The Odysseus
Seated on a large round table in a normally Off-limits chamber of the Dhijan Castle were all the paladins in kingdom, finally gathered up.
12 seats, for 10 paladins and 2 extra special members. Generally, there was no order to the seating, except partners sat next to each other.
The paladin of fire was next to the paladin of Nature. The Paladin of Water sat alongside the Paladin of Space. The Paladin of Steel with Paladin of Jewels, Paladin of Lightning with Paladin of Iron and finally the Paladin of Power with the Paladin of Light.
The specially reserved seats were given to the youngest members in the room who still hadn’t awoken as paladins, but possessed enough strength to match paladins. The Heavenly Judge of Blood Red flames, or more popularly called, the Cursed Executioner and the Cold Blizzard.
They all sat quietly, staring into the centre of the round table where a green flame burnt brightly.
“You don’t mind if I take charge of this event, do you Yvon?”
The one to say this was a man in his early 50s. Streaks of grey were forming on his auburn-coloured hair and beard. His dark coffee-brown eyes stared at Yvon, waiting for a response. The elf shrugged, giving him permission. As the oldest one in the room, Yvon was always questioned about certain matters such as this.
He personally felt like it was a pain having to deal with it every single time and designated the second oldest, the Paladin of Power, Excelcior Sonaris Miksari Eldiro Furialt, as the leader of Paladins. Excelcior still asked for permission as a form of respect to Yvon.
“First of all, thank you all for making it to the Odysseus. This is the first time we’ve had every member paladin present, and even now there’s a few [Hero Candidates] waiting out those doors.” He begun with a simple thank you, then cleared his throat. “Unfortunately, this isn’t under the best circumstances. As you are all well aware, this year is bound to be the busiest for us. If you would, Charlotte.”
The paladins looked one another in the eye, then at the paladin of fire who was busily scribbling down in her notepad. Yvon twisted her cheek to bring her to reality.
“Ow, ow, ow! Stop it! That hurts!”
Everyone let out exasperated breaths. If anyone wouldn’t be paying attention, of course it would be Charlotte.
“You are being disrespectful. Focus on the meeting.”
Yvon reminded her of where she was. She scanned the entire room, then dropped her journal as if she only just realised where she was.
With a simple motion of her hand, the fire started to change from its usual formless state into one what looked like a giant courtyard with people celebrating and having fun.
“Eh-erm, normally we begin this event by welcoming our newest members, Paladin of Steel, Seiko Sotomura and Paladin of Jewels, Jasmine, but there are more pressing matters at hand. For starters, we have to talk about the Dark Church and their raid on the Elder Clans Summit.”
Everyone’s eyes subconsciously moved to both Seiko and Fubuki, who both had no reactions whatsoever to the news.
“Most of the attendees were rendered incapacitated and the status of the Clan heads is unknown, although for the rest of this meeting we shall proceed with the belief they are alive and detained.”
“Isn’t it possible to send a scout into the New Kyoto Empire to find out what’s happening?”
The Paladin of Water, Veronica asked.
“The borders of the New Kyoto Empire have been closed. Any form of magical and physical communication has been rendered ineffective. Last we heard, our contacts in there are being fished out and killed. We have no way to determine what is going on in the empire as of now.”
Excelcior reported.
“What? It’s impossible to maintain such level of secrecy at all times, especially closing off all routes in and out of the empire.”
Veronica argued.
“I would agree with you normally, but that only applies to human enemies. We had Jeanne divine the future of the Empire, but whenever she did, she met interference from a certain creature. We still have no way of identifying this creature.”
“The Dark Church is a formidable foe that has been a thorn in the side of the Seven Gods Church for a while now. All our investigations led to the Oxaivalon Empire, which I believe is an ally nation of the New Kyoto Empire.”
Fubuki spoke up and presented documents which she passed around the table.
“In these documents, you will find everything we know about them, from their first sightings, rumours from people and any evidence we ourselves have borne witness to. They are a notorious group that popped up a century or two ago, but only gained fame in the past decade. The recent information I got from an informant in Boulderdane, suggests that they are trying to revive a certain dead monster of immeasurable power.”
The paladins read through the documents quickly.
“Is this all?”
Ajax, the paladin of Iron, asked curiously. There was no way such a tiny document possessed all the information an organisation as powerful as the Seven Gods Church could gather.
“No. This is a summed-up version the church authorised me to pass on to you.”
“You mean the filtered version of things?”
Charlotte asked as she dropped the document down.
“Of course you’d say something like that.”
Fubuki eye rolled and folded her arms.
“Come on, sister Fubuki is only telling us what the church gave her and even what she personally found.”
Jeanne defended her and Fubuki could only nod in approval.
“We don’t need another lackey of that shady organisation talking.”
“You dare to disrespect the Seven Gods holy abode?”
“You looking for a fight, Charlotte?”
Both Jeanne and Fubuki’s calm expressions switched up into violent expressions with the tension being thick enough to cut through. The others could only shake their heads in disappointment.
“Enough! No more stalling, Charlotte.”
Excelcior who didn’t have the patience for their nonsense spoke up.
