“Aaliyah, Sweety, it’s time to get up.” Mom’s beautiful voice tickles the inner part of my ear, rousing me from my sleep. “Ugg, five more mi
“Aaliyah, Sweety, it’s time to get up.” Mom’s beautiful voice tickles the inner part of my ear, rousing me from my sleep.
“Ugg, five more minutes,” I groan, tossing and turning, not fully awake.
“It was five minutes an hour ago,” I hear Mom giggle from the edge of my parent's bed, obviously finding all this hilarious. "When you said last night that you'd sleep all day, I think we all thought you were joking."
“But I don’t want to get up yet,” I bury my face deep into my pillow.
"And I won't make you, but I must ask you to move into your own bed.”
“No,” I say stubbornly, pulling my parent’s rough sheets over my head. “This bed is now mine. I claim it; you can't make me leave!"
I knew I was being childish, but it didn’t bother me. After my adventure in The Endless Forest, I had a right to relax any way I wanted to, and I didn’t want to be kicked out of my parent’s bed just yet. Lying here brought back so many fond memories of when I was younger, especially when I was a baby, and I would purposely make a fuss to sleep between my parents to interrupt their copious nighttime activities to get a good night's sleep. Aw, good memories— Good memories.
Outside my blanket paradise, I hear Mom sigh softly. "Aaliyah, aren't you a little old to act like this?” Mom playfully scolds me from the other side of my sheet cocoon. "You know you're an adult now,” she reminds me, patting my head through the rough fabric.
The first thing I'm buying once I get my share of the reward for killing the winged serpent is a fancy bed and sheets for my parents— A huge bed, one big enough brother will have to expand our house to fit it kind of big. I just know they’ll love it.
“I just turned fifteen,” I remind Mom playfully as I poke my head out from underneath the covers like a prairie dog sticking his head out of his hole.
“Don’t pout,” Mom lightly scolds me, booping my nose with a smile. "Is that any way someone of your level should act?" She teases me, making me groan louder.
“Please stop; wasn’t last night enough?” I grumble sourly. Since that old jerk, Pacore, revealed my level to my friends and family, they’ve been teasing me non-stop about it, knowing full well how embarrassed it made me feel.
I didn't care if it was revenge for revealing his level to General Pitz; I would get even against the old man. I hadn’t had a chance to work out the finer details of my plan yet, but it’ll be swift and painful—I knew that much. The only real thing holding me back was getting past his invisible armor, but once I found a workaround, I was golden.
“But I’m so proud of you, Dear," my mother tells me, sitting beside me, interrupting my scheming by soothingly rubbing my back.
“I know, you said it like a million times last night,” I turn so she can’t see me blush.
“And I’ll say it a million times more," she tells me with a cheerful smile.
“It’s not that big of a deal,” I mumble softly into my pillow. “You’ll see when you’re my level.”
“That’s sweat of you to say, but I don’t think your mother has it in her,” Mom treats my offhand remark as a joke, but I wasn’t laughing. I’ve yet to tell her or anyone else I can transfer experience points to people. I wanted to, but I had to wait until I was about to leave with Pacore or risk him finding out; he was just as observant as he was sly, after all— And that’s if he didn’t already know, which was a big if.
Anyway, Mom didn’t know it yet, but I wasn’t going to stop until she and everyone else I loved were level 100 or higher. It would no doubt take many years to achieve, but I knew I could do it if I put my mind to it. Until then, I’ll let her think reaching my level was impossible for her, but I'll be happy to prove her wrong.
For a moment, neither of us says anything to the other while I lie there, letting Mom rub my back, content pretending I didn’t have a care in the world. I didn't have Mana Skin activated, and I reduced Sense Mana to its lowest output so I wasn’t constantly sensing things around the village.
For once, I didn’t need to keep an eye on everything like some omnipotent voyeur. With Pacore, Pitz, and Tabitha here, Spotted Creek was practically the safest village in the world, and that wasn’t including the group of Escort Knights running around everywhere who were all above level 60.
“Comfortable?” Mom asks me after a few minutes of soothing back-pats.
“Very,” I reply with a tired sigh. I still felt naked from the reduced mana in the atmosphere, but it wasn’t as bad as it was. I think without Mana Skin activated, I was growing used to feeling exposed quicker.
