Reivan and Jiji eventually arrived at the crown of a cliff overlooking what was probably a lake in the past. Now it just looked like an earthen bowl or a crater because the water had dried up.

  It was yet another stark reminder of how bad Arkhan's condition was, as if life in the former republic didn't have enough of those already. Rather, it was harder to forget, with how hot it was despite being an hour before dusk. The bleak landscapes—devoid of life and greenery of any kind—were always there too, ready to pull anyone's mood down no matter how happy they were.

  "Oh," Reivan squinted as he gazed out into the lake. "So that's where they're hiding..."

  The absence of the water actually helped him see an entryway under the water's surface—if the lake still had water, of course. In the lake's glory days, said entryway would have been completely submerged and further hidden by underwater foliage. Or maybe the lake's water was murky enough to accomplish that on its own.

  Leading up to the entrance was a line of sunken spots that were likely the residual footsteps of a golem. Since they were primarily made of metal, golems were understandably quite heavy and easily left behind tracks. From the size of them, he judged that the perpetrator—or perpetrators—must have been the smaller variant of golem that the knights liked to call "the little ones". Which ironically made them sound tiny, but that was not the case at all.

  They were as big as trucks, except they were upright. They were small if you compared them to War Golems though, but everything was small if you compared it to something as large as a building with a dozen floors.

  'Hm? Someone's coming... Oh, never mind.'

  A familiar presence rapidly closed the distance, and suddenly, Sir Xander was by their side. He looked a bit pale, which would have alarmed Reivan if the man wasn't always somewhat pale.

  "Your Excellency," the knight placed a palm on his chest and stood at attention.

  "Right on time," Reivan said as he gestured at the not-so-hidden entryway. "Am I correct in assuming that this is the place we're looking for?"

  Sir Xander nodded before elaborating. "I managed to spot some golems going in and out. Salvaged supplies, from the look of it. When they aren't using the entrance, they seem to have a way to seal it shut with stone."

  "Sorcery?"

  "Most likely."

  "I see." Reivan crossed his arms. "It's open right now though. What's up with that?"

  "One of the battlemages I called for aid earlier said they could talk to the engineers for us." Xander gazed at the entrance. "They're already there. Should I not have?"

  "No, it's fine. Good job, actually. It saves us time."

  Jiji nudged Reivan with her elbow while fixing her hat—which she would use to hide her second pair of ears to avoid the stares it would no doubt invite. "We should stay here for now. Let's keep things civil and wait for the people we sent in to come back out. Okay, Yani? You can do that, right?"

  "I can do that..." Reivan nodded slowly but then frowned at her. "But I don't like how you're tone insinuates that I fight everyone I meet..."

  "I heard you charged into an Argonian army almost a million strong not even a month ago."

  "I didn't charge into it. I infiltrated it. Secretly. And with a good purpose. Y'know, subtle and quiet."

  "That doesn't really help your case, you know...?"

  Reivan groaned before deciding to ignore her for now, turning to his guard instead. "Did you see the guys inside? The actual humans, I mean. Not the golems."

  "For a moment, yes." Xander nodded. "After the team of mages flew here, they used some sort of spell that looked like it didn’t do anything. But the entrance opened and some people let the mages in.”

  ‘Ah, it must have been their unique signal spell or something.’

  Apparently, Sorcerers in the know were taught a special spell that released a signal only objects imbued with specific magical properties could pick up. And those objects were attached to the entrances of various secret facilities.

  Essentially, it was a type of doorbell system. With a few extra steps.

  Reivan wanted to learn it too, but even House Demoscene’s head seemed reluctant so Reivan refrained from pressing further for the meantime. It wasn’t much of a big deal for him because he had command over the mages anyway. So if he ever needed to, he could just have them “ring the doorbell” in his stead.

  “Impressions?” Jiji turned to Xander and asked. “How did the people from inside receive the mages? Did they seem wary or annoyed that more mouths to feed arrived?”

