The grove fell into silence.

Elincia stepped back with a bewildered expression, the shotgun still smoking in her hands. She must have used one of the shells crafted by Ginz. The Assassin's body lay at my feet. The slug tore through his chest. I gave a quick look at my surroundings. The Flame Mage lay a few meters away, half-hidden behind a tree.

“Are you alright, Eli?” I asked, snapping out and stumbling toward her. My legs were jelly, and my mouth tasted like blood despite not being punched in the face. Not that I remembered, at least. The last seconds of the fight were chaotic.

“I’m okay,” Elincia muttered, massaging her shoulder. “I didn’t expect the shotgun to be so effective. That’s all.”

Although Flame Mages and Assassins weren’t highly defensive classes, the Assassin was Lv.31, and the Flame Mage’s level was probably even higher. They were leagues faster, sturdier, and stronger than normal humans, but not enough to endure a high-speed metal slug.

The shotgun had to be kept hidden from the public's eyes. No noble, merchant or crime lord would look past a weapon that could nullify the boons of the System. And those were the kind of people I wanted to keep away from the orphanage.

I looked around. The fight was over. A tree had caught fire, and half of the gravestones had been destroyed or damaged, but the four of us were alive—not in perfect condition, but we had survived. The adrenaline rush passed, and the pain assaulted my burned skin. I suddenly understood why potion toxicity was such a big deal among Alchemists. A potion at the right moment was a free cheat death card, but high toxicity nullified that option.

I was about to ask Elincia for some poultice or herbal balm when Astrid emerged from behind a tree and approached us in a rush. She bumped into me but grabbed my jacket to prevent me from falling. Ignoring Elincia, she grabbed my wounded arm and placed her hand a few centimeters over it. Out of nowhere, a green light washed over my burned skin, driving the pain away.

I thanked the System for giving her a set of skills; otherwise, we would have been dead. Elincia looked at us with a mixture of relief and disgust, which only deepened when Risha emerged from the grove.

“Aren’t you ashamed your girl had to save your ass?” Risha approached with a smile from ear to ear and wrapped my neck with his overgrown biceps.

“Get lost, Risha. Your massive body is obstructing my work,” Astrid growled before I could answer.

“That’s no way of talking to your older brother after almost a decade away,” Risha said, extending his arm to encompass both of us.

The green healing light flickered.

“Brother? The last time I saw my reflection in the mirror, I wasn’t an overgrown olive like you,” Astrid replied, annoyed. “Now let go of Rob before I claw your face off. You are interfering with my Quest.”

I slipped away from Risha’s grasp and got away from Astrid’s healing magic. My arm wasn’t completely healed, but it looked a lot less disgusting. Risha had a knife buried in his shoulder blade not a minute ago, and Astrid’s face was still covered in blood. I wasn’t the one who needed medical attention the most.

I was about to complain about Astrid’s triage, but before I could say anything, a prompt surprised me.

Enemies slain!

Level up!

New skill acquired: [Runeweaver’s Encyclopedia]

Level up!

Level up!

New Skill acquired: [Rune Debugger]

My new skills would have to wait.

The implication of gaining experience by killing other humans was disturbing, even more so considering the amount of experience distributed. The Matriarch Boar had given me a single level, and the experience had only been spread between three. We were four now, and I had gained thrice as many levels. I looked around. Everyone seemed to have received a prompt similar to mine.

A second later, Astrid and Risha were howling to the moon. I had to admit I was tempted to join. The pain of the burns was replaced with a blissful sensation as the levels piled up. The System knew perfectly well how to promote leveling up. With time, I had come to accept the fact that the System could modify my brain, but a part of me still felt a bit of panic about it.

“Come on, Rob, Eli. Join us!” Risha said.

“You better explain why you showed up before I did,” Elincia cut him before he could utter another howl.

I had the same question. Risha’s appearance had been a bit too convenient.

“I’m renting across the street. There is no way I wouldn’t be watching the orphanage with the Odrac-Aias goons running around like the rats they are,” Risha replied. “I didn’t want to intrude, but I didn’t want to leave the orphanage unsupervised.”

“I don’t believe you,” Elincia cut him off again. Despite the levels we had gained, she wasn’t as excited as the others.

“Come on, Eli. Cut me some slack,” Risha sighed. Suddenly, he seemed to shrink. “I’m sorry for the difficulties you lived. I’m really sorry. I’m sorry about the money not reaching you, but you are not the only one struggling. I have been sitting at the tip of the spear of the royal army for most of the last eight years, fighting horrors you can’t even imagine! Mister Lowell taught us the world isn’t a nice place. He told us it will never be easy, but you are making things harder for yourself. You are just being obstinate for the sake of it.”

