A week quickly passed, Harlan had begun his experiments with pact removal or bypassing, he was upped from white rose to yellow, and he showed off his gate to a number of people who could confirm that it was genuine. For those back at the academy, Harlan seemed to have further mellowed out, that is until he came back from a mission with Shelly’s team and the rest of the group looked upset while Harlan spoke in an even, kind tone. It later came out that Harlan had entered a beastial state with scales grown over his skin and he stopped a charging mammoth by grabbing its tusks and twisting until its neck snapped.

This was considered insanity, as even with them being mundane, they were towering behemoths at 11 feet tall for an average adult and weighed multiple tons.

What really set off red flags for people was that afterwards he dug out the liver and subsumed it.

From the outside, it looked like he had eaten it raw, which wasn’t exactly true.

The event to cap off his week however, was the trial between counts Oreland and Orelend.

Harlan was called to the stand at the very end, his case was technically not the same one, but was closely related enough that Harlan would be tried in relation to it.

Orelend decided to sue Harlan for damages, since he lost quite a lot of men and Harlan shouldn’t have had the right to step in for a count that he didn’t even know.

“I invoke trial by bloodletting.”

“What?”

“I, Harlan Fomoria, invoke trial bloodletting, against House Orelend.”

There were murmurs and then shouts from Orelend’s side, he had brought many allies as a show of support.

The judge slammed his enchanted gavel, a wave of silence showed his displeasure without making him raise his voice.

“Another outburst, and there will be consequences. Count Orelend, do you agree to this?”

“Actually your honor-”

“Sir Fomoria, I will not suffer another insult in my court. Wait your turn before speaking.”

Harlan lifted a letter, one which had already been opened and the seal was not shown.

“Go on then, give it here.”

The judge spoke under his breath as he read it.

“This letter has been given by His Majesty, King Yggdra the 15th. Sir Fomoria had right to invoke such a thing, and has been pre-approved. Though Count Orelend is also free to avoid the fight if he steps down as count, and an advisor appointed by Sir Fomoria is allowed to oversee the work of the new count, but without the power to decide policy.”

The count didn’t even consider it for a moment, there was no way he would ever step down.

“And what exactly does a trial by bloodletting entail?”

“It is a fight to the death. If you lose, then your house must give up a third of its annuities to Sir Fomoria for 10 years time. Your heir would be forbidden from attending any social gatherings without approval from the crown. And lastly, your army would be replaced by the national army for no less than 5 years.

This is for the sake of avoiding bankruptcy as a result of paying for an army which you cannot use.”

“What about champions?”

“No champions may be appointed for such a trial.”

Harlan hadn’t gone back out on missions with Shelly’s team for the fun of it, or to get used to his new strength, he did it so his new feats would become known. Even if the count was a battle hardened man and an expert mage, the idea of Harlan winning wasn’t farfetched. Yet the count was a man in his 70s who refused to give over his position to his daughter until the day he died.

Even in his prime, he was a merchant, a man who hired others to do his dirty work.

He swallowed the lump in his throat.

“How… how much time do I have to make my decision?”

“One month. If you do not step down before then, it will be assumed that you intend to fight.”

“I… I have nothing more to say.”

“Sir Fomoria, do you have anything else to say?”

“I said when I was appointed as an Archmage that I forgive everyone who had wronged me up to that point. But make no mistake, I did not turn meek, my list of deadmen simply grew too large to keep track of.

Your Honor, I have nothing more to say.”

“Court is adjourned.”

Outside, Count Orelend asked Harlan for a private talk, which Harlan refused and demanded to speak right in the hallway.

“What would it cost to have you drop this?”

Harlan curled his upper lip in disgust.

“I have money, metals, magical items, I-”

“All I ask for, is your life in exchange for the future of your heir, and your people. If you accept the trial by bloodletting, I will not punish your replacement at all. I will not take their annuities, nor will I bar them from high society, nor will your army be disbanded. I am willing to put this in writing.”

“You would dare to demand that of me? I should have you-”

“Choose your words carefully, it would be a shame if the stress caused you to have an aneurysm in your sleep one night.”

“You would threaten me? Here?”

More than a few people, mostly workers, were actually listening in.

“You are right, I am threatening you. But you see, I only intend to kill you outside of the law if you attempt to attack those who I love. I don’t care about insults or threats against me, but if you threaten my family, I will burst your skull right here regardless of witnesses.”

Before the man could go red in the face and commit suicide by Harlan, his daughter, a woman in her 50s who looked nearly as old as her father, stopped him.

“I think it best to return home, there is nothing to be done to reason with a man like him.”

She was tired and upset, and Harlan could feel that. Though what he also felt was that she wasn’t upset at him, but her father, the source of the stress that aged her so poorly.

