Chương 86: “The Good Boy's Path Took a Turn”

The small creature waddled across the training yard with a wooden tray strapped to his back. On the tray sat two cups of water, neither one tilting. His legs were short and his gait was graceless. The task was obviously beneath him, and he wanted everyone to know it. A slave at the edge of the yard crouched down and took a cup.

"Thanks, little guy." Sir Ozymandias did not acknowledge the remark. He turned, his curled tail rigid with displeasure, and waddled toward the next one. To have fallen so low… He, who had once stood at the cusp of the pinnacle. He, who had clawed and bled and burned through nine steps of ascension, who had stood upon the tenth and felt the threshold of Godhood beneath his paws. Just one step more. Just one... And then, he had failed.

Stripped of all that was his, and left to rot between what he had been and what he had become. He had slumbered. For how long, he did not know. When he finally woke, it was not to power or to glory. How the mighty hath fallen. He deposited the second cup at the feet of another slave and stood there for a moment, breathing through his flattened nose. His eyes half-closed. Dignity. He still had that, at least. And he had this much: his so-called master, the golden-haired cur, possessed a smidgen of authority.

For a time after his glorious emergence, she had provided him a modicum of decent food. Even the carrier-cage that he frequented stayed in during travels or periods of punishment was cushioned and clean. These were the minimum requirements for his satisfaction. If not— He stopped walking. If not, if his essence was to be trampled with… If he was to go back to his lowly days, before he chanced upon the first step of ascension… Rotting in his own filth, blood crusted into his fur, wounds that never closed…

He, a bearer of the mark of casualty, if he was pushed to that edge again, if someone attempted to drag him back to what he had been— He would break it all… Then the purple-haired girl had come along. Such a pure soul. Earnest to a fault, clumsy in every conceivable way, and utterly convinced that there was something medically wrong with his glorious countenance. She poked and prodded him. She applied ointments to his nose that smelled of tree bark and bitterness.

She bathed him in solutions that made his fur stand on end. It was heresy. Absolute, unforgivable heresy. And yet. She brushed his fur until it was soft. She carried him against her chest when they walked, and her heartbeat was steady, and she never once dropped him. Time and time again, he wondered why he had been given this second chance, same as the woman who had summoned him. What purpose remained for one who had failed at the threshold?

What role was there for one who had touched the divine and been found wanting? And then the bacon came dangling in front of his nose and he stopped thinking about it. It seemed, in the end, that he had spent too long here. He had developed these paltry things called connections, which was why he had begrudgingly agreed to the golden-haired cur's demands: to help around the office. watch over the lowborn humans during their training, carry their drinks, let them scratch his ears.

They were a mix of souls, these slaves. Some pure, some not. All of them growing. He let them be, as they were still little things who did not know any better. Their atrocious handling of his sovereign form—the grabbing, the lifting, the belly-rubbing—was not deemed a crime in his eyes. What irked him, however, was the other task. The cur had made him a spy. Imagine that. He was tasked to waddle into rooms within the building where people sat, just so he could eavesdrop for information. He would sit in a corner.

And if he heard something worth relaying, he would report it to her, and she would reward him with something of his choice for his room. At least that was acceptable. He finished his rounds, left the training yard, and waddled back inside the building. Down the corridor, past the kitchens, past the supply rooms, until he reached the office. Celestia's office. The door was ajar.

He pushed through the gap with his nose and crossed the floor to the bed in the corner, a shallow wooden crate lined with quilted fabric that Anna had sewn for him. He climbed in, turned twice, and lay down. His eyes closed. He, Sir Ozymandias, the one who had started from the lowest pit of life and clawed his way to its highest peak, just a paw from Godhood, had realized something in this place. It had crept in, just like how warmth crept into stone left in the sun. He was satisfied. Somewhere around the middle.

Not at the bottom, where he had begun. Not at the top, where he had almost ended. Here was enough. The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement. His breathing slowed. His paws tucked beneath his chin.

'To be noble was to exert one's existence over others… And yet, did that not mean there were other ways to do so?' he thought to himself. Life was weird. It seemed like he still so much more to learn. * It was actually quite useful having Sir Ozy sit in the waiting rooms. Merchants or nobles didn't guard their tongues around animals. When left alone in a room before a meeting, or what they believed was alone, they talked to their confidants. Some would even mutter, rehearsing their offers.

They argued over the terms they planned to demand versus what they were actually willing to accept. And Sir Ozy sat in the corner, looking like a fat weird-looking dog-like pet. When Celestia's visitors saw him, they would think nothing of it. An eccentric pet belonging to the company's owner? Nobles would often keep even much stranger things. One of the visiting traders had even tossed the pet a dried meat strip, apparently out of pity. Of course, not every report was useful.

