“So…” Spur said, smacking his lips and glancing at Vin out of the corner of his eye as they waited for Golrim to show up. “You uh... Wanna talk about why you shattered that guy’s hand?”

  Groaning, Vin shook his head, praying that Golrim would hurry up and magically appear in front of them. He and Spur had been waiting outside of camp for nearly a half an hour now, and obviously Spur had gotten bored of the silence. Frankly, Vin was astonished he’d lasted this long.

  Seeing as Vin refused to engage him, Spur decided to just keep talking. “I mean, I get it. Kyle is a bit of a prick and all, and I’ve already been forced to have a few chats with the man while he tried out our new prison. I could see maybe snapping a finger or two to prove a point, but breaking every bone in his hand seems like a bit of overkill if you ask me.”

  “For the love of God, I didn’t mean to break any of the bones in his hand,” Vin sighed, frowning at the stone-faced colonel. “Did Frank honestly not explain it was an accident, or are you just trying to be annoying?”

  “Admittedly, Frank was a little preoccupied,” Spur said, nodding slightly back toward camp. “You know. With the shattered hand and all.”

  “I haven’t had this arm for very long, and I’m still figuring out how it works,” Vin admitted, desperate to get Spur to stop bringing up the damn hand. “The very first time I tried grabbing something was an iron couch to steady myself, and I ended up twisting the metal by accident.”

  “Jesus, that’s crazy,” Spur muttered, clicking his tongue. “I mean, an iron couch? Who would make such a thing? That doesn’t sound comfortable at all!”

  Realizing Vin wasn’t so much as smiling, Spur rolled his eyes.

  “Everyone’s a critic,” he sighed. “Okay, real talk. First off, that’s terrifying. Especially seeing as Alka, already the deadliest warrior I’ve ever seen, is now running around with an entire golem body compared to just your one arm. Are you telling me now she can punch through metal as well? Because honestly, I really don’t need another reason to be scared of her.”

  “No, her body wasn’t built for strength,” Vin said, raising his golem arm and turning it this way and that, admiring the sleek marble-like material. “Deorer, the dwarven master smith that transferred the arm to me, ended up slapping a mana gem that had been designed to power an entire golem body into just the arm. It seems doing so supercharged the arm to a certain degree, and I’m still working on figuring out just what it’s capable of.”

  “You have the craziest stories, you know that?” Spur said, flashing Vin a look filled with jealousy. “You know what I was doing yesterday before all those monsters attacked? Settling a dispute between two of our Chefs who refused to keep cooking until the other one admitted that their food tasted better. Riveting stuff, I tell you.”

  “The smith had to carve off all the flesh and bone that I still had up to my elbow in order to attach the arm,” Vin said bluntly. “While I was conscious.”

  “And suddenly, my boring day sounds so much more enticing,” Spur muttered, looking away.

  Shaking his head, Vin looked out across the empty meadow, picking out the new groups of Earthers from the third wave being led around and shown the ropes. Combat classes were being put through drills and taught how to actually use their wide variety of chosen weapons, while support classes and crafters were busy focusing on cleaning up and repairing the camp.

  “How many did we even lose yesterday,” Vin finally asked. He’d wanted to know since the moment he’d arrived and witnessed the carnage, but he hadn’t been able to bring himself to ask until just now.

  “More than I would have liked,” Spur sighed, running a hand through his hair as his voice took on an unusual somber tone. “When the monsters first appeared, catching us with our pants down, it was an absolute slaughter. We had so many people milling about outside the walls, going about their daily tasks without a care in the world knowing that our combat classes had the surrounding land clear of monsters. They were woefully underprepared for a few hundred monsters to spawn directly on top of them, and I can’t say I blame them. We’re still counting, but Myer’s last estimate was somewhere around four hundred dead. Most of which occurred within the first few minutes of the battle.”

  “Four… four hundred?” Vin repeated, barely believing what he was hearing. “That’s just… how?!”

  “People don’t want to be cooped up within a military outpost all the time,” Spur shrugged, throwing a frown over his shoulder at the remains of the old camp. “More people spend their days outside in the open meadow than not, working on their skills or just enjoying life. Not everyone puts their nose to the grindstone quite like you or I. Wave two brought over five hundred civilians, Vin. That’s a pretty sizable number of people that aren’t trained to follow orders and shove their own desires so far down that they might as well not exist anymore.”

  Vin didn’t say anything, simply staring off into the distance at nothing in particular as he tried to wrap his mind around that number. Four hundred people killed, all in just a few minutes. The fact was mind boggling.

  “Honestly, it would have been even worse without Devin,” Spur finally admitted, breaking the somber silence. Seeing the confused look on Vin’s face, he chuckled. “Ah, haven’t met Devin yet, have you? Can’t say I’m all that surprised. Kid doesn’t really like talking to others all that much, and he spends most of his time in the nearby forests. For good reason.”

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  “Why? And how did he help?”

  “He’s a Tamer, from the first wave even,” Spur shrugged. “And from what little I can tell, a damn good one. Don’t ask me how he did it, but somehow, he’s even got a few monsters under his control. Though most people don’t like it when he comes round with his monsters at his side, so he doesn’t stop by that much. He’s been living in the woods for weeks. Kid's practically feral at this point.”

