Arcane: The Gods Want Me to Pick a Route

Chapter 230: Curtain Falls, The North United

"All right then, Rilfen. I’ll leave the next part to you and Jie. With White going along, the three of you ancient gods should be enough, right?"

Rilfen and Jie had already signed the contract. Hearing that, Rilfen nodded helplessly, while Jie stood off to the side in silence, obviously still angry.

Rilfen asked, "What about them?"

"They have other things to do," Logan replied.

Ahri and the others were almost out of time. There was no longer enough time for them to go force a second or third ancient god into signing an agreement. Karma and Swain also needed to return to their own countries.

The same went for Janna. She had already worked hard all day, and most of the faith power in her body had been used up. She had long since turned back into her little green bird form and was dozing on Logan’s shoulder, clearly in need of rest.

As for Lissandra, Logan did not try to direct her. She might look obedient enough right now, but Lissandra had other things to handle next, so she could not take part in hunting down the ancient gods.

Hearing that, hesitation showed on Rilfen’s face.

With only him, Jie, and White, they could move freely through the Freljord. After all, Ornn was hidden away, Anivia was gone, Volibear had fled, and Lissandra, the apparent supreme power on the surface, was now technically "one of them."

But if they were really going to capture gods and force them to sign contracts, that was still a difficult thing to do.

Because if someone on the level of the Iron Boar was completely determined to run, Rilfen did not think the three of them could stop him.

At that moment, Lissandra spoke.

"If necessary, I’ll act."

The moment Rilfen heard that, he nodded right away. "Understood."

This wolf really was far too good at reading the room.

Logan smiled and looked at Karma, clapping his hands once. "All right then, let’s stop here for now. Karma, thanks for coming all this way to help. If you ever need anything from me later, just ask. Anything."

"Would that include helping me attack Noxus?" Karma suddenly asked.

"?" Swain, who had been resting with his eyes closed off to the side, opened them and practically wore a giant question mark on his face.

Logan fell silent too.

After a moment, the corner of Karma’s mouth lifted, and she said with a smile, "I’m joking."

"All right, I’m heading back. If anything comes up, have Janna contact me."

"Chirp~" Janna raised one wing from Logan’s shoulder to show that was no problem.

After Karma left, Swain also said a few parting words.

"Darius has already returned to Delverhold. About all of this... thank you, Logan. Even now, I still can’t really understand it. All I asked was for you to help find Darius. All I wanted was for you to come to the Freljord and make contact with the Winter’s Claw.

"How exactly did you manage to turn that into... all of this?

"But regardless, I’m grateful. Darius matters a great deal to me. So if you ever need anything, come find me in Noxus."

With that, Swain left as well, his expression still complicated.

Back when he first cooperated with Logan, he had known Logan was powerful and protected by gods, but Swain had still believed he could keep Logan under control, that Noxus could use Zaun to grow stronger and move closer to his goals. He trusted his own mind and the information he had.

But now Swain no longer thought that way.

Because in the face of absolute power, every plan was just talk on paper.

Then a giant lotus bloomed outward from the mark on Logan’s forehead, and Ahri knew it was time.

Grabbing hold of the still-reluctant Tristana, who clearly had not played enough yet, Ahri, Riven, and Tristana all returned to Spirit Blossom.

Rilfen had only just started working for them, and Logan had no idea what was going through that ancient demi-god’s head. The guy had just been forced into signing a contract. By all rights, he should have been furious.

He should have had that "dragged into this against my will, but stuck doing it anyway" attitude.

But Rilfen was different.

He was too professional.

The second he was done, he turned around and took Jie and White off to find some ancient god that looked like a marten.

After thinking it over, Logan came to the conclusion that Rilfen was probably one of those types.

If I got screwed over, then nobody else gets to have a good time either.

Yeah. He was probably exactly that kind of guy.

"All right then, Lissandra. Let’s go."

Logan turned to Lissandra and spoke.

A trace of worry appeared on Lissandra’s cold, elegant face, a kind of worry that had not shown up even when she was fighting Volibear. But after a moment, she said, "Let’s go."

Worry was useless. What was coming would come.

Just as Logan had said, the Freljord should have united a long damn time ago.

A fractured Freljord could accomplish nothing. But a united Freljord?

Just think about it.

A Freljord where people no longer died every winter.

A Freljord where gifted children could survive and grow up properly.

The number of powerful iceborn that would be born from that land in the future would exceed everyone’s imagination.

There was no such thing as a genius needing to suffer in order to be a genius.

Plenty of geniuses died in childhood simply because no one protected them.

Come on, tell him this. How exactly was a teenage prodigy supposed to beat a demi-god?

Demacia was a perfect example.

