Azimuth: The Elden Throne

Hey, I have tried applying for a contract.

I wanted to say this just in case something happened and it took you all by surprise.

Just to be clear, I have no intention of locking the chapters, as I have the intention of writing a non-exclusive contract.

This is more to open the possibility of you guys sending me Gifts if anyone is interested, to the possibility of this Novel receiving more attention and other things.

Anyway, that was that from me.

There are still 2 more chapters left to post, one from the daily updates, and the other from the 100 power stones from last week.

Peace!

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/A few minutes later…/

Dale and Testros finally arrived at the Inn, and after saying hello to Illia and the kids, he climbed to the second floor and opened the door to what was now his room.

Albeit not official, given his standing with the Villagers, living in what was previously a dusty room in an inoperative Inn wouldn't bother anyone.

On the contrary, from his interactions with the children, it seemed as if he was being more of a help than an inconvenience, and that isn't even counting his recent past actions...

"Make yourself comfortable… Although there isn't much here to help you with that…" Dale said with a small smile as he walked to the side, taking his helmet off and placing it on the table

His Sword had been left on the first floor in a locked room as neither he nor Illia wanted the children to approach it.

Though, that made him consider something...

If the sword was so heavy, why was it that his steps didn't dig in on the ground as much as they should've?

It was as if the weight of the sword was only cast on him... Which was oddly convenient, but not exactly a satisfying answer.

There was still a lot to uncover about it, and that was only another of the many questions he had surrounding it.

As for the guest in his room, upon hearing his words, Testros shook his head.

"No, this is fine…"

'Although... It's been many years since I entered this house... Not much seems to have changed.'

'Albeit its condition is as bad as I imagined... Sigh.'

'We need more materials ASAP so we can fix these things... They're part of the few relics that stood the challenges of time, it would be too disheartening to see them crumble under our very eyes.'

Walking to the side, Testros pulled a small table in the corner of the room next to Dale's bed before using a wooden box as a chair, saying:

"There is a lot to go through regarding our 'Little adventure', so let's start with my investigation."

Dale nodded, he went to his bed and sat in it, waiting for the old man to continue.

He still wore his armor, as removing it would be quite the endeavor.

For that, he thanked the System, it helped him equip his gear, otherwise, he would need a squire whenever trouble arose.

And albeit HardCore players do not have a gear slot limit, they can still have their equipment assigned to them via the click of a button...

Despite what some may say about immersion, Dale was not one of them as he very much liked the idea of having his armor on at a time, and then unequipping it in another whenever he wished.

Though, he let go of these scattered thoughts to pay attention to what Testros had to say...

"So… I don't even know where to begin...."

After thinking for a moment, he said:

"Alright, it would be better to go from the beginning... If you have the patience for it."

Dale shook his head, he was fine regardless.

What he wanted the most was information, so lengthy stories were the best.

"In that case... Let's start with when I left the Corps… This is a story of 90 years ago…"

"Wait!"

Dale immediately opened his mouth, shocked!

"9-90 years?!"

He took another look at Testros, but he didn't seem to be that old!

From what he understood, he left the Corps around the time when he started to climb the ranks of the soldiers after finishing Cadet school...

That was when he was around 17-20 years old...

"But you look…"

Testros cut Dale, saying:

"I look like I'm in my early 70's right? Well, I'm almost 100 years old, time sure flies..." Testros said with a small smile as he brushed his hair

"In fact, apart from some of the teenagers and kids, everyone in Resko is older than they look…"

"Old Tina for example should be well beyond her 140s as she grew up in a time Resko could still be considered a town..."

He then turned to Dale with a sharp gaze.

"But I never said that ok? If she asks, I told you she's 65..."

Dale couldn't help but ask:

"Why?! How is this possible?"

Testros smiled, but then his expression changed to a more serious one as he started his explanation.

"You already know that Resko is located… Or was once located within an area of boundless resources, right?"

Dale nodded, he heard this story many times, the famed tales of the riches that surround this place...

But only for the capable as those riches aren't without their own share of dangers...

"Not only minerals but its Fauna and Flora were, and still are extremely diverse."

