Tyrants of Earth - The Legend of Artigan

Apparently, whatever Milock and Clara were keeping from him could wait until after the surprise they had planned. After he washed his face, they covered his eyes with an eyemask and shoved earplugs into his ears. Funnily enough all that did was bring his hearing down to an ordinary human’s level.

“This feels a little silly.”

“Shush. We’re almost there.”

“You said that five minutes ago.”

“Stop being so impatient.”

Eight minutes later.

“Alright, you can take it off.”

When the eyemask was removed, Ryan blinked at the sight before him. He was staring at his own childhood home.

“I actually completely forgot that I bought that.”

Those would have been some sacrilegious words only a couple months ago, but now that he had it, it seemed like such a small problem.

At least it seemed Clara was happy. “Yup. The family moved out a few days ago and I’ve been decorating for you!”

“Huh.”

“Yeah, try to sound more thankful, Ryan, it’s not like I have a full time job or anything.”

Ryan eyed Clara, fairly certain she had fun ordering all of these things on his behalf. “Did you enjoy spending my money?”

“Well, you told us to use it as we need to—”

Barry ignored the banter and went straight for the front door without any fanfare.

“We’re going to need to do something about that.” Clara commented.

The old orc was still brooding over what was going on with Seffara. Ryan didn’t blame him, Seffara disappearing like that without telling him was cold.

The trio followed the orc in and Ryan finally entered his childhood home. He walked over an entrance mat with the words ‘Welcome Adventurer’, and when he entered, an incredibly well-furnished hallway greeted him. Most of the stuff looked like they had come from a fancy color coded set. A light brown wooden varnish that tickled at his mind.

It looked almost like someone had attempted to refurnish his home in a similar way to how his childhood home had it arranged.

“I did kinda get your mom to help. She’s still very angry with you by the way.”

Ryan nodded absently, just taking it in. There was even a sword rack by the entrance hallway. The lounge had an artistic map of The Realm and a poster of Seffara promoting a chocolate bar.

Barry was on the couch staring at the TV, watching the news channel. Still waiting for mentions of said promoter.

“I… don’t know what to say.”

“You could just say thank you.”

“Okay, but how much did all this cost me?”

“A fair bit,” Clara admitted. “But Milock’s made more than enough to cover it and then some.”

Clara said those last words with a little more edge than Ryan expected from her. He turned around to raise an eyebrow at his friend. Milock sheepishly shrugged at him then turned to glare at Clara. Clearly telling her to keep her mouth shut.

“The new Sector’s causing more chaos in the market than it was expecting. I hedged well with some options on companies that work with transportation.”

Clara just shook her head, disappointed. Milock was shaking his head at her. They were still bickering each other, communicating silently as if Ryan wasn’t there.

“Okay, will you two just tell me what’s going on?”

Milo glared at Clara. “You might as well tell him yourself, since you’ve already done this much.”

“You promised you would be the one to tell him.”

If Ryan was being honest, he was enjoying how two of them were arguing with each other. Normally Milo needed his cooperation to contest Clara's arguing. Though it seemed like today was a little more serious than he expected.

“That was before Seffara went into the Trial! I told you we should wait for a better time!”

“Earth to Milock! There’s never a better time. Every day you wait, you're just making it worse! Lesson three Milock! Lesson three! Share everything with your team, everything!”

Surprising to everyone involved, it was Barry, the originator of lesson three, that had enough of the bickering.

“Milock signed a secret second contract with the Tyrants’ Secretary. It’s why he suddenly has access to adventurer locked rooms and knows which stocks to buy.”

Suddenly Ryan was no longer having fun watching his two friends argue. He quickly realized this whole thing had been a trap to get him to lower his guard. Ryan stiffly turned to Milock. Keenly aware that he wasn’t completely adjusted enough to his realm five strength to safely choke out his friend.

“Are you out of your mind!?”

Milock wilted at his outburst.

“You knew what she was like and you just turned around and made another contract with her?! What were you thinking?!”

“Ryan—”

Clara tried to interject, trying to calm him down. Unfortunately for her, Ryan’s anger had been flipped.

“Of all the stupid idiotic things—you knew everything and you still went ahead and made a deal with her, behind our backs?”

Milock’s response was quiet. “I was going to tell you guys eventually.”

“What? After you took the deal?! After everything you’ve heard, you thought it was a good idea to get yourself more involved in all of this?”

Clara waved her hand between them trying to break eye contact. “Uh, Ryan just calm down and list–”

“You’re one to talk.”

Clara’s eyes went wide. “Milo—”

“What was that?”

