Chapter 62: Lore drop ends

News that Rowena had escaped alone also attracted other people.

Several Paragons believed she had taken the accumulated wealth of everyone who died inside the cavern, although she denied possessing anything each time they confronted her.

Some of them eventually became greedy enough to attack.

Rowena had been badly injured, but many of the dead Paragons had left behind trump cards which they never received the chance to use against Vharaketh.

"I used those items to kill everyone who tried to take what I carried," Rowena explained. "That is why the Paragons who pursued me kept disappearing."

Her father watched every confrontation without interfering. He didn’t stop even when Rowena entered situations where one mistake could have killed her.

Yes, despite being her father, he didn’t help even when his daughter was about to be killed.

"He was testing what you had obtained," Alaric realised. "He let those people attack so he could see which treasures and methods you used."

Rowena nodded. "He might also have been afraid that Vharaketh had placed some method upon me which would activate against a stronger threat.

"Sending others first allowed him to test that possibility without risking himself. Whether I survived wasn’t important enough for him to interfere."

Rowena had never known the true extent of her father’s strength. She also suspected that a few attackers had been sent by the hidden existences above the Paragon realm who controlled the three empires.

They wanted to know what had happened inside the cavern, but still, losing a Paragon was painful even for them. The attacks eventually stopped when none of the Paragons returned.

Alastair stayed hidden for a long time even after the Paragons stopped coming.

Only after Rowena sensed him leaving for good did she dare to examine the prepared body and begin fulfilling her agreement.

"I returned with a child and allowed everyone to believe I had concealed my pregnancy and the identity of his father.

"The body grew like an ordinary human, while the spell model allowed me to control its actions and gradually place more complicated thoughts inside its mind."

She publicly treated that body as Alaric Orlen, her only son and eventual heir, but always maintained some distance because she knew what had created it and why it existed.

When Rowena later departed for the southwestern border, controlling the body from such a great distance became difficult.

Creating complicated daily behaviour required too much concentration while she was commanding an army, so she made Alaric into a drunkard.

A drunkard could behave strangely without attracting suspicion.

He could spend most of the day drinking, sleeping through a hangover or remaining inside his room, which greatly reduced how often Rowena needed to control him.

Alaric couldn’t help but sigh at the ridiculousness of the explanation.

The original villain of Tales of Golden Era had only become a useless drunk because his supposed mother needed an easier schedule for controlling his empty body from hundreds of kilometres away.

"Aren’t you afraid that I might be Vharaketh?" he asked after thinking everything through.

"What would I have to fear if you were?" Rowena replied. "I followed your instructions, protected the body for twenty years and kept it healthy.

"I have now even told you which people were interested in your arrival and what they attempted to learn."

She paused before shaking her head. "However, you aren’t him."

Rowena had initially planned to disappear as soon as she sensed her control on the body disappearing.

She assumed Vharaketh had returned at the correct time and no longer needed her, but then she began receiving reports about Alaric’s actions.

"The existence I met would have seized control of House Orlen as soon as possible and strengthened himself using House Orlen’s resources.

"He would have known who I was, what we agreed upon and where to find me. You possessed none of that knowledge."

Instead, Alaric had worked to save House Orlen, invested resources into talented people and repeatedly involved himself in matters which seemed to offer him no immediate personal benefit.

He possessed exceptional strength for his realm, but he remained far too weak to be Vharaketh.

"The final proof came when you contacted me and asked for help with your plan," Rowena continued. "You spoke to me like someone who knew I was his mother but had never personally met me.

"Vharaketh definitely remembered me, so I became certain that someone else had occupied the body prepared for him."

Alaric took some time to absorb everything before asking the question which remained unanswered. "Why did Vharaketh descend into this world in the first place? Arriving twenty years early was an accident, but what was supposed to happen at the correct time?"

"He came to kill an enemy who had taken the greatest gamble of their existence."

According to Vharaketh, his enemy possessed the power to make reality conform to what they declared or wrote.

Outside direct battle, every event which followed their prepared plot would increase their strength.

That enemy had spent hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years gathering treasures and making preparations for this gamble.

Their plan involved drawing an unimaginably powerful artifact into this world and writing an enormous story around it.

"They intended to enter this world with none of their previous strength," Rowena said. "Afterward, they would follow their own writing and grow more powerful whenever reality fulfilled another part of the plot.

"The artifact was important enough that if their entire writing became reality, they might surpass even the true form they once possessed."

Alaric felt as though someone had struck him across the head. Rowena was describing a person who had once possessed incomprehensible strength, entered this world almost powerless and could force reality to follow their writing while becoming stronger whenever events matched their plot.

Alaric didn’t know if the maid whose pen could command reality grew stronger every time the plot of Tales of Golden Era happened in reality, but the details matched simply way too much.

The enemy Vharaketh had descended into this world to kill was Alice.