Today, once again, I needed to obliterate the 'Rurik Clowns' trio with Chi-Rho Invictus because they just never gave up on harassing this boy assigned as our 'master'. How many times before they learn? I thought I let out a glaring clue to Yaroslav and Mstislav already. Hmph, it seems… the word 'Mongol' alone is more than enough to reset their intelligence. Or the lack thereof…
Inside my own room within this 'Chaldea' base, this boy from Far East sat wide-eyed. There was nothing special about it. And that was precisely what astounded him. As a former Roman emperor, he placed a heavy doubt on how could I find this cramped, barren space acceptable. Ho. If only he ever saw Naissus in my childhood. Sure, before leaving the 'throne' and materializing as this servant form I was an emperor, but during the Crisis period of the Third Century I was born in, to form a successive lineage as father-son emperors was a high privilege. Lots of 'emperors' back then were usurpers, men of common roots. History might have recorded that I'm a son of an emperor, yet my father was elevated to such a position when I was well over twenty years old.
“I learn little regarding Roman history in school,” confessed the young man from the region I never knew existed back in the 4th century. “At least, I do know though that you and Nero lived hundreds of years apart. What's your opinion? Did the Roman historians sway your view far out of the truth?”
'Truth' implied here meant… the Nero presented in Chaldea as a fellow servant. So far we never cooperated.
My body was leaning to the door. My master occupied the sole chair in this barely furnished room. Silence fell between us. The distance of time passage between him and I was far longer than the five-meters gap separating our physical bodies. Come on, not that complex to figure out.
“Very bold of you to judge what you see of Nero here in Chaldea is… 'truth',” I could see it from his dark eyes my response was far from what he expected. “We have servants who materialized from pure fictions - literatures, myths, somebody's imaginations… so how can you be so certain this Nero we see is completely NOT influenced by what impression, perhaps lies, historians passed down to general population for centuries?”
Being an 'extra' master among those Chaldea managed to lately freed from dimensional pocket, this Siberian shaman's descendant exhibited a lack of clear situation awareness. The Arthurian bunch was a prime example of being historically unreal.
“I advise you to keep your mind open.” Because he would be in for much more surprises, a shocking discovery even. To today, neither Yaroslav nor Mstislav grasped of the reason I took the Avenger class. Well… maybe everything would hit them, included this unsuspecting master we shared also, when the 'other me' answered to the call through Chaldea's summoning system. However, they'd have a ridiculously brief window of time to get a glimpse of that 'cancer' before I put an end to it. This Avenger form was a direct responsibility to deal with that…
My 'fake' other self that Christians clung to for eternity, to the point it almost erased my true identity.
“So you're… telling me that history isn't always true… because we only know through what filter historians put on the texts from the beginning.” Coupled that naively contemplating speech with his small statue, he actually fooled my eyes with a 'childish' filter, per his own words. “But the version in LAPLACE is always correct, right?”
I wished. My lips stayed sealed, though. There were so many frauds of a historian throughout the era of Roman Empire alone. Despite reigning as an emperor myself, I couldn't discern all the false reality passed through the history I learned of my own state. To lessen my master's hardship in understanding these manipulated impressions, it best if I went with an example he'd be more familiar with. “What do you say about…” his tiny eyes widened at the name I pronounced next. “Svyatopolk the Accursed?”
He never guessed I was aware of that name. Having to put up with two servants who lived in the same period and were brothers with that person, I heard this name often enough. Moreso because it raised chaos between the Rurikid caster and rider countless time.
“The madman of Yaroslav and Mstislav's generation?”
He then went quiet for a prolonged period when I pressed, “And what reason you're confident he's indeed mad? Not that it was Yaroslav's smear campaign to paint his opponent as evil?” All because this young man should very well realize how crooked that caster is capable for.
“There’s only one difference between heroes and mad men. It’s whether they win or lose.” A small pause to let those words sank into my master. “If Svyatopolk was victorious, you might have learnt about Yaroslav as an unstable, obsessive patricidal loose cannon instead of 'the Wise'. Meanwhile, Svyatopolk himself might even be 'the Great'? These epithets are either self-bestowed or a method to suck up for favors by supporters anyway.”
The look on his face was one of a person who got told what fundamental his life led until now was a lie. Unlike nowadays where everyone possessed the knowledge of scripts, back in those years when both I and the Rurik brood lived, it was a limited privilege only selective few had access to. The 'truth' could be with a person who held no access to such a skill, thus truth died with them. After peering at me for some time, the master hailed from the coldest land in northern hemisphere signaled he was ready to leave after taking refuge in my domain during the past half an hour. Which meant time to accompany him down to the second floor where his room located.
Our trip downstairs was quick, with my master whose birth name was almost unpronounceable deep in thought. He needed to be. For we never had a method to reject a servant when they emerged through the summoning system.
Alas, this lecture became a prophecy months later…