The wounded came first. With both the lich and the Thundershell Knight gone, they had free reign over the entire bank. That meant there were no longer any problems scrounging up more Mana from every nook and cranny they found some in.

Evelyn needed it. Apparently, the new Sigil of Vital Recuperation consumed Mana passively, so they needed all the flakes and crystals they could get their hands on. Besides, several of them needed major healing. Ned still hadn’t recovered fully, and Dez was in a terrible condition too. Her Sigil of First Aid was getting a lot of exercise.

Sadly, that ended up exhausting their dwindling supply of Mana, which was why Allen and Trish had resumed their quest to get more. Rory had instructed them to check the courtyard and the parking lot as well, now that the various monsters had been dealt with.

Once those had been settled, he had accosted the automaton. The robot had turned out to be no robot at all, or even a cyborg of some kind. It was just a person wearing a mechanical suit.

“You organize well, it seems,” he said. “I am Arelland, by the way. Forgive me, but it’s simply surprising to meet human mortals out in the wilderness still alive.”

The girl, Mara, loudly cleared her throat. “What about me?”

By the looks of her, she couldn’t have been more than fifteen. Rory decided not to let his thoughts stray before he started feeling miserably sad about being orphaned at that age.

“You are little different from the monsters,” Arelland muttered.

Mara looked like she’d been praised to high heaven. “That’s right, I’m better than any monster.”

“How did you end up together?” Rory asked, looking between Mara and Arelland.

“I was going to kill that thing.” Mara jerked her thumb back at the spot where the Thunderclaw Knight had been defeated. “But then I met master along the way, and he told me I wouldn’t be able to do it on my own just then. Then he offered to train me.”

“I did no such thing,” Arelland said. “I explicitly said I would assist in your endeavour to kill the Thunderclaw.”

“You owe me so much training, master.” Mara bulldozed on before the elf could protest, focusing her intense eyes on Rory. “You sound like you know me, old man. What’s the deal?”

Rory swallowed. The positive feelings he’d felt disappeared a little. “I… met your father.”

Mara looked like Rory had gone mad. “Father? Oh, you mean Dewitt. Nah, that old geezer isn’t my dad. Just likes to pretend he is.”

“I’m sorry, but he passed away.”

“Oh.” Mara’s cheer faded. A complicated mix of emotions passed over her face. Some grief, some anger, a momentary look like she was suddenly lost. It struck Rory just how young she was then. “How’d he die?” she asked, unsuccessfully trying not to choke up.

Rory wasn’t sure how to put it comfortingly. The man hadn’t exactly had a clean death. “His last words were how he hoped you’d live.”

“Of course, it was,” Mara muttered.

For all Arelland’s protestations that he wasn’t the girl’s master, he still placed a gentle hand on Mara’s head. “You aren’t alone.”

Rory blinked at the elf. Up close, he was nearly eight feet tall, though a part of that had to be his mechanical suit. The helmet had a plate that moved to reveal a thin, unblemished, and ageless face with high cheekbones, sharp blue eyes, and long, silky black hair carefully combed away. A mask with two thick tubes leading down into the suit covered Arelland’s mouth.

“Are you… an elf?” Rory asked, rather slowly to let his brain take it in. “In a mech suit?”

“Elf is a strange translation for your world.” He looked faintly amused by it. “I gather from your befuddled expression that you have never met one before. Unsurprising. Your kind are so sheltered here. I am baffled how more of you have managed to survive this long.”

“… thank you?”

The elf tilted his head to one side. “Do you always thank others for backhanded compliments?”

“Well, I didn’t want to be rude to a new acquaintance. Especially one who saved us from certain death at the hands of an unkillable monster.”

“Clearly, they could not have been killed had they been truly unkillable, as you say.”

Rory decided to chalk up the elf’s attitude to a language barrier. Or perhaps, that was just how people acted wherever he’d come from. It could be true they had just been rescued by someone ostensibly worse than the Knight, but Arelland didn’t give off that kind of feeling.

