14. The enemy unveiled, the lost princess and the shady countess

It was a bit messy.

Instead of another attack spell, my reflex had been to raise a shield to protect my family. The dragons had shrewdly guessed that, and how I would likely not use that beam weapon if they were all over us.

Now we were blasting more regular spells and fighting back like regular monsters. They had to remain close to avoid that spell.

I launched the request to pin them to the ground like I had on Basileus in the past, but it didn't work just that well... They had prepared for it?

Man, don't underestimate dragons...

Things weren't looking too good. Even of our swords and spells could hurt them.

Until another laser beam ripped the air, and damaged some of their wings from behind.

In the distance, we saw Trinity arriving in reinforcements!

I didn't know they learnt to use that spell. I guess the replicant told them as well before it disappeared.

With their help, we pinned the dragons down, managing not to kill them.

Again it had not been an easy victory, but we were fine... Dominika and Felicia hugged me instead of punching me. I was surprised, but I think the dragons must have also scared them.

I got closer to the immobilised leader.

S - It seems bravery wasn't enough my friend. I get that you were all jealous of the makeover I gave Basileus, but that still wasn't right. You think we can understand each other now Eczar?

E - ...

J - Just accept being her friend!

Now this one gets me I thought with a grin.

Trinity were sighing greatly. Dominika, Orea and Felicia were still happy to be reunited with me. Perhaps they were holding their kicks to my butt for a little after we would be done dealing with this immediate dragon situation.

~

The Radiant Firebond was bringing Trinity up to speed about all we had learnt and faced.

Meanwhile I chatted with our friends of various species.

S - Now, do we discuss how we could save the system? You know something more, don't you? About the other place. About what's behind... them.

E - We have some verified data.

S - Like where is that other world? And what leads them?

E - It's not a different world...

S - The air was unbreathable; the biosphere was gone... The sun was much bigger...

E - It's not a different planet...

Eczar was troubled. He couldn’t say it? But my elven nekomimi friend could.

Z - It's the future of our system. Isn’t it?

I thought about it as well.

The weird realisation.

They must have found a timestamp somewhere.

And the new species began to realize, the enemy was apparently not coming from another place, but another time...

~

A billion years...

Up to a point in time where even all the nanites power couldn't put up with what the sun had become.

They eventually failed their mission.

The system in the end of times, failed. Because such was the unavoidable fate of the star system.

Even they were never as powerful as a star's demise.

The system of the far, far future of Earth had gone insane...

Yet it managed to reallocate its power and capacities to come back to us in a nefarious way.

Energy could be used to curve space-time in conventional ways... But the nanites had the potential to go in unconventional ways as well.

Eventually sometime in the future, they cracked the spell to negative energy, and opening small rifts through time itself? That broke my understanding of reality. I didn’t think that could ever be possible.

Although that had been true for many a thing I encountered in this life and world. Including making so many nice friends.

S - So you think the system in this end of times is returning, throwing these monsters and itself at us, to... Wreck us?

E - It helped creating us, and the other species...

Z - The times of when the new species began to spread coincides with the early monsters’ appearances. So it’s a possibility. But we’re not clear on the purpose.

S - It is bringing the monsters, but also budding the new species?

There was a weird paradox. The nanites told me what the new species were made for. I didn’t get they came from the future at the time. But for the monsters, they couldn’t say.

Or rather, they were not allowed to say.

S - Nanites, I don’t have any authorisation in the future system I guess?

N - That’s about it yes.

If the corrupted system on the other side of time and space was now meaning to destroy us, we would fight back. And it was now more clear on how I would do that.

Our foe was the global scale Earth T.I. system from a very distant future. Millions of years away most likely.

Perhaps it had brought beneficial insight from the future at first, but then turned wrong afterward. Perhaps millions of years had gone by between the two sides, and its corruption been a matter on geological or even astral scale.

We would never know, as we needed to defend our time. It wouldn't speak to me, and we would seek to kill it to no longer rip through our timeline.

It was an interesting theory to me, that the new species had been ordered and programmed as humanity safeguards, not from our time or the seven sages, but from a future retrospective of what would have been the solution somewhere.

Elves, dwarves, fairies and dragons could have prevented the future to end up poorly. Hard to say when, hard to say how. I liked to muse about it and wonder what it could mean.

With better handling of the system that had not been meant to be owned by old humans, could they have led us to a utopia? Or would they now?

S - There is no fate but what we make for ourselves.

A - Are you saying you want your elven nekomimi kingdom again?

S - ... No?

They were giving me dubious looks.

Never mind them.

