100 Chapter 95(2): Bitter Farewell

ELI POV

As I donned my new armor back on, the carriage driver eventually got the horses going with a sharp jerk forward. With the trip passing without incident, I arrived back through the gates and was out on the field towards my house in good time. The mid-day sun shined above as my stomach grumbled for lunch. With the black and occasional odd bit of white tower coming nearer and nearer, it was only when I was up to the double oak doors with iron bands that something occurred to me.

As I was working a bit of magically summoned water around my body, my wife opened the door. She wore her best green dress and her white eyes looked eager as her snout flared in anticipation.

"Eli! What are you doing?" Her rough voice asked as she moved closer to get me in an intimate hug. She plastered herself against me with a small purr as she ran her hands over wherever she could get in between the armor.

"I figured a husband coming home to his wife reeking of another woman is rather distasteful, so I was trying to do a quick wash."

Salamede just snorted as she worked off the strap for my chest piece.

"Come inside, you sexy man, and let me worship you."

I wasn't given time to respond she pulled me into our home with the smell of meat pies filling the room. I was expecting her to want a reenactment of my morning, but instead, when she got the armor off, she pushed me on the brown leather couch opposite the fireplace. Heading to the small kitchen to the right of the main door, she got out a tray of steaming pies and a large mug of beer, which she put on a table opposite of me.

From there she pressed herself into me and plied me with sips of beer and bites of pies, all fed to me like an emperor enjoying food from his sensual servant.

"You truly aren't mad?" I asked after the third bite of spicy meat pie was washed down with a cold swig of beer.

"Mad?" Salamede asked with a raised eyebrow. Her next words she made sure to accentuate by lifting herself and pressing me in between her considerable breasts. "Eli, I love you for it. I have no doubts about your power and your ability. The charity you have shown is without question. But…" She bit her lip while she considered her next words, which was fine by me as I gripped my two pillows with naked lust. That made her bite her lower lip harder, but she eventually found the words. "But now I know you will uphold promises, even with extreme discomfort involved. I know how hard it was for you, and you still kept your promise. That shows you're reliable and it is so comforting to know that when we agree on something I have just another example of you being dependable.

And I intend to show you how much I appreciate that."

Over the next few days, she lived up to that statement.

Her need for my 'magical' seed to fuel her magical growth kept up, but aside from that only two things changed; there was this newfound sense of respect between us, and her mother moved in. Maybe it was the look of reverence I saw in her face when she sat beside me, or perhaps it was her insistence on feeding me herself. Whatever it was, I felt not just her love but also her raw esteem.

I doubt there was a drug in this world half as addicting as the veneration and love she was showing me. As counter-intuitive as it was, keeping my promise to lay with Beth had only improved our marriage and the thought of the consequences of that action were quickly pushed away as I used the excuse of the government trying to kill my wife to keep the what-ifs to the side. What was going to happen from that union was going to happen but the here and now needed me too badly.

While our physical vigor increased, the presence of her mother meant we had to keep our sex in the bedroom. Salamede had made it abundantly clear to the small, brown-furred Kelton woman what might happen in the next week or so when she moved in. When her mother, apparently called Kala but still insisting I call her mother, pointed out that in the event of her daughter's disappearance she would be the next person they would go after to find her, neither of us could refuse her logic.

Whatever happened after the congressional vote, all three of our fates were bound together. Speaking of which, Salamede went to the notice board each day checking for the announcement of the committee's report. When it was released, we would have a day or two before congress voted. While I fully expected some trickery, I could only continue doing what I was doing.

One day, I sent another letter to Gula explaining the changes in housing arrangements and the urgent need with which we needed to come to an agreement. Sadly, the letter I got back from her that afternoon wasn't a response to mine, which wasn't surprising as letters typically had a day or two delivery time. The dwarf food stall we went to every day slipped it in with our tray of food and after lunch, I rushed back home and only barely waited until the door was closed to read the rough parchment.

'Dear friend,

There have been several reports about the Phoenix empire launching an attack through our swamps and the Mist pirates coming in through the southern shore. You wouldn't happen to know why this is happening, would you?'

I grimaced as I practically felt the glare from those golden irises. Then a hand was on my shoulder as Salamede looked over my side to the letter.

'What do you think Eli?" She asked in a spirit connection. Her mother was almost certainly upstairs in the shower, an item she had come to covet like a second child, and would no doubt be down soon.

'It sounds like the swamps are about to be a bigger warzone than when we last visited.' I said worriedly, thinking over all the consequences of this.

'What should we do?' She asked as she rubbed her snout against my cheek.

'An active warzone is still preferable to certain death. Worst comes to worst, Cell will be going with you. Maybe if I can get the airship up and running, we'll have some more options but until then I just need to focus on what I can do.'

She nodded and rubbed my shoulder before going upstairs while I finished up a response letter.

With the damage to the tower fixed, I used all of my remaining time to fix the air ship. It hadn't looked so bad at first, that was until I looked at some of the central support struts. The proverbial spine of the ship had been broken. That lead to an arduous process of gently holding the ship up and trying to reform the thick wooden beams. I had tried to keep the electronic and heating components in while I did the repairs, but it only made the job more hazardous and mana intensive.

Working through the ship, it turned out the broken pieces inflicted other structural damages on the compartments. All in all, even after taking out the metal pieces, fixing it became nearly as time and mana intensive a project as making it. Sadly, that letter from the swamps wasn't the only bit of news that came in that day. Just a few hours after our lunch, Salamede came down into the workshop.

"Eli!" She audibly called. The fact she wasn't taking the time to establish a spirit connection made me drop the wooden board I was putting in place and turn to her. "The patriarch is at our door. Congress voted to convict."

Dashing forward, I placed a comforting hand on her blue dress's shoulder before making my way upstairs. Once I was through the hatch, I saw Salamede's mother sitting at the table on the left with a towel covering her upper head and bits of water on her small brown dress but kept my mind on the reason I came and rushed to open the door.

In the door was the harried-looking patriarch, his blue suit and thick brown horns along the back of his head accentuating the brown fur. Even as portly as he was, he still seemed to sprint the whole way here as beads of sweat could be seen on his inner white shirt.

