Prelude: To Domathra (Isekai/LitRPG/OP MC)

Nephthys stared, dumbstruck, for several long moments, at the enormous strip of blackened soil. Of course, she had known intellectually what would happen when she asked Hannibal to trim the Gloam, but seeing it in person was still jarring.

There was no stench of char, the fire having faded over a week ago, and she could even see the occasional bit of green reaching through the ash and debris. She recalled that forest fires occurred naturally in her world, and were even important for forest regulation, lest the oldest trees strangle all the life around them.

Nephthys shook her head, reframing the situation: this streak of black, the scar across the land, was to eliminate an invasive species. With the Gloam retreated, life would return. Nature would bounce back to where it was before the Gloam snuffed it out.

Refocusing, she shifted her attention back to her main goal. She flew back north over the mountains that separated Radaar from the main Gloam, trying not to gawk at the sheer scale of destruction Hannibal had unleashed, or its control, rather.

Nephthys knew, deep in her bones, that such destruction was possible for her, too, yet Hannibal had confined his flames to specific dimensions, the controlled burn doing exactly as he commanded.

She hoped she would have as much control, should she ever require a spell of such magnitude.

The scarred ground quickly gave way to a thick mire of tangled vines and tall, tree-like mushrooms. Though it retreated, the Gloam edged up against the scoured earth in the foothills as if waiting for its moment to reclaim lost territory, though Nephthys knew that no such intellect drove it. It was simply a growing organism—a collection of them, that is.

A smell unlike anything she had experienced reached her nose as she gazed out over the Gloam. It was sweet like decaying meat, the smell abhorrent to her own senses, but it was undercut by the distinct scent of life, a thriving ecosystem. Beneath the rot and decay was the earthy tones of groundcover, the scent of wet soil below even that.

It was nasty.

Briefly, Nephthys wondered if players would have ever attempted to build bases here if Prelude could have somehow projected the stench through their monitors. It was foul, but not just bad-smelling. It was vile in a way that raw sewage was, the brain instinctively knowing that long-term exposure to the gas would be dangerous.

Nephthys flew low, scanning the floor of the mire. The Gloam posed unique challenges for searching. She had various forms of sight available, yet it thwarted nearly all of them. Magic sight? The flora and fauna practically glowed with mana. Infrared? Unfortunately, temperatures throughout the murky forests of fungus varied wildly, confusingly, with pockets of heat and cold lingering this way and that for seemingly no reason.

Counterintuitively, her plain eyes proved to be the most reliable. That said, it was hard to spot her target, considering the wetlands had a natural fog about them at all times, due to the humidity and spores.

Nephthys had learned only a little from Clayton’s confession: that an underground operation was underway to harvest spores from the Gloam, and a trade company from Vadenlaud was secretly funding it. Well, that was what Clayton seemed to suspect, at least. He was pretty sharp for hired muscle.

The Taolu Trading Company was based in the Sardvend Kingdom in Vadenlaud and was prolific. Apparently, it had connections to the royal family, though whether that was actually true, and to what extent, was unknown.

It dealt primarily with legitimate trade operations on the surface, but it was well known that it also dabbled in any venture that promised profits. Morality did not factor into its calculations, and the royal family looked the other way regarding these less-than-moral operations, according to Clayton, even if they were outright illegal.

Nephthys had to restrain the revulsion she instinctively felt. Again, she was judging this world too harshly. By all measures, her home’s society was far more advanced, yet the same thing happened there as well. Neither she nor her home was better than anyone in this world.

A recent memory bubbled to the surface of her mind: walking home in the twilight after a double shift, the bags below her eyes hanging down past her nose. If her new body had allowed it, she would be shaking, a sudden, overwhelming urge to get to work overtaking her. She was going to be late!

Nephthys breathed the fetid air deeply, far more foul than even the air above the manholes in the sidewalk of her home. She was Nephthys, now. She did not have to go to work, and she needed to focus on the task before her.

Her main goal now was to investigate this trading company, and she suspected the best way to uncover its seedy underbelly was to follow the dirt.

There it is.

A trail of decay, independent of the natural decay the Gloam was known for, ran in a straight line from south to north. Nephthys could see wisps of black smoke rising from the surface of the earth, and the mushroom trees nearby were drooping, dying, or already dead.

The Taolu, or whatever their clandestine branch called themselves, had been harvesting spores from the Gloam for years, though with how far Hannibal had pushed it back, they were forced to push even farther from Gloamview.

Their system was quite clever, she reluctantly admitted. The Gloam was dangerous for two reasons: the wandering creatures infested with spores and the spores themselves.

These made travel overland a poor option for the average person. However, the average person could not fly either, which meant the Gloam was essentially an unbreachable barrier dividing the continent.

What the Taolu had decided was to use earth magic and tunnel beneath it.

Now, if one had asked Nephthys’ opinion on the matter, she would have called the effort foolish. The ground was completely saturated with water. It was sopping wet for hundreds of feet down. Indeed, much of the Gloam could be described as a swamp, the water table so thoroughly saturated that it pooled on the surface.

Tunneling beneath the swamp was a great way to end up with a flooded tunnel, drowned diggers, and wasted effort. That was not even accounting for the fact that the largest of the mycelial networks was underground. The fungus visible on the surface was like a bit of an iceberg poking out of the water.

The Taolu’s solution seemed to be fire, specifically, burning the mycelia. They would tunnel dozens, perhaps a hundred, feet below the swamp with earth magic, presumably creating adjacent runoff tunnels to drain all the water, and then ignite the tunnels, using the exposed mycelia to fuel the burn.

