Wesker's POV
The battle ultimately lasted nearly two hours.
The Orcs had tried to turn their disorderly withdrawal into a proper retreat, but our Aquilas had quickly taken that option away from them. Whenever a sufficiently large group managed to move away from the battlefield, one of the creatures would dive down in front of them to cut off their escape route.
Sometimes, the mere beating of their wings was enough to knock several soldiers off their feet, while their talons could snatch an Orc in mid-sprint before hurling him into his comrades. The few archers who attempted to target them were quickly eliminated by Ada or by the Gondorian archers who had advanced alongside us.
Ada and I continued fighting alongside the human soldiers throughout the battle. She mainly used her daggers and metal manipulation to eliminate groups attempting to reform their lines, while I took advantage of my speed to strike wherever their defenses showed signs of stabilizing.
The men of Gondor made excellent use of the openings we created for them. Their heavy infantry advanced behind their shields while their archers continued harassing the Orcs from a distance, gradually preventing any attempt at an organized counterattack.
For my part, I also took advantage of the chaos to replenish Gerald's reserves.
Thanks to my speed, nobody really noticed what I was doing. I would disappear into the fighting for a few seconds, quickly touch several corpses, and send them directly to the grinder before returning to my position as though nothing had happened.
I also made a few living Orcs disappear whenever I found ones isolated and demoralized enough for the System to consider them subdued. Gerald could always extract their knowledge or study them before deciding what to do with them.
When the last enemy groups were finally exterminated, the battlefield gradually fell silent.
Several thousand bodies still littered the area surrounding Osgiliath, although I had already made a considerable number of them disappear.
Ada didn't remain on the ground for long.
She summoned her Aquila with a simple gesture and climbed onto its back before the enormous creature took flight again. From up there, she could make sure no groups of Orcs had managed to take advantage of the fighting to hide somewhere nearby.
I preferred to return to Osgiliath on foot.
Several heavily armored soldiers who had fought alongside us walked around me. Despite their exhaustion and the bloodstains covering their armor, they were enthusiastically discussing the battle that had just ended.
Some described how Ada had turned her daggers into veritable living projectiles. Others were still trying to understand how I'd managed to tear through an entire formation of Orcs so quickly that they sometimes saw nothing more than a blurred silhouette.
I listened to them for a few seconds.
Then I realized something strange.
I understood absolutely everything.
This was no longer the approximate translation produced by the collar a few hours earlier. The words sounded natural to me, and their meanings came to mind immediately, as though this were simply a language I'd learned several years ago.
"You fought like ten men!" one of the soldiers declared enthusiastically.
I turned toward him.
"Only ten?"
The man remained silent for a second before bursting into laughter.
"Forgive me. Twenty, then!"
I smiled faintly.
Even more interestingly, I'd just answered him in his own language without even thinking about how to construct my sentence.
My accent probably wasn't perfect, but we could now communicate without the slightest difficulty.
That would make things considerably easier from now on.
Before heading all the way back into the city, however, I decided to recover something important. I walked away with a few soldiers toward the gigantic corpse of the flying creature Ada had shot down at the beginning of the battle.
The carcass was particularly interesting.
Its mutilated wings still stretched several meters around its body, and its long neck lay among the Orc corpses crushed during its fall. Even in death, the creature remained imposing enough that the soldiers instinctively kept several meters away from it.
I pointed toward the body.
"Can we take it?"
One of the men looked at me in surprise.
"The winged beast?"
"Yes. We'd like to study it."
The officer accompanying us barely needed a few seconds to think before nodding.
"Your companion brought it down. The carcass belongs to you."
He then looked at the sheer size of the creature.
"However, we can provide men and horses to help transport it."
I calmly shook my head.
"That won't be necessary."
I brought two fingers to my mouth and whistled.
A powerful cry answered almost immediately from the sky.
Several soldiers looked up as two Aquilas broke away from their patrol routes and dove toward us. The beating of their wings sent dust, grass, and scraps of fabric flying as they approached.
The men instinctively stepped back.
The two Aquilas descended together onto the carcass and closed their enormous talons around its body. A few seconds later, they beat their wings powerfully and began lifting the dead creature off the ground.
I noticed several astonished expressions around me.
