“What do you think?” asked Eleanor, crouching over the glistening pile.

  “I think it’s insane you’re even considering this,” R. Jun replied.

  “But can’t you feel it? They’re practically overflowing with soul energy! You’ve seen the kinds of things some of the wealthier squires ate back at the dormitory to improve their soul capacity. Why should this be any different?”

  “And if they jumped off a cliff one day and called it ‘training,’ would you be tripping over yourself to jump in after them?”

  “That depends. Are there any soul fruits at the bottom?”

  “…s-sure? How is that relevant?”

  “How many are we talking?”

  “You’re incorrigible. Worse than that, you’re going to get yourself killed. You do realize that, right? Something that may or may not be a large inconvenience for me, I’ll have you know.”

  “I’m just wondering aloud whether they’d be safe enough to eat. That’s all.”

  “Safe to-! Just use your eyes, girl! They’ve got skulls on them! How much more of a disincentive do you need? Would you like me to write you a sign that says poisonous berry do not eat?”

  “I’ll just try one.”

  “Did you not hear anything I just said-!”

  But before he could stop her, Eleanor had already reached forward and plucked up one of the pale berries. Popping it in her mouth and biting down with a contented hum.

  Jun took several steps away from the idiot girl. They’d had a… decent enough run, he supposed. Filled with its ups and downs, naturally. He might even grow to miss her, he thought to himself wistfully. In the way you might a simpleminded, though ultimately well-meaning family pet.

  Abruptly, green puffs of smoke escaped her flared nostrils in a rush, like the acrid snort of a fire breathing dragon. Little wisps of that same smoke trailing up from the corners of her lips, as, apparently, some kind of miniature explosion went off in her mouth.

  The girl's eyes widened.

  Jun took several more steps back. Then she did something completely unexpected. She reached forward for seconds.

  “You really have to try these,” she said, munching on another of the little death berries. “They’re… weird. Minty. Well, almost.”

  “Almost? What do you mean ‘almost?’ And-! Hey! Stop that!”

  Jun leapt forward and slapped a third berry from her hand.

  “Huh? What was that for?”

  “Saving your miserable life, that’s what! You have no idea what eating those might do to you!”

  “I feel fine!”

  “That right?”

  “Well, maybe a little… tingly.”

  “Tingly…” R. Jun rubbed at his temples. “This must be how a mother duck feels.”

  “You sure you don’t want to try at least one?” the girl asked, even as she riffled through the remains of the Lich’s throne for more of the infernal things.

  “No, I don’t want to-!” Jun paused as a notification eclipsed his vision.

  *Ding!*

  Congratulations!

  You have formed a Single Aspected Mantra.

  Mantra: [Please Don’t Use; Read Description] (1st Aspected)

  Grade: (Trash Quality)

  Note: Due to the advent of your Ascendant Level Boon, this Mantra’s default grade has been raised.

  [Please Don’t Use; Read Description] (Poor Quality) +2 resonance.

  Confused, Jun did as the strangely titled Mantra suggested.

  Mantra: [Please Don’t Use; Read Description] (Poor Quality)

  Description: Yeah, just in case it wasn’t already obvious, don’t use this mantra. You’ll explode. It was a shitty test case, and I don’t really feel like getting into all the nitty gritty details right now.

  Anyway, down to the actual reason for my contacting you. Ahem. Would you please just eat the damned fruit already!? I’m not kidding! Do it, or no more world-shattering abilities for you. You here that? I’m cutting you off. And that’d be a real shame since I’ve got an arsenal of grade A mantras lined up in here, just waiting to be assimilated. Oh, and before you try any underhanded nonsense, just know that I’m basically dead either way. If you don’t eat that fruit, and any others like it you find, you can count me out the next time your rear needs pulling from the fire. Just because I have a vested interest in keeping us alive, doesn’t mean I won’t pull the plug if you refuse to cooperate.

  Sincerely,

  Yours truly,

  Stop reading this and eat the damned fruit already. Please.

  After he’d finished reading, R. Jun stared blankly at the description for several long seconds. Before, with a surprising degree of humility, he silently reached forward, and popped one of the berries into his mouth. As it so happened, Eleanor had been right. It was… almost minty.

  Once they’d had their fill, Eleanor gathered up the rest of the berries into a handy cloth sack, which she then secured to her waist with a loop of cord. She was glad it hadn’t just been her that benefited from the soul fruits.

