The Legend of Randidly Ghosthound

Although he had his perfectly sinister island in the sky floating only a short distance away, out of habit, Randidly returned to the roof of town hall and looked up through the drifting clumps of moss spirits to the stars above. Perhaps it was because of the star arrival of the cold to New Earth, but the light from the stars was especially bright tonight.

No matter what atrocities occurred during the day, the passage of time would continue to generate brief spans of beauty that could break a watcher’s heart.

As the pale light filtered down around him, Randidly idly wondered if there was still a space to explore around New Earth or whether what he was looking up toward was an entirely different space in the universe. He made a mental note to ask someone more familiar with astronomy whether the skies had changed since the System arrived. He tried looking for the big dipper but wasn’t exactly sure what to make of the fact that he couldn’t find it.

Randidly raised his right hand and attempted to seize the unassuming beauty of the sky. His three images spread outward and pressed down against the surrounding space. His Nether flooded outward like a swarm of locusts and devoured everything but those strands of starlight. Yet just as soon as his fingers were about to brush against the captive light, it faded.

Without much hope of success, Randidly continually attempted the impossible. Failing didn’t dissuade him; he was simply trying to find his place in this world.

As he had long expected, Tatiana eventually came up to the roof to find him around midnight. His hands fell to his sides and his images faded away as he heard her approach. She was carrying a stack of paper that was covered with hastily written handwriting; clearly the day had not been a restive one. Randidly decided that he would wait another day or two before talking to Tatiana about his idea to host a birthday party on Kharon only 15 days from now.

I couldn’t do this without her, I should find some way to thank her. Randidly reflected. In the past, Mrs. Hamilton also fulfilled the role of enabler to make sure that Randidly’s activities in Donnyton wouldn’t cause unnecessary ripples. But ultimately, there was something extremely parental about the way that Mrs. Hamilton had assisted him. Meanwhile, Tatiana was here because she believed in his vision. And having her support behind him had made quite a bit of difference in his ability to affect the wider Earth.

“Are you prepared for the report?” Tatiana asked lightly. In her tone, Randidly heard the slightly exasperated expectation that he might say no.

Inwardly, Randidly sighed. He needed to be better at not seeming annoyed during the briefings. Even if he didn’t know how long he would remain on Earth, while he was here he should not dismiss the importance of these sessions. Only by understanding the situation could he better adjust his strategies to prepare Earth for the Calamities that were coming. “Of course.”

Randidly rubbed his right thumb against the smooth metal knuckles of his left hand. These hands, despite everything, were still the hands of a human. He could no more grab starlight than anyone else on Earth. As hard as it is to stick to this… the reason I am doing these things is to prepare the Earth. Even if the cost-

“The initial reports put the death toll at thirteen thousand one hundred and three,” Tatiana said as she looked down at her paper. “We expect that number will be updated to something close to fourteen thousand as they begin to excavate the buildings that collapsed during the final portion of the fighting as the Nemesai made their escape.”

Randidly released a breath. With a single thought, he could still see the bloodsoaked stands in the Grim Chimera’s memory. These are deaths I could have prevented. But… it is not my responsibility to save humanity from everything; that is why they have governments and Orders outside of me. And this… will prove that those organizations are currently failing. Maybe… this will be the wakeup call that the Earth needs.

But it’s still so hard to know I could have prevented this and chose not to…

“The Order Valorem is coming under heavy fire due to the widespread reports of Straud controlling almost half of their number during the worst of the fighting. The leader of the Order Valorem, Mark Rowel, has admitted that he recently had a very lax open recruitment into his Order so that he had additional manpower to promise Zone 1 for the game. Needless to say, calls for the Order Valorem to replace the Order Ducis as head of the Orders have ceased. Especially after Naffur and Valor were seen subduing the Rakshasi.”

Randidly forced out a chuckle. “They take interesting vacations.”

As she looked at Randidly, Tatiana pursed her lips. “Seems to me that they take after the leader of their Order in that respect.”

When Randidly couldn’t figure out how to respond to her veiled accusation, Tatiana flipped to the next page of her notes and continued to speak. “Theodora Greyman has voluntarily stepped down as chairperson of the World Council. In addition, she’s been widely criticized for forcing Alana Donal, who is widely regarded as the hero of the day by everyone involved, to endure attacks to defend against the second attack of Mjolnir.

“Other Zones have stepped forward and pointed out that Mjolnir is of very little use against monsters and basically only operates at a threat against entities with fixed bases: in this case, the other Zones. There are calls for the weapon to be dismantled as a show of sincerity on the part of Zone 1 to work with the rest of the world.”

Randidly nodded lightly. It was never going to be possible to say that these lessons were worth the price in lives that the world paid, but it was good to see that people had learned from the experience. Although Randidly understood that some of it was political posturing on the part of the other Zones for more leverage. “And from our allies at the scene… any serious injuries?”

He had asked almost reflexively because he knew first hand of the strength of everyone involved. But almost immediately, Tatiana’s mouth twisted.

“...during the last stretch of fighting, Kiersty was heavily injured.” Tatiana’s voice sounded tired. Randidly’s emerald gaze sharpened. “She was defending civilians. Luckily, Nathan was there to stabilize her almost immediately… but the only reason she survived was that someone else threw their body in front of her at the last second. One of the football players, Jake Tuck. He did not survive.”