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Milock was no longer looking at the ground. He was staring at Ryan, pissed off at the aura that was pressing down on him.

“I said you’re one to talk! You take every risk for yourself, throw yourself at every single problem like you’re the only one that can solve it. Then you get pissed off when anyone else you care about is in a single bit of danger.”

“You’re not an adventurer.”

“Ryan, your arm is leaking—”

“Big fucking whoop! You said it yourself, you’re basically an ant compared to the Witch Tyrant. I’m just a smaller ant. Is there a difference?!”

He was quickly realizing that Milock had been prepared for this encounter. Perhaps over weeks or months, meanwhile, Ryan was both emotional and caught off guard.

It didn’t make for a good response.

Ryan loomed over Milo.

“Annul the contract. I’ll deal with the fallout.”

“No. You can’t make me.”

“You stupid, idioti–”

“ENOUGH!”

Clara screamed in Ryan’s face.

“Ryan! This is exactly why Milo didn’t want to tell you anything. Look at you, you big adventurer man, throwing your aura around at your friends!”

Ryan blinked, then his anger overshadowed his embarrassment.

“He shouldn’t have made the contract in the first place!”

“Well he did! And if you weren’t like this, then he would have told you sooner, did you think about that? Huh?”

Ryan took a breath, trying to calm himself. Clara always had a good point when she was serious, he tried to take her seriously.

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t you remember? The first thing you did when you were afraid we were going to get involved was immediately drop everything and immediately threaten the Witch with your own life!”

Ryan opened his mouth for a counter, he couldn’t find anything.

Clara continued. “Yes, Milock’s colossally stupid—”

“Hey!”

“But he’s also not taking half as much risk as you are. We’re always here, waiting, worrying like Barry’s doing—” Clara looked around to glare at the orc that had incited the argument in the worst way, then turned back to Ryan. “Milock’s an adult. He knows he’s taking a risk, just like you are. He might not understand all the risks, but neither did you. You can’t just order him about, just like we don’t order you around and tell you to stop.”

Ryan closed his mouth, opened it again, then closed it.

He took a deep breath, then looked past Clara to take a better look at his friend. Milock hadn’t wavered under his pressure and Ryan was starting to feel like shit for even having tried it.

When he looked at Milock, his friend was skinnier than he had been, with bags under his eyes. Milock had clearly been working himself to the bone.

Randomly good suggestions, secret adventurer accounts and all the sudden competence.

Ryan closed his eyes. “God I’ve been so stupid. I should have noticed sooner.”

“Ryan, that’s not the message I’m trying to give you.”

“Yeah I get it, I’m just so angry and I’m choosing to be angry at myself.” Ryan tried to look his friend in the eyes. “I’m sorry Milo for using my aura on you. That’s inexcusable.”

“You’re not forgiven.”

“Fair enough. Are we good though?”

“Yea, of course.”

Clara chose that moment of silence to snatch a pen from the TV cabinet and chucked it at Barry’s head.

“You! That could have gone so much better if it wasn’t for you!”

The pen hit Barry’s forehead and flicked off into the distance. The orc ignored it, he was just looking at Ryan.

“You’ve changed once again.”

“Have I?” Ryan thought about it for a moment. “You’re right, maybe I have.”

That made the old orc’s eyebrows rise in surprise.

Barry was probably right. It was the meeting with the Manager that did it. It gave him perspective of a world without Barry and his friends. That was the difference between the [Dread Revenant] and him. They both wanted to protect what they cared about but Ryan wanted to do it while being able to laugh with his friends, his team.

They kept him grounded. They kept him wanting to do better.

And of the very few things he would compromise for, it would be to keep them around.

“I guess I have. There’s a lot I want to tell you guys, but it’s too important to do it with a potentially bugged silence device.”

Ryan turned to his friend.

“Can I see the contract, Milo?”

Apparently the suddenly peaceful Ryan made his friend more suspicious than anything, Milock held his laptop tightly. Likely remembering what had happened the last time he handed his laptop to someone asking nicely. Seffara had crunched it into a ball.

Ryan raised his hands up.

“I just want to see the contract and the stuff you’ve been talking about with her. If that’s okay? I don’t have to touch the laptop at all.”

Milock, to Ryan’s surprise, glanced at Clara for confirmation. Clara eyed Ryan for a moment then turned to Milock and shrugged.

“I dunno, Ryan’s gotten a lot better at lying. Besides, this is your thing, you trust your friend or you don’t.”

The fact that Milock knew to check with Clara as a lie detector showed that Milo had changed too.

