The Last Experience Point

Chapter 142: Indoctrination

Gaelan Malakor could actually feel himself becoming stronger as he equipped the exotic-looking gauntlets given to him by his guild. Yet the palpable increase in power was still nothing when compared to how great he felt once it was joined by the rest of his new equipment. He could hardly believe it; the sense of strength running through his body was unlike anything he’d experienced before. Finally, his guild was doing right by him. Without question, he’d earned each and every piece of his new gear though so many years of loyalty and dedication.

Formerly the seventh in command of the Guild of Gentlemen, the death of the king had boosted him to sixth. And now, with the rightfully reacquired loot from the dragon having at last undergone an extensive process to properly sort and optimize it for guild distribution, Gaelan had received his allotment. Prior to this, during the siege of Shadowfall Coast, the loot had been distributed haphazardly among the guild’s defenders, as it had been a time of emergency and they hadn’t yet had the chance to figure out who was best suited to receive what. But as promised, the dragon’s loot had been reclaimed then redistributed—this time for good. Gods, it sure was one hell of a bonus.

Wife’s gonna flip when she sees me like this, he thought, grinning at himself in the mirror from the master bedroom in his three-story home in Shadowfall Coast.

“Dad, you look so cool,” said Jeanna, his 14-year-old daughter.

“Think so, honey?”

“Yah!”

Right now, he wore a shimmering breastplate made of dark silver that had the face of a dragon embossed between the chest area. His gauntlets, a matching silver in color, ran from his fingertips all the way up to his elbows, and from the top to bottom, they contained dozens of fin-like protrusions that extended an inch or two off the gauntlet and were equally spaced apart. They weren’t quite sharp enough to be called spikes, and they appeared more decorative in nature, but still, they contributed greatly towards his overall new look.

“Put on the helm!” Jeanna said.

He chuckled. “Okay, okay.”

His daughter handed him his brand-new helm, which matched the silver of the rest of his new equipment. It covered only the top half of his face, stopping just below the middle of his cheeks. It also framed his eyes in such a way as to make him seem fierce and dangerous. Two sharp, curved edges extended up and above each earlobe, and though it fit snugly, it was actually not uncomfortable. But even if it had been, he’d still wear it just the same, as it was a dramatic improvement over the junk he’d been wearing for the past twenty years. Unlike adventurers, members of political guilds rarely had a large pool of items to choose from.

I doubt I’ll ever get anything better than this, he thought.

Truly, it was difficult to believe that all of his new items—including his new leg armor—were only uncommon in rarity, as the stats on each were so much greater than even the rarest items that could drop at his family’s private mob pens on his estate in southeast Tomb of Fire. Gaelan’s father, now retired from guild life, had left the estate to him, just as his father had done before him. The Malakor line was strong, and as he looked down with love and affection at his daughter, he was pleased to see her eyes light up with pride in him.

I don’t even recognize myself, he thought, amused. He was amazed by the image reflecting back at him in the mirror.

“So cool,” Jeanna said again. “Can’t believe you’re my dad.” Upon speaking those words, her smile abruptly faded and turned to what looked like an annoyed frown.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she said. “It’s just my friends make such gross comments about you all the time.”

“The good kind of gross or the bad kind?”

“There is no good kind!” she said, slapping at his side.

Gaelan laughed. He thought it was cute that his daughter’s friends all had crushes on him. He was a tall, powerfully built man with straight brown hair, a taut jaw, and calloused hands from so many hours spent in weapons training. He spent a great deal of time refining himself and staying sharp. Having participated in numerous open-field battles throughout his life, he kept himself strong and did not neglect the need for regular sparring sessions as far too many of his fellow guild members tended to do.

I need to make sure Jeanna learns to fight properly, too, he thought. She’s been begging me to teach her. Maybe it’s time I started training her before she picks up too many lazy habits from the pens.

Put simply, it took far more than hunting carefully curated mobs on private estates to be strong. Sure, that was great for leveling up and acquiring physical power via stats, but it was no substitute for real-world combat experience. That was likely why a level-20 adventurer could often defeat a level-40 member of a political guild in a fight. The stats themselves just weren’t enough to triumph over someone who knew their way around a blade. And this, of course, was something Gaelan had figured out early on.

From the moment he was old enough to begin leveling, Gaelan had never been satisfied with the process of safely killing mobs on his father’s estate then calling it a day. No. That didn’t cut it. For this reason, he had become one of several high-ranking members of the Guild of Gentlemen who worked hard to fight on equal footing with the adventurers. And now, at long last, he’d finally been given the kind of equipment that could really bring out the best in his skills.

“Your new weapon also looks super cool, dad,” Jeanna said, covering her mouth as though surprised. “King Alistair gave that to you?”

“He sure did,” he said, patting his daughter’s curly brown hair before bending down to pick up his powerful new weapon.

Unlike his armor, which had been delivered to his residence by a courier working for the guild, his new armament had been personally handed to him by Sir Alistair Morrison—now King Alistair Morrison—in the hours following the man’s coronation a few days earlier. This was also a rare—or blue quality—weapon. Picking it up, Gaelan glanced at it approvingly.

The weapon was a sturdy, double-bladed spear made of an even darker type of silver. Both bladed ends had highly decorative, curved handles—known as wings—that formed something vaguely similar to dual dragon’s heads, each releasing a small, but eerily cool jet of fire like that produced by a lighter. When spinning, swinging, or striking with the spear, the fire would make a “pfft” sound and begin to release smoke as well.

“I’m so, so jealous,” Jeanna said, beaming at him. “I wish I had a weapon like that.”

“But you will,” he said to his daughter, meeting her eyes. “Everything that’s mine will be yours someday, Jeanna. And then, one day, you’ll pass it down to your children, too.”

Jeanna cringed like someone becoming aware of a bad scent. “Yuck! I’m never having kids or getting married.”

At this, Gaelan couldn’t help but release a bout of deep laughter. “Oh no, sweetie? You say that now, but you’ll see.”

“Nope. I’m never getting married! I’m gonna be my own woman. I don’t need a husband.”

“Love strikes you faster than steel. You’ll understand some day.”

“Yeah, we’ll see,” she said skeptically.

Gently setting down his spear so it leaned against the closet next to the mirror, he looked across his bedroom, out of the window, and saw a bunch of girls and boys Jeanna’s age forming up on the street outside of their driveway.

“Jeanna, your friends are waiting for you.”

She sighed. “I don’t wanna do cleanup today.”

He gave her a loving, but strict look. “Everyone has to do their part. We were hit very, very bad.”

“I know, but I hate shoveling rubble. The other day, I saw a dead body.” A grim look crossed her features. “I’m scared of seeing another one.”

He knelt down so that he was level with her height, and then he kissed her forehead. “Sweetie, you shouldn’t be. Every time you find one, you’re bringing closure to a family whose loved one has gone missing.”

The civilian death toll in Shadowfall Coast was so high that it sent shivers of rage traveling down Gaelan’s spine every time he was reminded of it. The Royal Roses, the Lords of Justice—all of them. They were all such terrible, despicable human beings. Shadowfall Coast was a peaceful, quiet city, and the people here had been utterly devastated. Yet all the media seemed to talk about was the victims in Ogre’s Axe. Certainly, as a father, Gaelan felt for them, and if it had been up to him, he never would’ve launched the bomb, but regardless—nobody cared about their dead citizens. The world was against the Guild of Gentlemen. And that was why, even though King Morrison was an immoral, king-slaying, murderous tyrant, Gaelan would never turn against him, as he was at least fighting for humanity: for them. He was the only one willing to stand up for their lives and their future. The future of girls like Jeanna.

“Be brave and help your friends,” he said to her. “Everyone has to do their part.”

“I know, daddy.” She made another sigh. “Can me and you and mom go out tonight? Every time you say we will, you end up having work.”

With a pained tone of voice, he shook his head. “I can’t. But I promise we will soon.”

“Why not?” she asked, pulling away from him and folding her arms.

He shrugged. “Tomorrow’s Vim’s sentencing, and we’re short-staffed. They want me on guard duty at least until tomorrow afternoon. I’ll be gone all night and all morning. Don’t worry: I swear I’ll make it up to you, Jeanna.”

“You’d better! Last time you said that, you—huh?” She paused and removed her phone from her pocket. “My phone’s been blowing up. Everyone’s texting me all of a sudden. What’s going…” She scowled, her face contorting with obvious disgust.

“What is it now?”

“It’s him.”

“Him? Who?”

She turned her phone around while putting the sound on speaker, and a rush of pure disgust immediately took hold of Gaelan as he heard the voice that came out of it. “Everyone has to be held accountable for their actions,” said the voice from his daughter’s phone. “And I, like my unfairly imprisoned guild-leader, Vim Alazar, believe we live in a civilized world, and no one of any level or race has a right to exist free of law and justice or to threaten the lives of others.”

“Turn that garbage off,” Gaelan said. “I don’t want to see or hear that murdering psychopath. Everything he says is a lie, anyway.” He pointed his finger at his daughter. “I don’t want to see you listening to that ever again or I’m taking your phone away.”

“Relax, dad, I’m just keeping up to date with what’s going on.”

“I don’t care, Jeanna. That boy’s words are poison. Look what he did to our city! Him and his…” Gaelan took a breath, trying to calm his sudden bout of rage. “Turn it off.”

“All right, Gods.”

One of the fears that many in the Guild of Gentlemen had was that the Royal Roses were using the popularity of people like the Elvish princess or the war-criminal Zachys Calador to influence young minds into being more sympathetic to their guild. But it wasn’t going to work! Not over his dead body! Gods, it was infuriating how these sick bastards always seemed to come for the kids. That was what they’d always try whenever everything else failed. It was part of their indoctrination efforts, and it served as yet another reason why King Morrison was the only man who could protect their society from the evil that lurked outside of their borders.

Having been unable to conquer their people militarily, the other guilds were now trying to influence the children by manufacturing celebrities out of whole cloth. Just look at the way they were lionizing that NPC zombie, Grundor. The dragon raid was only weeks ago, and they’d already begun airing a TV show and printing a line of clothing and other merchandise. Luckily, it was banned in Shadowfall Coast, and Tomb of Fire was doing its best to crack down on it—which was more difficult given it was a giant city. But more needed to be done to protect children from being seduced into a cult.

That’s exactly what it is, he thought. It’s a cult.

“Go join your friends,” he told his daughter, once more retrieving his spear. “And no more listening to that boy, or the Elvish girl, either.”

“I won’t. Promise.”

“I’m serious!”

“I said I won’t!”

He didn’t believe her. Tonight, he might have to reactivate the parental controls.