Chapter 95: Man vs Past

No one attacked them on the way to Shumen.

Steve drove through broken roads, bombed pastoral fields, and sinister forests without encountering any gearsman or Unity patrols. Considering news of Ruse’s liberation must have already spread, this was deeply concerning.

Not that the Bohens weren’t under observation. Kalki had caught Watchers stalking them from a distance during their reconnaissance. The machines fled whenever approached and didn’t attempt to delay them in any way, but they shadowed the team’s movements with dogged zeal.

“I don’t like it,” Basil said as he floated above the road. By now he had mastered his infinite Double Jump enough to simulate flight through tiny leaps and bounds. “They should attack us with everything they have, yet they do nothing.”

“I don’t detect any ambush ahead,” Kalki replied from atop Garud. The two of them had taken over reconnaissance duties while Vasi stayed behind in the Steamobile. The witch had taken Walter Tye’s warnings to heart and was now working on a new metamorphosis ritual. Basil hoped his girlfriend would find a solution before New Year’s Eve. “Have they given up on taking us down? We did inflict a severe defeat upon them at Ruse.”

“There’s a large difference between patience and passivity, Kalki,” Garud noted wisely. “Don’t underestimate the enemy’s stubbornness. Their kind is too arrogant to give up the fight, but they might be smart enough to wait for the right time to strike.”

“So we agree,” Basil said. “They’re shoring up their forces to attack us later.”

“Yes,” Garud agreed with a nod. “And when they strike, it will be with overwhelming force.”

Good, Basil thought grimly. If the Unity intended to gather all their elite troops for an attack, then the Bohens might have the chance to expel them out of Bulgaria all out in one battle.

“Our destination is in sight,” Kalki noted laconically.

Basil looked as a cluster of hills in the vague shape of a horseshoe appeared beyond the horizon. A large defensive line of steel bunkers, trenches, and mounted cannons encircled a large city of small houses, tall buildings, and green parks. A plateau overshadowed Shumen, atop which stood a massive dungeon casting a gray aurora in the sky. The massive construction resembled a crossbreed between an antiquity-style fortress and a modern Cubic sculpture: rectangular and lego-shaped blocks of concrete and steel were assembled into a tower greater than any pyramid, as imposing as it was featureless. A blue aurora in the east attested to the presence of a second dungeon outside of the city’s limits. No wonder the city had held against the Unity if the Swords controlled two of them.

Basil assumed that the famous Madara Horseman, an ancient rock relief raised by Khan Tervel, was probably the source of the aurora outside the city. It had been a World Heritage site listed in UNESCO, and thus a prime target for Dismaker Labs. The dungeon inside Shumen itself was almost certainly the Founders of the Bulgarian State Monument, a socialist-era Cubic masterpiece created to celebrate the 1300th anniversary of the First Bulgarian Empire. Basil remembered visiting it once in his childhood and cried at the sight of concrete warriors looking down on him; as a five-years old, he had found their cubic-style, rugged visages frightening rather than inspiring.

Their guide, Zlatan, had been captured a few days earlier in a battle near this city; one of the remaining strongholds of the Swords of Saint George according to him. Varna had fallen months ago during the last Incursion when the Unity’s dragons descended from the sky. The Swords defended the city the best they could, but in the end they had to evacuate to Shumen.

Neither had Zlatan heard of Basil’s mother Aleksandra. It didn’t mean anything; she must have been one civilian among thousands. But Basil still worried about her safety.

He eyed the cannons protecting Shumen warily; doubly so when he noticed flyers above the city. Basil almost mistook them for black clouds from a distance before noticing their human riders. The creatures were made of clouds alright, but shaped like snakes with wings.

Black Ala

Level 30 [Demon/Elemental]

Faction: Swords of Saint George (Air Defense Corps).

“Alas demons,” Basil mused. “In my childhood, I was told they were mischievous creatures causing weather. So strange to see them protecting the sky now.”

“Yes,” Kalki noted, his tone so low Basil barely heard him. “It is… nice.”

Basil glanced at his friend and immediately noticed his thoughtful, miserable look. “You’re still thinking of what Tye told us.”

“A dozen worlds, Basil,” Kalki said with a sorrowful look. “This System of which I am a part of has decimated a dozen worlds and probably more. How many victims does it make? Billions? Trillions? How much blood do I have on my hands?”

“None,” Basil replied firmly. “Maxwell is responsible for everything.”

“Well-said,” Garud said, trying to cheer his Tamer up. “I don’t remember us ever killing an innocent person, Kalki. Nor did we ever mean to.”

“Does it matter?” Kalki shook his head gloomily. “Whether I wanted it or not, I have been complicit in a cycle that destroyed countless lives. If I am truly Vishnu incarnate, then why have I let so many worlds be shattered?”

