40

Nevermind, Vander thought. Instead of doing that, he splurged on pre-made lightning-related items. Two rings, boots, a new belt, a halo that floated around his head freely, a gauntlet with a nifty Core-looking hole in the back with a neat gem-thing in the center of the palm, and last but not least, a new set of armor that showed off his dope abs.

Working out for your entire life left you totally shredded, and he was lowkey feeling himself. Now the rest of the world had to as well. With that, he finished the class assessment—FINALLY!

*

“About time,” Vander muttered, stretching his arms over his head. One went up, the other brushed against two mounds of something soft and most definitely not earthy. Fleshy. Soft. Mounds. “M-Mads?” he muttered, then his vision cleared and the culprit was revealed. “Vanessa? Get off,” he deadpanned.

She hopped up, eyes wide, and wiped tears from her face, looking at him bewildered beyond belief. “You… aren’t dead? That… isn’t possible. It’s been months! E-everyone thought you were gone for good…”

The surroundings processed, and Vander wondered what was going on. They were in the back of a moving cart, jostling on the graveled path. Grasslands surrounded them.

“Where are we, and why are you crying?” he asked, patting himself down and realizing he was naked as a baby and dirty as dirty could be. “And what the hell is going on? You said everyone thinks I’m dead? If that’s true, why are you here? And why the fuck am I naked?”

He jumped to his feet and slammed his chest, his new equipment coalescing over his shoulders. The halo fitted in the space above his head, not quite touching but there. His fingers gripped around Shapeless’ uncertain hilt that felt just right in his hand as a stormcloud began to form overhead.

“Answer. Me,” he commanded, though the timing of the cart driver’s sudden stop couldn’t be worse. He nearly went head first over the side of the cart when it lurched to a stop. Now that the atmosphere was ruined, he looked down at the adventurer girl. “Whenever you get around to it, would you mind filling me in on what’s been going on around here?” He waved his hands towards the grasslands. “Things look to have kept moving in this timeline, so it’d be cool if I got up to date with the current events, you know?”

“It’s not possible…” she muttered, still dumbfounded by the fact he’d risen at all, let alone the fact he’d asked her interrogation-levels of questions. The fact she didn’t respond to any of them was starting to grate on his nerves though.

A voice, one he’d only heard once or twice, called to him from the front of the cart. Anna was her name? “We had you checked out by a spiritualist from Avalia, but there was no luck waking you. Sometimes, they can pull those who have been lost to the assessment back from its depths, but in your case, it wasn’t possible. We’re on our way back to rendezvous with Domivick, my brother, and the Tamaranth boy.”

“Thanks for the information,” he said, giving her a respectful nod. He looked towards Vanessa who now smiled through her tear-ridden face. “Why do you look like such a mess? Miss me?” he asked, grinning devilishly. “I’m sure you did.”

Anna hopped up and over the edge of the cart into the back with them and rested a hand on his shoulder. Her eyes teared up, then she was all hard ass and brimstone again. Steely will replaced any hint, trace, hide or hair of her moment of emotional debut.

“It’s good to be back. I’m glad to see you, too,” he said, pulling her into a hug. He wasn’t all that familiar with her that her presence would warrant a hug, but he’d been getting cabin fever inside the class assessment. Just being back made him want to hug her, Vanessa, and everyone he saw. “I was going crazy in there, I swear.”

“There’s never been a case of someone being gone for so long,” Anna informed him, gesturing towards Vanessa. “She thought you’d never wake. Was at your side through it all, never wavering and taking care of you. She even paid for your treatment with the spiritualist, even though nothing came of it.”

Vander regarded Vanessa oddly, a strange stir in his stomach. Before, he’d have dismissed her, but the raw emotion on the girl’s face called to a bit of his own. He couldn’t give her what she needed, but that didn’t mean he needed to be a dick. “Thanks for taking care of me,” he said, offering his hand to her. “I appreciate it. I wasn’t sure what to expect going into things, otherwise I’d have prepped a bit better.”

She nodded, opening her mouth to say something, anything, maybe even everything. In the end, her eyes said it all. Her mouth closed, not a trace of sound making it past them, but her smile screamed her truth to the world.

She’s gotten awfully attached since I’ve been gone—or maybe she was like that before? But why is she like this? Not sure I’ve done anything to warrant such admiration or whatever the hell it is she’s feeling.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

Again, he looked at her. The extremity of her actions, well—there had to be a reason. And he knew just the person to ask. “Ey, what’s her deal,” he asked Anna, thumbing in Vanessa’s direction. “She okay, or should we find her a spiritualist to heal whatever’s broken in her head?”

