Chapter 937: Players

"That much I understand." The werewolf followed her gaze toward the chamber. "And yes, Hoyo will be different."

Izalith turned toward him. "You sound far more certain about that than you did about anything else."

"He is not from another world. He was born here, raised here, and broken here. He knows what happens when power fails because he has survived the consequences." The werewolf rested both hands upon the chair. "He understands hunger without needing a quest to explain it. He knows titles do not stop blades, and being chosen means nothing if the person carrying the blessing is incompetent."

Izalith listened without interrupting as the Treacherous Fanged Wolf continued.

"Hoyo survived without gods laying a path in front of him. Now he will receive the Hero’s path after learning how to walk without it. That makes him considerably more useful than someone who has never known anything else."

"And there is still Graft to consider," she said. "His own work, the Hero’s heart, and eventually the Hero’s obligation. Add the potential of capturing Lust to that, and he could become something even the Demon King has not encountered before."

"If the transfer stabilizes and Clementine’s plan works. And if Lust is as easy to subdue as you may think... You are counting several things that have not happened yet."

"Clementine’s plan will work. I have known him long enough to recognize when he has already decided something is going to happen. As for lust... That requires some of ’our’ intervention."

The werewolf gave a small laugh, and Izalith returned her attention to the door.

"A Hero born from Ikos itself," she said. "Not summoned, not pampered by gods from the moment he arrives, and not told he is the center of the world. That might actually be interesting."

"He already knows he is not the center of anything. If he survives long enough, your Demon King may finally receive the opponent he wanted."

Izalith began to turn away, then paused as another thought occurred to her. Her smile returned slowly, drawing the werewolf’s attention.

"It would be rather nice to have two."

"Two Heroes?" He looked toward the chamber. "The other one is dead. Unless Hoyo intends to put something back inside Hiro, we have only one."

"I was not talking about Hiro." Izalith glanced over her shoulder. "When the Demon King returned from his false descent, he spoke at considerable length about someone he had met."

"He always speaks at considerable length. I imagine the meeting became more impressive with every retelling."

"Perhaps, but this person apparently survived considerably more than expected." She walked toward the werewolf again, stopping well outside his reach. "Someone you failed to kill. Or perhaps chose not to."

Recognition changed his expression before he laughed. "You mean the little cub. Ludwig."

"Ludwig Hart," Izalith confirmed. "He caught the Demon King’s attention rather thoroughly."

"That sounds unfortunate for him."

"The Demon King disagrees. He found their meeting amusing, although I doubt Ludwig would describe it that way."

"I imagine that was part of the entertainment."

"Very much so." Izalith watched the werewolf as she continued. "He spoke about Ludwig’s resilience, his strange relationship with Death, and the things attached to him. The Usurper pieces interested him in particular."

The Treacherous Fanged Wolf’s fingers stopped tapping against his chair. Some of the amusement left his face, and Izalith’s smile sharpened.

"There you are. You do care what happens to him."

"Ludwig is irrelevant to the Hero’s path. Whatever interested your Demon King does not change that."

"He has already met him and survived."

"By accident, from what I understand."

"Twice?" Izalith tilted her head. "The Demon King seems less convinced that it was merely accidental. He believes Ludwig could become interesting."

"He already is." 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

The answer came too quickly. Izalith’s eyebrows rose, and the werewolf sighed as her smile became insufferable.

"Then perhaps you should explain," she said. "You have spent this conversation insisting you want nothing to do with the Demon King’s opponents, yet this one seems to interest you very much."

"Because you are putting him in the wrong company." The Treacherous Fanged Wolf looked toward the sealed chamber before returning his attention to her.

"Hoyo belongs to your game. Gods, Heroes, devils, and prophecies about Light and Darkness. It is the same tired cycle you have all been repeating for longer than anyone sensible cares to remember." He leaned forward. "Ludwig does not belong there. He is playing ours."