Elincia recoiled, surprised. She opened her mouth but was at a loss for words. I agreed with Risha. Even if hatred had pushed Elincia through all these years, she had to let go. Now that she had the whole picture, she had to give them a chance or cut the ties forever.

“It’s over, Elincia. Look around you. You are not alone anymore,” Risha said.

“No thanks to you, you infected pustule,” Elincia said.

“Better a pustule than a knife-ears,” Risha replied.

Despite Elincia’s harsh words, she had a smug grin on her lips. Risha smiled back.

“Welcome home, idiots. I hope you two have money. We don’t like freeloaders in this place,” she said.

Her sudden change of heart surprised me. Elincia’s mood was volatile under stress, but I didn’t expect her to suddenly open her arms to Risha and Astrid. Not that I wasn’t happy with her resolution, but I gave her a half-quizzical, half-worried look nonetheless.

“What? I only forgive them because they are helping around for a change and because you seem fond of those two,” Elincia said, playfully bumping me with her hip. “...and because I gained a couple of juicy levels.”

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I sighed. This was the weirdest school reunion I had attended in a while. The corpses and the burning tree didn’t make the scene more welcoming, but at least Elincia was open to starting a new chapter in her life. Elincia was right. I was getting fond of Risha and Astrid.

The manor's backdoor slammed open, and Ginz emerged from the shadows. He was dressed in his silk yellow sleeping robe and fluffy slippers, hoisting a light stone in his left hand and a strange, cylindrical bronze object in his right hand. He stumbled across the backyard until the stone's light reached us and let out a small scream. Then I remembered Ginz couldn’t see in the darkness like Elincia and me. When he came closer, I could notice a certain glint of insanity in his eyes.

“Where are the bad guys?!” He yelled, raising the bronze cylinder.

“Is that Ginz?” Astrid asked

“No way, Ginz would’ve cowered inside the manor,” Risha replied.

“Hide? I have nothing to fear. I have dominated the power of explosions, and nothing will stand in my way!” Ginz replied, offended.

Then, my brain made sense of the object he had in his hand.

“Is that a makeshift explosive?” I interrupted Ginz before he could continue his tirade about crafting classes' superiority. The object in his hand looked very much like a pipe bomb.

He turned to face me, and his eyes gleamed with madness.

“Makeshift? Please! This explosive was crafted with the finest materials available,” Ginz retorted.

A small detachment of Guardsmen entered the backyard, interrupting the reunion. They had taken longer than I expected. For the next hour, their Healers took care of us while two Mages used water from the well to extinguish the burning tree. Explaining the six bodies wasn’t as easy as I expected.

To make things worse, a squad of royal soldiers appeared a few minutes later. Luckily, the sergeant was friends with Risha, so the situation went much smoother. We had to answer many questions, but the invaders' matching uniforms were enough for the Guardsmen to believe our story. In the end, they seemed to accept the theory of a bunch of criminals wanting to raid the reserves of a high-level Alchemist.

Almost an hour after the first Guardsmen appeared, Captain Kiln and Sir Janus arrived at the scene. At that point in the night, I had no energy left to entertain the new guests, so I quietly asked Captain Kiln to discreetly deal with the corpses. I didn’t want people investigating gunshot wounds. After promising her a new game, the five of us returned to the kitchen.

Ginz's makeshift explosive was left in a trunk inside the old shed, sealed with a padlock. I considered disarming it, but Elincia was curious about the device. I didn't have the energy to argue.

Risha noisily rummaged through the kitchen drawers until he had a kettle whistling on the stove. For some reason, he didn’t seem tired after the fight. Not even the bandages around his shoulder and back seemed to hinder him. In comparison, I felt like I had put my arm inside a yellowjacket nest, only to be trampled by a herd of bison immediately afterward.

Elincia sat by my side and happily rested her chin on my shoulder. None of the group seemed to be particularly affected by the fact we had killed six people. I looked inside me. I expected to feel more disgusted, but I only found a wave of relief and the leftovers of the pleasant sensation of leveling up.

I reminded myself that, despite the levels, this wasn’t a game. This was the real world. It didn't work, and I only felt more relieved. The orphanage was safe, and that was all that mattered. Sure, deep inside, I wished for things to be different, but the outcome wasn’t within my control. The invaders decided to attack the orphanage. They started the hostilities, not me. I just responded to an external threat.

Not feeling bad made me feel bad about myself, but I decided to deal with those feelings later.

“I didn’t expect to see the pup here,” Risha said, pointing at Astrid with an empty cup. “What have you been up to? I heard you abandoned the orphanage when I left for the army.”

