Arcanist In Another World-Chapter 77: New Era

“The Davenport Family… I remember that case,” Saah muttered. “The husband died without an apparent reason, body found floating in the Dark Sea by Belgrave’s Eastern Port. Not a single wound. Not even a sign that there had been a struggle before his death. The Priests of the Sun’s Church thought it was the shadows. Fools. If they had asked Caligians for help, they could’ve at least seen the forensic report on that case.”

“They don’t appreciate the experts in our field,” Baht chuckled. “That, I should know.”

“Countess inherited more than half of the Brackley Company,” Vireth nodded. “A lucky woman, that one, as none of her sons were of age to become a part of the inheritance.”

That's... interesting.

Valens leaned back on the throne as he let the members figure out the details for him. Though, he had to admit he didn’t expect such a connection between Selin’s attempt at Countess Margarette’s life and the summoning of the Weeping Horror. Captain Edric had told him there were enough Wailborn cases every year in Melton that Selin’s situation wasn’t considered an abnormality.

But what’s the angle here? Say Selin had been successful. Say the Templars were late, and the Countess and her sons died in their mansion. What, then? Was someone trying to take the company? A rival, is that it?

If that was the case, then that someone missed a crucial detail in their plan since the Templars got wind of the matter and interfered with the process.

And how did they do that, exactly? The Countess’ mansion was close to the Duality Guild’s Rift. That’s the only reason why the Templars chanced their way to the Necromancer’s Rift. They had already captured Selin before we came across each other, and that’s what, nearly a month’s worth of travel from the capital?

By that logic, the Templars had received the call for help around a month ago.

That… can’t be a coincidence, right?

Valens swallowed as he considered the timeline, but there was no mistaking it. That aligned perfectly with the time he arrived in this world and found himself stuck in that Rift.

I thought strange things began happening after I got my Trial, but if I’m right on this, they’ve been in motion since the time I set foot in this world. Maybe even before that.

If anything, his Trial seemed to have only further increased the number of strange happenings around Melton.

Master told me that I’ll find my true self in this world… Is this it? My true self? A harbinger of chaos who triggered something sinister with his arrival? Is that why my First Trial is a complicated mess of a riddle that concerns not just me, but the whole capital of a Kingdom? That shouldn’t have been the case, right? This is, after all, only my first damned trial.

Valens felt a shiver down his back as he embraced the Apathy. He’d thought he was done relying on this ability for the sake of becoming his own man in this world, but this experience showed him that it still had its uses.

Used in moderation, that is.

“But the Sir told us the Evercrest Family summoned the Weeping Horror,” the other woman in the group chimed in. Valens smiled mentally at her in gratitude. Good. A brainstorming session demanded not a singular mind, but a group of intellectuals who could exchange and, when needed, follow different lines of thought to find the crux of a problem.

I do have my doubts, but I don’t think a terrifying existence like the Weeping Horror would try to deceive me in its last moments. It was the Terror itself that got deceived by that Evercrest… Oh, I should tell that too.

“The Terror…” Valens paused for effect, waiting for all eyes to turn to him. “It was deceived by the Evercrest. It was waiting for its Mistress.”

“The Veiled Mother?” Saah raised his head. “That Remnant Terror thought the Mother of Venerable Fates herself would welcome it in Haven’s Reach? That’s…”

“Exactly the thing you would offer to a creature obsessed with the Veiled Mother if you were to try and strike a deal with it,” Vireth squinted her eyes and clasped her hands together. “After all, the Weeping Sea in the Broken Lands is nothing but the tears spilled by the Veiled Mother at the end of the Ancient Era. The Weeping Horror was born from those tears.”

This woman is quite knowledgeable about matters related to the Mother of Venerable Fates.

“The Endless Mist and the Evercrest Family,” Saah muttered, gazing slowly at Valens. “If Sir wants it, I can look into them.”

“As I’ve said, I too will further investigate these happenings,” Vireth nodded, and added proudly, “With my connections, it shouldn’t take much time to come up with something.”

Good. I can use any help to get a sense of this Trial.

“If I may dare to speak of a certain topic which I’m sure all of us have wondered at some point in our lives when we chanced our way into this assembly,” said another voice, this one coming from a man with a long face whose sideburns, coupled with his sharp teeth, made him look like a wolf.

He was careful with his manners, fixing each group member with a stare before turning reverently to Valens. “Honorable Sir, what is the purpose of the Midnight Assembly? I have had the great pleasure of attending various meetings of different societies in Spiritum before, but for decades, I had not come across anything like this one that pulls you in without prior notice. Up until now, we used it as a mere space for exchanging information or trading certain rare valuables, but now that we are blessed with your Ancient presence, I wonder if we should expect instructions, or a mission that includes your most profound plans concerning the future?”

Valens could feel the expectation brimming behind those faces as the members stared at him. What truly was the purpose of this meeting?