~

Kami-sama from before I was born, had given me something more than a new life. The machine god revealed it in the worst way possible in the academy, but I held the key to shut the corrupt system down.

And it possibly knew it already. Because the two sides were connected to some levels.

The enemy wanted now to eradicate our system and species, and our entire biosphere probably.

And the rhythm of attacks would only increase rapidly.

Times were turning unsteady as monsters were turning more numerous and restless.

Now we would be not only careful, we began to prepare for the real final attack. It was bound to happen soon.

Z - From our calculations with the dragons, there had been an exponential growth of attacks over the last 18 years or so. That is why all the species began to investigate more lately. We could reach a singularity attack shortly.

S - 18 years hm...

About my age, coincidentally.

A random isekaied with the authorisation to bypass it all one time. A system threat...

We had to warn the governments willing to listen to us, all of us. To coordinate them hopefully on the right enemies.

So we prepared for a tour of embassies throughout Europe, splitting up our groups for a while.

Orea and Josephine, the better diplomats, headed for the EU Empire capital of Aachen.

Aster headed for the Netherland and Belgium with Izad and Zeug.

Cécile headed for the United Kingdom and Dominika for western Russia.

And I, obviously, headed for Norway and Sweden first. I had amends to make. With Felicia to watch over me.

S - I'm not a child.

F - Goodness no. You would be so much cutter otherwise.

I saw her dreaming of something, and thought better than to ask.

We climbed on top of Basileus, who was kind enough to give us a lift.

The coward, as the dragons tended to berate him, was the one smart enough from my perspective to make friends of his former foes.

Eczar was likely going to do the right thing, but we could tell he wasn't going to sign a peace treaty with the human nations anytime soon.

S - It will take time to rally everyone to a peaceful community. Competitive and game theoryinstinct run hard. Even for believers of the machine god like your kind.

B - Dragons are proud.

That made me chuckle to hear that cliché line.

The newer organic species were the most pragmatic ones.

And the monsters we cut down along the way were just mind controlled golems of a wider technological monster.

I would apologise to the kings and make sure they would help in the right way when the big day would come.

The others managed to get the same buy in from the higher ups accordingly.

Because we had the words of every species to back us, and warnings matching the obvious trends, the world leaders thankfully listened to us. Most of them did.

Only between Belgium and the Netherlands it was a bit tougher. The two kingdoms were still very much at odds with each other.

Aster arrived in the Kingdom of Netherlands and Flanders at the worst of times.

King William XII had just died, and a coup followed.

Princess Louise of the Netherlands was fleeing in exile while we were all around.

Less chivalrous people would have simply negotiated with the usurper in place, but not our Aster von Murgarden. Oh no. She wanted her knighthood for proper nobility.

She found the princess and reinstated her with her own might. She was more crazy than even I was sometimes. Without a single gunshot, albeit perhaps a few bones broken by her sword, she defeated the evil ones, and returned the legitimate heir to her household.

With the authority over the nanites she had been given, she was as powerful a hero as I was. Other adventurers were no match. Even if she didn't throw big spells around and relied almost exclusively on her old sword. Aster was just as passionate as she always was.

We saw on the news how the government had changed hands again, thanks to an anonymous wandering knight.

Ok that was a bit cool.

She hid her face a bit for the cameras, but her close friends could easily recognise her. Her father too probably. Your daughter helped reinstate a neighbouring family to its throne. That would surely help peace between the countries and count a lot of points toward her sacrament.

Princess Louise was apparently not unaffected by her charms either. I couldn't blame her. But as much as she might have wished to keep our Aster as her royal guard, she already had a few other oaths to honour. She headed for Belgium afterward, while I went to Norway.

My apologies went better than expected honestly.

Both kings wanted to be my friends, in a very political way.

King Leopold V - Never mind a countess, I will make you a duchess.

S - Hm, no thanks. I'm fine with what I have. Don't get me wrong, I understand you. But I don't want my power to tip the scales rashly. I'm still young, please give me some time.

King Leopold V - I understand. I was born young too once upon a time. I will keep things open and a gentle pressure over time.

I smiled back and bowed.

Not only was I welcome back and listened to under my real name, they wanted me to marry their sons.

Hm. No thanks! I didn't come around to reinforce the old system, but preparing the defence on a wider scale.

Thankfully, they agreed to support me officially.

Trinity and the Radiant Firebond met with a United Nations delegation, a working group now addressing the rapidly growing crisis with the monsters.

Despite our young age and lack of political powers, we regrouped enough supports to make something real happen.

And it came true in the nick of time...