Outrage of the Ancients

Walking through a warzone hit differently when that warzone used to be people’s homes. And apparently, Ogier had touted me as being capable of fixing everything, which was definitely a teensy bit of a stretch. [Restoration of the Old] was strong, and only got stronger when applied to something as ancient as the Untersberg fortress, but it wasn’t this strong.

But Charlemagne had asked me to make a good-faith effort, one application of the Skill to see what it could do, so I was here to do just that.

As for the when and where, I’d settled on “right now” and “the European Parliament.” The center of European power, risen from disaster, the last and only intact part of central Brussels.

Because I’d been right. The damn Nation Boss had gone straight for it, then ripped its way through the Chamber of Representatives, a part of the Belgian government apparatus, and finally flattened the Belgian Federal Parliament before proceeding to wreck the rest of the city. If I could, I’d make sure to fix other government buildings, but my priority was the center of the European government.

The various fighters, Dietrich and Mia, included, were still zonked out somewhere in one of the countless makeshift camps that surrounded the city, but I’d been removed enough from the main effort that I’d woken at 7 am and been more than ready to head out to try and use the Skill.

I’d asked General Renard to provide an escort, and less than five minutes later, I was being driven through the city in a Humvee. Or at least a vehicle that fulfilled the same general purpose as one, being a troop transporter capable of handling the rough terrain the city had been turned into.

Now, here I was, watching the devastation pass by the windows and trying not to project an image that would make me look like an ass. Like gawking, or the opposite extreme, casual indifference.

I mean, my Skills helped, letting me control my facial expression and letting me see things from the perspective of the soldiers to properly judge how I should be presenting myself, making the whole thing practically effortless, but the situation still felt precarious.

“So you can fix all this?” the soldier sitting on my right asked.

“Some of it, I’ll have to see how much I can do in one shot,” I replied, leaving unspoken that I could have offered and delivered the same thing last night but forgotten. I might have still been functioning, but that didn’t mean I hadn’t been tired.

“That’s cool,” the man replied. “I …”

Then, he stopped talking again, likely having swallowed a grumbled “I can only do x.”

[Piercing Gaze] activated and I scanned him and saw something entirely new, a state of complete chaos that was nevertheless fairly easy to interpret. This was a man who’d just had his entire world turned upside down, I could tell that he had enough of an attachment to the city that he had either lived or been born here, part of him wanted to cling to the old paradigm, another part told him to move on, and a third screamed at him to run like hell because otherwise, there was no way in hell he’d survive this.

And even with all that, he was putting up just as good a facade as I was. Without my Skill, I wouldn’t have been able to tell how shaken he truly was.

That was the point when I stopped engaging, or scanning anyone, and just started out of the window.

It took the car almost an hour to reach our destination, and it had to stop more than five hundred meters away due to a preponderance of rubble surrounding the remains of the European Parliament.

“Are you okay with walking?” I asked, earning a soft round of chuckles.

“Shouldn’t we be asking you that?” one of the soldiers replied.

“Well, I’m the one who dragged you out here, the area hadn’t been declared clear of monsters yet, and you’re the experts in military protocol. So, is this a reason to turn around and head back?”

I genuinely wanted to know. I’d be fine walking out there, but then again, I doubted my knowledge of the realities of war was anywhere close to theirs. At best, I had secondhand wisdom from Charlemagne. Valuable, but still secondhand.

“We’re going,” the sergeant in charge of the team declared, and led the way out through the door, with everyone else following soon after.

Several small chunks of rubble crunched under my boots as I stepped out onto the pavement, and the smokey smell on the air was suddenly a thousand times more intense, now that I was breathing the open air. Most of the fires that had been caused by the Forgotten’s attack had been put out, but the smell lingered.

It was a harsh scent, chemical, with only hints of woodsmoke. Like the worst kind of barbeque imaginable. This hadn’t been a wildfire, or older construction, but the modern world burning down, furniture, wiring, and carpeting having ignited, leaving behind the hollowed-out skeletons of office buildings and their like.

I froze, and stopped to stare.

My escorts had spread out around me, but once they were in position, they too seemed to freeze, likewise overwhelmed by the enormity of the disaster. Or maybe, they were waiting on me to move on.

I took another step, rubble once more crunching underfoot, and that seemed to jolt everyone into action. Or, once again, they were taking their cues from me.

It was a journey of only five hundred meters, but it felt like a ten-kilometer hike through a fever dream. The sound of broken concrete or metal rebar under our boots, the distant crunching rubble shifting, the haze of smoke hanging in the air, and just everything else … if it hadn’t been for the lack of bloodstains, this could have been the setting of a disaster movie.

