The Siege of Arconia: Chapters 39-41

The sudden shift in tone was something I was not prepared for. He had gone from being nice and gracious to being furious in the span of what seemed like a sentence. “I- I don’t follow. Lie in what regard?”

“Where you come from,” he said with a cold hiss. “I know for a fact that you are hiding your country of origin. I know for a fact that you appeared here in Arconia without going through the traditional means such as through the gate and without declaring yourself. I know for a fact that it is impossible for a person to make two original Rank Three grimoires one after another. I do not know what you are hiding, but you have not been truthful with me or with the Liberomancer’s Guild.” He then relaxed a little. “I have kept my eye on you for a while, wondering what it was that you were up to. I could not openly move against you given your title and a lack of concrete evidence. But, I do not wish to be deceived any longer.”

He sighed and sank in his chair. He had always seemed energetic whenever I had spoken to him, but I could see the weight of everything going on right now written across his reptilian features. “Whatever crime that you have been accused of - or did commit, I do not think that there is anything that cannot be forgiven. Or that a person - human or lizardman - should be condemned for life for a single action. As governor, you have saved my son’s life which is a debt I intend to repay, and I can assist you in getting a pardon, or ensuring that you have a life free from whatever shackles bound you in the past. But, I want the truth and I’m tired of beating around the bush. You have my word that in lieu of your recent actions, clemency will be granted. However, I want an actual answer. Answer me!”

There was a finality to his last words- this was an order. If I wanted to, I probably could weasel my way out of this situation, or deflect it- I doubt that he, even as governor, would want people thinking he had attacked or gone against the ‘hero’ who had saved his son.

However, I had already told Drake about several things- his head injury might’ve caused him to forget it, but I doubted that given what I’d heard regarding his injuries.

And so, Lance was the second person I told the truth to. It was far better that he heard the actual story than think I had assassinated someone in some other country.

However, this clearly had not been what he had been expecting to hear as an answer.

He probably wanted to hear some sort of story of odd political intrigue or maybe of me sleeping with some princess and being chased out of a country, but the only thing he could muster up when I had finished telling him the actual story was, “Could you please repeat all of that?”

I ended up telling him the whole story three times over with him asking questions in the middle to make sure it was consistent before he said, “...and this is the truth?”

“You can ask your son - I had told him the same thing I told you, asking him to tell my family if they ever found a way here,” I said. “Coming to that, have you ever heard of something like this happening before? I’ve been looking for a way back to my own world, but nothing of the sort has appeared. I can’t find such a story in any song or legend. I couldn’t ask about it directly, but now that the cat is out of the bag so to speak…”

“I have never heard of such a thing happening,” he said. “...they did not have grimoires in your world?”

“No, no magic either,” I told him. “So it beats me as to how I ended up here in the first place.”

I wasn’t sure whether Lance believed me or not, but he didn’t seem to want to waste any more time on this and said, “Alright then, I uh… thank you again for your service.”

He probably wanted to say something else, but he likely found himself at a loss for words- something I bet rarely happened to him.

I left, but before I headed home there were some things I wanted to check up on.

For one, I wanted to know whether or not Jiah Pei made it out alive - and after inquiring a bit I was told that yes, he had.

Secondly, I wanted to see if I could visit Drake myself. He was being kept in what had been made into a sort of private ward for him; and I asked his guards if I could be allowed to see him. I was initially told that he wanted no visitors, but a flourish of my sash, my title, and asking politely if they were sure given who I was made them reconsider this.

One of them went inside, likely to ask Drake, and then came back out saying I could go visit him.

Drake was not alone in the room, there was Zeke along with him. The two brothers noticed me immediately upon walking in.

“Good morning,” I said tiredly. I really wanted to go home and get some sleep, but I just felt like I had to check in on him if I could.

I owed him that much.

I didn’t see any bandages on his head where the spear had struck him, but then again, magic could heal without leaving a single scar. Even if the other healers were preoccupied elsewhere, it was highly likely Zeke, Lance, or even Drake himself had some sort of skill or spell for scars.

