“I think Gamielle’s the product of a mindsplit skill. I’ve read stories about how experimenting with [Parallel Minds] can gone wrong. I’m almost certain Gamielle is something like that. What else could borrow another person’s Legend then call the Witch Tyrant their mother?”

  Milock was horrified at the notion of having to share his mind with another person. Then that person calling you their mom.

  “That’s messed up.”

  Seffara didn’t seem to want to go into a longer discussion about this.

  “Hmm, [Mage] shit. All of it could be a greater trick.” Seffara said.

  Barry the ex-[Berserker] also seemed to be biased towards not thinking about it.

  “Especially when you’re dealing with the Witch Tyrant.”

  Ryan the smart one of course disagreed.

  “Well I think it’s important. After all, Gamielle doesn’t agree with the Witch Tyrant. She’s been trying to help me behind her mother’s back. She’s been giving me early warnings, giving me hints on things and is letting me grind my skills on her.”

  “Dude phrasing.”

  “Damnit Milock, I'm trying to be serious here.”

  At least as serious as he could be. His mind went back to the phalluses on his face. It was significantly worse than he had first thought.

  Seffara waved her hand.

  “[Mage] shit, you’re dealing with the Witch Tyrant, all of this could be part of a greater trick. You don’t make plans around stuff like this unless you’re absolutely certain you have something. That means high dragonslayer, at minimum.”

  “Agreed,” Barry said.

  “Fine.”

  –

  Seffara was strangely silent about how he handled the adventurers. She actually eased up when he told her what he’d done.

  “I thought you’d be more against what I did.”

  The heroine sighed. “If I were in your shoes I wouldn’t have hesitated to kill them all. Adventurers aren’t civilians, it’d be another story if you went hunting for random teams… But a team gunning for you? I would have killed that realmbound too.”

  Ryan just stared at her. They all did. Seffara seemed annoyed by their looks of judgment.

  “Hesitation means death, death doesn’t always mean death for you but your allies as well. In this case especially, we don’t know what the Witch Tyrant would do with your corpse. Maybe she takes your mask away and you can’t live on Earth anymore. Your friends and family would be harassed by others that didn’t like your actions. Don’t hesitate, not on the battlefield.”

  Right, they still thought he was operating with his safety life.

  Clara put her hand up.

  “I think it was good that you didn’t kill them Ryan. I mean, I know it’s common to lose lives and kill people in the Trials but I don’t…” Clara trailed off, “yeah I don’t know what I’m saying. Sorry.”

  Barry shook his head, reassuring her.

  “No, that was good. Voice your thoughts, that’s why you’re here.” Barry turned to Ryan, “I think it was good that you didn’t kill the realmbound either.”

  –

  “A Manager’s damned bullipede?” Milo asked, completely shocked.

  “Way bigger than normal, tusks thicker than its own torso. It was definitely a variant.”

  “How’d you beat it?”

  “I… did a tactical retreat.”

  –

  At the end of Ryan’s second after action report, Barry had a simple single conclusion.

  “Your Epic is affecting you. I told you it was a bad idea to take it, runt..”

  “I’m back to being a runt huh?”

  “Act like one and get treated like one.”

  Clara interjected herself, trying to cool the air.

  “Ooh I know this one. Rarer skills impact the user right? Almost as much as the class does right?”

  “Some people say they just emphasize what’s there.” Milo nodded, trying to be sagely.

  Seffara had no problem knocking down any would-be sages.

  “That’s dragonshit, skills, especially ones that mention presence definitely change the user. The lower your realm the more impactful rarer skills can be to your mentality. The rest? It’s just a feedback loop. Your presence affects how others treat you and that subtly changes the way you react to them.”

  Everyone just looked at Seffara.

  “What? I’ve seen plenty of runts get a presence skill and change in days.” She turned on Ryan, “and those were Rares, not Epics.”

  “Oh fuck, I’m going to be an idiot.”

  It was becoming more obvious the more he talked about his actions. Charging a full team without a plan? Walking towards a lizard twice his size? Running in to stab a giant insect the size of a bullet train?

  He still remembered the thrill when his Epic started building. The more he pushed the more it rewarded him, that was until a certain point where he was blind to anything pushing forward.

  It was absolutely a toxic feedback loop.