Count Oreland next struck up conversation.

“I am glad to have you on my side, I mean, if I had such an ultimatum, I’d just take my own life.”

“I don’t know if you are a good man, but you are a man willing to give his life for his son, that is worth something. I want to see, does he have that in him? Or is he a coward who hides behind hired blades.”

They approached the gate rooms.

“Would you like me to take you home?”

“I’ve got my own man, but I wouldn’t want to turn down such an offer.”

Harlan had gotten his gate cast time down to 20 seconds from 30 a week ago, but the more he cast it, the harder it was to make it any faster. He could only guess how many times Sepul cast it to summon multiple gates at once in an instant from a sizable distance.

Harlan opened the gate directly to the count’s home and stepped through.

“Would you like to stay for lunch? My allies and I are having a small party.”

“Sorry, but I’ve got another meal to get to. I wish you all the best and I hope Rass wasn’t too frightened by what happened.”

“Of course. Good day to you as well.”

Harlan cast a second gate, and then a third and and a forth and a fifth, until he got back to the academy and then to Direhold.

Kelly didn’t like sleeping in the same place for more than a few nights at a time, but she also didn’t feel safe leaving Direhold since a second blizzard had come through. So she was back at The Drunken Drake.

“Jas, Kelly, good to see you again.”

“What is he doing here?”

“I invited him and his fiance to have lunch.”

Kelly eyed Jas like she had three heads.

“But he’s a… he.”

“If you aren’t-”

“Sit down, don’t worry about her. Watch this.”

Above Jas’s finger a small fire flickered to life.

“Very nice, you’ve improved quickly. What about the other 5 elements?”

She averted her eyes in embarrassment, causing Adina to give him a slap on the wrist.

“Don’t worry about him, he expects too much of people.”

Jas ran her eyes up and down Adina, despite Harlan’s words, it was hard to dispel every rumor she heard.

“She looks… cute.”

Adina had been forewarned about how Jas would likely be.

“Please don’t speak about me like I am not here.”

“I’m sorry, Miss Fomoria.”

“Harlan, what have you been telling her about me?”

“Not much really, she just asks questions and I give answers.”

“Were you really cursed by your gods for loving Harlan?”

“What?”

“Jas loves to hear all of the rumors about me and then she asks which ones have any truth to them.”

Kelly sat in silence, eating her meal while trying not to be involved in the conversation.

After 30 minutes the lunch break for the academy was nearly over so Harlan had to get Adina back.

“It has been great meeting you, I never thought that-”

A man approached Jas, but between Harlan and Kelly’s glares he backed off before he spoke a single word.

Jas laughed, something Kelly rarely got to hear anymore.

“I’m happy that you two are getting along.”

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

Kelly accented her words by rising from her seat and harshly pointing at Harlan.

“I’m just looking out for you, I don’t know what game he is playing. And you, don’t think that doing something like that means anything.”

Adina spoke up in Harlan’s defense.

“Harlan helps people without asking for anything. That is just in his nature. He might just seem cold and prickly and violent from the outside, but he is also very kind to people, selfless even.”

It was not lost on Harlan how she phrased her defense of him.

“I don’t want to hear the defense of him from some-”

Harlan slammed his hand on the table, barely avoiding breaking it.

“Choose your next words very, very carefully.”

“Some cripple pet of a noble mass murderer.”

Harlan took deep breaths, calming himself before responding.

“Jas, have a nice day. Kelly, get over yourself, you aren’t the only person in the world that wants to help your sister.”

“Harlan, we aren’t leaving yet. Kelly, fight me. Here or outside. Hand to hand.”

“Alright.”

“No, no, Kelly, don’t do this. Miss- Adina is-”

“Be quiet Jas, I can defend myself. I am not Harlan’s pet, I am his fiance. I’m not a cripple, I am a person.”

Harlan moved tables out of the way and paid for the meal along with a gold coin to settle any issues the tavern keeper might have with what was about to happen.

Once it was clear that two young women were fighting, a ring of men quickly formed.

“Let’s go until one of us gives up or gets knocked out.”

“Sure, whatever, cripple.”

Harlan clapped his hands to tell them to start.

Adina could’ve won instantly by using her armor, but that seemed like cheating, so she kept its use purely defensive, protecting her spine.

Kelly casually walked over and threw a punch that Adina easily dodged before throwing a jab that landed right on her nose.

“You bitch.”

Now the fight could really start.

Harlan had to keep Jas away.

“You can’t really just-”

“They both need to work this out between themselves.”

Another blow landed, Adina’s nose was clearly broken.

“I’ve really rubbed off on her, a year ago, she… alright a year ago she might’ve still done this, but two years ago she never would’ve done it. She took her abuse in silence, she suffered in silence, but you don’t need to.”