  The knight shook his head. “They were welcoming, Lady Jiji. As far as I could tell, at least. Though I cannot disqualify the possibility that they were just hiding their true sentiments.”

  “I suppose that’s true as well. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see, hm?”

  Her words would quickly be proven true because there would be no movements by the entrance for more than an hour.

  “It’s not enough that you’ve betrayed your nation, but you led them here…!? Have you gone mad!? Argonians are about to trample over this place and now you’ve brought knights as well...!? Is dying once not enough for you? You want to die twice over!?”

  “I understand your concerns, but I assure you that they’re here to help. Why, if you—”

  “Oh, help. Help, hm? In exchange for what, if I may ask? Will they do it for some of the lint in my pocket? Or would the low, low price of our undying loyalty and eternal servitude suffice? Surely you don’t expect me to believe they’re doing this out of charity. The goodness of their hearts, yeah? Right ole saints, eh? Fucking unbelievable…”

  Inaria quietly stood at the corner of the room, internally cursing Head Engineer Barithos for having such a needlessly loud voice. The room was small and layered with steel, after all, so his booming exclamations rebounded, making her ears cry out for help.

  If only she wasn’t one of the only battlemages left in the base. The others had left on an extended supply run because they were understandably running out of everything. Even mages like Inaria barely got to eat half their fill these days.

  ‘This one seems fed, though. Bathed, too, by the smell of him. Lucky piece of…’

  Apparently, Lageton was now a country called the Hierarchy of Samsara, and it was sponsored by the Kingdom of Aizen. There was plenty of food and more came in daily. Water was no problem at all and the heat was being managed well. They even had priest-doctors healing illnesses or wounds.

  Honestly, Inaria wished she was there instead of here. And nobody could blame her even if she yelled her thoughts.

  Not only that, but Samsara had also sent a large force all the way here to rescue the golem engineers of the Golden Gear—along with any other Arkhanians they found.

  Inaria assumed that was the reason why the base had stopped finding survivors lately. There were plenty of known gatherings for them all over the region, small but somehow holding out by depending on people who knew a bit of magic. But when a squad checked to see if some of the groups were still doing okay, all of them were gone with no signs of struggle.

  Now, the mystery was solved. The survivor groups had gotten rescued by the Aizenians—or rather, the Samsarans. Samsari…? Samsarians? Samsarites, maybe? Agh, she couldn’t bother. It was too early in the morning for this much thinking.

  ‘Or is it dusk now…?’

  Inaria unconsciously massaged the bridge of her nose as her headache worsened. She barely got any food, her sleeping conditions were absolutely atrocious, and because she had obligations as one of the only mages in the base, she didn’t even get to sleep in her cold hard corner of the floor very often.

  It was, clearly, taking a toll on her.

  Worse, even though she should feel weak, she felt oddly energetic. Even her mind was thinking faster for some reason. That sounded like a good thing on the surface, but she’d seen the same thing in people who never woke up the next day.

  Inaria didn’t enjoy life very much lately, but she still preferred it over dying.

  Resolving to find a nice quiet corner to pass out after this, she directed her attention back to the conversation. Despite the Head Engineer’s words, Inaria was very interested in Samsara because going there sounded like a much better recourse than the base’s original plan for the next few months.

  Which was basically just to huddle up in the base and regularly send people or golems out to gather supplies.

  It was an awful plan, in her opinion. Frankly, it was a suicidal plan with no hope for the future.

  Nearby survivor groups had already cleaned out anything useful or mildly edible in the region. That was how they survived this long in the first place. It was to the point that finding leather shoes to boil for a desperate meal was nearly impossible. That’s why the scavenging groups have had to go farther and farther away to find anything these days, and they didn’t even return with that much.