"They voted to charge Salamede with treason. Word is the president is certain to-"

Behind him, the pounding steps of Tansen running down the path came in earshot as he ran down the dirt path from the main road to the back gate and around the bend of the scars of bark that used to be the trees. As the snow kicked up behind him with the flap of his black kimono, I saw the panic in his brown eyes.

"Eli!" Tansen called, not saying anything else until he was a few feet in front of me, huffing clouds of mist as he regained his breath. "I just got word. I suppose you've already been informed about congress and the president. The bastards were supposed to release their committee report to the public before Congress voted, but that's just another rule being discarded." His brown eyes flitted to the patriarch for a moment before turning back to me.

"Yes, the saddest part is I'm not the least bit surprised," I said in a calm tone. "I understand that you couldn't tell me how the hearing went and hold no grudge against you for it, but I must bid you both good day."

Both men stared at me with a raised eyebrow, looking at one another for a brief moment before turning back to me. There was a moment that played across their faces when they both realized that I had a plan, but they were wise enough to not press on the issue.

"I hope it works out for both of you," The patriarch said with a nod. "It would not do to have our community lose such a precious daughter."

Tansen nodded as well but stayed behind when the Kelton man left.

"Eli," His goatee twitched in irritation for a moment before he sighed and got to the point. "Another item that I am now at liberty to discuss is who will be looking after you as a student. Koal has been replaced with a water caster called Victoria, the leader of the Floods Wrath. I… I don't know what…. Maybe we could."

I took a step forward and put a hand on his right shoulder. He bit his lip as he looked down to the light stone floor laying out in front of my tower.

"You did everything you could Tansen. No matter what happens after today, none of it will be your fault." I said reassuringly.

He lifted his head skyward with searching eyes, taking in the grey sky for a long moment before turning back to me.

"Did I? I can think of several things I could have… should have done."

I looked him in the eyes for a moment before offering my final consolation.

"Only you can ultimately answer that. Now, before I have to turn this field into a lake of bodies and blood, it would be best that I make my preparations."

Tansen nodded and turned around, taking one last long look at the tower before walking through the snow and back towards the tall, white walls in the distance. Going back into the house, Salamede was standing to the right in front of the kitchen counter with her mother beside her. Wasting no time, I decided to just get the hard part over with.

"All right, Salamede," I told her, trying to keep a cool exterior as my stomach was doing flips. She didn't need to be told anything else to understand what I meant as she rushed forward and put both hands on my shoulders.

"Eli. Is… is there no other way?" She asked with a cracking voice.

"No," I said firmly. "We did the best we could, but the air ship idea was always a long shot. Maybe there is some other angle we never considered, but that opportunity has passed, and this is happening right now. If that committee sprung the congressional vote like this, it's because they don't intend to give us time to react. We need to get the dwarves here to get ready."

She just hugged me tightly. On my neck her tears fell in a light patter, freezing my heart and burning my veins. I made her cry once and haven't forgiven myself. This filth assaulting my family and making her cry? No, I will be no more forgiving towards them than I am towards myself.

"Salamede." My voice was weak despite my best efforts. "Come now. You promised. You promised that you would go when the time came. I kept my promise and you need to keep yours."

Salamede just hugged me tighter for a moment before her rough voice broke out from the quiet sobs.

"If your reputation gets ruined because of me, I'll never forgive myself." She fretted. I took her by the back of the neck and looked in the white spheres of her eyes.

"And I'll never forgive myself if you get hurt when I could have prevented it. We need to hurry before the president signs and Central Enforcement gets the order." I said with a strong hug and kiss across her soft lips before she rubbed the soft fur of her neck against mine. After another moment, she pulled back and turned towards her mother. At least where her mother used to be because I could hear her steps going up to our main room.

"Ah," Salamede said with a light smile. "She was always a strong, no-nonsense sort. I'll help her pack while you get us ready to leave."

I nodded and went to bring up the two chests in the basement. There were several ways to get them out of the house without being spotted, but I decided that the safest method would be to hide them in one of two space-expanded chests. Preparing two chests with expansion spells would make their trip easier and allow them to carry a lot of food and other comforts, like the heated shower head.

While we were getting ready, Cell, feeling my inner turmoil, came back from his play session with the other familiars after a grueling shift working on the ship and helped me with expanding the spaces in the chests. As I was sitting on the floor and finishing up the last chest to the left of the kitchen table, Salamede came down with stacks of clothes, soap, brushes, and finally her armor set. Her mother came carrying the round wooden flower that was our shower head. Before I could ask why she wasn't taking the one I made for her, a knock at the door made me jerk my head towards it.

Nodding to Cell working on the chest to my right, his black sphere atop the shifting black mass of geometry shot up towards the ceiling and through a small hole above the door. When he came back, he sent me a mental image of Gigan, the copper-haired dwarf diplomat wearing a green vest and pants with a white undershirt. Getting up and moving towards the door, I opened it and saw several dwarves behind him.

"I came as soon as I heard." He said, putting out a tan hand as his beard and mustache swayed with gold bands and jewels. I took the gold ring-covered hand and shook it.

"Yes. The only problem is we haven't heard back from Gula. Do you know when the order is coming down?" I asked.

Gigan bit his lower lip before fixing his emerald eyes to mine.

"I don't think it matters. Harold got into a row with Rand over using the local guard and is getting his boys ready. If it was my money on the table, I'd say he's not waiting for the ink to hit the paper. What's more, the word is Koal's replacement and a member of Mclain's congressional group will soon be gracing us with their presence."

A gulp was my first response. Taking a breath, I worked through the options and decided that there was only one path left to take.

"Salamede, get your mother and head out. We are out of time, out of options and you need to go. Now." I put a hand to my forehead as I concentrated on the biggest problem in our way. "We don't have the time to get a response from Gula but… let's just see what we can offer her to take our proposal."

Salamede nodded and started putting the items she brought down into one of the chests, the other I picked up from the floor and handed to Gigan, who looked at the treasure with wide eyes shimmering in greed.

"Food, clothes, creature comforts, and gifts to get on Gula's good side. If I give you this chest, can I count on you for those things?" I asked as the dwarves behind him shuffled forward to get a good look at the plain wooden chest with iron bands.

"That and a hundred times again, most grand of mages," Gigan said with a lustful bite of his lips.

"Good," I responded with a nod. We spent a few seconds getting the forming pile of goods into the other chest. After getting everything in, there was a moment where we stood around hugging while her mother stood by the door looking impatient.

