– Alright cut the shit, someone tell me what’s going on. Did a realm 2 runt actually take a Realmer hostage in Ulverra and get away? @Seffara (Verified, R9)

↪There’s an active investigation going on. Everything’s locked down, sorry Seff. @Siltco (Verified, R11)

↪Alright fine, I dmed you, hurry up and respond. @Seffara (Verified, R9)

↪Please Seffara, be more discreet, you know there’s leakers around. @Atellion (Verified, R12)

*2025 Realmnet, in a group forum reserved for verified accounts that have reached dragonslayer status. Seffara the Sapphire is one of the few exceptions.

“You’re saying another war will happen for The Realm.”

“When the veil is lifted, The Realm will have to bend a knee to a greater civilization or face destruction. Either way, there will be a period of true war where we will have to prove that we are not mere ants to be stomped on.”

“That’s… nuts.” Ryan had no other way to put it. “Why would they fight over The Realm? If it’s a multiverse, there should be infinite worlds, right?”

The Witch Tyrant took another sip. Ryan could smell the tea from here. Sights, sounds, smells and aura. That just left taste and…

The Witch continued.

“Because The Realm is a marvel of creation. An amalgamation of worlds with differing laws of reality. Qi, magic, aura and the undercurrent of reality that lets us truly experience the binding of reality to our will, skills. It is a seamless blend of major connections while still being fit for mortal survival. A near perfect place for research and training new talents. Or a hub for further expansion. Shall we put it another way? There is no reason not to take The Realm, if they can.”

Ryan took a moment.

“Did the Manager tell you this?”

“No, not all of it.” The Witch laughed. “Why? Are you hoping the Manager might have lied and tricked me? Not to worry, we have our own sources as well.”

Meaning she had access to the multiverse or some information source she trusted. That was crazy on its own. How the hell could they have kept something like that a secret? How much did he not know.

Ryan took a breath to center himself. One step at a time.

There were three scenarios. Complete the Trials and make it permanent, something no other world had done before. The second was to smuggle those he cared about into The Realm and face a multiversal invasion. The third was to stay on Earth and hope nukes and dragonslayers didn’t start destroying everything over the remaining regeneration potions.

It was a terrible fact that surviving a war on Earth with potential nukes flying around seemed like the safest and most predictable scenario.

The Witch seemed satisfied with his look. Triumphant in the fact that he finally understood her position.

“Now, you see? There is only one path forward for you if you wish to have control over your own destiny. Rise, rise up beyond dragonslayers, beyond Mezhar, perhaps even beyond us. Then, you might finally have the option to choose your own destiny.”

This was no option, no possibility of success. Ryan knew the Trials ahead. He knew how close to death he’d come just to get here. Did she expect him to keep throwing himself at impossible odds to… what?

End up having to face another impossible task?

Becoming a dragonslayer level adventurer was a child’s fantasy, he’d stopped having those after seeing the statistics. Not once had he ever dreamed of becoming as powerful as one the Tyrants. Even as a child he wasn’t ever that naïve. They had suffered and gone through hell to get to where they were, and their reward ended up being more responsibility. Management of The Realm and constant diplomacy with asshole nations of Earth.

Now it sounded like they hadn’t even won yet.

This was just the calm before the shitstorm.

Ryan leaned back.

“This is too much, I can’t… I just want to be an adventurer.”

For a glorious, tantalizing moment, Ryan had started to believe that things were set up for him to succeed. Now that he had met the Witch Tyrant in full?

Barry was right. They were desperate

. The Witch Tyrant was doing whatever was necessary to increase their war potential.

This was not the Witch Tyrant that he thought he knew. This was no hero of old, the ones that took on the burdens of others and carried the world on her shoulder.

The Witch slammed her tea down.

“Adventurers? Hah!”

“Mom-”

Gamielle tried to elbow her mother into spilling her tea. The Witch shifted from her seat and elbowed her daughter back. Hard.

“I created the idea of adventurers and the Adventurer’s Guild to keep the Realmers compliant. It was never more than a rebranding of what trialists truly are. An illusion, you could say.” The Witch Tyrant leaned over her table, looking down at a crestfallen Ryan. “It seems it worked for little children on Earth too.”

