Chapter 239: Half The Answer

December 31st, 625

“Lady Luna, I didn’t expect to see you here.”

Umara glanced over and saw John step outside of the room, closing the door behind him and blocking her view of Luna. 

They were outside for several minutes before the door opened again, the two walking in, John walking up to her and speaking in a low voice. Not loud enough to be annoying, not soft enough to feed into her depression. 

“I’m going to handle some business with Anderson. Luna will keep you company. Call me if you need anything.”

“Mm.”

She nodded, getting a kiss on the forehead from him before he walked out of the room. 

The door shut and she was left alone with Luna. Suddenly she was more aware of how dark it was. There wasn’t a single light on in the room, just the light seeping through the cracks in the curtains. 

Luna walked past her to the window and suddenly yanked the curtains open, Umara’s eyes squinting at the bright light that flashed through. 

Luna chuckled. 

“It’s a beautiful day, dear. You shouldn’t be cooped up in the darkness. It feeds bad thoughts.”

Umara remained silent. When Luna walked over to her she felt a comforting Aura roll off her, so gentle and caressing. Umara felt like she could sink into it and fall asleep forever. 

But she soon realized that it didn’t let her. Then she realized how dangerous it was. 

Luna sat down, those silver eyes gazing through her. 

“So I’ve heard about the Crown. I expected to see you sad but I didn’t think you’d fallen into a pit. Have you told him your answer yet?”

“…No.”

Umara shook her head, glancing at Luna and feeling something different about her. 

She wasn’t so friendly, not like during their sparse visits to her in the Capital. She had come here with a purpose and Umara had a feeling that she wouldn’t like it. 

Her platinum hair draped over her shoulder as she crossed a leg and leaned forward. 

“Then it’s a good thing I’ve come. I’m here to tell you that I’ll be incredibly disappointed if you turn down this offer. So don’t.”

Umara frowned, but she stamped down her immediate anger.

“You know about what will happen to me?”

“I know what could happen to you. But even if sterilization were an absolute certainty, I’d tell you to do it anyway. You’re lucky you even have a chance to save yourself but I don’t believe it should matter.”

“How could you say that so easily? I may never be able to have children! I’ve seen maiden households fall because the wife couldn’t bear children, their husbands divorcing and other households refusing to do business with them. Having children is the one thing a wife should be able to do and doing this will more than likely take that away from me!”

Umara almost yelled but Luna continued to smile. Umara took a breath and wiped her eyes as moisture accumulated, only making it worse and creating a tear streak. She almost couldn’t believe how sudden her emotions surged, how fast they flipped from depressed to angry.

She knew Luna could see her stamping them down as best she could. 

Luna leaned back and spoke softly. 

“Umara, I don’t know if you’ve realized yet but women like us have different roles. It will always be a beautiful thing to bring children into the world but that is not what our husbands require of us. It is our job to be their unconditional support, another source of power that they can call on, a partner that will protect their backs when nobody else will. Did you know that I don’t have children?”

Umara shook her head, and Luna chuckled. 

“You know, it’s quite remarkable how similar of a position we are in. After my husband attained the penultimate power my role in his life changed, but up until then I was his greatest partner. I broke my bones to keep up with him, shed a lake of blood to stay by his side even when my family threatened to disown me. Then he went and got his

Crown, and it was him who became sterile.”

Umara’s eyes widened, feeling a bit more uncomfortable as Luna’s sheer presence of will flared. 

“Then when I went to my family and said I’d never have children, they followed through on their words and properly disowned me. Of course, they were begging to reconcile when my husband became the behemoth he is now, but by that time he was starting to fall back into the dark and I made the decision to follow, disappearing from the world to become what I am now, a hidden blade with enough influence to aid him in the ways he requires.”

Luna’s eyes bored into Umara’s soul. Her Aura suddenly wasn’t so soft and caressing. It was caring but firm, refusing to allow Umara to fall back into the comfort of pity, easily seeing through all the barriers she had put up. 

“We are not like normal women, Umara. Your man has afforded you the most important opportunity of your life, an opportunity to not just receive power, but to stay by his side, to be his most important ally. He’s willing to forsake children for his goal because he understands just how dire the fight against the Scourge is. But more importantly, he believes that you’re more important to him than any child could be. Children are the most precious thing in the world and yet he places you above that. He is willing to forsake passing down his legacy, forsake passing down the culmination of your talents, even when he knows that his fight may cost him his life. And here you are.”

