“And we’re back here once more.” Gaius cricked his neck as the little party returned to the Library of Ancients, directly into the Map Room. Rather than flying back, he’d requested Nexus to transport them back directly — a request that was met by a few grumbles and some promises to grab some ether cores from the local wildlife. They had returned to the Library once Nakama and Isabelle were done with their little tour of the Lorenzes’ new working area.

And, if Nakama was to be believed, after Isabelle spent thirty minutes having fun in the elevators. Gaius wasn’t sure why she found that fun, since she could literally fly around anyway, but the hearts of women were a complete mystery to him. As promised, the Lorenze family matriarch had delivered three handwritten letters of recommendation to the North’s Phrontistery of Scientific Reasoning. She, too, had wrangled out a promise from Gaius to get them there before the school term started, and Gaius had happily agreed to it. The farewell wasn’t drawn out — Isabelle’s grandmother wanted the three to enrol as soon as possible, and the three left after a round of promises.

“We’re somewhat in a rush, right?” Nakama asked, her hands carrying the bags of toys and boardgames that Gaius had brought back.

“Yes, Nakama.” Isabelle looked at the Map of Stars, the artefact capable of looking at anywhere on Orb. There were multiple little sculptures sitting around it, each of them occupied by a lower function of Nexus.

“You guys take a break first. We’ll go to the Mortal Light Dynasty tomorrow; I need to get some ether cores,” said Gaius. “I’ll be back in a few hours. Don’t stay up waiting for me, don’t run about, and turn in early. There’s an assessment test to enter the phrontistery to determine your class placement too, so you two should be in tiptop condition.”

“Relax, Gaius.” Isabelle began to offload her items onto the ground. “I’ll make sure my little sister sleeps early.”

Nakama pouted, but to Gaius’ approval, Isabelle wasn’t having any of it. “Look, grandmother worked hard to get us a new school. If you don’t do well, wouldn’t she be sad?”

“Oh. Um.” The little girl looked around, and then nodded.

“Don’t be sad. I’ll play with you until we go to sleep, okay? Gaius got some really nice things, and I’m excited too.” Isabelle faltered somewhat when she noticed the boy’s eyes, and then said, “But we’ll wash up and have some dinner first. There should still be three to four hours for us.”

She nodded at Gaius, and the boy smiled back. Poking the sculpture in his shirt, Gaius navigated through the Library and stepped into Heritage’s snowy fields once again. He hadn’t fought for some time — the past few months were as violence-free as the North’s military situation.

A slight thrill ran through the boy as he caressed the ring on his right hand. He hadn’t had the chance to use the Custodian yet, and like Nakama, he was excited to try out this new toy of his.

With a flash of gold, the Custodian appeared.

It was a walking stick, at first glance, but Nexus had informed him that it was actually a weapon. Gaius brought the Custodian up to eye-level, and then folded it into two, as Nexus instructed. The weapon whirred, and before his very eyes, the upper half of the Custodian, which was slightly thicker, opened up to reveal a small pistol grip, a trigger, and a high-magnification scope that should only exist in Earth.

“Damn. This is sleeker than the Moonshot,” said Gaius.

“I thought it would be useable just by folding it into two, but this is quite the complex Zeroth Armament, isn’t it?” Nexus commented. “If only this thing came with a guide. I’m not too sure how to activate its Zeroth Release, but I suppose the Terminus can cover that.”

“Zeroth Release…” Gaius shook his head. “Last I checked, that gaping void in Lumari is still there. I’m not that keen on finding out what the Custodian’s Zeroth Release is.”

“That’s a pity. Well, go take the Custodian for a test run. There’s a small pack of snowpyres nine hundred metres away from you, to your right,” said Nexus. “Let’s see this little baby in action.”

“Sounds good.” Gaius pushed off the ground lightly, and zipped off in the direction indicated. It didn’t take long for him to find his target, and within seconds, he was aiming with the Custodian.

His sights fell onto a particularly burly snowpyre. “Huh. It’s holding something like a prototype weapon. That’s new.”

“So it is,” said Nexus. “Do these things grow in intelligence over time?”

“Why are you asking me? You’ve been here for the longest time imaginable,” said Gaius. “In fact, I should be asking you, but you probably don’t have an answer, do you?”

“Erk.”

“Figures.” Gaius looked through the sights once more, but the extra-special snowpyre had ran off. That fella reminded Gaius of the other special snowpyre he’d met, the one that had stalked him as he returned from demolishing the Divine Ladder.

“Ah. That special guy probably had special ether cores of its own too. Bummer.” Gaius shifted his sights to the ordinary snowpyres. “Alright, I’m going to fire. Nexus, you ready?”

“Ready when you are.”

“Then you can begin recording.”

“Here goes.”

Light streaked out of the Custodian’s barrel, slamming into the unfortunate snowpyre soundlessly. The monster raised its hand, and then felt at its chest, where a gaping hole had now appeared. The other snowpyres turned to look at it, and before their very eyes, their companion crumpled over. The fire within its hollow eyes winked out a moment later.

“A laser…” Gaius mumbled. “Wow. Never thought I would see a real laser.”

“On Orb?”

“On anywhere, actually. Laser weapons like this exist only in the realm of fantasy, back on Earth. But this is…wow.” Gaius patted the Custodian. “So, what’s your analysis?”

