Chapter 89 — What Zordis Holds
The gates of Zordis had been visible for the last three kilometers of the road.
Kuto recognized that specific detail of a well-built capital—the calculated scale designed to impress before one even arrived, so that the visitor would reach it with their expectations already calibrated. The colossal white stone arch had that size which wasn't strictly necessary but which communicated something about what lay beneath: that whoever built this had resources to spare on making an impression.
The banners fluttered. A golden dragon on a blue field.
"Finally," said Haru beside him, with the voice of someone who was genuinely relieved. "My sister is going to be really happy."
Kuto turned his head.
"What sister?"
"Raimi, of course."
Kuto remained silent for a moment.
"Since when is she your sister?"
Haru looked at him with the expression of someone explaining something obvious to a person who should already know.
"Since she married you, brother."
"I already told you," said Kuto, his voice carrying that specific patience of someone who has repeated an instruction enough times that the next repetition no longer carries the same softness as before, "to stop calling me brother. It's getting tiring."
Haru didn't respond. Which, in Haru's specific language, was provisional agreement.
Kuto looked ahead. Toward the people of Zef walking behind them—forty-two, he had counted without realizing he was counting, with that veteran habit of inventorying what he was carrying before he even noticed he was doing it. Families. Children with the posture of kids who had traveled more than they should have and had therefore become quieter than children usually are. Elders with the specific dignity of people who had lost their place but not what made them people.
And Kini at the edge of the group—the boy from Zef who had stayed behind in the ruins of his own house saying *our house isn't here but we are*—looking at the gates of Zordis with the expression of someone trying to evaluate a place he had never seen but had already heard things about.
*They're NPCs.*
The thought arrived with the automaticity of a habit installed months ago—the layer of protection Kuto had learned to keep over everything so that nothing would cost more than it should.
*Programmed to act the way the story wants.*
He kept walking.
---
The gate guards assumed their positions as they saw him approach—the specific alignment of soldiers who had received enough training for the royal reception posture to be reflex rather than performance.
"Welcome, Your Majesty."
Kuto ignored them.
The guard on the left saw the group behind Kuto and processed it with the speed of someone recognizing information that wasn't in the briefing.
"Your Majesty," he said, in a slightly different tone. "Are these people from Zef?"
"Yes." Kuto didn't stop. "Is there a problem with that?"
"No, sir. Just a question."
The gate opened.
And Zordis was there.
---
Kuto had been passing through this city for months, and there were still moments when its scale displaced him slightly—not out of admiration, but from an involuntary recalibration of expectations. The streets were wide with the generosity of space of a city that had been planned when there was still room to plan. The automatic carriages moved along lines that were not random. The rune lighting pulsed with the regularity that Zenk had calibrated to not be intrusive but to always be present.
"Sometimes it's hard to believe all of this is just a game," said Kuto, without knowing exactly to whom.
Haru didn't respond. He had learned to recognize the sentences that weren't meant for him.
Then the agitation began.
It came from multiple directions at once—that specific quality of movement in a city preparing for something, where each person was playing a different part in a larger whole without necessarily seeing the whole. Engineers gestured over decoration plans. Mages calibrated additional lighting systems. Children ran in directions that held no urgency but carried that diffuse energy of the day before an event.
And some people who recognized Kuto and Haru approached—with that specific mixture of relief and enthusiasm from a city that knew its king had left and was genuinely pleased when the king returned, because a king who returns is a sign that things had gone well.
"So glad you're back!"
"Your Majesty was missed!"
An elderly man with white hair and the posture of someone who had held an important enough position that he had never fully dropped it—stopped in front of Kuto with the smile of someone about to say something and then paused midway through saying it.
"Tomorrow will be the great day of—" he began.
He saw the people of Zef.
The smile didn't disappear completely. It just… suspended itself. Like a light that hadn't gone out but had stopped producing warmth.
"What festival is this?" said Kuto.
"Sir," the man chose his words with the care of someone recalculating while speaking, "are these people behind Your Majesty from the village of Zef?"
"They are."
"My apologies, Your Majesty. I have… urgent matters."
And he left.
---
What began as an incomplete reaction turned into waves.
First the old man. Then those nearby who saw him leave. Then those farther away who interpreted the movement of those nearby. The city had that specific quality of a signaling system where information traveled faster than the people carrying it.
And the sounds began.
Not loud. The quality of muttering that doesn't want to be speech but can't quite remain completely silent.
"How can they be here—"
"No respect for our past—"
"This king is unworthy—"
"Traitors—"
"Scum—"
Kuto heard every word.
He registered every word with the precision of a character trained to process his environment as information before processing it as emotion.
*NPCs. Programmed.*
But then he heard something else.
That specific quality of sound that isn't background—it is foreground for those making it.
The crying of a child.
"Mom," said one of the Zef children, her voice carrying the quality of a child who doesn't fully understand but understands enough to know that what is happening is wrong. "I'm scared."
"Why are they saying that?" said another. "Mom, I want to leave this place."
Kuto didn't turn his face.
*NPCs.*
*Fuck that.*
The royal carriage had appeared from the left side of the main street—not the travel carriage, but the specific vehicle for official representation, with the attendant who had that step of someone who had learned to walk in a way that communicated urgency without communicating haste.
"Your Majesty," said the man, bowing. "So glad you've returned. Her Majesty Raimi awaits your presence at the palace."
The attendant saw the people of Zef.
The expression on his face did exactly the same as the white-haired man's—it didn't change completely, it just lost a quality that had been there before the information arrived.