"Do you have anything to do today?" Mom makes what she considers small talk with a radiant smile while I continue to postpone getting up.
"I wasn't planning on it," I tell her. "Truthfully, I'm somewhat avoiding going outside at the moment."
“Oh, but why?” Mom leans in curiously, practically smelling the gossip. “Are you tired of seeing trees?” She playfully teases me, making me smirk before I slowly start frowning.
“I’m sort of avoiding Pacore and Tabitha,” I admit sheepishly. Lying here was nice, but stepping outside meant more than just leaving the comfort of my parent's bed.
Until I stepped outside, I could pretend that all my secrets were still safe, that Tabitha kept her promise to me and didn’t tell Pacore anything. Once I leave the safety of my home—once I see either of them again—I'll no longer be able to pretend otherwise and will be forced to come to terms with my new reality.
I desperately wanted to believe Tabitha had my back, but I also knew how devoted she was to the old man, and I really, really didn't want to know where I fell between the two.
Tabitha and I have been through so much together. At this point, she was practically family, and I told my real family as much last night. I didn’t want to lose that just yet.
Sadly, I couldn't hide here forever, and Mom quickly pointed that out. “Well, I’m sorry to tell you this, Sweety, but that’s not an option. You can’t avoid them forever.”
“I know,” I whine, shoving my face back into my pillow before letting out a muffled scream.
All the while, Mom sits back, watching me, patiently waiting for me to get it all out of my system before saying something that has me turning and looking at her like she was crazy. “You know, he’s not that bad of a person," she casually remarks.
“What?” I stare dumbly at her.
Mom smirked at my reaction before repeating, “He’s not that bad. He’s actually a lot like you,” she said, despite my growing horrified expression.
“How can you say that?!" My outrage only makes her laugh harder.
“It’s funny that you don’t see it,” she continues, turning serious. “You weren’t here when Pacore arrived to pick you up. We were all so worried that the two of you hadn’t come home yet, and here he was, assuring us Tabitha wouldn’t let anything happen to you, and he was right. He even promised your father and me that if you didn’t return soon, he'd rush into the forest alone if needed.”
“He did?” I asked, slightly surprised, though I don’t know why. If anyone would charge headfirst into a magic-dense region alone, it would be Pacore.
"He did," Mother nods cheerfully. "Thanks to him, we were able to worry a bit less. Pacore didn’t need to reassure us that you’d be fine, just like he didn’t need to offer his men to help the village finish our wall.”
“But he’s so—” I wave my hands around erratically to Mother’s amusement.
"Yes, and I can think of another person just like him," Mom says, giving me a knowing look that makes me blush embarrassingly.
“I’m not as bad as him,” I tell her defensively.
“Sure, you aren’t,” Mom leans over and pinches my cheek sarcastically but lovingly. “You’re Aaliyah, my sassy, sarcastic, childish daughter who works too hard for her own good. The two of you are nothing alike,” she pats my head sardonically.
“But he’s taking me away from you,” I remind her sadly.
"Oh, my sweet child, he's not taking you away from us; he's showing you the wider world.” Mother scoots closer to me and wraps her arms around me lovingly. “You know, from the moment you could walk, your father and I knew that this village wouldn’t be enough to contain you.”
“At first, I tried to teach you housewarming skills, hoping they would calm you down, but each day, you grew more high-strung, more active— More rambunctious. You could run around the village for hours on end like a little rabbit, and from the moment you took your father up on his offer to go to work with him, I knew you’d never settle for a life like mine. Though I wish you would stop looking for trouble,” Mom shakes her head tiredly.
“Hey, trouble finds me,” I try to defend myself, but Mom just gives me a look that says she wasn’t buying it. Okay, that was fair, after all, it was my idea to explore the magic-dense region in the first place.
“You run headfirst into trouble,” Mom tells me with a resigned half-smile. "It's who you are; your father and I have come to terms with that. What you need is somebody strong watching over you, somebody who has your back when things get tough, somebody there to point you in the right direction.”
“Like Tabitha.”
“Like Pacore,” Mom corrects me with a discerning look. “Ever since you told us his level, I knew he’d be strong enough to watch over you, and after the past two weeks, I’m confident he’s the right choice. You know he stops by every day to ask about you,” she tells me, her tone growing softer.