“I can show you the contract but I can’t show you some of the other stuff. I can ask Ella if I can show you but there’s no guarantee she’ll say yes.”

“That’ll be great, thanks.”

…

It turned out that the contract was actually really fine. Every single term seemed reasonable even to Ryan. It also had a clear position where Milo was allowed to tell Ryan that the contract was going on.

During the whole discussion, Milock made it clear when and why he had made the contract with the Secretary. The answer was simple, it was because Milock had felt powerless and pissed off that Ryan had kept his lack of safety life a secret. Milock had stormed off and entered a contract with the Secretary.

It made him feel even worse for telling Milock off earlier. He had apologized again before rereading the contract.

It really was too reasonable.

Her immediate response to Milo’s query didn’t actually help at all.

Ella: I’ve sent a new contract to you Milock. All the people that are with you are free to see all the files you have, though I would like to remind all of you that these are important documents that should not be leaked.

Milock: I understand. Sorry Ella but Ryan wants to talk.

Ella: Best not to do this over the net, we will find a more secure means to talk. Rest assured, I will do my best to allay any fears he has. To Ryan: We got off on the wrong foot because of a mistaken impression of you. For that I apologize.

She seemed so reasonable, thoughtful even in her previous chats with Milock. It genuinely seemed like she was taking her time to teach him things.

“So Ryan, what do you think?”

“I think she’s still shady as shit.” Ryan raised a hand before Milock could interrupt him. “But I understand.”

“Really? You’re fine with all of it?”

“I’m not happy with it, but I don’t want you to feel like you can’t share things like this with me again. No more secrets, right? Both ways?”

“Huh, thanks Ryan.”

It turned out, that despite all of Milock’s bravado, that he really had been afraid that Ryan would end their friendship over it.

Clara was elsewhere, leaned over the couch, she poked Barry in the tusk.

“You’re so jealous of them aren’t you?”

Barry glared at Clara, and Ryan tensed. Even if he knew Barry wouldn’t hurt her he couldn’t help it. He was actually a little jealous of how intimidating the orc could look without the use of aura.

Though it didn’t seem to work on Clara at all.

“Clara, can you not poke the bear please.”

“He started it! You think he didn’t know you and Milo would have a shouting match? Barry should be old enough to know not to take his problem out on others.”

“He’s got every right to be moody, leave him alone.”

Ryan’s eyes flickered over the TV, it had a realmnet page open on a dedicated page to Seffara. The shouting match with Milock might have been a bit of a result of his deep frustration of Seffara’s situation himself. It hung like a specter in the back of his mind.

As much as he wanted to trust in Seffara he couldn’t help but think of the odds. Unlike the Fifth Trial, it was safer to bet against a talented team of ninth realm adventurers beating the dragon.

Soloing a dragon? Ryan could name every single adventurer that had publicly done so. After all, there had only been six to ever do so. Ryan was also pretty sure all of them had been stronger than Seffara as well.

“Ryan, uhh your hand is leaking.”

“Still?”

He looked at his arm, he was certain his aura wasn’t leaking, perhaps it was the result of the broken class?

“No, your other arm.”

“Oh, ah shit.”

His left arm had what looked like whitish blue vapors coming out of it.

Milock leaned away. “Is that dangerous?”

“Uhh, good question.”

A few minutes later.

The Trial System had been slowly upgraded his body to physically match the one in The Realm. Unlike the [Arm of the Aura Tyrant], the [Arm of the Arcane Saboteur]’s core did not come from a Trial skill. The Trial System had faithfully recreated his core to match and it was causing problems.

Normally [Mages] with mana cores could continuously cycle their mana and keep it in balance, expanding their core over time. He, unfortunately, didn't have enough control to do so. The excess mana being produced by the core was traveling throughout his arm and giving off vapors that dissipated into the air.

They did get confirmation over realmnet that as long as the mana didn’t cause any initial reaction then it was safe to be around. Also Ryan had little to no risk of randomly causing explosions in a mana desert like Earth.

Barry looked away from the TV in confusion. “Did you not learn [Mana Manipulation] or at least [Mana Control]?”

“No, I think it’s an issue with the antimagic aspect of my mana.”

“Or you’re just shit with mana.”

“Thanks Barry. Got anything actually helpful to say?”

“Nope, other than we won’t be allowed on a plane like that.”

“Fuck.”

Milock perked his head up. “Road trip?”

Naturally, his friend was more than eager to drive his brand new Tempest around.

“Road trip!” Clara shouted in Barry’s ear.

“Shit.”

Naturally, Barry was less than enthused about a road trip with a chatty girl that he couldn’t intimidate.