Chapter 48.2: Holy Millis what lies underneath [Somar POV]
The Holy Millis Kingdom gleamed with religious fervor and architectural grandeur that belied the rot festering within its shadowed corners.
I took in my surroundings with eyes trained to notice details others overlooked. A skill honed through necessity and one man's ruthless tutelage.
I am Somar.
Out of the three of us,Mike, Claude, and myself,I am the most normal. In any story, I would be your average background character, unremarkable and easily forgotten.
Just another face in the crowd, destined for neither greatness nor infamy.
Well, leaving that aside.
After we bullied Sylphy and were subsequently thrashed by Rudeus, we returned to our homes in shame.
That's when my mother seized the opportunity to ingratiate herself with Paul. Shifting blame to Rudeus for his "excessive" retaliation.
The fact that my wounds,the worst among us,came primarily from Claude's intervention is an uncomfortable truth.
My mother's infatuation with Paul continued until the day he was discovered cheating with his maid.
Only then did her lingering affection finally wither, prompting her to redirect her attention toward my father,a man who had watched from the sidelines with quiet desperation.
Despite his rural upbringing and simple ways, my father adored my mother with devotion that bordered on worship.
He would have done anything for her,indeed, had done everything within his power,often at the expense of his relationship with me.
After the incident with Paul, I noticed a subtle shift. My father began spending more time in my company.
His affection for my mother hadn't diminished, but he had placed boundaries around it, containing it like a dangerous fire that had once threatened to consume him.
His disappointment in her behavior had created a distance he couldn't quite bridge, despite his lingering love.
Thus, he turned to me,not out of sudden paternal devotion, but as an escape from his marital disillusionment.
We forged a tentative bond in the workshop. His callused hands guiding mine as he taught me the carpenter's trade that had sustained our family for generations.
Then Claude happened.
His unexpected elevation to the position of youngest village guardian in Buena's history made me acutely aware of my own mediocrity.
While he ascended to unprecedented heights, I remained firmly on the ground, exceptional only in my ordinariness.
That realization drove me deeper into my father's craft. If I couldn't match Claude's martial prowess or Rudeus's magical talent, perhaps I could find purpose in creating rather than destroying.
Months passed in relative peace before Claude unleashed his particular brand of tyranny upon the village children. Under the pretense of "training," he instituted a regimen so brutal that it would have made military drill instructors blanch.
"Run! Claude is here!"
The warning would echo through the village streets, sending children scattering like frightened birds.
I found myself, improbably, assuming leadership of this chaotic retreat. Children both older and younger looked to me for direction as we fled Claude's approaching shadow.
His training methods bordered on sadistic. We ran circuits around the village until our lungs burned and our legs trembled.
We swung wooden swords until blisters formed, burst, and reformed on our palms. When we finally dragged ourselves home, exhausted beyond measure, our parents would simply smile, tend to our wounds, and whisper ominously about the dangers that lurked beyond our village,slave traders who preyed on untrained, unprepared children.
Damn it, what did he do to our parents...
Their complicity in our torture was perhaps more bewildering than Claude's brutality itself.
Thus, the Coalition of Buena Village Children was born,a resistance movement formed in the shadow of our oppressor.
We met in secret. Pooling our meager resources and collective intelligence to defy Claude's tyrannical regime.
As the coalition's reluctant leader, I immersed myself in the art of espionage. We studied stealth, observation, and covert communication,skills that would later prove more valuable than any of us could have anticipated.
The irony, of course, was that Claude's brutal training provided the very foundation for our resistance against him. Months of his grueling regimen had forged us into actual competence.
"Delta, what's the current target location..." I whispered into a hollow reed,our primitive communication device,from my position behind old man Garan's storage shed.
"He's currently supervising the road's construction," came the hushed reply. "He's been diligently following his daily schedule."
"Delta, over."
"Alpha confirmed. Go and hide now."
"Delta confirmed."
Thanks to Claude's merciless training, we developed almost preternatural awareness of our surroundings. We could detect his presence within a thirty-meter radius.
A skill that allowed us to vanish before he became aware of our surveillance.
Usually.
"Teta here... HELP!!!"
The panicked cry shattered our carefully maintained silence. Another comrade fallen to Claude's uncanny perception.
"Alpha to all, run for your life! Claude has got Teta!"
We didn't always succeed in evading him. For every victory we claimed, Claude seemed to grow more perceptive, more cunning,as if our resistance was itself another form of training he had orchestrated.
The only respite came during his periodic journeys to Roa with Mike. Those blessed days of freedom were treasured like precious jewels.
Allowing our battered bodies and spirits to recover before the next round of "training" began.
Throughout this ordeal, we studied relentlessly. Claude had, inexplicably, written and distributed a comprehensive text on espionage tactics and evasion techniques,a book that became our resistance bible.
Even more strangely, he periodically "misplaced" journals detailing our weaknesses, predictable hiding spots, and suggestions for improvement.
In hindsight, the game he was playing was clear. His seemingly contradictory actions,training us mercilessly while simultaneously providing the tools to resist that training,served a single purpose that none of us could have foreseen.
His damn mind is too insidious...
To think that he had prepared us for what was to come,had known, somehow, that we would need these skills to survive.