Luna motioned to her gently. 

“Your man wants to devote everything to his fight and yet he devotes his most valuable possessions and opportunities to you. Then you go and turn into a sobbing mess and make him feel bad for putting this burden on you. You know exactly what he needs. You knew the decision that you should’ve made as soon as you were told the consequences of the Crown. Yet you still wallow in denial. It makes me question how much you actually love him.”

Umara finally snapped.

“This has nothing to do with how much I love him! Questioning that should be the last thing you do!”

“Honey, please. You should be so thankful that he’s being so accommodating with how selfish you’re being.”

“Being concerned about sterilization isn’t being selfish!”

Umara stood, her Aura radiating anarchy. 

“This is perhaps the biggest decision of my life and yet you’ve come here to insult my integrity?! I will make the decision I know is right and I won’t be slandered by someone I thought was my friend!”

Umara turned to walk out. 

“Umara Talerria, sit down right now! Before I take away that corpse and deny your position by John’s side for good!”

Umara froze, fists clenched as she turned back around. 

Luna was no longer smiling, her own Aura easily countering the anarchy in Umara’s before toppling it with despair. 

But she didn’t overwhelm her mind, even though she could. When Luna motioned with her hand, Umara was slowly urged to sat back down. 

“Heed my words carefully, Umara. These things I say to you come from a place of love, but they also carry expectations. The principal of which is that I will not allow a mediocre woman to marry John Cooper. That is not because I somehow see myself as his mother, but because I will not allow a great man such as him to be chained to baggage that will only hamper his state of mind. Humanity is treading a precarious line and men like him are what is going to keep us alive, so we need them operating at full capacity intellectually, physically, and most importantly, emotionally. It is a need that renders your desires utterly inconsequential. 

“My husband is one of those men and so I’ve come today in order to ensure that you understand your role, just as I understand mine. My biggest fear in this moment is that you will fail to understand how much a man like that will sacrifice. You say that this is perhaps the biggest decision of your life, and fail to realize that your man has already made his. He’s devoted his life to eliminating the Scourge, and believe it or not, you come secondary to that, just like how children come secondary to you being in his life. 

“So let me make this crystal clear to you.”

Luna leaned forward, the menace in her Aura inscribing her words into Umara’s brain. 

“If you want to be his wife, then you will start acting like it. You may have to slap him straight a few times but in the end it is your job to support him in everything he does. If that demands sacrifices, whether it be children, your family, or your sanity, then you will make the sacrifices willingly. You will break yourself to stay by his side and you will make your love available to him, always. If you don’t wish to do these things and carry that burden then break up with him now and stop wasting his time. If you fail to do these things, and his performance suffers because of you, then I will make the decision and remove you myself so that he can continue aiding in humanity’s struggle. Otherwise, if you know you love him, and you know you’re capable of answering this call, then make the real decision. The one you’ve been avoiding.”

Umaras head ducked under the unyielding scrutiny of Luna’s gaze, but her frustration was palpable, the tears down her cheek shimmering with hues of red. 

She stood, her breath shuddering, her hand slowly and softly sliding over the side of her chair. 

And she launched it across the room so fast that it burst into splinters on contact with the wall. “FUCK!”

She screamed and grabbed the table, launching it into a vanity table and shattering both of them. The elements in the room raged, Umara phasing through space to arrive at the bed and pick it up by its frame. 

The atmosphere compressed and crunched it into a single chunk of splinters and cotton. 

Luna watched from the side, eyes closed, the elements as still and soft as moonlight around her, completely unperturbed by the turbulence of the room that threatened to trip the defensive enchantments. 

She was silent as Umara destroyed the entire room in a fit of screams and rage, using brute physical force, the mana around her merely following along with her rage. 

It only ended when she fell to her knees in a sobbing mess, her madness still bursting through her Aura. 

Luna eventually stood, stepping forward and kneeling beside her, brushing her hair back and staying silent. 

She reminisced about when she had thrown a fit just like this one. Except she hadn’t been inside a building that could take it, and so her family’s estate had been razed. 

