I looked up from my [Status] changes and surveyed the room. Every other person stared back at me. Most of them wore shocked expressions. Dismay was visible on the features of others. I even saw a confused face, like they didn’t know what to make of what had just happened. No matter how they felt, without exception, all of them stared.

Even Sasha, whose earlier quest for vengeance had driven her to make rash decisions in the heat of battle, looked at me like I’d become dangerous. Her hands shook and her eyes grew wider. She looked afraid.

Is this what being ogled feels like? I wondered. If so, I wouldn’t wish it upon anyone.

I wasn’t sure what the problem was at first. The members of Ephialtes Hall were acting strangely, and the underground space around me had gotten very quiet. We’d just killed a Horror, I thought. Was now not a time for celebrating?

“Is everything okay? You’re all acting rather odd,” I asked. The sound of my voice echoed through the air and off the sewer walls. The still-silent people jumped.

In the end, the answer came from the where my involvement in the hunt had begun. Patton.

“Who are you?” His voice shook as he asked the question. Then, the bearded man bowed toward me.

“My lord, I swear we meant no offense. If this is about the time Cepheus Hall declared themselves to have gained a powerful patron… then we’re sorry to have publicly doubted your existence. We’ll gladly shout word of your existence from every rooftop to make up for that fault.”

A few nearby voices chimed in with their agreement.

“It should’ve been obvious! Look at him!” One voice whispered.

“Ascendent!” hissed another.

“What? You know who I am. I’m Ghul,” I insisted. “I’m a Legionnaire just like you.”

Patton bowed lower. “There is no need to continue the farce with us, my lord. You are clearly a man of some great provenance, and we’ll see that your deeds here are—”

“Hold on,” I said. I mulled over my words. This was bad. How could I convince them I wasn’t anything important?

“I don’t know what you think you know, but you’re wrong- I just came down here to test a new ability on a live target,” I gestured to the room at large. “You all have abilities, don’t you?”

A few of them nodded hesitantly.

“Well, so do I. It’s just that a new one I’ve gained is more powerful than expected. There’s no cause for alarm.” I scrunched my face up as I spoke. “And there’s certainly no reason to shout anything from a rooftop.”

I felt they needed more of a demonstration, so I raised my hand to show them the damage to my knuckle. The rust-red of dried blood coated one side where the wrappings I’d been using had fallen off. Specs of white bone were visible amongst the mutilated flesh. That doesn’t look so great, I thought. I’ll need to get it looked at by a healer.

Getting a good look at the hole in my fist made Sasha snap out of it. Now she looked less afraid and more concerned, which was good for me because I needed all the sympathy I could get. If I needed to get patched up, then I couldn’t do it at the citadel like everyone else.

“See?” I said. “My body can hardly withstand the force I bring to bear. Nothing remarkable is at play here. I truly am a Legionnaire, just like you! Besides, enough about me! We killed a Horror! Each of us!”

More like I killed a Horror, I thought, but I didn’t say that. It seemed counterintuitive to the goal of getting them to start looking at me like I was a person.

"You’ve avenged your fallen bunkmates and come away alive. Celebrate!” I raised my arms up in a congratulatory gesture. “I know I’m proud of us.”

It got quiet again after I spoke. Then the whispers returned.

“Did you see what he did?”

“He’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

“A single punch!”

“Do you see his eyes?”

I wasn’t getting through to them. Either they didn’t want to understand, or they were impossibly dense. I doubted it was the latter. They’d seen me kill the Horror and now the story they’d settled upon would run wild in their mind. ‘Ghul had killed it!’ they’d say. ‘He’s from Fletcher Hall, and he killed a horror by himself!’

Whilst it was true that I’d killed it, the attention it’d brought me was exactly what Delta had warned against. And it had happened on the eve of our leaving for war couldn’t be worse. I’d lose any sense of an ability to control the narrative about what transpired here. I mentally cursed the System for giving me such a flashy ability.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

I couldn’t allow myself to become excited about [The Fist That Parts the Sea]. It was an enormous increase in my combat potential that’d come when it was much needed. Still, I needed to get ahead of any rumors that might circulate about me.

Ephialtes Hall chattered more about me and what they’d witnessed. The noise grated my ears. I could feel my control over the situation slipping away with each word spoken. Once I’d had enough, I sent a [Windslash] into the ceiling of the cistern. It didn’t do much except make a few rocks fall, but displaying another ability did get their attention.

It hurt me to resort to something threatening, but the time for discretion was over. The cat was already out of the bag.

I gritted my teeth. It took everything in my power not to shout at them. The edge I was feeling must’ve bled into my voice, because my words came out as a snarl.

“I said…” I growled out. “That we should celebrate.”

They stopped talking about how I’d killed the Horror after that.