“More like gathering information,” I tactlessly remark in a huff.
"Maybe," Mom didn't immediately correct me, but she did smile. “But if that’s the case, why does he love to ask for stories about when you were smaller? What foods do you like? If you are a picky eater? Sure, he asks why you chose to go into blacksmithing and started practicing with weapon skills, but he asks just as many questions about your everyday life.”
Mom scoots in even closer to me. “I’m not saying you should trust him immediately without question, only that he might not be as bad as you think,” she tells me with a perceptive smile as if she knew something I didn't.
I wanted to believe her—I really did—but Mom didn’t know Pacore like I did. He acts playful, but underneath, he’s ruthless. Like last night— even while I was enjoying my time with my family, I watched him with Sense Mana after he left Camden's house with Tabitha. I couldn’t listen in on his and her conversation or anything, but I had hoped to gain some information on what they were discussing through their body language. That’s when I felt it.
At first, it seemed like Tabitha and Pacore were having a simple conversation, and then, out of nowhere, Pacore turned into a monster. No, that was mean to monsters; Pacore was far scarier than that.
Tabitha had told me Pacore could produce a mana zone, but I didn't think about what that meant until I felt him activate it myself.
Mana zones reflect their users; the winged serpent’s was sticky and sickly like poisonous fog infecting everything it touched. It felt disgusting to be in, and I would still take the winged serpent's mana zone over Pacore's without a second thought. His mana zone was like an iron dome crushing everything around him. His mana zone made the surrounding mana feel dense and unwieldy, and from what I could sense, Tabitha’s body couldn’t absorb any of it, not even a spec.
How frightening.
Mana was synonymous with life itself. No matter how much there was or what type it was, all living things absorbed mana; they must convert it afterwards, but it’s absorbable all the same. Pacore’s mana zone spit in the face of that truth, creating a dead zone far more deadly than anything the winged serpent could conjure.
If people run out of mana, they die; it's that simple. All Pacore needs to do is trap somebody close to him for an extended period with his mana zone activated, and eventually, everything inside but him will die. Standing inside something like had to feel excruciating, and I could only think of one reason Pacore would use it on someone as faithful as Tabitha. “I hope she’s okay.”
“Who, Honey?" Mom's sudden question made me finch. Did I say that last part out loud?
“I’m worried I might have gotten Tabitha in trouble,” I confess to Mother, hanging my head worryingly. Worse, I was too scared to check with my skills; ever since Pacore activated his mana zone, I've been too nervous to try and sense him again, afraid of what I might sense.
“Oh, Sweety, Tabitha is just fine,” Mom reassures me with a confidence I wasn’t expecting. “I saw her this morning,” she tells me happily, “And she looked just fine to me.”
“Really?” I ask in disbelief. Maybe I was wrong, maybe she didn’t give me up—
“Of course, she accompanied Pacore on his morning walk around the village. He didn't seem mad with her; in fact, he was smiling ear to ear, and she looked like she was having a good time too— Hard to tell with her, though,” Mother jokingly lets out a tiny giggle, and what little hope I had is dashed before my very eyes.
Pacore, happy? That was never a good sign. Shit.
I feel like I'm falling, like I’m going to be swallowed up by my parents’ bed. If Pacore knows about my skills, it's possible I'll never see my family again once we leave. After all, what person—what country—would allow somebody who can both absorb and distribute experience points to walk around freely?
My life was over. Double shit!
But before I can spiral any further, Mom pulls me in tightly into her chest. "Hey, it will be okay," she whispers, concerned by my sudden panicked look. “I don’t know what has you so upset, but I’m sure you’re overacting.”
If only she knew. “But—” I try to say, only to be shushed in return.
“None of that,” Mom says adamantly. “If you’re that worried about your friend, then lying here stressing about it doesn't solve anything. All right, up,” she suddenly stands up from the edge of her bed and gestures for me to do the same.
“Huh?” I stare blankly up at her.
“You heard me, Missy; up,” Mom reaches down and grabs my hands and starts yanking me out from underneath her blanket. She easily pulls me to my feet, and soon, I'm standing in front of her in my nightgown.
