Apocalypse: Fairy System, Macronomicon [ebook offline .TXT] 📗

one as armed as I? That doesn’t… Kol’s critical thought process was shoved aside by a wave of trust and familiarity. Alarmed, he reflexively gripped his sword for an instant before complacency overwhelmed him.

“Okay,” Kol said. He felt as though they’d known each other for years...although Kol didn’t really know the man’s name. My mysterious friend, he thought to himself, a faint bit of humor touching his face.

Kol sat down, whereupon the man offered him a cup of tea. He accepted the cup with his left hand, his right hand stubbornly affixed to the handle of his sword. Kol tried to make himself let go, but his grip refused to loosen.

“Tough nut to crack, aren’t you?” the well-dressed keegan asked, gold thread shimmering in his robe.

“I’m sorry, I’m being rude,” Kol said, trying once again to let go of his sword. If anything, his hand managed to draw the blade an inch or two, which was even ruder. Stop it, he’s a friend!

“Nonsense.” The keegan waved him off. “I like my experiments to have a certain amount of manliness, a sort of...mental fortitude,” he said, pounding himself on the chest. “I must say, you’re doing quite well.” He eyed Kol’s trembling fist as the sword scraped another inch out of the scabbard.

“So, my friend,” the keegan said, gathering his robe and sitting across from Kol. “Do you have anyone that will come looking for you?”

“No, I’m an orphan, and I have no lovers,” Kol said, a faint screaming echoing in the back of his mind, almost distracting him.

“That’s sad, albeit convenient.”

“Don’t be sad. My father died when I was in my twenties, so it’s not that bad. I’ve never been homeless or anything.”

The sword scraped a bit further out.

“Oh?” the man asked, taking another sip of his tea. “What do you do for a living?”

“Kill people, professionally. Although I take side jobs.”

Scrape.

“Well, I suppose that explains why you’re struggling so hard.” The keegan fell into thought, tapping the side of his teacup. Something seemed to occur to him when Kol’s sword was about halfway unsheathed.

“What kind of side jobs?”

“Finding people, usually. I sometimes run recovery missions for the government or nobles whose children have gotten lost in the Death Wilds, that sort of thing.”

“How do you find people? Do you have some kind of divination variant Core?”

Kol shook his head. “I’m a courier above level fifty. I can find anyone if I have a letter addressed to them.”

Scrape.

The keegan laughed and clapped his hands together. “Courier!? That’s fantastic. I’ve never heard of a courier getting past level forty. Well, that does it. I think you’ve got the solution to both our problems. What’s your name, son?”

“Kol.”

Scrape. The sword was almost all the way out of its sheath now. Once it was, he would...do something with it? Kol wasn’t entirely sure.

The keegan leaned forward and put his finger on Kol’s pommel, pushing the blade back into the sheath. Internally, the screaming grew louder, and Kol’s other hand began to misbehave, grabbing his friend’s wrist.

They sat there like that, hands locked as Kol’s trembling hands tried to dislodge the keegan from his blade, staring into each other's eyes with an intensity Kol hadn’t felt in years. Not since his father had passed away.

“Nice to meet you, Kol. My name’s Xen, and your skillset just saved your life. I’d like to hire you to find some people, and possibly kill them, then bring something they owe back to me.”

“It’s fifty bulbs for a rescue, two hundred for a kill—unless they’re noble or well-connected. Then it’s five hundred, non-negotiable.” Kol’s mouth spat out his standard rates on reflex.

“How about I let you live?” the wizard asked, raising a brow.

“Not…good…enough,” Kol forced himself to say, the faint screaming buried in his subconscious bubbling up for a desperate instant and blowing off the keegan’s control over… The placid expression returned to Kol’s face unbidden.

Xen cocked his head before amusement flooded his expression.

“You know what? I think I like you, Kol. We could be good friends.”

“We are friends, though?” Kol said, frowning, his right hand trying to gouge out the man’s eyes, albeit at an eighth his usual speed.

Xen batted the hand aside with an amused look. “I’m going to give you control of your body back. Don’t freak out.”

Suddenly the dopy, trusting personality that had dominated his mind was gone, Kol was sharp again, and he was aware of exactly how dangerous this man was. His arm twitched for a moment as he suppressed the impulse to lash out. The likelihood of catching the wizard off guard with a quick-draw was too slim.

He would wait until the odds were in his favor. Preferably from a mile away, with a human fifty caliber sniper rifle. Kol’s fingers slowly unclasped from his blade, but they never strayed far from the handle.

“Cool as a desert cucumber,” the keegan said, leaning back. “I like that.”

“Xen, the sindio?” Kol asked to clarify, recalling the bedtime stories, the tales of horror, death and destruction that spanned thousands of years. Emptied cities, slain kings worn as trophies, foolish heroes turned into wandering abominations.

“That’s me.”

Kol stuffed the mindless terror urging him to escape way down and focused on the trait that the monster had found endearing. That was the path to survival.

“Good. You should be able to afford my rates.”

A Word From the Author

Hi there! If you’re reading this, chances are good that you just finished this whole book! I’m a simple guy who likes writing protagonists who use their brainmeats to solve their problems instead of wrapping their fists in ever-more-ridiculous ‘techniques’ and punching harder.

Maybe you’re like me. Maybe you like reading about wizards that behave like proper wizards instead of DBZ clones.

If that’s the case, I