Chapter 53

Summary

To Her Imperial Highness Xuhitana Furinshao

From Your Loyal Servant Sacred Yorin Holt

On the Matter of the Growth of the Gunslinger Hero

I wish to open first with the successful completion of my primary mission. Hero Remmi Lee has been brought to par with the other summoned Heroes. At only level Ten, she possesses equivalent might to what they were granted at their summons. With her Heavenly Artifact, she will surely be able to match any gains they have made since then.

I have already informed her that she is to be dispatched, though I ask your forgiveness, as I have assumed what her mission should be. Hopefully, by the end of this missive, you will concur.

Though I objected from time to time at the delays, it has actually been a startlingly short span of just a few months. Looking back, I find myself wishing I had taken a more proactive role in her training. I thought I had more time. I thought she would call upon me more.

In truth, it was hubris, and she barely needed me but for social guidance. I would never have even trained her the way she sought power, and I genuinely believe now that she would have been lesser for it.

Hero Remmi Lee called it a "shotgun" approach in jest, explaining that it was similar to grapeshot for a weapon like her artifact. It is strange, then, that she did not simply say grapeshot, or that the Essence did not translate it that way, but I digress.

"Generalist" was another term she used that did not require explanation. The way of her people is to seek to be good at a little bit of a lot, and thus never lack an answer. She tried to explain why they saw overspecialization as bad, but there was something about baskets of eggs and hammers and nails.

For your sanity, do not engage in long conversations with Hero Remmi Lee without a clear topic on which to focus her attention.

I confess that I, like most civilized people, have long imagined such an approach as scattered and haphazard. Grapeshot is a better analogy, however. It spreads, yes, but not everywhere. Remmi described it as a cone spreading out from a point of origin to cover a wider, but still targeted area.

Hero Remmi Lee has spread beyond the scope I would have identified as that of a "Gunslinger," but in every direction she has reached, it has come back in unexpected ways to enable her meteoric growth.

I would have never encouraged gardening for her as more than a meditative practice, however. Yet I am certain you have by now sampled the fruit of her labors for yourself. Her eagerness to learn general skills that I would have thought senseless paved the way to new traits at an unfathomable rate.

Of course, I do not need to explain to you, of all people, the value in investing wisely into the fields of magic to supplement a warrior's abilities on the battlefield. Her lack of fear here, too, sees her closing in on you.

Even as someone with the abilities of one three times her level, and even with a Heavenly Artifact, itself imbued with the power to rival a Hero, she can jump higher still. She takes the things that other martial warriors reject and makes them monstrous, all because she cannot stand for something about her to be idle.

If she has mana, it must be burned. If she has points, they must be spent. If she has material, she must build something. Essence help the girl, if she has health, she means to take a blow.

To estimate her functional level, with gun in hand, I would say it is five times higher than it appears from her status alone. As you know, this would place her on par with a Gold-rank adventurer. Few reach the highest rank of Platinum, meaning precious few within the empire could defeat her in single combat even now.

And yet, with a level of only Ten, she as yet possesses so much room to grow.

And to think that it was she who so accidentally discovered the secret of the dungeon cores. Those ancient beliefs of guardian spirits may have been more insightful than they were ever duly credited.

As you know, Purification is a high-level Priest magic. Only Sacred-ranks are capable of using it. Acquiring it is, in fact, one of the requirements for becoming a Sacred Priest. The addition of Heroes to that list is an unquestionable boon, but will also tie them closer to the temple in the eyes of the faithful.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Likewise, Purification is an ability channeling pure Essence. The capacity of dungeon cores, formations of raw Arcane energy, to resonate with it opens an unfathomable number of questions for researchers.

For the time being, however, the fact that this resonance repels the corruption over an entire region is, I feel, the most important revelation of this excursion, followed closely by how the core seemingly attempted to eject the corruption, itself.

I would like to know if such Purification techniques have been distributed by the System to the other Heroes, or if it is to be triggered or purchased. I understand that the generals have already divided them and sent them to deal with issues thought to be born of the Darkness, but the presence or absence of such a technique could greatly alter their ability to address such an issue.

Assuming, of course, the nobles haven't just dispatched the Heroes to solve their own problems for them.

I would also request access to what knowledge we have of the dungeons within the Western Demesne prior to the fall of the region. While fortifying all regions along its border must be our first priority, any knowledge of the movement of the Darkness across the realm could help determine a point of origin.

