The Primal Hunter 13, page 41
“What did you just call him?” the space mage asked as his head perked up.
Olliandra gave the mage a look of disapproval due to his sudden outburst. He didn’t even seem to notice, though, as he just stared at Jake. “You… You’re the Chosen of the Malefic Viper?”
See, this was why calling himself Thayne was a pretty damn useless and dumb thing to do if he didn’t want people to instantly recognize who he was, considering there was a Leaderboard available with his full name at the top, placed right at the entrance to the most visited World Wonder in the multiverse.
With the cat out of the bag, Jake nodded. “Among other things, yes.”
The mood in the clock tower changed. Olliandra now stared at Jake with much concern… proving that the propaganda from Ell’Hakan had definitely hurt his reputation. Or maybe the Viper’s reputation had hurt his reputation. Either way, her knowing he was the Chosen of the Malefic Viper didn’t seem to give her a more positive impression.
“I… I fail to understand why the Chosen of the Malefic Viper has decided to visit this planet,” Olliandra said after a bit.
“To kill your Prima Guardian,” Jake answered easily, not changing his own tone. “The system event will give rewards based on your overall performance during the entire event. This includes what you do on other planets.”
“But… why here?” she continued questioning.
“You were the first planet to accept my application,” Jake responded in a deadpan tone.
“That can’t have been the only reason…”
“Turns out it can.” Jake shook his head and couldn’t help but smile. “That truly is the only reason I came here. You were the first planet to accept my request, and I only came here to kill the Prima Guardian. Everything happening now is just me trying to be polite as a fellow World Leader.”
“Is it true you are in a conflict with the Celestial Child?” the space mage finally also asked, his look quite complicated.
“That is what people say,” Jake answered. “Personally, I feel like he’s a far more significant threat to the ones who sided with him in the Prima Guardian Alliance than he is a problem for me.”
The clock tower was silent once more as the two of them digested Jake’s answer. In the end, Jake was the one who broke the silence.
“Well, I guess I have lingered here long enough.” Jake sighed as he stood up. “I also believe you have plenty of matters to attend to, including claiming your Planetary Pylons and handling the Primas still roaming your world.”
Olliandra looked at Jake weirdly. “What happens from here? What is expected of us?”
“Haven’t I told you already? I came here to kill the Prima Guardian. That’s done. I didn’t come here expecting anything. With that, I’m not saying you can’t reach out to Earth for diplomatic purposes. Just that there are no requirements for you to do so.”
The other World Leader still seemed doubtful about Jake’s words, but he didn’t try to convince her further. Trying to prove he didn’t have some ulterior motive was borderline impossible, as proving a negative wasn’t a thing. Besides, he did kind of have an ulterior motive for coming, in wanting to at least mess with Ell’Hakan’s plans a little.
“Anyway, it was a pleasure to meet you, Olliandra,” Jake said as he prepared to leave. “I wish you a happy hunt of the remaining Primas. I myself have more Guardians to slay and will not stick around longer than necessary.”
“One last time, thank you for saving not just my life but likely this entire planet.” Olliandra bowed deeply. “I hope to repay such a favor one day.”
Jake just smiled as he stood at the edge of the tower, but before he teleported, he turned for one last comment. “Actually, I will say one more thing regarding the Ell’Hakan matter. Say there was a conflict between us, one leading to outright hostilities. If I were you, I would heavily consider where you would wish to stand in such a conflict. Because if it becomes a battle with only one side left standing at the end… I don’t think I need to elaborate further.”
With that, Jake stepped down and teleported away from the clock tower, preparing to head back to Earth.
Second Prima Guardian down… and hopefully, some good politicking done, too.
Chapter 45
A Gray Flag
Olliandra sat in the clock tower, contemplating the final words of the Chosen as well as the entire conversation that had preceded them. His warning at the end was also pretty clear in intent: reconsider aligning yourself with Ell’Hakan. In fact, she should reconsider if she wanted to align their planet with anyone if she could avoid it. Olliandra felt like a conflict was definitely brewing, and having seen the power of the Viper’s Chosen, she didn’t want to fight against him. On the other hand, she also didn’t dare risk making the Chosen of Yip of Yore an outright enemy. This was a conflict far beyond what she or anyone else should get involved in, and her biggest hope was that they could watch it safely from the sidelines.
She also felt embarrassed she hadn’t realized he was the Chosen of the Malefic Viper when he introduced himself. In her defense, she hadn’t gone to see the Leaderboards even after finishing Nevermore. Only the space mage and a few others had decided to check it out, primarily to see if the Celestial Child—or Ell’Hakan, as it was perhaps more proper to call him—had achieved a good placement. Seeing those Leaderboards was mostly for vanity, after all, as she had never expected to meet anyone who would appear on it outside of Ell’Hakan.
After hearing the mention of emotional manipulation, she also felt more suspicious than before as she looked at the space mage. “You have attended several meetings with Yip of Yore’s Chosen present without me… can you lend any validity to him having a Bloodline capable of swaying emotions?”