In Sylas’s story, when he was serving as muscle for the Mageseekers, he once passed through a village and found a child who could control lightning, someone with endless magic inside them. Just judging by the quality of that child’s magic alone, Sylas believed it even surpassed Lux’s.

And who was the "Lux" Sylas was talking about?

Lux herself.

Lux, the one people joked about as a kingdom-breaker who could crush LeBlanc and kick Syndra aside. Her magical talent rivaled the ancients. The people in her class were monsters like Ryze, Syndra, and Karma, beings whose strength had already reached demi-god levels.

The only reason Lux was still weak was her age, and the fact that Demacia’s ban on magic had cost her the chance to train properly while she was still a child.

And even then, Lux’s magic was growing by the day, changing constantly.

So yes, the Freljord really did need to unite already.

By evening, Logan saw Jinx again.

Sejuani had returned to her tribe with the Winter’s Claw forces. Jinx, with Donna beside her, was walking at the very front of the group. The moment she saw Logan, she gave a little huff and immediately threw herself onto him.

It was not that she had actually gotten lonely. At most, Logan had only been gone for a little over a day.

This was just one of Jinx’s habits by now.

Once Sejuani saw that her tribe was safe and then heard from Udyr what had happened that day, she fell silent.

And when she met Lissandra together with Ashe, the complexity in her eyes only deepened.

Later, once they were all gathered and discussing what Logan had proposed, Logan gave them a simple summary of the situation.

Sejuani immediately asked the obvious question.

"I don’t object to an alliance or unification. The problem is, once we unite, who does everyone answer to? And whose name does the new tribe use?"

Ashe very much wanted to say they should use Avarosa’s name. After all, Avarosa was the legitimate line.

But when she realized that whether in personal strength or tribal strength, she was the weakest one present, all she could do was think it to herself.

Then Lissandra spoke too, her voice calm and cold.

"I don’t care about that sort of thing. You and Ashe can decide. The Frostguard and I will remain in the background. If you need us, say so."

Sejuani nodded. Of course she knew Lissandra would not care about something like that. After all, Udyr had already told her that this woman had gone toe-to-toe with Volibear today and won.

So Sejuani had realized something as well.

All this time, she had believed the Winter’s Claw was strong, strong enough to push the Frostguard around at least a little.

But now she knew she had been kidding herself.

If Lissandra really wanted to wipe her out along with Ashe, all she would need was a single night. By morning, both the Avarosans and the Winter’s Claw would be gone from the Freljord.

So seeing that Lissandra had no interest in fighting over the title made Sejuani genuinely happy.

Ashe felt the same way.

If Lissandra was not competing for it, then only she and Sejuani would be left to contend, which meant she still had a chance.

She did value the bond between herself and Sejuani as sisters, but that did not mean Ashe would step aside here or hand the position over to her.

She was Avarosa’s Warmother. She commanded the largest tribe in the Freljord. If all the splinter groups under her banner were counted together, their population already exceeded several hundred thousand, while the Avarosans alone numbered well into the hundreds of thousands.

What she carried on her shoulders were the expectations of all those people who trusted her with everything.

Naturally, Ashe could not give ground over a personal relationship.

And so the discussion quickly turned into a direct clash between Ashe and Sejuani.

Meanwhile, Logan and Lissandra sat quietly and listened without saying a word.

Logan knew this was a necessary part of the process. After all, it was he who had pushed for Ashe and Sejuani to join together.

But he had not clearly divided up the benefits that would come after that union. Lissandra and Ashe were not enemies. They could not be treated like Rilfen and Jie.

So while they argued, Logan, an outsider, had no place to interrupt.

Until Jinx, lips stained white from the yogurt she was eating, finally lost patience.

"What’s so great about being the boss anyway?" she muttered.

Ashe and Sejuani both turned to look at her.

The only reason Jinx was even in that tent, of course, was because of Logan.

How to put it?

Logan could command gods. At this point even Lissandra listened to him. His backing was so overwhelming that nobody could ignore him.

And Jinx?

The fact that she could wrap Logan around her finger was enough to make everyone present take her seriously.

Even if she looked like nothing more than a quirky, unpredictable girl whose brain was constantly somewhere else.

With both Ashe and Sejuani staring at her, Jinx paused, then immediately straightened up. She crossed her long legs, sat upright, and pressed both hands onto her boots before continuing:

"I mean, why not just rule together? Like Zaun and Piltover do. An alliance just means bringing you together. It doesn’t mean the Avarosans or the Winter’s Claw have to get absorbed into the other tribe."

Her tone turned openly lecturing as she went on.

"We’re people, not animals. Why are you two acting like your brains won’t bend?"

"Rule together?" Ashe hesitated.

That was actually close to her own thinking. What the Avarosans wanted was to unite every available force and build the biggest tribe possible, so the people of the Freljord could finally live well.

