WIEDERGEBURT Act II: Chapter 41

A meeting had been called by the Council of Six Sects—the leading body in Midgard. While it was called the Council of Six Sects, the name referred to how it was led by the six largest sects in the Northern Plains. The council meeting required all sects that were considered mid-level and up, in other words, sects that had over 100 members, to attend.

Located within the largest tower, the one belonging to the Midgard Spiritual Knights, nearly two hundred people sat in attendance at the various seats within the large hall. Most of the seating was tertiary. There were a row of tables located on a rising platform, with each row being located on a lower step than the one behind it. I was seated somewhere in the middle. Kari would normally be with me during these meetings, but someone had to take care of Kayli now… and I lost at rock, paper, scissors.

A circular table sat below the majority seating. That was where the large to mid-level sects sat. The table at the bottom was reserved for the six most powerful sects plus the Midgard Spiritual Knights. Currently, all seven seats were filled.

I felt a lot like a single fish being crushed by an entire school of fish. The seats weren’t cramped, and I did have some leg and arm room to move about, but there were so many people, and the room was so stuffy. Sweat was already pouring down my neck and causing my clothes to stick to my skin. If there was one thing that I disliked about becoming a sect leader, it was attending these blasted meetings.

However, I couldn’t afford not to attend, especially today.

Today’s meeting was important.

“The Sekbeists have been ravaging our land, butchering our people, and leaving nothing but destruction in their wake,” an older gentleman with a long mustache and pointed beard said. He wore long robes and had long hair. His eyes looked like they were perpetually closed. “However, their destruction seems almost random. After Vahn, they have never remained in any of the cities they ravaged. After destroying everything, kidnapping the women, and pillaging the land, they move on. It is almost as if they are searching for something.”

The man who had spoken was Ming Shen. He was the leader of the Poison Sect, a Spiritualist with the darkness element who incorporated poison into his body through genetic modification. I’d never seen the man in action. According to Erica, he had several dozen poisons running through his body via poison glands from various animals that he had implanted into himself, which he was capable to wielding to great effect.

“Who cares if they are searching for something? Does it even matter what they are searching for?” asked another person. This one was an older woman with wrinkles around her eyes and mouth. Her gray hair contrasted with her dark eyes. She also wore robes, but they were more loose and flowing. The badge of the Alchemist Association was pinned firmly to her chest.

I’d heard that the Alchemist Association’s headquarters was attacked several days ago. While the invasion had been repelled thanks to the Battling Valkyries arriving to aid them, many alchemists had been killed during the attack. While there were some alchemists who were also Spiritualists, most didn’t know how to fight.

“It might,” Erica finally spoke up, and everyone fell silent. She stood up and placed her hands on the table, surveying those seated with her and those in the tertiary seats. She locked eyes with me for a second and I nodded. “I’ve already informed this august body of what Tungsten, myself, and Eryk and Kari discovered in the other world. These Sekbeists once waged war upon the nine worlds. However, they were defeated and disaster was averted. I believe the Catastrophe often spoken of in our historical texts refers to the Sekbeist invasion.”

“We are already aware of that,” a man said with a frown. Decked in golden armor with numerous Runes etched onto overlapping metal plates, the man in his prime gave off a commanding presence as he stared at Erica. “We have established that the information you brought us is indeed true. The Dwoergs who accompanied you have provided further evidence to lend your words credence. No one is disputing you. However, I do believe that Ameralda’s point still stands. Does it matter if they are searching for something? These monsters… these Sekbeists… are clearly a hostile group who must be eliminated.”

“And how do you propose we do that, Commander Ashten of the Midgard Spiritual Knights?” asked Erica.

“By defeating them wherever they appear,” Ashten said.

Erica snorted. “If that was all it took to solve this problem, then we would have already defeated the Sekbeists and wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“Then what do you think we should do?” asked Ashten.

