.

//Check out my P@tre0n for 10 extra free Chapters //[email protected]/Razeil0810