A Gamer's Guide 382

“I see,” Mr Judge said, repeating himself.

“I can put a stop to that,” Kitty said, but there was no bite to it, not even any bark, it was only a silly little joke and Ester treated it like that by laughing. 

Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Her hand flew up to cover her mouth and she stared wildly at the others partaking in this neat little chat, hoping against hope that no one had hear her make a sound like a choked chipmunk. 

But Kitty wasn’t looking at her at all, and Mr Judge was paying her the same compliment.

Silently, not daring to comment on it, she sank down in her comfortable chair, relaxing a little.

He really is very nice, she thought to herself in the privacy of her own head.

“I see, I see,” Mr Judge said, and now his repeating was really becoming quite comical, but Kitty’s annoyance even more so. Emboldened by what had just happened, Ester chuckled. They didn’t notice, making her feel like a superspy. To punctuate his repeating, Mr Judge began nodding. Finally, he said, “This is your crime, yes.”

“Being evil?” Kitty said, grinning like a child’s drawing of a sun. 

“Your perjury,” Mr Judge repeated, and now she really recognized the tone of his voice. He was talking in the same way he did while discussing recent matters with his lawyers, reasoning the how and why of crime waves and crime doers. All analytical, while still being strangely compassionate. She’d watched him do his work for a while now, so she knew he didn’t like blaming crime on personal thoughts. That was recessive thinking, he called it. Instead, one ought to inspect what a person lacked, rather than how they were aberrant. A little smile had found itself onto Mr Judge’s lips, and he appeared very pleased, just like when he’d resolved the matter of why Garm son of Hurrum kept falling asleep in the gutter every night instead of his bed. “This is why you lied, isn’t it?”

“What are you even talking about?” 

“You did it because you thought it was the right thing, and when you realized it wasn’t, you lied to minimize the emotional damage for all of us. That’s it, yes. It had always confused me, all these years, why you would lie so brazantly about something so stupid…” His eyebrows squished together. “Was it his highness Simel?”

“Th—that’s…”

“I’ve read the reports several times over, and that confused me too. Sparing Simel at Acheron could have been a fluke, reasonably speaking, but bringing him across the continent to get him to the Imperial Capital?” He shook his head. “It didn’t fit. This does, however. You wanted to spare him the pain of mourning you, and us the confusion of doing even more paperwork.”

Ester watched with mild surprise as Kitty transformed into a ghost. “Um. N—no.”

“Even now,” Mr Judge said, too enraptured in his explanation to notice that his subject was prematurely entering the afterlife, “you’re trying to make me feel justified in throwing you out. If you act like the beast I saw back then, I can banish you and your friend without having to wrestle with any moral implications. All neat and tidy. Is that what you want me to do? Throw you out into the cold, cursing and condemning you all the while?”

“No, he doesn’t,” little Lett piped up, making Kitty’s ghostly form waver even more. “That would be an awfully stupid thing to do after he spent all of last night convincing me that pushing people away in that manner was dumb and idiotic. Right, Kitty?”

Kitty’s transparent form shook like the meek flame of a candle before returning to full tangibility in a matter of moments. He chuckled weakly. “Heh, yeah. It would be, wouldn’t it?” A pause hung in the air, lasting for what Ester counted to be six seconds. “Right. Yeah, that’s… You’re right. I’m awfully cowardly, aren’t I?”

“Perhaps,” Mr Judge said.

“But you’re also nice,” Ester added, because it felt as though someone had to say it.

His mumbled “thanks” still didn’t seem to fully agree with her impression, but she was fine with that. Right now, she was fine with a lot of things.

Slapping his thighs, Mr Judge stood up. The sound had made Kitty flinch, and it took him a full two seconds to recover from it enough to notice that Mr Judge had risen at all. “Alright, then. Thank you for clearing that up, Fennrick. It’s been keeping me up at night for a while now, but I’m glad to hear I can continue being an optimist.” His eyes moved to Lett, who had since his speech returned to sipping soup straight from the bowl. “Stay here for a few days.”

Kitty held up his hands in surrender. “Oh, no, we really couldn’t—”

“Don’t feign politeness, it’s rude.”

“Is it? But… but isn’t all politeness feigned? How am I supposed to…?”

Ignoring Kitty’s spiraling descent into social existentialism, Mr Judge continued. “Recuperate, and once you feel all better, we’ll send you off with some provisions for a safe journey.”

“...You’d really do all that for me? I am still a wanted criminal, you know. Just because I thought I was doing the right thing doesn’t mean I’m exonerated from all that stuff.”

“Would you prefer if I did it for entirely selfish reasons?”

“Honestly? Kind of, yeah.”

“I suppose you would. In that case, I’ll put you to work for these two days. Patrol the city alongside Iester’s party. Earn the food we are to give you.” He smiled. “Is that better?”

Despite himself, Kitty returned the smile. “Yeah. Thanks.”

“Think nothing of it. And… I hope you’ll have a good time as my guest.”

Regarding that, Ester felt fairly certain he did.