"You command them with a whistle?" a soldier finally asked.
"They're well trained."
"I've only seen them once, but those aren't the Eagles of the Misty Mountains, are they?" another asked.
"No. These winged mounts are called Aquilas. A friend of mine raised and trained them, and they don't come from this continent," I replied with a smile.
The two Aquilas carried their prize toward Osgiliath. Once the carcass had been deposited in a sufficiently secluded area, I could wait until nobody was watching and send it directly into Gerald's Factory.
I then stepped away from the group for a few minutes and activated my communicator.
"Hey, Gerald. Mind explaining how I can suddenly understand their language so easily?"
His answer came almost immediately.
"Kevin."
I frowned slightly.
"Elaborate."
"Kevin is extremely sociable. While you two were busy slaughtering five thousand Orcs, he spent almost two hours talking with the soldiers, their officers, their archers, and probably anyone else willing to answer him."
I had no trouble imagining Kevin standing in the middle of a group of soldiers, telling them stories just to keep them talking.
"Every conversation was recorded by his device," Gerald continued. "I've got a team of around a hundred linguists analyzing everything in real time and continuously feeding the translation program."
I looked toward the soldiers who were still chatting behind me.
"Two hours was enough?"
"Westron makes our job considerably easier. Its structure shares a lot of similarities with the modern English we use, so my linguists didn't have to reconstruct an entirely foreign language from scratch."
I was beginning to understand.
"And the Plagas?"
"Exactly."
Gerald sounded particularly pleased with himself.
"Once we'd developed a sufficiently complete understanding of the language, I simply used the Plaga network to transfer the necessary knowledge to you. You're not just receiving a translation. Your brain now possesses the linguistic foundations as though you'd learned them normally."
I let out a quiet sigh.
"You could have done that before our first conversation with their officer."
Laughter immediately came through the communicator.
"And deprive myself of that spectacle? Absolutely not."
I closed my eyes for a few seconds.
"Gerald..."
"'We not know much your language. We come fight with you against them.'"
He burst out laughing.
"I recorded the whole thing."
"Delete it."
"Never."
The communication was immediately cut off.
I silently stared at my phone for a few seconds before slipping it back into my pocket.
Back in Osgiliath, I took a moment to observe the officer who had welcomed us more closely. Now that the battle was over, the commotion was slowly dying down, and the soldiers were taking advantage of the respite to recover the wounded, gather their equipment, and reinforce their positions.
Ada had rejoined Kevin nearby, while our Aquilas had settled in an open area large enough to avoid interfering with the defenders. Their presence still attracted plenty of attention, but the initial suspicion had largely given way to curiosity and, above all, admiration that was difficult to conceal.
I finally approached the officer and pointed toward Kevin.
"After communicating with your men during our absence, we now have a much better understanding of your language. We should be able to speak normally."
He looked at Kevin with some surprise before slowly nodding. Obviously, he couldn't understand how a few hours of conversation had been enough for three strangers to learn Westron, but he seemed intelligent enough to realize that we possessed methods unfamiliar to him.
"That will certainly make things much easier."
He straightened slightly before placing a hand against his chest.
"First, I would like to thank you for the assistance you provided during this battle. Without your intervention, we would certainly have held our positions, but the cost would have been far greater."
His gaze briefly shifted toward Ada before moving up to the Aquilas.
"You destroyed their winged beast, threw their ranks into confusion, and fought alongside us without asking for anything in return. If there is anything you need that I am capable of providing, I will gladly do so."
Several soldiers who had gathered nearby nodded silently. Some still bore marks from the battle on their armor and continued watching us as though trying to understand how three strangers who had appeared from the sky could have completely changed the course of an entire battle.
I allowed a faint smile to appear.
"Let's start with introductions, now that I can express myself properly."
I placed a hand against my chest.
"My name is Albert Wesker."
I then gestured toward Ada, who responded with a slight nod.
"The charming lady is Ada Wong."
Then I turned my attention toward Kevin.
"And the chatterbox is Kevin Dooley."
Kevin immediately frowned.
"I'll have you know that my talking is the reason you can speak their language now."
"For once, your inability to remain silent has actually proven useful."
