POV: Casper.

  The city was abuzz with a strange sort of energy. Like the crackle of a bug trap around a cloud of moths.

  It wasn’t the usual energy of a city, all cars and horns blaring up and down the road as colorful drivers flipped each other off and said even more colorful things about the other guy’s mother.

  No. In fact, the road felt strangely naked with the absence of cars. Like one of those old coal mining towns that had sprung up along the mountains in the past few centuries and which had been more or less abandoned the second the mines ran dry.

  It wasn’t that there weren’t any cars at all of course, but the few that could be seen moving about had the road pretty much all to themselves. The vehicles having been loaded up with people and belongings. Bags strapped to the top when the trunks had all been filled to the brim.

  The sidewalks were also strange. With people going about their business with a lot more energy than they’d had a week ago. Makeshift weapons appearing in every belt and poking out of every backpack. Spiked bats and shovels and sharpened metal bits attached to poles visible on nearly every person I passed.

  Guns were on display as well, but a few of the stronger-looking people had decided to ditch them altogether. Instead loading up on one more spiked bat or home-forged heavy hammers in the style of the late renaissance era.

  It was odd to see them like that. To see people walking around in that manner. Here of all places.

  As if the madness had spread out from the festering wound that was Carlyle’s mad ambition. As if the taint had permanently changed the world.

  ‘No. That’s wrong.’ I told myself. ‘It was always going to be this way. It didn’t really matter what else happened or what I did to stop it. Carlyle was right on this at least. The monsters were always going to come up from the ground. The people would learn about Magic. The governments would panic and try to keep it under wraps until they understood what they were dealing with. None of these things could be helped.’

  At least it wasn’t as bad now as the timeline Carlyle first lived through.

  The proper apocalypse, with actual, literal roving bands of monsters and beastmen ripping their way out of the ground to butcher anyone they could get their hands on was still two and a half years away. Give or take a few months.

  But the truth was already out there and humanity had no way to ignore that Magic was real. Even people with barely any internet out in the sticks of third world countries knew by now and the details of what training oneself entailed were out there as well. No one would be left behind this time. No one would be taken advantage of because they didn’t fit neatly into the old man’s master plan.

  Even the people walking around me now had had their entire lives changed because of what we did. Because of what I did. At the very least, they would all have a fighting chance.

  Because of what we did.

  Because of what I did.

  ‘Stop that.’ I chided myself. ‘Uter is right. You’re beating yourself up for no reason. This had to be done. Billions of lives depended on it. Carlyle was forming a faction poised to take over the world. He was already killing off dictators who didn’t give him what he wanted and buying off those he could. He was a tyrant waiting to take over everything and we were the only ones who could have stopped it. There wasn’t anything else we could have done.’

  I felt my left-hand tremble and clutched at it with my right. Steadying it as the memories flared up again. My mind cringing with shame as the face came into focus. The voice. The pleading.

  I shook my head and continued down the street.

  Ignoring the crowds dragging the bodies of Cecil’s pets.

  ‘Cecil.’ I thought again. ‘Damn it. He’s just a kid. He didn’t deserve this. I have got to get him out.’

  Another pang of guilt came over me, but I quickly snuffed it out before it could build itself back up.

  It was funny, in a way.

  Five different despots had died at my hand and I’d always been able to choke out the voices with enough booze. But James and Charles had been different. The former had at least the good grace to die out of sight.

  Or, well…

  Out of my sight.

  Elsie and Cecil might have been there when it happened.

  Not a fun thing to think about but there wasn’t anything I could do about it.

  The latter though, had died in my arms. Staring incredulously at me as he did so.

  ‘It was your fault, idiot.’ I thought bitterly. ‘I told you to get out of the way and let us go. I told you it didn’t have to be this way. I never wanted you dead.’

  I thought of his kids. Only slightly older than mine.

  ‘I never wanted you dead.’

  I kept repeating.

  ‘I never wanted you dead.’

  ‘I never wanted you dead.’

  ‘I never wanted you dead.’

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  ‘Why didn’t you just get out of the way?’

  It was a wonder he hadn’t, in all honesty. He and I had seen eye to eye far more than with anyone else. He was always butting heads with James and Carlyle. Going on and on about how we needed to expand and to let the world at large know. Going on and on about how we were killing billions by keeping quiet and building ourselves up out of sight.

  He knew it was all true. He knew it was all so Carlyle could keep control of the new world as the old powers collapsed. He knew.

  He knew…

  But he did not stand down.

  And now his kids were orphans.

  I shook my head again and made my way over to the address. Keeping my eyes peeled for anyone who might be tailing me while also eyeing the would-be delvers springing up.

  As to the former, I couldn’t sense anyone out of place. Though granted, that had never been my strong suit. As far as I could tell, the throngs surrounding me were just that. People packed into walking masses. Holding on to their weapons and making their way to some place or other. Either having left their previous lives to delve and get Magic for themselves after seeing the details about the future, or otherwise going about their business and trying to get to work as usual.

  As to the latter, well…

  The guys here were not the guys I delved with. Nor were they akin to the guys on the less important towns with less powerful Cores. Those guys made up for their lack of raw power with enthusiasm most of the time. That and lots and lots of proper gear made with fancy magic metals. It wasn’t enough to bridge the gap completely but it meant they could keep up with us throughout the first thirty floors of most Dungeons we knew.

  In contrast, the people wandering about seemed a bit too enthusiastic about delving. Especially given the poor homemade armor they were wearing. Things like Kevlar vests or army surplus supplies or, on the odd occasion, steel plates welded together at home.

  Oddly enough, those last ones were the most prepared for what a Dungeon could vomit out into the world.

