Tristan

  I woke up feeling … to be honest, it felt like I was walking to my execution. For some reason.

  Normally, I could at least figure out what was wrong. Waking up feeling like crap might lead to a few seconds of confusion, but it never lasted, whether it was a hangover, an imminent test back when I’d been in school, or, more recently, a meeting with someone powerful enough to splatter me like a bug whom I wasn’t already on good terms with … there was always something.

  And quite frankly, feeling like this … it didn’t feel like I was down, and as far as I knew, you didn’t just “wake up depressed” from one day to the next. Not only that, but when I was feeling this far from okay, wondering why was the furthest thing from my mind.

  No, this had to be something external, right?

  … Which shouldn’t be able to affect me, Charlemagne shielded the fortress from that sort of crap. Chemical weapons, engineered plagues, mental manipulation, it all bounced off like bugs did on a windshield … or at least they all should, we’d only really had the chance to test the chemical weapons part. Chlorine gas was actually possible for us to acquire without any real trouble, unlike everything else, could be controlled with wind magic, and put back into the not-even-remotely-proverbial bottle fairly easily.

  But the Skill had worked, so it should cover everything else it indicated in the description as well … right?

  So, what the fuck was up?

  Why did the thought of the woods to the north, the national park known as the Bayrischer Wald, fill me with so much dread … and why had it even popped into my mind? Why was I so afraid that something would happen in maybe a wee- …

  Gott verdammt.

  Okay, I officially hated [Catastrophe Sense].

  Yes, the Skill was awesome.

  Yes, knowing the likely position of the next Nation Boss was beyond useful.

  No, getting slapped with a level of negative feelings almost on par with losing my parents was so far from okay that the two didn’t even share the same fucking solar system.

  I sighed, sat up in my bed, and hung my legs off the side.

  Better feeling like I’d lost someone than actually losing them, I guess.

  However, while I did feel better for having figured the problem out, knowing what it was trying to convey removing the active warning, I didn’t feel back to full form yet.

  Oh God … was there something else?

  Couldn’t the dread be just a little more specific?

  I reached out with telekinesis, yanked my phone into my hand, and pulled up Pocket Earth. Which area was I afraid of? Which area made me want to curl up into a ball?

  Okay, Asia was giving me a bad feeling … shit, was Genghis Khan going to … nope, further south. Way south. Leaving the continent, okay, somewhere in the Indonesia region.

  Zooming in on the capital of Jakarta, the dread slowly disappeared. Not there, then. Good. Anything that felt threatening all the way across the globe would be able to make a real mess of a city, if it appeared inside one.

  Scrolling around a little, I finally found the thing giving me the urge to piss my pants, and recognizing the name of the mountain a few hundred kilometers east of Jakarta, I almost fainted on the spot.

  Mount Tambora.

  A volcano whose eruption had screwed up weather patterns on a global scale, resulting in “the year without summer,” the last time it had erupted.

  So that was what our first World Boss would be … fuck. At least now, I knew.

  Local Nation Boss soon, international World Boss a little while after that. Though then again, the only time we’d seen more than one Nation Boss, they’d been summoned simultaneously, which meant there were likely others, ones that were simply too far from the “kingdom” I served to register. Unlike the walking natural disaster, which threatened us with destruction from basically the opposite end of the world.

  What a Skill, painful and useful in equal measure. Now all I had to do was walk down into the throne room and give the prophecy of doom. Although wouldn’t it just be perfect if the Skill turned out to be wrong? If I wound up getting everyone all worked up for nothing?

  … actually, that’d be perfectly in line with how the day had started. Urgh.

  I threw my pajamas onto the bed, pulled my everyday wear out of my [Diplomatic Pouch], put it on, and transformed it into a more professional outfit. Right now, I was just wearing it around home base, so it was a nice, clean, shirt that looked freshly ironed, tucked into nice pants, black leather belt, subtle but good-looking wristwatch.

  Nothing branded, nothing specific, just the clothing I’d actually put on transformed into my mental image of what I wanted to wear by superimposing said image onto myself using [Modern Makeover].

  Same thing with the shoes. Regular sneakers that had been worn down by a couple of years of normal use before I’d taken to wearing them on the battlefield. So I’d added rubber onto the bottom, glued leather on the top, and then molded the Frankensteinian creation into something I could actually use. It was simple, really, I kept the worn-in nature of the footwear while adding completely new, perfectly intact, profiling to the bottom every time I put them on.