A few soldiers let out chuckles, and the atmosphere immediately relaxed. Even the officer smiled faintly before speaking again.
"A pleasure to meet you. I am Thorongil, and I serve Ecthelion II, Steward of Gondor."
I carefully committed both names to memory.
We had finally established contact with someone who clearly held a position important enough to open certain doors for us, making this encounter far more interesting than a simple military victory.
"In that case, I do have a few requests. Mainly information."
Thorongil nodded.
"Ask away."
"We are strangers to these lands, and we seek to better understand this world. However, there is one particular creature that interests us. Do you know of a dragon named Smaug?"
The change was immediate.
Several soldiers who had been casually listening to our conversation stopped smiling. Some exchanged glances, while Thorongil himself became noticeably more attentive.
Ada obviously noticed their reaction.
"I'm guessing that's a yes," she murmured.
Thorongil stared at me for a few seconds.
"I know that name. Why are you looking for Smaug?"
For the moment, I preferred to remain sufficiently vague.
"Let's just say that dragons interest us greatly, and we'd like to meet him."
Kevin coughed softly behind me.
I ignored him.
Thorongil seemed perfectly aware that "meet" was probably not the most appropriate word, but he chose not to press the matter.
"Smaug conquered the Dwarves' Lonely Mountain many years ago. The mountain lies far to the north of here, and I couldn't give you precise directions without consulting a more detailed map."
At least that confirmed our target really existed in this era.
"That's already helpful."
I then moved on to my second request.
"We also need books. History, geography, peoples, kingdoms, languages, creatures... anything that could help us properly understand these lands. Is there a sufficiently large library nearby?"
This question seemed considerably less alarming than the previous one.
Thorongil thought for a few seconds before answering.
"Two places immediately come to mind. The closest is Minas Tirith. The city possesses numerous books and archives preserved for generations."
I glanced briefly at Ada.
A library located in a major human capital was exactly what we needed. Gerald could digitize any interesting books and transmit their contents to Raccoon City without us having to physically remove the originals.
"Can you take us there?"
Thorongil looked up at our Aquilas.
"If you're willing to take me to the city, yes."
He paused briefly.
"Once there, I can speak on your behalf and request permission for you to consult certain books, provided, of course, that you promise not to damage anything."
I smiled faintly.
"We know how to be delicate, although I suspect that by the time we arrive, the task of consulting and studying those books will have been entrusted to someone else."
Kevin stepped closer.
"Gerald isn't going to leave us stuck in a library."
"Probably not," Ada agreed.
Thorongil seemed unsure whether to take that statement seriously or consider it a joke.
"Someone else? I don't see any other companions with you."
"Don't worry. I'll go fetch him, and he'll accompany us," I declared, preparing to request a Pascal clone to study the library.
"There is, however, another place that possesses an enormous amount of knowledge," Thorongil continued. "Much farther to the northwest lies Rivendell, home of the Elves. Their archives and memories stretch back much further than those of most Men."
That immediately caught my attention.
"Elves?"
"Yes. But earning their trust will be more complicated. They aren't necessarily hostile to strangers, but they are cautious, and you are unknown travelers from lands that nobody here has ever heard of."
He looked at Ada, Kevin, and me in turn.
"And for Men, gaining unrestricted access to their knowledge might require more than simply asking."
"Then we'll start with Minas Tirith. I just need to fetch one more companion before we leave."
I climbed onto my Aquila's back and departed Osgiliath under the watchful eyes of the soldiers. Two other Aquilas took flight behind me, carrying the enormous carcass of the winged creature Ada had shot down between their talons.
I climbed high enough to quickly disappear behind the hills surrounding the city.
There was no need for our new allies to discover just yet that we could make creatures weighing several tons disappear by sending them directly into another dimension.
Once I was certain nobody could see us, I brought the three Aquilas down into a small rocky clearing. I then placed a hand against the carcass and sent it directly to Gerald's Factory so our scientists could begin studying it.
"Gift delivered," I murmured.
I doubted it would take long before Marcus, William, or Alexia started dissecting the creature to determine exactly what it was. Between its anatomy, its flying capabilities, and its apparent connection to the rider who had vanished into that strange black mist, they would have more than enough to keep themselves occupied.
A light suddenly appeared a few meters in front of me.
