Chapter 94: The Truth of Oheyo
The next morning—
The throne room was empty.
No nobles.
No advisors.
No guards.
Only four chairs.
And four people.
Akshay sat silently.
Alice sat across from him.
Raj and Taai occupied the remaining seats.
The atmosphere felt heavy.
Nobody wanted to start.
Eventually—
Akshay spoke.
"Tell me everything."
No jokes.
No sarcasm.
No kingly authority.
Just a friend asking for answers.
Alice stared at the table.
Then nodded.
"...Alright."
Silence.
Then she began.
"The disappearances started first."
Akshay listened quietly.
Alice explained how drifters occasionally vanished.
How information regarding them became strangely difficult to obtain.
How records disappeared.
Witnesses changed stories.
How entire investigations seemed to hit invisible walls.
At first—
Nobody suspected Oheyo.
Why would they?
It was Oheyo.
The greatest city in the world.
The city built by a fellow drifter.
The city everyone respected.
Then Brennan vanished.
Akshay's hands tightened.
Alice noticed.
But continued.
She explained the missing meetings.
The unanswered messages.
The classified information.
The growing suspicion.
And eventually—
The laboratory.
When she reached that part—
Akshay interrupted.
"A laboratory?"
Alice nodded.
"A hidden one."
"Under Oheyo."
Silence.
Then she explained.
The experiments.
The research.
The kidnapped drifters.
The memory studies.
The cloning theories.
The attempts to recreate immortality.
The attempts to transfer identities.
Everything.
Akshay didn't speak.
Not once.
Not while she described Vaan.
Not while she described the machines.
Not while she described the prisoners.
Not while she described Brennan.
Especially Brennan.
"He was alive."
Alice said quietly.
"We found him."
For a moment—
Nobody spoke.
Because even now—
Part of them still wished things had ended differently.
Alice explained the surgery.
The magic circuits.
The modifications.
The way Brennan's body had been turned into something else.
Something dangerous.
Something painful.
Yet somehow—
Still Brennan.
Akshay looked away.
For the first time.
Then came Vaan.
Alice repeated his words.
Almost exactly.
The research.
The theories.
The clones.
The memory displacement.
The purpose behind Oheyo.
The truth behind its advancements.
The reason drifters disappeared.
The reason Brennan was taken.
When she finally finished—
The room remained silent.
For nearly a minute.
Then Akshay asked one question.
"Did he regret it?"
Alice knew exactly who he meant.
Vaan.
She thought carefully.
Then answered honestly.
"No."
Akshay nodded.
Once.
Nothing more.
Somehow—
That answer hurt him more than anything else.
Then Alice moved on.
The escape.
The alarms.
The collapsing facility.
Brennan's final stand.
Raj lowered her head.
Taai clenched his fists.
Even now—
The memory hurt.
Alice explained how Brennan stayed behind.
How he activated the circuits.
How he bought them time.
How he smiled.
How he told them to run.
Akshay closed his eyes.
He already knew the outcome.
Yet hearing it somehow made it real.
Then came Akari and Chocomint.
The room grew even quieter.
Alice described the escape routes.
The steel barriers.
The separation.
The final words exchanged.
The promise to meet again.
"And then?"
Akshay asked.
Alice looked down.
"We never saw them again."
Silence.
Not dead.
Not alive.
Missing.
The cruelest answer possible.
Then Alice spoke of something else.
Something newer.
Something far worse.
"The Cult of Azathoth."
Akshay opened his eyes.
Immediately.
That name was unfamiliar.
But Alice's expression wasn't.
She explained the attack.
The fanatics.
The demons.
The chaos.
The city-wide panic.
The fighting.
The destruction.
The way everything happened at the worst possible moment.
Then came the explosion.
Nobody interrupted.
Nobody breathed.
Alice described the light.
The shockwave.
The dying fields.
The forests turning gray.
The collapse of Oheyo.
The refugees.
The devastation.
The aftermath.
When she finally finished—
The room became silent once more.
Akshay leaned back.
Slowly.
Processing everything.
The laboratory.
The experiments.
The cult.
The demons.
The city.
The betrayal.
The deaths.
The missing friends.
Everything.
Minutes passed.
Nobody spoke.
Then Akshay laughed.
Not because anything was funny.
Because the alternative was screaming.
"Oheyo."
He shook his head.
"The city we spent years admiring."
Another laugh.
A bitter one.
"The city we told people to visit."
Silence.
Then his expression hardened.
For the first time since the conversation began.
"The Cult of Azathoth."
Alice nodded.
"They were real."
"They are real."
Akshay stared out a nearby window.
Toward the mountains.
Toward the world beyond Yggdrasil.
For years—
Their greatest concern had been monsters.
Bandits.
Politics.
Kingdoms.
Territory.
Now?
There were cults.
Demons.
Missing drifters.
Secret experiments.
And a ruined empire.
The world suddenly felt much larger.
And much more dangerous.
Akshay slowly stood.
The conversation was over.
But the consequences had only begun.
"Get some rest."
He said quietly.
"You three need it."
"And you?"
Raj asked.
Akshay looked toward the horizon.
Where Oheyo once stood.
"I need to think."
The three left.
One by one.
Until Akshay was alone.
The King of Yggdrasil stood in silence.
Thinking of Brennan.
Thinking of Akari.
Thinking of Chocomint.
Thinking of Vaan.
Thinking of the future.
And for the first time in many years—
Akshay felt afraid.
Not for himself.
Not for Yggdrasil.
But for what was coming next.