In spite of Rowan’s fears, the town was actually in relatively good condition. The fires had broken out in several places, but the fact that most homes were built almost entirely out of stone did a good job of preventing the flames from spreading.

Olivia’s intervention had also played an important role. She had single-handedly extinguished the worst of the flames.

The swift arrival of the hero’s army was another thing that changed the whole event from catastrophe to inconvenience, and Rowan was extremely proud of each and every one of them.

Marcus and Milena chose to stick with the army, supporting and overseeing their advance, and their unified front shattered all enemy groups they encountered. Other than some injuries, they didn’t even suffer losses.

But it wasn’t all good news. The mercenaries, especially those under the Mercenary King, had suffered heavy causalities. The number of enemies and the intensity of fighting both surpassed all of their expectations. They had won, but had taken a real risk of defeat in the process.

Then, there was the matter of Tamara. The woman was entirely too helpful, enthusiastically leading her disciples in rooting out every last enemy hiding within the town.

She even used ‘scrying’ to locate hidden cashes, room, and even a whole hidden production facility that catered underground guilds and companies by using enslaved crafters. Privately, both Rowan and the baroness were convinced that she knew about all of those because she’d used the facilities herself.

It was hours later, in the baroness’ study, that they finally had a chance to chat and complain.

“At least the civilians are mostly okay,” Rowan grumbled, holding a cup of chilled wine to his chest. Henry had shown up with a whole pitcher as soon as they sat down, then made himself scarce.

“They shouldn’t have been involved at all to begin with, but it’s not exactly easy to control the spread of chaos and damage when you have rare and higher combatants fighting in the middle of town. The evacuation and fear of the incoming horde did help,” Camilla said.

“I saw what some of them could do when they don’t care about collateral damage.” Rowan grimaced, mind immediately drifting to the whip mercenary whose weapon sliced through the nearby homes with remarkable ease.

“We did win, though. Mostly. I wish our victory didn’t come at the cost of putting even more power in the hands of that insane mage,” Camilla sighed, sinking deeper into her chair.

“Wait, what?”

“We formed a party while we fought,” Camilla explained. “It’s easier to coordinate that way. So, when we killed those two epic tier combatants…”

Rowan just stared at her blankly. “Are you telling me that the dangerous and unstable mage you hate is now epic tier as well?”

“I can still kill her. The Mercenary King can, as well,” Camilla countered. Rowan didn’t like how defensive she sounded. “And she’s unlikely to try anything now. Unfortunately, I know her. She figured out the winning team, so she’ll stick with it for the time being.”

“I… really don’t like how little that guarantees.”

“You and me both. Now, why don’t you go work on getting my daughter to forgive you? Leaving her behind while you charged into a flaming town isn’t the romantic gesture you think it is.” Camilla said as she closed her eyes. “I still have a lot of work to do to tide this over properly.”

That was definitely a fine suggestion and Rowan even had a solid idea of how to make that happen.

—

If there was one thing war was good for, it was apparently experience and cards. Rowan had, over his time fighting various mobs, received a ton of unique and interesting drops. However, the cards he’d earned by slaughtering fellow humans were both of overall higher quality and more useful.

He wasn’t sure how to feel about that.

What he was sure about was the best way to make use of those cards.

“Olivia? Can I come in, please?” Rowan knocked on her door. He could hear her moving about inside. But no response came back. He signed and got ready for a wait, awkwardly adjusting the straps of the bag he had over his shoulder.

It was another ten minutes before the door opened.

“What do you want? Why haven’t you run off again?” Olivia scowled.

“I’m the hero,” Rowan said. As soon as the words came out of his mouth, he knew that he had said the exact wrong thing. “My Lavish Feasting was recharged. It was kind of reckless, but reckless was kind of my whole thing.”

Olivia scoffed and turned away, but she did leave the door open, so he followed after her.

“What do you want, Rowan? I’m not in a good mood right now,” she grumbled, hesitated, then added. “Maybe in like an hour or so.”

“I wanted to talk to you about something else. I want you to use these to build a deck for yourself,” Rowan said, taking the bag off his shoulder and dangling it in front of the alchemist.

Olivia took the bag from him, opened it, and stared. “Rowan. I can’t just take all of these! Do you realize how many cards are in here?” she whispered, slightly awed.

He couldn’t blame her. There were a little over three hundred rare cards in the bag, the sum total of everything they earned on the way back to the town and in the slaughter within it. Some of the cards were potentially useful, but if sacrifices had to be made, they were willing to make them.

“We talked about it,” Rowan said. “Me, Marcus, and Milena. We just want you to have a decent deck. All of our cards more or less synergize with each other. Marcus has his insane buffs, I have my combo, and Milena is, well, Milena. Not entirely sure how her class works, to be honest. I don’t mean to insult you, but your cards are a mess.”