  Most of all, their only source of water these past few weeks was a battlemage with a water-type spirit beast. He had been a young man two years Inaria’s senior, and he died the other day while out on a supply run because some asshole shot her in the head while she slept, aiming to steal whatever supplies she had on her—only to, in turn, be slain by the spirit beast’s final, but late, retaliation. Now, the base was running out of potable water. They only had a few dozen large containers that the battlemage had filled up before leaving for a supply run.

  If that wasn’t enough, the water battlemage’s death apparently made confidence for this base drop to the extent that some of the people sent out for runs never came back—and not because they couldn’t.

  They even left a note and everything.

  Bastards, the lot of them. It wouldn't have been much trouble to invite her and her friends too, but they went off on their own.

  “Look, the Prince of Aizen came personally,” said the former battlemage serving as the speaker for the Samsaran Expeditionary Forces. “That proves they’re sincere about this. They wouldn’t put a member of the royal family on the seat if they were going to do things that would stain their reputation.”

  Inaria’s cheek twitched, barely hiding her skepticism behind a mask of indifference.

  The envoy’s interpretation wasn’t necessarily wrong, but it was a bit too optimistic. There could be any number of justifications why the leader was a Prince instead of some other skilled politician from the kingdom. Heck, did there even need to be a reason? Maybe Aizen was just doing it for the hell of it. Or maybe the prince pulled the short end of the stick in some political conflict, so he was thrown away to languish in this place.

  From the way the head engineer’s sneer grew wider, he was also not as optimistic as the Samsaran envoy. He spat on the ground and scoffed. “Looking at you makes me sick, mage. And to think I used to hold your kind in high regard. Now I see that my respect is not deserved by all mages. Just some. Just those that do not look at foreign invaders and bow when it is convenient for them to do so.”

  Head Engineer Barithos had glanced at her momentarily when he said “Just some”. Which clearly meant that he held her in high regard.

  His high regards, however, were about as useful as Aldimir and Alini’s attempts to hide their sexual relationship from her. Instead of respect, she wished he didn’t ask her and the other battlemages to do so much. Or maybe give her more rations to stuff her poor stomach with. She wasn't a big eater from the start, yet she still felt like she was getting far too little to eat these days.

  They all were, honestly. So she wouldn't voice her complaints.

  ‘I mean, I’d probably jump ship too, if I had the chance…’

  Inaria had no real attachment to Arkhan.

  It would be “nice” if she could help and contribute while living her own life. But that was about it. She didn't want to die for it or anything if she could avoid it. Especially since the nation was all but no more by now.

  Arkhan hadn't been benevolent to her throughout her life, but there were moments of happiness too. Some affection for the nation she grew up in was warranted. But sacrificing her life and the lives of her friends was asking for too much. She wasn’t very patriotic, she knew.

  Already, Inaria was thinking of ways to approach the Samsaran envoy after this and ask him to take her with him to wherever she could get a damned bath. A real bath. With hot water that didn’t disappear after a while, so she could take the time to enjoy it.

  In any case, the head engineer’s disdain seemed to irk the envoy greatly. The man may have ducked into the shade of the kingdom’s roof, but he was still a battlemage. A senior one, from the look of it. Being looked down on by a “mere” golem pilot must have rankled him like nothing else.

  Despite that, the envoy seemed to master himself, taking a deep breath before speaking again. “You must at least meet him. His Excellency, the Hierarch, I mean.”

  Barithos snorted. “And why should I?”

  “Because you must. Because all four of the great houses stand behind him. Because there are legions of Argonians coming and the Hierarch has knights.”

  Mention of the Four High Magus Clans gave even Barithos pause, but he soon regained his bluster. “Woe is the day that even such lauded households betray the nation too. Traitors, the lot of you!”

  “You stubborn fuc—The Hierarch is already waiting outside! And though he’s not known for having a temper, his patience has never been tested. I advi—”

  “Agh, fucking let the prick wait outside for a month. See if I care.”