"Anseff," said Kuto.
"Sir?"
"I want lodging for these people. Large. With everything they need."
"Sir," Anseff began, with the tone of someone about to present a relevant consideration—
"Just obey."
Two seconds of silence.
"As Your Majesty wishes."
Kini had stayed close. With that proximity of a child who doesn't ask but stands at the right distance for his presence to be felt.
"Kuto," he said. "Are you leaving?"
Kuto looked at him.
The boy had the same eyes as when he had been sitting in the ruins of his own house. Not exactly fear—the version of fear of a child who had already learned that fear has gradations and that this was a gradation he was somewhat familiar with.
"I have matters to attend to," said Kuto.
"These people don't like us. I can feel it."
Kuto remained silent for a moment.
"Please stay with us."
*NPCs.* The thought was slower this time. Like a word that had lost a bit of the automaticity with which it used to arrive.
"You need to be brave," said Kuto. "If they are not treated well, I will personally see to punishing those responsible."
He raised his voice.
"Are we understood, Anseff?"
Anseff, who was a few meters away, shrank back slightly with that involuntary reaction of someone who hadn't expected the volume to reach that level.
"Yes, Your Majesty. As you wish."
Kuto entered the carriage.
---
The interior of the carriage had that silence of an enclosed space that amplified the quiet after the noise of the outside.
Haru entered behind him and sat with the posture of an assassin who had never found a resting position completely different from a combat position. The two daggers had been in his hands throughout the entire scene on the street—Kuto had seen it and didn't need to comment.
"These people are being rude to you," said Haru.
The daggers were still visible.
"I can punish a few."
"Not necessary," said Kuto.
"But—"
"Don't forget that we're just in a game." The voice came out with the quality of a statement that was not to be discussed. "We only need to reach level 100 and go back home. The rest are NPCs programmed to act the way the story wants."
Haru remained silent for a moment.
"Do you still believe all of this is a game?"
"Of course." Kuto looked out the window at the streets of Zordis passing by. "We came here digitally. Don't forget that."
"You're right, brother."
Kuto didn't correct the *brother* this time.
The carriage continued.
Through the windows, Zordis passed in a blur of stone and magic and rune light. The city that had been built by someone who understood that scale communicated power. The city that bore the kingdom's name because the kingdom had been built around it or it around the kingdom—there were stories about that which Kuto had never heard to the end.
*NPCs.*
*Programmed.*
Kini's face remained in his memory with that irritating clarity of something that refused to be filed away.
*These people don't like us. Please stay with us.*
Kuto turned his gaze forward.
---
The palace of Zordis had that quality of architecture that Zenk had built—not imposing in the heavy sense, but present in the inevitable sense, as if the space around it had organized itself around it because it was the only arrangement that made sense.
They arrived at the main atrium.
Kuto descended first.
And he heard it.
Rapid footsteps. Not the steps of an attendant or guard—the steps of someone who had been waiting for a specific sound and had begun moving before that sound had even fully ended.
The door to the royal chamber opened.
Raimi came running.
Not with royal elegance—with that specific carelessness of someone whose body had decided that, in that particular moment, the rules of how queens move were irrelevant. The dress that was always impeccable was slightly out of symmetry in the way it becomes when one walks too fast for symmetry to keep up.
She reached Kuto and embraced him.
Not the formal protocol hug. The other kind—with force, with her arms closing around his shoulders, with that quality of contact from someone who had been genuinely worried and for whom physical contact was the only way to confirm that the worry had been unnecessary.
"I'm so glad you came back alive."
The voice came out low against his shoulder. With that specific quality of a phrase that had been repeated many times in private before it could be said aloud to the right person.
The tears were real. Kuto felt the moisture on the shoulder of his own shirt.
And he remained completely still.
Not out of coldness—but from something harder to name. From a system that had no processing power available for that specific input. From a person for whom an expression of genuine affection was information that didn't match any prepared category.
*She's an NPC.*
*Programmed to—*
The thought didn't end with the same ease with which it had begun.
Because Raimi's shoulders were trembling slightly. With that specific tremor of contained crying from someone who had cried enough in the last few hours that crying more was effort rather than release.
*How long has she been like this?*
The thought arrived before any decision to think it.
*How long has she been waiting?*
"Can't you still process that you're already married?"
The voice came from behind Raimi—familiar, with that tone of Selina that mixed provocation with affection in a way that made it hard to tell where one ended and the other began. She stood at the threshold of the room, with that smile of someone who is genuinely happy to see someone but who won't let it pass without comment.
"Look at that," said Romeu, appearing beside her with that energy specific to Romeu that was hardly contained in any situation with fewer than three walls. "He only thinks about fighting."
Jack appeared from inside the room with that presence of a leader who occupies space differently from the others—not larger, just more grounded. The smile on his lips had that quality of real relief that didn't need to be performative because it was simple enough.
"Good to see you, Kuto."
And Sônia, beside Jack, with the smile that was unmistakable from any angle—that energy that seemed to have no scale proportional to the person containing it.
"So glad!"
The group was there.
Complete except for those who weren't—and their absence was present precisely because the group was there and they were not, which was how absence worked when it was no longer possible to pretend it was only temporary.
Raimi still had her arms around Kuto's shoulders.
Kuto stayed there for an additional moment.
He didn't return the hug. He didn't pull away.
He simply stayed.
With that specific quality of someone who had not yet made a decision about what he was feeling but who had realized, in that second, that making that decision was more complicated than it had been in the past few hours.