  And the extra material never got worn down either. Whenever I went to bed, or woke up in the middle of the night, with [Restoration of the Old] off-cooldown, I just blasted both my room and the neighboring one, Mia’s, with it, cleaning and fixing not just the room itself but also all the dirty clothes neatly collected in one of the wardrobes.

  Or at least that’s what I did. Knowing Mia, she either had all her clothing folded and put somewhere it wouldn’t get her clean outfits dirty the instant she changed out of it … or she just stuffed it all in a sack and kept it there until I cleaned everything.

  Although that was how it used to be, since the moment she’d figured out I could easily extend the cleaning radius to include her room. I wasn’t too sure if her clothes even needed cleaning anymore since she could literally dive into a sewer and come out smelling like roses nowadays.

  Speaking of Mia, when I left my room, she was standing outside, arm still in a cast.

  “Can you get it off?” she asked, holding out the offending appendage. “Our dear emperor forgot to include the cast saw in the infirmary.”

  Ui … not great.

  The reason you needed a cast saw, specifically, was that it couldn’t cut human skin. Unlike a regular circular saw, it did not fully turn, but rather moved back and forth by a tiny amount, measured in millimeters. Human skin was sufficiently elastic that rather than being cut, it just moved back and forth harmlessly if it came in contact with flesh. A cast, on the other hand, was fully rigid and could be cut like butter.

  Granted, in the entire Untersberg, there had to be a way to get a cast off without a saw, heck, Dietrich could probably just cut it to ribbons with his sword and not leave a single mark on her, but as far as I knew, she’d had to keep it on until today.

  As for why she was here … well, there were two options I could see: either I was the first person she’d run into since waking up, or she wanted to give me a chance to feel useful.

  Either way, [Modern Makeover] let me turn her cast into a straight and far too wide sleeve she could simply slide out of.

  “You okay?” she asked as we started heading in the direction of the throne room.

  “About as okay as I can be, considering we’re about to fight a World Boss,” I replied, casually dropping that particular bomb and causing Mia to miss a step, though by how smoothly she recovered, I wouldn’t have realized if I hadn’t been paying attention.

  “Please tell me that was another one of your terrible jokes,” she hissed at me in a low voice.

  “One, I know better than to say terrible jokes out loud, two, no one can overhear us, and three, unfortunately, I’m not joking. Remember that prophecy Skill I told you about? It was so kind as to let me know the world could end in the next couple of weeks,” I gave her my best fake cheery smile. “So, I’m off to share the happy news. How’re you going to spend the day?”

  Mia rolled her eyes, scoffed, and turned down a different tunnel while I continued onto the throne room.

  Charlemagne had moved since last night, I noticed, from one side of the table to the other. And probably not slept, considering that he looked like, well, someone who hadn’t slept for a good long while.

  As for what he’d been doing, well, that was pretty obvious too, considering the stack of files next to the half-dozen neatly put away books. Informative non-fiction books that nevertheless had very little to do with anything that he needed to know to rule, which told me he’d grabbed them out of curiosity, rather than necessity. A “break” from the constant drudgery of bureaucracy.

  I lazily waved my hand and cast [Restoration of the Old] to put him in a more presentable state. Not that he’d been wearing his clothes long enough to actually start to smell or anything, it was just better like this. We’d been playing this game long enough that I didn’t even have to be asked.

  What good use of our superpowers we made, he used enhanced physiology to sleep even less than normal, and I used the power that could rebuild cities in seconds to spare him the need to take a shower.

  “The next Nation Boss is going to be nearby, a couple of hundred kilometers north. And in a couple of weeks, we’re going to be facing the first World Boss …”

  I rattled off what I knew. Now he’d either give advice, outright tell me to do something, or let me do what I felt was best. As for what he’d actually do, well, that depended on the exact situation, but I could never predict it.

  Charlemagne nodded.

  “Good. We’ll gather everyone to defeat the local threat, then disperse to fight the other Nation Bosses that will likely appear simultaneously, I will spread the word. Monsters of that caliber go after cities, not ancients, which would make its target …” he trailed off and tapped his chin a couple of times “… Regensburg. I don’t believe the city can be easily fortified, and if you are planning on using that acid rain spell, we will have to ensure proper distance from the Danube River.