  Suddenly, the door to the small meeting room opened, shocking everyone inside.

  There, standing by the doorway, was a dashing man with a downright hypnotic pair of golden eyes and a head of silver hair. Flanking him were two distinctly different figures: a stunning beauty with a smile that was barely a smile and a pale-skinned man who just screamed of death.

  Ignoring the stunned look of the head engineer, the silver-haired man in the middle stepped into the small room and grinned confidently.

  “Apologies, but the prick got impatient and decided to barge in.”

  Reivan momentarily marveled at how different the base’s interior was.

  The walls were either steel or pipes. The latter was all over the place to the extent that it was harder to find a place that didn’t have them, transporting gas or whatever it was that they transported to wherever it was needed. There was a constant din, a clink and a clank, as the pressure in the pipes struggled against the metal tubes.

  It was all very steampunk, for some reason. Though it could use more grim, toxic smoke, and neon lights—which didn’t exist in this world until he had them invented.

  The room he barged into wasn’t much different in aesthetic, but he immediately noticed how cramped it was. His closet was ten times bigger than this, for crying out loud. Even the room where he shat was more spacious. He’d seen public bathrooms in manga bigger than this.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Honestly, the room looked more like a broomshed than a meeting room.

  There was only one tiny square table within, with a bright lantern in the middle. From a glance, three people were in the room other than Reivan and his entourage.

  The one whose back was turned toward him was presumably a battlemage under his employ because Reivan vaguely recognized the man's bald spot—which was strangely triangular for some reason.

  Then on the other side of the table was a thick man. Not fat but not muscular either. Reivan immediately likened it to a dad-bod. Or one of those competitive heavy lifters from his past life. Either one seemed applicable, honestly. Aside from that, the man seemed to exude the aura of a stubborn person, complete with a countenance half-hidden behind a full beard-stache—which was a word that Reivan invented for a beard plus moustache combo, particularly for the bushy type that made you look like Santa Claus.

  'He's like a dwarf... A tall dwarf. Which is a quality that's not very dwarf-like, when I think about it."

  The third person, surprisingly, was Inaria Netral—the red-headed daughter of Arkhan’s probably-dead president. She was, more importantly, one of his squad members back in the days he used to run around pretending to be Clover Salwyn.

  Also, she was in a platonic but romantic relationship with one of Reivan’s fake identities.

  ‘Ah. Come to think of it, I haven’t checked my holostone to see if I’m in range of her holostone.’

  He’d been checking every other day, even while he was on his first campaign against an imperial army. But the thought of potentially losing the Golden Gears to Argonia had blown it out of his mind. In hindsight, he could have done that and instantly found the engineers.

  'Or maybe not. The holostone range would have meant I'm too far...'

  Reivan’s gaze met hers, but he refocused on the stubborn-looking engineer for now. He’d handle Inaria later, as well as address how thinner she’d gotten. “May I ask who this… charming gentleman is?”

  The battlemage stood from his seat and graciously offered it to Reivan, who, in turn, took him up on the offer. “Your Excellency, this is Head Engineer Barithos.”

  “Head Engineer Barithas,” Reivan purposely said the name wrong, acting as if he was merely testing how the name rolled off the tongue. “I’m glad that we’ve found you.”

  Barithos scowled. “I’m not.”

  Reivan chuckled. “Your displeasure is clear for all to see, I assure you.”

  Given the limited space in the broomshed—or rather, the meeting room, they all couldn’t be inside. So Xander opted to stand by the door while Jiji slipped in, standing behind him to his right. The earlier battlemage with a funny bald spot stood to his left, trying very hard to smush himself into the wall so he didn't bump into Jiji's shoulder.

  “I am given to understand that you don’t like me very much, Head Engineer Bathiras.” Reivan crossed his fingers on the table as he examined the hulking man. “But that’s fine. We can work on that.”

  “There’s no need to work on anything,” the man snapped.