"In the past, we had Yumi's father, old man Dudencell, to make us potions and alchemical products based on these…"

"And before, even her grandfather helped us, albeit he left so long ago that I can barely even remember how he looked..." He said in a melancholic tone

"The result of their help was obvious."

"From birth till adulthood, the children of Resko grew up with all sorts of things made up from the exotic plant and animal life the South can provide…"

"Didn't you have a taste of it? An Iron Apple…"

"I doubt it has any effect on you, but when properly processed with other side ingredients, it creates a Potion that greatly increases the physical qualities of a normal person when used over a certain period of time."

"Children from the ages of 6 to 12 are fed these by-products regularly, giving them the physique even an adult in their 20s wouldn't have."

"And that is only one of the many things they take... Albeit in the past it used to be more..."

"They may not look like it, but they are all quite strong... It's just a shame Iron apples can't make one physically fit, though it's a matter of perspective."

"Some take it as a good thing, as it leaves room for further growth, while others take it as an inconvenience, as it hardens the process."

"Carving wood is much simpler than metal after all."

"But it isn't only that, our crops, the animals we raise, our environment… Everything contributes to that."

"And even though over the years, we lost access to several of these things, the only generation affected by those changes is the most recent one..."

"The very same generation that has yet to grow old enough for aging to take its effects."

"... So Illia... She's old as well?" Dale asked as he remembered the kind Inn owner that cooks for him every once in a while

"She's 28... Or is it over 30 already?... 37?"

"I stopped counting these things long ago..."

"..."

'I thought she was in her early 20's though... It's so misleading...'

'Woman back on Earth would pay anything for that... Imagine keeping your looks from when you were 20 and in your late 30s...'

'More that than living longer, most people see the present as a priority rather than the future.'

Dale finally understood the reason why these Villagers were so strong…

It was on his face all along, he should've thought about it… It made him feel funny.

The Villagers grew up consuming those overly strong and special crops, it was very slow, but over the decades, their stats increased little by little...

Not only that, there were the products of those farm animals, each strong enough to become Raid bosses…

Dale once touched one of those Crops, curious as to what they looked like.

He immediately found out about their horrendous vitality, and how much effort it took him to pull one apart…

It was the same level of difficulty that someone would have to rip apart a plastic string, and considering his previous strength prior to today, that was quite significant.

As for the farm animals, there isn't much to be said about it.

Their Bulls are Ignition Bovines, and their cows are something similar, even the smallest of those cows is 3M tall.

They're hulking masses of flesh…

As such, the Villagers are simply the product of the environment they live in.

Just like monsters here are stronger than their common counterparts in other parts of the Continent, like rats, they are stronger than the average Man and Woman.

Even if they are just Villagers, things would be a completely different matter if they were given training in other areas.

Perhaps this is where Resko's slumbering potential lies.

"..."

Noticing Dale's shocked expression, Testros continued:

"Thanks to all of it, I'm now here talking with you, otherwise I would've been gone long ago…"

"That's quite the story…" Dale said with a half-smile

In these 'medieval' conditions, being able to live past your 120s is almost the same as doubling your total lifetime…

Albeit fitting for a Fantasy setting, it was still unusual for them to take it so... For them to see this fact as commonplace.

While in the Northern parts of the Continent, seeing an Elder over the age of 60 is rare, here, you'll see many over the age of 80 to 90, people that were amidst the first generation of children to be born in Resko post its collapse.

Though in a sense, it was hard to say exactly when Resko collapsed, and if you were to look closer into it, then the city never really fell.

It continues to exist even today, as the people in front of him are living proof of that.

So instead, it would be better to time things in a different way...

There was Resko pre-Corps Fall, and there was the Resko post-Corps Fall.

"Also, it's not like we can live this long just because of all of this Dale, it took an extreme amount of training for both me and Tina to live that long, even if she isn't the same as she once was, she was once a very powerful warrior…"

"But that is another story in itself, one that is best asked her and not me."

"And albeit it's true many lived longer thanks to everything I said, it doesn't take the fact they are old now..."

