There was a lot to be said about Charlie’s little town.

  The first thing a newcomer would notice upon arrival would be the skyline. Or rather, the lack of one.

  The tallest buildings here were at most three or four stories. And even their rooftops were hard to see with just how much blackened smoke exploded out of the factories. Indeed, the billowing black plumes were so omnipresent that one could be forgiven for thinking that the sun simply never shone on this cute little portside city at all. What with how gray and gloomy everything and everyone looked.

  The second thing such any newcomer would notice after that would be the smell. A deep and rich aroma that mingled fortnight-old human waste becoming encrusted on the cobblestones with the odor of tens of thousands of fish being dragged back to shore.

  Oh, and the smell radiating all those people dying of dysentery. You couldn’t forget that one, even if you tried.

  I turned to Charlie, whose face had gone even paler than some of the bodies being carted around in the corpse wagon.

  “I know what the first two are, but what are these Blue Shivers? And what’s Red Pudding?”

  Charlie didn’t say anything. Instead, his eyes tracked the wagon as it kept moving down the street. Staring as the donkeys struggled to move the heavy load. The very heavy and ever-increasing load.

  Just then, two men knocked on a door and grumbled to the owner about their grim business. The owner took a step back and wept into a stained handkerchief. Then they all went inside together.

  I tracked them with [Bio-Sonar IV] and heard them all go to a door which had been sealed. Some kind of entrance hatch to a basement level from the looks of it.

  The owner removed a plank barring the way and allowed the two men inside, after which they emerged with another stinking corpse. Still wearing his Sunday best as if he’d been planning to go to church or the local equivalent before finding out he had a disease.

  It wasn’t immediately clear to me what they had exactly, but the homeowner didn’t even want to go near the body. Much less touch it. He instructed the men to take him, clothes and all. And so they did.

  Once they were back at the cart, one of them, the skinny one, asked if they shouldn’t undress the body themselves and pawn off the garments.

  “Your funeral.” The fatter one spat. “You want to risk your scrawny neck for a few silvers? Be my guest sir. But leave me out of it. I’ve got enough deaths on my family and I will not suffer your bloody fool behaviour.”

  He went to the front without waiting for a reply and sat on the wooden bench where the reins rested. Then he tried to use them to get the donkeys to move. But it was a futile gesture.

  The animals were panting with exhaustion. Their legs wobbling uncontrollably as if both of them were seconds away from toppling over like poorly-designed figurines.

  I had limited my Telepath powers then.

  Partly due to Charlie’s incessant pleading and partly due to the training I was doing even now. Apparently, some people were worried about what I might do with the newly industrialized world and they’d raised quite the stink about it.

  Worse yet, most of my super group got sent over on their own Excursion along with Thunder Fist, so it really was just me, my friends and Charlie here. Randall and Mittens too, I supposed. But they hardly counted as one was actually possessing Anezka and the other was little more than a sock puppet I was parading around.

  I mean, I specifically arranged for things to be this way because of the little surprise I’d schemed so hard for, but it still hurt to have no one to back me up.

  Henry had said that it was imperative that we figure this out without Telepath shenanigans.

  Luigi just up and started screaming when he saw Mittens approaching a sick man.

  Vince wandered off at some point and I have no idea where he went.

  And Charlie…

  Well. Charlie was much more preoccupied with his siblings than with he was with his current bout of existential dread. Going round and round and shouting at me whenever I suggested just giving everyone powers and stopping the whole world war thing in order to settle the Excursion.

  “No mind control!” Henry had insisted as Charlie held the still warm body of a childhood friend he’d played with sometimes. “There has to be a way we can solve all this without having to mind control people or give them powers or whatever! I won’t let you do it!”

  I allowed myself to be convinced and that was that.

  So now we were all just kind of hanging around the sickest parts of town. Healing people as we went due to everyone but Randall having some levels in Shifter.

  It was easy enough work to be honest. Just go up to someone and pat them on the side. They’d be up and moving as if the sickness was a dream and no one would guess what it is we did.

  I glanced over at the ability once more. Taking care to survey the corresponding Title again for good measure.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  ‘Oh yes. This will do nicely.’ I thought to myself. ‘Especially the Title. I mean, I don’t have any plans of using it on the general people here, but the princess…’

  The deal with Hazimon prohibited me from injuring or otherwise hurting his fellows, but it also made it clear that boosting Kenari was A-okay.

  Even then, I found myself going over the wording over and over again. Trying to discern if I’d overlooked anything.