“We need more information,” Erica reasoned as she looked at the other six at the table. “We need to know what they are after, where they come from, what the full scale of their forces are like, and whether or not simply eradicating them is even feasible. Thus far we have been faced with a near endless horde of enemies. They arrive at random through numerous Warp Gates with no rhyme or reason. What’s more, they are constantly on the move. We’ve recently received reports that several Sekbiests have been spotted crossing the Endless Desert for some reason.”

Her words caused a string of whispers to break out. Of course, everyone knew about the Endless Desert, though no one had ever bothered crossing it. Most people just assumed it was endless, hence the name. Very few people actually knew there was something beyond that desert. Although it was nothing but ruins and rubble now, the place Kari and I used to call home was in that direction.

What could the Sekbeists want over there?

Tungsten voiced my thoughts out loud. “What could the Sekbeists possibly want over there?”

“I don’t know.” Erica looked over at me. “But Eryk Veiger might know what they want.”

At her words, all eyes turned on me, and I suddenly felt an extraordinary amount of discomfort. I wasn’t used to having so many people staring at me. I never spoke up in meetings. And even when matters regarding my sect came up, Kari was the usually the one who dealt with the issue.

“Do you know something about what these Sekbeist might be after, Sect Leader Veiger of Brave Vesperia?” asked Ashten.

I coughed into my hand and prayed to all eight Great Overlords that my voice wouldn’t crack as I answered him. “Not particularly, no. However, while I don’t know what they are after, I did come from beyond the Endless Desert. I used to live in a large city-state known as Nevaria. On a map, it would be located somewhere in the south-eastern part of the continent. It’s surrounded by a mountain range known as the Demon Beast Mountain Range because of how many powerful Demon Beasts make the area beyond their home.”

This was the first time I’d ever spoken of my home to so many people. Erica knew, Axel and a few of the former Explorer’s Guild members who joined Brave Vesperia like Felicia also knew, but they were the few and far between.

My words caused the crowd to stir. I could see several of them breaking out in conversation, but since so many people were talking, I couldn’t actually hear what anyone was saying.

“You mean to tell me that you come from beyond the Endless Desert and failed to say anything until now?” asked Ashten, eyes narrowed. “What is the meaning of this?”

I rolled my eyes, overcoming my nervousness through irritation. “It’s an open secret. Erica and several members of my sect know where I come from, but it’s not something that has ever seemed important, so I never said anything. It isn’t like knowing where I come from really matters anyway. Nevaria was destroyed several years ago by a Demon Beast Invasion.”

More whispers broke out, but Erica spoke above them. “Is there anything you can think of that the Sekbeists might want?”

Cocking my head to the side as I thought, I could only shake my head after several seconds. “Not really. The only thing I can think of are the ruins located beyond the Demon Beast Mountain Range. There are a large number of ancient cities that were built before the Catastrophe that are still standing. Of course, there are also ruins similar to the ones spread across the Northern Plains. However…”

“However?” prodded Ming Shen.

“If we assume they are traveling there to open a Warp Gate in those ruins, why travel so far?” I asked. “If they wish to open a Warp Gate, then they have to acquire a vast amount of Spiritual Power to open one. To do this, they must steal the Spiritual Power from Spiritualists using a Rune Array that forcibly extracts it and shoves that power into the gate. Not only are there very few people in the Endless Desert, but Nevaria is gone. There are no survivors. Where are they gonna get captives to sacrifice?”

No one had an answer to my question, and everyone looked uncomfortable by my words, which only brought about more questions. I sat back in my chair. Whatever happened during this meeting now, I had said my part.

No decision was made during this meeting, and it was eventually decided that we would adjourn for lunch. I think most people were getting frustrated. I left alongside everyone else. However, while I was entering the hallway, Erica caught up and began walking alongside me. We were silent for awhile. It wasn’t like we could talk with so much noise, but once we exited the Midgard Spiritual Knights main headquarters, the raven-haired beauty smiled at me.

“Sorry to put you on the spot like that back there.”