The space mage, who had long been her most trusted comrade, looked deep in thought, seriously considering her question before answering, “The fact I cannot outright deny it frightens me. Reflecting on my own impression of the Celestial Child, I do find myself questioning my own emotions on the matter. I cannot logically place why I felt such respect and reverence toward him. He is powerful, yes, but my own emotions do feel unnatural in retrospect. I cannot say for sure if this is due to some level of manipulation or if I simply acted irrationally, but I would err on the side of caution.”
Olliandra was somewhat taken aback by the response. She had honestly expected him to say that he hadn’t noticed anything and that the Chosen of the Malefic Viper was just trying to make them view Ell’Hakan more negatively due to his own personal bias. For quite a while, the mage had been a big fan of Ell’Hakan, talking about him being a great leader of the alliance and definitely the one to unite their galaxy under one banner.
However, now he looked full of doubt. Olliandra also admittedly believed Ell’Hakan would have been the one to unite them, but now she doubted that was going to happen… and if it did happen, it wouldn’t be through a peaceful expansion of the alliance and every planet choosing to align themselves with him willingly.
“What do you think our approach should be to these Chosen?” she ventured to ask him.
“For now, we should address the Prima problems and claim the Planetary Core,” the space mage said. “When it comes to the two Chosen… we are already considered part of the Celestial Child’s alliance on paper. Trying to at least probe what a relationship with the Chosen of the Malefic Viper would look like seems wise. Perhaps sending a delegation to this planet Earth could be considered. If it’s discovered and we are scrutinized by the rest of the alliance, we can always claim we did so because we were fearful of what would happen if we didn’t, or even excuse it as an attempt to gather information on a potential foe.”
“That strikes me as risky,” Olliandra responded. “Trying to play both sides may result in us simply making both view us unfavorably. What’s more, if Ell’Hakan can truly manipulate emotions through a Bloodline, there is a big chance he can easily see through lies or deceit. I also would be cautious about trying to deceive the Viper’s Chosen and his faction… From what I heard, many talented individuals are aligned with him, some of which may discover any underhanded intentions.”
“Would it perhaps then be best to do nothing?” the space mage asked.
“No…” Olliandra shook her head. “It’s unquestionable that the Chosen of the Malefic Viper saved our lives and our planet, while Ell’Hakan and his alliance did nothing, not even sending a representative to hear us out. To not at least try to repay such a favor wouldn’t sit right with me. While it won’t be much, we will send a delegation to his planet and try to offer some token of our gratitude. If that ends up aligning us with him over Ell’Hakan… then so be it.”
Olliandra couldn’t help but think what would have happened if she hadn’t so stupidly chosen to release the Prima Guardian, which had led to all this… and she genuinely couldn’t tell if this was a better outcome in the long run.
She also didn’t know who would win between the two Chosen. All she knew was that while Ell’Hakan and Lord Thayne were both considered peak geniuses of the multiverse… she had only seen one of them shatter her perception of what a C-grade would be capable of.
Jake finally discovered the first of the special privileges granted by the otherwise entirely useless ring he’d been awarded while in the Prima Vessel. After leaving the clock tower, he had headed back toward the teleporter that could eventually take him back to the inter-galaxy teleporter. However, he came to learn all of that wasn’t necessary when the ring suddenly gave him some instinctive knowledge upon considering his return to Earth.
His ring turned out to have the ability to teleport him back to the Prima Vessel on Earth. It wasn’t instant teleportation, as Jake had to channel energy into the item for a bit over five minutes while it slowly formed a teleportation circle beneath him before finally triggering and taking him home. Not as convenient as instant teleportation and potentially even slower than the “official” way in some instances, but it was still pretty damn neat, and it meant Jake didn’t risk getting stuck on a planet.
Anyway, that was what Jake did. After being whisked through space, he returned to Earth not even a full day after he’d left in the first place. Appearing back in the room within the Prima Vessel, he startled some poor space mage he didn’t even recognize who was scribbling down some of the runes on the magic circle, likely at the behest of Arnold or someone else trying to figure out more about how these teleporters worked.
Jake gave the guy a quick nod before heading off to briefly tell Miranda what had transpired on the planet he’d totally forgotten to even get the name of. As a pleasant surprise, a teleportation circle had been set up right outside the Prima Vessel, connecting it to the rest of the planet. He knew they had a bunch of quick-to-set-up circles ready, but it was still good to see they had placed one at the Vessel to make travel easier.
While leaving the Prima Vessel, he saw Arnold busy in one of the rooms, with dozens of mages running around. He even saw Sandy inside a room, and he considered going in to say hello but decided not to. Again, he’d not even been gone for a day, and they looked very busy.
Arriving back in Haven shortly after, Jake made his way to Miranda, who was in her office and looking just as busy as Arnold. The perfect time for Jake to stop by and drop some information on her. When he entered the building, he got a few surprised gazes, and when he knocked and entered her office, she also looked up perplexed.
“I thought you had gone to assist some extremely desperate planet?” she asked, confused.