“Whatever. We believe that the Dark Church couldn’t have suddenly done this overnight without any inside men.”
“So, there were traitors in the New Kyoto Empire? Ha! I’m not surprised considering how that woman, Suzuki Tatsumaki ruled.”
Fubuki yelled in a weird mix of glee of disappointment. The paladin of power glared at her, forcing her to shut her mouth so he could continue.
“We believe they had been sending in several personnel over the years till they had enough members to strike from within. Our only suspect at the moment is a young man named, Kai, who according to the young Miss Shiro Tatsumaki, went missing approximately 50 days before the event with no order from even the Clan Head.”
“What? Because the girl isn’t aware if the clan head truly didn’t send him off on a secret mission, we are supposed to take their word for it?”
“No. It is because the man named Kai is a beast man. I forgot to mention this, but due to the new revelation put forth by Fubuki, we shall go with the assumption that any skilled beast man in the New Kyoto Empire is working with the Dark Churc- Uh-” he paused when he saw someone’s arm was up, “Yes, Seiko?”
“I’ve known some beast men in the empire for as long as I’ve lived. It’s simply prejudice to assume that all who can fight are with the Dark Church.”
Seiko voiced his disapproval of the current statement.
“Indeed. That’s just being racist on your part, then again that’s all you humans know how to be.”
The stoic dwarf, Ajax, said mockingly. The humans in the room didn’t even bother looking at him, wary of the kinds of tricks he’d pull with his race’s intrinsic skills.
“Sorry, but until you come up with a better way to differentiate things for us, we will have to proceed with this.”
“Your majes-”
“No one has their titles in this room, Seiko. You can call me Excelcior while we are in here.”
Seiko froze up for a moment, cleared his throat, then proceeded.
“That is a far too reckless and inefficient method. Twenty percent of the New Kyoto Empire is made up of beast men and of that percentage, a whole 50 percent is knowledgeable in some form of combat. That’s 10 percent of the New Kyoto Empire you’re trying to destroy, at least 3 million beast men. Essentially a country. Considering an entire country our enemy is logically lacking and redundant. I propose we think of a new stratagem to tackle this particular topic.”
“That would take too long. Consider the rest of the 80% of the empire. We can’t ascertain their safety under the Dark Church’s rule.”
Yvon finally added his thoughts to the table.
“But, that’s far too reckless!”
Ajax smacked his mechanical arm on the round table.
“Silence, you tiny creature.”
Yvon was not going to take any information coming from something so short, let alone a dwarf. Even worse, it was a pixie dwarf. The most annoying of that species.
“You long legs, sure are full of yourselves, living so high up in the Alps and what-not. I’m guessing your goddess forced you to come down to talk to us low-lives, huh.”
“Is that a sarcastic tone I hear with my lady’s name?”
“Oi! Oi! Silence! Everyone!”
Excelcior’s voice boomed in the hollow hall and echoed. The room shook mightily and some dust fell from the ceiling.
Yvon rubbed his ear in annoyance.
“There was no need for you to go as far as shaking the room, Excelcior.”
“That... wasn’t me.”
As soon as he said that, the doors leading to the room began creaking open. Everyone jumped out of their seat and readied their weapons.
Those doors would not open till the Odysseus was over. They wouldn’t even pry open for a late member and could sometimes stay shut for days, yet they were opening up this very moment.
And the sound the gears of the door made, looked like they were acting against being opened, but the force on the other side was far too great. Since everyone was gathered, it could only be an enemy of immense power coming for them.
They all had their thoughts on who it could be, and the fact that they couldn’t sense any power from the person made their situation all the more intense.
Seiko’s eyes wondered over to the dwarf, Ajax who was in a metallic exoskeleton. Dwarves were said to be mechanical geniuses, far ahead of the current time, but they kept their information secret to themselves. If he could see it in action, he could get the chance to learn how it functioned and maybe replicate it to boost his efficiency in battles.
But that wasn’t the most important thing now. He looked back at the door. They were fighting against the force, but were soon blown out of the way, as if by a powerful punch.
On the other side, a figure emerged from the darkness. He wasn’t in any form of heavy armour, but there was simply something divine about his clothing. Appearance-wise, it looked like nothing special, but the power from it was beyond believable.
A silver vest tied up over a white shirt with a red sash around his waist, acting like some sort of belt. His trousers were tight-fitting, but looked flexible enough to allow easy movement with his sturdy black boots. His hands were protected by white gloves and under his red cloak, a sword was hidden at his side under his cloak. There were two amulets over his neck and one wing shaped ornament over his left ear.
“Oh, uh, I tried to open the doors, but it wasn’t allowing me so I sort of broke it. Please don’t get mad.”
He apologised with a gentle voice, making those present confused. But, once everything settled down and they got a clearer view of his facial features – wild silver-white hair tied into a ponytail reaching his waist, crimson red eyes and a complete relaxed smile, they all had the same thought.
This man was dangerous.
<A/N: Please give me your power stones, comments, golden tickets and reviews so I feel more motivated to write! Thank you!
Also check out my second story, "Chevalier of the End"!>
