The Siege of Arconia Chapters 6-8

I walked out of the guild once the lesson was over - about twenty percent of that lesson had been worthwhile in the sense that it was something I’d forgotten or was new to me, so at least I could say that I had gotten something out of it.

Also, I had to admonish myself a little. I had looked down at the others in that class for not knowing some basics and harboring beliefs about Liberomancy that were untrue earlier - but it turned out that the same could be said about me.

I had thought that you could use [Diarrhea] on someone to give them diarrhea as a possible offensive option - I did not know the spell myself, but I had heard of it and naturally assumed that was a possibility. But no, it was actually considered a healing spell whose purpose was to try to expel poisons that might have been swallowed by someone. It was rather weak in its effect, but what could you expect from a Rank One spell?

However, because it was a healing spell, it meant that the target had to accept it for it to work, much like a buff. You can reject healing magic or buffing magic whosoever you are - even if your Resistance is low. Offensive magic, of course, could also be negated via either skills, spells, or stats, but [Diarrhea] was useless unless the target consented. If someone was unconscious, healing magic could still be cast on them thankfully, but something like [Diarrhea] would stop before it caused say, life-threatening dehydration or the like. It was not really possible to use it to hurt someone.

As such, any fears I had earlier of someone randomly approaching me on the street and casting a spell causing me to suddenly lose my bowel control were in fact, completely baseless.

It was a gentle reminder that even though people considered me to be a hotshot now, I still had a very limited understanding and experience of this world. I couldn’t afford to let the flattery and attention get to me. Because I was not a native to this world, there were many things that were considered ‘obvious’ that I did not know. It wasn’t right of me - and outright dangerous as a matter of fact, to look down on anyone else then.

And clearly, Zhen Liu was right about what he had said when he had walked in. You can always keep on learning.

The guild was located near the docks, and I turned my attention there for a moment when the salt-laden breeze washed over me.

The sea… it had made so very little sense to me that the people of Arconia utilized the sea very little when I had first come here. Even now, they said that escaping via the sea would be a last resort.

But, I had dug deeper into the issue out of curiosity. Libraria in the past, even though I found it kind of hard to believe, was an even more dangerous place to live than it is right now. Many of the ballads of the Goddess Serragnin involved her fighting creatures of immense power - granted, you could write that off as just being myth, but there were more well-documented recent examples.

Such as the Ruler of the Astral Winds - whenever he conquered a region, he would order the extermination of any monsters that were considered a threat to his subjects. There were some that he, a Rank Five Liberomancer - was forced to deal with himself. Some of these threats would make the incoming dryad horde seem harmless by comparison.

It wasn’t just him though, throughout history, whenever there was a strong monster that killed the common folk, Liberomancers would usually gather and not only slaughter that monster but all of its descendants and relatives until there were none left. Creatures like the Elephant Frog who were mostly harmless might be left alone or simply chased off, but those who actively wished to hurt people? They would quickly go the way of the dodo.

Of course, threats were still present in modern times, but to a far smaller degree than before.

The dryad hordes were an issue as Hitutsa did not have the manpower to completely take over the region they inhabited currently, otherwise they would have found their entire forests burned to the ground if the Ruler of the Astral Winds was still alive today and that region were still under his management.

Things were very different when it came to the sea.

It was hard for Liberomancers to fight sea monsters given that most of them could quickly retreat to the depths and that the sea was extremely wide and difficult to explore properly. Taming the sea in the same way that the land was tamed would be at least ten times more difficult - and there was no one like the Goddess Serragnin or the Ruler of the Astral Winds in these times to help with it. There was a reason after all as to why although dragons were extinct, their aquatic counterparts, the sea dragons still thrived.

The story I had heard while traveling to that lizardmen village cemented this idea in my mind. And so, it was deemed easier to simply leave the sea alone. Yes, the oceans were dangerous, but you didn’t have to sail too far out, did you? The powerful sea monsters did not venture onto land (the few who did were attacked), so just stay out of the deep waters! Sea dragons were dangerous, yes, but they could not fly, so leave them be! They do not venture into shallow water near the shore, so coastal fishing is fine, but don’t stray too far!

There might actually be many places in this world, like islands and maybe even other continents, that were separated from this main continent but that no one knew about just because of how dangerous it was to try to cross the ocean to reach them.

The ocean, in other words, was just as dangerous as it had always been, while the land had been made safer over time.

Of course, if push came to shove, as a last resort people would take their chances and flee by ship, but that was only if the walls fell and the enemy couldn’t be stopped.

The coastal side of Arconia was also a potential weak point as the wall didn’t completely cover that side of the city - so fortifications were frantically being made to stop the dryads from possibly circling around the city and attacking from that direction.

