"Looks like I wasn't wrong about you."
Inside the softly lit restaurant, Caleb and Renata sat facing each other. It was supposed to be a celebration of her successful speech. Though it was called a celebration, there was no clinking of glasses, no smiles, and no especially strong sense of atmosphere. There were only two people quietly digging into their food.
At first, Renata had not been very hungry. Then Caleb handed her the menu. Looking at the dazzling variety of dishes on it, along with the terrifyingly high prices, she ended up just like Caleb, lowering her head and quietly eating.
"How does it taste?"
Caleb raised his head and looked at Renata, who had no sense of elegance right now at all. She was completely different from the ruthless demoness he had seen in the background story. Renata at this moment was even still very innocent. So when she heard the dishes were that expensive, she simply started digging in together with Caleb.
"When I was little, my family didn't have much money, so I've always liked expensive things."
"Even counting money is enjoyable to me!"
Renata excitedly waved her arm. Today's successful speech had far exceeded her expectations, and it had greatly encouraged her.
Acting governor! This was acting governor!
In simple terms, as long as Caleb was not there, Renata would take over all affairs. The feeling of holding great authority suited Renata very well.
However, right now, she was still a newcomer, so naturally, she had no real voice yet. Being kindhearted, she also knew that what the Undercity needed right now was not explosive growth, but a temporary period of slow growth, allowing some of the Undercity's old problems to gradually heal. After that, they could slowly plan for explosive growth.
After all, Caleb himself knew that with his own presence and the system's support, these things were only a matter of time.
Compared with comfortable Piltover, Zaun really was full of talent. Caleb could not understand it. Zaun was clearly so barren, yet it had produced talents like Singed, Viktor, Ekko, Jinx, and Renata. Meanwhile, Piltover, which embraced everything and allowed people to live comfortably, did not have many presentable scientific talents aside from Jayce and Orianna.
Perhaps Heimerdinger was too dazzling and too senior, making it difficult for other talents to stand out.
Caleb did not think too deeply about that. After all, the issue he needed to focus on now was the Freljord.
"Why do you have to go out?"
Renata's mouth was stuffed full of food, so her words came out muffled.
"Because..."
Caleb thought for a moment, but still could not come up with a decent excuse.
"Because my wish is world peace!"
After saying that, even Caleb could not help laughing.
But when he thought of the Freljord, Caleb's heart slowly began to sink. If Noxus's endless campaigns were fundamentally a problem of its imperial system, then the Freljord's problem was fundamentally one of resources.
In that bitterly cold land, food was never enough. There would always be people starving to death. What could they do? They could only raid, fight, and consume each other. Whether it was Demacia's ports or Noxus's fortresses, the starving people of the Freljord did not care.
So when Caleb went there, the first and most important requirement for stopping that internal conflict and achieving unity would be obtaining more resources.
That wish was fundamentally even harder than uniting the Twin Cities and preventing war. At least the Twin Cities had resources. The problem was only that Piltover distributed them unevenly. Caleb could snatch food from Piltover's mouth and feed it to the Undercity, balancing both sides.
But the Freljord was different. If Caleb wanted to change the Freljord's climate, he would probably have to go find a certain reclusive demigod who liked forging things on a mountain.
Worse still, even with the Freljord already lacking resources, it also had other races such as trolls.
It was extremely difficult.
But if he did not go to the Freljord, Caleb would never know what the situation there was really like.
There was another method, which was to wait for Shurima to rise, wait for Azir to defeat Noxus, then continue northward. At that point, under the power of the Ascended, there would not be much difference between unifying everyone and killing everyone.
But after thinking about it, Caleb figured he would probably have to wait forever and a day for that. By then, whether his tiny amount of rewards would be enough to resist the major events was still hard to say.
Caleb could not let that happen, especially considering that Harrowing, as well as his own trip to Shurima, had both been far from simple.
Planning ahead was a better habit than almost anything else.
After eating and drinking his fill, Caleb went out onto Piltover's streets to walk off the meal and, while he was at it, see whether there were any useful Freljordian goods around.
"Sir... sir..."
A pair of withered hands grabbed Caleb. The old man before him was terribly thin.
"Please help me, sir. Tell Azir... tell Azir I was wrong..."
"And you are?"
Caleb frowned slightly. He truly could not tell what kind of person this man in front of him was supposed to be.
"I am Xerath, sir. I have already repented for my mistakes. Please, please let him return my power, return my years to me..."
Caleb looked at the man before him, tears streaming down his aged face, and found it hard to imagine that when they had met before, this same man had once been so arrogant.
His battle with Azir had seemed endless. Only after Nasus reminded Caleb that the Darkin were essentially corrupted Ascended did Caleb bring out his weapon and summon Yaanogel to defeat him.
Looking at Xerath's current wretched state, Caleb felt not the slightest trace of pity. In fact, he had already understood why Azir had chosen to exile him rather than execute him on the spot.
"Your glory and your power should have reached their peak after that Ascension ritual, after Azir proposed abolishing slavery."
"Even though you were a slave, Azir treated you as an equal, like a brother."
"Xerath, a name meaning 'one who shares,' and yet in the end, you pursued power, pushed Azir off the dais, and monopolized that Ascended energy for yourself."
"The Sun Disc fell because of you. The city was destroyed because of you. Even the Ascended who guarded those ruins went mad because of you."
"After a great battle, after your defeat, after being sealed away, after having your power stripped from you, only then did you suddenly understand?"
Caleb's lips curved in disdain. He understood exactly what kind of person this was better than almost anyone.
"Your glory is long gone, and you only have this little bit of life left. Spend the rest of it in repentance."
Caleb did not bother with the fallen Xerath any further.
Now, Xerath's body was extremely weak, and he was only holding on through the powerful will he had forged over thousands of years of life. Caleb could not sense any stable rune energy inside his body either. Since Xerath could not even construct runes anymore, there naturally was no question of him being a threat.
Most likely, any ordinary passerby could take his life.
The legendary mage was long gone. The arcane energy life-form had also reached its end.
In the end, the old man, so thin his skin seemed stretched directly over his bones, watched Caleb leave with eyes filled with pointless regret.
Was Azir a hawk, a dove, or an incompetent chicken?
This handling of Xerath made the answer plain enough.
He had given Xerath time to regret, but he had not given Xerath even the slightest chance for that regret to be useful. These few months were not mercy. They were punishment. Punishment that forced Xerath to look upon a world that no longer had anything to do with him, then depart it with hatred and regret.
A coin spun through the air and lightly landed in Xerath's hand.
It turned out that a merchant had just walked past and, seeing how pitiful this beggar looked, had simply given him enough money for a meal.
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