I barely slept that night, tossing and turning in my bed which was now almost too small for my increased stature. The exhaustion eventually caught up with me, and sometime before dawn, I passed out completely. When mother finally chose to wake me, dad had already left for the village. I waited with bated breath for him to return, the nervous energy bringing me to a knife’s edge. Mother insisted that I eat a proper breakfast, but beyond a few placating bites I had no appetite.

In the larger context of my two lives, Leigh’s situation seemed like a relatively trivial issue. So why then does it bother me so much? I think in part because of my fondness for Leigh, I’m more worried about how the outcome might affect her and by extension her opinion of me. Between my knowledge of magic, and mom and dad’s high levels, I can’t imagine much that would pose a genuine threat to me or my way of life, except the village coming under attack again. Leigh, however, was another story. She’s mine. My friend, and I care for her. I think?

As I sat there in the morning hours, wracking my mind for a dozen possible outcomes and solutions, I remembered for just a moment how worried I’d been over Vincent Gildea the first time we did combat as a party. Even then I knew the general scope of his blessings and skills would keep him well out of danger, but my care for him caused a similar worry to what I now feel for Leigh. I squashed those painful memories before they could get too far out of hand. He deserves to be forgotten.

Eventually, father made his way in the front door with a defeated look. Part of me knew what he was going to say immediately, but another still held out hope. That didn’t last long.

“No luck. He was drunk when I arrived, and the moment I started asking about Leigh living with us he blew up and tried to hit me. Didn’t even get to the marriage proposal.” Dad sighed and took a seat at the table. I still don’t understand why he’s so hung up on the concept of Leigh and I getting married, and mom too, it seems like everyone knows something I don’t. It seems like a waste of time. Leigh should know the truth before being comitted to something like that.

“Well then,” Mom said with a clap of her hands, “We’ll just have to make the best of a bad situation. I’m going to go into town for some shopping, and while I’m there I plan to ask Leigh for her help. It should give me a chance to talk to her in private and see how she feels about this whole thing. In the meantime I want the two of you to come up with an actual idea. If you’re going to be violent I don’t want you doing it in a stupid way.” She explained, standing from the table and prepping a few things in a small basket to leave with. On her way out mom stopped by each of us, kissing me gently on the head despite my protests, and giving a far more romantic kiss to Daniel. Yuck. Their own romance must be why they keep insisting on something similar for myself.

She made her way out of the house, and dad and I got to discussing the safest way to proceed now that we were down to the last resort. We sat in awkward silence for some time, neither of us was used to spending much time alone with the other. Thankfully there were important matters to force us into action.

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“Do you know any spells that would help out with something like this?” Daniel asked awkwardly, clearly unsure how to broach the subject of my past life knowledge.

“I actually have a few ideas that might work, but you know the man better than I do so I’d like to get your opinion” I offered, trying to involve dad as much as I could in the magical side. Hopefully, it will make him more comfortable talking about it with me in the future.

“Of course bud, but I want you to avoid anything that could cause mana burn like the last time I saw you slinging spells.” dad instructed, leaning forward at the table to give me his full attention.

I wasn’t in the mood for another bout with mana poisoning either, so I was happy to keep the list limited to the low-level spells I felt comfortable casting.

At my current levels, and with my limited mana capacity, I really only had three applicable spells for this situation. I could produce a pretty substantial fear aura over a very small radius, or expand the area of effect dramatically in exchange for lower potency. The former was likely to have the best effect with our current goals. The other two spells were a bit more niche.

I was fairly confident I could manage a basic reanimation spell, likely on a small creature, nothing larger than a goat or a dog. The final spell I could manage with such a measly mana pool was a pretty basic debuff curse. A minor reduction to all stats and a very minimal slow. The spellform itself was scalable and depending on how much mana I provided it, it could be completely debilitating. With only a combined 60 points of mana to spend across all three spells though, I’d have to be judicious with my casting.

In theory, I could do the reanimation ahead of time and allow some time for my pool to regen, but with the upkeep cost of an undead tethered to me, my regen rate would be cut significantly. Two reanimations and my mana regen would be cut in half, probably more.

I explained this all to dad as gently as I could, knowing from previous experience how uncomfortable certain people became around dark magic. Thankfully, Daniel being so completely non-magical himself seemed to prevent any preconceptions about the topic.

“Okay. That’s actually not that bad, I think we can work with that,” he muttered under his breath, suddenly lost in thought.

Daniel contemplated for a prolonged moment before standing up in a rush. “Get your boots on, I saw some vultures picking at a wolf carcass when I was last on patrol. If we’re lucky it’ll still be there and you can reanimate it sooner rather than later.” Dad grabbed his spear and waited a moment for me to finish fastening my boots before leading me out of the house at a jog. It was far below the maximum speed he could accomplish, but it was a comfortable rush for my own stats, and I could tell whenever dad glanced back at me he was checking to be sure.

Rushing through the town like this, with dad, felt great. It was like we were both in the militia, responding to some report, or going out for one of his usual patrols. There was a singular purpose to it, both of us focused on the same activity. I’d meant to ask dad a long time ago about joining him on his patrols, but part of me had always been apprehensive. Without full system access I was perpetually stuck at level 1, and while mom and dad could help me get new skills, I couldn’t advance them.

Part of me was worried. Worried that I’d hold him back, make him worry about me. Truthfully, I was far more afraid than I think I was willing to admit. After facing death at my own hand the first time, and coming far closer than I’d want to at the hands of the drake, I hadn’t noticed a powerful fear seep into me. Not fear of death per se, but a fear of losing. A fear of losing the people I cared about, again, a fear of losing to people I saw as beneath me, again. Archmage Grigori does not lose. Vincent Stesk does not lose.

I am not willing to lose anything else.

This new life I had for myself was nice, better than I’d even hoped for. In order to protect the people I cared about, like Leigh, I needed to be stronger. That would include dad teaching me more about combat. For now, it meant doing my first bit of real necromancy in almost two decades. It’s about time.