Chapter 141: The Dark Depths of The Mind.

The sound of metal sang in our forbidden workshop as hammered a dagger into shape. There were entire tanks of my blood around me in this scorching hot room, and the carcass of so many ruined daggers littered the ground for I had sucked the curse and the very potential out of them. Sinister glowing enchantments covered the walls, floors, and ceiling around us, for this was the same process by which I had transferred the curse from my old fantastreel greatsword to my current mythril one.

Moonwash was directing and healing me through my smithing efforts, for I was the only one who could take the curse into myself and transfer it to another vessel. It burned painfully through my body as I did, but what was my existence not, if not one of constant burning pain? The current experiment we were doing was to try and cram the curse of many daggers into one, but the best we had been able to do so far was the equivalent of two cursed daggers. The failures could suffer a number of different effects, from a loss of potential like the cursed daggers used as fodder, to just remaining as they were but without any additional curses or effects.

For an object to lose its potential meant that something had gone wrong in the magical building blocks of mana that made up its structure. This could manifest in a number of ways, such as brittleness, failure to cut in the case of daggers, or just a loss of the abilities it once held like a curse that rips apart those who were cut.

“IT WORKED!” The curse took hold, and I held up the cursed dagger that was the equivalent of three. It was… still far weaker than my cursed greatsword, for a number of reasons. It did not have the same the curse was young and immature, and I was not as familiar or passionate about the weapon.

“Thank you,” my girlfriend thanked me anyway.

“You’re welcome,” I smiled, not displeased about my efforts myself. It was a nice change of pace, and I was always happy to help out my girlfriend with her projects as she did for me.

“Over here?” I asked the human woman in a frilly suit. We were currently in the Dalevale branch of the Angelslayer store to deliver the finished product personally.

“Yes,” the saleswoman confirmed as I placed the dangerous and cursed dagger on the pedestal. It was displayed just off-center of the store, with a bunch of powerful guards and intelligent specialists nearby. The dagger was a true danger, no matter how inadequate it may seem for myself.

“Alright. Careful with that, then.”

“We will. Thank you.”

I and Moonwash hung out at the store a bit more, and then we decided to have a nice lunch at some restaurant. The food was great, some sort of risotto and a pie, and we ate it as we just enjoyed each other’s company. We were just about finished when someone we knew came into our private booth.

“Haell, Moonwash. You’re here,” Granuel said as he took a seat.

“That we are,” I confirmed.

A privacy barrier appeared around us upon his prompting, and my friend spoke again once all possible prying ears had been kept out. “I found you a set of garagorger hooves and the nutrient sack of a regenia. And I also have someone in mind for your…” he glanced at Moonwash, “experiments.”

The garagorger was a sort of bull that lived in the plains, and I wasn’t about to go back there anytime soon so we just bought what I needed. It had many regenerating horns on its head, all of different shapes and sizes, meant to just throw everything at the enemy and see what sticks. But what I wanted from it were the hooves, for it was a naturally level 40 creature with a powerful enough charge.

The regenia on the other hand was a sort of salamander that lived somewhere in the archipelago continent of Isla(pronounced as ay-la). They had a regeneration factor, and some sort of extra-dimensional nutrient sack to fuel their own healing, which I was hoping would be similar enough to my blood storage to work for the evolution. They were actually only born at level 10, so we had to find the nutrient sack of a specimen that had taken the Mutation all the way to level 40. It would’ve been much easier to find these things at the northern counterpart of New Grandera, but we were a long way from there.

As for the that Granuel had found… it was a shepherd man, and he explained exactly how horrible this person was and how he fit into my criteria.

“Ah. So he did a rape,” I nodded. We weren’t doing this for justice, I just wanted my beauty sleep to remain uninterrupted. “Where do we nab him?”

“No,” he shook his head, smirking a little. “None of you are subtle. I’ll handle it on my end, if you’re satisfied with my find?”

“I trust that your info is correct, so sure. But uh, you’ll , huh?”

“Business can be tough,” he straightened defensively. “I need to have spies and assassins on my side, if only to counter the ones that my rivals have.”

“And I don’t doubt it,” I clapped him on the shoulder, showing a wide grin. “Just… make sure they’re at least on some sort of leash, alright? Metaphorically speaking, of course. This is the kind of thing that can get very very dark, very very fast.”

Granuel nodded seriously. “Of course. Thanks, Haell. I’ll keep it in mind.”