Putting our foreheads together, we just took in each other's presence for a moment before we drew apart. I leaned forward to get one final kiss, which she returned with a fair amount of vigor before she pulled back and nodded. The two Kelton women shuffled into the chest with their belongings, sitting atop the pile of goods as they lifted their feet over the box's lip and maneuvering their way down below. Cell followed in quickly after that, sitting on Salamede's lap.

Their horns were just below the line of the chest as I stuck a small piece of metal in the hinge so that it would stay slightly up to give them air. A muscular dwarf with a black leather vest and pants picked up the chest with a heave. From the heavy sway of his braided beard, he apparently thought it would be heavier. A notion that was confirmed when his sapphire eyes went wide as he snuck a peak at the occupants.

"Balrond!" Gigan growled. "We have a lot to our name, but time isn't one of them right now. Move! Before I tie you to the back of the carriage as bait for the undead."

The dwarf straightened up and rushed out the door. Gigan followed shortly afterward with a respectful bow, closing the door behind him. I stood there for a moment, just staring at the iron bands and flow in the grain of the wood.

In my heart, the minor annoyance and indifference for the Coalition had been replaced as I worked to send Salamede to safety. At patience's end, malice and enmity now stood tall. Taking a deep breath, I went back down the hatch and continued working on the air ship. As I did so, my mind kept worrying about Gula. Salamede had saved her and additional gifts may induce her to accept the now demanded proposition, but this was a matter of chance and there was far too much riding on her accepting the proposition I was forcing on her for me to be comfortable with that.

If she rejected letting Salamede stay with her, the dwarves would have to bring her back. In all likelihood, the Coalition would find her after looking for her and question where she went. From there, the best-case scenario is that Salamede gets a life sentence that I will have no real chance of lifting and they don't find out where she went. At worst, they may discover our connection to the orcs before killing her.

The next day was spent brooding and pondering on all the various scenarios as I tried to finish the air ship. In addition to the anxiety over Gula's decision and the lack of a response, the official notice of the vote on Salamede's treason was delivered to the town. Fortunately, Harold had tried looking for her earlier and had been reduced to sending sullen looks my way when I went out for dinner. It appears he grew a bit wiser as he made no attempt to force his way into my tower and was content to keep an eye on me, ever vigilant for his prey until it came out of hiding or he got the forces needed to push the issue.

A few days went by and despite sending another letter, Gula still hadn't given an official response. The dwarves said she took in Salamede and her mother but seemed hesitant to make the arrangement permanent, which only turned my stomach as harassing her would only sour her attitude towards me. In the early morning of a new day, a knock at the door made the craft that acted like a doorbell activate with a slow whine.

Leaving the long board I was putting in place behind, I went up to the main floor and opened it.

In the doorway, stood a blonde with a blue leather vest and pants with a white undershirt that had a necklace of wooden coins above it, sucking in mana and expelling heat. Her blue eyes appraised me openly as did the older woman to her right. The senior of the two had a green work vest of wool that went up over her neck and was just short of the bun of greying hair on her head while a long green skirt finished the ensemble.

"Evening, quad mage." The older woman said, her brown eyes behind her glasses still appraising me, the long nose sticking out to accentuate the movement of her eyes. "We are here to discuss the matter of your current… predicament."

"Where's the farm animal?" The blond demanded, raising her sharp chin in defiance.

The older woman swatted her younger counterpart in the side before coughing into her hand.

"We're not here to antagonize him, Victoria. While the vote for the treason charge is coming down, your transfer to our care happened several days ago. Now if you would follow us to the academy classrooms, we have some items we need to discuss."

Victoria thumbed a piece of paper under her right arm for emphasis.

I certainly didn't trust these people, and their suggestion for a sudden trip to the classroom towers sent alarms ringing.

"No," I said as I moved to close the door.

"Ah!" Victoria said as she put a hand on the door. "We're not just overseers like Koal. Your well-being as a student has now fallen under our purview. Fight us, and we can have you moved to a room in the dorms to foster a healthier environment."

"I suppose that's why my graduation didn't go through?" I said impatiently, remembering the irritated mood that bit of news brought to Salamede for several days afterward.

The older woman got a light smile while Victoria just stood there with a blank face.

"Everything we on the Quad Mage Correction committee do is for your good, and through your incredible talents, the good of us all. Now please, the day doesn't get warmer at this time of year." She said, casting her brown eyes miserably over the field of snow.

Killing these two would be the quickest way to solve this issue. But… I can't just blast them and not expect an army to arrive at my doorstep at some point or for them to take hostages from the Kelton's to get my compliance. Of all the bad choices I had, acquiescing to their demands was the least troublesome. For now.

"Fine, just let me get ready. Dangerous trips and all that."

They both nodded and stood still, clearly not willing to move until I returned.

Going back up the stairs, I donned the crude armor I had made as a replacement for my lost hawk-like armor. Not taking any chances, I took a few bubble grenades and fire, earth spewing poles with packet-switched enchantments that I had made in my off time, and shoved them into a knap sack. Heading back downstairs, when I opened the front door the two were still sitting there.

Nodding towards me with a smile found on most grandmothers' faces, the congresswoman tilted her head towards the gate in the far-off distance. For a while, the soft wind and crunch of snow was the only thing heard as we made our way to the row of burning pyres, kept perpetually stoked with fresh wood and grey-skinned bodies.

After a few moments, they directed me towards a carriage and motioned me inside. The inside was considerably warmer with the mana lamp and heating flower combination. Noticing that there were only the Ren and Len twins in the back, I sat on the left bench with a slightly relaxed posture as the presence of other students slightly dulled my fears. The two women quickly moved to sit opposite of me, with the congresswoman on the right and Victoria on the left.

Then we took off with a hard shift.

Given how it usually took us a few minutes to leave when we got in the carriage, my suspicion only increased. Killing me wasn't an option for them, so something else was going on. Moving my shoulders skin around, I quickly summoned a few fire and earth spells using my internal mana generation for fuel. I kept the constructs hidden between my armor plates. They would summon stone spikes and fire balls just above the steel plates, but I wanted to make sure that my suspicions were confirmed before setting them off.