  “Calm your tits,” Seffara said, “a skill’s a tool. In this case it’s probably more like a performance enhancing drug. Still a tool. Learn to control it and don’t let it control you. Luckily for you we have someone who has lots of experience with something like it.”

  “Well that’s what I brought you here for.” Barry said, “You’ve done a lot of shit, but now it’s time to consolidate your gains. It’s time for some training.”

  Ryan perked up at that.

  –

  All three young adults were out like a light despite the crazy revelations. Ryan and Clara had fallen asleep immediately while Milock was still on his phone, tapping away.

  Seffara could hear it all, even from the roof of her warehouse.

  She lightly kicked at a brooding figure next to her. This time, he was the one deep in his drink. He was still half angry.

  “Feels like old times.” She said wistfully.

  Barry frowned at his drink.

  “You and I remember things quite differently.”

  “Hah! Someone doing something stupid but having good intentions and everyone else having to cover for them?”

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  Barry blinked, he looked at his bottle and laughed.

  “Heh, Fair.”

  They sat in the moonlight, reminiscing about old times. The old times weren’t great, in fact much of it was a nightmare. But there were some good moments, the quiet ones where they worked through thick and thin, when they weren’t just following bad orders from higher up.

  Seffara sighed.

  “You were right.”

  “Go on.”

  “Oh fuck off Barry. You’re wrong to be so angry at the rookie. Sure he’s a bit of a brat but you’re treating him like he should know what’s what.”

  Barry the ex-[Berserker] still had a problem with letting his anger go.

  “He’s already becoming dangerous. I looked up that team, the Rising Yets? They’re not idiots.”

  “Neither was Garbolt’s team, uh, the Storm Bears, most teams these days are better than the squads we went up against.”

  Barry didn’t argue against that.

  Seffara sighed.

  “Give him time, I think you’re right. We can turn him into a real adventurer.”

  The kid had what it took and he wasn’t as psychotic as she first thought. His first thoughts were about his friends and he’d dropped everything else until he was confident they were safe.

  She could work with that.

  Another four hours went by. Barry had gone to bed as Seffara stood guard in her compound. She had expected some sort of message from the Witch Tyrant, a thinly veiled threat or a demand to leave Ryan alone.

  Neither came.

  She would have preferred a threat.

  –

  The sun’s rays cresting over the compound, the early morning dew gathering into a blanket of fine mist covering the landscape. A crisply quiet, early morning. Seffara moved inside her manor, quiet as a mouse.

  Then slammed open the door to Ryan’s room.

  “RISE AND SHINE BOY!”

  “Goddamnit Seffara!”

  Clara screamed from the room next door. The girl stomped out of her room and furiously marched on her.

  Seffara laughed.

  “Did you pee your pants again?”

  “AHHHHH!”

  The rookie [Rogue] jumped out of bed and amusedly watched his friend try to hit a fully armored Seffara. The girl was fearless when she was cranky. The heroine laughed at Clara's ineffectual hits and pushed her away with a finger on her forehead.

  Seffara looked at both adults.

  “So shall we all get started then?”

  Clara stopped punching the air to look up in horror.

  –

  “Why do we have to run?!”

  Clara screamed. She had protested and then got poked with a stick by Barry every time she tried to give up.

  “Ow! Stop!”

  They were trying to run a lap around Seffara’s stupidly large warehouse. You could fit a house through the front door! The thing was larger than her entire apartment complex.

  Clara was just an ordinary girl from the suburbs. She wasn’t some sort of athlete. Okay, maybe she had just slightly, just a little bit, let herself go. But who wouldn’t when working at a heartless chain restaurant -

  Milock screaming from behind made her speed up.

  “Ow, Barry, OW!”

  At least Milock was somehow less fit than she was. He was taking the brunt of Barry’s pokes. Clara had realized that the slowest one would be getting poked the most.

  A rush of wind went past her as Ryan whizzed right past them.

  Poor Ryan, he was having it worse than they were.

  He dodged a rock that curved towards Ryan’s head at speeds that definitely would have definitely broken her bones. She hadn’t even known you could throw curveballs with rocks. Seffara disappeared from Clara’s vision and reappeared in front of Ryan.

  She had a huge stick in her hand. She swung forward at a blur.

  Clara winced as the stick snapped on Ryan’s arm.

  “Dodge rookie, you’re a [Rogue] not a [Warrior]!”

  The second swing was with a baseball bat. Clara hadn’t even seen Seffara pick it up, only the end swing. Ryan went flying across the ground.

