“Nom—?”

“Neutrals. We don’t get involved. If nobody fucks with us, we don’t fuck with anybody else.”

“Isn’t that kind of dangerous?”

“It is,” she agreed nonchalantly, “but it also makes us a lot stronger on an individual basis. Most of us are at third tier already, and our heaviest hitters are at fifth. By comparison, most of the Alliance and Coalition’s strongest members are still trying to hit tier three.”

“Tiers?”

“Oh. Right.” Kairi said with a sigh, and turned to their parents. “Dad?” she called in the same suddenly-cold voice. “Tell him about what you figured out about levels.”

“Eh? Oh. Ah.” Leonidas’ father blinked at being addressed, sighed, and then nodded. “Right. Yes. Well, firstly son, welcome back.”

Leonidas smiled wryly. “Thanks, dad. I’d hug you, but—”

“You’re not going anywhere near anyone until you’re fully informed.” Kairi cut in flatly. “Pops and Dad both probably have recall crystals on them, and I’m not about to let them take you away before you have a chance to make the informed choice that I didn’t.”

Both Artur and Reginald looked at Kairi when she spoke, and then let slip identical guilty grimaces. It was moments like that which reminded Leonidas, overtly, that Artur and Reginald were father and son. The latter’s expressions, sometimes, mirrored the former’s—and he knew he was very much the same.

“Levels, dad.” Kairi said again with a hint of impatience.

“Right! Yes. Of course. Levels, ah, operate a little curiously. The System, you see, breaks down each whole number—that is, 10, 20, 30, et cetera—into Tiers. The interim numbers, from 1 to 9, are considered progress toward each Tier. Upon reaching a new Tier, your ability to advance your Core increases as well. Additionally, you’re able to unlock new advancements for your Class, as well as new abilities, at each Tier. Your Aspect skills, for example, won’t unlock until the first Tier, at level 10.”

“I’m guessing you need to advance your Core before progressing past each Tier?”

Multiple eyebrows rose at that, though Kairi just laughed quietly.

“Yes!” Reginald replied excitedly. “Quite right, son. You need to complete your Core advancement prior to continuing to progress along your path. Your accrued experience until you do is banked, but there’s a limit to that too. Experience isn’t quite a physical thing, but it certainly is tangible or… perceivable, perhaps? It’s a sensation I suppose. Too much of it and it can be, um, painful.”

“It took us a little while to understand that one,” Artur noted with a grumble. “How did you figure it out immediately?”

“The place where I was had a similar system.”

“You still haven’t said where that was,” his mother said. “We were—we thought you died, Leonidas. Your father believed you’d been transmigrated, but we all just thought he was, well—”

“Grief-crazy and in denial.” Kairi cut in bluntly.

“Thanks for believing, dad.” Leonidas said with genuine warmth, to which his father gave two thumbs up. “As for where I was, that’s a very long story. It was a world called Elatra, which was similar to Earth but smaller in terms of landmass.” He looked at Kairi thoughtfully, and her warning expression killed his momentum before he began. “Elatra had a similar path of magical power to the System, though it was what I’d call organic as opposed to, uh, structured. There were no screens.”

“And you figured out everything on your own?” his grandmother asked with a note of pride.

“No, I had some help. I was the Hero, in Elatra, summoned to defeat the—”

“DEMON LORD?” his mother exclaimed. “MY SON FOUGHT THE DEMON LORD? OH MY GOSH, LEO!”

“Jesus, Mom, it wasn’t that exciting.” Leonidas said with a surge of embarrassment.

“Did you win, lad?”

“I did, pops.” Leonidas answered in the affirmative. “Last thing I remember, in fact, before I was brought back was killing Azrageth with Requiem Ultima, and being consumed by white light.”

“So, you aren’t squeamish about killing?” Kairi asked more nonchalantly than Leonidas had ever thought he’d heard from his sister, at least when it came to taking life.

“I suppose not.” Leonidas said with a terse nod, and the remembered memories of war. It wasn’t something he was overly thrilled about, though Kairi—for whatever reason—looked relieved at his answer.

“Good. You’ll make a fine Nomad, then.”

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

The moment she said the words, both their parents and grandparents erupted into objections, and then promptly started arguing with each other moments later. Leonidas turned to Kairi with a frown when it happened, and eyed her knowingly.

“You did that on purpose,” he said quietly.

“I did,” she admitted, “but I meant it too. You can’t go with either of them, Ace. They’re too busy hating each other to get anything done, and it’ll stunt your growth. I wanted you to stay quiet about the Isekai adventure because I know it probably gave you some incredible insights. Candidly, I want those insights.”

“When did you become so calculating, Kai?”

