Nero was stunned. To be honest, he wasn’t sure what to expect going to the lieutenant. He just knew that he respected the man, and there was clearly something powerful driving. One does not simply just continue to work after the loss of a son, yet despite the pain he was surely feeling, he had not let it show.
So he had gone, hoping for some answer, or maybe even a hint that could help him clear his confusion. What he heard, though, was already so much more than that. The lieutenant’s words rang in Nero’s ears like a bell, clearing his mind of distractions, and replacing them with a few powerful concepts.
He felt like he was on the verge of an epiphany, as if something very significant was just outside of reach, so he replayed the words in his head again and again.
Power without responsibility...
The ideals of great men, manifest...
Greatness and mediocrity...
Duty and honour...
Degeneration of the soul...
Nero entered somewhat of a trance, so much so that even the Lieutenant was stunned. Had his words really affected Nero so strongly? Instead of interrupting him, Earl just returned to his work, letting Nero stand there as he cleared his thoughts.
It was because he had been led by a goal, a task, an ambition. He was not one to succumb to his whims. Yet as he matured, as his thoughts deepened, as he faced new realities, his goal could no longer keep up with himself.
Revenge? Of course he would get revenge, but could he stop living along the way? Should he always focus on getting revenge after something terrible had happened? What if he sought out vengeance, sought out justice for Noman, yet that interfered with his goal of revenge against the Dom family?
The reason, then, for his confusion was that his goal was too immature, too quickly assigned, lacking depth. Was Nero so small a person, so weak a character, that his entire being, his ambitions, his aspirations, that he could be encompassed in a single word: revenge?
No, no he was not. But Lieutenant Earl’s words gave him a hint... a hint towards a greater path.
He had lost faith in Kolar, but what was Kolar? A country, yes, but in the lieutenant’s words, it was the ideal of great people manifested, operated now by those who wallow in mediocrity. So, it was not that Kolar was wrong. No, the Kolar he dreamed of as a kid, the one that he looked up to, that was real. The issue, now, was that it was being run by those who were not great.
No wait, his thoughts were deviating, going down the wrong train of thought...
He regathered his thoughts, and focused on what it was about the lieutenant that he respected. The man was clearly in pain, but he had not forsaken his honour or duty. It was not so much the duty itself that Nero appreciated, as much as the fact that he was a man of principles, regardless of whether things were easy or hard.
This was similar to the baseline Vanessa had told him about. His purpose here was to find a baseline for himself. Baseline was Vanessa’s terminology, and ’honour and duty’ the lieutenants.
So how could this reflect on Nero? He felt like he was so close, and yet the answer eluded him.
Nero was a man of honour, at least in his own opinion. At the same time, the traditional sense of honour was one Nero could no longer associate with, and it even disgusted him to an extent. If honour was dictated as being a good little soldier, that would turn Nero into nothing more than a puppet for those he hated.
But personally, honour still felt important to him. For example, he liked to honour his promises. He honoured his family relations. For years he had tried to get Irene to forget Patrick so that she could move on, but the moment Nero had accepted her as family, he no longer tried to distance her. Instead, he became extremely protective of her - though he could not protect her at all.
What did that mean? Did that mean that Nero adopted a subconscious sense of responsibility towards his family? How could that help him move forward? What was the duty he was assigning himself?
Nero thought of the degeneration of the soul. Clearly, it was not a literal phrase. It was not like indulging in pleasure would summon cursed energy and degenerate the soul. It would, however, affect the character. It would affect one’s morals, one’s guiding principles. Was that the thing Nero hated in others? Their fall from valour?
He kept asking himself pointed questions, kept trying to understand his own emotions and hidden motivations, kept making progress, even if it was slowly.
The look in his eyes began to change. From confused and lost, the look morphed into one of conviction and focus. The path... Nero could still not see it clearly, but after a long time, he finally found some understanding.
Vanessa had told him about a new, uncertain future. Lieutenant Earl had told him about the ideals of those in the past. He had combined them together to form a nascent form of principles he could adopt - principles he would be proud to stand up to.
As the lieutenant had said, he was young, and his experiences were limited, but they would not always be so. He was accumulating power, but the reason he had felt lost was because his conscious goals were clashing with his subconscious desires. The only way to avoid such a thing would be to understand himself clearly.
Honour was important to him, but not honour as others dictated it. His duty... it was not so much as being a good soldier as it was protecting those around him. His greatest moments of suffering had been when his brother was shipped off, when Irene was kidnapped, when the soldiers under him died, and now when Noman died an undeserving death.
Furthermore, thoughts of wanton vengeance, expressing his anger blindly like an enraged animal repulsed him from deep within. It was as if he instinctively felt what the lieutenant had said: to act blindly according to his whims would set him on the path to mediocrity. To be truly great, he had to seek out responsibility, or perhaps ideals to work towards. For now, though, the only ideal or responsibility he could think of was to protect those he cared for.
It was impossible for him to protect everyone with his individual power, but that was not the only kind of power that existed. His father had used Whisper Guard to help Nero so much, and that was a kind of power too.
So Nero saw it as his duty to develop such a power as well, to protect those he wished to protect when the time came. To avenge those he wished to avenge, regardless of his opponent.
Most of all, he wished to act with a clear conscience. In the moments when he felt like he too was becoming like those he despised, Nero felt a kind of loss he did not wish to feel again.
Of course, his conscience aligned with his own beliefs, not those of others.
In short, Nero needed to purposefully develop more than just his individual power, all with the goal of attaining the ability to act more freely to protect and exact revenge. He had to do this while simultaneously accumulating more experiences so that he could more fully develop his ideals in the future.
Sure, he could say something like he wanted to be the strongest Sage and make Kolar a bazillion times stronger and better than it currently was, but such a goal did not really resonate with him much. It might sound cool, but it was not what he wanted.
Maybe, over time, he may come to the same conclusion, but for now he would let it be.
Technically speaking, not much had changed from before Nero had come to the office. In essence, he just had to grow stronger. Effectively, though, a lot had changed. The type of power he wanted to accumulate had expanded, and so had his reasons for wanting said power.
More importantly, he had gained a better understanding of himself, and those he disliked, and the distinction between the two. He understood the difference between those who wallow in their mediocrity, drowning in their pleasures, and those who seek out responsibility, struggling for something greater, to make their ideals come true.
Though Nero did not yet know what his ideals were, when the time came, he would be ready.
Nero’s eyes refocused on the lieutenant and saw that he was working.
"Thank you sir for your guidance," Nero said, giving him a salute.
"Get out of my office," the lieutenant said without looking up.
Nero suddenly felt awkward for making such a big deal out of things, but simply turned around and left.
Throughout, Earl did not look up at him at all. Instead, he was looking at the folder given to him by the Enforcement officers. It seemed... the assassination might have been conducted by a cult. A very powerful cult - one that was supposed to have been destroyed long ago. More importantly, there were signs that Clear Path - the organisation that had kidnapped countless Neophytes and had enslaved many more - was also associated with his cult.