"Oh my god, the Governor is really wearing Lady Janna's bracelet!"
"So the Governor really is a follower of Lady Janna too!"
"That's nonsense! He definitely wasn't wearing anything on his wrist before!"
"They're saying Lady Janna personally gave that bracelet to Caleb!"
"I'm so jealous. Seriously, insanely jealous! I'd be happy just seeing Lady Janna's face once!"
"I'm shipping them so hard, do you think we'll ever get to see them together again in our lifetime?"
After a whole night of rumors spreading, the news had completely exploded among Zaun's people.
The crowd was loud beyond belief, and the constant whispering and chatter kept piling up until it felt like it was about to rupture Caleb's eardrums.
Today, Caleb had wanted to make a trip to the Firelights, but the people of Zaun's Undercity had packed around him so tightly that he couldn't move.
"Coming through... make some room..."
Letting out a long breath, Caleb struggled forward inch by inch.
It felt like those holiday travel crushes from his previous life, when he'd gone to famous tourist spots during long weekends.
The only real difference was that back then, he'd been part of the crowd doing the sightseeing.
Now he was the thing being stared at.
Honestly, if Zaun's people weren't so poor, Caleb would've started charging admission.
If this had been Piltover, he probably would've already been calling out for customers.
Thankfully, Caleb was the sort of person who could've gone Ivy League and who wasn't especially interested in money anyway.
In the end, he just pulled out that modified grappling gun he'd bought from a street stall.
"So nobody's going to let me walk like a normal person?"
Still hanging in the air, Caleb spoke in resignation, and only then did the people below show a little restraint.
They definitely didn't want the Governor having some accident while swinging around overhead.
Just getting a look at the bracelet on his wrist was enough, and there were still plenty of people who hadn't seen it yet.
If they didn't go share the news, wouldn't that just be like coming back rich and keeping it all to yourself?
And while sharing it, adding a few of their own special insights was perfectly normal too, right?
...
"Whew..." Caleb wiped the sweat from his forehead.
Ever since he'd chopped Mundo into scattered chunks, then gone through that brutal fight with Urgot,
he hadn't even sweated this much when dealing with Jhin.
Zaun wasn't exactly the kind of place where sweating was healthy anyway, considering how bad the air was.
If you insisted on going for nightly runs here every day, you probably wouldn't get any old-age illnesses.
Because you wouldn't make it to old age in the first place. At this rate, your lungs would probably give out by your forties.
"Hey." Caleb flashed the same hand sign used for the Bodyguard role in Werewolf and greeted the fish-man in front of him.
Thumb folded into the palm, index and middle fingers pressed together, ring and pinky pressed together, with a wide gap between the middle and ring fingers.
It was a common hand sign among the Firelights.
Now the Firelights had every reason to hold their heads high. They had jumped from being a survivor camp for people harmed by Shimmer into the largest gang in the Undercity.
In truth, once Caleb completely cut off Shimmer at the source, the cracks on the bodies of those who were quitting it had slowly begun to heal.
The process was agonizing, though, and some people simply chose Glorious Evolution instead.
The fish-man led the way. He was basically the second-in-command here, and he was also highly skilled in medicine.
Ekko's white hair soon came into view, and beside him were a hard-at-work Heimerdinger and that poro with the broken horn.
"How's it going?"
Ever since the Mundo incident, Caleb and Ekko hadn't seen much of each other these past few days.
Caleb knew the little he could do wouldn't be enough to help those two much anyway, so he'd simply gone out running around again.
And sure enough, after dealing with Urgot and Jhin, he'd brought back a huge amount of wealth for the Undercity, more than enough to justify it.
"You really saw Janna?"
Ekko lowered his voice and asked in a conspiratorial whisper.
"Of course I did. She even gave me a bracelet." Caleb casually raised his arm.
"Oh..." Ekko let out a stunned sound, then couldn't find any words after that.
When he had just been a little kid, there had been many nights when he couldn't sleep because he was scared of the monsters in the dark.