“We’ll start with the analysis of the actual attack here. Essentially, the Custodian is a weapon with unerring accuracy, and…”

Nexus continued to natter on. The artificial intelligence mostly touched on how fast the attack was (at the speed of light), how deadly it was (a Lord-class target was required for accurate benchmarking) and how detectable it was (light doesn't produce sound, so lasers didn’t either). Beyond that, there wasn’t much it could expound on, so it started talking about the boring specifics.

After a while, Gaius nodded. “I suppose it can replace the Moonshot now, can’t it?”

“Well, in terms of offensive might, yes,” said Nexus. “But I suggest you hang on to the weapon for now. The Custodian’s power source works differently from almost every other artefact. Power is generated over time, sparing you the problems with logistics, but in exchange, you can’t recharge it at will.”

The sculpture pointed at the bottom of the Custodian. “There’s this little gauge there. Can you see it?”

Gaius inspected the artefact carefully, and his eyes fell upon a small meter, like the ones he’d seen in cars back on Earth. He wouldn’t have noticed it that quickly if Nexus didn’t point it out, but at any rate, the meter wasn’t full anymore.

“Around twenty shots before it needs to recharge, by my estimation. Which, I think, is good reason for you to keep the Moonshot around.” Nexus tapped its feet on Gaius’ shoulder. “It’s not enough for you to fight an unending war.”

“I see you’ve already placed your bets on what I’ll do in four years, eh?” Gaius shook his head. “How confident.”

“I like to think that I know you rather well,” said the artificial intelligence. “After all, if the world goes down, you’re not going to find any quality education for Nakama, good food and ice-cream.”

Gaius wanted to smack the uppity Nexus around, but on second thought, the little guy didn’t seem that wrong. His priorities did seem a little odd, but Gaius had to grudgingly admit that his longtime partner indeed understood him well. The boy shook his head, and then glanced down at the snowpyre corpses.

“Well, time to pry some ether cores out,” said the boy.

“Remember to aim for the head next time,” said Nexus. “I think you blew up some ether cores with your attacks earlier. What a waste.”

“Okay.”

With a flash of silver, the Terminus appeared in his left hand. Without much preamble, Gaius got down to the grim work of dissecting the snowpyres to retrieve the ether cores inside. These cores were highly compact power sources, like the gemstones of Orb, but the former contained more and higher quality energy than the latter.

After a minute or so, Gaius was done with the dirty work. Dumping the ether cores into an empty backpack he’d taken along, the boy moved the corpses together and set them ablaze. Gaius didn’t want anyone else to know where these ether cores came from; if this secret was ever revealed, the snowpyres would face an existential crisis like no other. He’d seen enough horror shows back on Earth, where certain valued animals went the way of the dodo…like the dodo itself.

For some reason, Gaius had the feeling that the extinction of snowpyres would be a bad idea. The notion that they existed for a reason wasn’t something he could dismissed — logic told him that these snowpyres were false lives that preyed on people in Heritage, and yet…

“Something on your mind?” Nexus asked.

“No, nothing.” Gaius returned both weapons into their ring form. “Point me to the next batch of snowpyres. We’re on a schedule.”

“Other than snowpyres, would you like to find some robbers and bandits too?” Nexus asked.

“Unfortunately, I discovered that the bandits in this area may or may not be part of Tetsu’s forces,” said Gaius. “I might end up stealing from that guy instead.”

“Hmm. But I can distinguish between them, though.” Nexus tutted. “It’s like a secret war between the Republic and the Assembly. Why not help your buddies out a little?”

“Let’s be a bit grounded here,” Gaius replied. “I have the feeling that any news about an abnormally powerful boy here might end up in a bunch of familiar spirits visiting Heritage.”

“You suspect that their inherent divinity can bypass the age restriction on Heritage?” Nexus asked.

“Well, if I could enter darkness due to having some of that, I don’t see why the age restriction would apply to me,” Gaius answered.

“Then why aren’t we seeing any familiar spirits here?” Nexus asked. “Unless…”

“Yep.” Gaius watched the funeral pyres of the fallen snowpyres die down. “Unless they are subconsciously unaware of it. Just as the people of Orb do not think of the afterlife, the familiar spirits of the great gods…and perhaps even the great gods themselves do not think of Heritage. Think about it. It kinda makes sense, right? You would think that this place of treasures would be the first place to be controlled and fought over by the great gods, but no.”

“A blind spot…but who on Orb can create such a blind spot for the great gods of Orb?” Nexus shook his head. “I doubt even the Demon God could do that.”

“Maybe Orb has its own self-regulating systems,” said the boy. “But the main point of this is that any overt actions by me might draw some walking disasters into Heritage. The Human God is looking for me, and I don’t need him to look at the place where my safehouse is hidden.”

“I see. You sure think ahead,” said Nexus.

“I think you’re just being impatient,” Gaius replied. “Come on, point me towards more snowpyres. We’re kinda rushed here — gotta get to the phrontistery tomorrow and take the test…”

“Yes, Master Gaius. The next one’s two kilometres, in your current direction.” Nexus replied.

Gaius got up. “Haven’t heard you call me that for quite some time.”

“Nostalgic?”

“Definitely.” The boy hoisted the quarter-full backpack and swung it on his back. Now that he was used to not dissecting opponents, after months of battle at the Eastern Territories, Gaius wasn’t looking forward to picking apart flesh and bone for the sake of those little orbs. But unfortunately, it was a necessary job…

Sighing, Gaius got up and took to the skies. He had monsters to kill.