“Oh, I did, and they were very desperate indeed. The World Leader decided she and her allies could totally take on the Prima Guardian on their own. Spoiler warning: they couldn’t. Ended up killing the Prima Guardian and talking a bit with the World Leader. Things went pretty well, if I say so myself, and…”
Jake quickly gave an overview of what had happened and explained what he had talked about with Olliandra, as well as what he’d inferred about Ell’Hakan from their conversation. Miranda seemed pleased enough with how Jake had handled things, though she did find his final comment a bit questionable, as threatening them wasn’t necessary in her eyes, though she doubted it had done much harm.
They also talked about Jake’s fuck-up when he’d introduced himself as Thayne—though Miranda did add that Jake really had no reason to try and hide his identity, and should in fact just flaunt it if he so wished. His identity as Jake Thayne, that is. When Jake expressed his surprise over the World Leader not realizing who he was earlier, considering the Leaderboards and all that, Miranda was far from as surprised.
“That is one thing you need to consider when you visit these other planets…” Miranda said. “So far, you’ve been used to interacting with individuals already familiar with the multiverse. People from Nevermore or large factions. Those blessed by gods who at least bestow some level of understanding upon their subjects. However, these are the vast, vast minority in the multiverse. From here on out, chances are the ones you meet know nearly nothing besides what they potentially learned at Nevermore or second-hand from friends. Perhaps they only have some surface-level knowledge about twelve Primordials existing, but that’s it.”
Jake nodded along. “I also noticed that the information they had seemed a bit… biased.”
“Because much of it likely stems from Ell’Hakan or others in the alliance who were originally informed by him. While I wouldn’t say it’s a safe assumption to make, I do think it’s very probable that the vast majority of multiversal knowledge these members of the Prima Guardian Alliance have is given by Ell’Hakan. I would expect most of what he’s given them to be true, but with half-truths and deceit hidden more easily. Also, I will add that even if they haven’t been told lies by Ell’Hakan… it isn’t hard to believe that the Chosen of someone called the Malefic Viper isn’t the nicest guy and doesn’t have your best interest at heart. Let’s not pretend like the Viper is known as some altruistic being, so no one would expect his Chosen to be some hero.”
“Well, good, because I’m not.” Jake shrugged. “I’m hunting down Prima Guardians purely out of selfishness. Potentially saving a few planets in the process is just a happy little coincidence.”
Miranda sighed. “Yeah, maybe don’t outright state that. At least let people be under the illusion you truly moved with intentions of saving them and that you genuinely care for the betterment of the galaxy.”
“I did call it a happy little coincidence,” Jake pointed out with a smile. “If the choice is between killing two Prima Guardians, and killing one will save a bunch of people while killing the other won’t, I’ll go for the first one.”
“That’s good enough, I guess,” Miranda said. “I would also just continue to call yourself Thayne or Lord Thayne or whatever. Just avoid introducing yourself as the Chosen of the Malefic Viper. Make it clear you are more than the rumors compel them to believe and that you are acting as the World Leader of Earth, not the Chosen of a Primordial. If they don’t connect the dots while you are there but only learn of your identity later… great. That will just confuse them and contradict what they’ve been fed by Ell’Hakan. If they do figure it out, do something similar to what you did here and have a calm discussion about Ell’Hakan if they initiate it. If not, no need to even talk about the guy.”
Jake nodded along, taking in her words. He still sucked at politics, in his own eyes, so any advice he could get was more than welcome. There was one thing about this entire scenario that did make him question what he was currently doing, though. One sparked by Miranda’s question about helping people.
Why did they even need to be on good terms with the other planets of the galaxy in the first place? Why was it a problem if Ell’Hakan managed to claim the entire alliance for himself? Just because it made the other Chosen stronger? Even if that was the case, Jake genuinely believed Earth alone could face down the rest of the galaxy single-handedly.
Alright, in truth, he did know the answer. If they just let Ell’Hakan roam free, there was a good chance they would one day be put in a scenario where they would have to fight the rest of their galaxy. However, that wouldn’t benefit them in any way, either. In fact, all that would do was leave them with a barren galaxy with a bunch of ruined planets and potentially a lot of enemies, as there would definitely still be survivors from all those planets split across the multiverse. Then there was the fact it would help Ell’Hakan spread the story that the Chosen of the Malefic Viper was a maniac who’d destroyed his own galaxy, but Jake honestly didn’t care much about that anymore.
Either way, it would be better if Ell’Hakan just never managed to unite the galaxy. Jake also didn’t see much sense in letting the guy do as he wanted if they could stop it. Plus, he and the others did genuinely want to hunt down Prima Guardians, so it wasn’t like they lost out by making a few friends and allies along the way.
As he had said to Miranda, if he had the choice, he would prefer to save as many planets across the galaxy as he could. Assuming it didn’t cause any harm to himself and those he cared about, that is.
After he and Miranda spoke a bit more, she sent Jake off once more to try and save more planets from their big bad Prima invasion. Before he left, Miranda had even given him a new message to paste into his applications to hopefully get a better acceptance rate. He wasn’t a big fan of how it read, but he could see how it would work better… even if it was kind of lying.
“High-level hunter seeking to assist in slaying Primas. Would prefer to operate alone. Spent the full duration in Nevermore and is confident in taking down Primas solo if necessary. No compensation is required; acting solely to increase rewards from the system event.”