She knew it was still a difficult decision. No woman liked being told that she may never be able to have children, if not because they wanted a family, then because they feared what their husbands might think or do. 

But their husbands were no ordinary husbands, and so they couldn’t be ordinary wives. It was a shattered dream but sometimes that’s what love demanded. 

Especially in the face of extinction.

……

…

“You set up those systems like I asked?”

“Yes, they’re all right here.”

“Good.”

I nodded and approached the terminal, a device connected to some Orbs and Nodes for storage. It was a scrapped together network storage but it would work, so long as my ‘code’ did. 

I had planned to hand off this data a while ago but obviously shit happened. 

I took out my own Orb and dropped it in a cradle. An injection software brought up esoteric and codified prompts on the screen which I accepted and authorized. Just like that the terminal connected to the local Node network and contacted my backdoors in both Wonderland and the Spire, pulling the data I designated and writing it to these local Orbs. 

A primitive but capable internet with absolutely no network security outside of what I designed. There was no difficulty. 

I saw all the designs that Wonderland had built up, including hundreds of reports on various pieces of technology they had designed beyond the weapons. New armament begot accomodating technology so there was a whole swath of blueprints. 

It would take some time to pull the data though so I sighed and turned around. 

Three people were in front of me. The first was Anderson. The second was a summoner going by the name Verimius Gazam, a General for the Church’s military Order, a very, very smart man. 

Third was the Pope, with the name Eracle Syagrius.

Unlike the Pope I knew of he didn’t drape himself in loose white robes. He wore nothing more than a standard linen shirt, a pair of pants, and boots with a longsword belted to his waist. He was a tall man, taller than even me, with long hair, a kept beard, sharp eyes, and thick muscles radiating Vigor. He was a Knight, and a very powerful one at that, what little I could sense of his Aura pointing him toward Authority 12. 

I wasn’t sure what to feel, standing before such a powerful man. But the technology I was giving them was the recipe for mass destruction, so I dispensed with formalities and honors, speaking very plainly and bluntly. 

“Alright, I’m going to warn you three about the kind of data I’m putting on these Orbs. Did Luna inform you all of my conditions?”

“She did.”

The Pope spoke, nodding with a small smile. 

“Rest assured, Sir Cooper. We won’t allow the Kingdom to kill you should they discover that we have some of your specialty designs.”

“I asked that you don’t let them find out in the first place.”

“We’re doing our best to weed out the spies. It’s been going quite well since we’ve started adopting some of your policies regarding counterespionage, but we naturally can’t guarantee perfection.”

“Hm. Fine. I’ll take what I can get…”

I sighed again and glanced at the Orbs. 

“Anyway, here’s the warning. The most important design on here is a recipe to construct what you know as Mana Bombs. So far what’s been fielded is small scale. I gave Sawn the requirement that he can’t field anything stronger than Authority 8, not because of the cost, but because it might tempt the Kingdom to build something much more powerful than that before I was able to hand off the designs to you.”

I tapped the terminal screen and brought up the data for the Magnitude Frequency. 

“This right here is where the magic happens. These bombs work by transforming White Crystals into Elemental Crystals. According to the data that I just saw looking through new designs from our designers at Sawn Industries, our enchanters have successfully managed to create Vigor and Psyka Crystals as well, Crystals imbued perfectly with the three magical energies. Right now it’s safe to say that the possibilities are endless. This is perhaps the greatest discovery made in the history of magic secondary to the ability to purify White Crystals at all. I mean that objectively because the level of devastation these Crystals are capable of is much more vast than you currently understand.”

I switched the picture to a graphic of the estimated diameter of an Elemental Crystal explosion, scaling with Authority. 

“The most important detail of these Elemental Crystals is their ability to release all of their power extremely fast. Near instantly, obviously far faster than any Warlock can with their pool of power. The second most important detail is that these Elemental Crystals can be made with Crystals of any level, including Authority 12, though we haven’t tested that. So, if you took a Fire Elemental Crystal, armed it with an explosion spell, and dropped it in the middle of a city like the Holy See…”

“You would annihilate the entire city with one explosion.”

The Pope muttered, seemingly unalarmed. Still, he frowned, properly conveying just how serious he had gotten. 

I nodded. 

