Harem Regressor: I'll Save Them This Time-Chapter 36: Ch : The Empire.

On the other side of the Gharrick Mountains, a mild rain shower passed over a fortress in the Amica Federation. It was known as Fort Taubrum.

Pools of water built up on the arid land outside the walls.

A moat around the wall captured some of the runoff, and drainage ditches pulled much of it farther away from the fort.

Soldiers in tan and gray uniforms took shelter.

A patrol outside the fort paused, and its lead officer held a hand out to the rain.

He shrugged and ordered his men to continue as normal.

Within the walls of the keep, protected from the weather in a palatial office, a woman worked through a small stack of paperwork.

A young boy stood at attention at the door.

He watched every movement she made, but kept himself perfectly still.

The reason was obvious to even a casual observer.

A pair of jade gemstones glittered from the woman’s collarbone.

She wore a figure-hugging black dress with a pattern woven it into that evoked the Watcher Omria, and slits were cut into the thighs.

In her homeland, this style of dress was relatively commonplace.

The woman was known as Seraph.

Nobody knew her true name.

Perhaps not even her Bastion knew.

That was commonplace for the people from the Kurai Peninsula.

They took on a false name when they came of age and only gave their true name to those they trusted.

Seraph finished some of her paperwork and added it to a nearby pile of finished papers.

After brushing back her long black hair, she took a sip of wine.

The only noises in the office were those she made and the gentle beating of rain on the glass windows behind her.

Her wine glass was empty, so Seraph poured another.

She clicked her tongue as only a fingertip of red nectar poured into her glass.

It vanished as quickly as it had appeared.

One of her gems flashed and the wine bottle disintegrated into a pile of glittering dust.

Seraph didn’t utter a word.

Instead, she retrieved the next item of paperwork.

The office filled with the scrawling of her pen.

The boy stepped forward and placed another bottle of wine on the table.

It was the same year and vintage, and he had uncorked it in advance.

Seraph gave him a dismissive glance, and he scurried away to retrieve a dustpan and brush to sweep up the remains of the earlier wine bottle.

A shadow appeared in the corner of the room within seconds of the door slamming.

It grew into the shape of a young woman, and Sunstorm emerged from the darkness.

Seraph paused.

She placed her pen down and turned to Sunstorm, wine glass in hand.

"I didn’t expect to see you for another week," Seraph said.

She crossed her legs and gave Sunstorm her full attention.

"I’m assuming this isn’t good news. You’re not prancing about the office, for one thing."

"I don’t prance."

Sunstorm strode into the center of the room.

A set of plush chairs and sofas surrounded a stained glass coffee table, on top of which sat a set of statues of the Watcher Omria.

Ignoring the table, Sunstorm dragged a chair over to the same side of the desk that Seraph sat on.

"You do realize there are chairs there," Seraph said, inclining her head at the pair of simple chairs on the far side of the massive oak desk.

Sunstorm ignored her.

She plopped herself down on the plush couch she had dragged over and glared at Seraph.

Seraph sipped at her wine and waited.

"We’ve lost our best bandits," Sunstorm said after several long seconds.

"The ones under the young spellblade?" Seraph asked.

"Sen, yes." Sunstorm scowled.

"They were too busy licking their wounds after the new Bastion scared them at Trantia. And they paid the price."

"You wouldn’t be so frustrated if that was it," Seraph said.

Sunstorm’s eyes lingered on the wine.

With a sigh, Seraph snapped her fingers at a cabinet in the corner.

Its doors opened, and a wine glass flew across the room.

Sunstorm deftly caught it, then held out her glass for a drink.

"Did we lose our other contact?" Seraph pressed.

If they had, she would have a tough conversation coming.

"No. I confirmed that there are no issues on that front, despite your concerns." Sunstorm guzzled down half of her wine in one go, much to Seraph’s dismay.

"The Bastion showed up while I was convincing Sen to continue with our deal. The storm came in, and a moment later, he was there." Her scowl deepened.

"His Champion didn’t even have a gem. How reckless could he be?"

"Not reckless enough to lose his head," Seraph noted.

"Or else you would have strode in here with the heads of both him and his Champion. You lost, I take it?"

"I didn’t lose," Sunstorm shouted, rising to her feet.

She paused, taking in Seraph’s calm gaze.

"I retreated, noting the storm and the loss of our resources. He’d blown apart most of the camp already, the bandits had fled, and his Champion had incapacitated Sen. Further battle was unwise."

"If I thought you capable of learning to be less reckless, I’d believe you." Seraph gave her subordinate a mocking smile and drained her glass.

She rose and walked over to the glass windows.

"He scared you, didn’t he?"

Silence.

The rain pattered against the windows.

Seraph stared down into the courtyard, watching as ripples formed in the puddles below.

The land was so arid this close to the mountains, at least on this side.

Useless land for the Federation, she knew.

"His sorcery affected my shadows," Sunstorm eventually admitted.

"I don’t know how. Normal sorcery had no effect. But he blew away my shroud with a single spell and leveled half of the valley at the same time."

Seraph froze.

A single spell?

That sounded impossible to her.

"Did you see him cast it?" she asked.

"No. I was trying to get an angle on that stupid beastkin Champion of his and—" Sunstorm tried to say.

"Did he cast anything like it later? Did you see that? What sort of spells did he use?" Seraph asked rapid-fire.

Sunstorm blinked.

She swirled her glass, the wine forming a pattern around the outside.

