A Bored Lich

The cheering crowd parted for the General and Doevm. General Marble\'s men, who had been holding back the onlookers, bowed. Alexander made his way through the masses to an elegant carriage at the back. The door to it opened, and out came a man dressed in fine velvet and a bowtie. His white hair had occasional hints of blue, finely combed to be more prominent. When he stepped off, the carriage bounced, free of the bumbling burden that was this ball of blubber.

He was the fattest noble Doevm had ever seen in both of his lives. His shirt fibers almost ripped as his belly fat jiggled. He waddled past his personal guards, who wore symbols detailing the light crystal wrapped in a skeletal palm\'s embrace and shook Alexander\'s hand. Doevm wasn\'t sure what they were saying, too distracted trying to count the man\'s chins.

He came to his senses when Alexander shook hands with the man again and hurried off. The man, however, moved to the top of the rubble with his guards trailing behind him, pushing him up by the rear. Blue life essence went around his greasy lips as he looked at the crowd and waved for silence, the fat in his arms flailing behind him. The crowd grew quiet, awaiting the words of the oh mighty fat one, as Doevm internally nicknamed him.

A Knight ran below him, faced the crowd, and opened a scroll "Presenting, Lord Cornelius Eustis Botomon the second, one of two pillars of the nobles who support this fine Capital, son of the hero Arthur Botomon!"

Doevm\'s jaw dropped.

\'That piece of literal lard is his son!? Arthur, what the hell did you do to him?\' Just as Doevm was about to faint, he bit his tongue. \'I\'m not dreaming, this is real. He is real. I should have known.\'

"My parents left me and my sister," Frey\'s words appeared in his memory. "They just left us without any explanation."

\'There is your explanation,\' Doevm thought. \'The hero might be a being of good, greatness that no other human can comprehend, but there also lies in his heart of gold, a smudge of blackness, more of an oversight. Arthur, you were so busy trying to protect and serve everyone that you never noticed. You were used for others\' gain, lied to, and manipulated, even by your own offspring. Even after my warnings, you never changed. You saw the good in people. Humans, however, are filthy, greedy, and most of all, liars.\'

"This," Lord Botomon said, his deep voice sweeping over the ecstatic crowd. "Was an attack on the Capital by a random dark magician. The heretic used his dark, evil, vile magic to take the skeletal arm which holds the great light crystal and attempt to destroy the castle while the king was still inside. We haven\'t had an attack ever since my father defeated the demon king and his army over a century ago."

He paused, letting the crowd gasp. He suppressed a smile behind his fat sausage fingers. "My father might have…unfortunately passed away at the age of a hundred and twenty-nine, leaving me and my wife with just each other, scarred and in mourning, but we have changed since then. We have adopted his strength and intelligence. With the help of my…our Acrin Kingdom\'s many magicians, the arm was diverted down a random path. The king is safe. There may have been casualties, but our magicians repaired the Capital before many more could be affected by this travesty. With their protection, we are still here. With our knights\' protection, we are still here. Order must be maintained."

Doevm would have laughed if he hadn\'t been thinking of strangling the fat bastard. \'A hundred and twenty-nine. I expected my heart to extend his lifespan as a side-effect but that was too long.\'

"What about the dark magician?" A person in the crowd piped up.

The noble smiled, as if he had been expecting this. "Deceased, by the hand of our very own General Alexander and hundreds of my and other nobles\' men. I repeat, the threat has been dealt with by the strongest knight in the Kingdom."

"This is where all of your tax gold is going to, the defense of our fine Capital, where peace is a constant. Without it, without the mages and Knights, this kingdom would descend into disorder. It is important that we stand strong amidst these harsh times." As he talked, he made gestures, his fat arms flapping behind him. "This foolish mage forgot that we are the kingdom that has stood for centuries. The dark ways must have corrupted this particular dark mage\'s brain before Alexander splattered it over the ground."

The crowd chuckled while praising the noble and all of his efforts. Many looked over their shoulders. While General Alexander was gone, the people held a new light in their eyes towards him.

"We," Lord Botomon continued. "have fought back the armies of the Demon King for centuries. A simple dark mage is nothing compared to that, a mere surprise at most. Nonetheless, he has struck at our hearts and our families. He caused you fine people harm and disrupted the order of things. This should not have happened. In the future, we will tighten restrictions on people passing in and out of the capital."

The crowd\'s smiles dimmed a little, and they began to whisper to each other. \'He\'s being too greedy,\' Doevm thought. \'He\'s trying to use this incident to enforce "order" but he\'s losing the crowd. On the surface, he may have a smile, but underneath, he\'s panicking. He knows that this threat is coming back, and that he can\'t hide it for much longer. Foolish human, dirty blight to this world, disappear, caught in your own lies. You might be his son, but you are nothing like him.\' Just when he was about to walk away however, the man opened his mouth again.