“So you get how dangerous this technology is. Extremely easy to make, and tiny enough to be simply walked into a city full of people. The only obvious marker is its signature and its only obvious weakness is its lifespan. These Elemental Crystals radiate their given power, a sign of their heightened degeneration. Not fast enough to make them evaporate in a day but they also won’t be sitting around in a warehouse for years either. Also, they don’t regenerate their power like White Crystals. You use it, you lose it. They are consumable and so the bombs are one off.”

“That’s slightly comforting. But by creating an Elemental crystal, you are also losing not just a White Crystal, but all the power it could’ve regenerated over its lifetime.”

“Indeed. You trade off long-term drawn-out power for short-term explosive force. But if you want to cripple or annihilate your rival, the loss is merely a price, and bombs are a good way to pay it.”

The three were silent, Anderson smiling widely like he’d just found a new toy to play with. 

Eventually, the Pope asked. 

“What about the other designs?”

“Weapons and vehicles, like my planes. And yes, I’ve included the designs and enchantments for my signature invention, the Mana Engine. You’re welcome.”

“Haha, we are certainly thankful for that. And we will not let you leave unrewarded for such an amazing technology. The Church takes care of its allies, and as far as I’m concerned you are one of those.”

“Well, you know a couple of the things I want. Just don’t tell the Kingdom I’m cheating on them with you. Most of these enchantments include guides that detail how the technologies are supposed to be used, which naturally involves plentiful amounts of military tactics and strategies revolving around them. I’ll also be updating the data here as we develop more. I have a lot of input that I’ll be integrating when I get back to the Kingdom, and many more designs to draw up. You’ll get it all, so long as you don’t go closing down this channel.”

“Our best enchanters will be handling this, and they would sooner sacrifice themselves than let this treasure trove stop printing gold.”

“Good. There’s a lot of powerful tech here and normally I’d be concerned with giving it to those who have no idea what they’re handling. But the Scourge poses a slightly greater threat than the stupidity of bored soldiers, so I’m taking the risk.”

“Hahaha!”

General Virimus started cackling, the data transfer completing. 

I went through the terminal a bit more and gave myself another backdoor and seed program before hiding it all behind encryptions and compressions, shutting down the device. 

“There you go. These Orbs now contain half the answer to the war.”

The Pope asked, “Which half is that?”

“The numbers. My weapons will make numbers obsolete by multiplying the amount of damage a single soldier can do in their effective lifetime. So long as you make enough, killing millions of Scourge will be the easy part. As for the Kings, the other half, for now that’s still on you guys.”

“Which we will have an easier time handling thanks to your technology. Thank you, Sir Cooper. Your help will be invaluable to our war efforts.”

I shook Eracle’s hand, his large grip making it difficult for me to get a good squeeze. 

With just a little bit of force he held my hand a moment longer and smiled. 

“Are you sure you wouldn’t like to join us? I’m sure I needn’t explain the kind of support you would receive for your work. I might even offer you a Peerage, in time.”

Our eyes locked and I started to feel some of the differences between this world’s catholicism and Earth’s. The Pope wasn’t an icon of purity and goodness. He was a warrior and his greatest purpose was leading the fight against the Scourge of this world. After all, just outside the building was a statue well over a thousand meters tall depicting Christ wielding a blade. 

Their priorities were obvious, not that I was opposed to them in the slightest. 

“Sorry sir, I can’t go anywhere right now. There are a lot of people that need my protection. Abandoning the Kingdom’s military would leave them exposed.”

“Cooper, we do not forsake those who cannot protect themselves. Should you join us you would give them even greater protection than if you stayed where you were. The Kingdom cannot stop us.”

“Hm, good to know, but I’ll maintain for now. I have my plans.”

“Heh, very well. But don’t wait too long. We have our plans too.”

I didn’t respond to that, our conversation wrapping up before I left the room. 

My business was finished with them so now my only concern was the Crown. But of course I couldn’t worry about that unless Umara made her decision. I knew what Luna intended to say when she showed up, but I trusted her to convey it properly

I trusted that both of them would make the right decisions. 

Before going back to the room though, I had to make a stop. 

I left the Tower and recalled a message I had received from Willow, a message that contained an answer to one of my questions. 

I followed the directions in the message and arrived at a nice shop called Rupert’s Gems.

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