  “Now, now. Let's not give up so easily. We should at least try to reach common ground, Head Engineer Bartholomew.”

  Reivan moved the lantern in the middle of the table to the side and set a plate of baked goods in its place. The enticing aroma had no trouble filling the room, and he didn’t miss the way Inaria and Barithos gulped.

  Honestly, part of the reason why he took out the cookies was to alleviate the smell coming from the two Arkhanians opposite him. He couldn’t blame them for not having the resources to bathe, but his nose was too sensitive—he didn’t enjoy smelling nasty things. Of course, he could endure it if he really needed to, but why would he do that when he could just remedy it like this?

  “You are free to help yourself,” Reivan gestured at the plate.

  Barithos glared at him, hiding his hesitation well. “I'm full.”

  Reivan chuckled, because he didn’t need his ability to tell him something as obvious as that.

  In the first place, the way Inaria looked at the plate was enough to tell him how bad the base's food situation had gotten. It wasn't unexpected, given the things he heard from the refugees rescued in the region. That said, he hadn't heard anything concrete about the base's situation, so he appreciated the insights he'd learned just now.

  “You're full, you say?" Reivan drawled with an additional roll of the eyes. "That's funny. Remind me, who is it that's been sending people out to scavenge supplies so frequently, Head Engineer Barometer?”

  From the way Barithos bit his lip and refused to say any more, Reivan knew that his bait worked.

  He naturally didn’t know how frequently they sent people out on supply runs. The only instance he was aware of was Xander’s report about having seen golems bring in supplies—which was just a single instance.

  To make sure, he employed a trick that Jiji used on him too many times to count—which was to pretend as if he knew something and confirm its veracity by observing the other side’s reaction. This didn’t trigger his [Lie Detection], so it was just one of many ways his family found to dance around it.

  Whether it was his father, his brother, or his sister, they were rats for thinking it up.

  Still, he was glad that they were giving him something to learn from. They were all a little too good at it though—except for his mother, for no matter how much of a feral warrior she was, she was a sweet soul who couldn't lie to save her life on the inside. Mimi was also similarly horrible at it, but then again, she didn't have a reason to dig information out of him.

  In any case, this information extraction method was aptly named “baiting”. And Reivan had successfully pulled it off, it seems.

  ‘So they have been sending out a lot of scavenger teams.’

  The revelation didn’t have to imply that the base was running out of supplies. It could have also meant that they wanted to clean the region out in preparation for the empire’s coming. Or maybe the Golden Gear just wanted to stock up on food before all the perishables expired or before they were looted by other people.

  But, those theories went down the drain because the head engineer’s reaction made it clear that the reason was as Reivan expected.

  'There are other signs though.'

  Inaria’s and the man’s lips were cracked from slight dehydration too, indicating a shortage of potable water. None of the battlemages in this base must’ve had a water-type spirit beast. Sorcerers, of course, could make water too. But magically conjured water would disappear in time so it could be used for washing things or even bathing, but couldn’t be drunk. In cases like this, elementalism was superior.

  Speaking of washing, their lack of hygiene also meant they didn’t have the leeway to bathe. But while Inaria was somewhat fine, Barithos smelled horrible. So horrible that Reivan could taste the smell. Which shouldn't have been possible, but his poor nose and tongue said otherwise.

  In any case, there must have been a general shortage of battlemages. Or maybe they had all been sent out, which still meant a drastic shortage because one did not leave their base with fewer battlemages than the numbers deployed.

  ‘Their situation is this bad, huh?’

  Barithos banged a fist on the table. “Enough of this. Leave. We Arkhanians will handle ourselves.”

  “I don’t think you can, if I'm being frank with you.” Reivan sheepishly chucked with a shake of his head. He was steadily growing less nonchalant about all this after he realized just how precarious this base's state was. “How many people do you have here, by the way?”

  “Our affairs are none of your business, foreigner.”

  “Hm.”

