“Yeah, well. I’m still not convinced,” David said impatiently. “Erasmus is still in command of a battle-company of the most skilled warriors in Etronia.”

  “Erasmus is no threat,” I said without hesitation. I looked around and saw that Beltane and Miriam were in earshot, so I switched to English before saying, “No NPC in this world serves as a real threat to us. They were all built to be defeated, and I know the patterns to defeat them. With a week of preparation, I could walk up to Erasmus’s battle-company and kill him by myself.”

  “Even if I do believe you,” David said in English, “how do I know that you’re not going to be possessed by the same demon from earlier and kill us all the moment you’re strong enough?”

  I switched back to the common tongue, “That could take a little while to explain. You might all want to sit down for this.”

  From there, I explained the circumstances of my relationship with Thale. The only thing I left out was Miriam’s death in Thale’s timeline. By the time I was done explaining, Haydith and David seemed to understand, but Beltane and Miriam still looked confused.

  When I reached the end of my explanation, Haydith said, “So, your reincarnation interfered with the original Thale’s temporal regression?”

  “That’s one way to put it,” I said with a shrug.

  With the bridge of his nose pinched between his thumb and index finger, Beltane asked, “I understand the basics, but how did you manage to shift to a different universe when magic doesn’t exist in your original universe? And what does this gambling house called the Cagliostro have to do with anything?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  Scratching his face, David said, “All three of us were in the Cagliostro when it collapsed. Why, then, do I have my original body and you two don’t?”

  “Probably because you never died,” I suggested. “Do you remember being crushed under the rubble?”

  “No,” David said, frowning. “I remember being trapped under some rubble, and then I suddenly appeared in a cave near Fulvang.”

  “That must be it, then,” I said. “My original body was too destroyed to be transferred, so my… soul, I guess… entered the body of Thale Feldrast.”

  “I see,” David said, standing from his seat on the log. “In summary, the evil lich in your head won’t be coming back. That’s all I needed to know. I’m going back to Fulvang.”

  David stood and began leaving the campsite. I stood from my seat and began to follow him.

  Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

  “Wait. Where are you going?” I asked.

  “I’m going to find Orion Arcturus and get him to teleport me back home,” David said.

  “What? Why?”

  “My battle-company is still in Fulvang.”

  “You should stick around a bit longer. This is the first time that any of us have run into other people from Earth. Shouldn’t we stick together?”

  David scowled. “We’re never getting back to Earth. As far as I’m concerned, Earth is irrelevant. I’m an Etronian soldier now; the man I used to be died when the Cagliostro collapsed.”

  [Blood Enhancement, Lvl. 5]

  He continued walking at a speed that I had difficulty following, so I was forced to activate the Blood Rune on my chest.

  “Come on, imagine how much power we would have if we can pull this off. Mountains of gold and the greatest armies in the world would be at your fingertips,” I said.

  “If.” David spoke one word. “I can’t feed myself with theoreticals.”

  “How about this then?” I stopped, and David kept walking toward the road. I cleared my throat and said, “Two hundred thousand Etronian gold coins.”

  David stopped mid-step before turning back to me. “What?”

  “That is the approximate GDP of Northwind and Tethyr combined. The leaders of those two realms are loyal to me. Every year, ten percent of that is tithed to the government: twenty thousand Etronian gold coins. I could raise that much money in one year. You said you can’t feed yourself with hypotheticals. Well, how many mouths can you feed with that much money?”

  It was a bluff, to an extent. Theoretically, I could convince Solana and Eadric to send me the yearly tithes of their realms, but that was not sustainable. It would leave their realms without guards, soldiers, or tax collectors. I could raise a significant amount of money in a year, it was true, but the number was probably much smaller than I claimed.

  “Really?” David said, doubt in his eyes. “That’s just a benefit of being born into the nobility, huh? Still, those are just words. How do I know that…?”

  I reached into my pocket and tossed the pouch contained within toward David in a wide arc. He caught it with the superhuman agility afforded to him by the System. After a moment, he looked inside, and his eyes widened in shock.

  “Eighty Etronian gold coins. That’s just how much I carry in my pocket at any one time. Take it. Consider it the first payment in your new career as my mercenary.”

  I could tell that David wanted to contradict me, but the bag of gold held his attention like he was a hungry wolf that had just spotted a rabbit.

  “I only make ten gold coins per year,” David muttered with a small amount of resentment poisoning his voice. “How did you get so rich?”

  “The drug trade,” I said, half joking. While David counted the money, I walked up to him. Leaning into his ear, I whispered, “Everything in this world that can be bought with money can be yours if you just stick with me.”

  “My battle-company, can you fund them? The salaries, food, and equipment of a hundred people isn’t cheap.”

  “A hundred soldiers? Easy. If they fight for me in the same way they fought for my father, I’ll gladly fund them.”

  “Okay,” David said, and a wide smile appeared on his face. “Should I call you Boss?”

  “You don’t have to,” I said, matching his smile. “Come on back. We have some planning to do.”