After just a few more minutes into our trip, we suddenly pulled off the road with a hard thump and shake. I looked around and, sure enough, they weren't perturbed by the sudden rocking of the carriage. Surprisingly, neither were the twins in the back as we came to a stop. Victoria and the congresswoman got smug looks as the blond got up and moved to undo the latch on the door.

Kicking her in the hip, she yelped in what seemed genuine surprise as my metal boot connected with the bone. Then a gust of magical wind blew over my suit. Looking at the end of the carriage, I saw the twin with green eyes finishing shoot out an air spell from a green mana construct on his right hand. Clicking my tongue in disappointment, I turned back to the two women in front of me.

"I get the feeling I'm not going to like what happens when you open that door," I said with a bitter grin under my smiling mask as I moved in front of the metal door.

Victoria just looked sullenly at me as she nursed her sadly unbroken hip. It was at that moment the door opened from behind me. Moving to the left, I saw it was the pretty blond teacher who approached me when Bess was putting that gold X-shaped pin on me.

"Hello, Eli," Her green eyes behind her glasses looking at me like I was a meal long-awaited. Her sharp chin comes up to the other two women as she pulled back to let them out. Victoria quickly got out first but when the old woman went to leave, I took her in the back of the throat with my left gauntlet. Gripping her spine, I held her in front of me like a shield as I hefted my warhammer with my right hand.

"Really, Eli?" She demanded with a look of outrage. "Using an old woman as a shield? What will people think when they hear of you using a near sixty-year-old woman for protection?"

At that moment, I could only laugh. From the use of age as a means to infer weakness to the notion that sixty years was some kind of grand age, I just laughed. I've spent fifty years putting in engines for a large starship by myself, multiple times, and something about these two absurd statements being played so seriously caught me off guard.

The other passengers didn't get the joke, of course, but I ignored their confused looks as the merry mood gradually left me.

"Listen," I said in as calm a tone as I could manage. "What game are you playing at?"

The congresswoman didn't seem as confident as she previously was considering she looked at me like I was crazy. However, she quickly choked down the fear and assumed a stance of fake confidence.

"We'll show you once we leave the carriage. Now, there are some air mages out there who could suck the air out of this carriage and storm it. So, what will it be, quad mage?" She demanded. The fear was still clear in her voice though, as getting her upper spine in the grip of a crazy man clearly wasn't part of her plan.

Looking her in the eyes as I pondered my options, I decided that obeying would be for the best. My suit's speed would do me no good in the carriage and battling for air severely reduced the number of magical elements I could use. Then I noticed that there was no blue or gold mana anywhere. That meant that they must have sucked the mana out of this region to take away my magical power.

"Fine," I said.

Roughly shoving her forward, I took a quick look around and noticed no one was on the right, and quickly moved there. The neighing of a horse behind me showed another carriage. Cursing, I looked forward again and saw that even with the two brown-haired twins out and four plain-clothed women of a rough make with white and brown pants or shirts on the left of the carriage, no one was trying to get closer to me.

"If you would follow us, we won't attack you," The blond teacher said sweetly with a hand wave towards a particularly large hill on the left as the rather plain clothes mages thumbed daggers, swords, and bow in emphasis. With their ignorance of how unimpeded I would be in a mana dead zone, I decided that playing along until they were more grouped up would be better, especially if my suspicions were right.

Making sure not to let anyone behind me, I followed the small group until I got to the bend around the snow-covered rise in the earth and saw what I was brought here for. On the left with ropes around them were various undead humans, dogs, and deer. Looking behind them, I saw that the ropes were attached to large stone bricks On the right was a line of rather battered and bloody-looking Frojan and orcs with their bare knees in the snow. Something that the heavy binds on their arms and legs prevented them from fixing.

The main problem was that five other staff members and the four rough women that moved in the middle of these two lines with a large red blanket laid across the snow. A tight ball of women gathered a light stone's throw in front of me.

Ah, so they were going to rape me.

With what could barely be considered a mystery solved, I looked around the lusty gazes of all the women and locked onto the two twins on my left. The two male twins.

"So, what are you two going to get out of this?" I asked in a light tone.

The left twin with green eyes looked straight at me as he spoke.

"They've promised to get us a good position in the other associations. Sorry, Eli. Nothing personal."

The other had some distress in his brown eyes but said nothing as he bit his lips.

"Enough!" The congresswoman yelled, apparently feeling more in control now. "Victoria. Get on the carriage and go back towards the town. I assume everything is good on your end?" She said with a look towards the blond teacher, who nodded with a smile that accentuated the mole above her left eye.

"Yes. We reserved every carriage and had those we couldn't down for maintenance. We'll have a few good hours of baby-making fun with no distractions from the classrooms."

The congresswoman nodded then turned right to Victoria.

"Go."

Victoria shot her a nasty look, which only made the older woman harden her face.

"Go, Victoria! We've talked about this. You're the only one who would get away from an orc and undead ambush and has the authority to slow them down. Just wait a good hour before taking that bend where they'll see you and then give us as much time as you can." She spat, with an air of anger at the moment of defiance.

The blond looked at me for a moment before sighing and stomping off without a word. After a minute, I heard one of the carriages taking off in the distance.

"All right, Eli." The congresswoman said, uselessly trying to wiggle out of my grip. "Are you going to make this hard or are you going to finally act like a man with an actual dick?"

"I don't know," One of the rough women called, a shorter woman with black hair and thin cheeks. "I kind of like the idea of mounting a struggling quad mage."

There were some nasty nods of approval at that but most of the staff with blue and white stripped robes just continued staring at me. The Orcs and Frojan on the right were looking at the event with mild interest or breaking out in a sweat, with their age determining which reaction they had.

"You won't get away with this." I croaked, my voice getting shaky, "Someone will hear or come along this road."

"Nope," The blond teacher said. "Every precaution has been taken. Unlike you, we care about the future of this nation and will do whatever it takes to ensure its survival. We made absolutely sure there wouldn't be a soul coming along this road for a good hour."

"Excellent," I said happily. She had a moment of confusion at the sudden disappearance of my fear but the point where she could have stopped this had passed.

I activated the spells on my left shoulder. The sudden stone spike and fire balls tore the two twins to a bloody mess of ripped and burnt flesh. There was a moment where the rest were stunned for a moment, which didn't change when I used my internal mana generation to summon a huge ball of water and fire, which I promptly slammed into the group that had so conveniently crowded together for me.