Huh, sometimes I forget that even though I'm technically stronger than most people, I still weigh the same. I’m a big girl, taller and much bulkier than Mother, but even with her measly physical stats, she can still manhandle me if I let her.
“Now, clean us both up, and go get dressed," she orders me in her best mom voice while I stand there, still processing everything happening. "Well, go on; do your glowing cleaning thingy,” she playfully smirks, knowing fully what she is doing.
I can't help myself; I laugh, and for a little bit, I feel better, but Mom doesn’t stop there. When it looks like I'm about to stop smiling, she stretches her arms out widely like she’s expecting me to dump a bucket of cold water on her head.
“Fine, one magic-cleaning, coming right up,” I play along.
“Get the room, too, if you can,” Mom winks at me, knowing doing so would be easy for me.
“Ahyt ls weem appiss!”
My spell enlarges and covers my parents’ entire bedroom in a few seconds. Mom was a clean freak by nature, but no matter how often she scoured the house, you just couldn’t beat magic— at least, that’s what I think. Who knows, maybe a Cleaning skill over level 75 might be able to rival a spell, but that would require me to find somebody or level my own Cleaning skill to test, and that would take forever.
While I’m busy mentally comparing magic to skills, small amounts of dirt and dust are sucked out of every crack and crevice by my spell and turned into fine black particles that can be easily swept up or wiped away.
“Huh, I thought I did a better job than this?” Mother pouts childishly when a fine dusting of black flakes slowly covers everything in her bedroom. All in all, it was practically nothing compared to some of the places I’ve been. Even if I gathered it all up, it wasn't even a fraction of what it was like in the ruins Tabitha and I were trapped in, and yet Mother is acting like she failed as a housekeeper.
“I’ll have to clean this up after we get back,” Mom notes seriously, hands on her hips as if she were talking about an upcoming battle, before noticing I was still standing next to her.
"And why are you still here?” Mom turns to me with a fierce expression and starts gently pushing me out of her bedroom, shoving me out the door before I can even answer. “I told you to get dressed; we're going out.”
“Alright, alright, I’m going,” I chuckle as Mom guides me into my nearby room and shuts my door behind me, trapping me inside.
Leave it to Mom to use my exact brand of wacky against me; I shake my head while smirking. I keep smiling as I change out of my nightgown and into clean clothes that weren't what I wore into The Endless Forest.
While getting dressed, I continued to smile, but the longer I spent getting ready, the more it strained. While changing, I couldn’t help but look around my room and feel slightly out of place.
I briefly entered my room last night when I put on my nightgown, but it had been dark then, and I couldn't see things clearly. Now it was light out, and while I could see everything much better, it felt weird standing here instead of being outside under the massive trees of the magic-dense region.
Everything looked the same as when I left two months ago, but I couldn’t help but feel something had changed since I was last here. My room felt small and colorless like there wasn't enough green around me. My rapidly fading cloud drawings on the ceiling did little to make me less trapped.
It almost felt like my room was too clean. There wasn’t a speck of dust on anything, proving Mom had been keeping an eye on my room while I was gone.
I take my time brushing out my hair after I’m dressed, dislodging a small number of black flecks from between the strands, slowly working out the various tangles I got from oversleeping for so long. Afterward, I grab my long, luscious locks in both hands I tie everything into a simple ponytail like I like it, all while feeling like a stranger in my own room.
I should really ask my mom to help me cut it later. After two months of ignoring it and my rapidly increasing stats, my hair hung completely down my back and was especially vibrant thanks to my increased Vitality. Long hair was nice, but it had a nasty habit of getting in the way of things far too often.
“Sometime today, Daughter,” Mom calls through my door, not so subtly reminding me that she was patiently waiting for me on the other side.
“Coming,” I yell back, putting aside the issues with my hair until later, like most of my problems.
I calmly open my door, only to come face to face with Mother, who looks me over with a judgmental eye. “You look lovely as always,” she nods approvingly when she’s done eyeballing my appearance, making me feel warm inside.
“You always say that,” I deadpan.
“Doesn’t mean it’s not true. Let’s be off then,” Mom grins, leading us towards the front door.
“You know we don’t have to rush,” I joke as we're leaving the house, trying to mask my uneasiness with a lax facade, but I don’t think I fooled her.