  Reivan’s finger tapped on the table repeatedly, his patience gradually thinning with every rude remark. This was his second life, so he wasn't the type of royal that lorded his status over every single person he met. But he'd always been treated with a modicum of respect by everyone who wasn't an enemy.

  Well, he was somewhat at fault because he did slightly provoke the man by repeatedly getting his name wrong. He'd done it just as a petty way of getting back for being called a prick and also because destabilizing the other side's emotional state was a viable way to get an advantage in negotiations.

  But greater insight of the Golden Gear's situation changed things.

  People’s lives were at stake, and this man was trying to hinder him from helping people.

  “You know, Head Engineer Barithos,” he began. “We don’t need to like each other. Nor do we need to be friends.”

  “I’m glad you understand. Now, leave. You people aren’t welcome here.” Barithos threw a glare at the battlemage behind Reivan. “And so are these traitors who condone your invasion.”

  ‘Hm, well he isn’t really wrong that we’re kind of invading.’

  “Shh.” Reivan held a finger to his lips. “You didn’t let me finish. As I was saying… We don’t need to like each other to help people. Let’s try to reach a common ground.”

  “No.”

  “And why not?”

  “We will not accept the help of foreigners. Especially when quite a few of them are abducting our people and enslaving them. What’s to say you won’t do it too.”

  Reivan cocked a brow as he leaned back. “As I remember it, you were enslaving your own people as well. Not in broad daylight, of course. But it’s with the consent of the government. Indentured Servitude, it was called. Yet in practice, it was slavery. We do not do such barbaric practices in Aizen, so I can't even begin to understand why the common populace condones it too. And I also don't understand how you are forming all these assumptions.”

  That, clearly, stung the head engineer. Which pissed Reivan off because this guy knew about what was happening. Yet this walking barrel acted as if the kingdom was the root of all evil.

  ‘This stubborn kingdom-hating seems familiar though…’

  In almost a second, he remembered. Reivan contemplatively rubbed his chin and decided to throw out some bait again. “The Sons of Arkhan really are full of stubborn men with little power to speak of or a foundation of morality to stand on.”

  A twitch. The averted gaze. Fingers curling into a trembling fist. Again, Reivan’s bait got a bite. Clearly, head engineers did not have good poker faces.

  Barithos frowned as the fist on the table clenched tighter. “We do not want your help.”

  “Really? And do you, Head Engineer Barithos, speak for everybody? For all your subordinates and all the survivors in this base?”

  “I am the Head Engineer of the Golden Gear. I get to decide.”

  “Oh, really? I thought you Arkhanians were big on voting and voicing the will of the many to smother the whimpers of the few. Yet you, alone, presume to decide for everyone?” Reivan placed the back of his hand against his forehead in feigned dismay. “Your nation weeps, Son of Arkhan, for its own child strangles the very ideals by which it was established.”

  Garithos bolted up, eyes bulging out in barely contained anger.

  “And now, when words fail, violence rises. Go on then, do your worst.” Reivan smirked, his eyes almost goading the man to try. Both of them knew who would win between a prince trained from childhood in the way of knights and an engineer, even if the latter was built like a grizzly bear.

  “You…” Barithos said through clenched teeth. “You dogs have no idea what we have done for this place—this nation.”

  “Fair enough. I don’t. And I frankly don’t care.”

  “Hah! Of course, you don’t. You wouldn’t understand our dedication!”

  “Dedication…?” Reivan felt his temper flaring, rising from his seat to match the fool’s glare. “Whatever it is that you have done, it does not excuse the folly you are about to commit. You gamble with lives that aren’t yours, oh dedicated son of Arkhan. Staying underground must have shrunken that brain of yours.”

  Sormon damn him, but Reivan would utterly destroy this man here with words. He didn't have a complete mastery of Arkhanian, but he would show this stubborn mule just how creative he could be with barbs. The cogs in his mind were turning, and he was determined to birth an entire generation’s worth of slurs.