“It’s no trouble.” It was, but I wasn’t about to say anything. “If the information I have can help, then all the better.”

“Do you think we should send people to investigate what the Sekbeists are doing?”

I thought about her question as we turned onto a main thoroughfare. There were a lot of Strut-pulled carts traveling down the road, people walked along the walkways, and the bustle of the city seemed a bit livelier than it had the last time I was here. I guess people were just getting used to being in a constant state of war. That… probably wasn’t a good thing.

“I doubt it would help,” I said after a moment. “The Endless Desert is a huge expanse of nothing. The few people who live there are mostly nomads, and even if you were to travel straight through, it would take over a year of travel just to reach Nevaria. Assuming the Sekbeists actually intend to go all the way to Nevaria, most of them will probably die from heat stroke and dehydration before reaching it. They might not be human, but we know they require the same kind of sustenance that we do to survive.”

“I suppose, but that does make me wonder why they sent such a large group out that way,” Erica replied.

“A distraction?” I moved my shoulders in the approximation of a shrug. “I’m sure they sent people out there for the purpose of making it seem like they had a reason for doing it. Either they want us to follow them and lead a large group of our people into a trap, or they want us distracted from whatever their true goals are.”

“The release of their leader,” Erica said.

“Probably.”

According to what we knew, several of the Great Overlords had used their own life force to seal away the Sekbeists and their leader. This had caused all the Great Overlords sans the Dwoerg’s Overlord to enter a state of suspended animation.

Not all Sekbeists had been sealed away, however. There were many that had managed to escape. Some of those Sekbeists had invaded Niðavellir, where they killed the Great Overlord, though whether out of revenge or another reason, none of us knew. I could only assume their goal was to kill off all the Great Overlords to break the seal that kept leader and the rest of their forces locked away

“I suppose we should stop discussing this for now. We’ll have to hear about this matter plenty once the meeting starts again,” Erica said.

“Please don’t remind me,” I grimaced.

Erica just laughed. “So, how is Kari and the little one? I haven’t seen them in awhile.”

“They’re doing well. Kayli can speak now… though she only says one word.”

“Oh? Is it mom?” asked a curious Erica.

“Nope. It’s ‘da’,” I said, puffing out my chest in pride.

***

Today marked the beginning of the fourth month I’d been sent back into the past. 252 days might not seem like a long time compared to the several decades I had spent in my previous life, but the amount of work I had to do this time around made it feel like I’d been living in the past for much longer.

Construction of the watchtowers began. At present time, Empress Hilda said she only planned on creating eight—two for each gate. Anyone who traveled using one of the four gates would be able to see the construction workers rushing to and fro as they carried supplies and wheelbarrows full of sediment that would be used in the towers’ creation.

On top of creating the watchtowers, she commissioned several well-known craftsment to work together in creating both the ballistae and the crossbows. I hadn’t seen their work yet. However, Empress Hilda had asked me to check it over after the prototype was finished being built.

The only thing Empress Hilda couldn’t do was find someone who could add Runes to the bolts and arrows that would be used. I told her I would begin making some of those myself once she had them. However, this was going to be an involved process that took an inordinate amount of time, and I had my own things to get done. I couldn’t spend it etching Runes into arrows and bolts.

In short, I would have to find someone capable of learning Rune Etching and teach it to them.

Training continued as usual. I had reached something of a peak in my training, which had caused my own work to stall. I wasn’t getting any stronger. The first issue was that I had already reached a point where simple training no longer worked to increase my strength, be it physically or spiritually. From now on, my progress would become dependant on reaching the next state of Spiritualism and enhancing my body with alchemy pills. Sadly, the type of pills I needed to refine required ingredients that were rare enough nobody in the Alchemist Association had even heard of them.

While my training had stalled, Kari’s and Fay’s were growing by leaps and bounds, so much so that I think Lin was beginning to feel inadequate. I would sometimes catch the girl staring enviously at the two whenever they trained. My hope was that she would eventually join us. While it was true that a Lamia couldn’t increase their Spiritual Power through training, that didn’t mean she couldn’t practice the techniques she knew until they were mastered.