Hours later, I climbed out of the sewer all by myself. I left out of a separate exit than the rest of Ephialtes Hall, as they’d not stopped looking at me with an unsettling mixture of fear and reverence. It scared me. All it’d taken was one fight, and then Patton and Sasha had gone from peers to subordinating themselves to me. Was that the price of power? I wondered. Losing the ability to have friends?

When we split, they’d taken the body of the Horror with them. They were going to turn the corpse in to Legion Command to prove their friends hadn’t deserted, and I wished them well at it. Questions would be raised when they surrendered the body. Uncomfortable questions.

The consequences of my actions were inescapable. I wasn’t sure who’d come looking for a large and powerful Legionnaire, but someone inevitably would. It was one thing to be the best fighter in Fletcher Hall, but another thing entirely to go toe-to-toe with a Horror and come out on top. It wasn’t something I’d expected when I responded to the flier.

Let them come, a voice whispered in the back of my mind. They might try to take me away from Fletcher, but I won’t let them. If they force the issue, I can always break them. Soon I’ll have power enough to protect myself and my friends from all save the Gods. Then, it won’t matter what people do.

My walk home was quick and surprisingly bright. The scenery of Lobsterhead had changed in the hours I’d spent underground, or rather, the way I saw things had changed. Eyeshine, the new trait I’d unlocked after killing the raccoon, made it so that I had constant low-level night vision. Now, if I had some amount of light available to me, things were only poorly lit instead of dark.

For someone who was afraid of the dark, this would be a vast improvement. As I wasn’t afraid of the dark, it was only useful. Very useful.

Additionally, I had a newfound pep in my step that hadn’t been there before. I wasn’t sure if it was because of my newly enhanced might, or just confidence in myself because of the knowledge I could kill a Horror. Either way, I walked through the lower town in the wee hours of the morning like I owned the place.

Whilst still riding that wave of bravado, I strolled into Fletcher Commons. It was late enough- or early enough, depending on how you looked at it- that I didn’t expect anyone else to be awake. That wasn’t the case.

Phoebe sat at our card table with a pile of envelopes, a tall stack of letter-writing paper, and a sizable inkwell. She was scrawling out script with one hand whilst waving ink dry with the other. Whatever she was doing, she had enough supplies that she could’ve spread her words across half of the Empire.

The door slammed shut behind me as I walked in. Phoebe’s eyes shot toward where I stood. She looked startled, and the sight of me nearly made her drop the paper. Ah, I thought, I probably should’ve announced myself. Only dangerous vagrants are out at this hour.

I chuckled to myself at that description. Not too long of a time ago, I’d been a dangerous vagrant myself. So much had changed over the past few months.

Before I could reminisce, Phoebe hissed at me.

“By the skies, Ghul! What’re you doing out so early? The sun’s not even up yet!”

She wrinkled her nose in disgust like she’d caught wind of something unpleasant, but continued interrogating me.

“What’s wrong with your eyes? Why do you smell so bad? And is that blood on your hands?”

“One question at a time, Phoebe.” I replied. “And I should be asking you the same question! No one who’s ever up to anything good is awake at this hour.”

She set down the pen she was using to write and stretched her hand.

“I’m writing letters to home, Ghul. Letters that are to be delivered in the event I die whilst on the field of battle. There are things that I’ve got left to say to the people I love, so it’s a kindness to myself and to them.”

I swallowed hard. I’d just gone ahead and shoved my foot into my mouth.

“.. Oh. Okay, that makes sense,” I said. “I’m sorry to have bothered you. I’ll leave you be now.”

Phoebe let out a long sigh.

“You might as well keep me company for a handful of minutes. It’s exhausting work to dump your emotions onto a page, and I don’t think I’ll be able to start again without a break.”

I sat with her.

“How many letters are you going to write? You’ve got a lot of paper there.”

She counted off individuals on her fingertips. When she reached ten, she reset her hand and counted three more.

“Thirteen, I think,” she said. “The letters are mostly going to my younger siblings. They’re going to be full of sage advice like ‘don’t be afraid to try new things!’ It might not be the most authentic, but at least it’ll give them something to remember me by.”

I thought it was a very dour activity, though I didn’t want to tell her that. It felt like Phoebe was coming to terms with her demise.

“Are you close with your family?” I asked.

“I was before I ended up here, yeah.”

I didn’t know how to respond to that. There wasn’t anything good for me to say. We sat in silence for a moment, saying nothing. Emotion hung in the air like a heavy weight. My knuckles stung.

“Here,” she said, and pushed a pen and paper toward me. “You should write one.”

“I’m not sure who I’d address it to.”

“You’ll find someone.”

I wrote to my father.

I told him to keep the forge hot for when I came home. I told him I loved him. I told him about the friends I’d made at Lobsterhead, and the progress I’d made toward becoming a soldier. Nowhere did I tell him that if he ever received the letter, I’d not be coming home at all.

I hoped no one would ever send it.