The Siege of Arconia: Chapters 27-29

Anyway, whatever it was that Drake was getting at, it was likely nothing compared to the problem currently at our doorstep.

Yes, it had been a big security breach that those two demonic Liberomancers had managed to worm their way into the city, but they were small fry compared to the dryads.

Once my watch was over, while going back onto the street, I ran into someone familiar.

“...Rose?” I called out to get no response from the pink-scaled lizardman. Wait, no, that wasn’t her actual name - just what I called her in my head. I did remember what her real name was, and though it was hard for me to pronounce, I still tried it anyway. “R’arc-stomp-hiss.” Even after all this time, I couldn’t make many of the sounds required to pronounce lizardmen names, and I still could not distinguish between the subtleties of how they used their tails to create three different kinds of syllables.

She was going down a set of stairs while I had happened to be walking by while going in a different direction - the two of us had reached the bottom at the same time. She was looking at something that was either a grimoire or just normal writing in her hands - it was a bit hard to tell given it was turned away from me.

I wasn’t even sure it was her - but not many lizardmen had pink scales.

She did respond to me calling out her actual name or as close as I could get to saying it, though, and looked up. A glance at her features confirmed it. Yes, this was definitely her.

“Ah - eh!”

She was so startled to see me I felt that she might’ve fallen off the stairs if she had still been going down them.

The two of us stood there, at the bottom of the stairs, looking at each other awkwardly.

It reminded me of that time she had blabbed too much on why some lizardmen didn’t like humans that much back when I had first started working for Lauren.

This was awkward for a different reason, however.

I could probably guess what was going on through her mind - I had been forced out of the shop, and now I had the title of Master Liberomancer. Was she wondering whether or not I resented her for it? She hadn’t been involved in the decision to kick me out whatsoever, but hadn’t stood up for me either. Whether it was guilt or fear, it was likely eating away at her from the inside.

The answer on my end was ‘no’ - in truth, I had actually nearly completely forgotten all about my old coworkers. I couldn’t remember most of their actual names, I only remembered Rose’s because I had been a bit closer to her than the others.

It was much the same back on Earth.

I had been very close with a group of friends back in high school - there was Jason who loved motorcycles (my mother had said she would kill me if I ever got on one), Tyler who was amazing at basketball, and Miles who had wanted to become an Influencer. There were many more people that I began to remember now that I strained my mind back to those days - but the point was that on graduation, we had told each other a rather comforting lie that we would still stay in touch. It wasn’t just those three, but with some others as well.

After we all went our separate ways, cold reality hit - that we had been friends because we had happened to be in the same class together. Other than a handful of emails, I had not had any contact with people from back in high school. Perhaps there were friend groups that still stuck together for years, but those were the exception as far as I could tell, not the rule.

“So, how are things back in the shop?” I asked, wanting to break the silence.

“Oh, it’s been closed because of the siege,” she said once she found her voice. Right, I already knew that - why did I bother asking her? I looked rather dumb now. “All of us have been assigned somewhere else to fight or to help with the fighting.”

What else did people like talking about again? Right, their pets. “How is your axolotl doing?” I didn’t remember its name, but that seemed like a safe question. At least, in my case, if you asked me about Cheddar I would’ve normally been pretty happy to talk about him. On Earth, that was. Now though it only reminded me of how frustrated I was to be here in this world whenever someone mentioned pets.

“Doing good, all things considered,” she replied. “Though if the siege goes on a bit longer… it’ll be hard to get food…”

“Mm…” I said.

I wouldn’t call anyone from back in Lauren’s shop who I worked with ‘friends’, they were acquaintances at best.

They probably did not approve of me being forced out, though none of them made a big fuss about it either.

They hadn’t reached out to me after I had left - though you could say that went both ways as I hadn’t reached out to any of them either.

Still, I did not have any malignant feelings towards any of them.

And unlike with Lauren, I didn’t want Rose to be stewing in uncertainty about whether I hated her or not.