  Clara wanted to yell that this was way too much but Milock had almost caught up to her. She desperately sped up again. Screaming despite being out of breath.

  “I didn’t sign up for this!”

  The fifth time Ryan had lapped them he sped up to dodge a stupidly fast rock. It smashed into the warehouse behind him, shattering into pieces and making a terrible racket.

  “Ah!” Seffara shouted, “Why’d you dodge rookie? That rock’s going to leave a mark!”

  “Screw you!” Ryan yelled back.

  Ryan’s eyes darted around looking for Seffara but she’d disappeared again. Apparently even Ryan couldn’t track her.

  There was movement above and Clara almost choked.

  “Ryan above!”

  Ryan dove to the side as a boulder slammed down from above. Seffara hadn’t just dropped it from high above but had thrown it way past terminal velocity.

  Ryan looked at the boulder in front of him then looked back up.

  “H-hold on! Time out! That would have killed me!”

  Seffara was merciless, she stood with the low sun illuminating her silver armor.

  “What did I say about diving like that? Keep running, rookie!”

  Even Barry stopped to stare at the boulder. He squinted at Seffara, high above on top of her warehouse. Clara and Milock both took the precious break to catch their breaths.

  Clara panted.

  “Shouldn’t you stop her? Wouldn’t that actually kill him?”

  “...she knows what she’s doing.”

  Milock collapsed onto the ground, he looked at the person sized boulder and laughed nervously.

  “Now that’s adventurer training.”

  Barry’s raised an eyebrow at that comment then shook his head.

  “Okay that’s enough you two, get some rest.”

  “Really?”

  Barry nodded at the boulder.

  “I need to get a bigger stick.”

  “What!?”

  “Just kidding, we’re going to need you two to be rested for what’s next.”

  –

  They were drinking the most amazing tasting lemonade while watching Ryan continue to run laps around the warehouse. If Milock was being honest he could have watched this all day. Ryan was dodging rocks with superhuman speed and agility.

  It was like an adventurer livestream that was actually in real life. Though maybe one of those promotional ones than actual training streams.

  “Is this really the best way to train the [Instant Dodge] skill?”

  Milock didn’t want to doubt Seffara and Barry but as far as he knew, you didn’t just grind out skill activation like this.

  The big orc shook his head.

  “That’s not what we’re actually testing. Besides, even [Rogues] need to acclimatize to their realm. Look, he's already getting better.”

  Milock nodded along, now that he looked closer, Ryan did look like he was dodging more smoothly. He looked back at the layout of one of the chambers in the massive warehouse. It was an urban map, a blackout zone with little lighting. A place where you’d play some airsoft and have a blast.

  Barry nodded his head.

  “Have both of you memorized the map?”

  “Uh, no? We’ve barely been looking at it for ten minutes.”

  Milock took another sip of his lemonade. Shaking his head at Clara’s incompetence.

  “I think I got it down. Got the plan in my head too.”

  “Good, we’ll head in first and practice with the gear. Remember don’t go easy on him, this is an important lesson for him to learn.”

  Milock grinned.

  “Oh, don’t worry about that.”

  He couldn’t wait to beat Ryan’s face in.

  –

  Milo heard Clara’s shriek, it echoed in the dark corridor.

  “C! C! You there?” Milo hissed into his walkie talkie.

  “Stop panicking and keep quiet, regroup at section–fuck!”

  Milock heard shots, then silence. He felt his heartbeat speed up.

  “B? B? you there?” Milock whispered.

  Why was everyone being silent? Nobody had said they had to be silent when they got taken out.

  Now it was no longer fun. Milock was using some crazy high tech helmet with night vision but he felt claustrophobia tighten in around him. The walls were closing in.

  The silence was deafening. His walkie turned on.

  “Heeeelllooo Miiilooo~”

  “Very funny Ryan.”

  There was a low chuckle.

  “Wasn’t meant to be, I just wanted to find you quicker. Thanks for leaving your walkie on.”

  Milock groaned. He felt a little better after having talked with Ryan. Milock had one little trick to play and Ryan was treating him like a joke. That was perfect.

  He walked into a random room then dropped the walkie in the middle. Then he squeezed into a closet nearby. It was one where he could see out of the shutters. Airsoft gun in his left and an airsoft grenade in his right.

  His heart started beating.

  It beat over the silence.