“When the world forced me to,” she answered simply.

“I’m sorry for what happened to make you this way.” he said while thinking back to the gleeful compliments the System had handed out, in reference to his particular contributions.

“You didn’t end the world, Ace.” Kairi said simply. “The System did.”

Leonidas frowned at her, and opened his mouth to confess what was on his conscience.

Then the world turned white.

Sound became a high-pitched squeal, and Leonidas felt himself hit something hard and unforgiving abruptly. Spots populated his vision, and he took in a gasping breath when he realized he hadn’t been breathing. He blinked rapidly to try to clear his vision, and managed to banish the spots enough to see what was happening.

When he did, his confusion grew, and was joined by alarm.

Leonidas was lying an easy fifteen feet away from where he’d been standing and conversing with his family, and while he watched all five of his relatives were engaged in what looked like frenetic and vicious combat with unknown assailants in silver-and-red armor.

His grandfather and grandmother stood back to back, and in the few moments he watched; two of the attackers were viscerally cut down—and in the case of his grandfather’s strike, cut in half.

His mother and father, meanwhile, were attempting to simply hold the assailants at bay, and Leonidas could vaguely make out his mother shouting something with a look of desperation while his father summoned shields of magic to ward off the mysterious new arrivals.

“Kairi—!”

The words died in his throat.

Leonidas’ sister was by herself, and yet appeared to be the most calm and in-control out of his family members. She fought with a precision and speed that made their parents and grandparents look sluggish by comparison, and each of her blows sent her opponents reeling. Kairi was a force of nature with her shortswords in hand, and while Leonidas watched she smoothly decapitated one of the attackers with a cross-cut that formed an X at the exact center of the assailant’s neck.

Before Leonidas could do more than stare in shock, he felt someone kick him, and rolled over with a curse of pain. Above him, a green-eyed, black-haired elf stared down at him.

The unknown male reached for him as if to restrain him, and Leonidas’ instincts kicked in. His hands snapped up, and he slammed his palms against the elf’s ears in a double-handed strike to disorient him. When the elf cursed in discomfort, Leonidas responded by instinctively raising his right hand and pointing his palm at the elf’s sternum.

“Lumenkill Hyperlance!”

Silence followed his words.

The elf stared at his hand.

Leonidas stared at his hand.

When nothing happened for several more seconds, the elf raised an eyebrow and looked back at Leonidas. They mutually locked eyes, and the elf growled something that caused his eyes to widen.

“Vas est yal’naran?”

Leonidas stared at him in perplexed bewilderment, and then responded as much by habit as anything else.

“Myr’naran est Leonidas!”

When he answered, it was the elf’s turn to look taken aback, and both of them stared at each other with a mix of shared surprise. For Leonidas, it was simply the fact that the unknown elf had spoken what he internally called High Elven. It was a language native to the specific elven species to which Lyara had belonged, and she’d been his tutor in its use for the better part of their five years together.

While Leonidas wasn’t fluent, he did have a speaking knowledge of the tongue.

Why in the hell it was being spoken by an elf on Earth, though, he had no idea.

“ACE!”

Kairi’s abrupt shout drew his attention, and that of the elf, and both of them turned to see his sister blocked off by more arriving attackers. More Elves, he realized in the same moment.

“Ace! Go to Orlando!” Kairi shouted again. “When you get free, and I know you will: go to Orlando! Ask for me! I’ll come find you!”

His sister smashed something that glittered when she spoke, and her body abruptly shone with erupting tendrils of white light. “Remember, Ace! Orlando!”

Before Leonidas could answer, his sister was gone.

His eyes turned to his parents and grandparents, and he saw that they too were starting to be engulfed by the same light. His mother and grandmother were shouting at him, and both his father and grandfather looked stricken, but Leonidas could recognize a lost cause when he saw one.

They were outnumbered, and they had been given no choice.

He watched his mother vanish while screaming “LEO! LEO!” repeatedly and with an agony that hurt him. She was clutching her stomach either in pain or to stem the flow of a wound, and when she left, he saw her breakdown weeping mid-transit.

“We’ll be waiting in Texas, Leo! The old farm, at Three Rivers!” his grandmother called, and then she too was gone.

Before his father left, he offered him a single encouraging nod and made a fist as if in solidarity. No words were given, but it was enough. It was a demonstration of faith, and he knew his father well enough to know what it meant.

When his grandfather left, and in exactly the fashion Leo would have expected, he saluted like one might to a soldier. There was pride in the action, and regret too, and he saw that Artur’s expression was pained when he finally vanished into nothingness.

And then, once again, he was alone.

Well, except for the entire platoon of elves converging on him.