My mind went back to the conversation I’d had with Drake earlier. I didn’t want to isolate myself, and yes, I would leave these people behind one day - but the memories would still remain. I had not been in touch with my high school friends in a while, and we may have drifted apart, but did that mean if I could go back in time I would not do any of the fun things we had just because we would drift apart one day? No! And so long as we were all around, there was always the hope that one day, we would in fact meet again. And even if that never happened, I wouldn’t regret creating those happy memories with them, now then would I?

I couldn’t help but feel the same way here. Was I making a mistake? Wasn’t it worth it to reach out to them at least once before I left the city? Even if I left this world, my memories of it would remain - why couldn’t I make some happy memories here? And the answer came to me immediately - I already had many happy memories from this world, there was no reason to shun adding in more. To meet someone met that you would separate one day certainly, and I didn’t want to waste more time than necessary socializing, but I didn’t have to become the city’s biggest recluse either.

There was still time for me to reach out to my old coworkers. But how would I do that?

A way to show her and the rest of them that it was all good between us…

“Ah, I was meaning to get to this at some point,” I said. “I wanted to thank you all for that dinner you took me out to that day. I wanted to celebrate my becoming a Master Liberomancer, but you know, things always get in the way and I couldn’t get around to it before this whole dryad business started. Why not, once this siege is over, I’ll treat all of you at the same restaurant to celebrate?” People had been offering me parties almost nonstop ‘when this is all over’ and I felt like I might as well return the favor to someone.

“Oh… uh….”

“Can you do me a favor, and once this is all done, let everyone working in the shop know so we can figure out a date and time?”

“Oh, sure…”

I moved to clear the path for her, though she shook her head and insisted I go first. Out of respect for my title? Or just out of seeing an old friend after a long time?

I didn’t have the heart in me to argue any further, so I went down and took the carriage not back to the palace this time, but to Granny Qi’s place. I just wanted to see how she was doing, and while it wasn’t feasible to visit her after every shift, I could check on her once in a while.

“How are things?” I asked her. Her house was crowded just like it had been when I left and was a bit cluttered and dirty as a result, though everyone looked to be in good health.

“I can’t complain here,” she said. She looked a bit weary, but otherwise okay. “So long as we’re all still alive, what’s there to complain about? I was meaning to ask how you were doing - did you get hurt?”

“No, and casualties have been mostly low up till now thankfully,” I told her. “Some of the dryads have primitive weapons like spears and bows, so occasionally some people have been hit by them, though most of their projectiles have missed, you know, advantage of being atop a wall. And after the first day they didn’t send any large parties after us.”

“Good, good, now come in.”

“I can’t stay for long, but…” I said as she practically dragged me inside.

”I’ve been meaning to make this,” she said, pointing to some fish she was cooking on the stove. “But I couldn’t get it to taste like you had.” I took a small bite to sample it.

My [Poissonnier] skill activated instinctively. “I think this needs to be cooked for just a touch longer, and if you have something like onions, diced ones will bring out the flavor.”

“Right,” she said and then gave me a brief smile. “I’m glad to see that you’re safe.”

“How are things when it comes to food, by the way?” I asked Granny Qi as I took a seat. I had been particularly worried about her and the rest of her family when it came to that.

“We should be alright, don’t worry about us,” she said, waving her hand. “Are they feeding you properly?”

“Too much hoenstly,” I said with a light chuckle. “Actually I think should be giving some of it out to other people but…” The thing was, I knew that most of the Rank Three Liberomancers had stores of food at home, or the capital to buy food even at the inflated rates they were currently going for in the market. Still, the city rationed out food in such a way as to make sure that they were fed fully entirely on the city’s dime.

Granny Qi shook her head. “If you don’t eat, you can’t fight. How strong are you compared to a normal person?”

I had heard random figures thrown around, but it was said that in an open field, someone like Zeke was the equivalent of five thousand ordinary soldiers. If such were the case, I’d probably rate myself worth somewhere around two or three thousand soldiers at most.