I recommend any logistical resources not dedicated to tracking down sources of corruption be turned to identifying key dungeons to reinforce and determining the advancement pattern of the corruption.

I further recommend that I be permitted to deploy Gunslinger Hero Remmi Lee to the reinforcement of said dungeons, beginning in the Southern regions and moving North and West from there. An exact deployment pattern will be developed upon receiving a list of relevant targets.

I know that you will be concerned when you learn that she found the Hagasu children in the dungeon. You will fear that they seeded the corruption. However, I do not believe there to be a cause for concern. The children are angry, but show no sign of corruption. By their testimony, the dungeon was already in such a condition when they arrived, as well.

They could be lying, of course, but there is no evidence to support such an accusation at this time. So long as they are staying with their uncle, however, I can keep them under watch.

* * *

*Yorin*

I set my brush in the well as I consider what else there is to say.

The children are a concern, of course, but I share Remmi's conviction that they aren't harbingers of corruption. At the very least, they certainly weren't responsible for the contamination at the dungeon. The core, itself, was contaminated, and they hadn't even been able to reach it.

Still, I wish I'd gotten to examine them, myself. I would have insisted, to ensure they were well enough to travel after their ordeal, but they had hardly gotten to the gate before begging off.

Perhaps I should send missive to their uncle, warn him about the dangers of inexperienced exploration of dungeons. Oh, I doubt he knows they had gone at all. Had it been with his permission, he would have surely hired an escort. Phrasing such a letter as if he did know is a political courtesy, rude as it is to assume that a noble does not know what goes on within his own home.

That man is a concern, too, albeit for entirely different reasons unrelated to the corruption. The news of the Abomination must surely have reached him by now and he has heard that Dabun Village was saved by a Hero. Normally, this would be worth a formal notice of gratitude, at the very least.

Not a word, not of the Hero, at least. Only a crier relaying that he was grateful the village made it through, and that he was sorry it had fallen to outside hands to resolve it.

There is little doubt that was the part directed at the Hero. It is entirely likely that he still does not consider Remmi an actual Hero. He still sees her as an outsider and a reject. He owes his gratitude, then, to happenstance, not to her.

At least he has not taken any action against her. He seems resentful, but tolerant of her presence.

My thoughts turn, of course, to Remmi in short order after that. It's true that she didn't need me as much as I thought she would, but I also wasn't there for her as much as I could have been. This temple didn't require my constant supervision.

But I expected her to come to me. All of Toleste new to her, surely she would be overwhelmed and run to me for advice and familiarity. And I expected to have more than two months to find the time for that.

I let my imagination conjure up a different passage of time. I stayed at her cabin with her. I made sure she went to bed on time, instead of staying up just because she could. I made sure she had fresh food in the evening, and checked on her during the day.

I praised her for her hard work. I ooh'd and ahh'd at the Noodle Spitter appropriately. I made sure to excitedly encourage her to show me it in operation. I talked with her every evening about the new skills she'd picked up and what she'd learned about them.

Every Holy Day, we went into the village for the service. She never wanted to, but I insisted that I had to go and wanted her company. It was important for building relationships with the locals, too, after all. Of course, the first time, I still had to bribe her with the food that would be there, the glutton ...

Instead of just sending her off, I took her to the guild for her exam and cheered her on. I celebrated the ease with which she claimed bronze. I went with her and taught her about the realm on her quests, instead of chaining her to Wood missions I knew that she was never going to bother with.

I was there when she met Ayre. I went with them as an assistant to clear out the nest. Those children were not alone when they faced the Abomination, nor without tools to deal with it.

Woe, for many were the mistakes I made with her. Was I so careless with Xuhi? Perhaps I was. For her, it worked. Perhaps in their similarities, I forgot that Remmi and Xuhi are not the same. Remmi isn't a scarred little girl, desperately focused on vengeance. The cold hardened little Xuhi, but Remmi only reciprocated the distance.

Perhaps I should be the one to watch her cabin while she is away. The temple will be complete before the season is ended. I could water her crops for her, see that the wildlife stays out.

No. No, I cannot. As much as it would ease my guilt, I do not have the skills to see to a farm, and the guild has already begun the process of hiring someone that does. And I am not without responsibilities of my own, either.

I sigh and lean back against the divider wall behind me. Oh, to do it over again, might I have the wisdom to give Remmi the attention she deserves ...

At the very least, I will make certain I spend more time with her before she leaves. And there should be a send-off dinner the night before ...