“Well, then, thanks for the voice of confidence!” Olivia replied.

“It’s not… I can’t seem to say anything right today, can I?”

“Nope, not at all.”

“Then I guess I’ll say all the wrong things at once. Half of your cards are for crafting or identification and the other half is for fighting. I get why, but that’s why I put you down. If you want to fight on the front lines, you need to be able to hold your own. So, use those cards, please?”

Olivia hesitated, and for a long few seconds, Rowan thought she would decline. Finally, she let out an exhausted sigh and nodded. “Fine.”

Instantly, Rowan was in a much better mood. “Great! Here, take a look through these, I think they might have something useful.” He pulled out a whole extra bundle of cards, handing them over. These were the cards found in the underground workshop, presumable stolen from or collected for some of the alchemists there.

Olivia took the cards, quickly cheering up as they worked on putting together a true battle alchemist build. With each new card that they found, both of them got more and more excited. In the end, they only had to scrap about half the cards Rowan brought.

Olivia Sutton

Level 59 Combat Alchemist

Deck (6/6):

[Heart] Pursuit of Brilliance (Epic, Passive)

[Class] Combat Application (Epic, Active)

Caustic Presence (Rare, Active)

Alchemic Fire (Rare, Passive)

Alchemist’s Reach (Epic, Passive)

The first win of the day was Olivia’s decision to throw caution to the wind and attempt an upgrade of her class card. Luckily, Combat Conversion improved to Combat Application, which further boosted the power of any copied potions and even made it possible for her to create multiple ethereal potion copies at once.

From there, things only got more interesting with her two new cards.

Caustic Presence (Rare, Active)

Shield yourself in an aura with alchemical properties by copying a material or potion in your position to both protect yourself and attack.

Alchemic Fire (Rare, Passive)

Sense and boost the power of all alchemical fires, explosions, or caustic reactions in your vicinity at the cost of mana.

Alchemic Fire was an odd combination of passive and active effects, somewhat reminiscent of Rowan’s own new regeneration card. Even more impressive was the fact that it was so versatile at rare when Rowan’s card was at epic.

Speaking of epic, of course, there was Olivia’s final new card, and an actual find from the underground workshop rather than a fusion.

Alchemist’s Reach (Epic, Passive)

Manipulate the range of your potion and alchemical reactions as well as the tolerance range of various concoctions and materials during brewing, at the cost of mana.

Rowan didn’t fully understand the card, but Olivia assured him that it was amazing. The obvious part of it allowed her to either minimize the effects of her attacks to one area, or to spread out their destructive potential.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

The second half was production focused, and could apparently make it easier or harder for ingredients to tolerate things like temperature, pressure, and more. Olivia said something about the card making a ton of new recipes viable, but again, not Rowan’s field of expertise.

All in all, Olivia was over the moon with all the new improvements she got, and Rowan was right there with her.

Thanks to the new cards, she was a whole lot more deathly, and even capable of handling herself in a one versus one scenario somewhat. The Caustic Presence, at least, would serve as a nice way to buy time and make some distance from any attackers.

They ended up spending time together much later, but with how much fun they’d had going through the various cards and options, Rowan didn’t mind.

—

It was almost a foreign concept but Rowan was actually told to rest and do nothing for a couple of days. Rather firmly, at that.

The rest of his party and even Camilla were worried about his mental health and wellbeing. Apparently, most people didn’t go from battle to battle like he was doing. The fact that Rowan was hero or that he literally had a card that was meant to keep him in peak physical condition? Apparently irrelevant.

So Rowan found one of the many empty rooms of the mayor’s manor and set himself to go through some casual spear forms. The spear felt so natural in his hand at this point that practicing forms was perfect for clearing his mind while thinking through what he wanted to do with some of his new loot.

In the past, loot had always been something that Rowan could equip or scrap in hopes of fusing a better card. This time, part of his gains included things that didn’t cleanly fit into either category.

Heart cards, to be exact.

The hero knew exactly how much people valued those, and why. With a single good heart card, a family could set itself up for generations. Entire fortunes were even built around a single rare heart card.

Epic heart cards? That’s the stuff noble families were often started with.

And now Rowan had one of those, along with two separate rare tier heart cards.

[Heart] Terror Hound (Epic, Passive)

Detect and track all sources of fear and unease in your vicinity. When those feelings are directed at you, you receive a minor boost to your two highest stats for every source.

Rowan wasn’t exactly sure who he killed for the card to drop, but if he was a betting man, it was probably Florin, the Blood Reaver. Of course, the heart card had some slightly disturbing implications. In spite of that, it was invaluable for a scout class, and even fighters of every kind would relish having the thing in their deck.

The other two heart cards were a lot humbler but just as powerful.