To feed one person fully who could fight as well as three thousand or to feed three thousand people; the answer from a logistics perspective was obvious. Not to mention I was punching way above my weight when it came to the dryads thanks to that little Tyrant Arachnea combo I had developed.

But, that was only if you took cold, hard logic into account and took the human factor out of it. To feed someone like me when there were children who were certainly going to be malnourished… society may have judged my worth to be far greater than them - but there was something about the whole thing that twisted my stomach.

I lent Granny Qi a hand with dinner, and as expected she gave me an offer I couldn’t refuse - asking me to stay for dinner.

“Won’t you stay for dinner?” Granny Qi asked me as I tried to head out the door fifteen minutes later. “You’re the one who helped cook some of it… and I’m sure the kids would like to spend some more time with you...”

The little kids were eyeing me with curiosity - I had met some of them, but that had only been for a while during the Spirit Festival. Naturally they had all sorts of questions such as what was going on, how it was like to be fighting on the wall, etc.

Basically, she was threatening me with how disappointed they would be if I left.

Granny Qi - this was an extremely dirty tactic to try to get me to stay!

I wanted to leave because I didn’t want to strain her house or resources any more than they already were, but she had basically checkmated me with this final move.

“Alright, alright,” I said.

Dinner was very crowded - her table could not seat all of us which is why I sat down on a mat somewhere else. I was offered a chair multiple times - likely out of deference to my title - but I had to refuse.

This made me late for where I was going next, and I hadn’t wanted to be rude by knocking on the door so late at night, but I was left with no choice.

This matter had to be taken care of today, regardless of how late it was.

I was at ‘my rented house’ which I hadn’t lived in for several days by this point. I knocked on the door and someone opened it up - I couldn’t remember his name at this late hour.

“Oh, Master Liberomancer - you’ve been away for so many days-”

“Yes, I wanted to check up on things, I hope you don’t mind,” I said, opening the door myself and letting myself in.

“Oh, sure - things have been fine…”

I walked around the place, cognizant of all the eyes who were now watching me.

I then cleared my throat - I wasn’t speaking to anyone in particular, but I wanted to make sure that they all heard me loud and clear.

“I had invited ten of you into this house,” I said. “Why do I count fourteen people here then?”

They all looked at each other, no one really seemed ready to fess up.

“I want you all to know one thing,” I continued. “When I first came to this city, I had nothing but the clothes on my back and my shoes - which I had to sell at that point so I could eat. I had wandered the streets for several days like that until I was lucky enough to get some help, get back on my feet, and attain the title I have today. I’ve always been grateful to the person who made this possible, Granny Qi, and in order to repay her kindness I allowed you all, members of her village, to shack up in here. It went against the rules, but I decided to bend them to give you all a chance. However, I do not appreciate you all taking advantage of that kindness and inviting even more people behind my back.” There was pin drop silence after I finished - my anger was evident in my words and in the way I was glaring at them. Their eyes were filled with fear almost immediately - no one, especially commoners like them, wanted to enrage a Liberomancer.

Several of them opened their mouths to give justifications, but I held up my hand. “I’m assuming these other people you invited are also your friends and family, or members of your village whom you couldn’t bear to see on the streets. Believe me, I can understand that - I would not want anyone to be thrown onto the streets either. And if this was my house, I would have no issues with such - as long as one of you had informed me beforehand, of course. If I had the time and the money, I’d build up houses for everyone in the city so no one would ever be homeless. But none of you told me - however, I would be okay with even that. The issue is that this is a rented house, not my own, and the Guild already was overlooking me housing ten of you.”

“This however, was the equivalent of flagrantly disregarding their rules and spitting in their faces,” I continued. “Those are not my words, they are the words of a guild representative who I spoke to this morning. They were going to send soldiers to come here and throw all of you out - they only stopped because of my title, but clearly stated that if this were to continue, all of you would be chased out, and I would have my privileges of renting out a house like this revoked by the Guild,” I said.

