The cold, pale streaks of the morning light broke through the iron bars of Nero's prison cell. Outside, the sky was covered in clouds as far as they could see, casting a grey shadow over the world. Scattered rains had kept the atmosphere damp and humid, and the lack of direct sunshine kept the winter chill from receding.
It was already late March, which meant spring should have come by now, but the weather had been a mess these days. Nero heard some of the guards talking. They thought it was because of all the Sages who had been fighting recently - that had messed with the weather in all six countries. Others, apparently, blamed the silver moon and the ruins.
There were also the religious fanatics who thought that an old Deity had awoken, and was beginning to exert its power on the world once more.
Nero… well Nero didn't care what the weather was like. He had been in prison for a few days already, not that he minded. It was more of a formality anyway. Considering the fact that he literally had all his Eldrim cards with him, how could this even be called a real imprisonment?
Nero shuffled his cards within one another, his gaze fixed at the clouds outside through his window. Since the window was near the top of the wall, the clouds were really the only thing Nero could see anyway - not unless he grabbed the iron bars and pulled himself up for a better view.
It could barely count as exertion, but Nero was not in the mood for it anyway. He spent the last few days recovering from the extremes of his excursion into the ruins. It only lasted a few days, but they were the most eventful days in a long time - perhaps in his whole life.
He had seen so many wonderful things, and witnessed so many things with such immense potential for harm.
The ability to manufacture berserkers from humans using cursed energy was something that could literally destroy the balance of all six countries should anyone master it - even if the berserkers remained in the Neophyte realm - which he was fairly certain they were not limited to.
After all, while the countries were protected by the strong, the majority of the population was weak. Most people never make it past the Initiate realm, and everyone was born below even the Neophyte realm.
So if the weaker citizens of any country were targeted, or perhaps in the case of those psychos from Dolziya, even used to build an army of berserkers for their own country, there would definitely be a shift.
Then there were the secrets of immortality. As far as Nero knew, it was rare for high levelled card masters to die from old age, but that didn't mean they didn't age. Along with ageing came physical and mental decline, making it more likely for card masters to die during combat. If that could be prevented, then the number of high levelled card masters in any country would increase rapidly.
Beyond that, there were the strange artefacts Nero got, whatever it was in the research facility everyone wanted, the Eldrim book on card recipes, and even the Vault, which ironically contained another vault within that Nero and Gabriel had kept secret.
Too many things had happened close together, and Nero hadn't had time to process all of them, which was why spending days on end inside the prison cell with no visitors, save the guard who delivered food, was something he welcomed.
It gave him time to go through everything, step by step, and analyse all that had happened. That allowed him to catch onto many things he had missed the first time around. Surprisingly, the thing that caught Nero's attention the most was Remi.
The seemingly innocent, underprepared girl who was too afraid to do much, but had an immaculate innate ability which allowed her to so much… Nero had always been suspicious of her, but now upon reflection, he figured that he underestimated how suspicious she was.
Whether it was through luck, such as accidentally finding a hidden compartment within which lay a black key that would be incredibly important for him later, or through the fact that she was the only one who could use Eldrim machinery, almost everything Nero experienced within the ruins was guided by her.
One could say that she was just doing her job honestly, but if she harboured even the slightest bit of a hidden agenda, then she could have been pointing Nero in the direction she wanted him to go. The genius of it was that her weak constitution and timid demeanour made it difficult to suspect her.
Even now, Nero could not tell if she had any ulterior motives whatsoever. But he was at least no longer ignorant of the fact that she was not as simple as she appeared to be.
Then there was Vanessa. She was definitely working with someone from within the army, and someone powerful - yet not too powerful. Whoever it was had enough power and influence to sneak her into the country right as the ruins were about to be openly announced, but still needed her to do things they could not openly do themselves.
This was likely a part of an alliance between that unknown person or organisation and Nova.
There was also a matter of Herbert. Nero still knew next to nothing about him, and hadn't even been questioned on his murder just yet. But why did he try to kill Nero? The fact that he followed Nero as soon as they met each other meant that he already had orders to kill Nero from before he entered.
Was he the only one with such orders, or were there others? His assassination attempt was the only reason Nero was in his current situation.
Over the past few days, Nero was hit by the irony countless times that he was in this situation because he saved the lives of those injured soldiers who saw him kill Herbet. If he had just killed them, or better yet, just let them die, nothing like this would have happened.
Yet when the thought came, Nero also struggled with his morality. That would have been the easier route, but he couldn't just randomly kill innocent people, could he?
They were his comrades in battle. They had done nothing wrong, technically speaking. How could he just kill them for the sake of convenience, or to avoid some problems?
Yet somewhere, in the back of his mind, he couldn't help but think that they hadn't exactly been grateful for Nero saving their lives either. Moreover, this whole country was a lot more corrupt than he had ever imagined. Kolar was not the bastion of honour and loyalty that he had imagined it to be, growing up.
How many secret deals had occurred within Lumina? How many spies had infiltrated despite the best precautions? How many people had acted secretly, working for their own secret agendas.
Nero himself had encountered more than just a few of such situations, with Unity trying to meet him being one of the most prominent. In fact, their attempts to meet him were what made Nero the most wary.
He had no idea how influential they were. Were the Sages involved? Nero had been given the mission to save Bael even before he entered Lumina, so did that mean major Liam was also compromised, and working for Unity, or was he simply following someone else's orders and knew nothing about the details of why Nero was being sent on this mission?
He could not decide which one was a greater display of power.
Of everything else, though, Nero thought about Virtuous Moonlight. That card held greater secrets than Nero could even fathom, and the possibilities its very existence insinuated were era defining!
Could innate abilities actually be created by artisans? If that was the case, then people like Bael could finally get the innate ability they wanted. Sages could become even more versatile. High levelled card masters who had weak or useless innate abilities could suddenly gain new, more powerful abilities. The possibilities were endless - not that Nero had any intention of sharing his discovery.
At least, he wouldn't do so just yet.
He would have to grow stronger first. Over the past few days, other than contemplation, raising his level was one of the things he focused on the most, and he was already at around 29% card absorption. He was more than halfway to Initiate already!
As soon as he got out, he could find a way to put Radix Augmentation to work and speed that further even more. No one would be suspicious because of how much liquid aether he drank. Then it would be time for KMA, and then…
A loud clang woke him from his thoughts, and he looked up to see a number of soldiers open the door to his cell and walk in.
"Nero Grant? It's time for your hearing. Hold out your hands and accept the handcuffs."
Nero breathed out a deep sigh, and then stood up. It was time to get the show on the road.