  Each time, the words stayed the same. Each time, my [Omniscience] told me I was in the clear. And yet, all the pieces needed to fall in their proper place in order to keep Hazimon from suspecting. Easier said than done with him having System access to me at all hours of every day.

  I read it again, just to be sure.

  ‘Refrain from knowingly targeting Kenari with any offensive or mind-altering Telepath abilities within a period of fifty standard human years, with the exception of such circumstances where Solomon Carter is providing tutelage on behalf of the beneficiary.’

  Those last four words had been the most bothersome. As they required that Hazimon be the one to kickstart the process. Something he would never do. Unless of course he happened to be the one who gave Deketer her status as a Vendor and who told Deketer that he had a student and who showed Deketer what the tutelage entailed. More or less setting her on the path according to the System’s internal logic.

  But what really sealed the deal was Deketer going on and on about her grandfather’s authority and demanding that things be done in his name. I’d set things up so that she saw what the boosts did and so that she felt cornered and powerless. So that she asked for it herself using granddaddy’s name and for my own person to be far, far away when she came to that conclusion.

  Apparently, that was the final straw the System needed for the boost to be considered on his behalf.

  I did feel kinda bad I had to do this, but I figured it was all insurance anyway. If he didn’t kill me, then he had nothing to fear. If he did, then the contract would be null and void and I could freely use whatever power I cared to in order to keep the little Princess as a hostage.

  ‘And he won’t guess it’s happening.’ I mused sourly. ‘To him, it’ll look like she crossed several lines and that I acted completely rationally. That I suppressed my own emotions in order to forgive her and even help her.’

  The plan had been complex and utterly aggravating to pull off.

  Taunting the Drake into action had been a massive risk for one and contacting Banerid using Intruders might have led to him reporting me. No matter how many hoops I hopped through to do it outside the Labyrinth and the scrutiny of the Tutorial.

  Also, the thing with my parents. Deketer and mom and Sky Heart with dad as he tried to save Deketer.

  ‘It was necessary.’ I told myself. ‘Hard times call for hard solutions. There was no other way to force Deketer into that particular corner. No way to make it seem so natural for Hazimon’s cold, watching eyes.’

  The fact that I had to resort to this made my stomach turn. My mind going through the predictions time and time again.

  I mean, I would have happily let myself get beaten into a bloody pulp for humanity’s sake. This whole plan was concocted due to the worry that Hazimon would kill me and I had formed it on the assumption that he would at some point or another. But to see his spoiled little princess hurting mom…

  I shook my head.

  ‘There will be justice. Later, if not right now. You already promised yourself you’d do what was necessary in order to help the greatest number of people live and thrive. You promised yourself that you would save humanity. Don’t back out now.’

  I turned to Charlie again.

  “Hey? Charlie? Friend? You still there?”

  He shook his head suddenly. Eyes wide as if startled.

  “What?”

  “I was asking you about the local diseases.” I said again. “You didn’t let me connect with the people, remember? I don’t have a clue as to what we’re dealing with.”

  Now, that wasn’t entirely true of course. I could see, or rather hear, most of what was going on around these parts thanks to [Bio-Sonar IV] and most everyone I was listening to were either coughing their lungs out or moaning softly on some surface or another.

  The new abilities I’d gained, like [Olfactory Mastery III] also didn’t help.

  Everywhere I looked and everywhere I turned my head, the smells would follow and the message they carried was loud and clear.

  ‘Sick. Sick. Infected. Dead. Dying. Healthy. Dead. Sick. Sick. Vomiting. Rotting Flesh. Infection. Infection. Infection.’

  To make matters worse, some of the people I was smelling and seeing through my new abilities gave off the distinct impression that their own flesh was putrefying and rotting off their bodies. While they were still alive.

  Not a fun time, if you’d asked me.

  I saw a couple through the walls of a house in the next block. Both mother and father hugging their little daughter as she kept shivering in their arms. Despite the many blankets they’d placed over her.

  “Mommy. I’m cold.” She whispered. My ears catching the sad wheeze through [Echolocation IV].

  I turned to face Charlie again. Telling him what I’d seen and smelt and heard in one fluid sentence.

  “Now, Charlie. I love you. Like a brother. We truly have come a long way since we first met and you’ve never even thought about stabbing me in the back no matter what happened. Or at least you didn’t think about it too much.” I said afterwards.

