The God of Jesters
Chapter 339 - 5.18.3 Epilogue: Time for some magic.

Chapter 339: 5.18.3 Epilogue: Time for some magic.

Underhanded tactics in the political landscape were a dime a dozen. It was even easier to predict what kind of moves certain parties would make if you knew enough about them.

And Jester’s opponent were the Knights of Radiant. With their nose up in the sky always followed the straight path when confronted with any problem.

It doesn’t mean that they were stupid. What it did mean that they were powerful enough to never care for such situations.

"But we are not the old us. Strength is not the most important thing in this world anymore, its adaptation."

"Learn from the world around us, and change the demagogic ways. Otherwise, we will be nothing more than relics of the past, too drunk on the glories that our ancestors created." Vance heard silently with his head down.

Unlike his teacher who taught him his combat arts and investigation methods, the man he now followed spoke of were much more erudite, ideologies that were considered blasphemous in the Radiant Order.

"But doesn’t this change mean losing our morality? My master has spoken of slippery slope, he fell for it himself." he recalls the reason why his Master, who is close to reaching Legendary state suddenly retired and never bothered to walk further on his path.

According to his master, he had given in to his vices, in his obsession to pursue Jester, he made many gray choices that still haunt him to this day.

"Sir Albasta can be a bit dramatic sometimes." Ziegart smiled, recalling his younger days when he was still an up and about Knight with a face full of hatred.

He had lost his family to a wild Curse Wielder, that only killed them out of small a spite. Plating the seed of hatred in him since young age.

By the time he was an Adept level Knight, close to becoming a Captain, he had met with Albasta who had recently come to the headquarters after his recent failure of Hunting Jester.

"Why such a face?" Albasta had asked him of them. And by the end of their conversation was over, Ziegart had a small smile at the end.

Although it was a fake one, but he had never dropped that smile since then.

"What did he say to you?"

"Nothing important, just asking me to ease up a little bit and smile a lot more. It makes it easier to manage those under you when you smile."

"But ignoring the remark he said that day. I don’t believe the means he used to achieve his goals were wrong in any case."

"As for the reason why he was turned an outcast, there is nothing wrong with that. In my eyes, he was the truest Knight of us all. He didn’t care if the occult was involved or not, after a certain time of pursuing that wraith, he started to pick up commissions left and right to help those in need."

"He only did that to fund his obsession with Wraith. The Knight Order had long warned him to stop pursuing him."

"But was he wrong though? I read the detailed report of the Durum sleep incident. The amount of people that died that day are not negligible. And if the Knight order had let your Master pursue that Wraith to the ends of earth, none of that might have happened."

When looked from a certain perspective, Knight Ziegart was not wrong.

His master had thrown away his honor to pursue Jester, but as his obsession took the toll on his reputation and the reputation of their Order, he was forced to retire early because the Knight Order just couldn’t handle all the political pressure of the various parties affected by Albasta.

"So lower your moral standard a bit, the world that stays ahead of us needs people with open mind, not the relics like the ones you saw in the meeting before."

With some more questions about personal life, Ziegart left Vance alone to his thoughts.

The Knights were strained of resources at the moment. And two Grandmasters were the limit of manpower that the Head Knight was allowing at the moment, for the rest. It was a day as usual.

Which was either to teach the youngsters, or train till they receive a new mission.

******

"Fahna, stay here with us. We will be sure to keep you safe."

"No... I don’t deserve such a thing. By playing that lie, I caused too much damage to Uncle Salveraz, to auntie. I don’t have the courage to look into his eyes when he wakes up." Going back to a few months ago, Fahna had originally planned to use Salveraz’s anger for her advantage. And in order to use him, she had played a little lie and blown it to proportions by fooling Salveraz’s family into thinking that their life was in danger, and they need to go into hiding before anything happened to them.

And using some connections in gutters and flesh from the bodies of the family, she was able to create a perfect illusion of a fight that happened between the nephew of Salveraz and the killers, which ended in his defeat.

All a lie, all done for her own selfish reasons.

"No, if you hadn’t lied about our deaths, then they would have probably harmed us one way or another or worse, used us as hostage. So I don’t blame you."

Fahna smiled painfully hearing such words, but she didn’t speak. Because not only did she feel ashamed over what she had done, but she can see from the glances of other members of Bear Bastard tribe, they hated her existence.

They didn’t wish for her to stay here for longer, and she would have left early if not for the fear of being captured by the forces of Bothal that were still actively searching for her.

So when she had confirmed that the search for her is dying down, she was ready to leave this place.

As for Salveraz who had been rescued from the CBI hospital?

She could only apologize from the distance. "Don’t worry about him, the first time I met Raz, it was when I was putting his organs back in his body. A small injury like cut limbs will really leave no problems for him in the future."

"You speak like this is normal for him?"

"Yes, yes it is normal for him." The woman said, turning to her husband who was sleeping soundly on the bed. "His bloodline drinks his sanity in return of power, but that power doesn’t come with increasing his survivability. Unless patched up in time, they would still lose blood and lose their lives."

"So he is used to it, and the Grandmaster who neutralized him must have been aware of it. Hence, such kind of cuts."

Fahna didn’t say much after this. Looking at the family that she had somewhat ruined, forcing them to live away from civilization in a small hidden mountain, she felt some remorse.

She promised herself to not involve any third party into her mess.

She blamed herself for the damage she caused and then walked out of the tribe, toward her butler that was waiting for her not too far off.

"Your face young lady, are you still planning to go for it?"

"My emotions tell me I should go after my brother, at least give him some peace with death before he suffers any further."

"But then, my rationally screams at me to stop. Something in my mind keeps telling me, going after my brother is going to be lethal for me. I might just lose my life."

"Then what will you choose, I wonder?"

"Of course, it’s my heart. Because our mind is not something we should trust considering who our opponent is."

"You think he messed with your mind?"

"Considering the words that Farhad told us, that seems like a plausible scenario. He is trying to stop me, he probably messed with my mind somehow."

"Or it can just be your true rationality at play here. Instead of pursuing something that you can’t even fathom, wouldn’t it be better to attain higher strength for a while, more like-minded individuals. Then go after him altogether?" The Butler spoke with a bright smile as he continued. "Because at the end of the day, more heads is always greater than just one."

"You mean to me to back down?"

"For now, that would be the best thing for Miss to do. Young master is not gong anywhere, if his words were to be believed. That Monster doesn’t seem to hate him."

At the end of the words Fahna was forced to admit. She was too weak, she was too ignorant of her enemy and had even lesser understanding over how to end him.

She was a killer, not a mystic.

’Mystics... I need a bunch of them if I am to end him.’

But where to find such trustworthy Mystics that won’t treat her like a crazy person?

’The churches?’ She thought for a bit, recalling the inciting incident that was the reason for her family’s misery.

’The Radiant Order and the Red Sun. Both of them were involved in that assassination with father. Survivors only four half a decade later, and now, it should just be two.’

She recalls her father and Maxim, who died not too long ago in Durum. ’The two other survivors... I need to learn their identities.’

*****

Two weeks later, I was out from Hospital. And unlike going to work back in the fields, I took on Selene’s offer and joined The Tower of Storm.

’Its time to learn some proper magic.’