I'm surprised to wake up almost fully refreshed the next day. Is this a benefit of getting stronger, or is it because of my special power? Hard to tell, but I'm not complaining.
I get dressed, eat breakfast, and head to my Monday class. While I'm there, I receive a text message from Jeremy asking me if I'm free to meet him at a restaurant on Saturday at noon. I haven't received any new invitations to clear dungeons yet, so I respond that I'll be there if nothing comes up. Hopefully we can find some way to take the Architect down when we meet.
The rest of the week passes normally. On Wednesday, I receive an invitation from the Crimson Company to help them clear a level 57 dungeon. The clear is scheduled for Friday, so I accept to join them. I don't meet anyone particularly powerful when I get there, but that's not unexpected. With the upcoming raid on the Eternal City Dungeon, their higher-level members are probably preparing when there are no dangerous dungeons to clear.
We get through it without issues, and while I manage to get positive attention by using my space-warping powers to bring monster bodies back, I don't end up needing to use much of my strength.
And so, Saturday arrives. I land in front of a small local dinner in a residential area, check my phone to confirm that I'm in the right place, and enter. I see Jeremy sitting in a booth next to a window, so I grab the other seat as I remove my headphones. He speaks first:
"Hi Matt! Glad you could make it. I didn't want to discuss this over the phone with you since the Architect seems to have ears everywhere, but were you serious when you told me you wanted to defeat him?"
"Yes. The way he uses and sacrifices adventurers just to make money is unacceptable."
Jeremy clenches his fists and grimaces in pain hearing this. Since he can remember the adventurers he himself killed, this must be particularly hard for him.
He calms down a few seconds later, but I can see his eyes are wet when he opens them back up.
"Good. Good. He really needs to be stopped. But... how did you manage to enter his organization without being branded?"
"I didn't."
I twist my body around and send a bit of energy into my brand, making it appear before Jeremy's surprised eyes. As soon as he sees and recognizes it, he gets up and grabs his mace. I raise a hand towards him and move it downward, asking him to sit back down.
"Don't worry, I'm not on his side. My body is branded, but I made myself immune to its effect."
Jeremy, who's even more confused now, still sits back. He keeps his weapon handy, however.
"What? How?"
"I isolated my own energy from what's being released by the brand. Since it works by manipulating what's already in the host's body, this prevents it from having any effect on me."
"That's something people can do?"
"I don't know about other people, but it's something I can do. I'm sure you've noticed that my powers are a bit unusual. I don't really know why, but I can manipulate my energy a lot more easily than other adventurers."
"Is that how you manage to be a Sword Fighter, a Healer, and some kind of Caster all at once, while also being able to use unique powers no one has seen before?"
"Yes."
Jeremy sighs while scratching his head before saying:
"I'm even more confused now. You just seem to be breaking all the rules we've been taught about magic."
"My understanding of the situation is that my power has less restrictions than yours, but it's all still perfectly within the rules."
"I see. So thanks to that, you can be branded without being affected by it."
I nod in agreement.
"So I guess someone like you coming along and attracting the Architect's attention was always going to be the first step to his demise. You're probably the only person in the world he can't choose to exert control over, and I assume he doesn't know that yet. However, he's still level 100, while you're only level 80. So we need each other."
"That's what I was thinking. You are level 100, and thanks to you losing your brand by being fatally wounded, I might have found a way to get more people on our side. However, he can still reassert his control over you, so we only really get one shot at this. Once the Architect knows about me, he'll change his approach."
Jeremy takes a moment to think. While we're silent, a waitress brings us glasses of water and a menu. I take a look at the flow of energy in her body to confirm that she's a civilian and not branded. The Architect must know that we're meeting here, so we can't be too prudent.
After a minute or so, Jeremy speaks again:
"The Architect contacted me this morning to ask me to be there during your first arena fight, since I saw you fight in a dungeon. He said it'd probably happen in two weeks or so. Do you believe we have time to get things ready before that? If not, you'll either have to blow your cover early or kill weaker adventurers."
Two weeks? That's not a lot of time. But he's right, there's no way I can avoid killing adventurers while maintaining the pretense that I'm under the brand's influence.
"If I made you immune to his brand, do you think you'd be able to defeat him?"
"In a one-on-one situation, I'd be confident. But he's going to be surrounded by people just as strong as I am who can't disobey him."
"Right, that's going to be a big problem. We'd need to find a way to be alone with him. I can't just mortally wound everyone who's going to be there and then heal them, it'd be too draining."
Jeremy shudders before saying:
"The Architect has the habit of meeting with his 'champions' one-on-one after arena battles. However, to get there, you need to kill your opponents."
"Even as a last resort I'd rather not, and if it's one-on-one you won't be able to help me. Unless..."
Jeremy stares at me insistently as a plan starts hatching in my mind.
"I might have a way to sneak you inside. I'll see about adding more people to the team and refine the strategy during those two weeks."
"But what about the adventurers in the arena?"
"I think I can do something about that too. I'll have to run a few tests though. If I can't figure something out we'll have to find another way, but if everything goes well, our shared enemy won't know what hit him."
I can't help but smile as the puzzle pieces fall into place in my mind. I can tell Jeremy wants to know more, but we're interrupted by the waitress asking us if we're ready to order. We each grab something to eat, and once she's gone, I explain:
"I'm going to need to set a few things up before we can go ahead with the plan, so it's probably better if I keep the details to myself for now. I'll contact you as soon as I'm confident we can pull this off. On your end, since you've been in the organization for longer than me, do you think you can arrange for me to meet some of the other branded? We could use additional allies."
"I'll see what I can do. We'll have to make sure those meetings look accidental or related to our work to not cause the Architect to be suspicious of our actions."
"Sounds good."