  Just then, Jiji’s hand landed gently on his shoulder. She spoke in their tongue, the one she’d worked hard to learn when she first arrived in his life. “Yani, there is a difference between standing up for yourself and insulting someone. The former is always fine, but the latter isn’t what we need here.”

  At his sister’s reminder, Reivan gradually started to calm down. Though he couldn’t say that his temper was truly appeased.

  “Patriotism, hm?” Reivan licked his lips and chose his words, pruning away all the slurs he would have otherwise mixed in. “You speak of patriotism, Arkhanian, as if you have a monopoly on it. As if only your corner of the world is worthy of love, and as if your people alone are capable of giving it.”

  Leaning forward, his palms flat on the table and his glare never leaving Barithos’ gaze, Reivan spoke.

  “A thousand knights followed me here. They followed me to a place so far away from their home that you could fit ten kingdoms in the space between here and Aizen’s western shores. They followed me to fight foes unseen, not knowing when they’ll return, if they’ll return, or in what state they will be returned home—provided that they are fortunate enough for their remains to be intact.”

  Reivan let the pause hang in the air before leaning even closer.

  “Yet here they stand. And do you know why, son of Arkhan?” he asked, a grin forming on his face. “Because when their king asked, they answered the call.”

  Barithos sneered. “Puppets, then. Not dogs.”

  To that, Reivan could only chuckle in agreement. For every knight knew that before swearing their oath. They knew that they were essentially relinquishing their freedom to the kingdom.

  And was that not the greatest display of dedication in the world?

  “I will not disparage your brand of patriotism just as you disparage ours, Arkhanian,” Reivan shrugged before backing away. “Your people drop like flies under your watch and all you have to show for your dedication are their rotten corpses. Your subordinates likely flee from hopelessness as well. Yet, I do not blame you nor think you incompetent. You simply did what you could. You tried, with whatever you had. That is life. Sometimes, even when no mistakes are made, you just lose.”

  Sighing, Reivan's gaze fell on the abandoned plate of cookies as he pushed the plate forward, closer to the head engineer.

  “But on this day, fortune has smiled upon you. We are here. And we offer salvation. Now you do have a choice. Now, it is incompetence if you do not take the only path to survival. The only chance for a future.”

  Reivan took a moment to catch his breath, for he had never waxed words this much before. Yet he found the letters came naturally, like they reflected how he really felt.

  And Sormon have mercy on his soul, but his yapping seemed to have had some effect on the stubborn head engineer. The man had not interrupted Reivan even once, and at some point, had stopped glaring at him.

  Now Barithos seemed pensive rather than angry, his eyes momentarily falling on the plate on the table and the red-headed girl behind him.

  “Some hills are worth dying on, Head Engineer Barithos. Every knight understands and so do I,” Reivan said slowly. “But I don't think it’s this one. And it is not a choice one makes for others. Do you not think that, as a son of the republic, you should give the people a chance? A choice?”

  For a few moments, Reivan wasn’t quite sure if the man heard his words or not, but just when he was about to tap the table, Barithos grunted. “I will speak with them all.”

  “A wise decision.”

  Reivan sent a glance toward the people behind him and realized that this may have been the cue to go. Given how thorny the initial meeting was, it would serve him well to give the guys some space to think now.

  “Then we’ll come again tomorrow,” he sighed. “And hopefully, we don’t have to force our way through for an audience again. I don't enjoy breaking doors, no matter how easy it is to do.”

  Barithos crossed his arms, and just when everyone thought he’d continue berating Reivan and Aizenians as a whole, the man actually nodded. “An audience, at least, is fine.”

  Reivan grinned. “Good. I'll see you on the morrow, then.”

  He then turned around to leave, but had to wait for both Jiji and the battlemage envoy to leave. The room was small, so the door understandably couldn’t fit more than one person.

