And (N)one Shall Remain

Esperanza looked up from where she was seated, on a table far in the back corner of the eatery, where she was left undisturbed. Her eyes – both the visible ones on her “face” as well as the myriad others hidden in various parts of her body and “clothes” – looked towards the eatery’s door, as through her [Soul Sense] she had noticed the approach of a particularly bright, shining soul.

 

One that she now knew for certain belonged to Alissa O’Connor.

 

To her relief, Alissa seemed to be moving alone, with no other souls in her vicinity moving together with her. Esperanza had been somewhat worried that Alissa might have fallen to the new gods’ control and would try to capture her during this meeting – one reason she asked to meet at a relatively secluded place to bait them – so it was nice to put that worry behind her.

 

One could never be too careful, after all.

 

A short while after Esperanza noticed Alissa’s soul, the girl entered the eatery, her neat clothes and well-cared for hair instantly making her look rather out of place. The eatery was in a somewhat seedier part of town, even if it was close to the northern side, and many of the patrons were less well-to-do locals who naturally couldn’t afford to put so much care into their clothing or hair.

 

For what it was worth, the food was excellent, though, which was the reason Esperanza picked the place.

 

Esperanza deactivated her [Veil of Entropy], then raised her hand and waved so that Alissa could notice her at the corner. Alissa noticed her before long and made her way through the eatery to sit at her table, directly across from her. Before Alissa could speak out, though, Esperanza halted her with a raised hand and instead beckoned a waiter over.

 

“Order some food first. They made some really good stuff here, despite the unassuming looks. The cochinillo is to die for,” said Esperanza with a chuckle. She could understand Alissa’s impatience to talk more about this world they had been summoned to, but figured that it might be better to do so when they were both more relaxed. “Oh, sir, can you get us a pitcher of that sour ale you got here? And a quarter of a roasted suckling pig as well. Not sure what she’s going to order.”

 

“Uh… I’ll take the same ale, and if you got some of those spicy sausages I’d like a platter of those as well,” said Alissa as she was caught up in Esperanza’s rhythm. The waiter was close enough to hear them by that point, so she figured that they wouldn’t be talking about anything sensitive until he left anyway, so might as well get herself something to eat.

 

She did skip out on lunch to meet with Esperanza after all, having spent most of the morning reading in the library to give the appearance that nothing untoward was going on.

 

Esperanza’s worry about her entry being noticed proved to be quite prescient, as while Alissa made her way to and from the library that morning, she noticed a few older faculty members who had classes that leaned along the lines of [Ward Artisan] and [Barrier Creator] gather around a section of the academy building, discussing something about an unnoticed intruder.

 

What snippets Alissa herself overheard suggested that they thought a nest of moles under the academy might have accidentally caused some parts of the anchored wards to loosen, somehow. The old men threw around a lot of technical magical jargon that Alissa couldn’t even begin to make heads or tails from, and she didn’t exactly stay around overlong other than to show the appropriate amount of curiosity that would have been expected out of anyone, anyway.

 

It had been far easier for her to do such things since she got [Weather the Storm].

 

Alissa then made some small talk with Esperanza, talking about inconsequential things like the weather and the like, as they waited for the waiter to return with their orders. Said waiter did so after a mere five minutes or so, the eatery clearly a prepared one, and laid down their orders at the table before he left with a smile as Esperanza paid him up front and asked not to be disturbed while eating.

 

The moment the waiter walked far enough away from the table, Esperanza used that skill she showed Alissa the previous night, the one that made them less noticeable to everyone around them, and enveloped the two of them as well as the table in its range. To the people outside, it was as if the two girls and their table never existed to begin with.

 

“Alright, now that we got some privacy for ourselves, let’s continue where we left off last night,” said Esperanza from across the table as she all too casually poured herself some of the ale and drank it down in one go. “No silly age limits that lets you drive cars and buy guns but not drink anything with alcohol in it here, so don’t worry about that.”

 

“Then again, you did ask for some ale as well, so I’d guess you already know that, anyway,” she added with a bit of laughter as she tore off the pig’s hind leg off its body with one hand and took a big bite out of it. “No reason to not have some good stuff to snack and drink on while we talk, isn’t it? Even if we’re going to talk about serious stuff, that isn’t a good reason to make ourselves less comfortable.”

 

“Fair enough,” replied Alissa with a smile. Esperanza felt quite different from the shy, demure, quiet girl of her memories, but then again, the experiences the girl had gone through would have changed anyone, and while Alissa was not used to having her friend be so much more open and exuberant like this, she didn’t exactly mind either.

