Chapter 170 - New/Old horizons
Earth.
The trending page on the realmnet was still flooded with people arguing over the power of faith and the reports of truly alien encounters of Sector Thirteen.
Though there was one news item on the top page that wasn’t about Sector Thirteen at all. At any other time, it would have been a momentous event that would have held both worlds’ attention for the entire time.
Seffara the Sapphire had been caught and interviewed in front of the Tenth Trial at Sector Nine. A group of adventurers scouting the borders caught wind of the veteran heroine practicing her skills.
They had bodycams. They practically shoved it in her face.
Ryan paused the video, then turned to the old orc next to him.
“She told you nothing Barry.”
The orc grunted, more than a little pissed off himself. “No, you seem to know more about it than we do.”
Ryan stared at Seffara’s face. She was completely focused, like a veteran ready for war. Gamielle had told him that she had tried to intervene when the Witch had tried to hex him. She had been stopped by some of the Fallen and her answer apparently had been to ascend to dragonslayer.
“This is all my fault.”
“There you go again,” Barry said, shaking his head. “Thinking everything’s on you. Seffara’s a veteran, I’m sure she’s been planning this in her head for a while now. She’s responsible for her own actions, got it?”
Ryan was silent, refusing to say platitudes he didn’t believe in. He simply stared at the screen, completely unable to do a single thing to help the lone heroine in the video.
Yes, this wasn’t a tale about a selfish arrogant Trialist that knew nothing about the Trial System. This was a tale about one of the oldest Trialists of Earth. One who had walked with the Tyrants and witnessed their rise. One who had gone through every hell herself and had continued to walk her own path no matter what anyone said.
She was far, far more reasonable than the boy. The Trial System was designed with people like her in mind.
–
The Realm, three days ago.
Seffara had never planned on becoming a Dragonslayer. You could call her a coward or whatever to her face and her answer would be the same.
Anyone that thought they could slay a dragon was insane.
Her first experience witnessing one in action was in her sixth Trial. Back then, she was the strongest sixth realm in the army, rougher and tougher than the men, strong enough to jump gaps and fight seventh realms.
When the dragon rained fire upon the Trial’s kingdom from above, she had quickly gone from feeling like an unstoppable rising superhuman to being a helpless soldier with a shiny stick. There was a cruel intelligent evil in those eyes. It knew she was watching while it roared, burning down the kingdom she had worked so hard to secure.
As if making a point. Superhuman or not, Seffara would still only be a human. A dragon would always be a dragon.
Afterwards she focused on what she could do instead. Working with her squad, securing America’s interests. Going on missions that seemed like they mattered. Her world was reaffirmed once more when she came across other foreign Trialists and defeated them handily with her squad.
Then came Wellarrioussa.
Without taking any system portals it was capable of fighting against Earth’s forces by itself. When it realized there was a real risk that Earth’s adventurers could hurt it, it went back and started swallowing system portals. Enhancing its power multiple fold.
Then Wellarrioussa rained fire. Once again making everyone understand that they were simply mortals under the gaze of a dragon.
The fact that there were an estimated three hundred dragonslayers was insane. She understood the Tyrants completing it but the others? They had to be insane.
And people just treated these dragonslayers like they were nothing more than celebrities. When the total number of dragonslayers passed fifty she would often wake in a cold sweat, having a nightmare that a city had vanished when one of these monsters finally lost control.
But it never happened.
Even during the superhero generation there had been a silent agreement between villains and heroes to not escalate to civilians. Seffara always knew it wouldn’t last long, that’s why she had stood out in front, leading groups and inspiring more people to be ‘heroes’.
When the worst finally happened?
When Gamar appeared and started slaughtering civilians on Earth by the tens of thousands?
The nations of Earth immediately agreed to call upon the Tyrants to hunt him down.
Then he was killed.
That was pretty much when she retired. The Tyrants couldn’t be unseated and the Dragonslayers would stay in line. With that in mind she had finally stopped moving forward. Some part of her finally realizing that the world didn’t need her anymore.
Oh how wrong she was.
She was readying her artifacts, potions, weaponry and running through the plan in her mind. She may have been unprepared, but she wasn’t rusty. Never had she stopped training, practicing her skills, mastering them and learning new skills.
She was ready, some part of her had been getting ready ever since she’d met Ryan.
Seffara felt as sharp as her axe.