Gamielle tried to tackle her mother. The girl yelped in surprise as she found herself locked in position. Then the Witch Tyrant threw the hot tea over her daughter.

“Ahhhh!”

The Witch gripped her table tightly. More fury than he’d seen from her. The grass around her was completely blackened at this point, slowly disintegrating to dust. The bombardment above them became more intense as her fury rose.

“Did you think any of us were anything special when we became Trialists? we had to figure it out. We had to navigate treacherous Trials and hostile nations. Then unite the natives as a people while everyone called us tyrants. The Trial System and The Realm it created was never meant to be peaceful -”

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A wet Gamielle broke free of her bindings tried to hit her mother with a comically large hammer. The Witch lifted a finger and shattered the hammer in its place. Then she flicked her wrist. Gamielle went screeching into the forest.

The Witch bared her teeth. She looked furious that Ryan dared to back down from an impossible task.

Her spite ran deep.

“The Trial System was always about throwing the most chaotic elements into a melting pot and seeing what creature crawled out from its depths. We have simmered in peace for far too long. I see that now.”

Ryan’s hand trembled. He was holding back, trying not to scream his frustrations at the Witch. His mind was still stuck on the idea that adventurers were nothing but convenient tools of control. They weren’t just that, they couldn’t be, adventurers worked. Trialists didn’t, heroes didn’t, but adventurers did.

That was his dream. It wasn’t fake. It can’t be fake.

The Witch smiled at her handiwork. There was no kindness there.

“At least you get to know what you’re fighting for.”

She said it like knowing the truth was a boon and not a burden.

Ryan stewed in the silence. The projection of The Realm was still above them in all its glory. Battered and damaged from the invasion. Entire Sectors shattered and turned to ash. Mountains leveled, and the monster the size of California lay dead. Its carcass split open, a veritable feast for that black monstrosity with too many eyes.

Then the sun began to rise, spreading its rays across the broken land.

The projection zoomed back towards Sector Two. Ulverra was rubble, dead bodies littered everywhere. One corpse lay in the middle of the city, he had defended it till the last. The Archmage Tyrant had died with his city, a smile on his face.

Then the sun’s rays shone down on the surrounding land around it. People started to rise from the bunkers en masse. They began to rebuild.

That was how the Witch Tyrant saw the future. What a damning bleak future.

One step at a time, he told himself. Ryan’s voice trembled.

“So, I should just keep soloing the Trials, right? Keep getting S-grade achievements?”

The Witch sighed, perhaps realizing that she’d pushed too far.

“That will not be enough. Epics can be gained by doing the impossible in the Trials. A Legend is the minimum I expect from you. And Legends? They cannot be created within the Trials alone.”

That was another insane reveal.

It explained why nobody else other than the Tyrants and Mezhar had obtained a Legend. They hadn’t qualified for an insane enough feat…

He understood now.

“So that’s why you’re forcing me to do this. Challenge the world and win. Just like you Tyrants did.”

The Witch nodded solemnly.

“That is the hope, yes. However, that does not mean you should continue to be as reckless as you have been. Remember the Manager has failed each and every time. Our world is just another attempt for him. For example, you could have waited at the Trial outpost until it was night. Verified online what the scale of the Trial was.”

Ryan blinked.

Wait, was the Witch Tyrant telling him that he had been too reckless? The one that forced him into becoming a blacklister then manipulated things so that he’d have a million dollar bounty on his head? She was telling him to be more careful?

“Are you really giving me an after-action report right now?”

The Witch blinked back.

“Yes. Did you not want one from me?”

Ryan wasn’t sure how to respond to that. She sounded offended that he had even asked.

“L-let me just process everything you just said first.”

The Witch leaned back and rolled her eyes. Probably the most normal expression he’d seen from her yet.

“Ah, you’re one of those. A person that doesn’t take criticism well.”

Well, now he was offended.

“Excuse me? No, I can take criticism perfectly fine. I just need some time to process literally everything you just told me. You’d know that if you, if you were…”

‘a normal fucking person,’ he didn’t say.

The Witch Tyrant raised an eyebrow but let it pass. She decided to continue her after-action report instead.

“I will give you another example of your blatant over-recklessness. You forgot to take into account that the Archmage would also be capable of overpowering leveled zone restrictions. If I had not interfered today, he would have caught you, leveled zone or not.”