“Good morning!” Drake called out. “Come take a seat here - I wanted to thank you in person.”

“No need,” I said. As I walked over, Zeke got up and gave me a tiny bow.

“Thank you for what you did for my younger brother-”

“Whoa there, seriously you’re embarrassing me, there’s no need for this kind of ceremony-”

“-only there most certainly is,” Zeke said.

“So you’re fine now?” I asked Drake.

“A bit sore, but I’ll get better,” Drake said. “Main thing is that we managed to win, am I right?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Listen… about what I had told you earlier… I just wanted to let you know that it was all true.” I didn’t know if he had treated it as a joke before, but I needed him to understand that I had been fully serious. Otherwise it could cause me problems in the future - granted, it could end up causing me problems anyway, but it would be worse if Lance thought I was lying.

Drake nodded. “I mean, I did consider initially that it was just some yarn to make me forget the stress of battle, but I saw your expression and tone - plus you wouldn’t lie about something like that right before a battle.”

“Make up what?” Zeke asked.

“I’ll explain later,” I told him. “If Drake doesn’t want to do it now - but it’s not important. I just came by to make sure Drake was fine.” Something then occurred to me. “Also, Zeke, sorry - this is a strange thing to ask- but do you happen to have another copy of the grimoire that you gave me that gave [Ansoon’s Blessing]?”

“Why?” Zeke asked.

I pulled out what remained of the grimoire.

Both Zeke and Drake recoiled at the sight - given how valuable grimoires were, any one would’ve reacted that way to seeing one being destroyed. Grimoires were the lifeblood of Liberomancers. To see so much work and effort go up in flames - it was a true tragedy, and for anyone to let this happen to a grimoire was nearly unforgivable.

It would have been one thing to see your work destroyed if it had been assimilated by someone - that was the purpose of making a grimoire in the first place after all.

But this was little better than burning it out in the open, even if it had been completely unintentional on my part.

“I uh, had it in my armor and wasn’t able to keep it somewhere safe before the fight,” I told him. “It ended up taking a spear or claw or something.” Honestly there was a part of me that would’ve preferred to have been injured than have the grimoire damaged. “Of course, I’ll pay for the second copy, but I just wanted to know if there was another one on hand…”

“Master Stefan, I mean, just Stefan,” Drake said. “Did this happen while you were trying to rescue me?”

In truth I had no idea - did someone manage to strike me while on the wall, or while I was down there for a brief period of time rescuing Drake?

If I told them that it had happened while rescuing Drake, they would have definitely gotten me a replacement - I might not have even needed to pay for the replacement.

If I admitted that it might be my fault, they might decline that request. And [Ansoon’s Blessing] was in my opinion, too useful to pass up.

But, I felt like I couldn’t in good faith do something like that. “I… really don’t know. The battle was so chaotic, it could’ve been at any time.”

Zeke sighed. “The author of that lives in the capital - if you don’t mind going on a short journey, I can set things up for you to reserve a grimoire from her. I don’t have any other copies right now, but you could ask the Liberomancer’s Guild if there’s someone else in the city who happens to have one.”

“That would be appreciated,” I said. “Yeah… sorry about getting it damaged like that.”

Zeke shook his head. “You shouldn’t have brought it with you to the wall in the first place. I’m almost done reading the one you gave me, and I had the foresight not to take it with me to battle.”

“I know, I know,” I said. “I just- there was free time on the walls and I read parts of it while on them.” I really needed to be more careful with these things in the future, especially if I ended up getting a one-of-a-kind sort of grimoire like one that would help you fly. I hadn’t forgotten about that, and would hold Zeke to his word of helping me get it, but I would deal with all of that later. I yawned. “Sorry, I really need to get some rest, and I’m sure you need it more than me.”

Drake laughed. “Right, I think we’ve all earned a good night’s- or even a good week’s rest for now.”

‘Amen to that,’ I thought.

I was not religious, but I could certainly agree with that sentiment!

There was however, one thing I wanted to ask about before going back home.

