The journey was smooth sailing, more so than anyone had expected.

  The mutated corvette ship — known now by the crew as a Biovore vessel — practically glided across the turbulent seas. Its vast tentacles, while unsettling to look upon, provided incredible stability and speed. If one were to stay inside their cabins, they might even mistake themselves for being on land when the ship passed calmer waters.

  Still, pleasant as the cruise was, most remained uneasy.

  “I swear I felt eyes on me yesterday,” Bori grumbled as he ate his stew. “The walls are watching, I can feel it! The shadows were even moving last night!”

  “You better not be getting sea-madness already. We’ve only started sailing for less than two weeks,” Julie said in between her ravenous chewing. “You should get out of your room more. The sea air’s good for you.”

  “The sea air makes me sick. I’m not built for the ocean,” Bori whined.

  Raharim patted his back. “It’s the same for some of the crew. We'd best get used to it fast. Even if everything goes well, we will be stuck in these waters for a few months.”

  “And we already know things aren’t going to go well,” Alvine sighed. “We lost the dreadnought before we even set sail, and now we ride upon an inferior craft that hasn’t technically been combat tested yet.”

  “I won’t worry too much about it. The dwarves were looking at the main cannon yesterday, and they got really excited,” Julie hummed. “Eri and his hot elven twins got us a really nice boat. I bet the first enemy ship we come across is going to regret meeting us.”

  “Also, about that. Can we talk about the twins?” Bori said, his eyes darting around uncomfortably.

  “Now that’s a topic I don’t mind talking about,” Alvine murmured. “There’s a saying in the East that there’s no finer sight in the world than a desertborn maiden, especially a beauty of blood-red hair standing amidst the ivory sands. Seeing those two, I’m inclined to agree.”

  “I’m more concerned over the fact that we somehow missed the fact that those two are Elves for the past four years, Alvine,” Bori sighed. “Your fetishes are a secondary worry.”

  “It’s not a fetish to have eyes for beautiful women, Bori, especially for those two,” Alvine scoffed. “But fine. So the twins can use Elven magic. What of it? We always knew they were strange ever since House Elathion ‘rescued’ them from enslavement. And since the Duskcrowns are playing with Elder Blood, well… It’s not that much of a stretch to connect the dots.”

  “Am I the only one who thinks it’s weird how Eri keeps getting powerful people to back up his crazy ideas?” Bori demanded. “House Elathion is practically his already. Lady Dulcina doesn’t oppose any of his decisions, despite her being the actual heir of the House. Captain Lauren seems almost afraid of standing up to him, as if his Ruby Core means nothing to Eri’s Silver. And now, we have ancient elves and dwarves following his every command without question, even though they should look down on him for being a human!”

  The others were quiet for a moment, contemplating his words.

  The last point stood out the most. It was a well-known fact that the Elder races looked down upon the Newborn species. In nearly every aspect — magic, civilisation, or intellect — the Elderkin were superior. The fact that almost all of them were extinct did not change that; Even after two thousand years, mankind’s understanding of the arcane was paltry compared to theirs. The height of human civilisation — the Aurelian Empire — was likewise laughable compared to the grand utopias the Elderkins once ruled from.

  For the likes of the proud elven twins to so readily heed Eri’s demands, and for the stubborn dwarves to bow their heads while respectfully calling him ‘Paragon’, it was undoubtedly unsettling.

  “I don’t think it’s a bad thing,” Raharim said. “All that authority allows him to make decisions quickly, which is important since he’s practically in charge of our expedition now.”

  “Okay, but why? Why is he in charge?” Bori pressed on. “He’s not even the strongest Chosen among us. Heck, he’s not even the oldest or the most experienced! In fact, he’s the youngest! He’s almost ten years younger than us!”

  “What, so you want to be the one leading us instead?” Julie snorted.

  “I’m saying it’s insane that we are putting all this power and responsibility on a teenager, and no one is even batting an eye!” Bori threw his hands up. “He has no business wielding this much authority when he’s not even old enough to grow hair on his chin yet!”

  “He’s better off without facial hair anyway.” Julie snickered. “Can you imagine him growing a little white beard?”

  “Bori has a point, though. When we were his age, we didn’t even have our Goddess Cores yet,” Alvine hummed. “Someone like him should be spending his time awkwardly chasing girls and fumbling with his first demon kill, not leading an expedition with Ruby-Core Chosens in it.”

  “But we also know he’s special. We shouldn’t hold him to a normal person’s standards,” Raharim countered.