That’s a good question, a polite way to ask someone ‘What’s in there for me?’ Well, for now, I’m afraid nothing. But you don’t have to be aware of that.

He could probably get away with demanding information on certain topics, but he was doubtful whether he could force these people to work for him without giving anything in return. Not only that, he didn’t know what each of these members was capable of. If he were to pull them close to himself in the Haven’s Reach, he would be risking his real identity.

I’ve been called a genius before, and have earned my Archmagus mantle at an early age, but this is a different world, and I certainly doubt a Pretrial Arcane Healer would justify the moniker of Arcanist and an Ancient One for these people.

So then, discretion was important, but if he could do it, he wanted to make these meetings a regular thing. He didn’t want to miss the chance of belonging to a secret order that included people from different walks of life. They could be useful in the future.

“You can continue as it is,” Valens decided to say. If these people kept attending the assembly, then they must’ve seen merit in doing that. He didn’t have to provide anything else. Not now, at least. “But do keep an eye on the matters related to the Mother of Venerable Fates and the Evercrest Family.”

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The members stared at each other. That man with sideburns looked conflicted for a second, but the moment Vireth giggled in excitement, the heavy air retreated from the hall.

“As you wish,” they said at the same time.

“Continue,” Valens nodded.

“So that game…” Baht said, looking at Vireth. As expected, he was the first one to gather enough courage to move on. “How long will you keep playing it? Isn’t it too risky?”

“Says the man who nearly staged a coup for his Trial,” Vireth scoffed at him. “I have my reasons, and we made it clear that we would leave personal matters out of discussion in Midnight Assembly.”

“What is your plan now, Baht?” Saah chimed in after taking a glance at Valens. He seemed hesitant to continue, but Valens remained silent, which served as an acknowledgment of sorts that he could go on. “You’ve passed your Fourth Trial… A Vital Architect of the Healer’s Path... I know a few Caligian Guilds that would do anything to recruit you into their ranks.”

“I once dreamt of becoming a gear in the machinations of Caligians in my lifetime, but I’m afraid that time has long passed. I will gather my men. So long as there are eyes in our world that refuse to see the truth, my mission remains unfulfilled,” Baht said deeply, and glanced at Valens. “The deed must be done. The end is near.”

That’s quite the ominous tone you’re going for as a Healer. Is that supposed to be a message for me?

“I wish you good luck. Perhaps this time, you will heed the warnings of your fellow members and use your brain rather than thinking a single man can challenge the old beliefs all by himself,” Vireth said, waving a hand at the young man who sat close to her. “And I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but with the Sir’s return, we now have two new members.”

Valens squinted at the young man who stooped under the heavy gazes of the members. Golden hair cut short, he had a pair of curious eyes peering wide open around the table. Valens didn’t blame him. Without the Apathy, he would have just as hard a time as he did to accept whatever this was.

“A Pretrial Mage. His name is Ansel, or that’s the name he uses here,” Vireth smiled, and the young man stooped further under her dagger-like stare. “We are not used to entertaining hopeful kids, but I’d say it has been a welcome change. Just like any Caligian, he’s full of ambition. I’m pretty sure prior to Sir’s arrival, he meant to ask you about your healing skills.”

“Ah…” the young man mumbled. “Oh—“ he sputtered. “Yes,” he finally managed to prop himself just enough to display a passable expression on his face. “It’s an honour, Mr. Baht, to meet with such a famous person like you.”

“He means the most famous heretic of the New Age,” Vireth giggled.

“Hah… Hahahah,” the young man laughed nervously while Baht’s face remained empty. “I suppose it’s true. The Divine Orders don’t have a strong presence here in Caligi, but we still hear words from other Kingdoms about such matters. The Academy likes to present truths without prior filtering to the students, even if the Churches have already shrouded most knowledge.”

“The Caligian Academy of Magical Craft, is it?” Baht arched an eyebrow. “That’s not a place where anyone can enter. They accept the cream of the crop, and even then, most of the students fail after their first year.”

“You didn’t think we would entertain average people in this assembly, did you?” Vireth laughed. “He’s a genius.”

“All of us are crooked and broken in one way or another,” Saah commented. “This kid, though, is still pure.”

Baht nodded. He seemed intrigued, to say the least, but Valens knew that expression. Here was a man who was happy to finally move on from the matters of the past. Here was a man who had painful memories haunting him, and he was more than ready to talk about anything else.

“What do you know about the Healer’s Path?” Baht asked.

“I know it was one of the nine main Class Paths of the System when the world was whole,” Ansel answered quickly. “I know that after the breakings and the Carving of the Haven’s Reach, it was purposefully excluded by the Divine Orders in favor of their Divine Class Paths. Just as they tried to do with the Mages and other Classes, they tried to replace the Healers with their own chosen Priests.”

“And why did they do that?” Baht smiled.