They couldn’t deal with salt water, but it wasn’t clear if that just annoyed them or actually harmed them, so the idea of them stepping into the sea wasn’t entirely too far-fetched.

It was odd just how livelier things seemed to have become in a matter of around three hours. So many people running everywhere…

...they really had no clue how to deal with this, did they? I felt that the underlying cause of most of the panic was just that. This was something new - something they hadn’t dealt with before. It it had been a storm, or a famine, at least they would have had some grasp on what actions they should take. But Arconia was not like the capital which was always prepared for a siege or war, it was a center of commerce and a source of food for the more militaristically-inclined capital.

Even the oldest of Arconia’s citizens couldn’t remember when the last siege had happened. I saw multiple groups of young men - non-Liberomancers, who had been drafted and were practicing keeping in formation with shields and spears. Hopefully they would not have to fight, but if push came to shove, they would be the front-liners who would hold off the enemy while Liberomancers rained spells from over their heads.

I saw some people trying to hastily make something approaching some form of shelter for the influx of refugees - mostly these were just glorified tents with straw at their bases, and even if they were crowded to the point you couldn’t move your elbow without hitting someone next to you inside they were far from sufficient. I couldn’t say that the city wasn’t trying, but their efforts were clearly not enough.

Alongside these large public kitchens had been set up to try to ration out food to those who didn’t have money; mostly the refugees, some of whom had to rush to the city empty-handed. These lines were already beginning to wrap around street corners.

Men were out and about, offering to do any kind of work for pay. By the time I had reached back to Granny Qi’s house, I had nearly emptied what change I was carrying in my pockets. There were a lot of people out on the streets begging - and I couldn’t find it in my heart to refuse most them. I had been a lot like them when I had started out after all.

“Oh? Is something the matter?”

Two guards were posted near the entrance of her house. Did something else happen that they needed clarification with? Interestingly enough both of them were lizardmen - they usually sent human guards to human houses just to keep things smooth and avoid any unnecessary confusion that might arise from a misunderstanding that could occur between the two different species.

There was also a carriage near the house with the governor’s coat of arms on it, meaning that it seemed that someone important had come with them. “Ah, well met, Master Stefan Dawson,” one of the guards said after lowering his head. “Sir Zeke wished to meet with you and is awaiting you inside.”

“Ah, what is this about?”

“I’m sorry, but I do not know. It does seem to be rather urgent, however.”

“Got it,” I said, with a sinking feeling in my stomach telling me this was nothing good. I gently opened the front door and entered Granny Qi’s house.

The interior of the house was the same as when I had left earlier, though the simple presence of a lizardman in the house made it feel oddly alien.

“Good afternoon,” I called out to the somewhat familiar blue-scaled lizardman. He was sipping from a teacup and sitting opposite to Granny Qi. There were no guards inside the house - likely he had not seen the need for any given that it was just an old lady he was dealing with. Again, seeing a lizardman in a human house was a bit of a peculiar sight - the chairs were too small for him and he seemed to barely fit on the sofa, but he didn’t look uncomfortable. For her part, Granny Qi was behaving as if nothing was out of the ordinary and Zeke was just an old friend who had stopped by for a chat this fine afternoon. Of course, Zeke was no ordinary guest - whether you considered what species he was or his rank in the city’s hierarchy. “Good evening.”

“Good evening to you, Master Stefan Dawson,” Zeke said, getting up. He didn’t bow, but did offer to shake my hand, and the way he greeted me told me that he at the very least thought of me as a somewhat equal right now, if not holding me in slightly higher regard than himself.

I knew Zeke had nearly finished most of his Rank Three slots from what I had heard from other people in the guild, meaning he would be around level twenty-seven or twenty-eight, while I was still level twenty-one. In terms of power or wealth, he greatly outclassed me even disregarding the fact that he was favored to be the future governor of Arconia.

And yet, he was not a Master Liberomancer. That was a form of respect that money could not buy, nor something that could be inherited! You couldn’t pay someone to write a new Rank Three grimoire for you and pass it off as your own - the Guild heavily detested something like that and it would be treated like fraud just as much as plagiarizing something and passing it off as your original work would be. Even someone like Zeke could not get away with that.

I also had a feeling he was here to ask for a favor, which is also why he was being so courteous. Or maybe I was looking too deeply into things? People did say he was the more reasonable of the governor’s two sons, so this could just be how he usually is. I hadn’t really spoken with him that much aside from the brief time I’d spent with him when there had been the incident with the demonic grimoire.