“I’m sorry,” Rory said. “But I’ve got no idea who you are. Why are you here, and where are you from? I’m grateful for your help, of course, but what are you doing here?” He glanced at Mara, who still hadn’t looked up from where she was staring hard at the ground. “And why did you take her in?”

The elf looked around, the lower half of his helmet whirring with a hydraulic sound. Rory wondered how much of him was truly mechanized. “I helped the girl for the same reason I helped you. You were lost.”

“I see. You’re helping us despite being an Otherworlder?”

“Not all of us are monsters of the kind you’ve met so far. It refers to all who come to a foreign world in hopes of settling on it under the rules governed by the system. That includes us elves, the dwarfs in their clouds, the sleepy kobolds, and the elemental giants as well, besides others.”

“Right. But aren’t you all at war with us? At least, that’s the impression I got.”

The elf titled his head again. “Your kind’s customs appear even stranger than I was led to believe.”

“What? Do elves take help from anyone they come across?”

Arelland shook his head, and the gears under his helm whirred again. “It is the duty of all elves to teach any who seek to know what they wish to know, provided the teacher knows it and the student may benefit from it, and the world may benefit from the student’s learning. One never teaches a tyrant how best to subjugate.”

“That… is interesting.”

“It’s why I’m his devoted pupil,” Mara said. “He’s bound to train me, no matter what.”

Arelland sighed, unable to argue. He fixed Rory with his stare. “Allow me to offer some guidance.”

“I’m sorry, but I’m not sure I’m supposed to trust someone who intends to start killing us when an arbitrary timer runs out.”

“He’s not like that,” Mara insisted, now meeting Rory’s eyes with her red-rimmed and teary ones. “I trust him with my life.”

“Perhaps answering your original question will help,” Arelland said. “I am one of the elven scouts of the Otherworlder Coalition. We—that is to say the elves, dwarves, kobolds, and giants—have taken over a large human city to the south and are rebuilding it to suit our needs. To survive, we need more Sigils and Mana, which is why forward scouts have been sent out.”

Rory’s heart thudded loud. “Wait, large city to the south? Do you mean Dwellmont?”

“I believe the humans used to call it that, yes.”

A chill gripped Rory as though the lich was back, wrapping him in a blizzard. “And the people there… what happened to them?”

Arelland was silent a moment before he answered. “They were removed from their homes. They resisted our occupation and there was a battle.”

“And?”

He closed his eyes for a second, and when he opened them to stare Rory right in his eyes, they were hollow. “Most died. Some escaped, but hope is fragile for them in the Wilderness. We rule what was once the human’s now. It is our city.”

Rory’s mind was lost in a swirling whirlpool, threatening to drown him in sorrow, anxiety, and dreadful fear. Alex had been living in Dwellmont. “Did you see a builder there? They’d be in their late thirties, hard hat, bright jacket, sunglasses…”

Arelland was shaking his head before Rory had finished describing his only child. Of course, it would have been a miracle if he recalled one person among the thousands who’d been living in Dwellmont.

The hollowness in the elf’s eyes seemed to infect Rory. He felt his guts swoop and breathing became difficult. Here he was, standing and chatting with and being saved by a genocidal monster. One who had likely killed Alex. With a grunt of disgust, Rory turned away.

Belatedly, a part of him shouted at him that he was exposing his back. He stomped on it. If Arelland had wanted them dead, they’d all have been mincemeat like the Knight long ago. Worse, Rory still didn’t get any sense of what the elf had said from him directly. Arelland didn’t look or act or feel like he’d just come from conquering a city.

“So why did you save us?” Rory asked, turning back to the elf, unable to control his rising rage. “You thought you’d take pity on us after killing to atone for your genocide? Don’t tell me you’re one of good ones who didn’t really want to but was forced to kill anyway? What is that you want?”