The staff members stood still as statues when the steaming bubble slammed into them. With some actual combat experience, the four actual fighters of the group managed to snap out of their confusion. Sadly, for them anyway, two of their number had their roll send them right into the line of undead on ropes.

"AAAHH!" One brunette cried as the undead human bit her nose off, quickly followed by her other parts as the blond further down the line had her entrails feasted on by a furless, grey-skinned hound.

The other two had a moment of dawning comprehension that I was an ultimate mage. A realization that dissipated when a stone spike took them between the eyes. Followed by other spikes that quickly found their way into the skull of the writhing mass of burned staff members as well.

I took a moment, just taking in a deep breath of the cold winter air.

"How?!" The congresswoman screamed with a look of fury as she kept her gaze locked onto the fresh corpses with the occasional sound of cracking bones and tearing flesh on the left. "They said they got all the mana used up with wind spells."

I was going to say something but a green Frojan to the right, an older male with a thick blue robe and fluffy furry pants, croaked up in response.

"Ultimate mage. He's an ultimate mage."

The congresswoman's brown eyes shot up and looked me up and down. I just nodded and licked my lips beneath my metal mask.

"Indeed, I am. But more importantly, we have some business to discuss." I said lightheartedly before I threw the wrinkly woman face-first into the snow. Pulling herself up and spitting out a mouthful of white slush, she looked back up to me with outrage.

"How dare you hide this! An ultimate mage. You dare keep such a gift from us? Do you have any idea how many problems-"

A small boulder from a spell out of my right hand silenced her droning, replacing it with a guttural scream.

"UAAHHHH!" She screamed as a bit of her shin bone broke the skin from where the disappearing block hit her. After a moment of moping, she turned up her eyes with pure fury. "YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'VE DONE?! I AM A MEMBER OF CONGRESS!"

"And you'll die as one. So, there is that conciliation." I said idly as I summoned a razor-thin blade of stone in my right hand.

I think for the first, and last, time in her life, she realized she had made a bad choice. Looking past me towards the road, she turned back to me as she tried to shuffle away. Her brown eyes were like a rabbit's with a wolf snapping right on its heels.

"You-you can't!" She yelled.

I just chuckled.

"Oh?! From what I've heard, you made absolutely sure no one would be coming along this road for a few hours and I'll admit an attack by the undead followed up by an Orc raid is a perfect way to cover up the rough treatment of gang rape. No. You did a really good job setting things up. For me," I complimented her. I undid my mask and tossed it to the ground. That seemed to unnerve her as my small smile was now totally visible.

She did a pathetic attempt to get up and crawl away, but it did her no good as I pinned her to the ground with a steel boot.

From there, it was only a good ten minutes before I finished. Her back and stomach were missing some skin, but I pretty easily got everything she could tell me. Which wasn't much, to be honest. Mostly about national security secrets and bribery schemes and nothing that interested me, the only relevant fact she revealed was that no one but her and Victoria knew about the truth of what happened today. When I stopped midway through the interrogation to deal with the cold, the Orcs and Frojan were pleased when I used a fire spell to keep the area warm and just so happened to include them in the spell's area.

Having pushed back the cold, I focused on the problem at hand.

"Well, all those national security secrets aren't worth a dead rats hide to me, but I suppose you being so useless isn't your fault," I said finally as my stone knife disappeared and I wiped her blood off me with the snow. My indifference to these top-secret bits of information only infuriated the bloody woman laying in the snow.

"What now? You'll kill me I guess." She growled, spitting a glob of blood at me as the disheveled woman had a ripped vest and a half-undone bun of greying hair.

"Nah, at least I won't. Need to sell the story you were going to tell everyone and all that." I said cheerfully as I grabbed the back of her vest and dragged her to the left.

"NO! Please! Anythi- AHHHH" She screamed as I tossed her to the undead, which was followed by a small gurgle as the sickly grey-skinned human bit her throat out with a wet tearing sound. Pulling back, I turned to the last, and perhaps thorniest, problem.

The line of frogmen and green-skinned women with sharp ears looked ready for death, that being the only logical outcome of this event. Me being an ultimate mage was far too good of a secret to let out amongst his mortal enemies. That was, after all, the sensible, logical course of things.

My mind, however, was on a very different track of thought. Exposing this whole sordid affair would shame a few people but it didn't really help me. Victoria would probably be ruined but there was always another glory-hungry fool and most of all, scenes of crimes are looked at a lot more closely than scenes of attacks. And if I wanted to let them go, drawing that kind of attention would be counterproductive.

Yes, the Orcs and Frojan knowing that I am an ultimate mage would be bad. But I still haven't gotten a single word back from Gula after I had sent my wife and mother-in-law into hiding with her. The fact that she hadn't responded to my letter or spoken to the dwarves about it meant she was still struggling with the decision.

Letting these Orcs and Frojan go and having the denizens of the swamps know about my status as an ultimate mage was bad.

Gula sending Salamede back at a time when everyone was looking for any opportunity to kill her was worse.

The orc woman who had seen us through so much wouldn't offer us up to her superiors, but it was something else entirely to risk exposure on our behalf. She may not have enough favor towards us to take on the risk of hiding two people in her final decision. Goodwill was now the hot commodity and one I had a never-to-be-repeated chance to increase. After all, Gula was quite a patriot, and ingratiating myself into her goodwill by sparing her comrades was overall less risky than her getting too nervous to keep Salamede.

Walking forward, one Orc on the left side had enough.

"Do what you will, quad mage. We are the bane of humanity and will hunt you down to the last Orc." The orc woman shouted, her black eyes with red irises getting a panicked look. She had a furry brown vest and brown leather pants. Her black hair had several braids in the general mess of onyx fibers. Her strong lower chin quivered, and her smooth cheekbones had a bit of sweat running down them. I walked up to her with a calm demeanor.

"I'm not here to hurt you. I just want to-"

"Bah!" She scoffed, her wild eyes and nervous jaw moving in synch with her high-pitched words that only increased when I squatted in front of her. "When we finish finding your home we will fall upon you in an ocean of green fury, that-"

I grabbed a hand full of her hair and pulled her head back. Her thick green lips quivered over her two small tusks as she took deep breaths. It was while she lifted her head that I saw my target. Behind the black hair was some blood and I now saw the wound where she had been struck unconscious.