Izalith’s tail slowed behind her. The word had carried too much weight to dismiss as another complaint.

"You mean the Usurpers."

"Exactly. Wrath, Envy, Pride, Sloth, and now Gluttony. Ludwig has been accumulating more than their attention." The werewolf’s smile disappeared. "He is collecting pieces of them. Authority, understanding, and consequences he has not yet finished discovering."

Izalith studied him. His earlier indifference had vanished so completely that she wondered how much of it had ever been genuine.

"Then tell your Demon King something for me," he continued. "He cannot have him."

She laughed softly. "You intend to claim Ludwig? Or is this your way of announcing that you plan to protect him?"

"I do not own Ludwig, and neither does Necros. The Demon King does not, and not even the Usurpers do."

"Then why should the Demon King concern himself with your opinion?"

The werewolf rested one hand against the table. This time, his smile returned without any warmth.

"Because the path Ludwig is walking already has its players. Your Demon King would be wise to remember that before deciding he can add the boy to his collection."

"And you are one of those players."

The Treacherous Fanged Wolf offered no answer. He watched her instead, leaving the warning exactly where he had placed it.

Izalith’s smile deepened as she considered the sealed chamber and then the werewolf seated before her.

"Two games," she said. "A Hero in one and a Usurper hunter in the other. Unfortunately for you, the Demon King may decide he wants both."

"The Demon King has always wanted things that do not belong to him."

Izalith began walking away, but paused long enough to look back. "You have told me what the gods want, what the Demon King wants, and why you dislike all of it. What do you want?"

He remained silent long enough for the council’s distant murmuring to fill the space between them. Then the Treacherous Fanged Wolf settled back into his chair and smiled.

"I want to see which game breaks first."

======================

"No." Van Dijk said.

"I said you didn’t try it yet." Kaiser replied.

"And I said, if we do it this way, it will spill and make the whole damn area infected."

"You’re not trusting your own wards?"

"I’m not willing to test them against an authority that could consume them out of sheer boredom."

The two, Kaiser and Van Dijk kept arguing over the same thing since early morning.

Ludwig was sitting behind the two of them with several books spread all in front of him.

Many of them concerning magic of the sixth circle he was heavily lacking, and a few books meant that belonged to Algad Hcil.

Joana entered the room. Looked at the two arguing immortal beings, and turned to Ludwig with a cup of tea in her hand, she placed it in front of him.

"What’s going on with these two?" She asked.

"Same thing since three days ago." Ludwig said as he picked up the cup, took a sip, "Thanks," and placed it down.

Joana sat next to him, "Are mages always like this?"

"You’re a teacher in the black tower academy. You should know this."

"Most aren’t as... avid, as these two."

"I call it wanton obsession, they’re too busy arguing if things would work or break before even attempting to try them first."

The two of them turned to Ludwig at the same time, "You have to be responsible and patience with study and experimentation!"

"Huh, see, they’re even in sync." Ludwig said to Joana.

They turned back to their own argument leaving Ludwig to his books.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Got side tracked too much on my magic. I’m supposed to wield both magic and swordsmanship..."

"More like Macemanship now," she smiled at him.

He laughed, "Yes, apparently. But yeah, I needed to understand more. I’ve seen the limitation that pure physical prowess has. And decided that I needed to broaden my knowledge of magic."

Joana looked at the book title and frowned, "Most of these are Dark Magic, pretty big no-nos in the empire. What are you doing with them?"

"Like I said, spreading my understanding. Not to mention, I’m not planning on using Dark magic in the empire that goes beyond a certain circle, the Emperor allowed it. After all that happened back in Solania."

Joana looked down, she remembered how useless she was back then, how they were caught by the army of Sloth, and if it wasn’t for Sloth’s strange behavior of wanting to preserve than destroy life, she would have been dead."

Ludwig saw her eyes and said, "I grew tired of studying, want to flex some muscles?" he said.

"Sure," she replied beaming with joy, "Let’s head to the training hall."