SSS Talent: From Trash to Tyrant

Chapter 541: Chapter 541: What Was Written

Trafalgar stayed by the table with one translated page in hand and the originals spread beside it. Dawn had already crept into the room, pale and thin across the desk, across the sheets, across Bartholomew sleeping like someone who had lost a war against exhaustion.

The translations were simpler than he expected.

Most of it echoed what Icarus had already written in his own notes, only stripped of the researcher’s distance. These were remarks from the void creature itself, jagged little pieces of thought scratched into language after it had learned enough to shape its meaning.

Trafalgar read in silence.

The bloodlines of this age have thinned, there’s no Primordials remain or hand exists that can stop us once passage is secured.

His thumb pressed harder against the page.

That idea ran through the translations like a dark current. Human bloodlines had weakened. The old races had decayed. Their victories had faded into stories. Whatever lived on the other side had not forgotten. It had studied. Measured this world from far away and reached one conclusion over and over again.

This age was softer than the ones before it.

Trafalgar let out a slow breath and leaned back in the chair, boots lifting onto the edge of the table while he moved to the next page.

’So these were written before it met me.’

That was obvious now.

Back then, the creature had believed the Primordials were gone for good, buried with the old wars, erased from the board. A dead bloodline. A danger reduced to memory. Now that had changed. It had seen him. It had gone back carrying the knowledge that a few of them still existed.

That alone would make the other side more cautious. It would force them to think twice before treating this world like an empty hall with no one left to guard the door.

Trafalgar read another line.

They mistake delay for safety.

They call endurance victory because they have forgotten what true defeat costs.

He clicked his tongue softly and set that page aside.

There was little beauty in these notes. What unsettled him was the opposite. The thing had written with purpose, with structure, with the patience of something that had measured bloodlines, authority, old power, and weakness with the calm of a strategist tracing the shape of a battlefield.

’Dravok said we have at least a decade before anything truly happens.’

On paper, that sounded generous. Long enough to build strength, gather allies, pry open buried history, and prepare for what was coming. In practice, it felt like a warning dressed as a gift. Ten years vanished quickly in a world like this. Ten years of training, politics, blood, movement, secrets, and war could pass before most people noticed they had begun.

Still, it was time.

Trafalgar remained there a while longer, weighing the shape of the thing rather than the exact words. The creature had been wrong in one place. Dangerously right in the rest.

A small sound pulled him from the pages.

Behind him, Bartholomew stirred.

He had slid sideways in the chair at some point during the night, one arm folded badly beneath him, a faint line of drool at the corner of his mouth. The second he realized Trafalgar was awake, he wiped it away in a panic and shot upright so fast his chair almost protested.

”Trafalgar!” he blurted out. ”I figured out what it said.”

The sleep vanished from his face quickly. What replaced it did not suit him at all. Bartholomew usually carried nervousness, quiet curiosity, occasional excitement when books or history were involved. What sat on him now was colder. Heavier. It gave him an unfamiliar severity.

Trafalgar lifted one of the translated sheets slightly.

”Yeah,” he said. ”I saw.”

Bartholomew swallowed. ”It’s... worse than I thought.”

”It is.” Trafalgar placed the paper back on the table. ”That changes nothing. This stays between us.”

Bartholomew nodded at once. There was no hesitation in it.

”Of course. I won’t tell anyone.”

Trafalgar studied him for a brief moment, found no weakness there, and let the tension loosen.

”By the way,” he said, changing course, ”aren’t you planning to learn a few new skills soon? I’ve seen you pick up more than before.”

That reached Bartholomew in a much healthier place.

His shoulders straightened. The weight from a moment ago receded enough for something closer to his usual self to come back.

”I am,” he said. ”I’ve been saving money to buy scrolls. I decided I’ll try for long-range skills. Mage ones.”

Trafalgar nodded once.

”Mage skills, hm.” The edge of a smile touched his mouth. ”That suits you. You’d do much better with long-range abilities than anything close up. Good choice.”

Bartholomew’s ears reddened faintly. ”Th-thank you.”

Trafalgar gathered the translated sheets into a cleaner stack and slid them back toward the originals.

”I have to go soon,” he said. ”Thanks for the help, Barth. I owe you one.”

He closed the hand-case, fastened it, and rose from the chair.

”I’ll invite you out for food or a drink later.”

Bartholomew stood as well, careful around the pages even now. ”I’d like that.”

Trafalgar took the case from the table.

That part of the morning was done.

Now he had to see Selara.

If anyone in the Academy could tell him who might have created the vial, or at least point him toward the kind of mind capable of producing something like it, it would be her. She would either confirm his suspicions or make the whole problem worse by opening three more.

With Selara, both outcomes were equally possible.

He headed for the door, and Bartholomew followed him into the corridor.

Behind them, the room they left behind kept its thin dawn light, pale over the desk and the abandoned chair, while the translated pages rested in silence, carrying words that had made the world feel a little narrower, a little older, and far less forgiving than it had the night before.