Anna regarded the younger woman coldly, scorn and something aggressive flashing through her eyes. If Vanessa were like a pretty flower, Anna, in that moment, seemed like an angry hornet raging on a mean streak.

Reminder to self from past-self, don’t piss off Anna. The bits and pieces of what had happened before in their oh-so painfully brief time together—It really does feel like an entire lifetime ago. That class assessment really dragged on, but I have a lot to show for it… But, now that I think about it, what was I supposed to do when I got back?

Seeing the way Anna looked at Vanessa, he figured there was some inter-party drama he’d missed out on. For a moment, he was split whether to ask for them to spill the tea or whether he should figure out where the hell they were going or when they’d get back.

But Anna seemed to read his mind, right on time too. “Let’s get going.”

She hopped down from the cart, and Vander followed. At some point, Vanessa realized they’d left, and she scrambled off the back of the cart to follow after them. Vander ignored her after that, paying attention to the brutish warrior woman of some indiscernible faith—was it the Exalted god? Ex… something. Not a big deal either way.

They made haste across the grasslands. Vander thought about all the tribes of demihumans that they could run into out here, but seeing as they were traveling back from Avalia, he knew better than to be too worried about any interference on their journey. That was more of an Enari problem. They were too damn cheap and petty to pay for proper security along their routes. Avalia, however, was the imperial colonial city, so it got the best of the best that money could afford.

Meaning, they wouldn’t be bothered. Vander both appreciated that and hated every second of it. He was restless and wanted to flex his new thingamajigs. He had no reference for how powerful any of his combined abilities might be. The only thing he knew was that he’d broken more of the system than he’d initially thought.

He couldn’t see anything about either of their information. Before, they’d both outclassed him in the information boxes, but now, he wasn’t sure who’d win if he were to fight them both. He felt strong, but that didn’t mean he actually was. And without testing, he’d remain a danger to himself and everyone around him.

But if he took the concept of “augment and upgrade”, he’d net positive. How’d those positives manifest, he couldn’t tell quite yet, but he was quite excited to figure it out in the near and dear future when they got back to camp, packed everything up, and made their way deeper into The Snarl.

Something called him from deep within the depths of the forest, even now after he’d just gotten back, and that reminded Vander of the request from the mystery god. He tried to figure out where that went in his whole magical scheme of things, but without trying too hard, he found the log of his quests. Accompanying the strange god’s quest was the one from Adrian where he needed to find the whereabouts of the Braxton family and its benefactor.

Oddly enough, he could feel a strange same-ish energy from both of them, like they were somehow connected. Again, he had no idea how he knew, but the intuitive feelings existed, almost like his gut feel had been empowered and embodied in some way, shape, or form by the less-than-visible current system thingamajig he used.

Only time will tell, I suppose. Onward and upward, and one thing at a time. There was still the stuff from Emir’s daughter about how things were connected and whatever. The deities had something to do with the storm bird, which had something to do with the Braxton family, and that had something to do with Gaia and some strange calamity, which looped back around in a full circle to him—and he just so happened to connect it all?

After calming down and thinking things through, he didn’t buy it. Another realization came with that, which was he did not like Emir’s daughter. He didn’t want to talk to her, about her, think of her existence, and definitely not go and relay any damned message to Emir! If he ever went back to that archmage after meeting his daughter, he’d smack the man a time or ten! He needed to teach her better manners as a kid, even if she went and got kidnapped by the damned Devil Lord!

Deep breaths, release. Deeeeeeeeeep breaths, release. It’s not a big deal. For the entirety of his time in Gaia, he realized he’d just been getting pulled in every which way by all the puppet masters, and he really fucking hated that feeling. He wouldn’t let that happen to him anymore than it already had, even if he had to burn down every bridge there was and build his own. Much better, as things should be.

They walked, walked, walked. Silence kept him company, but given the fact he’d just come from the maybe-real-but-maybe-not of his class assessment, he wanted a bit more interaction. Looking at Anna and Vanessa, he decided… neither of them would do.

“Come, Zara!” he shouted, startling his travel companies. Anna had drawn a warhammer from only the gods knew where, and Vanessa looked like a startled rabbit, ready to run but also too afraid to move. He scratched his head as he looked around for the ghost tiger, blinking twice when something damp and sticky surrounded him. “You have stank breath, Zara. We need to fix that.”

He removed himself from the large tiger’s mouth and petted her nose, being sure to be very gentle with the current of powerful lightning buzzing powerfully throughout his body. What would’ve taken all of his mana from before flowed through his pointer, into her nose, and completely paralyzed her in one boop.

“No eating your master, understand?” He rubbed her nose, actually friendly this time, and looked at his two travel companions who stared at him in complete, dumfound awe. “You two both look like you’ve seen a ghost.”