Arabella had herself in a tornado of glass shards and cuts across her face and hands as she seemed to be trying to control it. She looked at Red with wild eyes, shaking as she tried to keep the swirling mass from ripping her apart.

  “I can explain…” She spoke with shame and hesitancy as she looked at Red, having not expected the core would intrude on her when she was trying to have a private moment. To anyone else, it appeared that she had been practicing her magic and trying to find a way to turn her Glassnado into some sort of defensive barrier. She wasn’t sure if she had the guts to admit to what she truly had been trying to do.

  “I would hope so, Arabella! I mean, look at your hands, they’re all sliced up to ribbons.” Red said with a frown as he looked at her before touching her hands and pouring some mana into her. He blinked a bit as the thought came to do that, looking at her hands as the wounds sealed up and disappeared. If he flowed his mana into the denizens of his dungeon, then he would be able to restore their wounds and cure their ailments. He pulled his hands back once he was done and looked at his palms, flexing his hands slightly at the new instinct that had come with his expanded abilities.

  “Go on, don’t mind me,” Red muttered as he shook his hands as if they were wet before focusing back on his Mage Captain.

  “Right-I was just trying to-to-to get better with my magic! Yeah, that’s what I was doing.” She said with an unconvincing smile as she gestured for all of the glass dust to move and shape into a singular large clear vase at the end of her bed. The fact that she could turn individual shards back into a single piece was a very useful skill in and of itself. Red wondered what she could do with a room full of glass weaponry, or perhaps just a room of random glass items. If he ever designed her room then he would certainly have a lot to play with. Red recovered from that thought, wishing that of all things his attention problems would have been left behind in his first life. He looked over Arabella, the stance that she was holding, the shifty gaze, the nervous flop-sweat that seemed to dominate her face. He could leave her to her troubles, try and to focus more on the goal of helping the entirety of the army. The only thing that stopped him in his tracks was the weight of his inventory, and the slot taken up by the last person he didn’t consider the feelings of.

  “C’mon, Bella. Tell me what’s wrong. I don’t think you’re the type that would cause herself harm on purpose, and you have all kinds of combat magic from your titles.” Red said as he meandered over to the bed, sitting down and putting a hand on his leg before meeting her gaze. This felt like the right position to talk to a young someone when they were trying to hide something.

  Arabella stood there by her desk, fidgeting slightly with the stars on her cape to make sure that they looked appropriately straight and shining. Once the stars and her fascination therein were done, she looked over at the war table that had a map of the entire garden. She idly put the tip of her finger on a small blue pawn that represented one of the blue platoons. She was trying to just bide time, not meeting his gaze as he continued to keep position and track her along the room.

  “I got all day, hell I don’t even need to sleep.” He commented as he waited for her to bend, knowing that she would have to say something eventually. This wouldn’t work on Glut, he was confident that someone who was a better or more confident liar would be far less likely to bend like this. He was also glad that he didn’t have bones because sitting down on a bed made for someone who was less than four feet tall would have been agony on his knees.

  This went on for a full fifteen minutes, every object perfectly in its place by the time Arabella ran out of things to tamper with for the sake of evading his eye. She had even tried to adjust the blanket on the bed, though with Red sitting on it, it made the task quite impossible.

  “F-fine! I wanted to make a pretty spell! Something which isn’t an attack that would impress someone!” She said with her pale face blazing pink as the embarrassment overcame her from admitting to what the reason for her lacerations was. It was close to what Red had assumed, but at the same time, it was a little confusing. Of all the things that he would have assumed this to be, Arabella struggling with magic was not going to be his first answer. It was hardly going to be his twentieth if he thought about it for a moment.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “But, you’re the Mage Captain. Shouldn’t you be able to just,” Red flexed his fingers out like a certain evil emperor from a science fiction film, “and get it done?” He questioned with a perplexed look, truly trying to wrap his mind around how his best magic user, barring Lotus, could have any kind of impairment.