“Who struck the blow against Kiersty?” Randidly very purposefully suppressed his rage and tried to keep his voice even. But the Grim Chimera image was already seeping steadily outward. The shadows on the roof grew dark and dangerous. Its form flickered behind Randidly, its huge claw curled maliciously.

Even if these hands couldn’t catch moonlight, they could rip almost anything to pieces.

“Decklan Hyde. But… he died shortly afterward.” Tatiana replied.

“He… what…?” Suddenly, Randidly was bewildered. From the Grim Chimera’s memories, he had known that Decklan had been there. But the man had seemed to be completely broken by his emotions. Why would he suddenly attack Kiersty of all people?

“From what we can tell, he was practically deranged right before his death,” Tatiana said. “He… just as Alana was leading everyone to fight against the Nemesai, he moved and picked up the item that was created by Straud’s ritual, what they are calling the Lifeblood Accumulation. When he did so… according to evidence provided by Nathan, his Class mutated, resulting in a severe amount of psychic damage. He just lashed out, attacking everything in sight.

“Most of the structural damage at the end was done by Decklan himself, and Alana trying to confine him. The Nemesai hung around, still trying to injure Alana. It was only because Kiersty stepped up and incurred his ire that Hank was finally able to put a bullet into his temple…”

Randidly pressed his lips together. After the Grim Chimera had dealt with Straud, he had kept a little bit of his attention on the stadium, but it was enough that he only felt a small amount of life lost after he had intervened. He hadn’t been closely paying attention to the destruction of property at all, so he had missed this entire portion of the fight. “And after he died… that item…?”

“Came back out of his body. And when it reappeared, the Nemesai made a break to seize it and then escape… but they were prevented from doing so by Ace taking the item.”

Randidly considered that. “Did Ace use it?”

“Thankfully no, but it’s hard to believe that man won’t try to figure out a way to control it. His erraticism is quite well documented.” Tatiana shook her head.

“Better than the Nemesai getting it back,” Randidly sighed and released most of his anger in the long exhale. All he felt was a strange bitterness in his chest. “Anything else?”

“The Ogres are beginning their migration… although I’m slightly concerned that the area we originally envisioned for them won’t be enough. Wolfram has been extremely helpful in that regard due to his extremely meticulous notes, but-”

“Wolfram?” Randidly’s eyebrow quirked up in amusement.

“That’s the Ogre Lord’s name,” Tatiana said primly, ignoring the teasing look in Randidly’s eyes. “BUT, his records also keeps track of the larger population. So we will soon have almost six million ogres settling in the mountain range. Which is a bit more than expected”

“Six million?” That number earned Randidly’s shock. Of course, that was a small number compared to the population of old Earth, but after so many years of culling due to the System, the number seemed enormous. “Do we… do we know what the current population of New Earth is?”

Tatiana nodded in sympathy. “Perhaps only eight million. And almost half of that was only added recently, though the bubble cities that were relatively politically united returning back to the fold of New Earth. Still, there are a lot of migratory groups of some size outside of the established Zones, so it is entirely possible that we are missing the mark on the population estimate.”

“It is foolish to expect such a large group to not participate in world politics, but because of how monolithic the ogres seem to be, introducing such an entity to Earth…” Randidly rubbed his brow and grimaced.

Tatiana just laughed. “We have our work cut out for us. Even if there is no one to fight, there will always be messes to clean up. The System hasn’t changed that.”

Randidly sighed loudly. “I would much prefer the fights.”

“You are going to need to engage more socially with the world if you want things to develop as you wish.” Tatiana used her stack of papers to prod Randidly’s side. “Otherwise, you will be more of a foreign idea that a real person to people. Already-”

Then Tatiana fell silent and twisted her mouth. Randidly’s eyes practically glowed in the darkness as he turned to regard her. “...I suppose that’s a question that I didn’t ask. After the fight at the stadium… what are people saying about me? There is no way that people didn’t realize I could have helped further… and didn’t.”

For all that Tatiana had clearly intended to avoid the subject altogether, she did not flinch now that they were talking about it. She lifted her chin and spoke clearly. “They say that you aren’t even human anymore. That your Level has gotten so high… that you’ve become something like a Champion, or Nemesai, or Village Spirit. You’ve reached the next stage of the System. That even though you could have clearly saved those people… why would you bother? You have bigger fish to fry. You are preparing for the Calamity.

“Most people aren’t attacking you for it, but… people are afraid. They suddenly think that the fact that you haven’t appeared means… you don’t care about the Earth any longer. That in your eyes, weakness means that they don’t deserve protection.”

Even if he had somewhat been expecting such a reaction, it hurt to hear. Randidly could only laugh bitterly. “...honestly, they aren’t that far off the mark. But I don’t refuse to help because they are weak… I refuse to help because they chose this path. I will not defend them from their own choices.”

For several seconds, Tatiana was silent. Then, she shook her head. “I know how hard this is for you. I’m so sorry you have to bear all this pain.”

Then, after bowing, Tatiana left the roof. Randidly was once more alone with only the illusive starlight. And the light slanting so casually over the shadowy roof was more beautiful than he could bear.

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