He Who Fights with Monsters 3 (He Who Fights with Monsters, #3)

by Shirtaloon

The problem of aristocracy is that you get all the rewards and only earn them if you feel like it.”

Your job will be to tease out everything your teammates are capable of. To find the synergies you never saw and exercise the abilities that have gone neglected. If nothing else, it will help you rank up all your powers on the way to bronze.”

Expect to be placed in this pairing again and again until you find the synergies that make you fight like a team instead of like nervous adolescents, fumbling around one another.”

“What’s done is done,” Killian said calmly. “The only way forward is forward.”

“Then why do you run around like a mad person, talking nonsense, instead of being all diligent?” Neil asked. “Because everything is a weapon,” Jason said, “and there are few weapons as powerful as the way people look at you.”

“Everything is a weapon,” Jason repeated, “if you know how to use it. There’s no better weapon you can give your enemy than being predictable. Every one of you has, at some point, told someone to not bother trying to understand what I’m talking about. If an enemy doesn’t even try and understand me, that’s a weapon and shield they’ve just handed to me for free.”

Jason conjured his dagger into his hand. “This,” he said, “is the weakest weapon there is. A blade can cut down a person, but words can bring down a kingdom. Adultery can end a dynasty, greed can start a war, and compassion can end one. People will die for strangers out of faith and kill their neighbours out of fear.”

“Everything is a weapon,” he concluded. “The trick is learning to wield them without doing yourself an injury.”

“I’m not sure high-intelligence was an issue,” Neil said. “They joined a cult and agreed to come here.”

“Gods are above people,” Humphrey said. “There is no above people, Humphrey. There’s just people. Give them enough power and they get a bit weird, but still people.”

“You do realise that people have different stations in life, right?” Neil asked. “A king is not the same as a pauper.” “Of course not,” Jason said. “The king inherits a hat and a chair, where the pauper’s lucky to get the hat. Better hat, though. What kind of idiot thinks a metal hat with no top is a great idea? The same guy who thinks monarchy makes sense, I guess.”

“Here we are.” Jason said. “I’m just telling you now, so you don’t say you weren’t warned: this time, I brought pants.”

It was a process Jason has insisted on referring to as “reversing the polarity.”

“Did Jason ever tell you about what he learned when he claimed the Reaper’s scythe?” “All he told me,” Humphrey said, “was that there was some kind of club and the first rule was not talking about it. I’m pretty sure he was doing that thing where… well, you know the thing.”