A Pascal clone was the first to materialize, immediately followed by an elderly man carrying several bags and electronic equipment. Two additional Aquilas appeared next, bringing our total number of available mounts to five.
The old man observed the enormous creatures with obvious fascination, but without showing the slightest fear. His eyes quickly moved from their wings to their talons before he turned his attention back to me and calmly adjusted his clothes.
"Good day, Captain Wesker. I am Dr. Khaled al-Asaad, archaeologist and curator."
I extended my hand.
"Albert Wesker. A pleasure to meet you."
He shook my hand before gesturing toward the equipment he had brought.
"Gerald sent me with this clone to supervise the digitization of any documents we are granted access to. I am also responsible for examining books, inscriptions, maps, and other sources of knowledge that may be of historical or scientific interest."
That was considerably more efficient than asking me to determine which manuscripts were worth preserving myself.
I could recognize an important document when it contained obvious military or scientific information, but distinguishing an ordinary chronicle from a unique manuscript several thousand years old was precisely the job of a specialist.
"Gerald made the right decision sending you. We should have access to an important library in Minas Tirith, provided, of course, that we respect the books and the rules established by their owners."
"Naturally," Khaled replied immediately. "My goal is to preserve and copy knowledge, not to strip them of their archives."
I already appreciated his approach.
I then gestured toward the Pascal clone waiting silently beside him.
"Pascal will remain with you throughout the mission. He'll ensure your safety and help you transport your equipment. You'll also be riding the same Aquila."
Khaled briefly examined the clone's size before looking up at the mount.
"For my protection?"
"Also to keep you from falling."
He looked at me.
"Ah."
"Aquilas are perfectly capable of carrying several people, but riding on their backs requires a certain level of physical fitness, especially during acceleration or sudden changes in altitude. Pascal can hold you in place if necessary."
The old man nodded without appearing remotely offended.
"At my age, Captain, I consider it a sign of intelligence to accept that a man of his size should keep me from falling several hundred meters."
I smiled faintly.
"We should get along just fine."
We quickly headed back toward Osgiliath. The five Aquilas now flew together, and Khaled was already observing the landscape with almost obsessive attention, occasionally asking Pascal questions about what we knew of Mordor.
When the city reappeared beneath us, the human soldiers immediately noticed that I had left with three mounts and was now returning with five. I could see several men discreetly counting the creatures before exchanging puzzled glances.
I decided not to offer any explanation.
The Aquilas gradually landed in the area that had been set aside for them. Pascal dismounted first before helping Khaled down, while Thorongil approached with Kevin and several of his men.
I immediately introduced our two new companions.
"This is Dr. Khaled al-Asaad. He is a scholar specializing in the study and preservation of ancient knowledge. He'll be the one primarily consulting your library when we arrive in Minas Tirith."
Thorongil regarded the elderly man with greater interest.
Khaled respectfully bowed his head.
"Thank you in advance for allowing us access to your books. I will treat every document entrusted to me with the utmost care."
Thorongil seemed pleased with his choice of words.
"A man who respects the written word will always be more welcome in our archives than one who merely seeks to satisfy his curiosity."
I then gestured toward Pascal.
"And this man will serve as his guard. He'll remain by his side whenever he travels and will also look after his equipment."
Thorongil briefly examined the giant.
Pascal was imposing enough that the term bodyguard required no further explanation. After witnessing what Ada and I were capable of, he didn't seem particularly surprised that our scholar traveled with his own protection.
"That is sensible," he replied. "Minas Tirith is safe, but the roads are far less so. A man of learning of his age should not travel alone under the present circumstances."
Khaled gave a small smile.
"I see we're all in agreement that I'm old."
Kevin burst out laughing.
"You're going to fit right in."
I looked up at our Aquilas before turning my attention back to Thorongil.
We now had our guide to Minas Tirith, a specialist capable of making proper use of its archives, enough mounts to transport everyone, and an exceptionally favorable first contact with Gondor.
For a mission that had begun by following a column of Orcs, things were progressing remarkably well.
"If everyone is ready, we can leave for Minas Tirith."
(Author's note: And there you have it—the power of the Plaga and the experts brought to Raccoon City from the tutorial! ^^)