"Uh, huh," Mom said, giving me the side-eye treatment while maintaining a blindingly brilliant smile that gave nothing away. A mother’s intuition sure was scary.
Be that as it may, it felt good to be outside after sleeping for so long, and while a part of me was still nervous about finding Tabitha and Pacore, it was lessened by having Mother by my side.
“Should I use my skills to search for them?" I ask Mom after a few minutes of casually walking through the village with her without any clear direction.
“If you want?” She shrugs back, not appearing to be in any rush. “Or we can just keep walking and see where our feet take us?” Mom proposes with a suggestive smile, hinting at which option she prefers.
"A walk sounds nice," I offer her my hand, which she gladly takes without a second thought.
Mom and I walk hand in hand, smiling while we leisurely search for either of our targets. We pass by numerous Escort Knights running around like chickens with their heads cut off in the middle of different jobs, but we don’t bother asking if any of them have seen Pacore or Tabitha.
Eventually, we reach the section of wall directly behind the fields, but there is no sign of the people we are searching for, forcing us to make a decision. We could head right and follow the wall back towards the village and eventually Pacore’s campsite or turn left and take the long way around. Turning right would be the wise decision; after all, Pacore was likely in his camp now.
I only needed to look to my left at Mom and see the glint in her eyes to know which way we were going.
Without a word, we turned left and started following the wall westward toward the still-under-construction section. There was a 50-50 chance that we’d find Pacore there and not at his campsite, but again, it wasn't about the destination but the journey.
“I can’t believe how much has changed,” I note absently as we walk between the wall and what little remains of the forest enclosed inside the wall.
"Being gone for so long will do that,” Mom snarkily reminds me.
I turned my head away so she couldn't see me roll my eyes; this was the tenth time she'd made such a remark since I returned yesterday. Apparently, Mom was still a little salty about making her worry. I don't even try to apologize anymore, as she was only venting and not actually looking for another apology.
Meanwhile, I can't help but imagine what Brother might build next once I'm no longer here. Things have changed so much in only two months. If I ever see my home again, will I even be able to even recognize it?
I could picture Sandra’s future mage tower stretching into the sky, surrounded by a plethora of new houses built by my brother. Spotted Creek would continue to grow with or without me here, and while knowing that made me happy, it also made me feel a tiny bit sad.
“What do you think Brother is going to build next?” I ask, vocalizing my thoughts so that they don’t eat me up from inside. “Do you think he’ll immediately start on Sandra’s tower, or do you think he’ll let Camden talk him into something else instead?”
Mother pretends to take a minute to think, but I can tell by the smile on her face that she already has an answer. “Both,” she says confidently. “Your brother is already working on updating his designs for your sister-in-law's tower,” she tells me proudly. “At the same time, Sandra’s father has been trying to talk Richard into building a castle at the center of the village.”
“A castle? Really?” I repeat disbelievingly. "Does the man have no shame? Doesn't he think he's asking for a little too much?" I joke.
“No, I don’t think he does," Mom says, raising her hand to shield her mouth as she laughs alongside me.
“What could’ve possibly made him think to ask for something as ridiculous as a castle?" I shake my exasperatingly.
“To be fair, I think he was only joking at first," Mom tells me with a broad smile while gazing off into the distance. “But then Pacore and his men showed up and started helping with the wall; I think our headman started to believe a castle wasn’t actually that big of a demand by comparison.”
"Of course, he wouldn't," I roll my eyes and shake my head wryly. "And how will Brother build a castle and a mage tower simultaneously?" I ask Mom, already having an inkling of the answer.
“How do you think?” Mom winks at me. “Camden wants his daughter’s mage tower incorporated into the design of his castle; that way, she’s always close to him. After all, every castle needs a mage tower, he says.”
A part of me wanted to say that Camden was crazy for asking for so much, but at the same time, I respected his vision. The Downs’s oversaw a village out in the middle of nowhere; up until recently, it probably never occurred to any of them that Spotted Creek would ever grow as fast as it was.
Suddenly, Camden and his family were no longer nobody’s stranded in the forest but leaders of a budding city. Sandra was a mage, and my brother was so enamored with her that he was willing to build anything she wanted.