Astrid pouted. “Screw you, Risha, I’m level thirty-one now. Zealot. My class is better than yours, and I didn’t go away because I wanted to. The System needed me in the capital.”

Risha raised his hands, surrendering, and gave Astrid a reassuring smile. He was the old brother who loved messing around with the youngest, but he loved them nonetheless.

“Not a Brawler anymore. Your big bro is a Defender. Leven forty as of tonight,” Risha replied with a smug grin.

It was no wonder he was so happy. Lv. 40 was a huge milestone in this world. Although level progression was significantly slowed, the gains with each subsequent level increased significantly. The difference between Lv.1 and Lv.20 was negligible compared to the difference between Lv.20 and Lv.40. Risha had entered the domain of the ‘high levels’.

“It took you an eight-year tour through the Farlands to reach level forty? Pathetic,” Elincia said with a mischievous smile, clinging to my side. “I did it while taking care of a bunch of orphans. Check this out.”

Name: Elincia Rosebud, Half-Elf (Light-Footed, Night Vision).

Class: Alchemist Lv.40

Titles: Governess, Wild Child, Bad Reputation, Better Half, Wild West Hero, Silver Alchemist, Favorite Teacher (5).

Passive: Archery Lv.3, Tracking Lv.5, Farsight Lv.2, Foraging Lv.5, Shooting Lv.1.

Skills: Potion Crafting, True Shot, Piercing Shot, Purify Water, Quick Aim.

The wooden cup slipped through Risha’s fingers and rolled to Ginz's feet while Astrid threw daggers at Elincia with her eyes. It seemed Astrid hadn’t let go of all her envy for Elincia. Not yet.

“I’ll be level forty by the end of the year,” Ginz shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly.

“If Ginz gets to level forty, then I don’t want to,” Astrid retorted.

“I was about to offer you help, you know?” Ginz raised an eyebrow. “If you don’t want it, I will have to focus on getting Elincia into level fifty. I’m sketching a machine to process ingredients so an Alchemist can work directly with the essences. It’s five times faster than normal brewing.”

Astrid threw herself on the table, begging Ginz to help her instead.

“Ginz has changed. He can joke for once,” Risha pointed out in amazement.

“Blame Rob’s obsession with picking up strays and domesticating them. Ginz is almost a man now. You should learn one or two things from him,” Elincia replied.

“Like trusting my friends instead of making plans on their backs?” Risha said as he poured the tea.

“Exactly,” Elincia replied.

I didn’t need [Awareness] to know he was genuinely sorry.

“I’m working with Captain Kiln and Captain Garibal to expose the culprits and make things right,” Risha said. “I don’t think we will ever get our money back, but justice is something.”

“Do you think I care about your money? I make more in a day than you make in a year,” Elincia replied.

“Well, Then I will not have to worry about working anymore,” Risha said with an affected voice as he politely served Elincia a cup of tea. “Sugar, milady? Honey, perhaps? Or would you like a boar roast and a beer?”

Elincia cracked.

I was an only son, and I never knew why my father never had a child of his own with my mother, but I knew this was what a healthy sibling relationship looked like. Boastful, sassy, loving. I almost felt like a stranger—a guest in a foreign household. I smiled, glad that Elincia could’ve recovered this.

“So, Astrid,” Elincia said, and the room soon fell silent. “You are a Zealot now. What is your Quest? If you don’t mind telling.”

We all looked at Astrid, waiting for her response. The System's designs were a mystery for most of this world's inhabitants—not for me, though. I smiled. It was nice to see Elincia wanting to get along with her.

“My Quest? Oh, nothing spectacular. I just have to marry Rob,” Astrid said, dead serious.

Suddenly, even the fire from the stove seemed to hush.

“Shame,” Elincia replied, levering the shotgun open.

Risha threw himself on the table, trying to stop Elincia. “Astrid is joking! She’s trying to get under your skin because she’s jealous about your level!”

Elincia laughed.

As the atmosphere eased, the kitchen door opened slowly. We all froze. Then, Zaon peeked inside.

“Firana broke into my room, saying there were a lot of guards outside. She won’t let me sleep unless I promise to find out what you were up to,” he yawned as he rubbed his eyes. “She said Mister Clarke would be mad at her if she snuck outside again, so she sent me.”

I sighed. Firana was in so much trouble.

“Who’s Firana? Your girlfriend?” Astrid asked.

“N-no! She’s a girl, and she is my friend, but she is not my…” Zaon replied, rubbing his eyes once more. “Astrid? Risha? I need to tell Ilya.”

Zaon bumped against the door and disappeared down the corridor.

“He hasn’t changed a bit,” Astrid mentioned.

“You’ll be surprised,” Elincia replied, winking at me.