Mercy, he said...

2 months before the battle of Spire Port:

A lone man treaded through thick forest, panting in exhaustion with every step. He had been hiking for several hours now, so when he stopped to take a breath, he noticed that the sky was starting to become a bit darker. He straightened his suit, which was not at all suited for the task he was doing, and checked the magical device on his left wrist.

This device was the only item he had on his person, other than the clothes he was wearing, and was the only reason he wasn’t completely lost in this bizarre forest.

“I know you’re watching, Sentry.”

The forest around him stirred for a moment, and the wind whistled as if laughing at this audacious man.

“Then you are more foolish than I had thought, Count Alexander Telantra. You know that I have rejected you, and yet you force an audience upon me with that horrid device on your wrist… or should I say that was on your wrist?”

The voice was omnipresent in the forest, so Alexander did not know where he should be looking when he spoke to her. When he checked his wrist, he noticed that the device he used to find his way here had mysteriously disappeared.

He couldn’t help but flinch at this fact. He wouldn’t have even noticed that it was gone if the sentry hadn’t pointed it out. It wasn’t like he hadn’t known that this would be dangerous, but seeing how helpless he was in this situation was sobering, to say the least.

“So you know why I’m here then?”

“Of course, I do not partake in the games you humans play, but I do have ways of knowing what you’re up to at all times. You wish for my assistance in slaying that brute of a dragon, do you not? Unfortunately for you, I have already spoken with him. We agreed not to fight one another for the duration of this ‘war’ in exchange for him giving me some… gifts.”

Alexander couldn’t help but frown at this, he hadn’t known that Kael Drogo had spoken to her already.

“So you’ve joined his side then?”

This was a bit risky, but Alexander had to—

“DO NOT PROVOKE ME HUMAN,” The forest as a whole stirred and darkened significantly. Then the sentry continued, “TRY IT AGAIN, AND I WILL HAVE YOUR HEAD.”

Alexander blinked once, but when he opened his eyes, a small girl was floating in front of him. No, it was a child-shaped being wearing a karate gi… and she was flying, not floating.

Her foot collided with his chest before he could react in any way, sending him flying through the forest. He collided with several trees and rocks before stopping beneath a particularly large maple tree. Interestingly enough, Alexander was not harmed in any way by this attack, only finding himself to be a bit dizzy. This, however, did nothing to ease his tension because he definitely should have just died several times back there. Clearly the laws of the world were being perverted in some unbelievable manner.

“KNEEL”

Faster than he could even think, Alexander’s body reacted to follow the sentry’s command. Grimacing slightly, Alexander spoke before he could lose initiative once more:

“Charlotte, do you know what ended up happening to those two children you took into your care a decade ago?”

“...Do you wish to blame me for their pitiful fates? If I remember correctly, you abandoned them just as much as I did.”

“You… You’re right, I did abandon them. But with my Eyes, I saw their fates… They should have been fine, I don’t know why that happened. I’m not trying to make an excuse or anything–”

“Yes, your eyes… The Eyes of Fate Prying, I believe they are called… hmmm, how should I put this…” Her demeanor completely changed when a small frown appeared on her face. The darkness of the surrounding forest seemed to become less deep as well. “There are two mistakes I believe you made, Count Telantra. But firstly, tell me the fates of the pair you saw.”

“Yes, of course… For Raya, I saw that she would become Duchess of Drogo. Adam’s fate was unclear, but I saw that he would become monstrously strong.”

Charlotte raised an eyebrow when she heard what Alexander said. “I’m surprised that you are not blind after peering into that thing’s fate. Yes, you made two mistakes. Firstly, you relied too heavily on your eyes. Fates are constantly broken, reformed, or otherwise changed. Simply coming into contact with another with strong fate can change one’s fate, making your predictions unreliable. Secondly, you severely underestimated that boy, Adam, and you misread his nature… Well, I can’t really blame you for that because I did the same thing at first…”

“Huh, what do you mean?”

“This should make you happy,” Charlotte smiled. “That boy is still alive. In fact, he is slaughtering some of Drogo’s soldiers at this very moment.”

She gazed off into the distance as if she could actually see him, further confusing Alexander.

“But… I confirmed his death myself… We found his corpse, or what was left of it…”

Obviously, neither Count Telantra nor any of his agents had actually seen the battle between Kael Drogo and the two kids, but when they visited the battlefield after the fact, they found Raya’s headless corpse and a humanoid mass presumed to belong to Adam. Further testing revealed without a doubt that the humanoid mass was, indeed, Adam.