“Good thing you finally came,” Zeke said. “I was about to send a runner to the guild to fetch you, I’m sorry, but this is an urgent matter and with the upcoming siege I am already inundated with work, so if you will forgive my bluntness, I would like to get to the meat of the matter as to why I’m here directly.”

“No problem,” I said. “I honestly appreciate open talk.”

“Hmm…” Zeke said, turning his gaze to Granny Qi.

“Don’t worry, Granny Qi isn’t going to mumble anything to outsiders,” I told him. “And I trust her completely.”

“No worries, I’ll be upstairs,” she said, already getting up. “My hearing isn’t as good as it used to be, so feel free to talk - rest assured that I won’t overhear anything.”

“No, no, Lady Qi,” Zeke protested. “You have already been so generous as to invite me into your house, ah, it’s no issue - you can also sit down if it makes Master Dawson more comfortable.”

Granny Qi handed me a cup of tea. “So, what’s going on?” I asked.

“The matter is that I need your help,” Zeke said.

I nodded. That was what I was expecting. “What kind of help?”

“The upcoming dryad invasion is going to need the cooperation and coordination of Liberomancers, both human and lizardmen, in order to repel successfully,” Zeke began. “However, I doubt that you are unaware of the recent incidents between humans and lizardmen that have caused a rift to grow between the two sides.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard of the news,” I said.

“I understand the feelings of the humans,” Zeke said. “However, this is not the time for internal squabbling, I think you can agree on that? This is the time to bury the hatchet and focus on repelling the dryad invasion. However, that is easier said than done. It is one thing to say that we must put our differences aside, but in truth, people don’t always think rationally - humans and lizardmen alike. There will no doubt be resentments even if on a surface level we agree to cooperate. Like two gears in a machine, we need to turn in sync, though like with any machine, there needs to be some sort of oil to ensure that the gears mesh well together without too much friction.”

“I… don’t really follow your analogy?” I said.

“Ah, right, sorry, sometimes I get carried away in my own thoughts,” Zeke said. “What I mean to say is that we need someone who can act as a bridge between the lizardmen and the human Liberomancers, and who can smooth over any conflicts that might arise. Someone who both sides can respect, but who both sides can see as one of their own. Someone like you, Master Stefan Dawson.”

That threw me for a spin. “Me? Why?”

“You are instantly respected by anyone because you are a Master Liberomancer,” Zeke said. “Of course, there are both lizardmen and other humans who are Master Liberomancers as well, but they are - how shall I say, bound to factions? Lizardmen will not be seen as trustworthy by humans and vice-versa in current circumstances, generally speaking. But, you have a history of cooperating with lizardmen already, when you worked in Lady Lauren’s shop. Many lizardmen visited her shop and remember you. Of course, the humans of this city respect you for your title and because you are ‘one of them.’ But, as you are a foreigner, you have no close ties with any specific family here. In a way, you are in a unique position where you can appeal to both sides without appearing completely beholden to either.”

“So you want me to act like a bat?”

It was Zeke’s turn to be confused. “A… bat? I’m afraid I don’t follow.”

“Right, it’s a story from where I’m from,” I said. “In the jungle, there was a war between animals and birds. The bat, when it saw the animals were winning, appealed to them saying that he was also an animal given his fur and lack of feathers. When the tides of war turned, and the birds had the upper hand, he went to them saying that he was actually a bird - he could fly, after all. You want me to tell the humans that I’m one of them - and you want me to tell the lizardmen that I’m not with the humans as I’m a foreigner and worked for a lizardman, is that right?”

“Yes,” Zeke said. “I’m glad you under-”

“-I’m sorry,” I interrupted him. “But, that’s not the whole story of the bat. See, the animals and the birds eventually had a truce and the war ended, though once this happened, they began talking to each other. They then realized what the bat had done - after which they chased him out of both factions and he was left to fend for himself. So you see, I do agree with you on one point, that we do need to cooperate. The issue is that people, at least where I come from, who play both sides like that tend to be called two-faced and ostracized.”

I remembered incidents from back on Earth - like politicians who tried to reach across the isle between political parties, or people in general who tried to remain neutral when it came to many things. That could work in normal times, but when things were especially polarizing, people who did such tended to be called ‘fence sitters’ and rather than being recognized for taking two different viewpoints into account; were instead more often than not hated by both sides.

“Well, I’m not asking you to deceive anyone,” Zeke said. “Yes, things might be difficult- but I can’t think of anyone else with your reputation and in your position who might be able to easily do this.”

