There were plenty of things Vin wouldn’t have been surprised to find after leaving the hospital. An angry mob chasing after Tiffany and demanding the merider be set on fire. Theodore trapped in a set of stockades in the town square and having fresh vatos thrown at him, courtesy of the new farm being put together with Sakis’ help. Even Landon returning unexpectedly with an undead army at his beck and call, demanding that Spur hand over the key to the town.

  What he hadn’t been expecting was to immediately come face-to-face with a large group of people huddled around a frantic fourth waver, desperately trying to dish out what looked like newspapers of all things to the many grabbing hands.

  Vin blinked at the sudden commotion, unable to stop himself from walking over to get a better look of things. It said a lot about this new phenomenon that his presence was barely even noticed by the crowd, as everyone either already had their face pressed into the newspaper and were eagerly devouring the news while enjoying the nostalgic sense of normalcy, or they were fighting tooth and nail to procure their own copy. Keeping his arm largely tucked within his cloak, Vin slowly moved with the crowd until he managed to get his own copy. Once he’d escaped the desperate throng, he wandered off to the side of the square and took a look.

  While it was missing any sort of imagery and the printed letters were a bit crude, to his amazement, it was in fact an entirely legitimate newspaper discussing the current news around Terra and even Edregon as a whole. It was rather small, little more than a few sheets of paper stuck together, but it was such a familiar sight that he didn’t think anyone cared how primitive it was.

  Skimming through the current stories, Vin’s eyes widened as he realized he’d made the front page without even knowing.

  Is This the End of The Roamer? Hero Hurt and Hospitalized!

  “What?!” he couldn’t help but gasp, his mind whirling as he wondered how anyone had even known he was in the hospital in the first place. Lumel had teleported him there directly from their apartment, and it wasn’t like Frank would have gone around shouting it from the rooftops. So how had they even known? Unable to help himself, Vin quickly read through the story.

  Our sources say that The Roamer, a.k.a., Vin Stone, Magical Explorer and one of the council members of our fair town, was hospitalized just the other day. Little is known of what happened to lead him to this predicament or of his current condition, but when asked for a status update, Frank Dynes, Healer in charge of the hospital, had this to say.

  “Get out of here before I give you a reason to be here!”

  Attempts at reaching out to The Roamer’s friends and known associates have born little fruit. These are excerpts that we managed to collect in our tireless search for the truth.

  “He’s fine, it’s nothing to worry about.” -Shia Bircal, elven Druid and dignitary of the Sacred Forest.

  “Vin’s good, he’s just sleeping. Hey, nice shoelaces.” -Scule Wouldn’t You Like To Know, petian Rogue and dignitary of the Citadel.

  “Wait, what? Vin’s in the hospital? What the hell did he do this time?” -Alice Horne, human Trapper, Earther, fellow council member.

  We attempted to reach out to The Roamer’s elusive girlfriend, the remaining council members, and even Slayer, but we were either unable to reach them or they refused to give comment. We will continue with our daily updates, so please keep your eyes peeled for tomorrow’s news. Stay tuned!

  Vin could only stare at the newspaper in shock, unable to believe it even existed, let alone what it contained. Not only had someone created such a thing, but they’d run around interviewing people about him? When had this even happened, and why hadn’t anyone told him this was going on?

  There were plenty of other interesting stories printed in the paper, such as advertisements for a play the town was going to present at their new stage that had just finished construction, an invitation to a formal cook-off between two of The Big Three Chefs that would be occurring in just a few days, and warnings letting people know that the town would soon be conducting full-scale lockdown drills to prepare for the arrival of the fifth wave.

  Not only that, there were vanity articles discussing all sorts of mundane topics. According to the paper, Phil was listed as Terra’s ‘most eligible bachelor,’ stating how his ‘cold and rugged demeanor’ had shot him straight to the top of the charts. People were questioning what Theodore’s true identity really was, and if he was even an Earther at all. Alka was apparently a suit of armor being controlled by some sort of slime-based alien lifeform, and it sounded like some mysterious new trend was going on around town where people were wearing their shoes without laces.

  There was also a small piece going more in detail about ‘The Roamer’s elusive girlfriend,’ and Vin frowned as he skimmed through it. Apparently, there had been no end to the speculation and theories being circulated as to why Lumel hid herself underneath her cloak and robes, ranging everywhere from she was a hideous monster whose appearance he was ashamed of, to she was so beautiful only someone as ‘powerful as The Roamer’ could gaze upon her beauty without being struck blind.

  Reading all the speculation and discussion over Lumel struck him in a way he’d never experienced before, and a cold, dangerous anger began stirring deep within his core. It didn’t help that her recent bad experience with the capillans was still fresh in his mind, and the memory of Lumel trying her hardest not to cry as she dealt with something she had no control over was as clear as if it had happened mere hours ago. With an unintentional flash of blue light, his newspaper was torn in half by his shaky hands, and the few people closest to him jumped. It seemed that had been enough to tear their eyes from what they were reading, and based on the blood draining from their faces, Vin had a pretty good idea as to the expression he was currently wearing. Rather than rein himself in, Vin allowed the mana to pulse out of his arm, sending gently strobing blue lights out every other second as he once again made his way toward the man handing out papers.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  Unlike the last time, the crowd parted in a hurry as the flashing blue light from his arm swept over them, announcing his presence and making it quite clear who he was. Within seconds, the man with the papers was standing all on his own, and his eyes widened as he saw Vin walking up to him.