But while Ashe hesitated, Sejuani reacted differently.

She said, displeased, "That’s impossible. In the Freljord, there are only conquerors and those who submit."

Jinx looked utterly speechless. She rolled her eyes so hard it was almost impressive, bit down on her yogurt spoon, and mumbled around it:

"Hey, that was the old Freljord. You’re about to start dealing with the outside world now, aren’t you?

"Logan already sent Janna back to explain things. When that reaches Silco and Jayce, they’ll send a whole bunch of people from Zaun and Piltover to help you build things. Bridges, mountain roads, Hextech relay stations.

"In the future, it’ll only take half a day for you to get to Zaun, and only half a day for outsiders to reach the Freljord. So what, are you still planning to wear animal hides and meet the outside world like barbarians?"

"What you need to build now is a country, not a bigger tribe. Please get that straight.

"A country can include countless tribes. Maybe you can’t fully adjust your thinking overnight, but at the very least, to the outside world, you need to make it clear that you are one country, right?"

Both Sejuani and Ashe fell silent.

Lissandra, meanwhile, looked at Jinx with a hint of surprise on her face.

She had not expected this girl she thought only cared about eating and having fun to actually be this smart.

If Logan knew what Lissandra was thinking, he would probably laugh in her face.

What kind of joke was that?

Jinx was not just "pretty smart."

She was absurdly smart.

It was just that there were many things she did not want to think about.

With her brain, she learned anything incredibly fast.

The whole idea that geniuses are bad at social stuff is nonsense. It is not that they can’t do it. It is that they don’t want to bother. They don’t care enough to waste time learning how to play along.

And besides, Jinx was the daughter of Silco and Vander. Both of her dads had been bosses, and Silco was now the top leader of a city-state. Jinx did not even need to study any of this on purpose. Every time Silco missed her and called her over, he would tell her about what he had done that day, and over time, she naturally came to understand it.

Then she continued correcting them.

"In my opinion, a country and a tribe are two completely different things. You definitely don’t understand what a country is, so I’ll keep this simple.

"A country, basically, is an organization with the legitimate monopoly on violence. It has its own territory, its own people, sovereignty, and a government. And yeah, I know you’re about to ask what a government is, and government is—"

Jinx launched into a long stream of explanation.

Little Jinx did not get stage fright. If anything, she liked being watched. She loved the feeling of everyone’s attention on her.

What would a little maniac have to be afraid of?

Even Logan was staring at her blankly by now.

Not because he disagreed. It was because half this stuff was honestly more than he could explain himself. Sure, there was sociology for this sort of thing, but Logan was exactly the kind of modern person who skimmed the textbook just enough to get by and forgot it right after. There was no way he had ever read that deeply into it.

But Jinx?

She actually made perfect sense.

Wasn’t it obvious?

It was not just Ashe and Sejuani listening carefully anymore. Even Lissandra, her pale eyes fixed on Jinx, lips pressed together, was paying serious attention.

"So the difference between a country and a tribe lies in law, blood ties, and whether there’s a government managing it, not in whether some random elder is older than everyone else and therefore gets to give orders to a whole crowd of people.

"If being old automatically meant you got to give orders, then what would talented people even be for? Why not just drag out a bunch of live turtles and ask for their opinion every time something happens?"

"You also don’t need to get stuck on this. Sejuani, I know you’re unhappy. Logan told me in private that you admire strength and crave freedom.

"But really, what you’re already doing is moving in the direction of a country too. It’s just a question of what kind of country you want. A city-state model, an imperial model, or a national model.

"Ashe wants to take the route Zaun and Piltover took, a city-state model.

"And what you’re doing right now, if you ask me, is basically moving toward something like Noxus or Demacia, an imperial model."

"What Logan wants you to build is a national model, a country that includes all Freljordians and belongs only to the north."

"Honestly, Sejuani, don’t you just want to be an empress?"

Jinx kept talking with total confidence, and in the end she made her judgment flat-out.

She grabbed the lamb leg in front of her and bit into it, getting grease all over her mouth as she talked through the chewing.

"So even without Logan getting involved, you were always going to hit this problem eventually, because you’re already moving toward an early state. Look at it. Tribe to confederation, then to chiefdom, which is basically what you’re trying to do, Sejuani, and after that comes the state."

"So what exactly are you two even getting hung up on?"

After saying that, Jinx slapped Logan on the thigh and wiped the grease off her hands all over his pants.

And in that makeshift tent, aside from the sounds of Jinx chewing lamb and drinking yogurt, there was complete silence.

Ashe looked overwhelmed.

Sejuani was silent.

Lissandra looked impressed.

Only Logan sat there laughing helplessly.

His Jinx...

She did not just understand science.

She understood sociology too.

Now that was what a genius looked like.

His Jinx was a genius.

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