  “In addition, we will have to make variants on our plan based on whether or not Genghis Khan will be available for support, or if we will have to send support to deal with a Mongolia-based Boss. I will coordinate on that with the others.”

  He quickly scribbled something on a piece of paper, likely a reminder for himself, before he went back to speaking at full volume, having slowly gotten more and more quiet as he spoke largely to himself. Now, however, he was addressing me. This should be good.

  “I’d like you to head to Indonesia soon, and secure a property around a hundred kilometers from the volcano to create a supply base on, I will take care of that once the land is secured. As dragged-out as Nation Boss fights tend to get, I believe a World Boss will require significant logistical support over an extended period.”

  Yep, made sense. I wouldn’t have thought of it, which left me glad I wasn’t in charge of the whole affair. Very glad. Not for the first time.

  “Then, I want you and Merlin to put your heads together, prepare to drum up some international support while I prepare to make the announcement of when the next wave of Nation Bosses will emerge, and the information on the World Boss as well.

  “Mostly, however, we need to move the Royal Navy, or at last Vice Admiral Drake’s command into position well before the World Boss appears. A battleship is the only ancient powerhouse that cannot be easily moved through portals.”

  That was when he fixed his eyes on me. Not that he hadn’t been looking at me before, but the sudden burst of intensity was a tad intimidating, I had to admit

  “Unless there are any more dire declarations you would like to make?”

  “Not today,” I shook my head.

  “Alright. If that changes, please, come to me,” Charlemagne declared as he went back to doing stuff on the table, beginning to create an entirely new pile of paperwork.

  I left him to it, teleported to Jakarta’s airport and entered the country past a very confused officer at passport control with a weeks-old boarding pass.

  From there, it took me another eight hours or so to figure out who to talk to, actually get a meeting, and finally negotiate the price for almost a square kilometer of empty land.

  Skills were fucking cheating.

  [Flows of Power] to locate the big cheese, or cheeses, as it were, [Legal Grounding] to make sure I had every scrap of the surprisingly small pile of paperwork I needed to be prepared well ahead of time, [Piercing Gaze] to figure out where the sellers’ loyalties lay and go for someone who was “loyal” to money but not actually corrupt.

  Simple.

  Then, I opened a portal to London, having found myself with a little time to kill before the meeting I’d arranged via the phone would take place, so I took that as an opportunity to inform Charlemagne about the completion of my task via the phone, in addition to the email I’d sent him the instant I’d finalized the purchase.

  So I decided to go for a walk.

  London was an interesting city. Huge, for starters. Terrible cell service that was apparently ubiquitous in its center. Something of historic importance was basically around every corner. And apparently, traffic lights were more of a suggestion here, the streets were crossed when a sufficient mass of impatient pedestrians had built up, not when the lights indicated it was clear.

  Until eventually, I found my way to the Tower Bridge, paid the entry fee, and headed up into the “footbridge,” the two struts connecting the bridge’s eponymous towers, built to be used by pedestrians while the bridge below was open to allow ships to pass.

  It wasn’t quite as high as, say, the London Eye, but the view was nevertheless incredible. Windows to the left, windows to the right, windows in the floor … intellectually, I knew that the glass parts of the floor were actually tougher than the surrounding wood, but I still made sure to avoid stepping on it.

  Something about standing on a clear pane of a material synonymous with fragility in most people’s minds while tiny cars whizzed by down below disturbed me on a deep level.

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  Soon enough, I decided to just stop looking and instead focussed on the HMS Belfast, which sat moored on the River Thames. It looked impressive as all get out, bristling with weapons that ranged from light AA guns to four massive, triple-barreled turrets that could likely bring down this bridge with a single salvo.

  But the Belfast was a light cruiser, a regular cruiser that sacrificed armor for speed, built for patrolling the high seas.

  Drake’s flagship, the Wisconsin, was a battleship, a ship of the line, meant to dish out and take massive damage. I’d looked up their relative stats online.

  The Wisconsin was half again the length and five times the mass of the light cruiser, and while both had triple-barreled turrets, in fact, the Wisconsin had one fewer turret than the cruiser, and the battleship’s gun barrels were almost three times the diameter.