We had our victim brought in a bag. I could feel the subtle mental pressure emanating from the person inside when I focused. I fished him out of the sack, and he quickly stirred, but I held him down as Moonwash placed the enchanted necklace on him, already loaded with mana of the mind variety. The man’s eyes snapped open when that happened, and he thrashed against the ropes that held him in place, but he was a measly level 10. Our ropes were made of sterner stuff, and so were the gags in his mouth that prevented him from being able to speak.

I shook my head. He had done far worse to other people. So I remembered the report for each one, and used it to fuel the ever-hungry maw of my wrath.

Now I was too angry to feel anything else.

The shepherd’s eyes then widened when he finally realized who it was that had him abducted. He thrashed harder and screamed into the cloth over his mouth while starting at me in particular. I… probably should have put on some kind of disguise, but he would never leave this basement alive anyway, so it was fine.

“It’s not working,” Moonwash said.

I took a moment to feel out my mind and the magical influences atill trying to act upon it before agreeing. “Yeah. You’re right.”

“I don’t understand mind magic enough yet.”

“Eh, you made like half a dozen prototypes. Maybe one of them will work.”

“That’s true.”

At that moment, as if remembering just now what he could do, our captive reached out with rapid tendrils of the very same element that aimed for my head. I swatted it away with some curse channeled into my hand, and then reconsidered when I was about to rip out his natural focus crowns. That would definitely influence his heart rate, when it was already beating so fast in a constant drum that tried and failed to hammer into our minds. It might contaminate the experiment, so I just held him in place and counteracted his magic while Moonwash tried on the various other enchanted artifacts she had made.

The second necklace failed, and so did the third that was a shirt like how the harpies had tunics that could act as magical apparatuses. Moonwash then paused at the fourth prototype that she tried, which was a comically big medallion that could not possibly be comfortable to wear.

“I think it’s working,” she said.

“Really? I don’t feel anything.”

“Feel harder. It’s subtle.”

“Okay,” I shrugged and did as she asked. Sure enough, I might have noticed some sort of fluctuation in the passive mental influence of our captive. I couldn’t be sure though. I was too resistant to it to really notice such a small change. But if Moonwash said it was working, then it must be true.

We tried the other prototypes after that, but none of them showed any promising results. Moonwash made her notes, and then we collected all the prototypes we had used. The guy we kidnapped was knocked out, locked inside the cage, and then further locked behind a set of vault doors.

I had no room to fucking talk because I was here making use of it, but I genuinely worried about the kind shit Granuel was choosing to involve himself with.

“Haell Zharignan.”

My eyes widened. I rapidly sat up and turned away from the idyllic river to look for who had called my name. I did not notice their approach at all, nor did I recognize the voice. And now I could not find them at all along the shrubbery.

“Who’s there!?” I shouted, alone. My greatsword practically flowed out of its sheathe, and so did my mana leak out of me to envelop my entire range. I would react, no matter where the enemy came from.

“Relax,” the voice reassured simply as a shepherd man whose face could not be recognized calmly stepped into view. But that could not be, for they of all people had no concept of stealth. Their skin shone like glitter, and their hearts demanded the attention of another. But this one was different. His skin seemed to suck in light and muddle his surroundings instead, and his mental influence was… it was there now that I was looking for it, but far weaker and so much harder to notice, especially for me.

I narrowed my eyes and barely stopped myself from charging right into battle. I found that I could not tell the man’s level at all. “Who the fuck are you and what do you want!?”

His eyebrows rose. “It appears I almost made a fatal mistake. I would die if you try and fight me now. So let me allay your worries. I come in peace, Haell. I am just here to talk.”

I did not lower my guard at all. “Go on then. Talk.”

“Alright, alright,” he chuckled. “As expected of the hero of New Grandera. But you do not see yourself as that, do you?” He noticed my further narrowing eyes, and decided to finally get to the point. “Well, no matter. I am here about the recent shepherd disappearances.”

That gave me some pause. “Do you wish to avenge your people? Well, that is certainly not something I would begrudge anyone. But I will inform you that they are all rapists and torturers and overall just irredeemable scum. I do not have quarrel with your species as a whole.”

“A rare position,” he smiled. “One that I’m well aware of.”

A second passed, and I asked, “So are we fighting after all?”