“Perhaps it was beyond you,” Basil tried to reassure him. “I mean, we don’t even understand the limits of your powers. Maybe you did your best with the cards you were dealt with. It just wasn’t enough.”

It was a weak defense, and Kalki didn’t buy it. “Then I am guilty of divine incompetence rather than malice and negligence. I do not know which is worse.”

“You don’t know,” Basil insisted. “Even Walter isn’t sure what’s going on. Don’t beat yourself up over assumptions.”

“Kalki, everything will become clear in Athens once we find Padma,” Garud added. “Focus on the future, not the past. The former is yet to be born, but the latter is already dead.”

Kalki shook his head slowly, though their words seemed to have reached him. “I thank you for trying to cheer me up,” he said with a heavy sigh. “I should meditate later. It will help clear my head.”

“Yes, good ca–” Basil barely dodged a cannonball fired from Shumen. The city’s anti-air defense started firing at them. “We’re under attack!”

“No, not yet. That was a warning shot.” Kalki pointed at a clearing near the city’s outskirts. “Let’s land there and wait. They should send someone to talk with us.”

Basil nodded in agreement and the two of them retreated to the Steamobile. Steve drove without Rosemarine’s help on the way to the city; considering his people’s more than justified fear of dragons, Basil had decided to feed her the same size-shrinking potion they used in Paris. The giant Tropidrake was now no larger than a komodo dragon and thus far less intimidating. Vasi also elected to use a glamor to hide her demonic ancestry as she had done in Bordeaux.

It irritated Basil that his team needed these tricks to avoid controversy, but circumstances demanded it.

Following his direction, Steve stopped in the clearing a short few kilometers away from Shumen’s defensive line. Basil landed on the grass next to Garud while the rest of the team deployed around them. Their guide, Zlatan, climbed down out of the Steamobile with a cigarette in hand.

The area around them appeared relatively calm, but Basil quickly noticed the signs of previous battle. Uprooted trees decayed inside craters and layers of grass and dirt covered the broken remains of gearsmen. The Unity must have sent troops this way only to see them blasted apart by long-range artillery. It bothered Basil to stay within firing distance of Shumen, but he hoped this would be taken as a sign of trust.

“Boss, I detect mines ahead,” Bugsy warned after testing the ground with Tremorsense. “Trap wires too.”

“And I smell squirrels looking at us.” Plato squinted at the trees surrounding the clearing. “A bit too intently.”

“Don’t venture too far from here,” Basil decided before glancing at Zlatan. “How do we contact your allies in the city?”

“The Swords of Saint George use scryers and oracles to locate lost assets,” replied the former slave. “I’m sure they’ve identified me already. Just wait a bit and they’ll come to us.”

Basil guessed they would have to kill time somehow. Bugsy immediately seized the opportunity. “So, who’s up for Monopoly?” the volcanipede asked the team. “We can play with the extensions this time!”

“A bug after my own heart,” Shellgirl rejoiced as she summoned the game from the Guild Inventory. “Let’s make money!”

Most of the party and their allies gathered in a circle to play, with a few exceptions. Vasi elected to keep researching her ritual and retreated inside the Steamobile to work in peace; Kalki preferred to meditate under a tree; and Zlatan was more interested in his cigarette than the game. Steve also remained on high alert to evacuate the team in a pinch if needed.

As for Basil, he decided to keep watch over their makeshift camp. His eyes turned to Zlatan. His countryman had patiently sat on the grass, staring in the distance at Shumen while savoring his cancer stick.

Zlatan Stoyanov

Level 39 [Humanoid] (Artificer 15/Gunslinger 10/Ranger 9/Poisoner 5).

Guild: Swords of Saint George.

It surprised Basil to see the Poisoner Class right next to the rest; he himself had unlocked it early thanks to his past in pharmacovigilance and elemental affinities. “Were you in chemistry before the apocalypse?” Basil asked him. “Or medicine?”

Zlatan shook his head. “I was Mafia,” he said, his gaze sharpening as he spoke. “Hitman.”

And like that, Basil’s heart hardened. “How many?”

“I killed four people before the world went to shit,” the man answered in between smoke-filled breaths. “Three of them were other gutter boys who crossed the wrong guy. The fourth was a woman. A journalist who knew too much. I never learned what. Never cared.”

Zlatan pointed at the mark on his neck. “She gave me that scar with her nails,” he said with an eerily calm tone. “I shot her twice in the chest but missed the vitals, so I crawled down to strangle her. I thought it would be funny to watch the light leave her eyes.”

Basil tried to suppress a sneer of disgust and failed to do so. “And you don’t feel guilty over it?”

“I didn’t. Not then.” Zlatan crushed his cigarette in his palm and tossed it into the grass. “Afterwards, I had to hack her body into tiny pieces and threw them in the Black Sea so the cops wouldn’t identify her. I was paid five grand for the deed, and I blew it on drugs and hookers in a single night. Good prostitutes are expensive.”