"But do not worry," the noble continued, noticing the crowd\'s disinterest. "This is with good reason. While the dark magician may be dead, we have reason to believe he had companions within our beloved Capital, lurking in the shadows." At this, the crowd went silent. They looked at each other as if strangers were a threat. There was no bloodlust, but a slight tension overtook them. Doevm had a sinking feeling in his gut.

"That is why we will conduct searches, for your safety." The noble leaned closer, his round, massive shadow looming over those who looked up to him. "Whether it be heretics or those despicable abominations called demihumans, our men will be there to take them down, like we have been doing for centuries. Long live order. Long live the Acrin Kingdom."

"Long live order. Long live the Acrin Kingdom." The listeners echoed and erupted into cheers. The noble stepped down from the pile of rubble and got to his carriage before riding off. Doevm stayed with the crowd, which didn\'t disperse immediately.

"Did you hear that?" he overheard one\'s conversation. "That means that he\'s going to help check our homes for anything amiss. I wonder when they can check my home. I\'ve been hearing things in the walls for a while. Maybe a dark magician is near me!"

"Are you serious?" Another said. "He\'s going to go through our homes and violate our privacy but you\'re all for it? I\'m starting to doubt-"

"Are you crazy? What if they get to you? What will you do? How can normal people like us go against satanic magic? We have to rely on the mages and knights."

"I-I" the other stuttered before he cast his head down. "I guess I can let them check, just to be safe. It can\'t hurt, right?"

\'Worrying,\' Doevm thought as he exited the crowd, his hand tightly fastened around his spatial ring. \'If they go through my things, I\'ll be forced to either run or kill them. I won\'t let anyone find out about Maximus Draken\'s journal, even if it is just to inspect it.\' He felt a boiling heat rise up in his chest, so he took a breath and cooled down a bit. \'I just need to prepare. I guess it\'s time to get better equipment. I need to defend myself after all.\' He shambled through the Capital; his eyes barely able to keep themselves open.

People and squadrons of knights were rushed every which way, spreading rumors and false theories about the recent attack. They gave him room but offered no help. Doevm stepped over the injured and dying, who had been injured from the quake. He did not flinch at the cries of a mourning father and mother, or those who had just been orphaned. He just kept moving forward, not daring to stop. He called upon "Lich\'s Malice" and a blinding hate poured into his mind, bringing fantasies of violence with its fury. He quickened his pace, his energy returning. \'I should have given Arthur\'s guardian a longer lifespan. Maybe she could have prevented that from happening, seen who was manipulating him and cut ties with them.\'

\'Maybe I should have gone home immediately,\' He thought as he took a break and leaned on a wall. The little strength from opening his book didn\'t help much. \'Oliver may have healed me, but that drained what little energy I had left.\' He coughed a couple times before continuing onwards.

\'I have one year to train myself up. Can I do it? Nope. Definitely not. The Resistance leader could go up against Alexander for that damned Goddess\'s sake! I need to get stronger and I need a team.\' He pulled out his broken spear and leaned on its cracked shaft. \'But first I need to get back to the commoners\' quarters.\' With each step he took, and the more he leaned on the shaft, the more it creaked.

Half an hour later, he got to the commoners\' quarters, which had been rebuilt like all the other buildings in the Capital. He reached for the doorknob only to jam his hand into the door. He cursed and rubbed his eyes, which were seeing double. After getting inside, he walked past the empty waiting area and down the hallway.

When he got to his room, he collapsed on the bed and let his broken spear shaft roll out of his loose grip, an action he immediately regretted as it gave off a loud crack when it thudded against the ground. \'Really?\' he thought as he peered over the side of the bed at the spear, which had broken into two.

\'I\'m no blacksmith but I know that cannot be fixed, even by Kilot.\' He groaned and shoved the pieces into his spatial ring. He stared at the ceiling as he lay on top of his sheets for a while before unsealing his mana and casting a mirror spell. His armor, or at least what was left of it, was nothing but scrap metal. The sheets were stained red from both his own and others\' blood. He fixed that with a quick water spell followed by air spell to dry him off. After, he resealed his mana.

 \'I\'ll need to stop by,\' he thought as he let out a yawn. \'A blacksmith. Kilot is too far away to ask for any weapons, and I don\'t have enough gold to afford his prices. I don\'t think blackmail will work on him anymore.\' He threw his broken armor into his spatial ring along with his torn-up clothes. His eyes grew heavy, and he could no longer keep them open. \'I hope I can afford something.\'

\'Tomorrow is the first day of the academy. Well technically today, but not for a few hours or so. I have time to sleep. Probably. Hopefully someone will wake me up. Right now, I\'m just too tired to care.\' He let himself drift off to sleep.

For the first time in over a month, he did not dream of the day he lost Hopi. He did not toss and turn. He did not wake up in a cold sweat. He slept like the dead. He did not dream at all, just blackness. He smiled.