“No, no. Of course not,” he shook his head ruefully. “Most people would not bother to choose which shepherds die. But you do it for a purpose. You avoid innocents. You are trying to find a way to help us take control of our hearts.”

My eyes widened. And then I rolled with my unintended reaction. “What the fuck? You can do that?”

“I don’t know. You tell me. You’re the one who shouted the idea.”

“Huh?”

“When you first got here, you told a bunch of people about it, didn’t you? You suggested the idea of using mind magic to counteract the effects of our Sympathy Heart.”

I consulted my memory core.

Fuck! I did! I just blurted that out in public!

“What? I don’t know what you’re talking about?”

He smiled. “Perhaps not. But why then would you be kidnapping shepherds, I wonder?”

“None of your business.” I pointed my sword at him and he stepped back in surrender. “Actually, you have no proof. I didn’t do it.”

That tripped him up and he couldn’t help but chuckle despite the threat of violence. “Hang on. Like I said, I’m not looking for trouble. I am here because I want to help you.”

“Help me?’ I chewed over the thought. “That sounds like a scam. No thanks. .”

“No, it’s true. I am the one who is known simply as the Blur, the greatest spymaster of New Grandera.”

I blinked. “And I’m the secret prince of the inhex that absolutely needs your money. You tried. You’re way too fucking suspicious. And my hand might just slip if you do not leave right this instant.”

The blurry shepherd man sighed. “Look. Can you at least hear me out on what I want to help you with?”

“No.”

“You’re trying to limit our passive mind control. I want to help you do it,” He said his piece anyway.

“My people can never be accepted in these lands if everyone’s constantly aware of how we’re messing with their minds just by existing, but the way things are done in Edengar is not right either. I want the shepherds to be accepted in New Grandera someday, just like anybody else, and that is why I want to help you with what you’re trying to do. I’ll even throw in some favors which will no doubt be useful.”

That… was interesting. And I could totally see understand his perspective. It made total sense. However…

“How do I trust you? That is the problem here. You sneak up on me, and then you admit to being a spy. That is shady as fuck.”

“That’s… smart,” he chuckled. “How about you ask your friend Granuel about it?”

My evil eyes strained with power and a sinister aura exploded out of me. “If you touch a hair on his body…”

“Whoa, hey! I’ve never met the guy, alright? But I do know about him. About all of you, given my job and all. And I know that he has the connections to know if I am who I claim I am.”

I held his gaze for a moment more, before responding. “I can ask, but I make no promises.”

“That is all I ask. Tell him to have someone meet me at this address half a week from now.”

He handed me a piece of paper, which I gestured for him to toss and then caught out of air.

“Alright. Also, you shouldn’t be stalking us either. Just knowing about shit I randomly blurted out over a year ago is fucking creepy. Allegedly.”

He smiled as he disappeared into the trees. “It’s my job.”

“To be creepy!?” I shouted into the rainforest, but got no response in return.

I looked at the piece of paper, and saw only a bunch of jumbled letters that made no sense to me.

“Oh great. It’s in fucking code.”

“It’s him,” Granuel confirmed a few days later. We were currently in another penthouse that we owned in the middle of Lookwarm City. We owned a lot of property now, spread thinly across multiple territories.

“You sure?” I asked. Our friends were not here for they had actually gone off on their own little adventures while we were busy with this.

Angerly was living the party life with her boyfriend, Berry was rediscovering her culture, and Therick… just wanted to travel around and see more of this new country.

They did know what we were doing, and all of them at least disapproved of our methods, if to varying degress. So it wasn't the worst thing that they weren't here right now. We would just meet back up again later.

“You can never be sure of anything in this business. But I’m as sure as I can possibly be. His skin bent light in such a way that made it harder to focus on him, and his heart made people want to ignore his presence. All abilities and Mutations associated with the Blur. And even that information is buried deep and well hidden.”

“Huh. Neat.” “Are you sure it’s real, though? It might be faked in some way. Like some enchanted artifact meant to mimic the effects of a Mutation.”

“It’s certainly possible, as I’ve said that we can never be sure. But these are my specialists. Skilled spies of their own right. They would very much notice something like that.”

“Alright then…” I shrugged, then turned to my girlfriend. “It’s up to you, Moonwash. Do you take his help, or no?”

“I’ll take it,” she decided. “I’m still only able to counteract maybe a fourth of their Sympathy Heart. An expert in mind magic would be a lot of help.”

