"What are you doing, Jasmine?"
Jasmine had both hands on the hilt, feet planted as she held her sword firmly. A few meters behind her, Arthur (who was wearing a mask for some reason) had his hand on his own weapon, his face trying very hard to be unreadable but not quite getting there.
"You guys an adventurer duo now? That's great! Really great! I'm happy for y'all," Lymur followed up.
"Yeah, well, things happened, I suppose," Arthur replied. "Wait — how'd you know it was me?"
"Yes, yes. I suppose they do." Lymur did not answer his question.
"Don't change the topic, Lymur," Jasmine interjected as she sighed. "I'll return your question to you. What are you doing?"
"Well, I wasn't really trying to change the topic, and that aside..." Lymur looked at Jason, who basically just froze on the ground where he was sitting. Then back at Jasmine. "...It's really not what it looks like."
He looked at Jason's face again — the sweat, the wide eyes, his ghostly pale face — and tilted his head as he realized how unconvincing he sounded.
"Okay, okay... maybe it does look like that." He held up a hand. "But I swear I'm not doing this for no reason."
"Then would you mind telling me about it? I'm sure it'll do you no harm," Jasmine said. She hadn't moved the sword.
"Gladly," Lymur turned slightly toward the downed adventurers on the ground, then back to Jason, then to Jasmine again. "There was this really nice old lady called Lara whom I owed a great deal of debt and gratitude to for three years. Two days ago, she was killed on her own street. Collateral, they said, from two AA-class adventurers having an unserious fight." He paused and moved his lips to look like he was pointing at Jason. "That bitch over there was one of 'em."
Jasmine's eyes moved to Jason for a second.
"And before you found us just now," Lymur continued, "he was snapping the fingers of those adventurers on the ground. Oh, and all while they were bleeding out. And he was laughing, by the way. Do I sound so bad now?"
Arthur, who had been quietly watching from the sidelines, looked at Jason with an expression that seemed to mean he understood where Lymur was coming from.
Jason opened his mouth, probably to yap about excuses once again.
But a single look from Lymur shut him down before he could.
Jason closed his mouth again.
If the S-rank was boiling with rage, he was damn well good at hiding it — or so Arthur concluded.
Jasmine exhaled slowly. She lowered the sword, but didn't sheathe it. "I'm not saying he's innocent. I'm not even saying he deserves any better than this." She met Lymur's eyes directly. "I'm just asking if there's another way."
"There isn't."
"The courts — "
"Apparently having a hard time establishing culpability," Lymur cut her off with a sad smile. "That's the phrasing they used when I asked. I fact-checked it too and yeah — it was right."
Jasmine had nothing for that, and she seemed to know it.
"I know it's wrong," Lymur said. He said it with no hesitation, not even bothering to appeal to righteousness. "I want to be clear that I know that. I'm not confused about it. I don't plan to lie or deny it. I just don't particularly care. I follow what I think I should do and... right or wrong isn't really the part I focus on."
"That's a scary thing to say out loud, Lymur."
"Maybe... but think about it — " He held up one finger. "Justice is strength. Historically, practically, in every system that has ever existed, the entity with the most power determines what gets addressed and what doesn't. I'm not editorializing, that's just what the evidence says." He spread his hands. "Which basically means the strongest around is right. And that makes me right."
"That's not how it works... "
"It literally is, though. Look at any governing body that has ever existed, and it will all line up. The reason those structures have authority is because they have the force to enforce it. Take the force away and they're just people with opinions."
Jasmine stared at him.
Arthur, meanwhile, was very carefully not saying anything, but his face suggested he was processing several things at once. Jason was looking between all three of them wondering if there was going to be a small shift that might constitute a survival window.
"Still, I don't think that makes this right... and neither do I think it makes it wrong, either, and I hate it," Jasmine sighed after a long pause. "But then that logic goes everywhere, Lymur. You understand that, don't you? Anyone with enough power could use that exact excuse."
"Yes, I know," Lymur agreed. "Which is why it matters what the strong actually wants." He looked at her with something simple and direct in his expression. "I want a dead man to have accountability for killing a good old lady. That's the whole thing. I'm not building a philosophy around it."
Jasmine looked at him for a long moment. She wasn't trying to talk him out of it anymore, he could see that — she'd passed through that door and come out the other side more accepting. "Is there genuinely nothing that changes this?"
"Nah." He said it gently. "This already happened, as far as I'm concerned. I know what I'm doing and why and — " He stopped for a second, his face giving something away, then it was gone. " — this is one of the very few times I've known exactly what I was doing and why. You understand, Jasmine? I don't have a lot of those. Most of the time I'm making it up as I go."
There was silence now.