If I had been a normal Rank Three Liberomancer and these had been normal times, they would have likely not even asked before doing all those above steps.

But, I was a Master Liberomancer, and these were not normal times, so they decided to give me a chance.

Drake had also helped me out here by stepping in and asking if the guild could overlook it this once.

“We cannot overlook this breach in regulations,” the representative had said. “But, if you should wish, we are prepared to give you time to resolve this on your own terms. The Guild would of course wish for things to be resolved without having to resort to litigation. However, should this situation continue, Master Liberomancer, your privileges to rent out a house will be revoked, potentially permanently, and you will also be fined for any repairs or cleaning that have to be done.”

“I understand, don’t worry, I’ll take care of it,” I had told the representative. “Thank you for giving me some time to settle things.”

Drake had then given me yet another lecture on how it was a problem to be too kind - something he thought I had a problem with.

I had been wondering why he had bothered sticking up for me like that, to which he simply said, “I feel like I owe you one for that incident in the restaurant last year.” The fact that we had bonded over the defense of the city probably helped.

My opinion of him had greatly improved following such.

“So,” I continued. “I don’t know what the issue is, and quite frankly with everything going on, I can’t be bothered with the details. But no more than eight of you should be here next morning when the Guild sends their representative- wheresoever the rest of you go, I wish I could help you find another form of shelter, but I cannot. If that doesn’t happen, I will step aside and let the Guild toss you all out- and in such a case you will be treated as trespassers, which I can guarantee you do not want to happen. Am I clear?”

I got various reactions after that. Several of them started bowing, others were in tears, and many of them asked if I couldn’t do something to help them all.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t house any more of you,” I said with finality. I had just become a Rank Three Liberomancer after all, and hadn’t built up a massive business empire that it looked like some of them were assuming. “Here- I know that the rations from the city aren’t enough, I was able to buy some rice which should last you all a while.”

I carried two sacks that I had asked the guild to purchase on my behalf which I had picked up on my way here into the house and left them there.

I then turned around and went back to the palace, all the while trying hard not to burst into tears. I absolutely despised what I had just had to do. It made me regret the whole scheme I had started to help out even eight of them in the first place.

If I ever decided to stay in Libraria long-term, there was a business I knew I couldn’t get into- and that was renting property out. Because I would never find in myself the heart to evict them.

Same for when I went back to Earth. I was not going to become a landlord, that was for certain. Any investment, but not that.

The next day was one of my night shifts, my first one actually up to this point, but this meant that I had the day off.

Ideally I would’ve used the daylight hours to sleep so I could stay awake at night, but the issue was that my new job still had issues I had to comb over and things I had to iron out, and to solve them, I unfortunately had to be awake.

Were there skills that could decrease your need for sleep without any side effects? I hadn’t seen anyone using one, so maybe not…

I did manage to squeeze in a few hours of shuteye anyway sometime during lunch, but I did not feel like that was enough. Especially given that I felt like I had already racked up quite the sleep deficit from all the past few weeks of working.

“How are you, Master Stefan?” Drake asked as he joined me as the sun began to sink below the horizon.

“You can still call me Stefan,” I said yet again.

“Sure thing Stefan,” he replied, though I was sure he would revert to his old ways soon enough. “How is that little renting situation of yours going on?”

“Oh, it’s solved,” I said. I sent someone to verify with the guild, and indeed, they had followed through with what I had asked them to and there were no further incidents.

What had happened to those extra people - I didn’t know, and it did me no good thinking about them.

Didn’t make it any easier to stomach though.

I looked at the dryad horde. Were plants less active during the nighttime? Even if they were, was the same for the dryads? I noticed a lot less movement at night, but that could just be because they were resting. From what we had seen up until now, the risk of a nighttime raid seemed to be low.

That wasn’t to say that it couldn’t happen.