“Do you know what the plan is to deal with the dryads?” I asked. No matter how tired I was, I wanted to at least be in on that part. The dryad horde, though broken in discipline, had not been completely annihilated.

Zeke answered, “The capital will have its forces ready soon, and with their forces cut in half, I think we will be riding forth in about a week or so to eradicate what remains of their army. I don’t think they are dumb enough to try to attack again, but if so, we are more than prepared to repel them. With their numbers whittled down now, they have no chance of breaching the walls.”

“Good,” I said.

“Before you leave,” Drake said, “please give me a moment to express my sincerest apologies.”

“For what? Oh, if you mean that incident back in that restaurant, I’ve already pretty much forgotten about it already you don’t have to-”

“No, not that,” Drake said. He looked askance at his brother as if contemplating whether or not he should continue before saying, “I- we, were suspecting you of being a demonic Liberomancer.”

“Brother, you don’t need to-” Zeke began.

“-no, I think I should,” Drake said. “We thought it was rather suspicious that you so coincidentally knew about the two before they were killed off earlier last year, and you just so happened to decide to use that demonic grimoire. I… thought with the other things that were off about you that this had been something cleverly orchestrated by you, so that you’d have an alibi as to why you had a demonic grimoire.”

“Huh, your father didn’t mention that earlier,” I said. The two of them started a bit when I mentioned him. “Oh, nothing major - he just wanted to know what was going on and stuff - I told him the same thing I told you Drake.”

Zeke was still lost, but I reassured him that it was nothing urgent. If he wanted to, I’d tell him everything myself just so that there was no confusion.

Because right then, I felt like I was going to fall asleep right where I was standing.

I wandered off, found my carriage, and took it back to the palace where there was a room for me. All the work that had piled up till this point - well, I would deal with it later.

I went to sleep almost immediately, and then woke up at some point late in the evening, feeling hungry.

The amount of fish that [Fish Haul] made was dependent on your Luck stat, which is how I ended up making far more than I needed given my investment into Luck before. Whatever - I’d given them off to someone, there were likely still many people on half-filled stomachs in Arconia.

I prepared it myself in the kitchen - I got a few strange looks but no one stopped me. Once I was finished eating and distributed what remained, I went back to sleep.

I felt leagues better when I woke up the next day.

The work that had piled up wasn’t as much as I’d initially feared, thankfully enough - and my new position would likely be dissolved as I didn’t really think it was needed anymore.

The city was indeed planning to go after the dryads, who by now were basically nothing more than a speck on the horizon.

They had asked me to remain behind in the city, not including me as a part of the raiding force. Either they trusted me a lot and wanted me to guard the city as they didn’t want to risk one of their new ‘heroes’ dying out on the field; or that spiel I had given to Lance made him think I was insane and not trustworthy in the open field.

I had watched the force that was assembled to take out the remaining dryads leave the city - it consisted of twenty thousand ordinary soldiers and about sixty percent of the city’s Liberomancers.

The force seemed rather small, at least I thought so, though I was told that the force from the capital was larger simply because the dryad army was closer to the capital right now.

“Ah, I think it’s better if you stay,” Drake explained before heading out when I asked him why they weren’t taking me along. Noticeably, Zeke was not with him. If I had to wager, Lance didn’t want to send both of his sons out to battle at the same time. “The dryads seem to fear your spider combo, and my brother hasn’t mastered it yet. Having so many of the city’s Liberomancers leave might lead to some of our residents feeling unsafe. The people will sleep far more soundly knowing that someone like you is still in the city to watch over them. With both you and my father here, the remaining dryads have no chance of seizing the city.”

“Alright then, fine,” I said.

“Ah - I didn’t think that you would agree that quickly. I thought that you might protest more and challenge me to a duel in order to come with us!” Drake placed a hand over his chest in mock shock.

I shrugged. “I don’t go looking for danger, you know. If I can be safe here, so be it.” Not to mention he had a point - there were lots of civilians in Arconia who needed to be watched over and reassured that they were still being guarded. Such as Granny Qi. It would do no one any good if the raiding party left only to find the city had been taken while they were away.