Their training had also caught the eyes of Kari’s brothers. Earland had been the first to join, requesting that I help him improve. I had refined the Three Way Spiritual Widening Pills and Body Forging Pills that Kari and Fay had used when they began training. Then I had him begin exercising with weights strapped to his limbs. It was a bit different from the weighted clothes we had used, but since he was already in such good shape, I figured it would work.

Rainer had also joined us in training eventually, though Geirolf stubbornly refused to, even though I’d caught him staring at us several times in the past six days.

We hadn’t gone into the Demon Beast Mountain Range since the salvaging job, but while Kari had expressed her dissatisfaction, Empress Hilda had told us that we were no longer allowed to travel outside until the Leucht Family had been dealt with. I understood. The Leucht Family had Dyr, a woman with the mysterious ability to attract Demon Beasts. If we went out there again, and they caught wind of it, we may find ourselves in a similar situation to before.

That said, I felt like we were strong enough to deal with it now. The only reason I wasn’t taking Kari and the others into the Demon Beast Mountain Range was because I wanted to deal with the Leucht Family first. To be honest, I didn’t think they would attack us like they did last time, considering they failed and were forced to flee.

Despite all of the stuff going on in Nevaria, one issue came up that superseded them all—at least in my mind.

***

“Kari’s birthday is coming up,” Empress Hilda said during what had become our bi-monthly luncheons. Since she was so busy, the empress didn’t have much time to spend on family, especially now that she was shoring up the defenses and speaking with various groups of people to help her locate the still-missing Leucht Family.

Today there were a lot more people than just myself, Kari, Fay, Lin, and Empress Hilda. Of course, Valence was there, acting in his capacity as the empress’ bodyguard—not that she needed one. Dante and Rainer were also present, as was Earland and Mikkel. The nine of us were seated around a large crystal table shaped like a circle.

“It’s Kari’s birthday?” I asked, blinking several times. Come to think of it, I couldn’t actually remember when her birthday was. She and I had never celebrated our birth after the destruction of Nevaria. It hadn’t been important when we were roaming the Endless Desert, and I think we just eventually forgot about our birthdays. I didn’t even know how old either of us were in my previous life.

“Her birthday is coming in ten days,” Empress Hilda said. “We’ll be planning a parade to celebrate her seventeenth year.”

I felt a little shocked that we would be celebrating Kari’s birth with a parade, but I had also never celebrated Kari’s birthday before. Maybe this was standard in Nevaria. Kari was, after all, the Princess of Nevaria. I did know that we celebrated Empress Hilda’s birth the year before, but it was not a parade. The empress had given a speech and there had been a large gathering where everyone was invited. A parade was magnitudes larger than a simple party.

“Seventeen is a big year,” Rainer explained to me when he saw the confusion on my face. “This is technically the age where children are officially considered adults. It’s unofficial recognition, but a lot of people will find themselves bearing more responsibility after they reach seventeen years.”

“I thought it was eighteen,” I admitted with a sigh.

“Eighteen is just when students at the Spiritualist Academy graduate,” Fay educated me before anyone else could. “Students at other schools graduate at seventeen. We’re different because our schooling is more extensive, since we learn Spiritualism on top of our regular studies.”

“Oh…”

I was beginning to realize that there was a lot more about Nevaria that I didn’t know. I had assumed that because Kari graduated at 18 in my previous life that 18 was the age people reached adulthood in our society, but it seemed my estimation was way off.

While I was wallowing in shock, Lin grabbed the steak she’d been given and chowed down. Mikkel glanced at the girl as she literally shoved an entire steak into her mouth and swallowed it in a single gulp. I could see him trying to figure out how such a thing was possible. Certainly it defied what I knew about human anatomy, but I myself had stopped trying to figure out how Lin could eat food in one bite. It wasn’t a Lamia thing, that much I knew at least.