I and Moonwash met ‘Blur’, and then they immediately got straight to work. I made sure to stay with them to help out and make sure nothing untoward happened. I was wary but confident I would win in a straight-up fight.

Moonwash shared her current findings with the mysterious spy, about how she’d been able to get halfway there to completely neutralizing the effect of the shepherd’s heart. Blur was not a skilled enchanter, but he was a very good mind mage, and Moonwash learned a lot from him about the element. Enchantments were similar to rituals, and a deeper understanding of the element would help make one’s creations stronger.

“Why do you have to connect the mana through your mind as well?” I asked Moonwash during one of their lessons. I was always here, and I had nothing else to do but to soak in this information as well. It was interesting, besides. Otherwise, I had books to distract myself with. New Grandera had a bustling literature scene with little in the way of quality control. The one I was currently reading was a trashy romcom about… a demon and a love… at this point, traveling through the continent of the Isla Tropics, which I wasn’t sure the author knew anything about other than common mainstream ideas about the place.

“Because most mind magic spells work much better this way,” Moonwash answered my prior question. A sort of shifting mind bridge of mana connected her head to the overgrown rat’s in a cage. That was exactly how shepherds, and the occasional monster used mind magic, but I had sort of assumed that was just because of how the mana came from within them, and not a wand like my girlfriend was using.

“But what about your enchantments? They’re not connected to your mind and it’s making use of mind magic?”

“That’s why they work better with a bridge, but not impossible without it. It’s just how mind magic is,” Blur was the one to explain. “But in the case of the enchantment we’re trying to make here, it’s actually a rare sort of mind magic spell that doesn’t really benefit from a mind bridge and directly transmitting your thoughts. It’s similar to how our hearts work.”

He summoned a ball of mind magic to his palms, and I only mildly prepared myself for a fight, but not in any visible way. The magic churned, and then exploded outwards imperceptibly, giving me the impression of joy.

“That is similar to how our hearts work, but using active mana instead of passive, of course.” That was how they classified usable and non-usable mana. “It’s much easier to detect.”

Moonwash turned to our nearby captive shepherd, and then sent out a similar pulse of mana. But this one did not give me the impression of any emotion, for it was a spell similar to what she wanted out of her enchantments. A disruptive force that countered the sympathetic waves that shepherds passively blasted out into the world. She hoped to gain a better understanding and control over the concept by using the desired magic raw herself. And it was working. We had reached the halfway point, where around half of a shepherd’s Sympathy Heart could be countered by one of my girlfriend’s amulets.

The lessons continued, for there was always more to learn. Blur brought in more shepherd test subjects for us in order to make sure that our solutions would work for everyone, and I had him explain exactly what atrocities they had committed, before then having Granuel independently verify the validity of each claim. This was, once again, not a thing we did for justice or any sort of noble cause, but I had lines I wished to remain on the other side of as much as feasible.

Blur did not disappoint, and the prisoners were indeed irredeemable pieces of shit.

Moonwash tried the many iterations of enchantments she had made on them to make sure that our solutions would work for everyone. She made some notes and noticed some variations in prototypes, and then proceeded to make some changes and created new enchanted accessories. I kept watch over her, and noticed how she’d sometimes completely forget that Blur was even there. This should only very rarely happen no matter how focused she was, for she had a brain over level 40.

Blur’s mental influence was working on my girlfriend, and that made me .

But, well, that was precisely the problem he was trying to fix, wasn’t it? He couldn’t just turn his heart off, that would kill him. And making people ignore him was far less sinister than the insidious manipulations that were just, unfortunately, inherent to simply being around a shepherd person.

I did not freak out and just continued to observe them work.

Moonwash told me something interesting one day, about how she could feel Blur’s other emotions be contagious just like any other shepherd, if to a lesser extent. This led her to conclude that having a specially evolved Mutation might not be the only reason for his unique abilities. The way the Sympathy Heart worked depended on the current emotional state of its wielder, and it was not impossible to control that to a degree. That I was not a rampaging beast attested to that claim.

“Neat.”

One of our prisoners attacked me with a tendril of mind magic. I immediately got angry, but my wrath magic had left my face before I could react, and it peeled the skin off the shepherd woman’s head in retaliation.

She thrashed through her binds and screamed through her gags.