  “That’s really interesting,” Vin admitted, wondering just where Devin was actually living. “…but how did that help you guys? Did he join the fight?”

  “Oh yeah, he helped out a bit,” Spur nodded. “But that wasn’t what I meant. He just happened to be in camp at the time of the attack, and his animal companions somehow picked up on the fact that monsters were about to spawn. He was able to warn Phil something was wrong about thirty seconds before everything went to hell, which meant when the monsters finally did spawn in, Phil was that much closer to getting the warriors prepared.”

  “Thirty seconds doesn’t sound like a lot of time,” Vin pointed out.

  “Every second matters in battle,” Spur argued. “I’d bet good money that Devin ended up saving at least another hundred lives. Shame he took off again right after everything died down. Probably had a feeling I was planning to ask for his help.”

  “No wonder he ran,” Vin muttered, already regretting his own decision to agree to Spur’s request. God only knew what the colonel was going to ask him to help with after they were done here.

  Before Spur could give him whatever snarky response he no doubt had come up with, Golrim finally appeared. Popping into existence a good hundred feet away as if he’d always been there, the man smiled and waved like he was an old friend.

  “Sorry for the wait!” he called, walking over to them and ignoring how Vin and Spur both tensed, as if waiting for some sort of surprise attack. “I had a few unexpected things to take care of in my own fragment, but I’m here now. I take it you’d prefer we hold our meeting here rather than within your walls?”

  “You’d take it correctly,” Spur nodded, without so much as a lick of humor in his voice. “Let’s not waste time. I want an explanation as to exactly why one of your subordinates broke into my camp and killed four people. I want to know what reparations you’re planning to give us for that. And I want to know everything there is to know about Kym. Say, for starters, why is he so damn important to you?”

  “I imagine the same reason he’s so important to you as well,” Golrim chuckled, giving them both a slight smile. “Kym is quite literally a font of information. The man was not only lucky enough to be born to a noble family, but with a gift that placed him in high esteem of many from a very young age. You see, Kym has a powerful ability entirely independent from the System. He has a perfect memory.”

  “Really?” Spur asked, raising his eyebrows. “I suppose that would explain how he seems to have an answer to just about any question we ask.”

  “Exactly why his council was sought after so highly,” Golrim nodded. “Not only does Kym have a flawless memory, he is also quite introverted. The man essentially grew up within his family’s library, devouring every book he could get his hands on. As the years passed and Kym’s knowledge only grew, nobles from all around the kingdom began flocking to his family’s estate, offering his family gifts and promises of trade for the mere privilege of asking the boy a handful of questions. Things like how to best unlock a particular passive, or what actions to take to ensure their heir gained access to a particular class upon gaining access to the System. He was so in demand in fact, that he himself gained access to a rather unique class upon reaching maturity. Advisor.”

  “Advisor? That doesn’t sound like a class an introvert would end up taking,” Spur pointed out.

  “You’re not wrong,” Golrim shrugged. “Unless the king himself orders you to take it of course. By the time Kym gained access to the System, he’d already made quite a name for himself, even lifting his family from the lower-mid ranks of nobility to a family name that actually mattered. He became one of the king’s official advisors; the youngest one ever according to our records.”

  “So how did he go from being one of your king’s right-hand men to being locked up with you lot?” Spur asked, gesturing to the black metal bands tightly bound to each of Golrim’s wrists. “We’ve been working under the assumption you’re all former prisoners, based on the matching bracelets.”

  “That is correct,” Golrim nodded, raising a hand and frowning at the band of metal. “We were all prisoners, locked away within a secret, high security prison hidden in a location that few even knew existed. When the Gods yanked us to this world, stripping the levels from our overseers and deactivating the divine restraints put in place to prevent us from using our abilities, we made our move and reclaimed our freedom. As to why Kym was locked up with us, there’s a rather simple answer to that. He was simply too valuable to kill when the king was overthrown.”

  “Wait… Kym is a political prisoner?” Spur asked. “How do you even know all this in the first place anyway? I haven’t known Kym for very long, but it’s obvious he doesn’t really like to talk about himself.”

  “How I know all this falls hand in hand with the reparations I would like to offer you as my apology for not stopping one of my men before he went rogue and attacked your camp,” Golrim said, clicking his tongue and looking truly upset. “If it’s one thing I hate above all else, it’s a pointless waste of life.”

  “That doesn’t answer my question,” Spur warned, laying his hand on the hilt of his sword. “How do we know anything you say is the truth, and what exactly are these reparations you keep dancing around?”

  “A bit blade-happy for a Commander, don’t you think?” Golrim chuckled, holding up his hands defensively. “As I said, how I know what I know and what I’d like to offer you are one in the same. I have no doubt this past week you’ve obtained an incredible wealth of information just from having one of our king’s advisors at your side, answering your questions and filling in the gaps in your knowledge. Well, Kym was only one of the two advisors for our king. What if I offered you the king’s other advisor as well?”

  “You really expect us to believe you just happened to have both of your king’s advisors in the same secret prison?” Spur asked, raising an eyebrow. “Seems a bit far-fetched, don’t you think?”

  “Hardly,” Golrim grinned.

  “They arrested the two of us together after all.”

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