“Because of the Divine Oaths,” Ansel replied dutifully, "Unlike their own members, the Divine Orders had no control over the rest of the population by virtue of their Gods. That’s why they sought monopoly over them as a way to ensure their loyalty would remain eternally absolute. After all, once you give a Divine Oath, you can’t turn back from it.”

“Not bad,” Baht praised him. “But I might’ve exaggerated the Caligian Academy if this is the particular timeline of the entire matter they’re teaching the young minds.”

“I’m only in my second year—“

“It doesn’t matter if you’re in your second year or last,” Baht shook his head. “What matters is that the initial truths those teachers in the Academy gave you were only half-truths, if you even call them truths, that is. The Divine Orders didn’t seek to control the whole population. It wasn’t their purpose to make a united nation of slaves out of humanity. They had no other choice but to do it, because they were against a strong opposition.”

“The Forsaken,” Saah muttered.

Vireth snapped suddenly at him, “You mind your words, Saah! Forsaken is the derogatory term—“

Valens raised a hand at them, which proved enough to silence the table. Saah lowered his chin in shame, shivering slightly when they locked eyes with Valens.

Continue, if you will. This isn’t the time to quarrel over certain naming conventions of this world.

“Right,” Baht said after a long silence. “With the waking of the Ancients, the Ancient Era had begun. They represented a whole other facet of the System. Special classes and different legacies; untrodden paths of a time before humanity even existed. Each one of them reached out to the humans. They saw us as empty canvases they could shape to their own satisfaction. We were the perfect ingredients for their depthless imagination. We were new toys for them to play with. But most important of all, we had an endless potential in our hearts.”

Valens listened with rapt attention, barely breathing, barely blinking as he drank in the information. It didn’t surprise him that this was all coming from Baht, of all the members. The man… knew things. More than himself, no doubt.

“Potential?” Ansel’s eyes widened. “I’m sorry, but considering the sheer magnitude of the Broken Lands and the unspeakable horrors that live there, I’m not sure what sort of potential those entities saw in humans. Couldn’t they have chosen the dwellers? Terrors like Weeping Horror—“

“What do you think a Terror even is, young Mage?” Baht said gravely. “What do you think makes a dweller? Do you suppose they are a different race of creatures who breed like us in the dead acres of the Broken Lands?”

He breathed in a deep sigh, and when he continued, his voice was heavier than the air across the hall. “No, the dwellers of the Tainted Father do not live in the sense that you think they do. Some of them are intelligent, perhaps even more so than the forerunners of our civilization, but most are just lost souls wandering across the nothingness, searching mindlessly for a spark to reignite the virtues they once had, the personalities or the people they had once been before the Shadow took them in.”

“T-They are humans?!” Ansel’s voice trembled.

“Surprise!” Vireth giggled as she snapped her fingers. “The worst enemy of humankind is, you guessed it right, none other than humankind itself! We don’t name names here, of course. Who knows what sorts of promises allured them in the Ancient Era! To become a Divine like the Blessed Father of the Sun’s Church… I, for one, am unsure if I could’ve refused such a promise if it were presented to me in a shiny case.”

“The Blessed Father isn’t a false God,” Saah said sharply. “He’s a true Divine.”

“You are free to believe otherwise,” Baht said. “But after a lifetime of banging heads with the Divine Orders, I can certainly say that they were just memories of a distant past now. They don’t have half the strength they did in the Ancient Era. The Surgemasters… Well, it wasn’t only the Forsaken they splintered into pieces before they decided to end that era to make way for humanity once again.”

“The New Era,” the other woman of the group sneaked a glance at Valens. “It was supposed to belong to us.”

I’m afraid it looks like that isn’t the case anymore.

The fog across the hall churned. Something pulled at Valens’s core. When he blinked, the chairs around the table and the throne underneath his body wavered as though reflections of a mirror.

I’m losing the feeling… I suppose our time is limited here.

“It’s time,” Vireth said.

“Until next Friday…” Baht muttered, bowing his head slightly.

“With your permission.” With his example, the other members paid their respects to Valens as well.

“Mm,” Valens decided to say as an end note.

The things he’d learned today… he would need some time to digest them, but still, that was quite the experience. Pity that he didn’t have the time to ask different questions. Those would have to wait until next Friday, but as of now, he had at least something to work with.

Tomorrow is my first day in the Golden Ward. This Lady Margarette… I don’t know how, but this matter is definitely tied to that woman.

There was only one way to learn, and as fate had it, this wouldn’t be the first time Valens trailed the clues to find the culprit. After all, he’d been a part of such cases back in the Empire, as even the Inquisition admitted having a Resonant Healer who could see the memories of people had its uses.

Then the thick shroud of fog covered all the faces of the members one by one. Valens remained alone upon the throne, peering at the wavering illusion of the castle before his eyes, until he too was swallowed by the shroud.

…..