Drake chuckled. “Well, stay safe then, my friend!”

“I should be the one saying that,” I said, praying that he would come back safe. “I’m amazed your father is letting you go knowing… well, you know, what happened.”

Drake shook his head. “Ah, danger is inherent to being a ruler. This is a chance to prove myself, and I wanted to take it. Even if I die, my father still has Zeke with him to carry on the family line…” he trailed off with a hint of melancholy in his voice. “...ah, but don’t you worry, we are sallying out with a large force, and I will have walls of soldiers to guard my back and front. We will catch them off-guard and return back without losing a single soldier!”

I doubted that was possible, but I nodded and wished him luck once again.

I revisited that memory as time stretched on and we waited for the army to return.

Meanwhile, there was still a lot of work that had to be done within the city.

One thing that made me quite happy was to know that the casualty figures were on the lower side - slightly over nine hundred were dead.

At first, I hadn’t believed those numbers.

Don’t get me wrong, I was glad that casualty numbers had remained so low despite the scale of the fighting, it was just that it was hard to wrap my head around the fact that in a battle involving nearly a hundred thousand on the enemy side, and thirty thousand on ours, that there had been little under a thousand in casualties.

Every death was of course, a tragedy - the main reason that so many of us had survived was because thanks to healing magic many men who would’ve died lived, and that most of the killing was done by Liberomancers at a distance.

By now, the city had entered somewhat of a festive mood. The enemy wasn’t fully gone and the people who came couldn’t return to their homes - yet, but the bulk of the fighting was over and life would hopefully return to normal soon enough.

It could potentially take decades for some of the rural areas to recover and rebuild, but the first steps towards recovery would begin once it was deemed safe enough for people to finally return to their villages.

The dryad army had not retreated as one large mass - most of them had gone as far away as possible, but a few of them had broken off from the main herd and were likely lurking around the city. They would need to be stamped out before people could start to leave.

Two days later, there was a funeral for all who had died during the fighting. The number had seemed small before, but upon seeing so many funeral services, I couldn’t really continue to think so without feeling like an immense amount of guilt within myself.

The humans cremated their dead, while the lizardmen let the bodies drift off into the ocean.

There were two separate large funeral services for the species, though people from both sides attended both of them. I was one of the people who saw both - the families burning their dead, and others pushing them out into the sea. Both services were filled with the tears and lamentations of family members who had lost their loved ones.

Most of the people who had died had been ordinary people - not Liberomancers, even when accounting for the fact that Liberomancers made a proportionately smaller portion of the population.

The casualties among Liberomancers were barely above double digits - because they had not occupied the most dangerous positions during the fight, because they had defensive and healing abilities, and because they had access to better defensive equipment.

If I was in a normal person’s shoes, I might’ve felt quite a bit of resentment at the Liberomancers for such a thing. For one, they exploited the normal people economically in various subtle ways, justifying it as necessary so that they could work for the welfare of the people in case any kind of catastrophe occurred. And yet, when such a catastrophe had occurred, they had been the ones who had lost the least!

And yet, I encountered nothing of the sort whenever I roamed the streets of the city.

I had already been somewhat famous within Arconia - being the youngest Master Liberomancer in the city’s history, having a demonic spell legally, and being a foreigner to boot - but now, I was something of a war hero on top of that.

Everywhere I went, people approached me with awe and respect - two things that I did not feel I deserved nor something I had thought I had earned.

Speaking of things I hadn’t earned - Lance had not done anything up till now to revoke my title of Master Liberomancer despite what I had told him. I could think of a few reasons why he wouldn’t.

One was simply because, in a way, I was not lying. As far as anyone knew - the grimoires I had written were new to this world, so what did it matter if they were based off stories from back on Earth?

How you wrote something was what made writing stand out of course - that was why reading the synopsis of a novel was not the same as reading the novel. If, for example, there was a well-known epic tale that was being passed around, some people might try to make it into a grimoire - like they had done with the story of Lady Ansoon.