  “But I have to say, I’m pretty (Gnome)ing furious right about now and I haven’t even been here a whole hour. I saw that girl and I know for a fact there’s a thousand more like her. Which is not the kind of thing I like to ignore. So, we find ourselves in quite the pickle. The way I see it, you either give me a real, concrete reason to keep holding back in spite of all the lives that will be saved by my intervention, or you shut up and let me do my thing.”

  “You promised!” He snapped. His face suddenly a mask of panic.

  “Yeah bud. I did promise. But I’m not the kind of guy who lets little girls die next to him when he could have done something about it. I thought you knew that about me already.”

  I pointed at the roof of the house in question. All the way out in the distance.

  “So, you better start thinking about a really (Gnome)ing good reason, really (Gnome)ing fast. Because I’m losing my patience faster than you can say pandemic.”

  Henry came out from the side. Looking thoroughly spooked.

  “I mean… we could take care of the disease without resorting to mass mind-control.” He muttered softly. “We could fix these issues the way our own world fixed these issues. We start putting down public pumps and we isolate the contaminated wells and we make sure people aren’t throwing their (Sully) into their own drinking water.”

  He stopped to gag as another wagon passed us and his hand found a nearby wall to lean on.

  “The only permanent solution to dysentery is a working sewer system.”

  “I don’t think there’s a single sewer system in the entire country.” Charlie rebuffed him quietly. “I didn’t even know what an underground sewer was until I met you guys.”

  I turned to Henry.

  “Funny that. I actually studied some relevant history.”

  And read a bunch of professors’ minds of course but that went without saying.

  “It took the brits about 9 years. And that was without them having to deal with a world war.”

  I looked back at the Excursion window.

  “It doesn’t look like we have that long. Also, little girl dying over there.”

  I pointed to the roof of the house again.

  “Again, Henry. Love you too. Like a brother. Known you my whole life and I know you a lot better than you think. I am getting more and more (Gnome)ed off by the second knowing innocent people are dying in front of me. To say nothing about the war. So either you start giving me some really good reasons beyond you all feeling queasy, or I go and fix the problem in front of me.”

  I heard the sounds of wood breaking several blocks away. Grunting men entering a house by force and shouting at the sick inhabitants. A family of five.

  One of the men held the people back with a bloody rusted cleaver. The other pushed through to rummage through the dwelling. Snickering upon finding a coin purse.

  I relayed what was happening to my friends and moved over at a sprint which normal humans might mistake for a horse’s gallop.

  I was there in less than a minute after leaping over a roof without caring about who saw me and I proceeded to walk into the residence myself.

  “Hello gentlemen.” I said with a smile. “Care to talk to me outside?”

  “Bugger off!” The one threatening the family shouted. Turning the cleaver on me. “Unless you want to get hacked into pieces!”

  My smile turned a little wider. A little more friendly.

  “Now now friend. There’s no need for that.” I said, walking closer. “Let’s all just go outside and…”

  The cleaver flew to my neck, above the white suit’s collar.

  Buddy moved to rise, but I stopped him with a thought.

  There was no need for that after all.

  The blade found my artery. And then stopped. Not budging an inch as my neck muscles started to grip it from both sides and piling on pressure.

  The man’s eyes widened into yellowed globes. His mouth falling open in a mask of disbelief.

  For my part, I smacked him gently across the jaw and watched as he crumpled like a piece of wet tissue paper.

  His friend saw this and charged with a yell. Not even getting past Buddy as he did so.

  I grabbed his neck and gave it a light squeeze.

  Only applying pressure until the face started turning purple and his eyes fled to the back of his skull. Then I threw him backwards out onto the road and carried his partner out with my other hand.

  Charlie was out there. Waiting for me. His face haggard.

  He had a child’s body in his arms and tears in his eyes.

  “He’s still alive.” I assured him. Recognizing the boy from the bits of Charlie’s memories that I’d seen.

  “Don’t worry. He’ll make it.” I placed my hand on the boy’s forehead and started healing him.

  “Now if you’ll let me take care of a few more people here, I’ll do my thing and meet you both back at the orphanage. We can discuss things a bit more then.”

  Charlie nodded stiffly and hugged the boy to his chest. Launching himself down the road and back home in the blink of an eye.

  Leaving me alone to think on the many, many suffering people around me. On how asinine it was that I was stopping myself from doing everything I could in order to spare my friend’s feelings. On how grandpa must have found Deketer by now.

  ‘One thing at a time.’ I chided myself. ‘One thing at a time.’