Unorthodox Farming 3: Chapter 10 (Patreon)

Sorry, this chapter wasn't scheduled. I've been writing chapters for this book for the last few days, and I didn't come back to edit because it was going well. I'll make sure Thursday's chapter is scheduled.Chapter 10

Answers

The king didn’t leave us in the parlour. Shortly after we finished our written accounts, he had us move to an apartment deep within the palace. There were no windows or natural light, but there were bedrooms and bathrooms to keep us comfortable. Servants brought food three times a day, along with an endless stream of questions about our written accounts that needed clarification. More notes were written, and new questions were asked, adding a steady stream of small but essential details we had forgotten to include or didn’t think were important, but that helped others understand what had happened.

After voicing my concerns, I no longer feared execution.

If the king really was the man that I felt he was and the man my friends said he was, then he was a better man than I was, a man who would do what was right no matter the consequences. Instead, I feared the lengths he would go to in order to protect us. A man like that would go to war for the life of any innocent man or woman. He would fight until the very end. He could do nothing less, because that was who he was.

Those thoughts tumbled through my head as I wandered through a multi-room gallery of miscellaneous objects. None of the objects were as valuable as the pedestals they sat upon. Many were broken. Yet each one was displayed like a priceless piece of art. What I saw didn’t make sense.

There was dirt on some items and dried blood on others, along with faint odours of rot and decay. No matter how hard I searched, there was no consistency to the collection. It was like a schizophrenic hoarder trying to make an art exhibition.

I had no idea why the king had chosen to meet with me here or why this place existed. All his servants had told me was that he wished to speak to me during a moment of personal time and that I had to wait for his arrival.

I was so caught up in my own thoughts and curiosity that I didn’t notice him walking up behind me until he spoke. “This is The Gallery of Sorrows.”

I flinched, shocked that such a large man could move so silently and pivoted to face him. The king stood with his hands behind his back and wasn’t looking in my direction, giving his full attention to the rusted music box beside me.

The urge to bow gripped me as it always did, and my back folded willingly as a man who was worth all my faith and trust stood before me. For once, I didn’t unconsciously try to fight the impulse, finally understanding why I was reacting the way I was. For the first time, his presence didn’t empty my mind of thoughts. There was no inner conflict or turmoil to distract me, just a good man standing before me, whom I wanted to serve.

The king continued his explanation, unaware of the change that had taken place within me.

“Every object in this collection is a physical reminder of a time that I failed to live up to the standards that I have set for myself, forcing my subjects to pay the price for my failure.”

I somehow felt the king’s attention turn to me, despite staring at the floor.

“Please raise your head, Crown’s Champion Arnold.”

I raised my head, but only because he asked, and noticed that none of his guards were present, which immediately put me on edge. The king needed to be protected at all costs, so I took it upon myself to scan the room for threats, only to spot his guards waiting outside the door.

My concern faded.

The king turned his back on me and began to stroll between the pedestals. His footsteps made no sound as he beckoned me to follow.

We wandered through the gallery rooms in silence for the next few minutes, examining the items we passed, before he finally stopped beside a broken sword.

A simple glance told me it had once been a beautiful and expensive weapon. The handle and pommel were a work of art, and what was left of the blade was covered in rune etching, which suggested strong enchantments. There was enough wear to show that, while beautiful, it had seen extensive use over its life.

The king sighed. “I found this embedded in the chest of an orc warrior beneath the main gate to the city of Longhill. The owner of this blade was a man named Thadius. He was the founder of the city and a dear friend of mine. Thadius’s logs tell me that he didn’t give up when his blade broke. He continued to fight long after he knew that hope was lost. Doing the impossible and killing dozens of orc warriors with a broken blade, before they overwhelmed him.”

The king paused and reached out, running his fingers across the hilt, before continuing to speak.

“Thadius understood orc culture and politics better than anyone in our kingdom, including our scholars. He was considered a worthy enemy by many of their warlords and was welcome in over half of their tribes. He knew that Longhill’s city guard would not be able to keep the Redfist tribe from entering the city. So, he fought not to keep them out but to slow them down, giving his city’s children more time to escape through their teleportation circle. Thadius believed and tried to convince me that the orcs were not evil, only different. It was those differences that made us view them as evil.”

I opened my mouth to ask why, but then closed it again, because the king had not addressed me directly. I was in enough trouble that I didn’t want to add breaching palace etiquette to my problems.

The king noticed me biting my tongue. “You are a crown’s champion, Arnold. You no longer need to wait for me to address you to speak.”

“Do you think he still believed that at the end?”