“Kelly doesn’t-”

“I know, she is trying her best, but I think all of this traveling, having only one person that you can trust, it is bad for you.”

“I trust you.”

“But you refused to trust Hargrave, who didn’t act any different than me.”

Kelly took an elbow to her face, busting her lip, then countering with a headbutt that dazed Adina.

“Is she-”

“Adina is fine. But back to what I was saying. You need more people to trust, not just me, and not just your sister. If you remain alone, blocking yourself off from the world, it is just going to hurt you for longer.”

Kelly tried to climb on top of Adina, but received a kick between the legs, sending her to the ground.

“Adina went through something different then you, but she ended up only really trusting me, and when I went away for a bit, she couldn’t handle it. I saw how agitated you were without Kelly, and if you cannot live without her, then… I’m worried that something bad would happen if something happened to her.”

“But she is always going to come back, she wouldn't leave me alone with these people.”

“I don’t know how long ago that thing that bothers you happened, so I’m not saying there is anything wrong with being upset still. But some day, I hope you can feel safe when around other people.”

Adina staggered to her feet and kicked Kelly in the gut. The crowd made sounds of disgust as she lost the lunch she had just finished.

“I’m stopping this.”

Jas walked into the encirclement.

“Kelly, hey, are you awake?”

“I’ll fucking-”

She put her hand over her mouth, trying to stop what was coming back up again.

“You lost, why don’t you just-”

Kelly pushed her sister aside.

“I’m not losing to some cripple shrimp.”

When Kelly rushed Adina she was grappled and pinned to the ground.

“If you don’t give up, I’m going to break your arm.”

“You aren’t going to break my arm you little-”

Adina broke her arm.

Despite a difference in size and ‘real’ experience, Adina never slacked off in combat training. Compared to someone who was trained by an ex-adventurer who only knew basic military training and didn’t have the time to drill everything into them, it wasn’t enough.

Kelly groaned on the ground, trying to avoid screaming in pain as Harlan healed her.

“I’m not going to let you get a favor from me.”

Harlan squeezed her neck to cut off blood flow long enough for her to pass out, then used sleeping air to keep her asleep.

“What did you just do?”

“I don’t want anything from her and I am not arguing about it. Once she wakes up, I’ll be gone.

Now, there is a final thing I wanted to ask you, do you want a home?”

“What?”

“You need a safe environment with people who you can learn to trust.”

Harlan could see the conflict painted on her face. She didn’t trust people, but she trusted Harlan because it was him who made the shield that saved her and her sister.

“You don’t need to choose now, just know that it is an option.”

Adina came near.

“That is nice, but why did you heal her first?”

“You are a healer, I thought you would do it yourself.”

Adina narrowed her eyes.

“But, I can see that is the wrong answer. Also, congratulations, did Ximena teach you that takedown?”

“Yes, she did. I can’t wait to tell her how well it worked.”

Adina was giddy, it had been the first real brawl she was in and she won.

“You broke my sister’s arm.”

“She should’ve treated me with respect. She thought it was alright to fight me and that she would easily win because I’m blind, but I’m not some weak kitten.”

“Yes, honey, you have claws.”

“You are damn right.”

Adina kissed him and little bits of blood got on him.

“You need to get cleaned up before going to classes. Also, I need to have a conversation with you about something, after dinner.”

“Your room or mine?”

“My room.”

“See you then.”

Harlan took a few minutes to clean the tavern, a pulse of controlled void made it cleaner than it likely had been in years by destroying the accumulated grime and dirt.

The tavern keeper whistled.

“I should let your women fight here more often. Little Wyvern Slayer.”

“I’m not little anymore.”

“Little boy’s face on a grown man’s body.”

Harlan waved as he left.

Back at the academy, Adina got odd looks from everyone.

Harlan could heal her just fine, but one particular gash from Kelly slamming her head into a table left a small scar and she still had blood on her clothes.

Harlan waved her off and went to the lab that Hirum had given him.

Inside he found his patient, they looked sickly, clearly unwell, but he had a content smile.

“Are you ok in there?”

“I can hear your blood flowing through your veins so… sweetly. But I don’t feel the need to attack you right now.”

“Then it is working, and I am glad that you volunteered for this. Now, from your own estimation, is the experiment causing you to not attack me, or is it your own mental fortitude?”

“I’ve fallen to blood frenzy once before… it didn’t take as long as this and the pull on my mind was different. I’m going to say it is your experiment.”

“Alright. I can try this with a few other people, werewolves, gargoyles, what are those bird people?”

“There are a few names, but I think they prefer Sirin, they are magically good singers that can draw people in to feed on.”

“Then I need one of them. Now, for the next step, I am going to physically restrain you, then I am going to remove the restraints on your soul. If my experiment really did work, then you are going to immediately try to kill me.”

