Tyrants of Earth - The Legend of Artigan

A few weeks ago, Ryan had sat in a luxurious hotel room, staring into space. It was a rare quiet moment for him. He was not watching other adventurer streams, not mapping out his next move, not hypothesizing about skill builds. The young man was simply… still.

Focused.

Clara noticed, and somehow, as if she was a mind-reading [Witch] she knew what he was thinking about.

“I really don’t understand your obsession with that question, Ryan.”

“I’m not obsessed with it. It’s the [Aura Tyrant] that’s obsessed with it. It’s a stubborn bastard that won’t let itself be fixed until there’s an answer it’s satisfied with.”

“Hmm, didn’t you say that classes you embodied without the Trial System are things you embody?”

Ryan remembered when he thought of Clara as just a sheltered girl that took multiple times to learn how the cash register worked. Life would have been easier if that really was all she was.

“You know Clara, for someone that likes to pretend they’re not interested in the whole Trial System, you pay a lot of attention.”

“I pay attention when it’s important. Don’t try to derail the conversation again, Ryan. Why’s this question so important to you?”

Milock, who didn’t quite catch on to the low level mindgame that was going on between his two friends, just shrugged.

“I’m telling you, man. It’s a stupid riddle with no answer. I bet the Great Civilization just stays in power because their most powerful members are immortal and stay benevolent. I think that’s the best you’re going to get. Wanting a perfect solution or a self-correcting mechanism to what happens when people in power turn into tyrants, actual tyrants, is just silly.”

Milo had said this before, though not quite as eloquently as this time. He’d clearly thought of the question and thought of the answer. That or he had asked the Secretary and this was her answer.

It didn’t satisfy him at all.

Clara shook her head, not willing to let the conversation get derailed again.

“That’s not the point, Milo. The point is I’m wondering why he’s so obsessed with it.”

Ryan did not answer immediately. He did not have a proper answer for him the first time she had asked but he did come up with one since then.

Though instead of answering her he just stared at his own hands. He still remembered it from time to time, when he first stabbed the soldier in the first Trial. Desperation. When he ordered the Skeleton Lord to hack down the last soldier. Anger. When he stabbed Zedart over and over again. Vindication. When he pushed the Trials and killed the head figures on both sides of the army, giving him another S grade achievement, giving him his first Epic.

Hope.

Then it came back crashing down. The more he learned, the more he realized how fragile the world was.

And it would not stop breaking unless the Manager died. Hollow.

“C’mon Ryan, no secrets between teammates, remember?”

Clara’s words broke him out of his spiral. He swallowed.

“Because there’s no point.”

His voice came out a little colder than he wished. Ryan swiveled in his chair and turned his gaze to Clara and she didn’t flinch, but his [Aura Detection: Fear] skill told him everything.

It was a horrible skill in that regard.

As much as Ryan tried to hide it, Clara had seen right through him, and she was afraid of what they both knew was there.

Ryan smiled sadly and gave her his answer.

“What’s the point of anything if it doesn’t last? All of the struggle, all the pain, what’s the point if all of it’s just destined to turn to dust?”

Like Rome, like the civilizations that were left in the Cataclysm Abyss.

Sooner or later, they seemed to come to ruin.

Like The Realm right now. That beautiful world that Ryan had thought was perfect, just… perfect. Even when he’d worked full time at a Manaburger in a poor neighborhood, it had always been there, waiting for him. A shining beacon of what a world could be. If people cared, if the people in power were benevolent demigods that only nudged the civilization towards the right path.

Everything that was happening ate away at him.

“The Realm wasn’t perfect, but it thrived and it looked like it had a limitless future. I didn’t realize how important that was to me until the illusion shattered into pieces.” Ryan chuckled bitterly. “I can suffer juggling a minimum wage job with college, I can suffer being forced into killing people, I can suffer going from disaster to disaster trying to find a way to keep everyone I like alive. But I need to know. I need to know that The Realm will continue and will be that world I loved.”

Ryan could not keep the pain out of his voice. Clara and Milo were staring at him uncomfortably and he was already regretting sharing it.

But he had started and he couldn’t stop now.

“I need to know there’s a future that makes all of this worth it. I need an answer to the problem because even if she falls and I rise, the problem doesn’t go away. Artigan winning doesn’t make the world back to how it used to be—and if there is a time that I am in the Witch Tyrant’s shoes—”

I would do so, so much worse.

He did not say that last bit out loud.

——

The [Saboteur] remembered that conversation as he watched Valmere turn to chaos.

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