“Listen… I don’t have a problem trying to do this,” I said. I didn’t want the city to fall either, because I was one of the idiots who lived in it. “I just need to tell you two things: one, I not be very good at this given I don’t have much experience.” The only thing I could call that would be even somewhat close to managing something was being asked to lead projects in class- hardly what you could call experience. “Secondly, I do want something in return for accepting this in case things later go south.” I didn’t think that Zeke was the kind of person that would discard me or make me a patsy for things going wrong later on, but I did want to know I was promised something in case that happened.

Reputation was almost everything for Liberomancers - maybe someone like the Ruler of the Astral Winds was powerful enough to do whatever he wanted without reproach, but he had been leagues above anyone else at his peak. If I was placing my reputation on the line - which would no doubt take a hit if we did not succeed, I wanted something for my trouble.

“What would that be?”

“You can fly, correct? I’ve heard about that through the guild grapevine, and I also want a grimoire that help me fly,” I told him. I had tried using the Liberomancer’s Guild to help me in my search for a grimoire that would help me fly, but had come out empty-handed even with their aide.

Aside from a grimoire that could help me do that, the only thing that I felt like I was missing was a stronger reliable defensive ability, but I could probably find something like that if not in Arconia, at least in the capital at some point. It was regarding the ability to fly that I really needed some help.

The only thing that could potentially be more valuable than flight was teleportation, but the only mentions of that I had heard of were in some of the stories of the Goddess Serragnin being able to travel incredible distances nearly instantly - meaning it was likely impossible for mortal Liberomancers to achieve.

“Ah, I - there are a few issues with that,” Zeke said. “That grimoire I used was written in a language I don’t know, so I cannot make a copy for you myself. It is also quite difficult to purchase something like that - to put it into perspective, I cannot even get a copy for my own younger brother right now.”

I nodded. “I understand - I mean, this is not something that I’m absolutely demanding you do, and right now is the wrong time for it anyway given the incoming invasion, but as long as you make a good faith attempt to help me out in this endeavor, I’ll be satisfied.”

That was why reputation was everything - if you were known as someone who couldn’t deliver or bilked on your promises, you would soon be shunned out of most pathways to advancement. People would soon start to refuse selling grimoires to you - and might also show hesitancy with buying them. The guild might stop cooperating with you or you might see attractive offers being given preferentially to other people.

Zeke could get away with things more than most people could given he was the governor’s son, but there was a limit to it. The incident involving his younger brother, Drake, was proof of that.

And I knew Zeke’s reputation beforehand - which is why I was willing to take something as tenuous as his word for it.

“Your terms are acceptable,” Zeke said, and we shook on it. “Ah, I would not worry too much about difficulties with your role, however, I only wish for you to smooth things over. It can take a lifetime to train a politician - trust me, I know, so long as you don’t do something especially egregious or cause conflict yourself, I think that we will be fine. I only ask that you listen to both sides as best as you can.”

I nodded. “That I can try to do.”

“I hate to ask this of you as well,” Zeke said. “But, we are having a meeting with the other lizardmen Rank Three Liberomancers of the city this-” he looked outside, “-very soon actually. I wanted you there, but if we want to get there in time, we would need to leave almost immediately.”

It was like sitting for a job interview, and when you asked, ‘When can I start?’ the interviewer said ‘You got the job. You start immediately,’ and then lead you to where you’d be working right then and there.

“I hope this will not conflict with anything you were planning on doing?” Zeke asked.

“Ah, no, it can wait for later,” I told him. I did have some things to discuss and arrange with Granny Qi, but that could also be done tomorrow. “Let’s go then.”

We made our way to his carriage. I had ridden in a few of them before - if you had to travel long distances you could pay one like you would a taxi, though I usually just walked around.

It was kind of expected that the interior of his carriage was way fancier and more comfortable than any of the public ones. The seats were also larger - being designed specifically for a lizardman.

I saw Zeke relax as he sat down, letting out a sigh of relief.

“I apologize - most of the furniture in the house must’ve been too small for you,” I said. A lot of the ‘human’ furniture was also somewhat small for someone like me; humans in Chipker were on average shorter than back home so the problem was likely even worse for someone like him.

He chuckled. “I have very rarely been in a human house before, and those I do frequent have a chair or few reserved for lizardmen… I guess I can’t really complain however, dropping by like that unannounced.”

“Still, it’s never nice to feel uncomfortable like that,” I said.

The ride towards the governor’s palace took about thirty minutes, and it was only the two of us in the carriage, which made things kind of awkward to just be staring at each other without saying anything.

Then again, what was there to say? I barely knew the guy. I was also never very good at small talk, and on the subway or the bus I’d usually be doing something on my smartphone right now. People in the days before then would read the newspaper on long journeys.