  “I’m the Mage Captain and that means I have proficiency in learning magical attack spells and defensive spells. I… don’t have any non-aggressive cantrips to speak of.” She said with a frown, looking away in shame as she admitted that. Yet another lesson in why Red’s haphazard use of Titles early on had been reckless.

  If he thought about it, none of his attempts at being a dungeon did he discover titles. Hell, he hadn’t even figured out about names from how basic his intelligence had been at the time. They were difficult things to earn if what he had seen of the naturally formed ones meant anything. The quest that Phoebe received was a daunting one, and both of the times that one of his friends had gotten a title advancement was through extreme effort and stress. They had been pushed to their limits and managed to overcome them through passion or sheer will.

  “Arabella… do you like being Captain?” Red asked the question seeming random without his line of thought. She froze and looked at him confused, about to say something as she opened her mouth before closing it again. The diminutive elf seemed to think about it for a moment as she considered the question far more than she should need to.

  “I-well that is to say- who I used to be didn’t want to be a Captain.” She muttered as she tried to figure out her feelings on the matter. Red had given her the title in a moment of desperation at trying to rally his dungeon against the zombies. Rather than her wanting to take up the role of leadership, or that she had the natural talent to become a leader. “It also doesn’t help that being a Mage Captain doesn’t help as much when you don’t have any magical soldiers.” She commented another glaring fact about haphazard titles meant that evolutions might not mesh.

  “Well, I doubt this is going to be the last time that I have to offer this to someone, but; do you want to stop being a Captain?” He asked genuinely, knowing that technically it would be a downgrade since her Title was a second level and not the same as changing to something lower.

  She looked at Red with terror, genuine fear and worry in her eyes at the thought of being lesser than she was now. The Titles imbued people with information, giving them false memories and knowledge for the sake of performing appropriately.

  “What would happen to me?” Timidly, wondering what would become of her if those experiences gifted to her by Red were suddenly removed.

  ”I am… not sure. Ras, what would happen if I were to remove her Captain Title? But leave Mage.” Red asked, getting a confused look from Arabella before the box appeared. He supposed he would need to explain to his leadership about the change in his menus.

  [Removing the title would also require removing the Mage title, thus returning [Minion] Arabella back to her original state. There is an alternative option, and that is giving her a [Class Change] quest.]

  “Your menus have started speaking directly to you?” Arabella asked with confusion as she tried to wrap her head around what it was that she was seeing. It was an odd sight for certain, since the menus had always been around and made no moves of talking to anyone.

  “Yeah. It’s a new dungeon feature I unlocked.” He said simply as he mulled over the idea of giving her a class change quest. “Ras, can someone abandon a quest? Does that have negative repercussions?” He asked, wanting to clear everything before he did it.

  [Yes, there is no penalty for abandoning a quest. There is a penalty for attempting to accept the same quest as one previously abandoned. This requires additional difficulty to the objective.]

  “Alright, that settles it then! We can go ahead and give her a class-change quest, and see about her becoming something more than just a soldier.” Red said confidently before Arabella raised her hand like a child wanting to be called on in class.

  “We will have to find a replacement to lead the soldiers if I am going to be replaced. If another Raid happens or a large group of adventurers then they will need guidance.” Arabella said with certainty, clearly not about to leave without making sure her siblings were taken care of. She might have changed from a simple soldier to the person she was now, but the other soldiers were still her kin.

  “Yeah, that’s a good point.” Red concurred as he scratched his chin, thinking about who would be a good fit for the role. He hesitated to make it obvious that he did not know the troops that well. He would offer to meet with each of them directly, but even he knew that was just a stall for what he was trying to avoid. The second floor and his unintentional creation needed to be addressed soon.

  “Do you have any recommendations? The military is a bit big and I trust your judgement.” Red asked, trying to play off being a leader to her so that she wouldn’t suspect his negligence. He didn’t want two of his leadership upset with him.

  “Well… I would have to say that the three who have been showing the most potential are Sun, Sue, or Akane.”