  And a larger caliber meant a shell that grew in all directions, allowing for an exponentially heavier and stronger impact.

  The Belfast’s six-inch turrets launched shells that weighed slightly more than fifty kilograms.

  The Wisconsin’s sixteen-inch turrets, on the other hand … well, the mass varied based on whether the projectiles were of the high explosive or armor-piercing variety, but both clocked in at around a ton.

  I hadn’t even laid eyes on the battleship yet, other than a brief glimpse of the bridge when dropping Drake off there, and I was already enamored with the idea of that ship going into battle.

  He hadn’t come out and said it, but we’d all figured out that he was behind our luck during the Washington Nation Boss battle anyway. That had been Drake at his weakest, with all of his strongest abilities linked to a navy that hadn’t been present at the time.

  But eventually, the time for the meeting approached and I made my way to the hotel we’d be meeting at, and the attached three Michelin-star restaurant. Merlin’s choice, I never would have dared go to something like this to spend Dietrich or Charlemagne’s money without dire need, or getting the okay way ahead of time.

  But he’d chosen the place, now my job was simply to avoid embarrassing myself or my superiors.

  A thought was all it took to wrap myself in a neat three-piece suit, but not one of a design I’d worn before. Sure, the whole world, or at least anyone who cared to look, knew that I could shapeshift my clothes, but this was a matter of appearances.

  Fancy setting and famous meeting partner equaled attention, sadly.

  I entered through the main door and stopped at the maitre d’ station right behind them, getting promptly greeted by the very picture of an upscale host. Which the man before me clearly was, so it shouldn’t really be a surprise, though despite all the places I’d been on my travels, a restaurant this upscale was a first.

  “Tristan Vogt, I’m meeting Merlin here,” I introduced myself, surreptitiously glancing around to see if he was already here, which would make things a lot easier. Because while he’d stuck with just “Merlin,” no last name, was there a family name he might have booked the table under … but I needn’t have worried, thankfully.

  “Ah, Mr. Vogt,” the maitre d’ replied, apparently not even having to look up my name in the big book of reservations on the stand. “Merlin is not here yet, however, he has reserved our best table and left instructions to have you seated as soon as you arrive.”

  With that, he led me to what was, apparently, the best table.

  “Would you like the wine menu?”

  “No thank you, just sparkling water, please,” I replied. Yes, I could probably have a glass or two before it actually started affecting me, but why risk it? There was a reason as to why I’d decided to quit the bad idea juice cold turkey when everything had started.

  Although, come to think of it, wouldn’t something that let me indulge without losing my mental faculties have been the perfect Skill for an ambassador? Match the other guy drink for drink without losing so much as a single iota of intelligence or impulse control?

  Eh, hadn’t happened, though, and that was unlikely to change.

  “Very well, sir,” the maitre d’ said before returning back to the entrance. A waiter arrived with the water and a menu soon afterwards.

  Well, it was a very fancy place. So fancy, in fact, that there were no prices anywhere. Very much an “if you have to ask, you can’t afford it” kind of place. I mean, technically, I could draw upon that kind of wealth, but I didn’t have that much money myself.

  Actually, did I even have a salary? Now that I thought about it, I didn’t, just an entirely unmonitored nigh-unlimited discretionary budget I, of course, never took advantage of.

  Aside from the moral implications, stealing would be exceptionally stupid. Though I’d have to bring it up with someone later on … I doubted it would take more than a couple of minutes to discuss. Especially as I wasn’t planning to make a big stink about it. It wasn’t like I’d spent any of my own money in months, I was gaining more power by the week, and quite frankly, for once the excuse of “something more important to deal with” was 100% true.

  As for the food, I ended up settling on a basic steak, mashed potatoes and greens, closing the menu and setting it to the side while I looked around for Merlin.

  And there he was, finally. I mean obviously, he was as busy or, more likely, even more busy than me so that was most likely not a snub. Still late, though.

  “Good evening, Mr. Vogt, thank you for waiting,” he said as he sat down, then gestured at my menu. “Did you already choose a dish?”

  I nodded, at which point Merlin immediately waved the waiter over to make his own order. Apparently, he ate here enough to already know. I asked for the steak as well, then an anti-eavesdropping ability activated.