Though there was a bit of initial tension, Kitty soon assimilated into the general way of things, joining Ester and the rest of them on their daily patrols and helping out around the castle in the down time. She found him more and more endearing by the day, and on the third day, she even felt comfortable enough to laugh at his jokes, even though she sounded like a choked chipmunk. He never made note of it or called her anything mean like that. 

Even Lett took the time to join them during these times, though the contrast between the armored-to-the-teeth humans and the one little goblin was frankly laughable. Not that she personally laughed at it though because that would have been mean and she knew it, so she didn’t. 

A few days into their stay the third member of their party decided to join, who was an angel of some sort? Kitty tried to give some bogus cover story about how he was a human who had become a dragon who had become a former but she knew better. She knew that he was a dragon who had become a four-winged dragon who had become a four-winged two-armed dragon angel who had become a four-winged angel human thing. It was disturbing and she did not like to look at him even if he did look like her movie crush Arnold Schwarzenegger. 

Surprisingly enough the angel guy was nice as well, and Kitty and Ross (who was the de-facto tailor-person in the party) ended up sewing a cape for him that could cover both his wings and horns. They still made a big bulge though so even while wearing it he still looked like a hulking monster of some sort, but it was charming, so she found it sweet. Other than the cape he mostly wore a toga though because he thought everything else was uncomfortable.

In the evenings the whole merry gang would play cards, either all together or by splitting into two groups. Her friends had to teach Kitty and his friends how to play some games like poker and Texas hold ‘em but in the end they could all play together and it was very fun. 

She also found out one day that Kitty was actually Swedish! She was from Norway so they had a little to bond over with that, though not as much as she would have hoped because she didn’t really play video games like he did. Gamers freaked her out a little. She didn’t tell Kitty that though since he might have started sulking over it and she didn’t like the thought of seeing him hunching his back like that again. That was spooky.

In regards to him personally, a week passed without much happening, because he was taking it easy and all. However, Ester was still Mr Judge’s proxy, so she ended up a little bit in the middle of it all when it came to the situation in the world.

She tried not to think too much about it in the evenings when she was off the clock but it was hard not to. Her knowledge of the Empire’s geography was solely relegated to which judges and archjudges presided where, so when armies started marching and besieging cities and laying waste to villages she didn’t know how far away they were or if she should have been worried. Mr Judge was pretending not to be worried but one night Kitty had asked her if everything was okay because Mr Judge had started, in his words, ‘reeking of fear.’

But at the time things were nice and Kitty was pleasant and everyone was having fun so she decided not to think about it too much. Kitty didn’t seem bothered at all by any of it, and he was the cause, so it must have been a temporary thing and nothing big.

Even when people on the forums started warning that it was best to get out of the Empire while things were still brewing (and not bubbling and boiling) she kept her spirits up.

It would all be fine. She was certain of it.

After staying for eight days, Kitty left, walking because his angel friend still didn’t know how to transform back into a dragon. They waved them off and smiled and were happy to have met such an interesting man.

The next day, the city was sieged.

The attack had happened at night, with no word of warning given whatsoever. This was highly unusual for the time, as general declarations of intent were to be expected, especially in regards to attack that involved the civilian populace. Time had to be given for evacuations to be conducted and mercy tax to be provided. The brutality of the siege’s nature was only rivalled by those of its attacking soldiers, who soon after taking the city began demanding money and valuables from the populace. When these could no longer be provided, general pillaging ran amok and fires were started. Many citizens had attempted to find sanctuary in the three long-standing churches in the city. 

This was an ill decision for many reasons, chiefly among them being the recent rumor having spread, announcing that the anathema of hope was visiting any place with a city in it in order to burn the church and lay waste to the city. Among those who feared that their city would become like Acheron or Oran, moral panic urged them to burn their churches before the anathema of hope could do it for them. 

Soldiers brutalizing heretical cities therefore showed no mercy to places of worship. The doors were bolted with nails and debris and lit torches thrown through the stained glass windows. 

Some citizens, perhaps remembering the presence of powerful human warriors, ran for the castle. Unfortunately, with the moat empty and the drawbridge replaced with an ordinary stone bridge, this escape was likewise temporary. 

Lion, Ross, Gravy and Hum stood alongside what few soldiers Judge Ramthreig of Bramtown had on call atop that very bridge, fighting the oncoming forces while the Judge attempted to lead as many civilians as he could bring across a seldom used path out the back of the castle. Unfortunately, their escape was soon discovered, and the Judge was slain during jeering shouts of heretic and traitor. He died not knowing which side of the conflict was to blame, with over half of his civilian population joining him.

As for his human associates, one would fall in battle while the three remaining survivors were captured as prisoners of war. Another one would later perish following the injuries incurred during the battle. 

The two left, Hum and Gravy, would eventually attempt a daring escape, during which Gravy would lose his life as well. 

In the end, only Hum remained, as alone as she had been upon joining the tutorial.

At that time, however, she had felt mildly surprised, because she hadn’t been certain that she really was going to do it this time, but everyone was saying that you only ended up in the tutorial if you were going to die within the next twenty-four hours, so that meant there was a reality where Ester Rhenman at fourteen years of age, had fallen asleep in her bed next to an empty pill bottle.

But she wasn’t in that reality. For a few months, that had made her very happy.

By the time she was alone again, this was no longer the case.