  And though Jun had been a bit reticent at first, she was confident that the invigorating influx of soul energy would do him some good, just as it had done her. Already she could feel her wounds beginning to reknit, her inner flame expand, and, in turn, her body’s potential for explosive power increase.

  Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

  Still, the healing process was rather slow, and, in the meantime, Eleanor felt every injury she’d taken in the reclamation of the bastion keenly—like every muscle in her body had been torn in multiple places. And yet, despite all that, she just couldn’t seem to keep the smile off her face. At first, she couldn’t pinpoint why that was, exactly.

  Perhaps it was merely the fact that, after some amount of uncertainty regarding the prospect, she was actually alive. But, no… she didn’t think that was why. Sure, that was definitely part of it, but she didn’t feel like it was the whole truth. Perhaps it was merely that she and her familiar had done something most of the people in her life would’ve scoffed at as impossible.

  Perhaps it was the sudden leap in her personal power that had her all giddy inside.

  The final moments of the fight once more flashed through her mind. Every swing of her blade commanding thousands of petals, which soon multiplied into tens of thousands, which then quickly became millions.

  A glittering symphony of ruby red ruination.

  And then there was her, dancing at the very heart of the storm. The eye of the tempest, orchestrating death upon the undead on an impossible scale. A speck of dust within a school of minnows. Feeling like every single swing of her blade could fell thousands of rift spawn.

  As it was, near the end there, it was enough to shred the Malleable Undead Brutes into pieces, so small, that even their undying vitality was unable to reconstitute. And then the dance came to its inevitable conclusion, and her dancing petals along with it.

  In the end, whatever it was that had her overjoyed, she could say without a shadow of a doubt, that she was no longer the same person that’d entered this tower. And she honestly doubted if she’d ever be again.

  When the girl and her familiar exited the tower, the rubble of the ruined entry hall having been cleared by some unknown mechanism of the tower itself—which was even now rebuilding what’d been lost through arcane means—every one of Fen’s elite squad could immediately feel the difference. A heavy aura of death enveloped the two.

  Though, unlike the sinister pall that draped most undead, if felt more like they were the arbiters of life and death. As if to live whilst in their presence was a privilege. One that they could just as easily revoke as grant. The squad shuddered under their combined gaze. Far sharper than it had been when they’d entered the tower, only two days prior. Instinctually they recoiled at the spiritual pressure they exuded.

  Oppressive and heavy.

  Even Boulder, the two-ton, C grade, Stone Salamander that he was, appeared shaken—huddling behind Fen as if it could hide itself in her shadow. The girl came within speaking distance. Even looking down at her from where she stood atop the earthen plateau, Fen couldn’t kid herself into feeling superior.

  “Lance Corporal?”

  “Y-yes ma’am?”

  Eleanor raised an eyebrow, but that was the only indication she gave that Fen’s words had in any way surprised her.

  “Send someone ahead to inform Evelin’s Glory. They should be aware that a Monarch Class threat has been eliminated, and that one of humanity’s fallen bastions has been recovered.”

  Audible gasps from all around. Of course, they had known that something had to have changed about the tower, but this news of an S Grade Rift Spawn?! A monarch of all things! And this girl… she had not only survived such an encounter, but had killed it? Fen had to fight hard not to take an instinctual step back.

  “Oh! Also, inform them that my familiar here should no longer be classified merely as Greater C Grade. Defeating an S Grade Undying Lich in single combat should at least earn him a place in the A Grade, don’t you think? Otherwise this whole system of ours wouldn’t really make much sense.”

  Fen wasn’t even surprised at this point. She pointedly did not glance in the familiar's direction.

  “That can- no, that will be arranged. Anything else ma’am, Corporal ma’am?”

  “Hmm?” the corporal paused, thinking on it for a second. “Well, there is one thing.”

  “Anything ma’am! Just say the word!”

  “If you have any food to spare, that would be greatly appreciated. It sounds strange, but, even after staring at nothing but dead things all day, I’m ravenous.”

  When the unprecedented news arrived at the heart of the queendom, it swept through the common people like a wildfire.

  Initially met with a healthy dose of skepticism, the revelation that such an unbelievable feat, practically unheard of by all the Queendom’s inhabitants—the reclamation of the Azure Queen’s ninth legendary bastion itself—had apparently been accomplished by a lone knight? And by one not a day past the age of puberty no less?!