  Normally, I’d expected people like these to suffer casualties in the tens of thousands. At least. The fact that no such thing had happened told me that this Dungeon was either not fully awake or that it was awake and Cecil was holding back on purpose.

  Which was good, because a fully working Dungeon might have swallowed up half the city without strong Delvers keeping it busy and Cecil might have done the same if he wasn’t fully in control of himself.

  ‘Or worse.’ I reminded myself. Thinking back to the wounds on the children coming back up from the Dungeon in Korea.

  The burrowing bugs that scrambled to hollow out organs and tissue after being shot into their bodies and the worms that wriggled to bite down on nerve tissue while displacing gallons of blood.

  Cecil could, and would, do worse if he wasn’t in control.

  And he’d probably seen James die right alongside Elsie.

  I felt another surge of guilt giving me a headache and forced it down with brute force.

  Moving on to walk over to the apartment building.

  I reached it less than an hour later, making sure to take a few twists and turns here and there to blend into the flowing crowds. I didn’t see anyone following me in particular, but it never hurt to be careful now that Carlyle knew what I’d done.

  Chances were good that he already had people hunting me.

  Chances were good that either Homer or Russell were among those people.

  Maybe both.

  I wasn’t about to take chances.

  As for the building itself, it was a run-down collection of exposed bricks and boarded-up windows. The kind of place that unkind people might have called a slum. Where rooms were cheap and crime was high.

  Indeed, I saw half a dozen roaches skittering on the floor the second I opened the front door to the vestibule and no less than three dozen flies whirling about the overflowing trashcans on my way up to the stairs.

  There was an elevator, but I was sure it wasn’t working.

  ‘At least there aren’t many people around.’ I told myself. ‘Most of them will have seen the money the mayor is offering for volunteer Delvers. I’m not sure that’s the kind of money people who live here can pass up.’

  There were more roaches along the way. And ants. Lots and lots of ants coming in and out of small holes in the corners.

  Mold too, as if the ants weren’t enough. The ceiling having been painted with a collection of blackish spots throughout the stairway and the hall I exited into.

  It was enough to wonder how the whole place hadn’t been burned down by a city inspector after they took a single look around and threw up into their own bags.

  Though that notion assumed that anyone cared enough about the place to inspect it in the first place.

  ‘Probably not.’ I decided. ‘Doesn’t look like anyone cared about this place in years.’

  I kept walking. Stepping gingerly around wet spots in the rotting rugs and trying not to think about what might have caused them.

  I moved over to the door and knocked lightly. Five times quickly and then two times slowly. Before giving the wooden planks another three fast knocks.

  Someone on the other side started complaining about how long it had taken me and about how much honor my mother lacked.

  Apparently unaware that anyone above level 1 could have heard him from the stairwell.

  I felt another pang of shame crawling up my spine then, but put it away.

  These men may be a bunch of sneaky, money-grubbing weasels, but they never pretended to be anything more than that. And as bad as they were, none of them had ever been traitors. I wasn’t exactly in a position to judge.

  The door opened and a stout, barrel chested man appeared in the way. Wearing an open, stained shirt so that his black, course hair was left out in the open.

  Those chest hairs were all stained with Cheeto dust. As were the hairs on his beard. His beady blue eyes narrowing in consternation at my figure.

  “What are you wearing?” He asked with a low growl.

  “A shirt.” I answered him. Resisting the urge to tell him that maybe that was something he could learn from me.

  He shook his head.

  “No, why does it say?”

  “It was something I bought recently from a thrift store.” I explained. “Just like the midlife crisis sunglasses. Best way to remain anonymous. People might stare, but no one will stare for long.”

  “He’s right.” Raymond spoke up from behind the brute. “People tend to look over people they pity, Zeke. Makes it all the easier for those people to get kicked in the shins. Like our dear friend Carlyle found out recently.”

  I allowed my eyes to drift over to where Raymond was standing and took in his figure.

  He was still stick-thin. Still plagued with that grotesque little lump in his throat that bobbed up and down whenever he spoke or swallowed along with his Adam’s apple.

  Anyone else might have assumed it was a cancerous tumor, but apparently not as Cecil’s food had taken care of all his Cancers.

  Other than that, he looked remarkably healthy for someone who had been in his deathbed two months ago and remarkably upbeat some someone who had just seen his company’s stock plunging down like an anvil dropped from a skyscraper less than a week ago.

  “Good day to you Raymond. It’s nice to see you again.” I lied.

  The man in question didn’t seem to notice. Rushing over to hug me as if we’d been lifelong friends before this.

  “Casper! Casper! I’m so glad you could make it after all! I was starting to get worried!”

  He wrapped his arms about me and squeezed as hard as someone without a Core could.

  “Come in! Come in! I was just seeing the news!”

  The news in question was playing on the older TV in the room. Carlyle sitting before the US congress and being made to answer some very delicate questions.

  His answers were not exactly satisfactory and the people arrayed in front of him were holding his feet to the fire.

  Every time that happened, the old man would bluntly tell the politicians that he’d thought he knew better than them and that he had hidden the information on purpose, as he had no legal obligation to let anyone know.

  Whenever that happened, Raymond would cackle maniacally. Like someone who’d just beat the casino out of several millions at blackjack.

  He was so enthralled that he didn’t notice the roaches skittering around the TV. Though his goon did. Taking off his shoe and going over to squash them with a curse.

  They all hid at once. Making for the cover of the cabinets around the device and the crevices under them.

  I sighed and called out to Raymond once more.

  “I think we can leave the gloating for another time.” I said slowly. “We should move on to the main issue now.”