Nephthys had long suspected that the source of all the water in the Gloam was the mycelia itself. It likely displaced a great deal of water from deeper underground, pumping it to the surface for who knew what. Maybe the fungus just needed lots of water to thrive.

Though that was not to discount the role that the mountain ranges on both the northern and southern borders of the Gloam played in ensuring that clouds lingered within the natural borders, constantly dumping their contents.

If this were the case, allowing the mycelia an open tunnel to vent its stored water would dry it out, making it susceptible to the spreading flames. The fungus would be too wet for the flames to spread far, but they would both clear the filaments from the tunnel and dry it out enough for use once the fire died.

This would likely require constant maintenance, however. The mycelia would inevitably creep back into the tunnels over time. It would need to be trimmed regularly, and the underground tunnels could never have direct paths to the surface. The infested, what Nephthys liked to think of as the Gloam’s white blood cells, would find their way in and slaughter whoever was responsible for burning the fungus.

Nephthys wondered whether the company was relieved or annoyed by Hannibal’s controlled burn. On the one hand, hundreds of miles of Gloam had been erased. On the other hand, they now had to tunnel even farther out to reach the spores they sought.

She also suspected that, beyond just the company, the count was involved in this operation. One piece of information she had learned from watching his chamberlain interact with a member of the Taolu underground was that the count was being tapped to obtain information on Nemesis, likely at the behest of the Sardvend royal family.

This tunneling operation must be prohibitively expensive, even for the monopoly the company presumably had on dirt sales. If the count were subsidizing the operation so his operatives could use the tunnel to pass safely through the Gloam and surveil the Crater, the project would become much more feasible.

Nephthys wondered why the count would be tapped for information rather than the marquis, considering all of Radaar was part of the Marquisate, but he had just lost his son recently. Perhaps the marquis was insensate with grief?

Still, none of this was what particularly interested her. Rather, she was interested insofar as it might benefit her and her goal. A tunnel provided safe passage through the Gloam, the first major obstacle to securing a supply line to Nemesis.

True, members of Nemesis would have no issue running back and forth between the Crater and Radaar. Single individuals ferrying what they could carry, however, was not a supply line. Nephthys, further, did not want her people to be constantly occupied with the matter.

The second major obstacle was finding an appropriate supplier. When she had first learned about the Taolu Trading Company, she had thought it would be the natural choice. Its reach was far, its offerings diverse. However, recent information called into question whether its and Nephthys’ values were compatible.

This was not her former world. She was not a powerless peon subject to the whims of those above her. She had power and agency here. She did not have to settle for working with shady corporations that actively made the world a worse place to live for everyone.

The second obstacle still needed more work, but she had another candidate in mind —one much smaller than the Trading Company, but one who could also be propped up by Nemesis, influenced by its, her, values.

And as for the third obstacle…

Nephthys waved her hand as she watched the smoke rise from below. A ghostly visage of Hannibal appeared before her, blinking in surprise before slamming a fist to his chest and bowing slightly.

“Any progress?” Nephthys asked, not taking her eyes off the smoke.

“I believe we have found a viable candidate, my lady…though…” he reported, hesitating uncharacteristically.

“Though, what?” she asked, glancing over at his illusion.

“There will be…hmm…resistance, no doubt. This civilization is small, advanced, and remembers…” he hinted.

Nephthys had always appreciated Hannibal’s candor. He was straight to the point, all business, in his reports. Seeing him so demure and reserved was unusual.

“Out with it, Hannibal. I am not a child whose sensitivities need protecting. Give me the facts. I cannot make an informed decision otherwise,” she chided.

“Of course, my lady. This small society is composed of descendants of the pre-ascension era. They have an ancestral memory that much of the scattered clans and tribes lack due to constant strife and infighting.

“As soon as we discovered their community, I verified what information Akhenaton could glean from them via the Altar. They do not remember Nemesis fondly, and they were not enthused by our return, my lady. They remember the fighting and destruction that Nemesis unleashed on its foes.

“Convincing them to cooperate with us will be tricky and delicate, at the very least,” Hannibal finished.

“I see. Thank you for the report and candor, Hannibal. I will mull this issue over,” Nephthys said, waving away his visage, which vanished in a puff of blue smoke.

The third obstacle in establishing a supply line to Nemesis was finding a suitable waystation. It was roughly a thousand miles from the edge of Radaar to the Scoured Peaks, and then a further seven to eight hundred miles through the mountains and Crater to Nemesis.

Just the distance by itself was prohibitive, let alone the terrain, which included two mountain ranges, the Gloam, and the Crater, which was the most dangerous place on the planet, as far as Nephthys was aware. There needed to be a waystation for merchants and caravans to stop, rest, and resupply.

More than that, there needed to be something worth venturing so far out. Nephthys had no doubt that the resources Nemesis had access to would be enough to convince the toughest of merchants to make the trek, but if there also existed a peaceful community in the Peaks to trade with, a natural trade route would form on its own.

Finally, it seemed that a suitable location had been found. That was music to Nephthys’ ears. That they remembered how violent Nemesis was during the era where players and guilds were fighting each other barely dented her burgeoning enthusiasm.

This was already a major win. The people not favoring Nemesis was a variable that could be worked around far more easily than crafting a waystation from scratch. True, much could go wrong, but Nephthys chose to focus on her current optimism for the time being.

Pitfalls and setbacks could be planned for.

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