  It would be an understatement to say it only stoked the people’s growing disillusionment.

  Naturally, rumors greatly abounded. Most dismissing these outrageous claims out of hand. Deciding, with decisive nods and even harsher language, that they were exactly what they sounded like. Stories. Children’s make believe. It was the only thing that made good, honest sense. They weren’t idiots to believe every single tall tale laid in front of them, after all.

  While still others sought out a more definitive explanation. Calling it military propaganda. More recruitment efforts pushed on them by the crown. To help pad their dwindling ranks with more expendable bodies.

  Fodder to help fight their never-ending war.

  As more and more information was leaked, however—verifiable records as to who this girl was, and where she’d come from—the whispers of the rumor mill began to take on a whole different cast. Her story to actually strike a chord with the people. And while it couldn’t be said that any truly believed it, per say, it was now the case that many of them wanted to.

  Wanted to believe that an orphaned girl had, not only entered, but soon accelerated her way out the Knightly Academy’s grand halls. Was shipped off to the frontier the very day of her graduation, where she then rapidly rose to the rank of Corporal.

  And then, not yet satisfied with all she’d achieved, took it upon herself to set out into the greater frontier. Hell bent on righting a generational wrong and reclaiming one of the fabled symbols of their once vaunted heritage.

  The final nail in the coffin, the personal endorsement of an esteemed Knightly Commander of the realm, turning an otherwise impractical fairy tale, into a veritable sensation that soon swept through the nation.

  The uncovered details of her wretchedly unjust upbringing serving to pluck at the heartstrings of millions. Bringing many a common born citizen to tears, even as they celebrated her meteoric rise to prominence.

  An apparent prominence that had somehow landed Eleanor here, sipping tea with the eldest princess of the realm.

  Sitting across from one another, they reclined on opulent blue sofas embroidered in gold. Although, on second thought, it was probably more gold per thread count than it was blue, overall. Golden sofas splashed with blue, which were themselves arranged, no doubt very tastefully, on a grand inner balcony overlooking the festivities happening in the ballroom below.

  Eleanor, for her part, was too occupied with not making an absolute fool out of herself to notice much of what was happening down there. Doing everything in her power to hold onto what little she remembered of Mary’s lessons, while all around her, myriad servants in fine blue livery produced small sandwiches, cakes, and every manner of bite sized food Eleanor could’ve imagined.

  As well as a choice few she could not.

  Waitstaff often alternating between dishes so fast, that Eleanor barely had a chance to take a polite nibble out of the first, before another was being gracefully shoved into her face. It was all very exhausting, and the entire time she felt like she was just one wrong step away from disaster. R. Jun on the other hand, much to her irritation and his smug satisfaction, appeared to be doing just fine.

  “A competition, you say? Well, this is the first time I’m hearing of it. It does sound terribly interesting, though. I must ask, have there been any novel entries thus far?”

  “Oh, I wish! Truly I do! The odd curiosity here and there, I suppose, but never anything I felt truly drawn towards. Nothing like what you and your Jun have, Lady Corporal.”

  “Like iron to a loadstone, your highness,” R. Jun replied, leaning over and giving Eleanor’s shoulders a squeeze.

  The mocking glint in his eyes completely escaping the princess's notice. He was enjoying this entirely too much.

  “Oh, if only I’d been presented with someone like your familiar, Lady Corporal. How different things might have been. Sir familiar, are you certain there have been no others of your kind to grace this realm?”

  “Alas, your highness…” Jun gave a dramatic sigh. “I myself wish it were otherwise. I’ve spent many a sleepless night worrying after the fate of my loved ones, searched high and low for even the smallest signs, but it would seem that I am still only one of a kind.”

  “A shame,” the princess sighed.

  “An awful shame, your highness,” Eleanor managed, deftly masking her sarcasm.

  “If only we had an army of civilized rift spawn like yourself, sir familiar. I’m sure this silly war of ours would’ve been finished with long ago.”

  “On that, your highness, I think we can all agree,” Jun said.

  The princess's eyes brightened as yet another tray was laid out before them.

  “But enough of those dreary weather topics! You must try these artisanal lemon squares my Head Chef devised the other day. They are simply to die for, I tell you. Positively divine.”