I shivered - it was getting warmer but was still chilly at night. I called out to one of the lower ranked Liberomancers asking if they knew where to get a blanket. It had slipped my mind to bring my own.

I knew there had been some issues with that because I was recently involved in a scuffle involving blankets - there were not enough, and some blankets were not adequate as they were torn or otherwise damaged. It had been a big issue though thankfully it had died down somewhat as the weather improved.

The city had called upon its citizenry to donate blankets if they had some extra, and this endeavor had some middling success.

With all that said, I was not only handed a well-knit and thick blanket, but also told, “If you need another one, just give us the word.”

Rank Three Liberomancers were really well taken care of, weren’t they…

Drake came back again a while later after inspecting other areas under his command. “Up for something?” he asked me, pulling out a bottle of wine.

“You sure we should be drinking while on duty?”

“A glass here and there won’t hurt,” he said with a light chuckle. I was sure that it would, but he likely wasn’t going to care even if I pointed that out. “Not to mention the dryads haven’t done anything at night yet - I don't think they can actually, given how much they need sunlight. They usually remain as motionless as actual trees during this time.”

‘Wasn’t the whole reason that we had nearly fought in the first place last year because you were drunk?’ - I wanted to say that, but refrained from doing so, and instead accepted a small amount. Despite myself, it looked like he was becoming quite the bad influence on me.

“I heard there was a grimoire that you could make that would let you drink without later getting a hangover,” I said. “Or would let you drink without getting intoxicated too much - I forgot which one of those two…”

“Oh really?” Drake asked.

“Yeah,” I said, straining my memory. “But you had to write it with wine as ink…”

Drake took out a piece of paper. “Want to try?”

I really shouldn’t have given the fact that preserving my mana was a priority in case something happened, but at this time, I was still stressed out I felt that it might’ve been a good exercise to help me decompress. As it was, a small amount of mana shouldn’t have made that big of a difference if something happened.

I began thinking of what to write - since it was a Rank One grimoire, it didn’t need to be very long. A short amount of factual knowledge was good enough.

I had tried to do this before… but had never actually finished it. Why was that again?

Oh right, it was because of the person standing next to me eagerly awaiting for me to do so right now - who had interrupted me at the time.

I settled on writing the chemical makeup of alcohol and how yeast made it through anaerobic metabolism - and how there were limits to how strong it could be when done by yeast. If you wanted more concentrated alcohol, you had to distill it which is how one obtained things like vodka.

It was more of chemistry than anything, and I had to pause occasionally, straining my memory to remember my basic chemistry lessons, but I was able to finish it anyway.

The ink glowed, turning green- to give me a grimoire that gave… +1 to Speed?

I was dumbfounded.

Yes, the effects of grimoires sometimes didn’t add up to what they were written about, though there usually was at least a tenuous connection. This one, however, seemed completely divorced from anything involved in making it. Maybe there was some relationship and I just couldn’t see it? I had been expecting something related to alcohol or wine in some way though.

“Guess I ended up wasting some mana and wine then,” I said. “Sorry.”

“No problem,” he said. “If anyone could do it - I felt that you could.”

Before leaving for another check of what was going on, Drake tried to teach me some letters in the lizardman language. It was one way that we had tried to pass the time before, and at least somewhat relevant to me.

I learned something slightly curious as he began writing some letters. “Is that the letter representing ‘lizardmen?’” I asked him.

“Indeed it is.”

“Wasn’t that the same one… wait… I’ve seen it before… doesn’t that mean ‘dragon?’” I could tell as it somewhat looked like a dragon, being a long curvy letter opening into something that could be approximated as a ‘mouth.’ Some letters in the lizardmen language looked like the words they were trying to convey which made them easier to recognize than others.

“Well, of course it does, that’s why we are called what we are called,” Drake said.

“Called what?”

“Dragonmen,” Drake said as if it should’ve been obvious.

I took a moment to think about what he was saying. “Wait… Drake… tell me one thing, do your people… I mean, do you call yourselves the ‘dragonmen’ in your language?”