  “Except that, mentally speaking, he hasn’t shown that much more emotional maturity than a regular teenager,” Bori insisted. “Combat-wise, yes, he’s a monster. I’ll also freely admit that he’s more knowledgeable than any other person his age I know when it comes to weapons or explosives. But!”

  Bori slammed his hands on the desk. “At the end of the day, this is still a seventeen-year-old leading a Chosen expedition full of adults! What if he breaks down from the stress, or starts making more questionable decisions? How emotionally stable were you when you were seventeen? Because I remember us being dumbasses who couldn’t make a rational decision to save our lives.”

  “You were a dumbass, maybe. I was awesome the moment I was born,” Julie retorted. “But… I kinda see your point. Without Elen around, he’s been a little more stubborn lately. Maybe we are putting too much pressure on him?”

  “Even so, I don’t see any other way. He’s the only one everyone listens to: Lady Dulcina, Joarris, the knights, the elves, even the dwarves,” Raharim hesitantly said. “He has to be the one who leads us. There’s no other option.”

  “And that is why Bori is afraid,” Alvine clicked her teeth. “Because if someone that young is our best option for leading us, it means the expedition is heading for disaster.”

  “Sheesh, you guys are such downers,” Julie complained. “He’s pulled off miracles before. He’ll do it again.”

  “Maybe he can. But in these waters where everything is bigger than us, how many more miracles can he pull before he slips up and gets us all killed?” Bori countered tiredly.