"We are the fruit of the Bastard. Don't think that because-"

Her words died as I put up my hand and a healing spell closed the gash, followed by a water spell washing off the dried blood. After that, I went through the line and tended to each of their wounds. It was a surprisingly arduous affair as they each had one leg broken and setting the bones right was quite a pain.

Mostly the Orcs just stared at me like I was turning purple and growing a tail with a head on the end. The Frojan, on the other hand, looked on with particular interest as they saw the mana pouring out of my body. It wasn't until I was working on an older orc with a scar along her left cheek that any of them spoke.

"I don't know what your game is" She growled with her thin lips puckering and her single braid of black hair with a streak of grey swaying with the shake of her head as I healed a cut on her shoulder, "But you are the end goal of our entire species and we will never stop hunting you."

"Eh," I mused offhandedly, "There are worse things a man could face than an entire species of beautiful women trying to hunt him down."

There were several odd croaking sounds from the rest of the line at that. It took me a moment to process that they all came from orc throats. Looking around, the orcs were all wide-eyed with some having slack jaws. The Frojan, both male and female, also had wide eyes, which was accentuated with their frog-like features making their large amber eyes more prominent.

When I finished the last broken leg of a big blue Frojan in grey robes, I pulled back and looked over the line of would-be sacrifices. Then I walked down the line and encased their legs in an M-shaped restraint of stone that they would have to use their hands to dig out of and elbows in a similar grey stone of rough cuffs before cutting loose their rope restraints. With all eyes on me, I didn't even have to cough to get their attention. Though I did summon a big square of stone to use as a stool and to help absorb the now replenishing blue ambient mana, even though the healing mana from the ground hadn't recovered from the abuse of the now-dead mages.

"All right, first I need to know who wrapped your ropes," I said with a smile.

They looked at each other with confused expressions before the older green Frojan spoke up in that deep, long rumble typical to his kind.

"The humans in white and blue robes."

"Excellent." I cheered with a happy little clap. "Here's what we're going to do. If I had to guess, you'll have your heads removed if I just let you go now and you don't try to capture me, so once I'm done smashing the corpse's joints, your restraints should dissipate several minutes afterward. I should be back in the fort dealing with the blond woman by the time you get out of those leg restraints and you will head back towards your merry swamplands." Moving to the left and picking my up warhammer and mask out of the snow, I donned my smiling metal mask and started bashing the joints of the bodies as my steel-laden body crunched with every footfall in the snow. When the third hard crunch rang out over the snow-covered field, one blond orc with a long nose and leather jacket with brown pants finally spoke.

"Why are you helping us? We're enemies, in territory and species." She said with puckered lips while the rest just seemed spellbound with what they were hearing and seeing.

"Who said that?" I asked with a raised eyebrow. "Whatever Garren wrote or people think, I judge situations base on their merit, nothing else."

"What?" The black-haired orc I first healed asked with a thoroughly confused look.

I sighed and put the head of my bloody hammer down as I leaned against the handle.

"I think a potentially… beneficial relationship could exist between us. But that is another subject for another time." I finished with a nod as I continued crippling the corpses laying about and those that pulled on the ropes tied to stone blocks. As I did so, I mused on my plan.

That blond bitch is probably going up to the fort in the next half hour or so. Having her suspect any sympathy towards Orcs on my part would be a disaster. I needed to stick to their original explanation towards the public, but I also needed a story to tell Victoria.

I'm sure she'll want to know what 'really happened' in private, which I can readily provide. A simple explanation of the ambient healing mana fixing the Orcs and Frojan's wounds and maybe a wayward spell strengthening the undead would be a good reason that there aren't any swampland corpses. Saying the orcs got out of the knot a teacher who spends more time in books than in the woods is also entirely believable.

Of course, I could just kill her.

That was a nice little thought that kept me going through the swings of my hammer as it crushed the joints of the freshly and long dead.

Sadly, she would likely be so close to the wall that she would give away our fight. Moreover, me being the only survivor would be thought of as something between lucky and suspicious and I preferred people to think of neither.

After my time was finished, I used earth magic to crumble the stone blocks into unassuming chunks along the road and a fire spell on the undead to get rid of the rope and blanket. That fire magic helped add muscle tone to their undead bodies but the busted joints rendered them crippled. When I burned the cloth to willowy strands, I used a wind spell to send the remains on a far-reaching gale. Combined with the now light falling of snow, I was sure even that bit of unassuming nothing would be quickly buried.

Using my spirit magic to put the wheels beside my legs down, I zipped to the newly dead bodies and fed them healing magic, causing a stir amongst the now immobilized corpses. From there I moved behind the line of Orcs and Frojan. Preparing several earth spells, I unleashed them to tear apart the elbow cuffs. They were a determined bunch though. Immediately tearing at the soil beneath them, I could see the absolute determination in their eyes to catch me as the undead a dozen-plus feet in front of them struggled to move. But before the first palm dug into the half-melted snow, I took off towards town at full speed.

The long road continued for a while, the falling snow hiding the horror show that had taken place across its rolling white waves that stretched on with the occasional taller hill hiding the view beyond. As my mental map of the area told me I was approaching the first good size hill close to the town, I made sure to slow down to a simple walk along the road.

Sure enough, the carriage with Victoria was hiding out of the eyesight of the town behind the rise in the earth. Settling in by perching on a snowbank, I waited until Victoria moved. Whatever her sense of time was, it was totally off as it took a near hour and a half before she finally roused the horses forward and prompted me to get off my bum.

Taking off in a mad dash, she boomed forward with a frantic yell. Her call, indistinct from this distance, apparently still carried over the walls. The men on the wall stirred as the large double doors swung open for the oncoming carriage. Using an air spell, I deadened the scream of tortured air as I zoomed in just behind her.

There were a few more indistinct yells as I came in behind the carriage on its left and the doors were quickly closed behind us. The blond's voice quickly cut through the small murmurs of confusion from the surrounding guards and workers.

"Quickly! We came under attack. I'll help coordinate our forces for a rescue effort."

"Absolutely!" I yelled with a wave to one of the guards, "We may have come too late already."

Victoria's flowing golden hair shifted as she turned back with furrowed eyebrows. When her blue eyes fell on me, the color drained from her face as her jaw fell open. Fortunately, her long hair meant only I could see her face as she sat frozen in the driver's seat even as her enchanted necklace of wooden coins kept her warm.

