Less than two weeks remained before the dungeon break. Zenos kept exercising, even if it did nothing for his stat total, because he looked forward to spars with Mad. Practical fighting experience was always important, and he could still learn from Mad’s tricks. However, the seasoned adventurer had begun excusing himself from morning training. Eventually, he stopped coming all together.
Presently, Zenos had just finished his laps on the forest track. Mad hadn’t turned up that day, so rather than continue with the other exercises, he picked up his coat and headed for the baths. It was laundry day and Zenos hung his clothes up to dry while he took a dip in a steaming bath.
“The weather gets colder, and I look forward to these baths more and more,” Zenos said. He sighed comfortably as he sunk neck deep into the pool.
Mad had said nothing about the photograph, but it was still on Zenos’ mind. When he closed his eyes, he could almost hear laughter above the gurgling water. A raid of adventurers, he thought. They must have setup tents all around the top of the hill. Eating together, exercising together, and even bathing in the hot spring.
In his previous life, those closest to him were the demon lords, his four lieutenants. Evylence and Balagrim were his oldest comrades, but there was also Cernunnos and Destrey. The former was a stoic woman, taller than most men, who dedicated every spare moment to improving her skill with a bow. The latter was sometimes naive, but the most compassionate, and when there was a disagreement between the four, he was the first to mediate. Dezarosa, the fifth demon lord, didn’t appear in the demon emperor’s court until late in his life. Although he counted them all as comrades, she arrived too late to travel with the emperor on campaign.
It was those journeys that the demon emperor remembered most fondly. Days at sea, aboard his warships, or on land at the head of an army. Those long nights in the command tent, where Balagrim and Evylence would argue over tactics and losses. Zenos remembered the morning that he found Cernunnos practicing her archery, and saw a rare smile when she was satisfied by her performance. And, of course, the city of Bandune, where Destrey saved a woman’s life.
Bandune was a cruel siege. It was a dauntless city built on a desert oasis and its defenses were layered in three walls. Catapults, traps, and the best archers of the east continent made approach difficult, but it was the presence of a wizard that stalled the emperor’s advance. A network of powerful magical barriers—invisible to the naked eye—had been raised around the city. They insured spells cast in a wide area would have no effect. If the demon emperor could not cover his army with a meteor storm of fireballs, then heavy casualties were assured.
The desert had already taken a painful toll on the demon army. Further attrition was something they could ill afford. Therefore, instead of assaulting the battlements, the demon army dug in and starved its inhabitants of supplies.
It was the dawn of the 31st day, just after first light. Dim stars were still visible in the cloudless desert sky. Cernunnos spotted a woman walking the battlements of the inner wall. It was between the changing of the guard and she was alone. Evylence made a remark about suicides. Balagrim, Evylence, Cernunnos, and the Demon Emperor had had committed many sieges by that point in their conquest. Suicide by leaping from the parapets was commonplace.
Destrey had never laid siege before.
He ran out from the command tent. The darkness of the early morning was yet deep enough for his assassin’s skill: Shadow Step. He jumped from shadow to shadow, under the magic barrier and between cracks in the outer wall. The emperor watched through a telescope as the woman slipped from the battlement. Destrey caught her fall, and when he returned with her in his arms, the emperor saw how emaciated she had become.
Destrey’s yellow eyes gleamed as he set the woman on the ground of the demon emperor’s tent. The feelings conveyed by his eyes were communicated to the demon lords and to the emperor himself. Evylence and Balagrim were dismissive, but Cernunnos agreed with Destrey. A decision had to be made, and the haggard woman, laid out on the edge of consciousness, proved its urgency.
“They may be NPCs,” Zenos quoted Destrey from the comfort of the bath. “But we can’t treat them like animals. If we don’t want our men to die—if we want to save everyone that we can—we must do that ourselves. We must bear responsibility for this.”
Zenos smiled.
The battle of Bandune ended with an assault. The demon emperor, together with his lords, rode at the head of the army. The hooves of their tall, jet-black warhorses thundered over the sand. Obliteration Beam, what would become the demon emperor’s signature spell, was then only an idea. He executed it for the first time against Bandune, where its anti-magic barriers were large, but thin. A hole large enough for one horse was disintegrated through its three stone walls.
The soldiers of Bandune filled the gap with their spears, but the demon emperor was determined to charge first and crash through their formation.
Destrey beat him to the breach, carried fast by his spirited horse. With his twin shortswords out swung, he sliced apart the Bandune spears and leapt into the fray. The dissent among Balagrim and Evylence, when Destrey protested the siege, was that he was too young and inexperienced. They argued, by the telepathy they shared, that Destrey was not prepared for the rigor war demanded.
Bandune demanded many sacrifices, from its citizens, its defenders, and from the demon army, but suffering on all sides was minimized by Destrey’s skill and speed.
That’s what it meant to have comrades, wasn’t it? he thought. The five of us were very different, but we were dedicated to one cause. We supported each other, right up to the end.
Zenos’ shoulders stiffened, and his smile turned cold, like the water that ran down the mountain. When he compared his experience as the demon emperor, to the adventurers that raided before him, he couldn’t help but feel an emptiness in his heart. It was longing, like jealousy, so close to one another, but not quite the same. Zenos imagined the demon lords around a fire, not planning, but eating late into the night. He imagined further the early mornings, where they would sweat together, and train together, and laugh over their fortunes and mistakes.
Zenos remembered again his palace hall, where he had sat at the head of a long table. That was the night before his fateful end, when he and the demon lords would give their lives, and only Dezarosa ate at his side. That was a quiet, somber evening. He couldn’t imagine the adventurers ended their last night so silently. He imagined singing and drinking, and challenges and bets.
Mad had said that there were others who didn’t join his fateful raid. Those fourteen that followed him, they were not just comrades, but surely friends. Did Mad smile on their final night? Zenos wondered. If I could go back and change the end of my world, turn the curve of fate one last time, I think I would definitely smile for them.
“Oh, there you are,” Mad said.
Zenos opened his eyes and jumped in the bath. There hadn’t been a sound except for the birds and the whistle of the statues. Mad watched him from the clothes line, a smirk on his face.
“I thought you would still be exercising,” he said. “But I see you finished up early.”
“Y-Yes,” Zenos stammered. Mad had caught him day dreaming and his thoughts were out of order.
“Do you want me to dry your clothes?” he asked.
“Yes!” Zenos shouted. “Yes, please.”
Mad turned to the laundry.
“Are you getting in the bath?” Zenos asked.
Mad shook his head and turned half back to Zenos. “Not yet, I was just worried you had gotten yourself in trouble,” he said.
Zenos blinked and folded his arms over the edge of the bath. He rested his chin on his forearm. “By the way, where have you been off to every morning?”
“Preparing for the raid, like I said before.”
Zenos squinted and peered through him, like he was boring a hole between Mad’s eyes.
Mad chuckled and rubbed the back of his head. He made a shallow smile. “Not good enough for you?” he asked.
“You can find me if you’re worried about me,” Zenos said. “But I can’t find you. Do you think that’s fair?”
Mad smiled. “You’re the fledgling here,” he said. “And I’m the one responsible for you. Let me do the worrying, alright?”
Zenos stared hard at Mad, but the seasoned adventurer just waved and walked back to the trail.
Say, Fiona, Elizabeth, Leo, and Khelero… what do you think? Zenos thought as he settled back into the bath. Was Mad always like this? Sometimes he’s smiling and chatting about this or the other thing, but then he’s like this. I don’t know him at all.
He sighed.
I guess it’s time I figured out where he’s going.