[Heart] Sharpened Edge (Rare, Active)

Imbue your weapon of choice with a cutting aura that will enable it to slice through creatures and materials at the rare tier or lower with ease. The effect is reduced when used against higher tier enemies and its effectiveness depends on mana consumption.

[Heart] Eyes of a Predator (Rare, Passive)

Your eyesight, dynamic vision, and hand-eye coordination are all significantly improved. You will also have a much easier time tracking prey, no matter the environment you find yourself in.

These two, at least, were rather obvious when it came to who dropped them. The whip mercenary was responsible for the Sharpened Edge, and the archer was the likely former owner of Eyes of a Predator.

What it all came down to was simple: Rowan could easily start three brand-new families which would likely be eternally grateful to him. Well, or at least grateful to him for the next few generations. The problem was, he had no idea where he could possibly find the right candidates to receive the cards.

He briefly toyed with the idea of tracking down the little girl who managed to weasel her way into the hearts of Olivia and most of his mansion’s staff, but the idea of forcing her down a path of combat didn’t sit right with Rowan.

Of course, after stressing over the question for a while, he sighed and resolved himself to finally face the real reason why he was brooding.

Rowan leaned his spear against his shoulder, and pulled a card out of his pocket. Its border was purple and the image at the front was a slavering maw.

Gluttonous Banquet [Epic, Passive]

Gorge yourself on every available source of sustenance, breaking it all down using mana and storing the energy away to be used at a later date. You are limited to storing energy equivalent to thirty times your body weight.

The card was, on paper, amazing. It also came straight from the epic tier monster they killed. Almost as soon as it showed up, Rowan had plucked it out of his loot screen and placed it into his cardholder. But he hadn’t equipped it or mentioned it to anyone else.

Deep in Rowan’s chest, there was a quiet feeling of dread when he read the card’s description.

His hesitation was not entirely logical, but neither was the feeling of hunger that constantly lurked just underneath the surface of his thoughts. Ever since his rise to rare granted him an increased awareness of card effects, he could feel Lavish Feasting lurking. Waiting. Pushing him to eat more.

And the description for that particular card was ‘food.’ The card often took certain liberties with the interpretation of the word, especially with the way it acted up around corpses. Gluttonous Banquet came with no such promises, and only claimed it would draw on ‘every available source of sustenance.’

Would he feel tempted to take a literal nibble out of his friends if he equipped it? What about other, less desirable sourced of ‘sustenance?’ It turned his stomach just thinking about the question.

There was also the fact that his current, rare version of the card would mentally scream out when it wasn’t given full charge. And that one was limited to three times his own body weight. Gluttonous Banquet was ten times more demanding.

Of course, Rowan knew that he couldn’t exactly run from a useful card. He’d just need to be prepared.

—

A couple hours later, Rowan found himself in the mansion’s empty dining room, all the servants sent away and a feast fit for a king laid out on the grand dining table in front of him.

Rowan looked around the room. He was alone. Around him were stone walls and metal ornaments. Both inedible. Even the table was a heavy marble while the plates were porcelain. All impossible to bite.

Before Rowan began, he thought back to the strange life he was now living. Just a few days ago, he was at the head of an army, marching through demonic wasteland where they were sieged on all sides by monsters and corrupted plants. And now he was sitting at a table, holding his fork like a proper noble. The juxtaposition was jarring.

More than that, the list of things that should have been driving him insane as someone used to modern comforts was extensive. Yet, he could quickly identify all of these, put them aside, and deal with the important things on his agenda without getting distracted.

Truly, his Keen Spear was more than pulling its weight.

The one thing that his heart card couldn’t do, it seemed, was help him commit to the task he needed to do.

For the first time since Rowan laid eyes on the card, Lavish Feasting left his deck, and he gasped as it felt like a part of his soul just left him. Almost instantly, he felt more tired. Then, before he could second guess himself, Gluttonous Banquet went into his heart deck.

The feeling that immediately assaulted him was intense.

A deep, gnawing hunger rooted itself into the center of his stomach, demanding he do something about it.

The hero obliged.

One by one, the many dishes arrayed in front of him vanished down his throat. He couldn’t taste the food at all and he was barely stopping long enough to chew.

By the time he swept through the entire feast prepared for him, the card’s reserves were barely half-filled, and it was demanding more.

With a near manic gaze, Rowan’s eyes flicked between the tastefully arranged plants, the many cloth covers, and even the nearby chair. He hadn’t even thought of these things as edible before. Now? He was almost drooling to eat them.

Desperately, Rowan’s hand shot to his left and grasped his spear once again, fingers still sticky from his feeding frenzy.

Instantly, some of the intensity to his urges fell off, and he could think somewhat clearly again. That was an instant relief but he couldn’t very well spend the rest of all his time with a spear in hand, could he? And it wasn’t like it was comfortable to live with a constant gnawing pit at the bottom of his stomach.

