Yeah, with my current level of (or lack of) control, this technique was not to be messed with. Not without a lot of time that I didn’t have—and being that I had no time, this was where I would stop for the day. Plus my arm hurt? Ouch?
We were all packed and ready for our return to the frontier, but the pimpin’ king wanted to talk to us after breakfast. Ew? I didn’t care what he had to say. Unless it involved the frontier, it had nothin’ to do with me.
“I couldn’t help him even if I wanted to! I may be upright and walking, but I’m hanging on by a thread. Everything hurts. I need to rest and recuperate.”
Oh yeah, I should probably mention that I had visited the Cathedral’s library off-screen. Lol. Anyway, I read every one of those books from cover to cover and found that everything linked back to the frontier. While the why evaded me, it’d become apparent that all magic—all monsters, all the raw magic (or “magi”) in the air and soil—naturally congregated in the frontier. Monsters were all but unheard of in the lands bordering the seas in the west, and when any were spotted, it was in an inexorable march east. East of east was the Kingdom, and further east and across the mountains was the frontier—the tip of the continent and the convergence point of all its magic.
“Wait a sec—I might be a filleting master now! I should whip up a fishy dishy for breakfast.”
The frontier also supplied much of the continent’s water. Rivers and groundwaters trickled down from the frontier and across the land. Analysis in these ancient books claimed dungeon spawn might hitch a ride on these subterranean waterways and permeate the rest of the world. Many of the world’s dungeons, in fact, had been proven to lie atop groundwater channels—but these days, no one was checking anymore. Dungeons simply germinated, creating monsters that crawled back to the frontier and filled the ground with more magic. Rinse and repeat. The western half of the continent grew fat and happy in relative safety, while the eastern portions suffered through the dungeon generation cycle. Meanwhile, every other nation forsook the frontier in its plight, stole its few valuables, and monopolized its enterprises. It was a miracle the frontier hadn’t collapsed entirely. You’d think most similarly challenged nations would!
“We’re having fish for breakfast, he says while making direct eye contact with me.”
Throughout the history of this universe, heroes took up arms and quested to the frontier whenever the situation became too untenable. The flames of rebellion were quelled; dungeons were destroyed; the bravest of the brave made it to the far reaches of the eastern lands and went down in legend as the six saints. They stood on the shoulders of their comrades whose names had been lost to history, the countless felled and forgotten. Back west, the rich and powerful grew ever fatter on the heady ambrosia of eastern peace; here in the east, the death toll climbed inexorably. While the continent was safe, the frontier people were slaughtered.
“Nah, I was just wondering if it was chill for you to eat fish. Like with your family and all. Wouldn’t want you to chomp down on a relative.”
This was why the Empire’s tendrils had never reached the Kingdom. The Empire was content to keep the east a politically fangless foe and focus its belligerency on the continent’s northern and western quarters. Peace meant money in the right pockets—western pockets. Peace meant prosperity back home; peace meant eschewing military and financial expenses. Subjugate the rowdy northern nations with their piracy and plundering! Conquer and leave the conquered to the dogs. Let the eastern lands brave the dungeons; live in peace and let the east fight whatever petty wars they will.
“My family’s back on Earth—and they’re not fish!”
The continent had once been a single, unified empire united in its fight against the dungeons, but time had caused it to split into a poorer eastern bloc and a wealthy western bloc. Regional infighting under local warlords had spawned chaos; the empire toppled and fell. The group efforts to combat the frontier dissolved, and the page opened on a new chapter of history—the continent’s downfall. Nationalism and self-interest had led the west to desert the east—let them fight the monsters and stifle the threats while we enjoy our peace and grow conceited on our own cleverness, the thinking went. Let us sow a deadly crop of complacency and reap our own demise. The continent ought to be an empire; it’s only right, and that being the case, it’s only right that we be the ones to make it so. Yes, we need a new empire with us as the head. Let us gobble up every nation on the western shores, and once we’ve conquered everything there is to conquer, why, what’s next?
“Stop bullying Fis—Chika-chan.”
“Hey! I heard that!”
Book Club President encouraged imperial conquest as a waste of the Empire’s military resources, but the way I saw it, any military resource not spent in eastern defense was another point for the enemy. If the west wanted to wipe itself out with infighting, that was fine with us. Why funnel away eastern resources better spent on monsters to waste on western enemies?
“Man, this war stuff sure sucks.”
The west could help themselves. I was going back to the frontier. They could go rot on their own time. Of the eastern nations, I knew of the Merchant Kingdom and the Elf Kingdom—and was interested in both. I’d investigate those in my own time. The frontier came first.
I still had so much to do. I hadn’t even finished learning all the secrets of the relics I’d purloined in the Theocracy! So much to do, so many dungeon emperors to do in carriages, so many glares to bathe in over breakfast—so little time!