WW Chapter 93: Journey Begins (Patreon)

Sorry AR readers, new chapter coming tomorrow. It's almost midnight, and I wrote that other chapter this morning.

Ezra had no idea what to expect to be different on this journey, compared to the march he’d gone on out of Villy or on the expedition he’d left on through this same gate only a few months before. Even for the most recent extermination mission, there had been more people than today, and they had only gone on the march for two days. Each soldier carried their own food and equipment, since they’d been gone for just a pair of days.

Now, the soldiers marched alongside several horse-drawn vehicles. First was the carriage that Hector and Adonis both rode in, as well as a pair of wagons, each full of supplies. The soldiers all walked alongside the wagons, their marching all at a pace that Ezra of a year ago wouldn’t have been able to maintain for any meaningful length of time. Now, though, the ground-eating lope he and the rest of the squad kept wasn’t uncomfortable, and each was more than capable of keeping it up for most of the day. With aura sustaining them as well, the journey quickly became monotonous.

“So how long have you known about this?” Telemachus asked. “The fact that one of the Duke’s kids keeps trying to talk to you combined with how you’re the second in command here, and that Basil just so happened to be right there when you got into that fight with Anders and so on… It’s pretty suspicious.”

“Yes,” Ezra nodded, knowing that there would be no hiding what his assignment had been. “My assignment from the Duke for the past several months has been being Adonis’s bodyguard. Eventually, he hopes that I’ll fill a position like what Dominick does for the Duke. For now, I’m not promising to do anything in the future and instead just continue to take advantage of the assignment’s benefits.”

“Why would he choose—” Patrice asked as she inserted herself into the conversation. Ezra glared a little at her, but she seemed to figure out the answer before he said anything. “It’s your aura. People think that you’re the most talented person around, at least when it comes to ascending to become a Knight, so you got this opportunity.”

“Yeah,” Ezra eventually answered, after taking a second to think about it. “They figure that I’ve got a pretty good chance of being able to take Dominick’s place eventually, so they want to get on my good side now. Even if eventually I decide not to stick around, having a good relationship with me is an investment against any violence from me in the future. At least, that’s how the Duke’s put it.”

“You wouldn’t leave, would you? After everything they’ve done for you?” As Patrice asked that, she stared at him, and Ezra’s conversation with Telemachus flashed through his mind. Instead of soothing her fears, he didn’t say anything. She shook her head in disbelief as she pressed him further. “And you’re thinking of betraying that trust? What kind of an ingrate are you?”

“This is a job, nobody here owns him or the rest of us either,” Telemachus cut in. “We get paid to be here, we get trained, but, even if the rest of us aren’t getting treated quite as nicely as Ezra is, the training that we’re getting isn’t something that we need to pay off. They’re giving it to us in the hopes that we stick around. It’s not betraying anybody to have a job for a few years then move on past it, even if they train us while we’re here.”

“It’s loyalty,” Patrice scoffed. “That’s part of being a Knight. Loyalty to a lord. Protecting them, being there for them. Never wavering.”

“It is if that’s what your inner world dictates, sure,” Ezra cut back in, attempting to forestall any continued argument. “However, I’d imagine that somebody, somewhere, has an affinity like betrayal, or maybe of something approaching evil. For them to be a Knight, I’d imagine that there’s no loyalty required and being disloyal would be good for them. Anyways, from what I understand of myself, I don’t think that pledging myself to somebody will have any impact on my ability to progress, either positive or negative. For you, Patrice, I don’t know exactly where your existing affinity will lead, but I’d guess that your stone is unforgiving and you simply need to stick with what you’ve always been.”

“You’re avoiding the question,” she pressed in, glaring at him. “Can anybody here even trust you to do what we are here to do? Are you going to protect Adonis? Or, if somebody from the Ember Duchy gives you a better offer, will you just abandon us all?”

“No, I won’t,” Ezra grunted, fighting back a flare of frustration at the distrust. “I have no plans on betraying people who have treated me well. I don’t know if I’m going to stick around here my entire life. Maybe I will, if I think that’s what’s best for me and for me to be able to help as many people as I want. But honestly, that’s not really your business. If you are genuinely concerned about me betraying everyone here, ask me again. Do you think that I will betray everybody here for money?”

As he asked, he made strong eye contact with the slightly older woman. She pursed her lips and maintained the gaze, but after a few seconds, didn’t muster up a question, instead averting her eyes.

“Good,” he nodded. “We don’t have to be best friends, but if we don’t have a basic line of trust here, one of us would have to go back home right now. I’m not in charge, so I wouldn’t be able to kick you out, but if you think I’m the traitorous type, get it out in the air now and we’ll fix what we can.”

To his surprise, Patrice took a long breath before bowing her head. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I was raised to… Well, to be a Knight in the sense that I was pledged to somebody, to protect them. And as you already know, I think it’s bullshit that you have the position that I always wanted. It’s true that you are better with your aura than I am, but I’ve been here, training, bleeding, for as many years as you’ve been here months, and you’re just some bastard that lucked into the position. However, you’re also my commander on this journey and, more than that, you haven’t done anything for me to distrust you. I’m sorry.”

After that, Patrice turned on her heel and started to walk away. Of course, she couldn’t get far, they were all marching together and there weren’t enough members of the delegations to have some long column. She was only maybe a dozen meters away when Telemachus leaned over and said, “I thought she was crushing on you.”