Oh,she did not like letting things go. Though he did have a counter for this one, he crossed his arms and leaned back, as cool as he could be.

“What a shame that would have been.”

“Ah.”

The Witch Tyrant looked surprised for a moment. She considered his answer then nodded in acceptance.

“Then well played. It is a pity you aren’t a [Mage]. I would have taught you well. Still, you will find my mercy to be lacking if I catch you scheming against me again.”

“You never really caught me. I had to tell you.”

The Witch clicked her teeth shut and glared at him. Gamielle rematerialized behind her mother and started shaking her head at him, telling him to stop here. He just shrugged at her and went back to staring at the Witch Tyrant.

Both [Rogue] and [Witch] stared at each other in petty silence.

Well, he wasn’t going to be the one that waited until a [Witch] stopped being spiteful first.

He stood up and stretched, then looked down at the Witch Tyrant sitting at her little illusioned table.

Even now, the projection of The Realm was still above, zoomed in on the city of Ulverra. The Realmers were out of their bunkers and started to rebuild. It was in so much detail that he almost couldn’t believe it.

Then he remembered, the Witch Tyrant had lived this before.

It was just… just…

Just so disappointing.

Everything, all of this her. The Witch Tyrant disappointed him most of all.

She looked up at him, looking annoyed at his expression. It was funny. He laughed.

The Witch raised an eyebrow. A third finger slowly raising in threat.

He laughed harder. She frowned, perhaps wondering if he was alright. Gamielle side-glanced her mother, accusing her of breaking the ‘little’ [Rogue].

He kept laughing. What else could you do when you were told everything was hopeless and you found out all your heroes, your leaders weren’t the people you believed them to be? Being petty was fine, hexing people that annoyed you on the internet was something he even admired about her.

Ryan stopped laughing and looked down at her.

The Witch Tyrant liked being dramatic?

Well, he could do dramatic too. He dusted himself off then bowed in the most showy manner possible. A stage performer’s bow.

The [Rebellious Rogue] straightened up and gave a most gracious of smiles to the Witch Tyrant.

“Oh, great Tyrant of The Realm. This humble adventurer wishes to ask one last question of you. If you will permit it.”

The Witch quirked her lip. This time in a small smile.

“I am feeling magnanimous today, little [Rogue]. State it.”

He pulled back his cowl so that they could see each other face to face. A young man, a boy really, twenty-two was nothing compared to her.

Ryan spread his arms and looked around at the forest, then he looked at Gamielle, a puzzle all on her own. Finally, he turned back to the Witch Tyrant.

“Would you have stopped me if I had started torturing Jecharim?”

The Witch Tyrant’s smile died on her face. For the first time, she faltered, a twitch of the eyes. It was almost like he’d imagined it.

The Witch Tyrant sat up straight and put her hands together, stately. No longer a [Witch] spitefully condescending a child, but a ruler. A Tyrant of the land looking down at a subject that dared to ask her about the potential fate of a single, mortal man.

“That, is the wrong question to ask. The question you should ask yourself is this: When the time comes for you to step up, and you fail. Would you be able to forgive yourself if you had not taken every single precaution… to have gotten stronger?”

The Tyrant glanced at her daughter.

Her daughter was visibly retching from their performances.

“That was really embarrassing, you two. I’m going to be sick.”

The Witch Tyrant just sighed and rolled her eyes. She flicked a finger, making Gamielle flinch. Instead of sending her daughter into another trip to through the forest, something dropped right in front of Ryan. It made him jump.

A white mask fell before him.

The hell?

“A gift for you, as promised.”

Ryan carefully picked up the mask, half expecting it to be an illusion. To his surprise, he felt the mask was solid. It was light to the touch and almost weightless. Where had it come from?

The moonlight reflected off a perfectly silent drone hovering fifteen feet above him. Purple runes etched into the drone’s body. A Manager’s damned enchanted drone.

Ryan pretended to [Inspect] the mask, and then he jumped.

The Witch Tyrant’s eyes went wide as the drone swerved from his reach.

[Instant Dodge]

He accelerated towards the drone, his hand almost in reach. Unfortunately, the enchanted drone was a little too fast compared to him. He summoned his soulsword and chucked it, as hard as he could.

If he couldn’t steal it, then he sure as hell could try to break it.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep