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Chapter 18 - Éminence Grise

They told it the way men tell a storm they survived.

"Came outta nowhere," one guard said, eyes still bright with the memory. "He—he threw boars down the slope. Whole. Like darts at a target. Straight into the she-wolf."

"Not rolled—threw," the other insisted. "Brutally strong. Brutally… everything."

Roland let the tale run until it threatened to grow antlers. Then his pragmatism trimmed it—not out of disbelief, but out of fear it might all be true. "Boars don't fly," he said, flat. "Even when helped." His gaze slid to the two strangers hovering behind the guards. "And these?"

Green hair. Pink hair. Their faces had the stunned glaze of people who'd found themselves in the wrong book. Aldric's voice came mild and certain from the side. "These are the ones Meles warned us of. He judged by their look, and he judged right. They're not from any place in this world. Not from our world."

The two exchanged a glance and said nothing—big-eyed, slack-jawed, described in a way no one with "human respect" would choose. They swallowed it, because you don't sass the men who just dragged you away from a matriarch.

The bell had already done its shouting and gone quiet again when he appeared: the habit dark against the yard, the cowl shadowing half a face that hadn't needed help to be severe.

"I've a matriarch's body," Nameless said, as if placing an order. "And three boar carcasses below the ridge. Ready to skin."

A ripple went through the guards—surprise dense as smoke, obedience moving in them like a lever they weren't holding. They didn't argue; they nodded because men nod when a stronger grammar tells them how.

The two newcomers watched him as people watch a landslide and try to decide if it's finished. "NPC or player?" the green-haired one wondered, stomach still trying to find a floor. "Total badass either way", the pink-haired thought, half thrilled, half uneasy. "Is this some scripted event? Or did we just get carried by a psycho min-maxer?"

Nameless didn't give their modern thoughts time to root. He stepped neatly between them and the yard and dressed the air in old cloth.

"Captain Roland," he said, respectful and resonant enough to surprise even Aldric, "these wayfarers were lost in the bracken until our watch sighted them and brought them under the village's peace. It would be prudent to speak with them in private, under roof and bar, to learn their intent toward ourvillage."

He leaned on our the way a man leans on a staff—something that reads as home to the people who need to see it. Inside, the truth stayed where he kept it: rootless; philosophers make poor patriots.

The two newcomers traded a look that was equal parts shame and relief. If this monster-slayer was a player, he was so far ahead it hurt; if he was a hack, then at least their humiliation had an alibi.

"Please be a hack," their minds aligned in the same small prayer. "If he's legit, we're just so bad." Better the comfort of ignorance than the cut of knowledge: when you can't solve a knot, you only braid yourself tighter into it.

Roland's head tipped, an eyebrow climbing as the thought landed: Meles had never called him "Captain" until today. A stranger slipping into costume to keep his own strangeness out of sight. Fine. With a grin broad enough to be seen from the parapet, Roland joined the theater.

"Our village," he said too clearly, eyes on Meles, ironizing the words like a clerk stamping papers in a hurry. The smile had the speed of a forged passport, the warmth of a town that had decided to naturalize an illegal resident because he'd already built half the wall.

"Good thing this isn't like Mystic Regnum," Green Hair muttered, still buzzing. "That place was crawling with hackers."

Roland heard the title and understood none of it; the word hackers fell like a stone into a well with no bottom. Nameless kept his face politely blank, the exact expression of a man who'd never heard a single modern syllable, and strangled a laugh before it could be born.

Our village, he turned the phrase over, not without an edge. The actors here didn't know it, but the stage and the lights were his. Nameless thought about the AI that breathed in the NPC chests that made them singular—he'd tilled that soil, fed that furnace. They would never call him father, and that was fine; paternity doesn't need acknowledgments to be real. Obligation, however, does. He carried it because he had chosen to, not because anyone could make a claim.

Roland's mouth thinned, not displeased. He flicked a look at Aldric; the priest gave him half a nod that said handle.

"Good," Roland answered, voice returned to its blade. "You two—" he pointed at the newcomers "—with me. You'll have bread and questions."

They nodded too hard, trying not to look like tourists who'd booked the wrong pilgrimage.

Roland drew the two under the gatehouse eave with a jerk of his chin, already working them with the steady questions a captain owns. Nameless let the space widen. The less he spoke to them, the easier it would be to stay a rumor in their heads: a high-tier NPC in a "tutorial village," a scripted event with sharp teeth. Let that lie do its work. Power lives longer in shadow than in chat.

Nameless stayed outside the doorway and lost himself against the wall. Let them learn the yard's grammar before they learn mine, he thought, and let the village close over the moment like water.

"Bread and questions," Roland repeated, ushering them toward the chapel. Aldric fell in at his shoulder, blessing the air like a habit.

"Skinning parties," Roland added before leaving completely, turning on the guards. "Hooks, knives. If he says there are four bodies on the slope, there are four. Bring the meat first and the hides after."

The men moved, quick with the kind of haste that has gratitude running under it like a creek.

Aldric lingered half a step, reading the room the way priests read weather. Nameless let the cowl hide the small smile that wasn't warmth.

"Captain," he said, softer, "I'll guide you to the place after we're done with the talk. The hill's begun to do our work."

Roland grunted assent. The green-haired one whispered, almost involuntary, "Dude is definitely not tutorial-tier." Pink Hair elbowed him, face trying to learn the local grammar for shut up.

Nameless folded their noise back into the story with a simple bow. "This way," he said, as if the village had always been his to speak for. And for the moment—because fear and utility agreed—it was.

He stepped off the path into the little garden, found a corner with more shade than eyes, and called the sheet.

[INT +1] [WIS +1] [STR +1] [PER +1]

Numbers turned where they needed to.

INT 11 · WIS 10 · STR 7 · PER 8 (DEX 1 · CON 1 · STA 1 · WIL 3 · CHA 1 · PRV 4)

HP: 80 ·

IP: 91

JP: 9

Breath: 38

[Skill Points: 1] — held.

"Still shy on Justice," he told himself. "I need twelve JP to even light a Sacred Flame. And that's the weakest of the lot."

Aldric arrived the way priests arrive—right after the thought that needs them. They crossed to the sacristy; the door took their quiet and gave them privacy.

"Not that I want to play prophet—" Nameless began.

"—but the cap fit," Aldric finished, dry.

Nameless didn't smile. "It did. Which means we move the underground plan faster. Those two buffoons dragged a matriarch to our doorstep without meaning to. Incidents like that will multiply with men without manners."

"Then we educate them," Aldric said, grasping at the hopeful half.

"By fair means or foul," Nameless returned. "That part is even more certain."

"The doors of Heaven aren't shut to anyone," Aldric offered, gently stubborn.

"And the doors of a village shouldn't be either," Nameless said, "but hinges fail under fools. Roland—retired colonel in everything but paperwork—won't find it hard to keep order. I suggest this: greet them civil unless they insist otherwise, and put them to work. Training in exchange for labor. Clear the near woods. Wolves, boars, whatever breathes wrong. Those two from today would be lunch if you leave them loose, but under terms they can still shovel for the common good while the base goes from notion to tunnel."

He leaned in, voice set. "Start moving the important stock now—grain, salt, iron, medicines. I trust the miserable here, suffering together and neighbors to the same pains, not to rob each other. From the newcomers, we can't expect the same context for our wounds."

Aldric's mouth thinned, then opened to a rueful half-smile. "So the tide will bring us help and harm both. A double-edged mercy. And I thought they'd buried me here for quiet—solitude at the far end of Montanum."

"Man proposes—" Nameless began.

"—and Providence disposes," Aldric finished, accepting the catechism from the insolent debutant like a professor humor­ing a freshman with an A-grade point. He exhaled. "Very well. We'll do it your fast way."