I looked at Blur, but he had not reacted to the ability I had used, and I was sure people in the military had already observed my cursetacean-like vengeance magic already anyway. So I changed the subject and asked instead, “Why is it always so blunt and unfocused? I’m grateful, but I’ve never fought anything that tried to brainwash me in the middle of battle. They just tried to give me the worst headache instead.”

“That’s because it’s Straight-up brainwashing is typically not practical in a fight. Not unless the power differential is that of a god to an ant. But at that point, it doesn’t matter anyway.”

“That’s true. How does brainwashing work exactly, then? I’ve heard things about it, especially since coming here. Some people are still recovering, others are almost catatonic and unable to function. I don’t think I’ve seen much of those types while in Edengar, actually.”

“You’ll notice a lot of them if you ever get involved with the military.”

“I haven’t, and I’ve fought them.”

“So while they’re trying to stab you? I don’t think you’ll notice much.”

“...Fair enough. But what about the inhex? They all seemed very angry.”

“But they are controlled, aren’t they? don’t even field inhexes, because of how easy it is to get them to defect. Though people have somehow not blamed them for that as much and just took them out of the frontlines entirely.”

“They are slaves, and their species hang in a balance.”

“And people aren’t always so understanding, but I’m glad that they can be for the inhex.” He coughed into his hand and got back on topic. “As I mentioned. brainwashing is extremely difficult, and it is especially hard to do it seamlessly without causing any permanent mental harm. These people can be unstable and unpredictable, which isn’t what those control freaks want. That’s why the shepherds of Edengar get people while they’re young and impressionable.” The venom grew in his voice. “Their–hearts are enough to be a social adhesive that guides the course of society. They use mind magic to just give a slight nudge, for in those ages, a single tiny snowball can eventually culminate into a whole avalanche.”

“Well, that’s fucked up, but I already expected as much. What about the ‘guidance’ thing though? Even adults received that. People kept wanting to do it to me!”

He smiled ruefully. “Well, when Angelorian priests and their ilk talk about guidance, what they usually mean is… it might contain some actual ideas and nudges being transplanted into your brain, yes, but it’s mostly just a blast of happiness and trust, followed by whatever emotion they want you to associate with whatever thing they are talking to you about. Be it how wonderful are the angels, so you should feel awe upon thinking of them. Or it could New Grandera, our country, and the fear and anger that should be felt upon the mere mention of our name.”

“Ah. I see. I’ve never really gone to that. Managed to skip church entirely since I was a toddler, actually.”

“That’s really good for you. And of course, if they were insisting that you come in for guidance, then I don’t think you were about to get the normal package. They would have done exactly what you feared.”

“No… NO, NO!”

“HELP! Please help me!”

“Stop!”

“D-d-d-d-d-d-d–don’t come any closer.”

“W…w….hyy….”

“I don’t like this,” I said as I looked at the mind-broken people arrayed before me.

“Hey, you promised,” Blur pointed out. “I usually just kill them after I’ve extracted the information I need.”

“I know.” I scowled.

“They’re enemy spies. Edengar does it too. Way more than us.”

My frown deepened as I walked forward. I hated this, but there was one crucial thing I wished to learn today. “Let’s just get this over with.”

I sat down and looked at Moonwash’s notes, for she had already begun to write shit down. She was interested in the actual results of mind magic on a sapient being, and I listened to her speak to absorb all the knowledge about how I may be able to tell if someone had been . Blur too offered his many insights, and while I had some major issues with his job, I still made sure to properly synthesize all the information that he provided.

Things like this would continue to happen outside of my purview.

“I think it works,” Moonwash said after observing our sleeping isolated captive and the amulet that he wore for a while. I felt for my mind, and found that I could indeed not feel any foreign influence to gain entry into the labyrinth that was myself. Blur too was missing in this room, so that it would be easier to tell if there were truly no influences left in the air. Moonwash did a few more tests, from confirming how much mana the enchantment was burning through, to dragging other shepherds in to see if the results were consistent between all of them. “There’s some variation, but that would always be the case. What matters is that it works as intended.”

“I agree,” I smiled. “You did a really good job.”

I gave my girlfriend a hug, and then we went to go fetch Blur. He had genuinely been a great help, as this was something he cared deeply about, more than the both of us combined. He deserved to be the first to know about the project’s success.

“So it’s done,” he said after having listened intently to Moonwash’s explanations.

“Yep. It is,” I responded, as if any of this was my achievement.

