16 years

The months following Leigh’s revelation of her early system unlock were hectic, to say the least. Mom and Leigh made a short trip to the next town over, passing through our nearest neighbors, It was still technically a village, but only barely. They had an inn, and a few shops, but even the ‘fabric seller’ as mother had called it was a dual-purpose tailor and leatherworker. Even still, the point was made to spare no expense for such a momentous occasion. Thankfully, I’m not in charge of the house finances, if we even have any this far in the countryside, so it’s not something I need to worry about.

Neia was rather insistent about making Leigh’s dress for the party herself I’d initially thought it was to avoid making the trip out of town multiple times. The more I thought about it though, and the more I watched the two of them discussing it, I think now it’s more about making Leigh feel at home. I knew we all thought of her as family, but I couldn’t as easily claim that Leigh knew that herself.

Honestly, with Mom and Leigh so completely preoccupied with preparations, everything from clothes to concessions, dad and I finally had a chance to go on another ‘patrol’ and discuss what happened a few weeks ago. It took me asking him to train me to get his agreement, but that killed two birds with one stone so to speak. I already wanted his help to gain some skills.

We were in the middle of another ‘jog’ through the forest. I was at a rather brisk pace, and it felt like dad was keeping up by taking a more forceful walking stride. It was good exercise for me, I feel he might have been bored.

“Hey, dad? Can we take a break?” I panted out through gasping breaths after the first hour or so.

“Yeah bud, of course,” Dad smiled, coming to a complete halt almost instantly, leaning against a nearby tree. He clearly didn’t need the rest, but it made me feel less self-conscious about taking a seat myself.

“I appreciate you helping me train, but I’ve been thinking.” I managed to gasp out a few words after slowly recovering my breath. “Could we do this more often? Even after the skills, I mean.” I could feel dad looking over at me, and glancing his way there was a look in his eyes. Like he knew what I wanted to ask, but still wanted to hear me say it.

“I want to do patrols.” I sighed after an awkwardly long silence. “I don’t know if that counts as ‘joining the militia’ since you’re the only other member, but I want to help.” I tried to make my statement as firm and resolute as I could manage.

“I’ll admit, Vincent, I like your nerve. Patrols might not be too dangerous if you stuck with me, but without system access, and without stat boosts, if I asked you to make a delivery to the next town over, you’d be in massive danger running into anything bigger than a fox” Dad sighed, wiping a hand across his brow. “Your mother would be furious if I let anything happen to you.” The feelings of despair and defeat were quickly building in my chest.

“So I guess I’ll just have to stick close to you and make sure that doesn’t happen” Dad laughed, clearly enjoying my moment of false misery. A weight lifted off my shoulder, and I slumped backward suddenly, suddenly aware of a tension in my body. Dad only laughed harder.

“Don’t do that to me” I protested with a smile, but he just waved off my complaints.

“Come on! after seeing you go toe to toe with a drake, I’m more worried about you giving yourself mana burns again. Anything native to this part of the country would be in more danger crossing you than I could see you being in” Dad explained, sitting down across from me to continue our conversation.

“The biggest danger to you is a creature that could react faster than you could cast a spell. So we’ll keep training, and you’ll have to stick with me while on militia duty” Dad instructed me, suddenly taking on a far more professional and stern tone.

“After the party in a few weeks, you and I can make a trip south. There’s a little port town just about a week and a half if we walk, called Arden. I’ve only been once or twice, but they have some good craftsmen, we’ll get you some leather padding to spar in.” Daniel seemed more prepared for my question than even I had been. I wonder how long he’d been waiting for me to ask him? Part of me felt bad for always spending more time helping mom, but he made a good point about the danger. Maybe I just needed to be a bit older to do the things he wanted me to.

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“That sounds great!” I replied, unable to hide the excitement in my voice. I was looking forward to new skills and a chance to get a bit further than the village outskirts. It was a win-win for me, gathering more information about the surrounding area at this point in history, but also having a chance to be a bit more independent. Leigh’s great, more than great, but having her around all the time doesn’t leave me much room for privacy or my own interests. I don’t want some of my spells scaring her off.

On her own, Leigh was very quickly becoming more and more a permanent facet of our family, her shy and reserved demeanor fading more with each day as we drew closer to the party. I wasn’t sure if the subtle relaxation after the end of her abuse at her father's hands, or a gentle encouragement from mom and dad was responsible for this change. I just knew that It was a long time coming. The energetic and chaotic little girl I had grown up beside was quickly coming back into my life. It was tiresome in the best way possible. The fearsome friend I’d once likened to the fires of a forge had been metaphorically relit, I hadn’t realized just how much I’d missed her.

Soon enough, all our preparations were done, and nothing left that we could really prepare ahead of time, just waiting and whiling away the days. Leigh began some preparations of her own, likely aiming for a specific class line or class upgrade. Dad and I helped her knock down any of the remaining structures of her old home that weren’t forge or workshop related. Once the building was back down to its bare bones, Leigh began cleaning out her father’s old tools.

There was a fire in her as I helped stack old hammers and chisels into the crates she was planning to discard. She had tools of her own of course, but it was incredibly clear that selling her father's things to expand her own set would be more welcome than keeping any of the heirlooms. The sentiment had been tainted I suppose.

It took nearly a month of short trips back and forth to surrounding craftsmen before we managed to sell off everything Logga left behind. Altogether it was an underwhelming sum, but Neia had used to opportunity to teach Leigh and me about money.

The standards of minting hadn’t changed much since I remembered them, or rather, will not have been changed? Most countries and regions used the same precious metals to mint their coins, the weight being somewhat standard, with shapes and imprints being the primary means of combating counterfeit. Our region, Ocresh, wasn’t formally a nation yet, but apparently, there had been some talks to give rise to a constitution and formal government.

For the time, Ocresh, most of the western wilds, and the merchant cities on its coasts and rivers were ruled by a series of merchant princes. Catastrophically wealthy men and women, who often owned entire cities, ruling like kings off the power of their fortunes. This meant each city can and do mint their own coins, and most people do their day-to-day trade regardless of who the coin was made by.

Leigh’s entire inheritance could be summed up in three shiny coins, one of sparkling Mithral, and the other two a dull green Adamant.

The standard of course is the gold coin, and fractions and multiples are represented by others. A Mithral coin is worth five gold, and an Adamant is worth two, Together the three coins were worth nine gold, or just shy of a platinum coin. I’d honestly been surprised to hear these numbers, as I’d half expected Leigh to be dealing in Silver and Copper coins when I first heard her plan. A pleasant surprise I suppose.

Once she had her money, Dad and I were forcefully conscripted into being errand boys.

“I have way too much work to do here to waste time running down tools” Leigh grunted between swings of her hammer, beating some red-hot shape into an ingot fresh from the forge. Her strength even without system access clearly dwarfed mine. No pun intended.

“Mom, uh, Neia, helped me draft up a list last night.” Leigh stammered, sticking the rod of steel back into the heat and turning to face Daniel and me. “It has everything I need on it, and the absolute maximum price you’re allowed to pay” She explained, handing me a charcoal-smeared scrap of parchment. I think I blushed a bit too obviously when her hand brushed against mine.

“If I want to get this done in time for System Day, I need you to get those as soon as possible. Marnock village may have it all, but if you have to go through to Orkirk, that should be fine. Just, hurry, please?” She asked, walking back to the forge and turning with a smile.

Gods, what I wouldn’t do for that smile.