For several long seconds Senator Heathridge just laughed It was a low and throaty laugh of a man experiencing immense satisfaction at the confusion of another It was condescending and spiteful Evan lit up two more cigarettes struggling to control his temper Based on the abrupt uptick in laughter the Senator had heard him EvanÆs face burned in silent fury
All men want the same thing Evan Senator Heathridge finally said Power Is it really so strange to think that after Randidly went away for almost six months he returned to find that someone had taken the reigns of power he once wielded in Donnyton And that made him furious
Randidly Ghosthound famously has no interest in political power Evan said reasonably
Senator Heathridge laughed again Bullshit They took his power and he punished them for it Then he came here The Orders follow the Order Ducis who follows him He antagonized the surrounding areas fooling us into raising the foreign propaganda against Erickson Steel No one wants him here any longer He already had Senator Firefly in his pocket but now heÆs bought the support of the Western Coalition and likely he already has an agreement with this new Zone
Chewing on the cigarettes in his mouth Evan tried to slow the flow of the conversation to something manageable But
Senator Heathridge didnÆt allow Evan to finish So when Zone Seven pushes for a World Capital and Randidly Ghosthound steps forward and offers some of the extensive lands he owns around the Erickson Steel Headquarters will there be a unified enough resistance to stop the suggestion His is the most famous name on Earth
Evan Crane shook his head wordlessly Although there was a certain sort of twisted logic to it he just felt that this wasnÆt right This this didnÆt match the reports about Randidly Ghosthound at all
But the Senator clearly had been quite taken with this grand scheme He offers up a pitiable steel mill in one hand and he palms the world capital right out from under our noses Truly this is the first time that IÆve ever admired someone This is the first time IÆve ever truly met my match
Chapter 987
Yawning Randidly got up from one of his rare naps in the Dungeon Even if he didnÆt need the sleep sometimes it felt quite rejuvenating He stretched and scratched his lower back as he walked up to the surface and fresh air Immediately upon exiting the dome he had to raise his hand and shield his eyes from the hot sun
After staying here for a bit over five months the surrounding jungle had been completely devoured by the two antagonistic groups of Riders who were in a cold war of architecture against each other A few weeks ago Randidly finally forced them both to do their own improvements to their miniature castles This he had assumed would slow their mad expansion and mean he would no longer waste as much of his time
This was very incorrect as it turned out
The night Randidly had made the declaration they would now be forced to do their own construction he had felt a weight lifted off his shoulders The next morning two square kilometers of jungle had been leveled in their mad dash to gather their resources And if anything their building methods had only become more refined without his interference The ability to utilize the gathered resource was now one of the rewards for which the groups competed
Randidly shook his head sadly Honestly I canÆt wait to go back to Earth At least no one there has any expectation of me participating in these pointless political squabbles I wonder how much time has passed in Erickson Steel probably barely a day
Randidly walked over to the worn stone monument and pressed his hand against it He closed his eyes and allowed his will to flow down through his fingers and into the cool stone That pervasive aura of timelessness was like a familiar chair that he settled into quite comfortably The ambient image it contained was like spring rain spitting down to fuel his World Tree image
Over the past month or so the ambient image in the surrounding air had no longer been enough to fuel RandidlyÆs training with the World Tree It had grown too diluted by RandidlyÆs constant use So he was forced to proceed out to the monument itself and use it directly in order to achieve any benefit
This too would eventually lose its usefulness in a few months But even if Randidly knew that he was rather helpless If he didnÆt use this method his image wouldnÆt improve Even if he was caching in on a limited resource he would still do it to continually improve Part of RandidlyÆs growth needed to be focused on understanding the threats arrayed against him He had no space to be gentle with the denizens of this Dungeon and their monuments
After all Earth would become a Dungeon itself if Randidly failed to reach a sufficient level of strength
Every night before engaging in his Engraving training Randidly had been carefully sharpening his mental state by carefully thinking through possibilities for the future and ethical dilemmas One of the questions he came up against was whether he could live with the truth that he was killing other individuals to save the world
Perhaps a normal individual from Earth who had been able to survive the SystemÆs arrival would eventually grow strong enough that he or she could pick their fights and would deem it worth it to consider the ethics of their action But Randidly was raised by Shal Who made it very clear that it was only the winners who would have the convenience of discussing philosophy
I obviously wonÆt torture someone but I also wonÆt shy away from killing in order to protect the Earth Randidly felt his heart grow heavy Being a saint confined to a Dungeon would be tragic sort of irony
Randidly also constantly reminded himself of that strange being and his previous struggles against a Judgement to maintain his tension To balance those fears Randidly also reflected on the liberating emotion of being away from Earth with time to discover his own Path forward
With these two thoughts both grinding at RandidlyÆs mentality in different ways he continually pushed himself forward Because there were so many ways that Randidly needed to improve to truly be a worthy opponent for the System He couldnÆt afford to overlook anything while he had this time to refine himself
A snort brought RandidlyÆs focus out of the stone monolith Turning slowly Randidly faced the group of three Riders that were looking at him in askance He rolled his eyes and waved his hand ItÆs not the time to go to the plateau yet Please simply patrol the edges of our domain
The three nodded Then the three Riders turned and trotted off across the rather shabby looking plains that were left in the wake of the deforestation As they went the central RiderÆs mount unleashed a powerful spurt of thick spit that pasted a nearby flower against the ground as if it had been laminated
Randidly rubbed his head Since he had no longer provided architecture services he had been forced to broaden his rewards for the Riders The unanimous decision from the Riders was to ask for more Riders to be created So despite RandidlyÆs misgivings he had begun producing more Now there were almost a hundred Riders in the Dungeon spreading their conflicting ideologies
Strangely three of the Riders refused to join the two previously created Legions These became the Legion of the Marching Cadence who quickly evolved to ride a mount very similar to a camel These came from RandidlyÆs intermittent memories of Divvet who had been something of a stand in for Shal when RandidlyÆs master was busy with other things Above all else what Randidly remembered about Divvet was his patience
Although it’s possible that this was simply a response from spending so much exhausting training sessions with the short tempered Shal
Unlike the other two Legions the Marching Cadence Legion didnÆt care about the rivalry They instead requested permission to explore the plateau which Randidly had expressly forbidden Honestly the constant requests were becoming a headache