  His own heartbeat reminded him of the ‘Dawn of Artigan’ video and all of the planning Ryan did. All of the little arguments with Barry, ones where he had managed to even outargue Seffara into silence.

  Slow footsteps echoed out, something dragged on the ground while Milo started hearing whistling.

  Ryan walked into the room, a grin on his face and…

  Milock’s blood went cold as he froze up. He saw Ryan tut at the walkie on the ground and then dropped Clara’s body a little past the doorway. Then he walked away.

  Milock's eyes were locked in on Clara's face. Her eyes were wide open, staring into space.

  “Clara?” He whispered.

  He fell out of the closet and quietly scrambled at her. She wasn’t breathing, his hands shaking as he grabbed for a pulse.

  A voice whispered in his ears.

  “Boo.”

  –

  Clara and Ryan laughed their heads off as they watched the replay. The tiny cameras pointing inwards in the helmets were supposed to be used to review eye movement.

  In this case? Clara paused the video on Milock’s face.

  “Look you can see right when he peed his pants!”

  The clearly not dead Clara laughed. She was enjoying the peed pants being on someone else this time. Ryan laughed too.

  “Oh man, I’m sorry Milo, I actually can’t believe you thought I’d killed Clara.”

  “Haha, very funny guys.” The newly pantsed Milo answered dryly.

  Ryan was actually starting to feel a little bad. He'd still do it again but Milock looked genuinely embarrassed for once. He wasn’t sure what to say.

  Maybe it had been a step too far.

  A booming laughter overruled Clara’s. Maybe not.

  Seffara was making fun of a brooding Barry. The heroine of Sapphire had no problems laughing at her friend.

  “! Maybe I should start calling you a rookie!”

  Barry crossed his arms and pouted. The expression looked absolutely hilarious on the normally taciturn orc.

  “Not like I could come up with a better plan working with runts. Idiot gave me away.” Barry complained.

  “Hah! From what I saw you would’ve lost anyway.”

  Barry glared at the multiple screens in the control room. His keen eyes scanned the recordings and darted back and forth, following Ryan’s movements. The Ryan in the videos was casually and quickly peeking across corridors. Smoothly sprinting and leaping over walls and windows. He huffed.

  “Seems like the kid’s not half as tired as he should’ve been.”

  Seffara stopped laughing and coughed.

  “Probably got a recovery skill.”

  “You know he doesn’t.”

  Barry turned the accusation of incompetence around on his friend.

  “From where I’m standing, it looks like the second realm rookie put the wool over your ninth realm eyes, Seff.”

  Milock nudged Ryan, desperate to change the topic from him peeing his pants in 4k.

  “What are they talking about?”

  Ryan shrugged, he was pretty happy about outmaneuvering Barry like this. Now it was time to gloat and sound like a genius.

  “Oh, the whole point of the exercise was to get me used to operating while tired. I just pretended to be tired during the running, that’s all.”

  “Doesn’t that kind of defeat the purpose of the exercise?” Clara asked.

  He shrugged, “doesn’t it set a bad example if I ran myself ragged when I knew I was going to go into a life and death situation? I was only doing the smart thing.”

  He started stroking his stubble while pointing his nose up in the air. Like a dastardly [Mage] that had outsmarted and outplayed all the opposition.

  The truth was, he’d actually faked being tired so he could stop running pointless laps. It wasn’t helping him grind out the [Instant Dodge] activation so he hadn’t seen the point.

  An iron grip fell on Ryan’s shoulder. He mechanically turned his head to see Seffara the Sapphire beaming down at him.

  “So,” Seffara declared brightly, “our smartass rookie here thinks he can trick his instructor then brag about it to all his little friends huh?”

  Ryan wondered if peeing his pants in solidarity would help.

  –

  “Ow! Ow! Stop throwing! I really can’t move anymore.”

  “What was that smartass? I can still see your lips moving and your arms blocking!”

  “Uhh, isn’t this a little too far guys?” Clara asked.

  “Nope.”

  Both Milock and Barry responded.

  Both of the men were clearly happy with watching the source of their bruised egos, getting bruised himself. Clara shrugged then winced as Ryan failed to block a rock. She raised some more of that amazing lemonade to her mouth.

  All three of them sipped their drinks, watching Ryan get stoned in the afternoon sun.

  https://www.patreon.com/Purveilor is now 13 chapters ahead!