  “Where did the papers come from?” Vin demanded, holding up the torn remains of his newspaper and staring down the man who had been handing them out. “I need to talk to whoever writes these.”

  “I’m sorry… I’m not supposed to say,” the man gulped, taking a hesitant step back and looking around to see if anyone was willing to step in and help. “Freedom of the press and all that, you know?”

  Vin’s arm flashed a much brighter blue, sending a wave through the crowd as everyone flinched back simultaneously. The man before him yelped, and quickly continued.

  “They’re located out of town, I don’t know the exact location!” he hurriedly said, pointing out toward the main gate. “I swear!”

  “No way they’re set up outside of town,” Vin said, narrowing his eyes. “It’s far too dangerous. I’m going to cast a spell that reads the fluctuations of your soul and tells me if you’re lying. I would highly recommend you choose to tell the truth.” As the man’s face paled even further, Vin held up an arm and pointed at him. “Sense Truth.”

  “They’re in one of the rooms of the Crafter’s Guild!” he said, immediately changing his tune as he stared down Vin’s finger as if expecting fire to shoot out of it next. “They told me to lie if I was asked!”

  “They’re in the Crafter’s Guild?” he asked, keeping an edge to his voice. Sense Truth’s two largest caveats were that the person had to be aware the spell was active, and it only worked on ‘yes’ and ‘no’ questions. Even so, that was more than enough for his purposes at the moment.

  “Yes! They were this morning at least!”

  Vin’s spell confirmed the man was speaking the truth, and he nodded, slowly lowering his finger much to the man’s relief. But before he could go anywhere, a voice called out from the watching crowd.

  “Hey, you can’t just threaten someone like that!” a woman shouted, planting her hands on her hips as she glowered at him. Based on the lack of weaponry on her, she was most likely either a support or crafter class. “We have rights, you know!”

  “He didn’t threaten anyone, he was just getting some answers!” a man shouted back, slapping the newspaper held in his hand. It had been awhile, but Vin thought he recognized the man as one of the many combat classers he’d personally saved during the battle for wave four. “He’s a member of the council, he has every right to know about this! And have you even read this garbage? Whatever idiots thought they could get away with digging into The Roamer’s girlfriend when she clearly values her privacy are going to get what’s coming to them!”

  “Whoever wrote this isn’t hurting anyone!” someone else shouted from within the crowd.

  “So you think slander and invasion of privacy are alright? What if we started following you around and publicly discussing how fat you were under those clothes?!”

  As angry as he was, Vin started as he realized things were quickly growing out of control. The town square was already filled with people desperate to get their hands on one of the newspapers, and as more and more people began shouting opinions across the crowd at one another, their voices started growing heated. Practically before he even knew what was happening, people were jostling each other and shoving as the individual arguments around privacy and entertainment clashed head to head.

  Oh crap, this might actually get ugly. At this point, Vin had been almost entirely forgotten. Other than the man who had been handing out papers, who was still shaking in his boots and clearly afraid to do anything, the crowd packed into town square was at each other’s necks. As he saw a few people begin to throw punches and others grab each other and start grappling, he resigned himself to whatever waves he was about to make as he prepared to cast Enhance Gravity and pin everyone down to the ground. He didn’t want to accidentally hurt anyone, but he didn’t have any better form of crowd control.

  Thankfully, back up arrived before he had to lift a finger.

  “We are all citizens of Terra, and we do not fight amongst ourselves!” Abby’s voice roared out over the crowd, her Righteous Action Capstone enhancing her voice and allowing her to be heard above all the shouting. As if someone had dumped a massive bucket of ice water over everyone’s heads, the crowd immediately stopped fighting. Fists were lowered and hands released clothing as everyone blinked and took a step back, as if confused why they’d even been fighting their own people in the first place.

  “Unless you want to spend the night in jail, disperse and go about your day!” Abby continued, walking forward with a small group of guards behind her who began helping up those who had fallen to the ground and brushing them off. While the crowd did just that and her guards helped direct people, Abby walked over to him and gave him a nod. “Vin. Glad to see you’re up and about again.”

  “Abby. Nice timing,” Vin said, letting out a relieved sigh. His earlier unexpected anger was nowhere to be found, thoroughly quenched under the realization that he’d almost started a full-on brawl in the center of town. “Sorry about all that.”

  “You did nothing wrong. In fact, you saved me a bit of work,” she said, staring down the man who had caused all this as he began trembling. “These newspapers only just started circulating yesterday, and the one distributing them vanished before we could respond. None of this was sanctioned by the council, or anyone else, for that matter. As you no doubt saw, tensions were already running high due to some disagreements with what was being put in the papers. I intend to have a little chat with the ones responsible.”

  Turning toward him with a dangerous glint in her eye, she gave him a small, satisfied smile. “Care to join me?”

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