Memories of orc children being burned by the millions came to mind. Children who were slaves to their impulses. Children who had never met their parents. I could smell the smoke and see it wafting south, sending them home for the first and last time.

The king gave the broken sword a sad smile. “I’m sure Thadius did. His life’s work was to find a peaceful solution for us to coexist. He was the one who discovered that orcs could not eat fruits and vegetables and preferred the meat of monstrosities over that of beasts and humans. He was the first one to trade cattle to the orcs when they were on the brink of famine, and when he succeeded in keeping that famine at bay, he encouraged other nobles to do the same. He felt that trade was the only way for there to be lasting peace.”

Humans couldn’t eat meat from monstrosities. It was toxic to us. I found it interesting that orcs could digest it, but I didn’t ask for clarification. Wasting the king’s time was something I’d been admonished for by friends in the past, and my questions could easily be answered by others.

“Why would trade fix the animosity between our peoples? From what I’ve read, we’ve been killing each other since the moment we arrived on this continent.”

“Thadius never believed there was animosity between us. Despite generations of killing, no orc hates a human. Thadius could never confirm, but he believed they were incapable of this emotion, so any animosity was only felt by us. He hoped that trading them enough cattle would create a lasting peace to make us forget the horrors they have caused.”

“If they don’t hate us, why is there so much violence towards us?”

“Because like us, they forget peace when their survival is at risk.”

The king noticed my frown.

“Thadius discovered they cannot store body fat like we can. Because of this trait, an orc can starve to death in as little as ten days. And the longer they go without food, the more their rational mind deteriorates. Their tribes do not attack and eat us out of animosity, but desperation. We are not their preferred food, but something they turn to as a last resort. My friend’s discovery didn’t bring the peace he wanted, but it changed how we defended the southern border. This change also led to the loss of his city. I thought that Longhill was far enough from the border to not need additional reinforcements. I wrongfully assumed their tribes could not march that far that quickly.”

The king reached out and touched the hilt again.

“Half a million of my citizens died because of that mistake.”

I stared at the broken sword and the story behind it while the king turned his gaze to the other pedestals, his face grim. He folded his hands behind his back and began to wander again.

“I was young and idealistic when I founded Radian. I saw a vast, wild continent overflowing with resources and opportunities for humanity to grow. I knew the only reason the dwarven kings wanted us here was to cull the orc hordes that made their ancient enemy stronger, but that was acceptable because it allowed our adventurers to cull the dragon population that thrived on this continent, like they did on others. It was my hope that by founding this kingdom, humanity would no longer have to fear them flying across the ocean to terrorise us.”

I had read the Monster Compendium cover to cover, so I knew this wish had ended in disaster, but I let the king continue his story. He seemed to be getting something off his chest.

“We had no idea that the dragons on this continent were culling the king toad population. That without them, there would be so many migrating across Lunar during their breeding season that all the kingdoms together could not hold them back. The founding of this kingdom ended another.”

This piece of history was common knowledge, and it had taught humanity a harsh lesson about balancing monster environments. The adventurer’s guild had been studying the subject ever since, hoping to create a safer world.

The king stopped beside a wooden case with a brass clasp and ran his fingers across the top. “I come to this vault every few days to remind myself of the cost of a king’s failure. Our intelligence attribute never lets us forget our failures, but we do not live in our memories. We live in the present, and no one likes to remember their failures in the present, so like everyone else, I find all sorts of ways to ignore my failures. Coming here forces me to confront these memories and pushes me to be a better man.”

The king opened the clasp and gently lifted the lid. Inside the case sat a white wooden cane. The scuff mark on the handle and the emblem of the sun serpent told me exactly where the cane had come from.

It also suggested I might be in trouble. A lot of trouble.

A lump formed in my throat as the king reached in and picked up the cane. He turned and looked me in the eye, gripping the handle lightly.

“Do you know what this is, Arnold?”

Until this moment, I thought I could not lie to the king, but for the first time, I felt that I could. Apparently, self-preservation was enough to give me back that ability.

I took a moment to consider how to answer, then chose the truth, trusting what I felt rather than what my head told me to do. “I believe that is most likely the cane I struck your daughter with, Your Highness.”

The king nodded. “It is also the reminder I keep of the first time I failed you.”

The king’s arm blurred towards my throat, causing the air to crack like a whip with the cane’s passage. His arm moved too quickly for me to react, ending the strike before I realised it had begun.

By the time I flinched, the cane had already shattered against my throat, coating my clothing in fine sawdust. A fraction of a second later, a slight stinging sensation burned across my neck, where I had been hit.

A notification appeared.

You have taken 1 bludgeoning damage.