So, when ninth realm adventurers caught her unawares, shoving a small camera in her face, worried more about getting a new ‘scoop’ or whatever the kids called it these days? She was having a hard time trying to play nice.
“Put that shit away.”
The leader with a video cam, specifically designed for adventurers didn’t listen to her.
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“I can’t believe it. Seffara the Sapphire guys, going to attempt the dragonslayer ascension solo!”
She glared at the stray team that had noticed someone camping outside the Tenth Trial entrance. Higher Sectors didn’t tend to have little outposts protecting the area from monsters. Firstly, you couldn’t pay high realm adventurers enough to stay guard around the areas, and secondly, most ordinary weaponry was practically useless against the actual threats roaming Sector Nine.
This was a ninth realm team, with a [Rogue] that had invested too much in their scouting ability.
They straightened up under her razor sharp gaze, instantly ready for a fight. Then they finally switched off the camera and eyed her warily.
As stupid as the new generation of adventurers could be, ninth realms couldn’t be completely moronic. They understood immediately.
Seffara was readying herself for a life and death fight.
Their [Warrior] stepped up. “Is everything alright Seffara? I don’t know if you remember me but I was under the Greyfangs group, this is uhh well the second Greyfang. We always looked up to you.”
She did vaguely remember him. It felt like it had been yesterday when he was rising through the Fourther Tourney… and when he had hit on her. That was only six years ago? It was hard to believe that he’d climbed five realms in six years.
“Ulstar right? How’s the new sector?”
Ulstar scratched his neck. “It’s weird. It’s not like we’re afraid to navigate any other Sector or anything but this one feels like you could die without knowing what happened you know? It’s like Sector Twelve’s miasma vents, except every single miasma vent is unique and we can’t detect them in time.”
“I heard, is it the new energy, faith?”
“Maybe? I don’t know, I’m leaning more on the side that it’s the other stuff. Concepts. You know the stuff that dragonslayers talk about. We’ve uhh, started to feel like our classes are resonating.”
Seffara raised a brow. “Congratulations.”
“No new skills unfortunately.” Ulstar shook his head. “We’re going to recommend some of the frontier cities to evacuate into the inner sectors. Also we’re trying to get the Adventurer’s Guild to order a full retreat from the neighboring sectors until we get a clearer understanding of the threat.”
That meant the entirety of Sector Ten, half of Sector Eleven and a smaller part of Sector Twelve.
“Well, if you’re looking for my support you’ve got it.”
They looked at each other. Uncertain if they wanted to continue talking about this in public. “Do you have any idea why the Adventurer’s Guild hasn’t issued a proper public announcement yet?”
Seffara of course knew why. The Witch Tyrant wanted more people throwing themselves at dangerous risks. Classes and concepts being easier to resonate in Sector Thirteen? That sounded like the exact thing she needed to bait newer adventurers to throw away their lives.
Ulstar looked uncomfortable, probably seeing the knowing look on her face.
“Seffara, do you know what’s going on? You know with everything else?”
The question caught Seffara off guard. It seemed like even the non-dragonslayers were starting to get that something was happening. Then again, she realized you’d have to be stupid to not realize something was off. A bunch of dragonslayers getting slaughtered and blacklisted, Ulverra getting attacked and the whole fiasco at Sector Four.
Not to mention the Witch Tyrant seemingly slaughtering peaceful deities and taking over cities without responding to the public.
Seffara shook her head. “Best not to think about it. If you want to step up, dragonslayer isn’t even the minimum.”
“Is that why you’re ascending? Because you want to step up?”
Seffara made a face, then thought about her answer.
“No. I’m going because I thought it was shameful to expect the younger generation to do what we can’t.”
They didn’t get it, but it didn’t matter, that line wasn’t for them.
“Hey, can we take a video of you entering the Trial?”
She rolled her eyes but didn’t say no.
The Greyfang team raised their camera, trying to capture what might have been her final moments.
Seffara the Sapphire sighed, then stepped forward into the Tenth Trial.
—
Back on Earth - 2 days later.
The video finished with the heroic heroine entering the ruined portal for her ascension. The Greyfang team had indeed put the camera away, but had kept it rolling. At least until Seffara had stepped up towards the portal. Then they had taken it back out to record the historic moment.
With a speech and entrance like that, it was no wonder why Seffara the Sapphire’s return story had reached the top of trending. Even with all the crazy hypotheticals coming out about Sector Thirteen, this one was something everyone in the older generations had been waiting for.
