Chapter 101: The Broken Trust (2)
It wasn’t that Reidar thought they were the good guys. It was clear they were hiding something and what their intentions were, but since he was going to leave as soon as the sunken turbine quest was complete, he didn’t care to find out.
But this... All of this was a colossal mess, and Lena’s attack was actively preventing him from leaving.
<Note for myself. This kind of thing must not happen again. I’ve been naïve.>
Reidar swore to buy something that would allow him to collect information so easily that he would not be played like this again. Of course, all of these events were new to him, and that was why he was caught in the mess. This was also a lesson for him to not be greedy.
He constantly dealt with lying and shrewd people because of his work, and that was why he understood Aaron’s, Mara’s, and Martin’s intentions so soon; in fact, less than a week passed since he got to Havenwood.
But part of him couldn’t believe people had already sunk into such savagery—that they’d really kill each other. When he saw people attacking others, and attacking him, he’d chalked it up to zealotry. The Church wasn’t normal, but he’d been wrong to think that was all it was.
The pieces clicked into place with clarity.
"I didn’t send my summons after you," Reidar said again. "I noticed someone was tailing me, Mara, and Aaron. I sent my summons to kill the followers."
"And they just happened to find us?" Lena’s tone was laced with disbelief.
"I didn’t know you were there!" Reidar said. "My orders were to kill everyone they found following us. I assumed it was the Church. If my summons attacked you, it’s because you were too close to the actual targets."
Lena’s expression didn’t soften. She seemed to be searching for another angle, another inconsistency to latch onto.
"Then explain the monsters at Havenwood’s walls! You’re the one who sent them, aren’t you? The army you sent to kill us was too big; it was too strong! You could easily herd monsters, and if that is not the case, you could have summoned them! That was why you didn’t want to tell us how you killed the quarry’s boss! Because you knew we would have found out it was you who sent the monsters to attack Havenwood!"
Reidar let out a bitter laugh. "That army is because of my trait! It lets me share my skills with others! And no! I didn’t tell you about it because I was already figuring out, after two fucking days of staying in your town, that something was wrong! I knew that if I got attacked, the only way for me to save my ass was to hide my powers and then get the hell out of here!"
"You liar!"
"I’m not lying, Lena! I wasn’t herding monsters! I didn’t even fucking know that Havenwood existed! I was just fucking passing by and going to Creamont to save my parents! I came to you because I wanted to trade, but I found you under siege! I fucking helped you, you ungrateful bitch!"
The fight kept going. Jorik and Torren were holding their own well, killing the weaker monsters Reidar summoned, but his Primal Pack was still there, and they landed blows. Torren got hit several times, which forced Jorik to heal him quite often. The wounds weren’t severe; they were thought to incapacitate Torren, not to kill him.
"Look, I know you don’t trust me, and you don’t need to! I clearly told Martin I would have left as soon as the Sunken Turbine quest was complete, and guess what, I just did! Why the fuck do you think I’m here for?"
The mention of the token made Lena falter. The Sunken Turbine quest was the last one that was needed to get the Settlement Creator Token, which meant that if the quest was complete, Martin got the token by now. There would be no monsters’ attacks, because the token would create a barrier that would stop the monsters from attacking.
Her gaze flickered to Torren, who had remained silent throughout the exchange.
"Lena... he’s right! Martin wouldn’t have risked the token. He told me himself how vital that quest was to Havenwood’s survival. If Reidar were the enemy, he would have never completed that quest!"
"But Martin!"
"Martin wasn’t certain Reidar was a spy, you know that! He chose to trust him!"
Jorik nodded behind the barrier, his earlier anger fading into thought. "That makes sense. Martin’s done plenty, but he’s never been careless with our safety."
Lena’s certainty was clearly shaken, but a last thread of suspicion remained. "Then what about the one that got away?" she said, her eyes narrowing again. "You made one of them escape! The one Lysa is chasing!"
"So, she is alive?!"
"Of course she is," Lena said. "That’s fucking Lysa! Do you think it would be easy for her to get killed by the church amateurs?!"
Reidar was relieved to hear that. However, there was a problem: he couldn’t reply to Lena’s accusation because he had no idea what the contubernium was doing.
He didn’t have that kind of link with them; at best, he could know if they were still alive. He couldn’t see through their eyes or read their minds.
"I never let him go!" Reidar said. "I just gave the order, and..." Now, unfortunately, he would need to give them new information about his weakness. "I can’t see what my summon does! I can only order them, and if they leave, I have no way to contact them; at best, I can sense if they are aliv—"
He stopped mid-sentence. A sudden, violent severing tore through his mind. It was the same feeling he had when his summoned creatures were destroyed.
The contubernium had been wiped out. But who would be strong enough to kill ten level 50 monsters followed by even more, albeit weaker, ones?
He staggered back a step because of the rebound. He clutched his head, a low groan escaping his lips as the phantom limbs of his army went silent.
"What’s wrong?" Jorik asked, his stance shifting from wary to confused.
Reidar looked up, his eyes wide. "My summons..." he said. "All of them... the ones I left in the forest... they’re gone."