Sir Ozy's grasp of commercial terminology was spotty at best, and his summaries tended to be all over the place. A merchant who had called him "that ugly little beast" received a thorough and detailed account of his character flaws, while the one who had quietly discussed renegotiating routes got: "The bald one spoke about roads." But even filtered through the pug's considerable ego, the information was more than Celestia had expected.

Last week alone, Sir Ozy had reported that a textile merchant from the east district had been planning to undercut his quoted price by thirty percent the moment he walked into the room. It had allowed her to weed out several bad-faith negotiators from contracts. Business was going well. The potion sales had stabilized: steady demand. The transportation contracts with the merchant guilds were generating consistent revenue.

And the mining operation had started within the past week, with the first magic stone shipments expected before the week's end. Celestia leaned back in her chair and looked at the papers on her desk, then at the space in front of her.

Name: Celestia Von Reingarde Race: Human Elemental Attribute: ክዐ፪ጎረጎፕሃ Synchronization: 33% Story Relevance: 68/100 Stats: Strength: G (33/100) Dexterity: F- (41/100) Speed: G (86/100) Wisdom: F- (95/100) Aura: H+ (96/100) Special Stats: Nobility: S+ (101/100) Active Skills: Noblesse Oblitère (S-Rank) Cooldown: 3 Days Description: Strike infused with Nobility so overwhelming that lesser beings crumble on contact. Damage scales with rank difference. Plebeians may detonate.

Effect: Instantly inflicts massive physical and spiritual damage weighted by hierarchical superiority. Targets may experience fear, humiliation, or sudden existential crisis. Knighthood (S-Rank) Slot Limit: 1 Sir Ozymandias Effect Cooldown: 1 Year Description: A princess bestows the peerage of knighthood as the highest honor. Once sworn, the bond can be invoked as a royal decree made manifest.

Effect: For a brief period, your anointed knight returns to the peak of their prowess; body and spirit restored to their finest state. When the grace ends, the borrowed perfection is reclaimed, leaving the knight heavily spent. Elegance of Being (C-Rank) Cooldown: N/A Description: Your elemental attribute bleeds into your Aura unbidden. What normally demands mastery of the third stage of aura simply occurs as a natural state. Effect: Aura is permanently imbued with elemental attribute.

The imbuement cannot be suppressed. Passive Skills: Faint Resistance (F) Concentration (E) Fatigue Recovery (E) Pain Resistance (E) Poison Resistance (F) Physical Recovery (E) Mental Recovery (E) She stared at it for a while. Synchronization had gone up. That much was expected, but her skills and stats had barely shifted. She tapped her finger on the desk twice. Stagnation was not something she could solve by simply working harder, considering her talent in fighting. So…

throwing herself at the Tower was the obvious answer, but she was not ready for that. At least not yet until everything had fully stabilized. There was also the matter of tomorrow. Summit Academy's combat elective would be holding a surprise event—open sparring matches between the first and second-year students. With Arthur and his party having already cleared Floor 10, Celestia needed to see where he was at. She closed the system window and exhaled.

"Paimon, call Liana. She should be at the laboratory with Anna." Paimon nodded and left. Celestia picked up her pen and went back to the papers. There were still a few more contracts that needed her signature before the end of the day, and a supply requisition from Martha that she had been putting off since this morning. She worked until Paimon's footsteps returned down the hallway, accompanied by a second, lighter set. * Where exactly had things gone wrong?

Celestia stood at the far end of the training building's grounds, near the back of the crowd. The grounds were packed, as professors occupied the raised observation platform. The afternoon sun was high and the air was warm. Arthur was on the ground. He was on one knee, his wooden sword planted in the dirt in front of him, both hands gripping the handle. His breathing was ragged. His hair was matted with sweat and there was a bruise forming along the left side of his jaw.

His academy uniform was torn at the shoulder, and the sleeve on his right arm had been ripped clean off. Blood from a split lip had dried on his chin. Standing across from him, barely winded, was a second-year student. The student was lean, dark-haired, and roughly Arthur's height. He held a practice sword loosely in one hand, the tip angled toward the ground. His uniform was dusty but intact. His breathing was undisturbed, and on his face, it looked as if this fight was too much of a bother.

Arthur should have won this. The original story definitely showcased that Arthur's progress, despite just being on Floor 10, was around the second-years' strength. The second-year shifted his weight. He looked quite bored.

"Ready to go again?" the student lazily asked. Arthur lifted his head as he pulled the sword from the dirt, planted his back foot, and rushed forward.. The second-year yawned. Celestia's fan tapped against her palm.