Alice trekked her way back to the caravan. Not that it really was a caravan at the moment. Now, in the off-season, when all of the valuable herbs were dormant and the monsters were more hostile, not many people signed on to travel with them. At the moment there were only ten people traveling. She wondered if they even counted as a caravan at the moment.

Anyway, it couldn’t be that far since she could see a tiny bit of smoke already. She wondered what might be cooking. She’d neglected to take a look before going out to chase after her brother, Nivens.

It was probably a stew. Chef liked to make those. He’d once confessed to her in a drunken rant that they were good and hard to mess up. He’d said you could just put in anything and it would turn out fine. And yeah, ever since then, she’d noticed that they did tend to have a lot of stews.

She shoved a branch out of her way and stepped into the clearing by the road, still panting from her run after Nivens. Alice had noticed him walking into the forest a few minutes before and had followed after him to figure out why. He hadn’t said anything though, so she’d quickly gotten bored and gone back to the caravan.

She waved at Chef who was still exactly where she’d last seen him; sitting down in a wooden chair beside the cooking pot.

Chef didn’t wave back, but he was smiling at her so she was happy anyway.

Alice moved past him, snagging a stray thread off his back. She paused to snap it and stuff it in her pocket before slipping into her tent, ignoring the System notification for now.

The tents were uncomfortable and cramped, but she wouldn’t be staying for long. Alice just grabbed her blanket and ducked back out.

After that, it was only a matter of shimmying her way onto the roof of one of the wagons that surrounded the camp and laying out her blanket to make it more comfortable. She wanted to wait for the adventuring pair and talk to them as soon as she could.

She was unsure if they were siblings or in a relationship.

Obviously, she wasn’t going to ask them that. That would be awkward since they’d been a part of the caravan for more than a year now. Alice knew that the man was named Tarrant and the woman went by Barb, but the fact that both of them had the same family name didn’t help either way. She was really quite close to them, which is all the more reason she couldn’t ask. They would never let her live it down if she got it wrong.

Oops, tangent.

It didn’t really matter.

The reason Alice wanted to catch them before they got into the camp was because she had a surprise waiting for them in the camp and wanted to get to them before Barb managed to spy the surprise for herself. The lady had freakishly good eyes.

She could hardly sit still in her excitement. It was all she could manage to remain on top of the wagon and not run off into the woods again to go find them herself.

It was a nice thought in theory, but there was too high a chance that she’d miss them and they would make it into the camp before her. And that would be a disaster.

To calm herself down, Alice ran her fingers across her blanket. She was a cloth-maker by trade, her brother a tailor. Of course, that meant her blanket was one of the nicest to be found planetwide. Her pride and joy that she liked to take with her wherever she went.

It might sound a bit childish, but she had a good reason.

She’d poured her heart into its crafting and weaving. The magic imbued into it made it self-cleaning, color-changing, and too durable to even be cut by most people below the fiftieth level.

It would be a while before she could make something like it again. Only a few days before, she’d replaced her Class with a Legendary Class.

It had required the sacrifice of her Weaving and Enchanting Classes, but trading both of those for a Legendary Class was a no-brainer.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

At the moment, it only lowered her stats, but that would be remedied in time. And it wasn’t as if she was left vulnerable. She still had her crafting Titles to carry her until she could increase her level once more.

Less than an hour later, Alice heard Tarrant singing. He wasn’t bad, but he wasn’t nearly good enough to warrant how often he did it.

If Alice had to guess, she’d bet it had something to do with one of his Skills. He was usually singing when he had to fight. It probably boosted his stats somehow.

The adventuring pair stepped into sight on the road.

“The sun beams down at me; I beam back.” He bellowed. Those were the first words she could properly make out.

Alice knew this one. It was one of Tarrant’s favorites. It was called ‘Flowering’ or something, and predictably, it was about flowers.

Alice didn’t mind this song. It was one of her favorites too.

“I grow forever toward the sky!” She shouted back.

“Alice!” He chuckled and waved.

She grinned and slid off the cart roof with her blanket slung over her shoulders like a cape.

“I have a surprise for you guys!” She skipped toward them and scanned them both. Barb had a rabbit at her belt. “Weren’t you supposed to just be scouting?”

“Yeah, but we caught this too.” Barb held up their catch proudly, “What's the surprise?”

“It wouldn't be a surprise if I just told you.” She rolled her eyes in exasperation, “I have to show you! Come on.”

She moved behind the adventurers and herded them toward the camp.

Tarrant chuckled, “Do we get a hint?

“Not a chance!”

They stopped in the middle of the camp beside Chef and his cooking pot, which Alice was amused to notice really was stew.

“So? Do you guys see it?” She prodded excitedly.

The adventurers made a show of looking around and then shrugging. “I don’t know.”

Tarrant smiled at her, “Maybe we should ask Chef what-” He froze and Alice hurried to look at his face. He was frozen in shock with his mouth hanging open.

Alice turned to Barb just in time to watch her scream and her eyes widen in horror as she took in the image of Chef’s body slumped over in his chair beside the pot.

Honestly, to Alice he just looked like he was sleeping, but she’d known the adventurers would know he was dead almost instantly.

“Surprise!” Alice yanked hard and snapped the threads on their backs and watched as they crumpled—Alice snickered at the thought—like puppets with their strings cut.

She tucked the strings into her pocket with the rest from the caravan.

Alice grabbed a bowl and scooped it full of as much stew as she wanted. It wasn’t like anyone else would be having any.

In the course of an hour, Alice had managed to increase her Legendary Class level from one to twenty. That was an incredible leveling speed for any Class.

She sat down to eat and thought back over her plan to critique her results, pausing for only a moment to grimace at the burnt taste present in the food. That was her fault. She’d killed Chef and left the fire on while waiting for the adventurers to return.

Her plan had started early in the morning. The adventurers and Chef always woke up early to prepare for the day. The adventurers would go scout a bit ahead for monsters and Chef, of course, would cook.

Precisely after the adventurers had left and before Chef had woken up, she’d gone tent to tent and snapped the threads of all the other travelers, leaving Chef to cook so she would have something to eat, the adventurers to clear her path, and her brother because she was curious to see if he could work with the life threads.

Her first unforeseen complication; he’d slipped out to go pee and she’d had to chase him down to ask.

When he’d revealed he couldn’t even see the threads, she’d taken his thread too.

His skills as a tailor wouldn’t be of any more use to her if he couldn't even do that.

In the end, Alice hadn’t needed her blanket to protect her from the adventurers. They’d been far too distraught to even start a fight.

Alice finished her food and grabbed her bag, which she’d already packed in preparation with everything she cared to bring with her. Of course, her blanket was included.

She took a long look at her collection of threads. Each was beautiful and unique. The manifestation of a person's whole being in the palm of her hand. She sighed contentedly and put the life threads back in her pocket.

On foot, since she couldn’t handle the burden-beasts, she began her day-long journey to the next city.

“The sun beams down at me.” Alice sang to herself. It wasn’t the beginning of the song, but it was the part stuck in her head, “I beam back.”

“I grow forever toward the sky.”

Alice hummed as she skipped down the dirt road, toward a new opportunity.

Toward the sky.