“I… I really do like the way it makes me feel, to not be hungry, to never have it pressing on my mind.”

“I don’t think I’ve heard anyone describe it like that.”

“I’ve only been turned for a little over a year, it is… hard to not be normal. If you do this, you can fix it right? Put it back on me?”

The man grabbed Harlan by the shoulders and shook him.

“There is nothing in any of my work that would suggest it can’t be redone.”

The man took a few deep breaths to psych himself up.

“Alright, do it.”

When Harlan reversed the changes to the man’s soul his body almost seemed to desiccate, though really a survival instinct had been activated and the man had entered a state where he burned up much of himself for a burst of power. Alternatively, some false undead could enter a hibernative state and upon the smell of blood reaching them, they would enter this berserker state.

The stonesteel wouldn’t be enough to contain the man had he been a trained warrior, but he was a farmer, and boosting his physique was less effective.

Unfortunately, despite being too weak to break the chains, his more slender form with jutting teeth and claws, of which the ghoul was better known to look, allowed him to slip from the chains by dislocating his limbs.

Harlan didn’t much worry, he dodged the swipes that could tear men in two and give him access to the delicious organs inside.

Harlan deftly moved to a box and tossed it at the man who broke it with ease.

When the organs spilled out, he lunged for them.

Once he was satisfied Harlan was able to calm him down and reapply the soul modification.

The man burst into tears as he felt relief from the hunger.

“I’m sorry to put you through that, I didn’t realize you would thin out so much, I should’ve applied an automatic chain tightening spell.”

“Thank you, thank you, my mind, it is so clear again.”

“In a week, I want to start trials to study your need for life force infused food. That is the reason you need to eat organ meat by the way, it is more concentrated than blood. I won’t need to put anything else in your soul, and it couldn’t take anymore even if I did.”

“What?”

“Changing souls is one thing, but these pacts, they are difficult. What I’ve done is not break it, or even change it. I’ve modified the parts which hook into your soul like a parasite, but its inner workings are still entirely a mystery to me. It doesn’t like what I’ve done, and I am worried that anything more extreme would cause a reaction, one that you might not survive.”

“Could you break it? Could you really do it?”

“Did you hear me?”

“Do it, free me from this curse.”

“No. I will continue to look into this, but I am not going to take the one in a million risk that such a thing would be at this moment.”

“Please, I-”

Harlan put his foot down, refusing as the man argued and begged.

By the time Dinner rolled around, Harlan felt drained.

By giving the man a small hope and then shattering a larger hope, he was almost in as much despair as he was before.

Harlan thought over what he should’ve said, in his honest opinion, he was a man, and Aine, even as a weaker god than Aarde, was nonetheless a celestial body.

He shouldn’t have answered the man honestly, lying was the more kind choice.

“Harlan, are you there?”

“Huh? Oh, sorry, Ximena. I was…”

“No, it’s fine, whatever you are thinking about is more important than-”

“That isn’t what I meant. I-”

“No, really, you only get like that when it is important.”

“Listen to your empathy, she isn’t upset.”

“Your right, Dawn.”

“Who?”

“So, how are things with Claude? I don’t need to knock some sense into him, do I?”

“Things have been great. I wanted to ask, can you use your gate to bring us to the coast one day?

Not now, we haven’t really decided where we want to go. I am just wondering about range really.”

“Technically I can go as far as I need to with enough time, but for a quick 20 second gate, 600 miles isn’t an issue so long as I can properly visualize it.”

“So, that has something to do with the other method that Marigold taught you?”

Zella had been denied the ability to learn it like Harlan had, Mary simply didn’t want to start revealing secrets to everyone Harlan knew.

“I’m not answering that. Besides, you will learn gate eventually in your classes.”

“Yeah, and you already know it. Do you know what it feels like to try for something and then someone else just comes along and does it first? No, so don’t try to make me feel better about it.”

She looked away for a moment, and then turned back.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be lashing out at you.”

“If it were my secret, I would give it to you, because we are good, no, great friends. But it isn’t mine.

The month isn’t over yet, do you think it would be good to go see Ky? I’m sure I can figure my way to Reet, call Relly, see if we can all get together for the new year?”

“Sure, whatever. Amber got close with him, so maybe she could come along. Has Adina met Ky?”

“Once. But… depending on how tonight goes, she might avoid me for a little bit.”

Harlan stopped eating and just shuffled around his roasted potatoes with his fork.

“You are being dramatic, she would forgive you for anything.”

“I know, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t going to be mad.”

“Harlan, why don’t we just get this out of the way then. I’m sure whatever it is, you are putting more weight behind it than I am.”

“Alright, I’ll see you all later then.”