But only one of them might succeed- perhaps his prose or other skills were better than the others. Such a person would still be considered to have written an entirely new grimoire, and worthy of the title of Master Liberomancer if it had been a Rank Three one.

Or maybe Lance just hadn’t believed what I had told him, but had no real explanation to give to the guild.

He could also simply be trying to save face given he had openly supported me earlier and wouldn’t want people knowing about this. I had saved his son’s life, so I suspected that might have factored into him just ignoring things and letting me continue to keep my title.

As for the rest of Arconia, they thought that indeed, I was some kind of once-in-a-thousand years genius because of the two Rank Three grimoires that I had ‘created.’ A situation that was made worse (or better, depending on how you looked at it), by my actions during the siege.

Stories of what I had done had already spread far and wide- they were calling me ‘The Spider King of Arconia’ for the way I had used my summon. It was better than being called the ‘Frog Whisperer’ but not by much.

No one seemed to mention the part where I had passed out - so it looked like they either didn’t care, or had spun it as ‘Stefan Dawson had fought with everything he had until he passed out from exhaustion.’ It certainly sounded better that way than it had seemed in my head.

The stories of what I had done were embellished every time they were told and retold - there were some people who said that not only had I killed over ten thousand dryads, but that I had done so with a single spell. I thought that the six thousand number that had been thrown about beforehand was already far too generous - but there was little I could do but correct some people. Before you knew it they might be saying that I repelled the entire dryad army on my own.

I guess stories like this always have a way of getting out of hand.

Maybe the Ruler of the Astral Winds could take out ten thousand of them with one spell, but I sure couldn’t. Still, a lot of the common folk did not understand Liberomancy that well, only that we were weird people with even weirder powers - so they swallowed such stories, even if they were untrue.

And I suppose that was also why they held no disdain for the Liberomancers- sure, many of them had died, but they must’ve realized that the casualties would’ve been far higher if we had not been around. The walls might even have been breached had it not been for our magic that saved the day.

And that was why they treated someone like me- who had contributed quite a bunch, and also jumped into the enemy formation to save a friend, like I was a hero straight out of an epic.

I certainly didn’t feel like a hero though- I felt very tired and sore, and my dreams were still filled with shattered memories of the dryad’s last assault. The screams, smoke, magic, pain, everything - it all formed a broken, tangled mess in my head as I slept and relived seeing the expressions of people as the light slowly left their eyes along with the general sense of terror that had gripped me during that time.

How did people describe great battles like this?

Glorious? Valiant? Spectacular?

I felt it had been like none of those things - it had been chaotic, oppressive, messy, and horrifying. Back when I was a kid, I had dreams of fighting as a solider or somewhere in a fantasy world, but this had been far removed from those childhood fantasies of mine where everything was clean and easy and once the enemy was defeated peace would instantaneously return to the world.

It was an experience that I would not wish on anyone.

“You’ve been spending quite a lot of time in front of that mirror,” Granny Qi remarked as she passed by. “Finally found a lass who catches your fancy?”

I returned to living with her on some days if it wasn’t too busy at the palace, else I tended to sleep at my desk. Even if it was crowded, the rest of her family was always delighted to have me there, and it was comforting to be surrounded by people rather than being all alone.

Also, the city was no longer as congested as before given that a large segment of the population had left to deal with the dryads freeing up some room.

“No,” I said, struggling to read what was in the mirror while holding up my translation device and the grimoire in question at the same time. “I’m trying to read this new grimoire that someone came up with.”

“And you need the mirror for that?” Granny Qi asked.

“It’s written in reverse,” I explained. “As in, it’s mirrored so you can only read it while standing in front of one.”

“That is quite the curious grimoire,” she remarked while glancing at the words written on it. “And a lizardman’s creation, no less?”

“Yeah,” I said. War was usually a time when technological advancements were made, and throughout the siege, although everyone did try to conserve most of their mana, there were those who still tried to experiment. Funnily enough it seems many of them were inspired by me and my invention of [Summon Tyrant Arachnea]. “The lizardman who wrote this said he had a habit of practicing writing in front of a mirror, and one day the thought struck him to write something in reverse. And so, this gives the Rank One skill [Mirrored Slot].”