  Not mine, and don’t ask me how I knew it had been used in the first place, because I didn’t know. Though to make an educated guess, the assurance that we wouldn’t be overheard was a part of Merlin’s Skill.

  “I am glad we have this time to ourselves,” he announced before I could say something. “People in our respective positions should be coordinating more, though I have to say, you have been performing more than admirably thus far.”

  “Thank you.”

  I mean, what else was there to say?

  “My understanding is that you’ve uncovered the spawn site of the next Nation Boss, and the potential identity of the first World Boss?”

  I nodded. “I don’t know what the Nation Boss is, but what the World Boss is going to be was pretty clear from context.”

  “My own sight is clouded by the System, and so is Fionn’s, I believe,” Merlin replied. “Would I be correct in guessing that your own foresight is a Skill, rather than being innate?”

  “Yes. The World Boss is actually what I wanted to talk to you about,” I said. “It’s obviously going to be a hell of a lot stronger than anything we’ve seen before, and we’re going to need everything we have to fight them, including Francis Drake at full strength, with his flagship.”

  “And you would like me to help you convince the government and admiralty to send away the only functional battleship in the world, alongside adequate escort ships, which will doubtlessly constitute a sizeable chunk of the Royal Navy’s total tonnage?”

  “Actually, I was hoping you would take point on that …” I admitted. “Our treaty with the British government only covers borrowing the good Vice Admiral for an hour at the start of every challenge and was never expanded upon since, well, that was all that was required at the time.”

  And there’d been a billion things requiring everyone’s attention at the time. Figuratively, that was, the actual number was somewhere in the thousands, which was still plenty.

  “What will you be doing in the meantime?” Merlin raised an eyebrow.

  “Helping prepare the logistics, creating a base in Indonesia to support the battle against the World Boss, learning and sharing spells and other magical knowledge … all the things I do normally, but more focussed on things with an immediate combat application.”

  “You are planning on telling the rest of the world about the prophecies, correct?” Merlin inquired.

  “Charlemagne plans to do that,” I said. “Alongside revealing the preparations he’s been making since the start. An entire arsenal of modern weaponry, complete with spare parts and enough munitions to bury the world in corpses if turned upon humans, trainers to make these weapons useable, logistics pipelines that reach the furthest expanse of human civilization complete with alternate pathways and accounting for local production … my point is that soon, the Untersberg will throw open the vaults and unleash everything it has. Because the situation is going to be that dire.”

  “When you say ‘the vaults,’ that means this is material that cannot be easily replaced?” Merlin asked.

  My grimace was all the answer he needed.

  “Reaching the end of the fourth challenge before truly burning supplies is an achievement, I suppose,” Merlin finally said, just as the food arrived.

  “The hope is that we’ll be able to rebuild much of the stockpile before the big bosses of challenges five through seven arrive,” I told him before taking my first bite of steak, so distracted by the juicy, flavorful, perfection of my meal that I almost missed his reply.

  “Hope … hope can drive a man to surpass himself a thousandfold, but once lost will plunge that same man into the inescapable depths of despair.”

  Sadly, I not only had to agree, but also mentally add that the Untersberg was mostly storage, not production. It was not an oversight, mind you, while getting blueprints for munitions had been easy, doing the same for production facilities and processes was near impossible, but do you know what it actually was? A problem.

  Granted, it was a problem that was being rectified, Charlemagne and scholars under him were working on it and [Imperial Renaissance] was massively accelerating the process, but would it be fast enough?

  “I will ensure that the Royal Navy will send as much firepower as possible to the Pacific. Will you make the same request of the Americans?” Merlin asked.

  “Obviously,” I told him, though it should be much easier, since the United States had a separate Pacific fleet that could be sent out without compromising their homeward defense, and it would be much easier to recall those ships should that be required.

  “Good.”

  We both paused the conversation at that so we could eat, by silent agreement. The food was good, no, great, but as my steak slowly disappeared, more and more dark thoughts began to creep in. This could get really bad …

  Merlin sat down his knife and fork with a clink, a split-second after I did the same.

  “You and I, we are not kings, we are not warriors, we are advisors. However, that is a word with a lot of meanings, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “Scheeming weasel, power behind the throne, incorruptible moral compass, only one who will speak the truth to power …” I started listing the tropes.

  “And which one are you?” Merlin asked.