Or maybe something like a zombie apocalypse, which was a little closer to what was actually happening, but movies about those tended to focus more on atmospheric horror, of the old world empty of regular people, either entirely devoid of life, or filled with dumb, mute, zombies, dead but still an overwhelming threat, ready to tear apart anyone who got too close.

I was just glad that we wouldn’t have to deal with any of that in the real world. Real zombies were just too darn aggressive, and as long as there were people around, the undead would impale themselves on humanity’s defenses until they were all gone.

After ten minutes of walking, I tripped over a metal pole. And as I pushed myself back to my feet, I saw my hands had brushed away a layer of dust covering the German flag.

Looking around, I spotted several other objects that looked like very dirty and dusty flags, at the end of more metal poles that I now recognized as being the flagpoles that used to line the road to the parliament.

This was as good a spot as any to activate my Skill.

I closed my eyes and focussed on [Restoration of the Old], spreading out the effect of my Skill, feeling the energy flow out of me until I reached my limit. I wanted to restore part of the city perfectly, and not have the Skill fail halfway through like it had when I’d tried to clean the Untersberg.

Deep breaths. In, out, in, out.

The longer I focussed on the Skill, the more I could feel its energy suffusing the pile of rubble before me and spreading out from there until, from one moment to the next, everything else slammed into place, and before I could react, the Skill triggered on its own.

My eyes flew open involuntarily, and I stared, watching the building before me un-demolish itself, rebar floating into the air to form a rough outline first before all the concrete covering the ground disintegrated, the dust flying skywards and reforming into its old shape, soon followed by a glittering display as countless glass shards slowly reassembled themselves in their now-restored frames.

All in all, it had taken less than a minute for the building to be fully restored. It was a rather modern construct, all glass and steel with barely an ounce of personality, but there it was. The center of European power, standing against adversity.

… I should have filmed it.

But when I turned, I saw a couple of soldiers with their cellphones out. Though based on the fact that the sergeant wasn’t ripping their heads off, that had been planned.

“Let’s get out of here,” I announced and began to walk, with the others following suit.

The way back was, once again, eerie as fuck. Where the walk here had been defined by destruction, the return journey was made across pristine streets, surrounded by buildings that looked like they’d been built yesterday, and there wasn’t a single piece of trash in sight.

I shivered.

It looked like something straight out of an alien abduction and experiment movie. Things were just too perfect, too clean, too sterile. Not something that would last for more than a couple of days once people returned, but it was still something that grated on my nerves, putting me on edge.

Only when I was safely back in the Humvee was I able to focus on my Level up.

[Myth(ical) Mediator Lv. 21 -> Myth(ical) Mediator Lv. 22]

[Skill Boost gained]

This was tough, really tough. I got plenty of Skill Boosts, at every other Level save the ones that were multiples of ten. Or maybe, it was the Levels that were gained just prior to a Class Evolution that gave Capstones instead of Skill Boosts, and the Class Evolutions didn’t happen every ten Levels.

They happened at Levels 10 and 20, I knew that from personal experience, and Charlemagne had told me that so was 50, but everything else was up in the air.

Yeah, I got plenty of boosts, but also a metric fuckton of Skills to spend them on, and, in fact, I gained more Skills than opportunities to boost them. If the pattern held, then I’d have to grow ever more cautious about where I applied them.

So where the fuck should I stick this one?

[Knowledge Trade] was still one of my most impactful Skills, the highest-upgraded one I had so far, and who knew where I could take it? Would it grow to the point where it didn’t just transfer knowledge, but also wisdom and muscle memory?

[Piercing Gaze] already did plenty to cut through the confusion of the modern world, and might grow to be able to do more than I could ever imagine.

And [Innate Etiquette] was practically overpowered, however, it was already at the point where I needed it to.

A better, larger, more useful [Diplomatic Pouch] could make an immeasurable difference, and how about my two self-defense Skills, [Polite Rebuke] and [Diplomatic Immunity]? Didn’t they deserve some upgrades too?

But in the end, I settled on [Restoration of the Old]. Because as far as gathering the badly needed goodwill went, nothing I could do beat fixing cities and restoring monuments with a wave of my hand.

And it was even a combat Skill to boot. Kinda. Instantly repairing our little fortress in the mountains from within its walls in a matter of seconds would be incredibly useful.

