CHAPTER 69: A SERMON IN THE APOCALYPSE? WHY I AM NOT SURPRISED?

Reidar found himself in a square lined with benches, drawn by the sound of a voice that cut through the regular settlement noise.

Perhaps twenty people sat listening, most wearing squat leather caps or strips of colored cloth tied round their arms. All of them faced a tall man standing on an upturned crate.

He looked young, barely twenty, but there was nothing timid in his stance. His eyes burned with a faith that seemed to shine.

His words were... weird... to say the least. He was a kind of zealot.

A man leaning against a nearby shed noticed Reidar’s curious stare. "Intense, isn’t he?" The man said, spitting into the dust.

"Who is that?" Reidar asked, keeping his voice low.

"His name’s Caleb," the man said, not taking his eyes off the preacher. "He used to be a decent kid until he found... religion."

Even from this distance, Caleb’s voice carried clearly across the square.

"...the System is no gift! It is a cage! It is a cage they built to keep us obedient! To keep us weak! It gives out levels and skills like a zookeeper tossing scraps to a beast, keeping us dependent, keeping us controlled! Mana is not theirs to ration! It is ours by right! The Progenitor saw this injustice, and the Progenitor is bleeding for our ascension!"

Reidar turned to the man.

"Do you believe him?"

The man beside Reidar shook his head. "Me? No. While I might say that the so-called allied worlds are suspicious and that we actually do not need the system since we didn’t have it for as long as our species existed, I’m not too keen on finding out what would happen to us without it."

"You know what it does? Who told you?"

The man met Reidar’s gaze. "I didn’t talk to anyone, but it’s obvious. The only thing separating us from monsters is the System. It might be a chain, but I’d rather be us—chained—than them and free. At least that’s how I see it. And it’s not like we’re locked up. We can leave, eat, drink, sleep. We can read, fight, laugh, build. If that’s slavery, then we’ve always been slaves."

Reidar nodded.

"Besides, aren’t we all slaves to our urges? Nothing changed after the system came. The monsters are the problem."

Reidar heard Caleb talk again.

"But there is a path to freedom!" Caleb’s voice rose, piquing Reidar’s curiosity. "The prophet has shown us the way! The Progenitor speaks of true ascension, of shattering the chains of this world and reclaiming our divine potential! The System is a lie, a deception to keep us from our true inheritance!"

Caleb’s gaze swept across the square and landed on Reidar. His eyes narrowed, taking in the stranger who stood apart from his flock.

"You." He stepped down from the crate in two long strides, weaving through listeners as if they weren’t there. "Outsider. You carry the mark of the System on you."

Reidar stopped where he was. The crowd’s eyes shifted fast between them.

Caleb pointed a trembling finger. "You, with your menagerie of monsters! You are a prime example of the System’s insidious bargain! You trade true strength for the parlor tricks of a jailer!"

"It looks to me that everyone, including you, has the system," Reidar said.

That made Caleb tremble.

He came closer, a slim book was held against his chest like a shield. "Repent," he said, his tone rising in a practiced rhythm.

"Turn from the shackles they’ve placed on your mind. Burn their quests, their lies. Stand with the Church of Unbinding, and the Progenitor will lead you to your true form, free from the counting of points and the tyranny of levels. Your soul is worth more than a collection of pets! Join us! Unbind yourself and prepare for the true ascension that awaits!"

He was close enough now that Reidar could see the raw skin on his palms, the mark of someone who gripped that book as hard as a weapon.

"Unbind?" Reidar kept his tone flat. "Unbind from what?"

Caleb remained silent.

"From your mental shackles!"

"I have no shackles," Reidar said.

"I see. You fight for your jailer," Caleb shot back. "You help them tighten the binds on every soul who still remembers what it is to live."

He leaned in, lowering his voice until it was almost conspiratorial. "They’ll use you, bleed you, and throw you away. Repent, outsider; you still have a chance."

Before Reidar could respond, Martin appeared at the edge of the square, his expression dark. "Caleb." The single word carried enough authority to make the young preacher halt mid-breath.

"That’s enough," Martin said. "This man is a guest of Havenwood, not a convert for your collection."

Caleb’s smile thinned. "Every soul needs salvation."

"And every man here has work to do." Martin’s eyes hardened as he looked through the crowd. Several people looked away, suddenly finding the ground intriguing. "That includes you."

Caleb looked as if he wanted to argue, his mouth opening and closing, but he wilted under Martin’s heavy stare.

For a second, Reidar thought the young zealot might push it, might spill more of that strange doctrine into the air just to mark his defiance. But Caleb only gave Reidar one last appraising look and stepped back.

"We’ll meet again," Caleb said, not so much a promise as a prediction, and turned away, calling to his flock as he climbed back onto the crate.

Martin turned to Reidar with a sigh. "My apologies. The end of the world has made philosophers of some and fanatics of others." He gestured toward the path ahead. "Come, let me show you to the Vendor before Caleb finds more ears to fill with his nonsense."

As they left the square, the hum of Caleb’s sermon fading behind them, Reidar glanced at Martin. "He seems... passionate."

Martin’s jaw tightened. "Passionate isn’t the word I’d use. Dangerous, maybe. Thinks the Guardian System’s a leash and that his Progenitor will grant him wings if he chews through it." He shook his head.

"What do the people think?"

Martin paused but never slowed his pace. "Some believe; most don’t. The problem is, the ones who believe make up enough of the wrong kind of noise."

"Are they causing problems?"

"They stir resentment in people who should be chopping lumber or fletching arrows, not dreaming about some grand unbinding. Ideas like that... they fester. Out here, festering gets people killed."

Reidar said nothing. He was still picking through Caleb’s words, weighing them to understand what the hell he was saying.

The progenitor has shown the way. Here Reidar could not say, or even think, that maybe all of this was some kind of bullshit that had happened centuries earlier, which gave a chance that everything was true.

Here things must be happening in real time. This progenitor might be real...

He paused.

But I’ve heard no one talk about a progenitor or something like that on my way here. Though it was true he didn’t roam around a lot yet.

Maybe this Progenitor was far away, but if Caleb was right, what did he mean about breaking chains and unlocking some kind of divine power?

No, the real question here is why. I get that he thinks the system is a sort of prison, or a way to control us, but if what Keth’Moran said is true, then it is for our own safety, and it looks like people have already started seeing the system’s true purpose too.

Reidar thought about the man he had talked to earlier.

He sighed. His eyes looked down the street ahead. "As long as Caleb doesn’t talk to me again, it won’t be a problem."

Martin didn’t disagree, but there was a shadow to his exhale. "The vendor’s this way."

They turned another corner, leaving the murmured chant of Caleb’s congregation behind. Whatever lay waiting in front of him, at least it wouldn’t be sermon and prophecy—it would be prices, goods, and perhaps answers of a different sort.