If he couldn’t find a way to ease the effects of the card, it was as good as useless to him. Rowan opened his system screen and was about to remove Gluttonous Banquet when he paused.

It confirmed something Rowan had long since suspected. Cards could be dangerous, whether they were inherently ‘evil’ or not. Some seemed to suit his nature perfectly, and just slotted into his deck with no fuss at all. Others had to be wrangled, managed, and carefully monitored.

Gluttonous Banquet definitely belonged in the latter category, yet was a pretty central part of every ‘optimal’ build he could think up. With the increased energy storage capacity, he wouldn’t have been nearly wiped out in his battle against the epic tier monster. With the increased storage capacity, he could keep fighting well beyond the limits of nearly every mortal creature out there.

He needed to find a way to use it. He had to.

Keeping a tight grip on his spear, Rowan called out to the people in the hallway for two more rounds of food and tried to look away from the plants in the meantime. After two more hours, his card was finally sated.

He could feel its frustration that it couldn’t fit any more energy. It desperately wanted more. It was a near certainty that as long as he consumed even a scrap of power, the card would be back at it again. However, for the time being, it was a price he was willing to pay for security.

—

“You know, for someone who claims he’d rather not be in the middle of constant trouble, you’re being awfully mopey that mother won’t let us out of her sight yet,” Olivia drawled, shooting Rowan a grin from her position on the bed. She had her feet up against the headboard, and her head somehow dangling off the edge, watching Rowan where he sat reading a history book on the floor next to the bed.

“I’m not being mopey! I just think it’s unreasonable that she’s stopping us from levelling up. We’re so close to finally getting to epic, and yet we’ve had to spend the last three days since our return just lying around.”

“It’s called rest, Rowan. Also, you know why this is necessary. Mom’s not sure yet whether there are still more people hiding and preparing to cause trouble. Sure, Tamara is helping, but that’s part of why mother is suspicious to begin with. The army’s doing fine on their own.”

“I know, I know! I just… Is it weird that I feel anxious? We did an amazing job, and we can obviously manage some of the epics now. But, it still feels like I should be capable of… more. That we should be capable of more. And we’re so close to that.”

“Rowan? Take a deep breath and remember, for a second, how far you’ve come in these few months. You caught up with years of hard work and then surpassed that. And yet here you are, complaining that you think you’re not doing well enough?” Olivia teased, reaching over to muss his hair.

Rowan just groaned, throwing his head back and resolving himself to his fate. He knew better than to try and get her to stop. It just encouraged her.

“When’s the last time we did nothing? Really did nothing? Because, even in that village, after my parents came, we were more recuperating than relaxing. Maybe when we went on that outing together?” Olivia was clearly trying to get under his skin, but it worked. His face flushed.

“Still, this feels suffocating.” Rowan closed his book. He wasn’t the most well-adjusted hero, but Rowan really didn’t feel that he could be blamed. Everything he’d been through since his arrival in his new world had definitely left its mark. Now, he was a constant ball of tension and desire to do something.

The only time he felt at peace, the only time he really relaxed, was when he was Olivia. But that could only go so far.

*It isn’t right to so completely depend on someone, *****Rowan thought. He had come to the realization that there was no stopping the affection he felt for the silly alchemist. But it’s only a matter of time until she gets tired of me. And then a good thing will have turned bad.

Rowan felt arms wind around him. “What’s wrong? What’s really bothering you?”

The hero hesitated, worry, anxiety, and worse all swirling in his chest. He was never the best at expressing himself. Social anxiety and self-doubt and even creeping depression always got in the way when it mattered.

“I’m not annoying, am I? Or too… pushy? I don’t bother you when you’d rather be alone?” Rowan asked quietly, looking as far away from her as he could.

Olivia didn’t answer right away, instead slipping off the bed and pushing herself into his side to finally catch his hand between hers gently. “Rowan, what brought this on?”

“I mean, every time I’m upset or feel off or whatever, I immediately go looking for you. That’s… that’s not okay. I should, I don’t know, be able to deal with it on my own.”

Olivia groaned, tugging on him insistently until he finally fell over, scooting back as he did so he ended up with his head in her lap. “Rowan, I guarantee that you never bothered me. I like spending time with you. And I look for you when I’m down, too,” Olivia whispered, running her fingers through his hair.

Rowan’s heart was threatening to burst out of his chest, but with a deep breath, the hero finally spoke. “I think I’m in love with you, and I have no idea what to do about it.”

To his shock, his answer was a giggle. “And you think I know what the right thing to do is? I’m in love with a clueless hero whose bed I climbed into and who still thinks he bothers me!”

Rowan blushed and covered his eyes with his hand. She continued to laugh, but he couldn’t really say he minded much when she leaned down and kissed him.

As it turned out, rest days went by much faster when the hero could spend a decent portion of the time kissing his chosen princess.