"I see..."

'It's like health care, all of these high-quality foods and items extend their life, but I bet working in the fields under the hot sun while living next to a desert doesn't exactly help them in keeping their appearances juvenile...'

'Otherwise... They might've looked even younger.'

As Dale thought about these things, Testros took something from his pocket, it was a small grayscale, discolored over the passing of the seasons.

"I found this stuck on the floor during my investigation, and I believe it was once part of the monster that took the Commander's life…"

Testros took a deep breath, piecing together everything he found out so far:

"I think this is what happened…"

"In a last act of resistance, the Elite soldiers and the Commander retreated to the Inner facilities of the Wall, where their final fight took place."

"Most died outside, fighting the bulk of the invasion, while some of the strongest died within that corridor…"

"Their bodies and the condition of their equipment speak loads of what they faced on that heelish day…"

"However, I believe their purpose wasn't to survive but to buy time."

"As we saw in the Office, there were two long lines of blood on the ground coming from the door, one from a Human, another from something else."

"The commander had been hurt prior to entering his Office, this points out the possibility of him being injured before this resistance was even mounted in the first place…"

"Of course, in the heat of battle, getting hurt is inevitable, but we're talking about a heavy injury on none other than the Commander…"

"And second, the monster that killed him must've arrived after the Elite Soldiers were exterminated… Perhaps he delivered the last blow to some of them…"

"But what's important is how he is connected to their current conditions… Since you see, if they had died in a monster-infested battlefield, there wouldn't have been a single piece of bone left… Or at least, everything would've been messier."

"Or if that creature had been the one to deliver the last blow to all of them... Things wouldn't look the way they did when we encountered them."

"I believe this monster's presence was strong enough to impede any monster from approaching that area... Even after it left…"

"Monsters tend to be extremely territorial after all."

Dale nodded, thinking…

'I wonder what motivates these monsters to walk further North from the South in the first place...' He thought silently as he listened to his story

"Since we now know what happened to the soldiers outside, let's go back to the Commander…" Testros said deeply

"As his soldiers died one by one, the Commander probably tried his best to recover… Or so is how it should've gone, but as we saw, there were no signs of him even trying anything of the sort…"

"There were no recovery items in the Office, nor any sign of one ever being there…"

"The Commander knew he was going to perish... That everyone was going to die."

"So he acted based on that, and instead, he prepared many things such as hiding those objects in the secret safe…"

"But what matters is what he did in between from arriving in the Office till his final bout of resistance… Because I felt it..."

"The Wall's defensive Systems are still working even to this day."

"I find it difficult that someone is maintaining that, so what happened is that the Commander must've done something… Something that preserved its basic functions even to this day."

Testros dropped his head in frustration.

"Unfortunately, I cannot say much more than that…"

"However, what I can say is that his actions were the sole reason why monsters haven't invaded from the other side in large droves yet."

"Even then, I cannot say for how long those actions are going to last."

"After all, if that was enough to hold the monsters off, then the Wall would have never fallen in the first place."

"So instead of blocking them, I think the Commander made it so they couldn't pass through the Wall, trapping them inside."

"This could also explain why the forest is in disarray… It must be because those same actions the Commander did in the past are finally starting to fade away…"

"There's the possibility that the stronger monsters from the outside are making their way inside, offsetting the balance of the Inner forest and forcing other monsters to relocate."

Testros said after a slight pause:

"Monsters that, although much weaker than the skeletons we saw in the Wall, are still a big problem on their own."

"..."

'I had already imagined the creatures from the forest would be problematic to deal with, but if it's true they are from the outside, and that Testro's predictions are correct, then this means another big fucking problem is underway…'

'If everything else wasn't enough, now the Wall in itself is another addition to this ever-increasing list of problems I have to deal with… '

'I can't even picture how to deal with this situation... Wiping out the monsters seems like an impossibility, I cannot do what a Legendary Organization could not even with centuries of preparation.'

'But fixing the wall doesn't seem possible as well...'

Dale let out a small sigh before looking at Testros and asking:

"Alright, what else did you find?"

…

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Notes

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