"You don't need to watch this," Lymur followed up. He looked at Jasmine directly. "Take Arthur and go. It won't be pretty and there's no reason for either of you to be here for it."
Jasmine looked at him for one more second. Then she turned and walked toward Arthur without another word, and Arthur fell into step beside her, and they moved back through the treeline.
Finally, Lymur turned back to Jason.
Jason looked at him. He'd had a few seconds to reconstruct some version of composure and he'd done a bad job of it — the sweat was still there, the color of his face still hadn't come back. He was clearly calculating whether to run or try something, and he arrived at the same answer every time he ran it.
"Ah, where were we?"
......
Jasmine walked and Arthur walked beside her, and neither of them said anything until the sounds from the clearing were well behind them and there was nothing left to hear except the ambient noise of the Glades.
"Arthur." Jasmine broke the silence first. "Do you agree with him?"
Arthur looked like he actually thought about it, which Jasmine noted.
"I do think it's wrong," he said. "As a principle. But I don't disagree with it necessarily."
Jasmine looked at him. "Those sound like the same thing."
"They're not, though." He kept his eyes forward. "Disagreeing means I think he shouldn't have done it. I'm not sure I think that." He was quiet for a second. "I'm new. I don't follow guild gossip, I barely know most of the names yet. But Jason's name came up anyway. That's one nasty reputation that travels without help." He shook his head. "After hearing what Lymur said, and knowing how Jason is — I can't really sit here and say he was wrong."
Jasmine nodded slowly. "That makes sense. "That's a more nuanced position than I expected from someone your age."
Arthur just chuckled awkwardly.
They walked a bit further.
"Who is he anyway?" Arthur said.
"Lymur?"
"Yeah."
Jasmine glanced at him. "I don't know."
"You've known each other three years."
"I met him three years ago," she said. "Then I didn't see him again until three years later. That's different from knowing someone for three years." She thought about it. "Everything I actually know about him came through other people."
"Like what?"
She was quiet for a minute, running through it.
"Fastest anyone's ever reached S-rank in recorded guild history. After the Helstea auction, the general consensus is that he's the strongest Special Grade alive right now, which would make him the strongest of all the races by that metric. And the guild — " She paused. "This one's the strange part. They have nothing on him prior to his registration three years ago. He walked in off the street and registered and that's where his history starts."
Arthur was quiet.
"Nobody knows his elemental affinity. Nobody knows his mana core stage for sure, though most people assume white core because nothing else explains it or the fact that he can freely fly. Some people think he's an Augmenter because of the absurd physical strength, but that's just guessing at this point." She shrugged slightly.
Arthur processed that for a few seconds. "And nobody finds that strange? That he just appeared?"
"Everyone finds it strange... but, let's be honest, nobody's been able to do anything with strange." Jasmine stepped over a root. "He's an S-rank adventurer. S-rank adventurers are classified internationally as Special Grades. There's no authority structure that can compel him to explain himself except, perhaps, other Special Grades."
"Does that bother you?"
"Hmm... A little, yeah."
They walked in silence again. Arthur had his hands in his pockets, looking at the path ahead with a face that was deep in thought.
"His eyes bother me," he said eventually.
Jasmine looked at him.
"I know that sounds like nothing," he said. "But there's something in their redness that I can't place and I don't like it." He frowned at the ground. "And his presence... Even when he's just talking, something in it feels wrong, and I don't mean wrong like bad, I mean wrong like... like my body notices it and doesn't know what to do."
"Yes," Jasmine said simply.
"Does he know that he does that?"
"I don't think so. I think he genuinely has no idea. He's pretty famous for being clueless most of the time."
Arthur considered that. "That's worse."
"I know."
Another stretch of quiet. The treeline was beginning to thin ahead of them, the outer regions of the Glades coming into view. Soon, they would set up camp and call it a day. Arthur thought about Sylvie then, who was off hunting magic beasts by herself.
"He's decent, though," Jasmine said after a while. "I think. Aside from whatever all that is." She sounded like she was still deciding as she said it. "He's got some screws loose and his moral framework is genuinely alarming when he explains it out loud. But he's not — I don't think he's bad... I think"
Arthur looked at her sideways, and softly smiled. "You said 'I think' twice, Jasmine. And that's a very careful endorsement."
"It's Lymur we're talking about. I'm allowed to be careful."
Arthur had no argument for that, so he didn't make one.
Everyone's either really wary or afraid or both of that Lymur guy... I wonder if he's a bit lonely about it sometimes.
◢◣◢◣◢◣
By the time the fire had died down to embers, it was past six in the evening and the Glades had gone mostly dark around him.