“I think somebody can have one moment where someone seem pretty cool but existing emotions remain after the brief flare of being impressed,” Ezra shook his head. Even as he denied it with words that barely made sense to himself, a small part of Ezra couldn’t help but kind of agree with Telemachus. She’d been all shy looking at him before, now what was this?

It was nearly an hour later when Ezra realized he hadn’t seen Luna in quite a while. It wasn’t like they were in some massive group, so confusion quickly gave way to worry. He couldn’t see her anywhere, and as he looked, he also realized that he couldn’t see Jhas either.

Before he started to actually lose his cool, Jormun’s voice flowed over him.

Use your aura. Feel the wind. Listen to what it has to say, and only then should you begin to rely only upon your eyes.

Ezra mentally nodded as he reached a hand out and placed it on Telemachus’s shoulder. His friend started to ask something, but went silent as Ezra closed his eyes and spread his awareness. The wind roared around them and whispered to him, and when he asked for the feeling of the two missing people’s aura, the answer came immediately and Ezra felt like an idiot.

Opening his eyes, he walked towards the wagon in the back, slowing his step to allow others to pass him by. There, sitting in the front of the wagon with his hands on the reins, was Jhas, while beside him sat Luna.

“—where I felt aura. Before that, I’d always struggled to feel mana and the gods’ divine realms, but aura came nearly immediately to me,” Luna explained. Jhas simply nodded in slow acknowledgment, letting her give her explanation. “I think that I somehow developed my inner world when I was trying to become a cleric instead of my connection. Is that possible? But I’m not sure if that’s the case, because they seem so different.”

“This is a point of contention,” Jhas said, inviting Ezra to listen with his eyes. “Some schools of thought state that mana and aura are the same thing. After all, in a fight between a Knight and a Sorcerer, it is very possible for the Knight to divest the Sorcerer of the mana necessary for some of his spells. However, other schools of thought propose that the consumption of aura by the Knight is not at all taking away the ambient mana. Instead, that argument states that it is merely the aura disrupting the patterns of mana nearby, almost like a stone thrown into a still pond. Thus, the disruption is merely an interruption instead of a consumption. Myself, I don’t think that such a discussion is necessary, though I am inclined to think that perhaps aura and mana come from the same thing, though they are different manifestations.”

Ezra blinked, realizing he had stepped into a conversation he really didn’t care about. Before he could extract himself, though, Jhas leveled his gaze at him.

“It would be interesting to hear what a young individual with very little understanding of the arcane and the divine might think on this.”

“It would be… I mean… Jhas, I’ll be honest with you. Unless it really matters to you, I’m gonna be impolite and ask you questions.”

“For many years I have lived among your people, Ezra. Do not fear using your own method of speech to communicate with me. There is no offense intended nor will it be perceived. Continue.”

Ezra had half hoped that would get him out of the conversation. Instead, he shrugged. “Are you asking about what I think mana and aura are? Or are you asking something different?”

“The subject about which I wished to know your opinion is nothing so cerebral and philosophical. Instead, I believed it would be beneficial for you to share with your subordinate how it is that you found yourself on the path towards Knighthood.”

“Sure. I had some dreams about someone who was beyond a Knight—”

“A Master, then,” Luna clarified, her voice rising. “You didn’t tell me you can prophesy.”

“I have no idea what that is, and I doubt I can. I had some dreams about a guy, and not long after that, I started to see aura. Then, I brought it into myself, I got stronger, then I joined the army, Chloe saw me there and thought I might have some potential, I went to jail, she got me out, and here I am.”

“You seem to have skipped some steps in your explanation,” Jhas laughed.

“I’m happy to talk about specifics, but that’s generally what my path towards Knight has been,” Ezra retorted. “I don’t think there’s anything interesting about me. The reality is that, as far as anybody’s ever told me, it just so happens that I’m really talented. I can command aura very easily, I was able to use aura-infused attacks multiple times before I ascended to be an Adept. Each time it was dangerous and painful, but I think that’s supposedly a sign that I’m talented. But I’ve done basically the same thing that you have, I think. I went into the army and you went into… A convent? A monastery? A church? I don’t know what it’s called.”

“It was a seminary, technically,” Luna corrected. “And though I understand the point to which you are attempting to draw me, but I disagree. I do not consider our paths to be particularly similar.”

“More importantly,” Jhas said, “explain why you think that your path and Luna’s are so similar.”

“We both felt aura, and it came to us,” Ezra shrugged. “I’ve seen you meditate, and among the other commoner trainees, I’d say you’re only second to Telemachus in terms of natural talent. You have a knack for seeing the different types of aura for what they are, and now, only a few days after your ascendance, I can feel the way that you can naturally refine aura to your preferred affinity.

“I’ve got no idea what the hell this has to do with anything, though,” Ezra finished.

“I suggested you share this information with Luna because I suspected it would be of value to her in understanding quite how it is that she struggled to make any progress as a cleric, but so quickly ascended as an Adept.”

“Are you just saying I have no talent?” she asked, her voice soft.

“I would not say that you have no talent,” Jhas shook his head. “For me to say that you have no talent would be for me to say that I myself have no talent, a thought with which I do not agree. I would suggest, though, that, while your devotion to the gods is genuine, perhaps you ought to seek a way to serve them that does not require personal connection with their divine realms. That is the path that I myself have followed as well.”

Just as Luna’s face started to change, Basil’s voice suddenly filled the area.

“Goblinoids! Coming from the west!”