“Rank One? Why are you so interested in it then?” she asked.

“Because,” I started, while adjusting the mirror for what felt like the hundredth time. Granny Qi’s mirror was not a full length one and so positioning this grimoire properly was an issue given I had to do it with one free hand, the other one busy holding a translating device. “Its effect is to copy the effect of the slot before it.”

It was pointless to use it after a slot that gave a skill or spell, because there was no use to having two slots which gave the same skill or spell. You couldn’t even do something like use a once-per-day ability twice if you did so, it would just do nothing.

However, it could copy stat boosts. Which is what everyone was using it for - to use it to copy a man-raising grimoire to get an extra mana point.

That was useful even to Rank Three Liberomancers, which is why the grimoire in question was being sold like hotcakes. I had only managed to get one through asking the Liberomancer’s Guild and thanks to my current reputation.

Speaking of, I also reached out to the guild to ask if I could get a replacement grimoire that gave [Ansoon’s Blessing] - they said they could try to arrange for it, though it still might take time.

And there was the issue with paying for it - I could sell the remaining Rank Three grimoire that I had for money, but I still had to pay Granny Qi back for the grimoire she had given me.

Oh well - there was nothing to do but begin writing another grimoire to sell I guess.

Rewards were supposed to be handed out after the war depending on one’s contributions, but I wasn’t sure how big mine would be, so when I wasn’t doing anything else I was writing out Charlotte’s Web again as I thought that that particular grimoire would sell rather well since people were already in awe of the combo you could pull off with it.

I tried to help out wherever I could - I knew a very basic healing spell in the form of [Mend Injury] whose use was limited, but it wasn’t like it did nothing. Disease was also spreading as you might expect with so many people crowded together in less than ideal conditions, for which [Unicorn’s Blessing] came in handy for the sicker ones.

When all else failed, I could always make fish for people.

The real question was what I was going to do next. The siege was over, but the merchant caravan would not be coming again until next year - they had taken a detour bypassing Chipker entirely right now, and I did not want to wait that long.

For old time’s sake, I still sometimes went back to the same place where I had first come to this world.

And had gotten no more success than the other few times.

So it didn’t look like I had been called to this world just to deal with the dryads. So then, why was I brought here?

Nothing further had been revealed to me during the fighting, so I could only stick to my original plan of leaving to seek the answer elsewhere.

Great Claw looked out towards the horizon, however, he saw no opening that they could use to escape.

The few of them that had managed to escape had scavenged for food, but as they were simply retracing the steps they had taken to get to the human city, it was to no surprise that there was nothing but dust and dirt on the way back.

The bark from his form had already begun wilting, exposing the soft flesh underneath. His walking speed had been cut in half- all from the starvation he had been subjected to.

That would have been acceptable - had they some chance to escape.

But they were caught in between the hills, with the gaps between them overseen by humans and lizardmen. Anyone who tried to go through them would be battered with fire until nothing remained of them.

Behind them was another army mounted atop a steep incline, and the same fate would await them.

Forward or backward, only death awaited them.

To think that he had had visions of glory where he found himself king… and now look what he had been reduced to!

The dryads, when fishing, would simply dip their hands into streams, hoping to grab onto fish. However, he had seen the humans had better ideas- with the use of ropes tied together in the forms of nets to catch fish. He had greatly admired that idea and had hoped to have his brethren implement that at some time- but now it was as if they were the fish that were hopelessly in the clutches of a net.

They were like hunters out to stalk deer, who had suddenly found themselves surrounded by a pack of wolves.

Perhaps everything had been a mistake from the very beginning.

Perhaps they should never have taken the different path to come to this country, and done the same as their ancestors.

Perhaps that shadow had planned this out from the beginning as a way to destroy them.

Perhaps… some of them might live to see the end of this battle, and tell their descendants that coming here was a terrible idea.

For most of them- him included, this was the end.

They should have never come to this country in the first place.