Lymur was sitting on a log and watching what was left of the pyre. He'd set it himself after he arranged the adventurers properly first, then Jason beside them because leaving a body out in the Glades was just asking for something unpleasant, and then lit the whole thing. It wasn't a burial or whatever. He just didn't know what else to do with it.
Lara's funeral is in two weeks, he thought, eventually. I should get flowers. Does she have family? If I remember correctly, she should have a daughter.
He made a mental note and went back to watching the fire.
Then something caught his attention and he looked to his side.
A single spark was coming from the treeline. Just one, floating through the dark at a height and direction that had nothing to do with wind. It was too bright and too steady for stray fire debris. He watched it drift out of the trees, cross the clearing, and land.
The ground caught fire immediately, fire blooming outward from the point of contact, and from the center of it something built itself upward. Flames coalesced and condensed, took on volume, shape, and then a man stepped out of it and kept walking as if he'd just come through a door.
Lymur stood up and dusted himself.
This ain't human…
He didn't need Theosophy to tell him that, though Theosophy was already active anyway, pulling data off the figure as fast as it came in. The man was huge — a full head taller than Lymur, and wide across the chest and shoulders. Orange hair with something smoky underneath it that made it shine a tinge of purple. His face was softer than the rest of him, a tad handsome, and completely unbothered.
His eyes were strange, though. One was orange like the inside of something volcanic, the other a cold, pale blue. The eyes looked around the clearing, taking in the burnt trees and the pyre and the general situation, and landing on Lymur last.
The man muttered something under his breath, like a curse, then, "Great. Someone's here."
He looked at Lymur the way you looked at a minor scheduling conflict.
"It's unfortunate but… Now that you've seen me," he said, "you're going to have to die."
Lymur stared at him and muttered to himself, "Now when was the last time someone said something like that to my face?"
He couldn't remember. And he seemed to find that funny so he laughed. "Who exactly do you think you're talking to?" he said, still smiling.
The fire man looked at him.
"Do I have to know?"
Then he disappeared
The space he'd occupied became just air, and Lymur had maybe a third of a second of warning before a hand the size of a dinner plate closed over his entire face.
He immediately felt the pressure trying to build as the fire man squeezed his fingers with the very clear intent to crush his face. Lymur squirmed as he tried to say something. It came out completely muffled and shapeless because his entire face was covered.
"J dt ak knued ato amfdja eufa fa — " was what made it out.
After a while, he ran Incision through the fire man's wrist, and the hand dropped to the ground, blood gushing forth.
Lymur straightened his jacket and looked at the man, who was standing three meters back staring at the cleanly severed end of his own arm with curiosity.
"Ahem. As I was saying," Lymur said. "I don't appreciate having my face grabbed. It's rude."
He knew he was probably not the right person to be making a point about rudeness or manners, but the man didn't know him.
Then fire erupted from the fire man's wound. The flames pulled inward, filling the gap, and then the hand was back. The man checked the grip, seemed satisfied, and looked up at Lymur.
He laughed a little as he stared at Lymur. "Alright, human. You have a name?"
"You first," Lymur said.
The man blinked. "I'm Chul. I am an Asuran of the mighty Asclepius Phoenix Clan." He paused. "Okay, then. Your name?"
Lymur picked at his ear and rolled his eyes.
"Your mum."
The look on Chul's face was something indescribable before he disappeared again. He reappeared with a straight punch aimed at Lymur's head, everything behind it, and Lymur was ready this time so he just leaned back and let it go past his nose, then spun his right foot up into Chul's bicep.
The kick connected and Chul went sideways through a tree.
Lymur waited, rolling his neck.
"You're fast for your size, aren't you?" Lymur shouted to the distance for Chul to hear. Though his punch's mana was strange. Everyone does it but when he does… some secondary property he hasn't shown the full picture of yet?
Calculation Domain was still working, pulling at the details of the regeneration, the composition of Chul's fire, and Chul's fighting pattern. The hand he cut off earlier had come back in seconds without visible effort.
That was going to be the problem.
Chul came out of the wreckage and stood up, and the carefree vibe was gone now. He was actually looking at Lymur properly now.
"You're not from around here, are you?" he said. He sounded pleased. "Okay."
He came in again, but with a wider angle now, faster, and the surrounding air heated up as his output rose. Lymur tracked it through Theosophy, felt his thought accelerate as he kicked into a higher gear, and moved through the first two strikes clean. The third he let graze his shoulder to test the heat of it.
It was fairly hot.
He stepped inside Chul's guard and drove an elbow into his ribs.
The impact resonated through both of them, then fire detonated outward from Chul's body like a pressure and the blast caught the edge of Lymur's jacket.
He looked at the scorch mark.
"Hey! I liked this jacket," he said.