  “I’m not the only one who speaks the truth to power,” I replied.

  “And your rulers are the better for it,” Merlin broke out the barest hint of a smile. “But you need to remember your place, you need to live up to the burdens of your position, but not reach beyond your station.”

  I’d actually started bristling when he’d started speaking, but thankfully, it had become clear that it was just a matter of poorly-chosen, old-fashioned, phrasing.

  “How about I just use [Knowledge Trade] to tell you about as many phrases as possible that are easy to misunderstand?” I offered, and for the first time, Merlin actually looked a little sheepish.

  “And in exchange, you would like …”

  I shrugged. “Dealer’s choice.”

  The information I was giving him was functionally worthless, the only thing that gave it any value at all was the speed of transmission. I trusted him to play fair by me, if he didn’t, well, knowing that would be useful as well, albeit slightly depressing.

  “I believe I have something suitable,” Merlin said, I activated [Knowledge Trade], and the voice of the System spoke into my mind.

  [Spell gained: Grand Morality Play]

  New spell … here comes the headache.

  It took a few minutes of suffering in silence, rubbing my temples, before my brain started working again.

  In that time, the waiter had already shown up, been sent to fetch the bill, returned with it, and seen it paid. Now Merlin was just waiting on me to recover.

  As unpleasant as gaining magical knowledge was, there was no debating that it was worth it. [Grand Morality Play] wasn’t a direct combat spell, but it could be used in a myriad of ways.

  Put simply, it was one part illusion, one part mental “attack” that could be used to show people things.

  For those I liked, or wanted to support, it would recreate a play or theater performance entirely out of illusions to demonstrate whatever moral point I wanted to make.

  For those I didn’t, I could instead make them face the weight of their sins, trapping them in a haunted realm forged from their own misdeeds, which the spell would pull from the depths of their memory. It would likely not be too powerful against monsters, let alone mindless elementals, but in general, yeah, that was an awesome spell.And I told Merlin that.

  Slowly, we walked through the streets of London, strategizing under the aegis of anti-eavesdropping spells.

  Eventually, we bade each other goodnight and went our separate ways.

  [Courtmage of Neutrality Lv. 46 -> Courtmage of Neutrality Lv. 47]

  [Skill gained: Phantom Courtier]

  Oh … that was neat. I mean, I could do most of that myself, between the System clock, a perfect memory, the ability to magically transform my outfits, clean and repair my clothes, and so on, and so forth. It wasn’t like there was no reason as to why I hadn’t grabbed an assistant up until now.

  But it was still awesome!

  Also, he, or she, depending on how the courtier ended up looking, could take messages to anyone I could contact by other means, a classy way of contacting people. I’d have to check how quickly it traveled, but based purely on how that was written, I didn’t think the Skill had been designed with cell phones in mind …

  Anyway, time to try it out.

  I activated [Phantom Courtier] and immediately, the air in front of me started to waver, began to shimmer like a heat haze before rapidly coalescing into a, well, a butler. A middle-aged white guy in a fancy suit, clean-shaven, salt-and-pepper hair, the very picture of, well, a British butler.

  Thank. God.

  If my assistant had turned out to be some hot secretary straight out of a porno, Mia would never have let me forget it. But thankfully, deep down, I clearly wasn’t that kind of person.

  The ghost butler gave a slight bow as he introduced himself.

  “Good evening Sir, I, Mr. Deeds, am at your service. What is it you require?”

  “Are you a real person or the creation of my Skill?” I asked. In hindsight, it was insensitive as hell, but that was the first thing that popped into my head.

  “The latter, I believe,” Mr. Deeds replied. “But regardless, I am happy with my current situation.”

  Kay …

  At least I didn’t seem to have kidnapped someone from the afterlife.

  Okay, next question.

  “How much time off do you want?”

  “None, Sir.”

  Yeah, that was badly phrased. Take two.

  “How much do you need?”

  “None, Sir.”

  “So I could theoretically keep you working every second of every day?” I cautiously asked.

  “Yes, Sir, and I would not mind.”

  Okay … weird. I mean, I’d still be polite and treat him with respect even though he didn’t seem to value himself at all.

  “I’d like to try something, can you write and deliver a message to my sister, asking her if I should bring her something for dinner from London? And keep track of how long it takes to reach her in the Untersberg?”