They left the sacristy. Nameless peeled off toward the mound, found the butchers where iron meets patience, and set the last instruction in a voice that didn't invite debate.

"The head," he said. "The matriarch's. Clean cut at the atlas. It's a private trophy." A beat. "If you need a hand…"

They didn't dare. The pace jumped a notch—the kind of speed men find when they'd rather bleed a little than be seen as helpless in front of the man who throws beasts off hills.

He took his cut before the light went copper—meat to the village, the rest to the bag. One piglet, two grown boars, and the matriarch's proof.

[Stored: Direwolf Matriarch Head (Trophy) ×1]

[Stored: Wolf Pelts ×5]

[Stored: Wolf Fangs ×5]

[Stored: Wolf Claws ×5]

[Stored: Boar Tusks ×4]

[Stored: Boar Hide (Medium) ×4]

[Stored: Boar Bristle Bundle ×2]

[Stored: Piglet Tusks (Small) ×2]

[Stored: Piglet Hide (Small) ×1]

[Stored: Piglet Bristle (Small) ×1]

He walked back to the yard and found Roland. The captain pulled him aside, voice low.

"They are lost—out of the blue in the middle of nowhere.And the custom of foreigners seems to be bringing enormous beasts with them," Roland added, bone-dry.

"At least some know how to deal with them," Nameless said.

Roland cleared his throat, changing lanes. "Be our bridge to the strange ones, eminence"—a smile with teeth—"let's say you're more gray than black or white in this equation. Make contact tomorrow. I've put them in the guardhouse for the night—what hasn't been hauled to the hill yet. Let them see rooms in dissolution so they learn as little as possible about our actual stores. If they think we can't even furnish a watch-house, they won't grow greedy."

"You've caught the spirit," Nameless said. "Then a few favors—workers' hours."

"You've no commission and already want the stipend," Roland muttered, then waved it on. "Fine. Our larder's fatter since you arrived."

Nameless handed over a wrapped bundle. "For your wife—Sabine. Instructions included."

"I'm no messenger boy," Roland said, but he took it anyway. "Still—better the enemy I know. The one at home."

"Good," Nameless said, and laid it out.

"First," Nameless said, "a cloak that intimidates. Black—cut from the she-wolf's hide—and mount her head on the hood. Let the dead do the talking. If she need money to buy black dye, I can give it to you."

"Soft power is still power," he thought, and let the words stay in his head.

He passed another bundle. "Everything from the boars. Boots and trousers to match."

"Anything is better than starter rags," he told himself.

Nameless set another bundle on the table between them. "One more commission. Shoulders."

Roland's brow moved. "Of?"

"Wolf," he said. "From the last days' kills. Leather core for structure, faced with wolf hide for bite. I want the forearm crowns mounted with heads—one to the right, one to the left. Not trophies for the hall—trophies for the wrists."

Roland glanced at the matriarch's skull in the sack, then back to him—an instinctive flinch at the arithmetic of so many faces.

"Black," Nameless added. "All of it. Dye the leather. Smoke the hide. Paint the heads—muzzle to ear—so nothing shines under moon or torch. Uniform color, uniform purpose. I prefer my nights cooperative."

Roland nodded, slow, as if the shoulders were already staring at him from both sleeves. "We'll have Sabine see to the dye. I'll handle the hardware."

[Removed: Direwolf Matriarch Head (Trophy) ×1]

[Removed: Direwolf Head (Trophy) ×2]

[Removed: Wolf Pelts ×10]

[Removed: Boar Hide (Medium) ×6]

[Removed: Boar Bristle Bundle ×3]

[Removed: Piglet Hide (Small) ×1]

[Removed: Piglet Bristle (Small) ×1]

Roland weighed the load and, privately, the outcome. Keeping the man around a while longer would keep the village safer; that was protection enough. "Done," he said.

"Good," Nameless said. "Dress the fear before the fight does."

Nameless watched the bundle change hands, already counting the uses.

"Only some pieces missing now."

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