Constantly regenerating the fortress could also serve as a stopgap until Charlemagne’s overhaul Skill could be applied and turn it into the strongest defensive position possible.

So I applied the Boost to [Restoration of the Old] and immediately read the upgrade.

Maximum affected area increased, maximum cooldown reduced to ten hours, Skill treats important constructions as “ancient” for the purposes of calculating efficacy.

Hol’ up. Did actions taken with a Skill influence the upgrade path it took? Because upgrading it to fix buildings that were new but of monumental importance was pretty much exactly what I needed, and “new but important” was basically the perfect description for the building I’d just fixed.

I shrugged.

That would be hard to prove one way or the other, and I certainly wouldn’t be investing my Skill Boosts in ways that might support either hypothesis, they were too valuable for that.

Maybe I could conduct a survey in a few weeks, perhaps comparing how identical Skills were upgraded by the different people, and if there was a difference based on lifestyle, or if there were differences when the same Skill had been gained from a different Class … yeesh, this was gonna be a pain. I’d probably have to fob that off on someone else.

Either way, in the here and now, I had stuff to do.

For one, upgrading the Skill had reset its cooldown, so I used it again and fixed a much larger chunk of the city, restoring the path the humvee was taking through Brussels.

***

“Everyone, thank you for coming,” Fionn Mac Cumail greeted the entire assembled listeners, all seven of us. Six, if you excluded Drake, who was only present via video conference.

We were in the main chamber of the European Parliament, where he’d invited us to share something.

An unseen projector activated, throwing a map of Europe against the wall behind him, with multiple circles drawn across the continent, centered on the southeastern edge of Germany, right where the Untersberg was.

One went right up to the edge of Prague, that had to be the area we’d covered at the start of the current Challenge.

The second covered Prague and extended maybe a hundred kilometers further. That had to be the area if Joseph joined us as he’d offered.

And the last one covered basically the entire map, including the entire continent, extending all the way past the northernmost tip of Norway, and some rough mental math let me know it would extend quite aways into Russia and northern Africa, though neither was on the graphic shown.

That had to be …

“Have you managed to calculate the rate of expansion based on how many ancients are in one spot?” Charlemagne said.

Fionn nodded solemnly.

“How many are needed for the greatest possible expansion?” Charlemagne asked.

“All of us,” Fionn said and waved his hand at the projected image. For a brief moment, I thought that had been the cue for an unseen helper to flip to the next slide, but then I realized the image bulged up out of the screen, meaning it was clearly the product of his magic … and so was the initial image, obviously.

The new projection was of the Untersberg, side by side with another map, which had a new circle that barely covered the northernmost tip of Scotland.

“If you would be so gracious as to host us, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, the Fianna is ready to defend your mountain fortress against the monsters that would normally endanger the entire continent,” Fionn declared.

“The area that would be covered is the one being displayed right now?” Charlemagne asked, stroked his chin for a few seconds, then added, “The rate of expansion is around forty percent for each one of us, starting from a basis of one hundred kilometers, correct?”

Holy shit, had he just figured that out from just those maps? Not bad. But, of course, I kept my trap shut.

Fionn nodded.

“Well, King of Bern, I believe we can handle that, can’t we?” Charlemagne grinned, turning to face Dietrich, who nodded.

“Obviously.”

Then, he turned to Arthur and the laptop Drake was using to listen in.

“And will our British compatriots be joining us?”

“Sounds like there won’t be any monsters in Britain no matter what, so I might as well be where the action is,” Arthur immediately announced from his position spread out across two seats, legs up on the table in front of him.

But Drake stayed silent for a long moment before finally replying.

“I think I’ll stay where I am. My Skills are largely useless without a navy to command, and my task is hunting the beasts in the ocean before they can hit various coastlines.”

Unfortunate. But understandable.

“Vice Admiral, may I make a suggestion?” I asked before I could stop myself.

“Yes?” he replied cautiously, slightly distracted.

“I have a portal Skill. It’ll require some preparations, but I can instantly transport you to your fleet a second after the Challenge has begun. That way, your presence can redirect monsters to the Untersberg while still enabling you to complete your main goal.”

“What kinds of preparations?” he asked.

“I have to have been in a location before I open a portal there,” I told him, already knowing I had him hooked, thereby cinching the final Ancient’s support for the plan.

And from that point onwards, it was a matter of hammering out the details.

This would be awesome!

… And ridiculously dangerous. Insanely so. The amount of wrath we were calling down on ourselves could annihilate nations.

But the people around me were, well, themselves. They were quite capable.