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  Raharim sighed. “Have faith, Bori, not fear. Eri knows what he’s doing.”

  ~~~

  Eri did not know what to do.

  He ran the projection again and again, calculating every route upon the updated map of the western conflict. But every predicted outcome gave him the same results:

  The expedition was doomed to fail if it continued to pursue its original objectives.

  “Now that’s a sorry expression,” Deyara called out as she entered his room, unannounced and unbothered with politeness. She flopped onto his bed. “What are you upset about now? Is it the chair again?”

  “It’s not the chair… Though I really prefer if you get rid of it.”

  Mounted in the middle of his room — the previous captain’s quarters — was an unsettlingly looking chair made entirely of bones, meat, and sinew.

  Eri was told the ‘meat furniture’ was the previous captain — not that it ‘belonged’ to the captain, but that the chair itself was the captain.

  And it was still alive — warm to touch, and tingly when sat upon.

  “The chair holds a synaptic link to the rest of the Biovore vessel. You can manually operate the whole ship from here,” Deyara said. “I thought you would like that. Piloting a vessel all on your own…”

  “I can see the benefits, but it’s not really necessary,” Eri replied, his eyes still fixed on the map. “In the first place, it’s better for me to remain mobile if the ship enters combat. I’m a better asset on the field. Give the role of pilot to Peythra instead. The corvette might as well be hers to command.”

  “What, you didn’t even consider me for the role?” Deyara complained.

  Eri laughed lightly. “Between Peythra, who has been running every administrative role in House Elathion for the past four years, and you, who just lazes around all day while asking me to massage your feet, I think it’s safe to say she’s best suited for the title of ship captain.”

  “Spoilsport. But it has a nice ring to it. ‘Captain Peythra’. That will make her happy,” Deyara hummed. She shifted on his bed, turning her green eyes to study him. “What has you upset this time? Plans not going well?”

  Eri sighed, running a hand through his hair, stopping briefly to touch the stubby mutant horn on his head. “Peythra updated the map based on the more recent information we gathered over the last two months. The good news is that most of the coalition forces are still intact. The bad news is that they are separated and surrounded.”

  “Four groups: the independent mercenaries, the Church, the Imperial Army, and the Noble families,” Deyara murmured. “All of them split up across the Slaver Isles when the disorganised coalition went off to fulfil their personal objectives rather than stick together. Now they are isolated and unable to support one another. Typical.”

  The mercenaries wanted gold, so they had gone ahead and laid siege to the wealthiest pirate strongholds rather than stay with the coalition. The Church wanted to rid the West of heretic slavers, so they had forced their way into the slave trade and attacked the private estates of the local rulers, burning and crucifying everyone in their path. The Imperial Army was then forced to waste manpower in re-establishing military order amid the chaos, lest the entire West turn on them.

  That left only the Noble families to confront the Duskcrowns head-on, hunting their secret operations and destroying their labs.

  The result was that all four factions left themselves alone and vulnerable to attack, consequently allowing the Four Pirate Lords to each take on an isolated target. The pirates retained the means of resupply and reinforcements, while their prey were left stranded without aid.

  “Originally, the war was stuck in a stalemate of sorts,” Eri said. “Four pirate armadas against four disconnected coalition fleets. The favour was on the pirates’ end, of course, but the balance of power was not too uneven. However, the equation changed about three months back.”

  Deyara smiled. “Your precious Nobles got caught with their pants down and were wiped out.”

  Eri grimaced. “It wasn’t that simple. The reports stated that an unknown superweapon was employed — some strange magic that not even an Amethyst Chosen like Master Aldred could have accounted for or counter against. Whatever the case, the Noble fleet was scattered, their capital ship destroyed, and the chain of command broken.”

  “And with their defeat, the pirate armada that had been fighting the Nobles was now free to reinforce any of the three other fronts,” Deyara finished. “The balance is broken; it is now four fleets against three. One defeat cascades into another. The coalition tethers towards complete annihilation.”

  “The original plan had been to use our powerful dreadnought to relieve one of the three remaining besieged forces, link up with their ships, and then defeat the pirate armada surrounding them,” Eri said. “That would have put the war back on equal footing once more: three fleets against three.”

  But they no longer had the strength of a super-dreadnought. All they had was a fast-moving corvette with one decently powerful gun powered by Elder magic.

  “We don’t have the firepower to go against a Pirate Lord’s fleet. We probably can’t even sink their capital ships without risking destruction,” Eri concluded.

  “You make it sound as if it were my fault that the ship’s not powerful enough to your liking,” Deyara tsked. “Can’t do much more with this boat unless we get our hands on more material.”

  The solution, then, seemed obvious.

  But it was not something Eri wanted to consider yet. “Did the dwarves check the gun?”

  “Ran their gubby little hands all over it,” Deyara tsked. “Should fire more accurately now. Who knew dwarven tech worked so well with elven biomancy? You are lucky they regard you as ‘Paragon’. I doubt they would have been so cooperative otherwise.”

  “About that. I don’t know what that title means.” Eri frowned. “They never mentioned it before in our correspondence.”

  “It’s a dwarven tradition to give any among them the title of ‘Paragon’ if they have made an outstanding contribution to their race,” Deyara answered boredly. “This is often in the fields of arcane engineering or weapon sciences, but technically, it covers all categories. Pretty sure one of their ancestor Paragons was just an alchemist who found a way to transmute rock to ale.”

  “But I’m not a dwarf. Why would they call me Paragon? Doesn’t that go against their tradition?” Privately, Eri started scrolling through his System Shop looking for the supposed ‘rock-to-ale’ alchemical formula.

  “Well, the whole ‘Paragon’ thing was more revered back when there were millions of dwarves still alive around the continent. These days, you will be lucky to find more than a dozen of them together at a time.” Deyara snorted. “I never heard of a non-dwarven Paragon before, but if I had to wager a guess, it’s simply their way of honouring you.”

  “And that’s not sacrilege at all?”

  “Oh, it definitely is. Their ancestors must be rolling in their graves, the stiff old bastards.” Deyara laughed. “But you’ve helped them far too much for them to care, I suppose. The medicine alone was enough. Do you know how rare it is to find any remedy against the White Hunger Plague?”

  Eri grimaced. “I’m guessing nearly impossible, considering even the magic of the Elder races couldn’t save them. Not that my medicine can, either. It just alleviates the symptoms.”

  “And that’s already far more than anyone has been able to achieve in the past two millennia,” Deyara hummed. She allowed the implications to settle.

  The only reason Eri was able to achieve such a feat at all was thanks to the System. His high proficiency in the ‘Medicine’ Skill, combined with the perk ‘Dwarven Enigma Breaker’, was what allowed him to concoct the remedy in the first place.

  He did not think much of it then; he had simply been looking for a way to secure dwarven connections. But now, with Deyara’s insight…

  “They think I can cure them from the White Hunger Plague?” Eri murmured.

  “The stubborn rock humpers will never admit it. Too scared of hope, not that I blame them.” Deyara smiled. “But I’d wager that’s probably why they are cosying up to you.”

  Eri sighed. “Let’s hope they’ll still stick around when they find out I can’t do it.”

  The legacy of the Third Demon King would not be so easily denied. The White Hunger Plague was a curse that killed off the most powerful races on Thalmyra. Even their legendary arcane knowledge couldn’t halt the spread.

  Eri held no delusions that he could ever find a cure. It was simply not possible—

  [New Main Quest unlocked! ‘The Great Extinction Prevention’]

  [Resolve the curse of Baelkarion, the Loving One, before their ‘love’ undergoes its final mutation and kills all life on the continent.]

  [Reward: False Memories of a Demon King (Perk Upgrade: The Third’s Legacy)]

  … Ah, shit.