Basil’s opinion of the Swords of Saint George took a nosedive. Were they truly so desperate as to enlist trash like him? “Why did you do it?”

“Money, satisfaction… power.” The hitman shrugged. “I was very small inside and killing made me feel bigger. I thought it earned me respect.”

“It’s people like you who are bringing down Bulgaria,” Basil said with disdain. “We could have been so much more without your kind.”

“I know,” Zlatan replied with a sigh. To his limited credit, he sounded genuinely ashamed of himself. “I was the scum of the earth, ain’t gonna deny it. If Hell exists, I’ve probably earned a bloody one-way ticket twice over.”

“You probably have, yes,” Basil said, spitting on the ground.

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Zlatan looked at his saliva on the grass for a few seconds, and then swiftly returned to staring at Shumen. “When the dungeons appeared and monsters rained down the sky, all the money I’d made, the respect from the bosses above and the mooks below… nothing mattered anymore. I figured God was finally getting off His Throne and starting Judgment Day.”

Basil didn’t bother answering. He heard Shellgirl shout in the background; he guessed she must have pulled ahead in the Monopoly match.

“Many of us in the business went to the Church on Easter or holidays.” Zlatan chuckled darkly. “We had rituals with the saints and everything for rites of passage. Seems so fucking stupid to me now. Like children playing cowboys and Indians.”

Basil snorted. “I’m sure you people took the ten commandments as loose guidelines rather than laws.”

“Yeah. We were just paying lip service because tradition demanded it. But it’s only when the world ended that I prayed for real.” Zlatan glanced up at the aurora-tainted sky. “God didn’t listen to me. One monster brought down the club I was partying in. I was buried alive and a rock shattered my ankle.”

Basil glanced at the man’s limping leg. “How did you survive?”

“Cops and firemen cleared out the debris after killing the monsters,” Zlatan explained. “I still remember my savior’s face when I pulled out the rock squeezing me. The club I was in was a mafia hotspot. When he looked at me, he immediately knew who I was. What I was. I could tell he was strongly considering leaving me for dead. And I would have deserved it.”

“But he didn’t,” Basil guessed, his voice softening. “He saved your worthless life anyway, because it was the right thing to do.”

“Yeah. Yeah, he did.” Zlatan’s jaw clenched and his cold eyes filled with sorrow. “It… it spooked me, you know? You can’t go through that shit and continue as if nothing ever happened. It makes you think about everything all over.”

Yes, it did. “What next?”

“The medics cured me, though they couldn’t heal my leg. Not fully at least. Told me there were other people buried under debris, that the country was collapsing, and that there were monsters everywhere. My gut told me I should probably skip town. My mouth asked ‘how can I help?’” Zlatan chuckled, as if reminiscing of a joke. “One thing led to another, and before I knew it I was fighting to protect the very people I once extorted money from.”

Basil thought back to the battle at Château-Muloup in France. The dregs of humanity had taken it over and sided with monsters. The Apocalypse had let the worst of their species crawl out of the woodwork… but it had let a few of them crawl out of the darkness.

Zlatan mistook Basil’s thoughtful silence for condemnation. “You hate me,” he said. “You think I should have died that day.”

“I’ve given a second chance to someone who murdered more people in a day than your entire organization in thirty years,” Basil replied, thinking of Benjamin Leroy. “What you’ve done is horrendous… but I believe in rehabilitation. Even from people like you.”

“I see. Then you’re like Boss Simeon then.” The man crossed his arms and rested them on his raised knees, waiting. “To answer your first question, I didn’t regret killing that woman back then… but I do now. T’was wrong.”

It was. But regret was the first step on the road to redemption, as they said.

“Boss!” Basil looked over his shoulder at Bugsy. The volcanipede kept his head raised while holding Monopoly cards in his pincer. “I sense a group approaching us from the city.”

“How many?” Basil asked.

“A dozen vehicles.”

At least the Swords weren’t cutting back on the welcoming committee.

The group didn’t have to wait for long. Within minutes they heard the noise of incoming jeeps as they closed into the clearing, swiftly avoiding the mines on the way. An armored personnel carrier which Basil immediately identified as a modernized Soviet BTR-60PB rode out of the woodworks, followed by two tanks and military cars. All of them were filled to the brim with soldiers in neo-medieval metal armor proudly displaying a stylized version of the Bulgarian coat of arms: a crowned golden lion rampant over a dark red shield, standing triumphant atop a defeated dragon.

It amused Basil to see armored knights with firearms riding modern vehicles, though a few carried rune-encrusted swords, spears, and hammers. They immediately surrounded the Bohens and formed a defensive perimeter. Half the team looked ready to open fire at the first provocation–Steve and his Gehenna Cannon included–and Plato’s paw reached out for Joyeuse, but Basil calmed them by raising his hand.