  By the time he reached the doorway, Reivan had recalled a certain passage.

  “It is not true victory if we die for it,” he said, before prompting his sister and Xander with a look.

  Jiji was confused, but quickly caught on and went along with it. “And when the dust settles, when the smoke clears, and when the storm passes, there must be more than just ruin."

  “There must be more than just destruction.” Xander continued for her. “There must be more than just sadness and death. Else, you have fought and died for nothing at all.”

  The head engineer’s brows furrowed, though not in anger. “You quoting something?”

  “That’s right. It’s one of the classics in my homeland. Every squire—which is to say, an apprentice knight—reads it for their studies. Thankfully, it’s easy to translate into Arkhanian.”

  Barithos grunted. “There must be more than just ruin… True enough. It’s a good saying.”

  Reivan smiled. “We think so as well. That’s why all knights keep it in the back of their minds. We are encouraged to think of it when we ever think of sacrificing our lives for something.”

  And with that, Reivan and crew truly left, eventually returning outside, to the desiccated lake.

  ‘Hm?’

  That was when the pocket watch in his…well, pocket, started vibrating. He fished it out and cocked a brow, not bothering to open it as a message flowed into his mind.

  When he digested the information, any satisfaction at potentially convincing the stubborn old coot of the Golden Gear vanished.

  “What’s wrong?” Jiji asked, a hand on his shoulder. She must have seen it in his face then, because he could see the concern in hers now.

  Reivan licked his lower lip as he swept his hair back, trying very hard not to start shouting curses at the top of his lungs. “Remember how I sent House Demoscene out to sea? Just in case anyone on ships decided to hide from the heat by anchoring far enough from the shores?”

  “Yes, I do. But the Golden Gear is here… Oh.”

  His sister had a pretty good head on her shoulders, so she must have caught on too.

  The initial base’s entrance was on a tall cliff’s face, and one needed boats to get out of it. Yet, the Golden Gear’s people had presumably moved to this base farther inland, right next to a lake.

  A lake. A body of water surrounded by land. A body of water that wasn’t connected to the sea.

  Yet, there were no ships here. Presumably, the Golden Gear had simply used the ships to get everyone out of the first base, then traveled on land, leaving the ships on the shore.

  But there hadn’t been any boats anywhere near the coasts. So that meant that part of the Golden Gear must have used them for something else afterward. Or people other than the Golden Gear commandeered the ships and set sail.

  “House Demoscene found the ships,” Reivan sighed, and honestly, it felt like a couple of years escaped with the breath he released. “Around twenty, all destroyed. Some parts have already sunk to the bottom of the sea.”

  Jiji hissed upon hearing it. “How many do they think…?”

  Reivan shook his head. “Apparently, it would be hard to estimate because sea monsters would have eaten up any they could get at. Especially after the ship was fully submerged.”

  “I see…”

  “But the cabins were full of belongings floating around inside,” he said as the tips of his fingers ran cold. “Some still had bodies in them, drowned to death. They were ships designed to ferry War Golems, so the ships were huge. Soft estimate is a thousand people per ship comfortably fitting inside. Could be more. Maybe even double per ship. Maybe triple. Maybe even ten times that, if they squeezed together and got rid of some stuff—which they clearly did, judging by the lack of furniture in the wreckage.”

  Jiji’s face blanched. “That’s…”

  Twenty thousand dead, at least.

  Likely more. Possibly millions.

  The only balm to his heart was how the shipwrecks were estimated to have happened more than a month ago based on a soaked diary they retrieved. So Samsara’s forces weren’t even here yet, too occupied with hounding an Argonian army.

  As the fact washed over him in full, Reivan remembered a few words he’d spoken just minutes ago.

  ‘Sometimes, even when no mistakes are made, we just lose.’

  He did not expect to be struck by his own remarks today. But then again, nobody expected to welcome their small victory with such a bitter taste of loss.