 

After all, from the story Esperanza told her, her previous quietness was more due to how she was made to keep a lid over her many grievances by a variety of factors. It was better that the girl could let loose freely like now and be true to herself instead.

 

“So, you’ve told me a lot about the old gods and the past, but what can you tell me about the current gods? Other than that they used to be summoned people like us who had since overthrown the old pantheon and rose to godhood themselves and what not, that is,” asked Alissa. “Those parts are pretty well documented, interestingly enough.”

 

“No surprise that they’d want their greatest achievement immortalized in history. From what Oldies told me they likely grew quite a bit of an ego due to, you know, being gods and all that, and might have allowed the power to get over their heads,” stated Esperanza. “Pretty typical stuff, all considered. We have heads of state doing that already in our world, much less if someone with that tendency becomes an honest to god… well… god.”

 

“As to answer your question… you already know that this summoning and war cycle is a recurring one, yes, one that looks like someone or something’s been orchestrating it so that neither side would ever win a final victory?” Esperanza asked back. “Should be a lot of clues pertaining to that I think. Doubt they could hide those from their history books that well.”

 

“It is as you said, and one of the biggest suspicions I have about this world as well,” admitted Esperanza. “Let me guess, the current gods are the ones behind the situation?”

 

“Honestly, given that Oldies have every motive to blame the new gods for everything, they would have probably said that even if it wasn’t the case. That said, I do believe that the new gods are at the very least, supportive of the current state of this world, if not the director behind the scenes themselves,” said Esperanza while nonchalantly gnawing on the pork leg in her hand. “It would imply a great deal of incompetence on their part that something this big and obvious somehow managed to keep going under their watch, after all.”

 

“That is a very good point to make, honestly, and yeah, I’ve mostly suspected the new gods themselves, or at least their clergy, on both sides,” replied Alissa. “Anything you know in particular about the summoning? Since these… old gods were able to take you during one, they should be able to at least observe what went on there, no?”

 

“They are, and according to them, the summoning has only ever gone one way,” said Esperanza as she all too casually dropped a bombshell that rendered Alissa speechless with its implications. “That is, people were only ever summoned from elsewhere to here, but they had never sent anyone back the way they came from.”

 

“Why… Why do they bother to make us fight and catch each other to fuel a so-called ritual then?” asked Alissa who kept her emotions under a strict control using her skill at the revelation. It was something she expected to be confirmed about one day, yet was also something she hoped she wouldn’t ever hear. “Or is there… another purpose behind that?”

 

“Smart as always, Allie,” praised Esperanza with a smile. She took a deep drink from her flagon of ale before she continued her words. “I myself have no real information on this, and all I can say is what Oldies told me. They said that the so-called ritual seemed to make… use of the summoned otherworldly soul in order to maintain and feed the system. It’s like… we’re batteries for the system, and they summoned new ones and repeated this farce of a war all over again to get us strong enough to work as proper batteries to replace the used ones.”

 

“That… makes an unpleasant amount of sense, actually, and would also explain why none of the summoned people ever chose to settle down and live here instead of ‘returning’,” noted Alissa with a thoughtful look on her face. “If these new gods really had an agenda of their own, they wouldn’t want any of the summoned to have the time to look behind the corners and notice the going-ons they have kept hidden away.”

 

“One of many possible reasons for that, yeah,” replied Esperanza as she gnawed off the last bits of meat stuck to the bones of the pork leg she had and put the now cleaned bone back on the plate. The way she clearly enjoyed the food made Alissa feel hungry herself, so she picked one of the sausages on her plate and munched on it as well. “Oh, you’re right, this place does make some good food.”

 

“You got to try these, takes you straight to paraíso, I swear,” said Esperanza as she gleefully offered Alissa a portion of the roast pork on her plate. The portion she handed over was the meat over a pair of the pig’s ribs, with the bones still attached.

 

“Sure, then, thanks,” said Alissa with a smile as she took the offered chunk of meat and in turn pushed her own plate a bit closer to Esperanza. “Have some of mine too. I’d feel bad if I just mooch off your food like that.”

 

“That’s more like it!” said Esperanza with a chuckle. “You were so tense and nervous yesterday that it didn’t feel like we could talk properly. This is far better, just the two of us having some good food while talking about things the gods didn’t want anyone to know about and all that! A toast to getting summoned by asses that didn’t even ask for consent first!”

 

Alissa raised her flagon of ale and toasted Esperanza’s, while being all too aware of the sarcasm in her voice. Indeed, a lot about their situation might seem like a dream come true for some, adventure in another world and all that, but in truth their situation was nowhere near as idyllic and pleasant as what fantasy stories loved to imagine.

 

They were made to fight at the whims of others, their lives on the line, with perhaps no real way to return home.