"He only used third rank spells. The earlier spell had to be fifth or sixth rank, though. How else could he have affected my shadows? Gem abilities are far above the natural elements."

Seraph sighed.

So the girl hadn’t paid attention to anything important in the battle.

This new Bastion was a sorcerer.

She knew this, but not where his talents lay.

"If he affected your shadows, most likely he used the binding stone to enhance his sorcery," Seraph explained.

She couldn’t imagine anything else.

How he had done it was beyond her, however.

Seraph knew of two likely methods the Bastion used to overwhelm Sunstorm’s shadows.

One of them seemed improbably, given how magic resistant the shadows were.

Although binding stones had immense power behind them, they didn’t turn their owners into gods.

That meant he had likely used the other method, which she had been taught was impossible for humans to use.

After all, human sorcerers were supposed to be restricted to the natural elements.

"Does it matter?" Sunstorm muttered.

"He wasn’t that strong. Like I said, he didn’t have a gemmed Champion. I’ll track him down and claim his head."

"Then why don’t you have his head already?" Seraph retorted.

"Like I said—"

"Enough," Seraph said.

Sunstorm shut up.

After returning to her seat, Seraph poured two more glasses of wine.

The boy still hadn’t returned with a dustpan and brush.

She hoped that Sunstorm hadn’t killed him.

"You’re being too defensive," Seraph said.

"There’s no shame in losing to a superior opponent." Sunstorm opened her mouth to protest, but Seraph cut her off with a glare.

"And he is superior. You’ve killed Bastions before. You have nothing to prove to me or Master Theus.

If he was the weakling you claim he is, then you’d be requesting to meet with our master and show off your prizes. Not complaining about your missed opportunities."

Sunstorm remained silent.

Continuing, Seraph said, "We’ve lost the bandits, but we planned around that. Master Theus won’t be concerned.

You say that our contact is still working with us, which means our plans can proceed. At worst, this accelerates our timetable. At best, the Bastion blunders at his next test."

"Test?" Sunstorm asked.

"Don’t worry," Seraph said.

"All I need you to do is return to his keep and survey it for me."

"Done," Sunstorm said.

She didn’t move. 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

"I investigated it on the return trip. It’s not that big."

Seraph stared at her.

"Not that big sounds bigger than I expected. Explain."

Minutes passed as the younger Champion briefed Seraph on the exterior of the keep.

Seraph kept her surprise in check.

"And the interior?" No answer.

"You did go inside, didn’t you? You weren’t so scared of him that you refused to infiltrate his keep?"

When Sunstorm didn’t rise to the taunt, Seraph knew something was wrong.

"What aren’t you telling me?" Seraph pressed, her brow furrowing.

"He... He sensed me," Sunstorm said, her eyes boring into the tiled floor.

"When I teleported, he knew where I’d appear. It’s how I lost a sword. He even knew when I used a shadow double. How could he do that so easily?"

"Talented sorcerers can detect Champions," Seraph said.

"If you’re using your abilities, then it’s even easier for him to find you without even trying."

"But it takes time to scan for magic," Sunstorm protested.

"Hence why I say talented," Seraph said.

"I did say he is a superior opponent. You’ve done well today, Sunstorm. Remember that you haven’t done anything to upset me or Master Theus. Rest up, recharge your gem, and prepare for your next mission. I’ll brief you in the morning."

Sunstorm left.

The servant boy slipped through the door a minute later and swept up the remains of both empty wine bottles.

When he brought another to the table, Seraph waved him off and retreated to her bedroom.

What a mess she was in, she thought.

She threw herself onto the pile of cushions on top of her bed.

The mattress swallowed her groan.

The Empire had stopped the leyline disruption far earlier than expected.

The new Bastion was orders of magnitude more capable than Theus had claimed.

Seraph cursed Theus’s arrogance.

Years of experience had taught Seraph that taking a Bastion lightly was the highway to the grave.

For every incompetent Bastion that Sunstorm could behead without even blinking, another could blow her away just as quickly.

The raw power of a binding stone was not to be trifled with.

But Theus didn’t care.

All he had told Seraph was that the new Bastion was too weak to be of any concern, and that the Empire had sent him to Gharrick Pass to get him out of the way.

Seraph didn’t understand why the Empire would ever promote somebody to Bastion only to put them in a corner and forget about them.

But Theus had dismissed her concerns, then pissed off up north with his other Champions.

They smirked and giggled behind her back, questioning why she worried about a Bastion that everybody knew was incompetent.

And now that Bastion had built a fortress from nothing in three weeks, defeated Sunstorm and her pet spellblade, and appeared capable of sorcery that Seraph had been told was fundamentally impossible for humans.

She could salvage this.

Theus was too arrogant to believe she knew how the leylines worked, but she had been a Champion longer than he had been sticking it in those giggling idiots that worshipped him.

If the leylines stopped being disrupted, then all of that magical energy had to go somewhere.

Bastion August Straub would need to prove himself to be a capable commander even swifter than he had built his fortress.

In the meantime, Seraph had the time to prepare her next move.

First, though, she needed to tell Theus.

Beautiful, stupid Theus.

She opened the connection over the wireless after she confirmed it was magically secured.

Almost five minutes passed before he answered.

"Why are you wasting my time this late, Seraph?" Theus grumbled over the wireless, his voice crackling.

"I need your authority to accelerate my plans down south," Seraph said, closing her eyes and imagining something less irritating than his voice.

"The Empire is making its move."