"What?!" The captain yelled as the white feather on his helm made him stand out from the crowd.

"We were attacked by a pack of the undead. Boxed in with only the carriages for defense, they were still putting up a good fight when we left. Every second counts, gentlemen." I said hurriedly, trying to make it seem like I was exhausted as I leaned forward and used my hammer like a walking stick.

"Go, you fools," The captain yelled, waving to a patrol on the right. As they shuffled into another armored carriage, we were led into the house on the right. Victoria, dressed in some of the finest leather and silk cloth of her blue pants and vest didn't seem to notice when some mud got on the pants when she got down off the carriage and a stable boy took the reigns from her.

In fact, she seemed rather shaken for a woman who had just gotten to safety as she twirled her white undershirt in concern. But since she refused to look in my direction, I couldn't see how it translated on her face. When we were in the wooden house, they opened a door on the right and put us in a room with a long table with chairs thick and sturdy enough to hold men in armor scattered around.

When I sat down on the middle-left side chair, Victoria reluctantly took a seat opposite me. Looking at her face now, I saw some confusion and, now that she seemed to realize she was surrounded by guards, her sharp chin came up and her smooth cheekbones lent a look of irritation as they became red. Still, she was cautious enough to say what she needed to say in a spirit connection.

'What… where are the… no I suppose they didn't make it.' She said with a hint of discomfort.

'Turns out raping a man with quad elements is a dangerous thing. When the ambient mana reestablished itself halfway through our…session, I tried to use a fireball to defend myself. I didn't kill anyone. Directly. But I did manage to catch the ropes around the undead and blanket on fire. After that messy bit, I used a few earth spells to smash those stone blocks against some heads.' I responded casually like we were discussing the menu at a restaurant.

Her blond eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

'That can't be, we took precautions.' She responded incredulously.

'Well, it appears women also have a problem with doing all of their thinking between their legs. They got too distracted trying to sort out who got to ride in what order.'

She huffed as she rested her head on her right hand.

'Of all the fucking things. All this preparation and hard work and they trip at the last possible moment.' She moaned.

'Oh, how tragic for you,' I said with mock pity, 'Be thankful I'm too fucking embarrassed to try and get you hung for gang rape.'

That shut her up as we waited. After a bit, a cook assistant brought us tea and beef stew, a delicacy from the academy kitchens.

After what felt like another hour, two robed women came through the door.

"We heard what happened." One of them said, a lean brunette with short hair and green eyes.

"Yes, we came as soon as we could dear leader." The other said, her small black hair and grey eyes showing genuine concern.

After the brunette sat on Victoria's right and her companion the left, I could see the changes in their faces that said she was telling them what actually happened. I was content to be left out of the conversation and equally so when the brunette left and returned with that paper Victoria had first been carrying, presumably retrieved from the carriage.

As I was bringing the spoon of red liquid up to my mouth, I took a good look at the paper. It was hard to shake the feeling of familiarity it gave me even as it was left upside down to Victoria's left. When I had the mug of warm tea near my mouth, I finally recognized what I was looking at.

"Why do you have the guard agreement for my potential child with Beth?" I asked in a calm, measured voice.

"Pff," Victoria scoffed before she took a deep drink of her tea. Once finished, she looked at me like I was joking. "We're going to have this nonsense tossed out."

"What?" I asked with an involuntary raise of my eyebrows.

"There can be no impedance to the spread of your line." The brunette said dismissively.

I gritted my teeth as I struggled not to grip both of their throats.

"That agreement is specifically to protect them before the age of sixteen. The age of consent."

The black-haired one just waved her hand like she was swatting a fly before looking me in the eyes and scolding me.

"Their age is not as important as the potential they will bring to the world. We three know well the duties of a woman if it's a girl. If it's a boy, well there's a reason caster and above males have no such consent laws in the central continent. Something most associations praise and for good reason."

"Indeed," Victoria chimed in. "This nonsense will be thrown out. Whatever moment of weakness Koal had, the way forward is clear."

My stomach clenched as I struggled not to lash out. In that struggle, something solidified in my mind.

I was going to kill this woman someday, and probably her two pets as well.

As I brooded on the best torture methods and times to kidnap her some dark night far from now, a messenger boy came in with a sheet of paper. Unfortunately, I was hiding my anger with my bowl covering my face from a deep sip and the brunette snatched it up before I could make a move.

Looking at the three as they crowded around the paper, I decided to get involved.

"What is it?" I asked as cordially as I could manage.

"The first scouting report," Victoria said idly.

Nodding, I went back to my meal. It took another minute of her staring at the report for my curiosity to overcome my revulsion at talking to her.

"What's the problem?" I asked, this time a bit more politely.

'This report,' Victoria said in a spirit connection as the electric sensation played across my skin. It took a few more moments of her scanning the document before her blue eyes came up, heavy with suspicion paired with puckered lips.

'The scouts, they found reanimated bodies. Some of them had their legs and arms broken.'

That set off an alarm in my head. We had spent well past an hour waiting on the road. The undead should have had more than enough time to reform the busted joints.

'How did they become undead?' Victoria asked me with a guarded expression.

'It's necrosis, dear. Bodies tend to do that this time of year.' I snorted in derision as my mind looked for any possible failings in my story.

'Maybe some healing mana drifted in over the snow,' Victoria acknowledged before leaning back in the chair with narrowed eyes 'But here's the thing, we planned this thing out far in advance of our actual arrival. One precaution we took was planting the corpses of dead cats and dogs in the soil below the area and making sure the scum we captured would soak up any ambient healing mana that drifted our way, which shouldn't be enough to heal a scratch with our precautions. So, I'm having trouble believing… wait'

She put a finger up and down the report several times, going over what I believed was the portion about the composition of the undead. I just prepared several stone and air spells with my internal mana generation as I realized that the story of the ambient healing mana fixing the Frojan's and Orcs' legs was dead on arrival. Letting such a powerful individual connect me to the orcs would be a quick shot to them discovering the truth.

Whelp, someday also includes today.

'That's odd. Why are there no Orc…' Her blue eyes went wide as she looked up at me with dawning horror. 'You helped-'

A stone spike through the back of the throat ended her line of reasoning with her life as she was pinned to the wall, leaving her no time to even realize she had died. A flurry of wind blades cut the throats and hearts of her two companions shortly thereafter. As the two bodies hit the wood floor, I quickly used a water spell to curve a water blade into my armor's chest, and on the legs.