  “Yes, Sir,” Mr. Deeds replied in the affirmative, then vanished into nothingness.

  Twenty seconds later, my phone rang, I picked up, and nearly had my eardrums blown. Apparently, Mia had been in the shower, in her locked room, and while my ghost butler hadn’t popped into the shower, someone knocking on the door no one was supposed to be able to reach since her room’s door was locked, that had scared the hell out of her. Which she would likely be taking out on me for the next few hours or days.

  Yeah … that might have been a mistake, but some bribes would still be in order.

  Using [Phantom Courtier] again recalled the butler.

  “Mr. Deeds, you wouldn’t happen to know where I could find a place that makes soul food and offers takeaway?”

  Thankfully, he did, the bribes were accepted, and asking Deeds to make his presence known at the nearest accessible door, rather than the nearest door in general should help avoid a repeat performance. Should.

  ***

  A few days later

  “Fuck that’s cold,” I hissed as I joined Mia atop the Untersberg, where she’d texted me to meet. Apparently, she wanted to show me something.

  She stared flatly at me.

  “It’s almost December, and we’re on top of a mountain.”

  That … that was a good point.

  I pulled a fluffy bathrobe out of my spatial storage and wrapped it around myself, transforming it into something approximating winter gear as I did so. Thin, and not overly warm, winter gear, considering there wasn’t too much extra fabric to cover me.

  Mia giggled. “How long’s it been since you left the mountain without your portals?”

  “Uh …” was my eloquent answer, which just made her laugh harder.

  “So, why did you ask me to come up here?” I finally asked.

  “I wanted to show the view to you,” Mia said.

  “Yeah …” I trailed off. “I just have to make sure to stare off into the distance and pay no attention to what’s going on at my feet.”

  “I mean, we did need the defenses,” she corrected, causing me to shrug.

  The exterior of the mountain was more fortress than cliff-face after the refit, natural stone having given way to concrete and metal, weapons, radar systems, and cameras, but mostly just guns. A brutalist nightmare of military architecture, all looming over a thick road that had replaced the small hiking path Mia, Dietrich, and I had taken up here the first time.

  “Yeah …” I repeated myself. It was an awe-inspiring sight, but I could also see how that might be seen as a promise of future problems to most of the world. A fortress of evil and ancient ideas in a clean and beautiful modern world.

  Which wouldn’t be entirely incorrect. Charlemagne had been a fairly good ruler, especially for the time, but not to non-Christians and those who he was at war with. Yes, the phrase “it ain’t a war crime the first time” came to mind … but did that really undo the deeds?

  I kept staring down the mountain, thinking.

  That was the very definition of “we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” however. How things would go very much came down to how much of the world was intact at the end of the year of initialization. And wasn’t that a cheery thought?

  The announcements had gone out, the world had somehow managed to ramp up military production even more, and in general, everyone had managed to get worked up even further. There was a tenseness in the world, and if there weren’t roaming monsters for people to take their rage out on, I had no doubt that the rates of murder and assault would have gone up even higher.

  Somehow, knowing when the Nation Boss would show up was almost more of a problem than it helped. Yesterday, a city had appeared in the middle of sub-Saharan Africa, an obviously magical creation that was apparently tied to the appearance of yet another ancient.

  I’d wanted to go, but Charlemagne had shut that down on the spot, and Dietrich had agreed. Something for after the Nation Bosses were all dead. I mean, I got it, but honestly, I could barely wait till I was free to go visit. I would, but I didn’t like it.

  ***

  The day of reckoning came just as predicted, yet somehow, when the monsters did spawn, it still felt like a complete surprise.

  Living Earthquake in San Francisco, Living Wildfire in the Amazon Rainforest, big metal monster near where the magical city had popped into existence yesterday, and locally, we had the embodiment of all invasive flora everywhere.

  Chances were, we’d see Bosses for Water and Air as well, but no one had located those yet.

  “Just as planned, kill the local monster first, then reinforce our allies in America,” Charlemagne summed up the plan while I opened a portal to where Genghis Khan’s army had been gathering in case Mongolia was threatened.

  It wasn’t, and this time, it was us who needed the help.

  At the same time, I opened a portal to just north of Regensburg so we could intercept the monster before it reached the city.

  This would be a rough one.