I had nothing like that.

“So, have you given any thought to what you wish to specialize in?” Zeke asked after five minutes of neither of us saying anything aside from general comments regarding the weather and other mundane topics.

This was the equivalent of asking someone what they were majoring in if they were in college - basically a standard question to ask when there was nothing else to talk about.

“I uh, haven’t really decided yet,” I said. I had only recently become a Rank Three Liberomancer, though that was an important question to consider regarding which grimoires I’d add in the future. “I have considered becoming more of a generalist…” I trailed off, because saying that was kind of like saying that your major was Undeclared - in other words, something only people with no direction in life tended to say.

There were people who tried to do a little bit of everything, but much like on Earth, the best way to get ahead was to be very good at doing one or two specific things. A generalist did have more options, but from what I had found out, in ninety-nine scenarios out of a hundred a specialist would be better off.

Usually the only people who were generalists were those who had either given up on really advancing further in Liberomancy due to a lack of interest, or those who had other obligations like family or the like that they had to support. These people were not necessarily generalists out of choice, but more of the fact that they were unable or unwilling to try to accumulate more grimoire to eventually become respected specialists.

“What did you specialize in, and why’d you choose it?” I asked him, trying to flip around the question.

“I am a fire elementalist,” he said. “As for why- my father was one, and so was my grandfather, and so was my great-grandfather.” He chuckled. “And if I ever intend to inherit [Inferno] I needed to be one anyway, so it made sense.”

Elementalists were Liberomancers who specialized in dealing damage with a specific element and would get grimoires to support that element.

As an example, fire elementalists would use grimoires like, [Blazing Heart] which increased damage from fire spells by twenty-five percent, [Inner Heat] which reduced the mana cost of fire spells by thirty percent. Those were Rank Two skills, but there was also the Rank Three skill [Internal Volcano] which increased both range and damage done by fifty percent, as well as [Fiery Spirit] which let you cast a fire-elemental spell twice every hour without consuming any mana. You would also invest in attacking options other than [Fireball] or [Grand Fireball] like [Incinerate] which was a spell that did massive damage to a single target rather than doing moderate damage to many targets like [Fireball] and the like.

I didn’t know the criteria for learning [Inferno] given it was kept a bit hush-hush as it was a Rank Four spell, but presumably it required knowing two Rank Three fire elemental spells in order to learn.

That was one reason why it got harder to add more grimoires to your repertoire as you went up in rank. Like building a pyramid, your options would greatly decrease as you added on more layers, and you couldn’t make a top layer larger than one beneath it. As an example, even if you could somehow theoretically get thirty Rank Four grimoires from around the continent, you would likely not be able to read all of them as some of them might require you to know one or two Rank Three spells to learn them. The amount of different Rank Three spells required would likely, because of this, number more than thirty. And since you could only have thirty slots for each rank, you would likely find yourself in a situation where even if you had thirty of them some were incompatible as a combination because of this limitation.

“Fire elementalists are pretty popular here,” I said offhandedly. “I’ve often wondered why…” I knew a lot about fire elementalists in particular as Granny Qi talked about them - Hei Nan had also been a fire elementalist.

“Oh,” Zeke said. “The royal family are fire elementalists, and the lizardman who invented [Inferno], my great-grandfather was also one. So people naturally looked up to these figures of authority, and thought that they too, should do the same, and it leads to a positive loop where most of the grimoires available revolve around becoming a fire elementalist, and so the easiest thing to specialize in is that field, so more people do so, and the cycle repeats itself.”

That was true. Say, for example, I decided to become an earth elementalist - well, then, I was in for a rough time because there were basically none of them in Arconia. I would have to almost make each grimoire myself, assuming that I was able to create them in the first place, or have them imported from far off lands which half the time would not even be possible especially for Rank Three grimoires given the distances involved unless I went there personally.

“Yeah, I’ve given some thought to becoming one myself…” I said.

“It isn’t a bad field,” Zeke said. “I mean, my entire set of grimoires is basically the same as my father’s and grandfather’s, as it was set up which ones I would read even before I was born. But- I did have to specialize in something. Not to mention, I think it’s a good thing that we have so many dedicated fire elementalists. The incoming dryads are weak to fire-based spells after all. Same reason it’s a similar situation in Hitutsa, where they also have a lot of fire elementalists in order to deal with them more effectively.”

There was of course, a drawback to specializing in an element - if we ever encountered an enemy in the future who was immune to or resistant to fire, it would be an issue. Granted most Liberomancers did have some spells from other disciplines that would come in handy so they wouldn’t be completely useless, but it did mean that their effectiveness would be greatly reduced.