Rory felt eyes on his back. The others were staring, probably ready to intervene at a moment’s notice. Those who weren’t busy salvaging things from all over the bank were resting by Evelyn’s side, watching proceedings carefully, the tension thrumming through the air. Rory sighed. He should have kept quiet and let the others actually rest.

“Why did you rescue me, master?” Mara asked Arelland, now glaring at the elf. Maybe it had finally gotten through to her that she was associating with a monster of a different kind.

Arelland was staring up at the hall’s broken ceiling. “What reason would there be for me to kill helpless ones such as you who mean no harm to anyone?”

“Couldn’t the same be said for the people who were happily minding their business at Dwellmont?” Rory asked.

“Perhaps, but you do not stand before me as an obstacle. You are not preventing me from what I seek. From what we seek. For all I know, you may even help me gain what I wish.”

“What makes you think we’d help you or your kind?”

“Because we can help you survive.”

Rory wished he could reply something easy or forthright, but he couldn’t not consider an offer like that. Survival. That was what they were ultimately seeking here.

“We’re going to Mirrorend,” he said. “We’ll survive perfectly fine there.”

“Will you, now? Even in the middle of a war? Do you truly wish to pick a side and fall in the line of fire of all Otherworlders? Besides which, do you supposed you can make such a long journey with your small, wounded group?”

Rory sighed. He had a point. “I’m guessing you have a different suggestion?”

“It is what you assume. Stay away from Mirrorend and do not associate yourselves with their war against us. Do that, and this war never need touch you or yours.”

Another proposal Rory couldn’t just fling back in the elf’s face, no matter how much his anger for his fellow humans, for Alex, made him want to.

“Why?” Mara asked. Her voice was choked again. “Why are you all here? Why did you leave your homes to come to our world? Why did you destroy it?”

Arelland pulled himself away from the fury of his supposed pupil. “Your world isn’t destroyed. Not yet.” He was staring at the ceiling again, a distant look in his eyes. “Destroyed is what has happened to our world. When the ground swallows anything on the surface, when the skies rain down death, when every attempt at forging life is met with insurmountable odds…”

“That can’t be true,” Mara said.

“It is. That is why we were forced to seek refuge in another world. When the Plane Rulers warred against each other, they needed proxy sides to settle their conflict to prevent what they did to our home world from happening elsewhere. And who better to fight such a proxy war than those who suffered the most in the last devastation?”

Rory could see the lure laid out by these Plane Rulers all too easily. Win the war, and the new world would be theirs. No one in their condition would be able to refuse such an offer. It was the easiest deal in existence.

“Gah.” Mara turned around and walked away. “I need a break.”

Rory pursed his lips, watching her walk away. Poor girl must have gone through so much. He wondered what had happened to her real parents. Arelland’s eyes looked sad as he tracked her movements.

“So, one Plane Ruler supports you Otherworlders,” Rory said, turning back to Arelland. “While the other one supports the Homeworlders?”

“Correct.”

“And you can’t simply… not fight?”

“Much better to comply. You do not wish what happened to my world to happen to yours.”

Rory stared back at the others. He wasn’t sure if they could see his expression from that far out, but he was sure Viv at least could read his body language. It was probably troubling her. But he couldn’t help it.

On the one hand, he’d be colluding with the side that wanted to eradicate humanity. Well, he assumed it was something bad of that sort, if not so dramatic. On the other hand, here was a glorious opportunity for them to figure out their survival that didn’t depend on Mirrorend, a place they might never reach even if they did decide to set out for it.

Rory turned to the elf. “What exactly did you have in mind regarding our survival? As in, even if you have no intention of killing us, how can we say the same about the other Otherworlders?”

“Simple,” Arelland said. “We must make a deal.”

Rory blinked, then raised his right hand a little. The Sigil of Mercantilism was already glowing on its back, as though the mention of a deal had summoned it into being. “A system-approved deal?”

Arelland stared wide-eyed at the glowing image of the Sigil. “Where did you get that?”

“Long story…”