“Thank you. Truly,” he spoke with sincerity. “No one… no one really cared for our plight. I know we’ve done terrible things before, but it’s not all of us. Yet there is that very present resentment here, and I know you feel the same way too–”

My eyebrows rose in offense, but I allowed him to finish.

“--but you chose to help anyway, in spite of that. So thank you, truly.”

“Okay. Alright,” I shrugged. “You’re welcome.”

“Yes. Now! I can go find some people so we can start producing a lot of these amulets…”

The two of them began to talk about the logistics of this project, and I just hung back and listened. The final design that Moonwash had settled on was something that reached tendrils of mind magic into someone’s heart after a few minutes of burrowing, which would then directly send the interfering waves right next to the source. It was apparently a lot easier to replicate an existing enchantment than to create a new one, but the copies would almost always be a good deal inferior to the original. This meant that Moonwash would still need to iterate on her own ‘final design’ anyway, to make it more accessible and even more efficient for the penalty of copying someone else’s work. However, she did theorize that most of those problems arose from slight deviations from the original anyway. The intention when creating something mattered to magic, given how art is a subjective thing, so if someone were to copy something then they best be doing it perfectly, else they were failing at what they had set out to do. Another avenue was also to teach artists about the enchantment, and then have them create their own versions. We decided to rope Granuel into the project, as surely he could figure something out.

“One thing about that,” I interrupted them. “It might be better if the amulets are as distinct from each other as possible.”

“Really?” Moonwash asked. “I suppose it would look nicer, and I’d like people to like the accessories that I make, but why do you say so? It would be a lot harder and more complicated to make.”

“Ah, well…” I glanced at Blur. “It’d be easy to identify them anyway given that they’re a whole different species, but I just worry about requiring them to wear something identical. It kind of marks them in some way, you know? And that can easily develop a very negative connotation. Whereas if it’s a fashion statement… then maybe things will be fine?”

I was talking about events that had happened in Earth’s history and had literally led to genocide. But I didn’t particularly want Blur to learn about my reincarnator knowledge.

“That’s very insightful,” Blur nodded. “Where’d you learn of it?”

“Some books,” I shrugged. “Grandpa had a lot of weird ones in stock. So I can’t really say how accurate this all is.”

I wasn’t entirely talking out of my ass here. I was no academic nor historian back on Earth, so I couldn’t really be sure about any of the details. Most of my historical knowledge were obtained through osmosis and random videos.

“Ah. Well, I’m not surprised someone so influential would have access to such things.”

“Yeah,” I laughed. It was again, not untrue.

I stood near the town hall of the Capital City of Unity. Thousands of people of differing backgrounds and species had gathered to hear me speak. I had to admit that I was a little bit nervous, I did not expect this many to show up, but I had been warned. I was just that famous, and I had made no prior public address at all. This was their first chance to hear from their demonic ‘hero.’

I did not let any of that stop me as I stepped up to the podium in my elegant dark armor dress. I held their stares with my evil eyes, and purposely allowed the tension to build before I finally spoke with the clarity of a thousand suns:

“People of New Grandera.” The sound enchantments came to life, and carried my voice far and wide. “I stand before you here today, not as a hero for I have never called myself by that name. I am a demon, a warrior who fights against a common enemy, an adventurer, a citizen just like all of you, and someone who has slain a shepherd count and a gold-rank templar! The empire had thrown everything they had at me, and yet I survived and thrived, for in bloodshed I feast and grow.” A few people were a bit displeased by how I started, but by now they were cheering. . “It is with that violent history of righteous slaughter that I come before you today, to tell you that the way we have been treating the shepherds is wrong.” “I am happy to kill any who abuse their power and indoctrinate our children. Many of the ones who live in Edengar are probably guilty to one extent or another. But they are not inherently evil creatures. They are our neighbours, our fellows who just want to live a good life, make connections with others, and help our communities in the ways that they can. But I do understand your suspicion, because through no fault of their own, they had been born with hearts meant to twist our own. That is precisely why we of the Angelslayers have worked with to create enchanted artifacts that could stop their hearts from affecting us all. So that the problem may be solved, and we can finally welcome them as one of our own!”

The end of my speech was met not with cheers but with quiet murmuring. I was willing to take it all in, the scrutiny and the shallow unexamined hate. For I did not say anything today that I did not believe in, it was all the truth and I had no reason to be ashamed.

Now let the pieces fall where they may.