“Indeed, you’ve been saying the word several times, why is this new for you?” Drake asked, puzzled.

“Okay wait… when I say the word, lizardman, do you hear ‘lizardman’ or ‘dragonman?’”

“You just said the same word twice.”

“I didn’t- okay, so lizards and dragons are different, correct?”

“Obviously.”

“And so lizardmen and dragonmen should be different?”

Drake sighed. “Are you making fun of me or something? You’re saying the same word again.”

“Okay… I’m not, but I think it’s being translated that way…” I said as he shook his head in confusion and walked off. Had the lizardmen been calling themselves ‘dragonmen’ all the time, and it was just translated like that? Why did the humans refer to them as lizardmen then? Because ‘dragonmen’ sounded too threatening? Or was it just some kind of misunderstanding that had arisen at some point because of the way the translation magic of this world worked which no one had corrected? Even I had thought of them all as being lizardmen when I first came to this place, though if I had to choose an alternate name to call them, ‘dragonmen’ would’ve also worked.

It was probably partly the alcohol’s effect and partly boredom, but I couldn’t help but begin thinking of all the other words that the magic system of the world might be mistranslating. How much context was I missing because of this?

The night watch was quieter than daytime, which meant there was even more time to kill. I had already read as much of my new grimoire as I could without depleting my mana to a point where I thought it would be irresponsible to use more. Eventually, Drake passed by again after he was done after another round of routine inspections.

“How’s it going?” he asked.

“Good enough,” I said.

Some of the guards were nodding off - no, they were just staring off into the night, I supposed, it was a bit hard to tell.

Even with [Unobstructed Sight] I could not detect any movement from the enemy side. The ‘night vision’ feature of it was not that good at differentiating things like shades of color in the dark, but it was pretty good at detecting shapes and movement - particularly from living things which appeared brighter than their surroundings.

Drake sat down next to me. “Don’t you feel cold in your armor?” I asked him.

“Ah, no, I have an ability that keeps me warm almost all the time no matter how cold it is,” Drake answered. Right - he was a fire elementalist, it wouldn’t shock me if there was something like that. “What’s that?”

“This is the grimoire I swapped from your brother,” I said. It was night and rather quiet as well - maybe I could use up thirty percent of mana instead of the usual twenty right now? It would greatly speed up my progress.

“Ah, is that the one that gives [Ansoon’s Blessing]? That’s a good choice you made by taking it,” Drake said.

I nodded. “Hey - related to this grimoire, are there a few waterfalls in this area that flow backward?”

“Just the one,” Drake said. “I’ve never been to it myself though.”

The grimoire had gone into much more detail regarding Ansoon’s story, as it was Zeke had only given me a brief synopsis. I was only partway through it by now because of the limited amount of both mana and time I had on hand, but it had started with Ansoon’s earlier life and the background regarding the conflict that had led to the tragedy in which her brother had been killed.

Chipker had not always been a unified country, and had gone through periods where it was divided into a western and eastern half, though the Ruler of the Astral Winds had the region firmly under his boot during his reign. After his assassination, however, it was once again split into a western and eastern half torn along the Arconia.

I hadn’t gotten much further than that yet, but this grimoire was more concerned with her personal story rather than the actual broader context of how Chipker had become a single nation and its political situation at the time. I didn’t even know if it would go into that topic later on, or if it would end with her brother’s death.

“Sorry if this is a random question to ask,” I said to Drake. “But have you ever seen a spirit? Like the ones in stories?” A river spirit supposedly was the one who had given Lady Ansoon the power to make the blessing named after her, and also who had caused the waterfall to flow in reverse in the first place. However, I had asked some humans about the waterfall and they knew of no such story behind it. There was clearly a gap between what the lizardmen and the humans thought was the most likely explanation behind the mystery of the waterfall.

As for me, I was less interested in who was right and more curious about spirits in general, which is why I was bringing up the topic in the first place.