Tyrants of Earth - The Legend of Artigan

Clara rinsed her face with water, taking deep calming breaths. She was in Valee’s incredibly fancy bathroom, still a little rattled by the sudden emergency. Clara had still been fine then, at least until Ryan had come back with Grettfield looking ready for war himself.

Even then she believed she had been fine.

It wasn’t until Sideark’s video had come out and she saw just how horrifyingly monstrous the ‘Flesh Titan’ was that it became too real once again. Clara stared at the mirror.

“Okay, calm down. It’s okay. We’ve been through this before. Valee is fine, everyone is fine. Game face on, for Barry.”

Clara had no idea what she was going to do if Seffara died. They were all trying to keep Barry’s mind off things he couldn’t control. Being happy and bubbly Clara was important for everyone’s morale. Though she herself wasn’t sure how she would keep it up if Seffara actually died.

What would happen to Barry, what if he left? It’ll just be me trying to keep Ryan sane. Not that he is sane.

In fact, Clara wasn’t sure how she was going to feel if Seffara died. Sure the heroine [Knight] was a little loud and annoying but she was at least cool and—Clara was hyperventilating.

“Deep breaths. One-two-three, four, five. Six. Seven. Eight…”

She couldn’t do this, she was just a stupid sheltered girl from Brentwood. A part of her wanted to just go back to working at a restaurant, but with what Ryan was going up against, she wasn’t sure how she could just leave. She had resolved herself to at least stick it out until at least Seffara had come back.

Things had been fine for a time. Sure looking at Barry’s hurt uncertainty was depressing but it was at least something to do. She could still keep acting like herself…

But THEN, having seen the FLESH TITAN in video, and remembering how Ryan talked about it as a ‘cool ass fight where he just spun and kicked all its limbs away and made it blow up by stabbing its chest’... Clara had no idea how she could keep laughing and smiling during the after-action reports.

She was hyperventilating again.

Her eyes flicked to a card that Grettfield had left in her pocket without her knowing. It was in neat, cursive writing.

If you wish to chat, my door is always open. I believe you have potential as a Witch. Trial System or not.

That was just more anxiety.

“I just wanted to live like a normal person. Why is that so hard?”

It wasn’t even like a normal life where you ran away from home then had to pay rent was good either. But at least she had been finally making progress! At the very least she wasn’t trying to participate in something she had no business in.

Clara scrunched up the note and tossed it in the trash.

Or at least that was what was supposed to happen. Instead, the note hovered in midair.

For a moment Clara thought the note was magicked by Grettfield and regretted carelessly tossing it away.

Then an ugly book appeared in midair, coming out of invisibility. It was holding the note in its pages, and then rose and stared down at her. In what she assumed was in anger and intimidation.

Chester, Grettfield’s ugly book familiar, was offended that Clara had disregarded its master’s letter.

She threw her hands up in the air and stormed out of the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. Chester simply opened the door with telekinesis and chased after her, rippling its pages in anger.

Clara ignored Chester, if she pretended it didn’t exist, it didn’t exist, right?

When she entered the lounge, neither Barry nor Milock bothered to look up the trailing book behind her. They were both focused on their own business. Milock having thrown himself into whatever crap he was learning from the Secretary, and Barry was glued to his phone, likely looking up updates on Seffara.

Clara sighed then threw herself on the couch next to Ryan’s body. Then she took out her marker.

If in stress, draw on your friend’s faces while they were unconscious. That’s was the one good thing she’d learned from Seffara.

Ding-ding.

Right as she finished the first drawing, a doorbell rang throughout the mansion.

Milock looked up from his laptop, raising his eyebrow at her—as if expecting her to do it. Then he looked back down on his laptop.

Ding-ding. Ding-ding. Ding-ding. Ding-ding.

Clara threw her hands up in the air and stomped over to the entrance. Taking an entire minute to navigate Valee’s stupidly large ‘vacation mansion’, and opened the door.

“WHAT!?"

Only to freeze.

Behind the door was a figure Clara had only met once. The person in front of her had been posing as a hostess on Seffara’s jet. Except this time she was wearing a skimpy ninja outfit with completely pink hair.

Pinkie the draconic dragonslayer.

Oh, and she had a bloody brown sack over her shoulder.

Pinkie smiled at her brightly.

“Hi. It’s Clara, right? Is Ryan here? I have a favor I need from him.”

She bumped the bloody sack on her shoulder and it started squirming like mad. There was a muffled screaming coming from it as well. Pinkie was completely unbothered by it.

Clara’s eye twitched. “Sorry, Ryan is a little busy right now.”

She tried to slam the door in Pinkie’s face—only the dragonslayer used one of her fingers to stop it from closing. Her teeth baring sharp points at her.

“Don’t worry, I can’t wait. Oh, hi Chester, it’s funny seeing you here!”

Grettfield’s familiar broke its invisibility behind Clara and used a [Haste] spell to flee as quickly as possible from the monster, rippling its pages in distress and panic.

Pinkie just grinned.

——

The Realm.

It was impossible to try to predict the future. Logically, Ryan understood this better than anyone.

The Manager was a prime example of the futility in doing so.

So did that mean the answer was to simply hope that the next generation of adventurers would be able to clean up whatever disaster might happen next? To hope they would be enough to take care of the mess that the older generations had left behind?

It was still a horribly irresponsible answer. Incomplete, though perhaps the answer was a little closer to his ideal.

For now that would have to do. After all, there were more pressing matters at hand.