Ryan had his head in his hands.
“She’s so bad at keeping secrets.”
The entire conversation had ‘leaked’. The Greyfang adventurers stated that they’d messed up the upload and had sent in the raw file with the entire conversation instead. Ryan refused to believe it wasn’t on purpose.
Even Barry looked a little embarrassed. “Doing the right thing no matter what was always her strength.”
“Yeah well if she dies she won’t be able to do the right thing anymore.”
“Pot, Kettle, Black.” Clara chirped.
She was sitting next to a very annoyed Milock, constantly nudging him and then pointing to Ryan with a flick of her head. Trying to communicate something to Milo. Meanwhile Milock was ignoring her and trying to hide his monitor from her prying eyes.
Ryan stared up at the ceiling, very aware of the dicks drawn on his face. He’d seen it in the Manager’s scenery when the entity had shown him how its powers worked.
He sighed, trying to take his mind off of Seffara’s ordeal. A Tenth Trial attempt could take anywhere between one day to four months and nobody had reported that the Trial entrance was usable again.
His mind wandered to something helpful he could do instead.
“Hey Milock, how’s the situation with the Unwanted going?”
Milock pulled his laptop away from Clara’s grabby hands. “It’s uhh, it’s not looking good. The world’s sort of moved on. Without the attention most adventurers have stopped delving into the Cataclysm Abyss to rescue the Unwanted.”
Barry grunted. “Ever since the realmnet got popular, the world’s attention span has turned to shit.”
That was perhaps a little uncharitable to the modern world. There were just a lot of things happening at the same time. Though either way, the result for the Unwanted was the same. Without the crazy amount of publicity, a lot of fourth realm adventurers had drawn back from helping the Unwanted elves settle in. You couldn’t even criticize them that much, especially considering that all the cities in The Realm were bolstering their defenses. Not that fourthers would actually change much if something truly threatening came. The reality was that fourthers just didn’t want to keep mucking about in the dark.
Ryan didn’t completely blame them, the Cataclysm Abyss was a horribly depressing place to work in.
“Well, this is exactly why I left Rax’s treasure vault untouched. What about online sentiment? Are there still arguments about them being actual people?”
Before he had left, Ryan had asked Milock to monitor the conversations on the realmnet. If the realmnet was still ambiguous on whether they were monsters then the last thing they needed was a sudden excess in wealth.
“Nah. I mean some complaints from the humans and dwarves that grew up in Sector Four but they’re mostly being drowned out. I don’t think anyone sane is arguing about that anymore.”
“Good, then have you contacted Valee?”
“Yeah but she’s being really suspicious of everything. I mean I did basically contact her through an anonymous account. She says she wants to meet in person, on Earth.”
That did make sense. Now that Valee knew the Witch Tyrant was involved with Artigan, being incredibly paranoid was the minimum. Ryan thought about it for a moment.
“Yeah. I guess that makes sense.” He clapped, managing to get Barry’s attention away from watching the news about Seffara. “Alright everyone, how about a trip to San Kingsgrove?”
San Kingsgrove was one of America’s adventurer cities. Built around a system portal between San Jose and San Francisco. Along with Silicon Valley in its vicinity, San Kingsgrove was now considered one of the greatest cities on Earth.
“Wait right now?” Clara popped her head up.
“Yeah, I’m not telling you guys anything about my new class and skill options while we’re still using the Secretary’s bubble artifact.”
Ryan pointed a finger, telling Milock not to stick up for his stupidly suspicious device.
“So we might as well get everything done at once. Meet with Valee, try to organize a pickup for Rax’s control glove for his vault and buy a silence bubble of our own. We can keep ourselves busy while we wait for Seffara to get back.”
It was finally time to travel to one of Earth’s adventuring cities. Ryan had been there once before, though he was pretty sure the experience would be very different as an adventurer.
Clara once again nudged Milock. Milock looked more than a little annoyed with her and pulled his laptop away in annoyance.
Ryan frowned. “You guys okay? I’m starting to get the feeling this isn’t about the dicks on my face.”
Clara’s eyes went wide. “Wait, you knew?! And here I thought I was doing a great job at keeping a straight face.”
Ryan pointed at his own face. “Fifth realm senses. I can literally see the reflection of my face through your eyes.”
“That’s creepy.”