I could see it now; Camden would get his castle, and I doubted things would stop there. As long as Master was willing to keep supplying the materials, and the people of the village continued to level and unlock new skills, nothing was impossible.
I wonder if Pacore knew this, which is why he was so quick to offer his help? That could be it, but what did he get out of this? For the life of me, I couldn’t tell.
For twenty minutes, I tried to come up with a reasonable explanation for Pacore's generosity, but by the time we passed by the northern gate and reached the section of the wall still being worked on, I hadn't succeeded.
Most of the Escort Knights I saw yesterday were here, hauling large stone bricks like pack animals, grunting loudly as they followed my brother's every order from atop the tree stump he was standing on. He looked like a conductor leading a symphony, only he was missing the fancy coat and whatever that small stick was called. Still, it was an impressive sight to see.
It only took Brother a few seconds to notice us entering his construction site. "Mom!" He called out happily before looking at me like he couldn't believe his eyes. "Aaliyah, you're up!?” He exclaims wildly in fake disbelief.
"Hah, hah, very funny," I roll my eyes while Brother smirks down at me.
“I know I am,” Brother puffs out his chest, gloating proudly for a second before refocusing on us. “Not that I’m not happy to have Mom watching me work, but what are you two doing here? I thought it would be at least a full day before you rolled out of bed,” Brother glances at me knowingly.
Sensing that we were about to start bickering like the siblings we were, Mom steps in before either of us can have our fun. “We’re actually here looking for Pacore and Tabitha. Have you seen either of them around?" Mother asks in a voice that has me and Richard snapping to attention. It was the tone she uses when she wanted us to shut up and listen, so listen we did.
“Uh yeah,” Brother awkwardly answers with a forced smile that does nothing to hide his nervousness. "Both were here an hour or so ago watching everybody work. I think Pacore mentioned something about visiting the quarry about something,” he tells us while simultaneously whipping a bead of sweat from his forehead that wasn’t there a second ago.
“Then they’re nearby,” Mom nods cheerfully, her smile as sharp as any sword. “Will you and Sandra be having dinner with us again tonight?" Mom asks sweetly, with a commanding undertone.
“Actually, we sort of had plans to relax alone before the baby arrives—” Brother slowly trailed off when he noticed Mother staring at him intently before quickly correcting himself. “But we can do that another day.”
“Excellent," Mother grins approvingly. “We’re not sure when your sister is leaving, so it’s only right that we spend as much time together as possible.”
“If it’s any consolation, I brought home a lot of magic-beast meat,” I smirk at my brother, knowing that underneath his calm facade, he was disappointed to miss out on his quality alone time with his waifu. I’ll have to find a way to make it up to him later.
“Is it any good?” Brother raises an eyebrow at me.
“I thought so,” I shrug. “But I bet it’ll taste better when Mom cooks it.”
“Well, so long as Mom’s doing the cooking,” Richard pretends to sound relieved.
“Hey, I’m a decent cook. Better than you.”
"Are you kidding? I can cook circles around you," Brother proclaims proudly. "What's your Cooking skill? I bet mine is higher."
“For your information, it just hit level 50,” I boast smugly.
“50!?” Brother exclaims in disbelief.
“Yeah, what’s yours?” I ask back, challengingly.
Brother looks nervous for a moment, but he quickly hides it behind a confident smile. "Well, mine is 51,” he tells me shamelessly.
“Yeah, right,” I give him a disbelieving look. “You’re such a liar.”
“Am not.”
“Are, too,” I rapidly fire back.
“Am not,” Brother stands up straighter, placing a hand on his chest. "Let the gods judge me if I'm lying."
“Screw the gods," I scoff loudly. "Let's see what Sandra says about your Cooking skill."
"No, wait!" Brother almost trips over his own feet in a rush to stop me when I turn around, pretending to walk away.
“It’s 38!" He shouts frantically. "My cooking skill is level 38, not 51."
While I’m laughing vindictively, Mother nods proudly to Richard. "I've seen you've been practicing. I'm sure Sandra appreciates all the work you've been putting into it."
“Yeah, well, thanks, Mom,” Brother blushes under Mother’s heartfelt praises. “I’ve gotten a lot better after I started pretending I’m building a house instead of cooking.”