The day of the teleportation catastrophe arrived without warning. Brilliant light engulfed Buena Village, and in an instant, everything familiar vanished.
I found myself stumbling on unfamiliar cobblestones, the air thick with strange scents and the cacophony of unfamiliar voices.
Disoriented but not paralyzed, I watched as more people materialized around me,victims of the same mysterious phenomenon that had torn me from home.
We stood in what appeared to be a town square, surrounded by buildings constructed in an architectural style I had never seen before.
Drawing upon Claude's ruthless lessons, I suppressed my panic and assessed the situation. Information gathering took precedence over emotional reaction.
This place, I soon discovered, was a den of iniquity within the supposedly pious Holy Kingdom of Millis,a criminal enclave where illicit trades flourished beneath a veneer of religious propriety. The air reeked of unwashed bodies, spilled alcohol, and fear.
Horror seized me when I spotted familiar faces in the slave market,children from Buena Village, including several coalition members, displayed like livestock.
Yet amid their terror, I noted with pride that code-name Beta maintained his composure, his eyes scanning continuously for opportunities.
Using our secret communication methods, we exchanged information. Beta had already infiltrated the slavers' operation.
Gathering intelligence that would prove crucial in the coming days.
Armed with knowledge and desperation, we exploited vulnerabilities in the slave market's security. The ensuing chaos allowed us to free not only our fellow villagers, but also numerous beast-race children who had been kidnapped from the Great Forest.
It took three grueling months to systematically dismantle the criminal operations that plagued this shadow city.
During that time, we learned the Beast God's language from our rescued allies,another tool in our expanding arsenal.
Information is knowledge. Knowledge is power.Know thy foe and thyself, and you can win every battle.
Claude's words, inscribed in the book that had once seemed like nothing more than a cruel joke, now guided our every move. They became our mantra, our north star in a world turned upside down.
By the fourth month of our displacement, we had established a rudimentary information guild within the criminal city,a network of observers, messengers, and operators who systematically identified victims, tracked criminal movements, and orchestrated rescue operations.
Day by day, we located more children from Buena Village. Each reunion strengthened our resolve and expanded our capabilities.
What had begun as a desperate bid for survival evolved into a purpose. A shadow organization dedicated to protecting the vulnerable in a city where official justice turned a blind eye.
Even now, as our network grows and our influence extends throughout the criminal underbelly of Milishion, we continue to gather information and save those who cannot save themselves.
The irony isn't lost on me. Claude's tyranny, his insistence on training us beyond the breaking point, had prepared us for exactly this moment.
Had he known? Had he somehow foreseen the catastrophe that would scatter us across the continent?
These questions plague me during quiet moments. But I push them aside in favor of more immediate concerns.
There will be time for answers when we find our way home. If such a thing is still possible.
For now, we continue to build our information network, slowly wresting control of the criminal city from the shadows.
What began as survival had become a mission—one that might never have been possible without the cruel lessons of the boy who had seemed to be nothing more than a childhood tormentor.
Perhaps I am not so ordinary after all.
[Claude POV]
That night, I walked through Milishion alone.
The city transformed after dark. Lanterns lined the main streets, casting pools of yellow light that pushed back shadows without quite eliminating them. The religious spires glowed with magical illumination, visible from anywhere in the city,constant reminders of the faith that defined this place.
The Holy District was particularly impressive. The Great Church dominated the skyline, its massive structure radiating power and authority.
Even at night, pilgrims gathered at its gates, seeking blessing or guidance or simply the comfort of proximity to being larger than themselves.
I watched them from across the plaza. Watched them kneel and pray and believe.
What would it be like, I wondered, to have that kind of faith... To believe in a power beyond yourself, beyond the evidence of your senses, to trust that a higher power was watching, guiding, protecting...
Something inside offered no answers. Each part of me had its own relationship with faith.
Something impatient had no patience for it. Faith was weakness—trusting another to save you meant you wouldn't save yourself.
Something cooler processed it as data. Faith served social functions. Community cohesion, psychological comfort. Useful for populations, perhaps less useful for individuals who required independent decision-making.
Something older was more complicated. Something that had once believed, long ago, before everything went wrong. Faith hadn't saved it then. But it understood why people needed it. Hope was all you had sometimes.
I turned away from the church and walked back toward the safe house.
Tomorrow would bring new challenges. Training with the Water God.
Meeting her granddaughter. Continuing to build the organization that would, eventually, change the world.
But tonight, I was just a boy walking through a foreign city. Taking in the sights.
Processing the strangeness of a life that had become stranger than anyone could have predicted.
The stars overhead were the same ones I had seen from Buena Village, from the Nightmare Dungeon, from the Great Forest. The same stars that watched over everyone, regardless of their faith or lack thereof.
Cold comfort, perhaps. But comfort nonetheless.
◆ ◇ ◆ ◇ ◆ AUTHOR'S NOTE ◆ ◇ ◆ ◇ ◆
Want to read ahead? We have 10+ advance chapters available at eternal-lib com!
◆ ◇ ◆ ◇ ◆ ◇ ◆ ◇ ◆ ◇ ◆ ◇ ◆ ◇ ◆ ◇ ◆