As I instinctively took a step back, I froze, reading the message, unsure how I was still alive. The king’s speed and strength alone meant my head should have been rolling across the floor. Instead, all I felt was a little stinging where I’d been struck.

The stinging immediately vanished as my body healed.

The king opened his palm and let the handle fall to the floor. The wood clattered across the marble floor before rolling to a stop. My eyes followed its path before returning to the king’s face.

His eyes softened, and his face fell, expressing more regret than I could understand. “From the moment you arrive in our world, you were manipulated by the very people I put in place to help you, Arnold. They were the people I chose specifically to care for incarnate. The people I trusted to do what was right, instead they caused you additional harm when you had already lost so much. Do you know why you’re still alive?”

Despite what had just happened, I still trusted him. It wasn’t because of who he was or what I felt, but because I was perfectly fine. So, while it was a terrifying experience, I was unharmed. “No, Your Highness.”

“You’re alive because that was a disciplinary cane. It is an enchanted item that only allows the wielder to cause a single point of damage, damage that cannot harm the recipient. It is something only used on very young children for shock value. The sting you felt is all that it can do. In the hands of someone like myself, it is the least dangerous item in the world, because it will destroy itself before it can cause harm.”

The meaning behind his actions and words slowly dawned on me. This was the place where he remembered moments he didn’t want to, and he’d brought me here to do the same.

Memories of caning Damella flashed through my mind, showing notifications displaying a single point of bludgeoning damage, despite me swinging as hard as I could. At the time, I hadn’t understood what those notifications meant. Once I had, I’d never looked back to reexamine those memories, because, like the objects in this gallery, they were unpleasant memories that I was ashamed of.

Now that I was forced to look back, I saw how fake her whimpers sounded. How much Varla was distracting me with words. How much anger, my surprise and excitement at the notification blinded me to what was happening.

“You never hurt my daughter.”

I could see that now, and it left a bitter taste in my mouth.

“Varla never hurt my daughter. Varla constructed a scenario to satiate your anger and make you feel ashamed so you would agree to be whisked away to a place where I would not notice you or what they had done.”

I knew I’d been manipulated back then, but I hadn’t realised that even the caning had been faked. Everything that had happened from the moment I woke up until I arrived in Blackwood was a lie.

I felt like an idiot.

“Why are you telling me this, Your Highness?”

“Because I want you to understand the extent of your mistreatment and how much I regret that I placed Varla in a position where she could do that to you.”

I believed him. The king was the sort of man who took responsibility for those under him. It did not change what they had done, but it did show me that not everyone was like that.

The king turned his back on me again. He continued walking among his collection of failures, leaving the cane on the ground like a forgotten memory. The purpose it had served here was finally fulfilled.

“When we teach our children what an incarnate is, we teach them that they are individuals who have lost everything. They are people with no family or friends, so if we meet them in our daily lives, we should always be kind and considerate. My mother taught me that lesson when I was only six years old. A friend of mine died when she fell out of a window, and the soul that came back when she was resurrected did not belong to her. Because of my mother’s words, I went out of my way to befriend her and help her navigate our world. She became my best friend. My first love. My first kiss. And my first experience with grief. She helped shape me into the man I am today, and my experience with her is why Radian is a place where incarnates are supposed to receive kindness and consideration. But you were not treated kindly or with consideration. You were manipulated from the moment you arrived in my kingdom to cover up the transgressions of others.”

“I was told they did so to protect you.”

The king looked back and frowned. “By who?”

“My familiar?”

“Alistrin has always seen the bigger picture and the ramifications that small actions can have on it. However, he is also the most sophisticated manipulator of words I have ever met, despite not being able to lie, so I suggest you reexamine his words. I do not doubt that he would act to protect Radian, but Varla and my daughter did so to protect themselves. They knew my daughter wasn’t skilled enough to safely perform resurrections, and that they were chasing experience in ways that could cause harm. My daughter did so for pride and vanity, and Varla did so for ambition, hoping that helping my daughter grow would cause me to promote her again.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I’m ashamed of how you were treated and how much I failed to be the king you deserve.”

His statements confirmed my worst fears. The king was a man who would do the right thing no matter what, even if his own daughter was involved.

Before I could reply, a servant appeared at the door and bowed.

The king sighed. “It appears that this is all the free time that I have today. If you need any further clarification, please speak with my servants, and those who investigated this matter will be sent to speak with you.”

The king turned to leave.

I couldn’t let him go without saying what was on my mind. “Thank you for telling me the truth, Your Highness, but why did you do so in person?”

The king looked back as he began to walk. “For the same reason you came to me to confess instead of doing so through the system.”

I stared at him blankly.

He smiled. “It was the right thing to do.”