Now, that was enough to get me to stop laughing. "And how does that work,” I can’t help but ask, my curiosity getting the better of me.
Richard’s blush deepens, but he somehow manages to explain himself. "What is cooking if not building a food house?" He somehow says with a straight face. “You formulate a plan, prep your foundation by preparing all the ingredients, and build from the bottom up.”
For a moment, Mother and I stared at Brother with our unique, surprised looks, making him squirm under our scrutiny, probably thinking we were about to make fun of him, but it was the opposite.
“I never thought of visualizing skills like that.” My sudden praise hits Richard like a hammer to the face.
“It’s quite unique, isn’t it,” Mom nods thoughtfully.
“Please, it’s not that big of a deal,” Brother looks away embarrassingly. He was just as bad as me when it came to receiving praise from our family.
"Aren't you looking for Pacore or something?” Richard tried to get us to leave by reminding us why we were here in the first place, but I wouldn't let him go that easily— not with him looking like a tomato.
"I'm being serious," I say, stepping into Brother's line of sight, smiling. "This could really help me in the future. Thank you."
“Please, stop,” Brother groans, but I continue.
“I bet the only reason my Cooking skill is higher than yours is because of the ingredients I’ve been using the last two months. Tell you what, I’ll give you a portion of the meat I brought back, and you can make something special for Sandra as a romantic gesture,” I suggest with a wicked grin. “I’m sure she’ll find some way to reward you afterward,” I raise and lower my eyebrows quickly, giving Richard a look that said we both knew what I was talking about.
If it were possible for Richard to blush any harder, he would, but he can’t. “I’m not talking about this with my sister,” he turns around to face away from me.
I’m about to go in for the killing blow when Mother signals me with a cough. Looking over my shoulder, Mother shakes her head, signaling me to stop.
Oh, alright, I’ll leave Richard alone— For now.
“We’ll be on our way then; see you and Sandra at dinner," Mom says before walking off.
“See you tonight, Brother,” I call out as I casually jog to catch up to Mother.
“Can’t wait,” I hear him sarcastically reply before returning to work.
I can’t hear what was said after that because of the growing distance, but as Mom and I walk away, I watch a few of the villagers under Brother’s command mischievously shove him in good fun. I guess even in another world, people still tease you when your family visits you at work.
After leaving the construction site behind, it took us merely a few minutes to walk through the short stretch of trees blocking us from reaching the quarry, and like everything else in the village, I was pleasantly surprised by how much it had expanded in the time that I was gone.
The pit was broader and deeper than I remember and was jammed-packed with Escort Knights and villages working in unison. It looked like somebody kicked over an anthill, but instead of ants rushing to fix everything, it was people.
The tunnel leading down into the mines had been expanded to nearly three times its former size, and a steady stream of carts filled to the brim with uncut stone were exiting it while empty carts passed them by. Off to the side, a stone carving station was set up, manned by a handful of people I'd seen around the village my entire life but never talked to for more than a few minutes.
The organized chaos was beautiful to watch. I couldn't spot anyone slacking off or standing still. People seamlessly waked between moving carts without fear or hesitation, never standing in place for more than a few seconds before returning to work.
Everyone was packed together so tightly that you would think moving impossible, but somehow, they made it work. Rough rock was pulled out of the mine and carted over to the masons. From there, the masons shaped the various stones into usable bricks, which were then loaded onto different carts and carried out of one of the quarry’s two entrances.
It was all so mesmerizing, and then there were the two people standing at the center of that chaos—the only two people who weren’t moving. Everyone instinctively avoided walking near them, creating a small clearing in the center of the quarry, like an island in a storm.
“Of course, that’s where they are,” I sigh.
"The two of them certainly paint a picture, don’t they?” Mom snickers next to me.
As if sensing they were being watched, Pacore and Tabitha turn together and quickly spot us standing on the quarry's edge.
Well, it's time to learn of my fate.
**********
Author’s Notes:
Hello, everybody; thank you for your patience over the past few days. In case you didn't read the notes at the end of the new AMSL chapter, I hurt my back helping my grandfather and was bedridden for a few days.
I'm feeling better now and doing my best to get more chapters out in a timely manner.
Thanks for reading, and as always, stay safe and comment below.