“You’re right, he did die back then. But then he came back to life by reincarnating into a new body. That is his fate, what you saw was merely a misleading fragment of it. You probably protected yourself subconsciously by only seeing that portion of it.”

“...”

It was a lot of information for Count Telantra to process all at once, so he was understandably lost in thought. He had long forgotten the fact that he was in mortal danger, so Charlotte decided to drop the tension as well.

With a sigh, she sat down cross-legged and asked him, “So what was it that you actually came here for?”

“That’s right… We’d gotten sidetracked, but I wanted your help in getting revenge on Kael Drogo. The fact that Adam is still alive in some way doesn’t change what I want to do,” Then, remembering what had just happened, he added. “I-I understand that you made a neutrality agreement with Duke Drogo, but even just information on any of his weaknesses would be immensely helpful. I’m willing to do whatever it takes to even have a chance of bringing him down.”

“Well, as far as weaknesses go, he doesn’t really have any I know of that are useful to you. But…” A mannequin walked over and handed a fancy vial to Charlotte, which she, in turn, presented to Alexander. “I believe that even someone as weak and pitiful as you could find a way to make use of this poison.”

- - - - - - -

1 month before the attack on spire port:

“So what was the name you ended up choosing, Pax?”

Her voice was soothing and kind, as if she truly was interested and curious about Pax.

Pax, however, simply kept walking down the hallway, and ignored her completely. She continued following behind him and kept asking him over and over again though, so he eventually had to give in.

“Misericorde.”

Her soundless footsteps stopped and she cutely tilted her head to the side.

“Misericorde… sounds cool, but why did you choose that name in particular?”

“The Misericorde was a dagger used in the middle ages to end the suffering of wounded knights. Thus, we are Misericorde, for we are mercy.”

“Pfft…” She put her hand over her mouth in a pitiful attempt to stifle her laughter.

“What? What’s so funny?”

“No –Pfft– It’s just… hehe… you’re…. You’re such a little edgelord! AHAHAHAH!” Tears actually came out of her eyes as she doubled over in laughter.

Pax rolled his eyes and began walking away in annoyance, but her laughter didn’t become any more quite in his ears.

“You’re an edgy little edgelord! AHAHAH! I mean… AHAHAHA….Y– You….” Finally, after taking some deep breaths to calm down, she could finish her sentence:

“You… hah… You say that, but you don’t even know why this war is happening! That’s the best part! AHAHAHAH!”

Her laughter was grating, and it echoed endlessly in his skull. Somehow he hadn’t even thought to figure out something as simple as that. He realized that he hadn’t actually cared about who he was killing, or why he was killing them. Pax had been too preoccupied with himself and his personal revenge to think about what he was actually doing.

It was a strange realization: The fact that you were much more superficial than you had thought.

- - - - - - -

Even a decade after the end of the Artenian Civil War, scholars still debated the exact reasons for why the situation in New Artenia developed the way it did. A professor at the Artenian Royal Academy put it this way in his book, Recollections of the Vanished:

…though many documents were lost in the aftermath. From the few documents we do still have dating back to immediately before the war, we can confidently infer the following:

Before the war, there were two main factions in New Artenia: The Free Artenia faction, headed by Marquess Witherton, and the Noble faction, headed by Duke Lagrimas. Although the two factions disagreed on many topics, such as slavery and the treatment of commoners, it was likely the fact that an overwhelming amount of resources had started to become monopolized by the two Dukedoms in New Artenia that caused tensions to raise to such an extent…

…Duke Lagrimas orchestrated an attack on Marquess Witherton’s estate, killing nearly all of its residents. Unfortunately for him, two people survived the attack, those being Martha Witherton and her young child. Martha Witherton would then go on to send letters to her friend, the wife of Marquess Pilnea, detailing the events of the attack and evidence that it was indeed Duke Lagrimas. The mother and son then disappeared, presumably they died but the exact details will be forever unknown.

House Pilnea tried to reorganize the Free Artenia faction, but without Marquess Witherton, they were unable to create meaningful results. Most likely, the smaller houses were afraid from retaliation from Duke Lagrimas, and rightfully so because House Pilnea was soon silenced. Their entire castle had been leveled overnight, causing hundreds of people to go missing. The spread of information was thoroughly stifled, and the few witnesses refused to testify. The crown started serious investigations, but Duke Lagrimas attributed the incident to illegal dark magic research being conducted by the Pilneas. Of course, militarization had already begun, but New Artenia had already become fully controlled both economically and militarily by Duke Lagrimas and his allies.

At this point, war had become inevitable for a country such as Artenia.