Page 819

‘Are you... uh... I mean, did your servant do that to you?’

‘Yeah,’ said Garovel. ‘He kept me prisoner for two years.’

‘Geez...’

‘Looking back on it now, two years wasn’t very long at all. Only two out of thousands already lived. But it was one of the worst things I’ve ever experienced. Being trapped makes all the difference in the world, especially when you don’t know if you’ll ever make it out again.’

‘Agh, man... But, uh.... how DID you get out? Did the guy screw up?’

‘Partially. I tricked him. Another problem with imprisoning your reaper is that, guess what? They can still talk to you. In fact, unless you’re keeping other people around their prison, you are the ONLY person they can talk to. So naturally, I began by just constantly talking shit to him. Trying to drive him to the breaking point so he’d do something stupid, right? That didn’t work so well. Whenever I annoyed him enough, he’d just wound me to the point where I’d fall unconscious for a few days. Should’ve known that was a bad plan. He was a thug. Any problem he could solve with violence, he would. So instead, I very slowly convinced him to do one of the dumbest things I could think of. Reverse psychology. Being purposely vague. That sort of thing.’

‘What’d you have him do?’

‘I waltzed him into the territory of a famous member of Abolish. He thought there’d be treasure. There wasn’t.’

Hector had to stifle a laugh. ‘Wow, Garovel. I guess he deserved it, but holy shit...’

‘That Abolisher went on to become even more famous afterwards. His name was Suresh, and he was considered Dozer’s equal for a while.’

‘Whoa...’

‘Suresh is dead now, but his successor is still alive. Gohvis. Ever heard the name?’

‘No...’

‘The Monster of the East? The Black Scourge? Those are both him, too.’

Hector thought back. ‘Actually... yeah, I’ve heard of the Black Scourge. When I was little. I thought it was like... a plague or something.’

‘Nope. It’s a guy.’

‘Fuck...’

‘Yeah. He’s arguably even more famous than Dozer, his boss. Or so I hear. I’ve never met either of them personally, in case that wasn’t obvious. Maybe everyone is wrong about them, and they’re secretly super nice dudes.’

‘Right... Hmm. Dozer has a country named after him, but why is Gohvis so famous?’

‘Regicide. Genocide. And punching a hole into a volcano that then erupted and wiped out an entire Vanguardian stronghold.’

‘...What.’