"That's unfortunate," Chul said, already circling.
"You keep that shit up and I'm sending you the bill."
They went at each other for the next round with no particular attempt at talking, which was its own kind of conversation. Lymur was reading everything — stance, breathing, how Chul adjusted his angles between strikes, the tells before each attack type. Chul was doing the same, and doing it well. Every combination he threw was slightly different from the last, incorporating information from what Lymur had done the previous time.
He was a little sloppy but smart in a fight, which Lymur found more interesting than the power alone.
Lymur ran Incision in quick repeated lines, not to try and end things but to poke and see how Chul responded to them, whether the regeneration had any pattern or limit. It didn't seem to. The cuts closed immediately each time, fire filling the gap before the blood had finished falling.
Slicing him apart isn't going to work, Lymur confirmed. He'll just put himself back together faster.
He tried Confluence and pulled a zone of space together around Chul's legs. Chul felt something coming, some instinct or sense Lymur didn't have full data on yet, and shot straight up out of the radius before it closed. The ground where he'd been standing folded into a dense smoking point.
Chul landed at a distance and looked at the crater. Then at Lymur.
"What was that?" Chul asked him.
"Spatial compression."
"That's not a thing humans do."
"I'm full of surprises, I know. Go ahead and praise me."
Chul's mismatched eyes moved over him with a new kind of attention. "What are you?"
"Keep going, baby. You'll find out, soon."
Chul came back in.
The next round was longer and harder than the first, and Lymur was honest enough with himself to know that this fight needed a bit more effort than expected.
Because Chul kept getting out of Confluence's range, kept regenerating through Incision, kept attacking from angles that needed actual countermeasures. Three times Lymur tried to lock Chul down and three times those instincts saved him. He was just fast enough to make locking him down hard.
A straight double-handed strike caught Lymur in the chest — Chul's full output behind it — and Lymur chose to take it rather than spend the positional cost of a dodge. It hit fairly hard, the strongest blow he'd ever taken in this world
He stumbled back two paces and held that feeling for a second.
"HAHAHAHAHA—!"
And he laughed. It came out without warning and Chul's flow broke for half a step in surprise, his eyes going briefly uncertain.
"You… you find this funny?" Chul said.
"Oh I find this great!" Lymur replied.
Chul looked at him for a second. "You're really weird."
"That's what everyone says!" Lymur settled his stance and felt something clarify inside him. "Alright, let me try something."
He reached past the surface level of his mana manipulation and down to the spiritrons underneath everything. Getting them agitated was the easy part. The timing was the problem. A billionth of a second was the window needed. He'd landed the technique cleanly maybe a handful of times in practice, and practice without a real opponent had always felt like trying to thread a needle while thinking about threading a needle.
This was different. The fight had gotten him a bit serious, and so he felt the precision from the exhilaration that came with it.
Chul came in again and the spiritrons spiked.
"Black Flash!"
Lymur drove his fist into Chul's chest and the air went black at the point of contact — a flash of dark light, space compressing and decompressing in the same instant — and the force that came out of it ignored Chul's entire defense, bypassed the outer layer of phoenix fire, went past the regenerative field.
Chul didn't fly back out of recoil. He just stopped, dropped to one knee, and stayed there.
Everything snapped into focus for Lymur now. Sharper and cleaner than a moment before, the post-Black Flash clarity hit all at once.
Chul was still kneeling and trying to rebuild. It was going to take a second. Maybe two.
Lymur reached into the space in front of him and True Sphere materialized.
Just as its name suggested, it was perfectly spherical. A completely black object with no surface irregularities, no friction, no imperfection — infinite contact points distributing infinite pressure outward from every angle at the same time.
He launched it at Chul and the contact was quiet.
Chul's torso disappeared. The sphere passed through and what was left hit the ground in five pieces — head, two arms, two legs — falling separately in different directions.
Lymur looked at the result.
Perfect, he thought.
He retracted True Sphere, turned, and flew into the air heading south for Xyrus, already thinking about dinner.
But below him, fire once again gathered.
It was slow and not the cleaner explosive reconstitution from before. Piece by piece, the phoenix dragged itself back from somewhere it had nearly not come back from. Chul reformed in stages, each one leaving him more weakened, and by the time he was sitting upright on the ground he had maybe a quarter of his normal strength and no realistic prospect of doing any of that again for a long time.
He sat there and breathed.
What the fuck was that? He thought to himself.
It was not like any Asuran he'd encountered. No being from any frame of reference he'd been taught. The spatial techniques were outside anything he had a category for. That final strike — he didn't have a name for it and wasn't sure his superiors would either.
He spread his wings slowly and flew into the hair.
They needed to know about this.