"GUARDS!" I screamed at the top of my lungs.

With a stampede of metal boots, three steel-plated men came rushing through the door. Taking in the situation, the buffer of the three with a brown mustache turned his green eyes on me after he briefly looked at the three fresh corpses.

"What happened?" He half yelled. Behind him was a cacophony as others crowded into the doorway behind him.

"I think they tried to rape me," I said truthfully, albeit with a few steps removed. "Her two companions got in some water blades before I retaliated in fear for my life."

His eyes looked towards the various cuts and bits of now disappearing water along my armor.

"What is going on?!" The captain came screaming in behind the three. When his eyes were going over the mess before him, I had to reexplain the incident.

"Fucking spirits!" The captain cursed as he put a leather hand to his head. "Of all the days for them to pull this shit. Get the quad mage to a safer location." He scowled with a turn to the three guards. They led me to the academy, where I was promptly intercepted by a messenger from Tansen. My guards were more than happy to lead me up to the academy head's office.

When I came through the wooden door, the white and blue striped wall had the same glow from the mana lamp in the center of the ceiling. As I walked across the wooden floor, I would say the only difference would be the harried-looking Tansen. His black kimono was immaculate as always with its wave sapphire gems across the chest, but he was irritably rubbing his goatee.

"I heard you got caught out in the wild." He said in a voice that said he was trying to stay calm.

I took a deep breath as I explained the 'accident' I had been put through. As I went over the beginning where we saw a carriage that was driven off the road on the way to a consultation and got to the part where the two carriages had to use the steel masses of their carriages as a shield while we struggled to keep the horses alive, Harold came through the back door.

"You certainly act fast boy," Harold said, the mid 30's man's deep green eyes looking rather impressed. His strong square jaw accentuated the muscular arms he crossed over his chest. While the typical black vest and pants with white undershirt were well kept to the typical standard of his occupation at Central Enforcement, the dirt along the pant legs said he ran through some mud to get here. "They didn't even last a day."

"What are you talking about?" Tansen asked with a raised black eyebrow.

Harold chuckled as he ran one hand through his short brown hair.

"Those two new guests, the committee rep, and Koal's replacement. They've both left our mortal world. Damn kid, if you don't work fast," Harold complemented with a dangerous look in his eyes.

Tansen's eyebrows shot up.

"But… they just got here this morning. How…"

I put up a hand and finished my tale, making sure to expound on how brave the congresswoman was when she got ripped apart by the undead. When I finally finished with Victoria and her two companions' attempt to rape me in my weakened state from fighting, Tansen just nodded while even Harold looked impressed, though he tried to hide it behind a snide comment.

"That's quite a harrowing day you've had. Although it would have been less bloody if you had just dropped your pants."

"Harold!" Tansen snarled, "The poor boy has been through enough. At least let him get a good night's sleep before you decide to be an ass about everything. I'm sure you're quite exhausted, Eli. While you are stuck in this academic limbo and no longer under my direct supervision, I made sure to tell the staff that you are to be afforded every luxury we have. Use them as you see fit."

I gave a light bow before graciously declining.

"I appreciate the offer. However, I think some time on my couch is what I need more than anything."

Tansen nodded and leaned back into his chair. Dismissed, I turned around and went back towards my tower. Along the way, I saw that one male ranger I saw during the raid on the academy town. His short black hair and a cut above his green eyes were barely visible under his grey cloak as he ran towards the gate.

Noah.

The name finally coming to me, I kept along the main path towards my tower.

Once I was back home, I put my armor back on the mannequin on the second floor and rested on the couch beside the first floor's fireplace for a long moment. It took a huge force of will to get my ass off that comfy leather seating and into the basement workshop, but I persevered through the day. The project was coming along nicely and the next day a guard came by to explain how we had managed to go so long without getting help.

I was, of course, quite flustered that a chance meeting of carriage maintenance and reservations had nearly killed me. But I told the messenger that I would endeavor to move on with my life even as I carried the burden of being the sole survivor. Fortunately, everyone bought that if anyone was going to survive that kind of day, it better damn well be the quad mage and I faced no more questions on the matter.

The day after my roadside extravaganza, I finally got a letter from Gula with my lunch from the dwarf food stall. Hiding it in my white shirt, I immediately pulled it out after I slammed my tower's main door shut.

'Dear friend,

Did you really call orcs beautiful?! What were you thinking? Toying with our self-esteem…-"

A good several paragraphs were spent wrangling over how I called orcs beautiful and it was the second to last one that got to the subject at hand.

'That aside, the matter of your true status has set tongues wagging, not the least among them is Baloo and his gang. They are insisting on a personal demonstration. I know our relationship is quite tenuous, but would I be wrong in assuming this was for my benefit? This final paragraph is from your wife.

Hello, dear.

It's going surprisingly well down here. We have stayed with a lovely snake woman who appreciates the heating and shower crafts. I hope you are at least taking things slowly with my absence. Your work ethic is admirable but with us gone things should slow down,'

I had to stop reading and close my eyes. Poor woman, if she knew even the half of it, she might just sprint back here from the swamps. Taking a deep breath, I finished the last bit of the letter.

'Mother is also enjoying some new scenery and time to knit in calm. I think the countryside agrees with her. Aside from that, I miss you.'

The pain in those last three words practically jumped off the page.

Sighing and retrieving a piece of paper and quill from one of the kitchen drawers, I penned my response.

'Dear friend,

I will be as plain as I can be. Desperation is a poor negotiating stance but sending my family to a potential warzone would make a mockery of any pretense of my state being anything else. Yes, I did it for you. I have no reason to believe you would expose me, but you not agreeing to our arrangement would be quite devastating to my current position.

While siring is out of the question, there is nearly any number of services I would perform for you to ensure your continued support.

Dear Beloved,'

My quill stayed in the ink jar as I stared at the blank page for a good minute. Finally deciding on what to say, I put ink to paper.

'I miss you as well.'

My task finished, I waited for the ink to dry before folding it and going to get a beer from the dwarf stall as a cover to deliver the letter. Afterward, I continued working on the airship in the same manner I had been doing these past few cold, lonely days.