Benzo would tell all kinds of exaggerated stories about Janna, the wind goddess, to calm him down.
Story after story about Janna saving the people of Zaun had carried Ekko through countless nights that should have been sleepless.
"Do you think... I might get the chance to see her too?"
Ekko looked a little dazed. After all, this was the ancient goddess who had protected Zaun for ages.
"Oh, Janna," Heimerdinger said, stroking his beard with some emotion. "I once crossed paths with her myself..."
As a yordle who had lived through long ages, Heimerdinger had naturally seen Janna's great feat of saving Zaun with his own eyes.
"Cut the nonsense."
Caleb interrupted their wandering thoughts without the slightest courtesy.
"The work's not done yet, and you're already daydreaming."
Hearing that, Ekko got a little annoyed.
"The Professor and I have been working ourselves to death these past few days. We're finally about to finish the pollution purifier!"
"What exactly have you been doing?"
It was just something Ekko blurted out in frustration. After all, even if Caleb had done nothing, he still deserved his position.
So the moment the words were out, Ekko already regretted them, and a trace of guilt crossed his face.
"Man..." As expected, Caleb let out a sigh.
Ekko was already preparing to apologize and move past it.
But Caleb kept talking.
"I wanted to keep getting along with you guys as just an ordinary slacker, but all I got in return was suspicion."
"I'm done hiding it. I'm the ultimate work machine. I'm coming clean!"
"All I did was go solve two problems in the Dredge and the topside, then get two huge piles of money out of House Medarda and House Ferros."
Caleb shrugged, then casually added,
"Oh, and I met Janna too."
It wasn't just Ekko. Even Heimerdinger was staring in disbelief.
How many days had it even been? And he'd done all that?
Forget anything else, just getting one of Piltover's council families to cough up money usually took Heimerdinger endless negotiation, bargaining, and back-and-forth, and that had only ever gotten the Academy's scholarships raised by a tiny bit.
And this kid had managed to squeeze, no, secure support from two major houses in just two days?
No wonder he was fit to be Governor.
Every generation really did produce its own prodigies.
Ekko was stunned too. The thing he'd said in frustration had actually turned out to be true, this guy really hadn't been idle these last two days.
Fine. Better to just get back to work honestly.
Ekko lowered his head and went back to calibrating the machine.
Once this batch of machines was deployed, Piltover's pollution would be redirected west into the sea without affecting the ecosystem.
According to Heimerdinger's calculations of the ocean currents, the waste wouldn't end up polluting Bilgewater. Instead, it would continue south all the way to the bottom of the continent.
And there, as far as Heimerdinger knew, there existed a divine power capable of purifying such substances.
"Am I late?"
A voice came through a speaker, followed by a metallic sound. The newcomer wore a mask, making it impossible to see his face clearly.
"Viktor!" Caleb recognized him at a glance and walked over to punch him lightly in the shoulder.
"How's the recovery?"
"More or less complete. I can continue researching science the way I did before."
Viktor's voice was still calm and steady as ever, though now it carried a faint electromagnetic quality.
"Then you all keep at it." Caleb remembered his promise to Jinx and waved to the group, planning to head out.
"Wait!" It was Heimerdinger who stopped him instead.
"What is it?" Caleb turned back.
"I... have a favor to ask." Heimerdinger looked a little uncomfortable, but he said it anyway.
"Ziggs can't really be held in an ordinary prison. Could you help me send him to Bandle City?"
Heimerdinger knew that sending Zaun's Governor away was unquestionably a risk.
But Caleb carried the token of a demigod. That meant he was effectively the only human in the twin cities who could find Bandle City.
"No problem." Caleb agreed at once. "I was always going to leave the twin cities eventually anyway."
Heimerdinger was a little surprised. The kid had agreed that quickly?
He wasn't really a Piltovan, and he wasn't truly Zaunite either. Caleb had never planned to hide that.
He liked the twin cities, but he was never going to stay here forever and spend his whole life in one place.
There was still a long road ahead of him, and more scenery than he could ever count waiting for him out there.
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