“You seem confused,” Dante said. “Didn’t you already know all this?”

“I never went to school,” I admitted. “I was an orphan who was kicked out of his orphanage and lived on the streets for the longest time. Thanks to that, I guess you could say I slipped through the cracks.”

“You were kicked out of your orphanage?” Kari looked at me like I’d just told her the entire world was coming to an end.

“It happened when I was five,” I admitted. “I don’t remember exactly what happened because it was so long ago that I don’t even remember the name of the orphanage, but I remember being kicked out on the streets by the matron. I lived in the alleys for the longest time before Ms. Nadine found me. She helped educate me during her free time, then offered me a job at the library when I was ten.”

There were a number of orphanages located within Nevaria. A lot of Spiritualists died traveling into the Demon Beast Mountain Range. A lot of children were often left homeless that way, and some were abandoned by the other spouse since having a child put a strain on their meager finances. I didn’t know if I was one of those children or not. All I remembered from back then was the orphanage. I knew I had parents, and I knew at least one of them was not human, but I didn’t know if they were still alive or dead.

“That’s…” Fay placed a hand to her mouth as she stared at me with pity. Seeing that look made me sigh. I didn’t want anybody’s pity, especially not someone who I shared a bed with.

“So you were able to live despite not having anybody to rely on for several years?” Lin crossed her arms and nodded several times. “That’s Darling for you. He is nothing if not resourceful.”

“I suppose living on your own is why you are so strong,” Empress Hilda said at last. She was wrong, but I didn’t correct her. “In either event, this particular birthday is important for a number of reasons. The first is obviously that Kari is becoming an adult. However, the second reason is because I plan on announcing your marriage to her during her birthday. We’ll be hosting a party that everyone is invited to after her parade. I plan to announce your upcoming nuptials then.”

“Just my upcoming nuptials to Kari?” I asked. I glanced at Fay and Lin. While Lin didn’t really seem to understand what was happening since she still was unaware of Nevarian customs, Fay caught my eyes and both blushed and smiled at me. It seemed she was aware of my thoughts.

“We will, of course, announce that you will be marrying Fay Valstine and Lin as well.” Empress Hilda hid her smile behind the teacup in her right hand. However, I could see the way her eyes crinkled. “If we didn’t announce them all at the same time, it would cause problems. People would think we were hiding this from them, which could cause unrest amongst the population.”

“Right.” I sighed. Matters of marriage seemed a lot more complicated than I imagined.

Empress Hilda giggled at me. “You are not part of the nobility, so I understand that you would not know about any of this, but matters such as one’s birth and marriage are incredibly important to us. They are ways of celebrating important figures and flaunting our power to others.”

“So, basically, Kari’s birth is being used for bragging rights.”

“More or less.”

I wasn’t too happy know that celebrating Kari’s birth was being done as a means of bragging about her status and power, but I had also never celebrated her birthday even once in my previous life, so what did I know?

“What would you like us to do?” I asked.

I could only assume that the reason she wanted to speak with us in regards to this matter was because she had something specific she wanted us to help her plan for the birthday. That said, I honestly didn’t know how we could help her. I had never planned a birthday party in my entire life. I also hadn’t ever taken part in a parade before, though I knew a few people who had. Erica and Tungsten, as prominent members of their sects, had been in parades before. Kari and I actually watched one of them. In either event, I didn’t know what we could do to help out.

Empress Hilda smiled. “You need not worry about planning or anything like that. Please leave that to myself and my husbands. However, I was hoping you three would also be willing to take part in the parade and not just the announcement of your upcoming marriage.”

Ah. So that was what she wanted.

“I don’t have a problem with it,” I said with a shrug.

“Neither do I,” Fay added.

“This princess thinks being in a parade will be fun,” Lin also put in her two valis. Then her face scrunched up in confusion as she tilted her head. “By the way, what’s a parade?”