Eventually, a knight better equipped than the others stepped out of the APC. His red plate armor was lined with gold and shining runes. Brillant, angelic wings of light glittered from his shoulder. His left hand rested on a sheathed sword’s pommel while the right held a double-edged silver spear. His helmet’s visor was raised, revealing the face of an old man whom Basil would peg as in his sixties. A short white beard grew out of a wrinkled face, and his blue eyes were as sharp as they were filled with warmth.

The man looked every bit like a paladin… because he was one.

Simeon Nicholae, Swords of Saint George Guildmaster

Level 50 [Humanoid] (Priest of God 20/Paladin 20/Dragonknight 8/Spearman 2).

Guild: Swords of Saint George (Order of the Lion).

Zlatan, who had remained seated on the grass so far, immediately bolted to his feet. He nearly tripped up on his lame leg and barely managed to catch himself. “Boss?” he asked, his spine stiffening. “You came yourself?”

“When they told me they had picked out your magical signature, I decided I had to see it for myself.” The paladin leader immediately patted his subordinate’s shoulder with his left hand. “It is good to see you alive and well, my friend. What happened to the rest of your unit?”

“I’m…” Zlatan’s jaw tightened. “I’m sorry. They only spared me because… because I had Crafter levels.”

“I see.” The paladin’s eyes squinted in sorrow. “How dreadful… We will mourn them later, but for now, you must rest. You are safe now.”

The Swords of Saint George’s leader waved at one of his soldiers, a medic from the look of it, and entrusted Zlatan to them. He then moved to face Basil. The paladin appraised him in silence, threatening to extend a hand but nervously clenching his fingers instead.

Somehow, Basil found the old knight’s hesitation quite funny. “I don’t bite, you know?”

“Vasi would say otherwise,” Plato quipped. “I’m sure he’s jealous of your armor and halberd swagger.”

“I apologize,” Simeon said before finding the courage to shake Basil’s hand. “I’m Simeon Nicholae, the Guildmaster of the Swords of Saint George. It is an honor to meet you in person, Mr. Bohen.”

“You’ve heard of me?” Basil asked with a frown. The old knight sounded like someone who had just found himself sharing a ride with Keanu Reeves and wasn’t certain if it was proper to address him casually.

“I was in contact with General Leblanc and the western alliance before the last Incursion disrupted our communications.” The paladin smiled kindly. “Your exploits made our people very proud.”

“Exploits?” Shellgirl gushed with pride. “We’re famous!”

“It was nothing,” Basil replied, trying to stay modest.

“We just beat three gods, killed two of them, and blew up one of the Horseman of the Apocalypse with a nuke,” Plato deadpanned. “Anybody else would have done the same in our situation.”

“And then we ate Santa’s deers!” Rosemarine chirped happily. “With pepper sauce!”

Simeon stared blankly at the team, his eyes blinking as he registered his words. Basil could tell he was trying to see if the Bohens were kidding or serious.

“You know,” Basil said, trying to change the subject. “I really wanted to become a Paladin, but lacked the elemental affinities. I’m kinda jealous.”

“Between us, I had never wielded a sword in life until the System showed up,” Simeon said with a chuckle. “I didn’t have access to many classes then.”

Garud cleared his throat. “Should we stay in the open?” he asked. Since none of the knights looked at him nor the Bohens warily, Basil assumed that they were used to tamed monsters. “Watchers were shadowing us all the way to this city. We make for an enticing target.”

“Yes, yes, of course.” Simeon straighted up. “Allow me to welcome you in Shumen. I hope we may collaborate in freeing our homeland from the invaders despoiling it.”

“It’ll be a pleasure,” Basil agreed with a nod. However, there was one subject he needed to address first. “If I may ask… I’ve been looking for my mother, Aleksandra Bohen. Could I ask for help in locating her?”

“You won’t need to look far.” Simeon smiled warmly. “Your mother is here in Shumen, Mr. Bohen.”

What? Basil froze up in shock. “I thought she was in Varna?”

“Haven’t you heard?” Simeon frowned in confusion. “General Leblanc asked us to put your mother in contact with you, so she was evacuated to Shumen alongside other VIPs when the tide turned against us in Varna. The poor woman, she worried you might have died when we lost communications.”

“She’s… alive?” Basil cleared his throat as he tried to regain his cool. He could feel the eyes of his friends and allies watching at his back. “My mother is alive and well?”

“She is safe and sound,” Simeon confirmed with a kind nod. “Do you wish to visit her now? I hoped to discuss military operations with you, but it can wait.”

“Yes, please lead me to her.” Basil wouldn’t wait any longer. “Right now.”

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