Rowan would have been a lot more impressed if Olivia Sutton did a better impression of sneaking around. She had somehow led the two of them into three maids in the short walk from his room to wherever her destination was.

I’m the one who’s on the verge of collapse, so how am I the one who’s making sense?

Finally, the girl turned down a smaller hallway, found a slightly crooked door, and dashed inside. She poked her head out a moment later when Rowan didn’t follow.

“Okay, fine. I’m coming,” Rowan muttered as he hobbled after her.

Once he was inside, Olivia shut the door and bolted it. Rowan would have been more alarmed if he wasn’t so damn tired. He doubted that the baron’s daughter would really hurt him, but as he surveyed the room, he wasn’t so sure anymore.

The room was a toxic explosion waiting to happen. One large table sat in the middle of the room, and on it were half-full, entirely-exposed jars with colorful liquid still in them. That would have been fine if not for the fact that there were also random clumps of powder next to these jars and whenever fumes from the jars touched the powder, they’d make tiny sparks of light. And to add one final wonderful touch to the room, a haze hung over the floor, the combination of different fumes all spooling down.

Despite all of that, Olivia seemed right at home.

“So, what do you think?” Olivia asked. “And how come you’re so bad at being sneaky?” Before Rowan could respond, she went down a different line of questioning. “Wait, you look off, what’s wrong with you?”

“I just finished —” Rowan began his answer when Olivia jumped to his left and stared intently into his face. The sudden movement threw him off guard.

“Mana exhaustion? Weird. You’re sure you’re a hero? Well, fine.” Olivia turned to rummage through the mess that was the closest table.

“Pretty sure I’m a hero,” Rowan grumbled.

Moments later, the girl gave a small whoop and pushed a vial of green liquid in Rowan’s face. “Here, drink this!”

“Uh, what exactly is this?” Rowan asked. “My parents taught me to not take candy from strangers. I’m pretty sure suspicious potions fall under that same category.”

“Are you saying that you don’t trust my potions?” Olivia demanded. She pushed her lips out in mock hurt.

“I trust your father,” Rowan said slowly. “But we haven’t talked yet, and today, you dragged me into a strange room and handed me a strange potion. How do I know it’s safe?”

“It only happened one time!” Olivia exclaimed.

“What? What one time, are we even having the same conversation?”

“I promise, it won’t happen again. The potion reacted violently when it was shaken. But no one even got hurt because it happened before they tried to drink it. I don’t get why we can’t get over that.”

“One of your potions exploded?” Rowan’s voice went squeaky.

“Oh, you didn’t know… Then you have nothing to worry about! It was a long time ago. And it was a small explosion. Now, do you want this or not? I promise it’ll fix you right up.” Olivia swirled the potion vial, and whatever was in it responded by glowing softly. Rowan thought about taking cover before thinking that he’d probably be safest next to the mad alchemist.

After a very long hesitation, Rowan took the potion and downed it.

Thankfully, nothing exploded. And the potion both tasted and felt better than the healing potion. A sort of cool feeling sunk throughout Rowan’s body, numbing the pain that had taken root there. In a matter of seconds, he felt almost as good as he had before using the Inspect card.

“Wow. You weren’t kidding,” Rowan said. “It actually worked.”

“See? I knew you’d get it. My potions might not be registered,” Olivia spat the word out like an insult. “But I guarantee their effectiveness! It’s been forever since one of their effects got away from me. At least a month, if not more!”

“A month?” If Rowan had known this piece of information, he might have made different life choices.

“I know! I’m impressed too!” Olivia exclaimed.

Rowan took a moment to look at the girl. Really look at her. She was more animated and excited than he’d ever seen her.

“So, you’re a scientist? Potion-brewer?” Rowan asked. “I have no clue what the right class name would be.”

“I’m nowhere close to those two-bit potion makers. I’m an [Experimental Alchemist]!” Olivia said.

“At least normal potions don’t explode,” Rowan muttered.

“It’s an uncommon class!” Olivia half-shouted. “I’m level twenty-three.”

Rowan blinked. At least on the surface, that sounded impressive. “And I’m level 1. You got me beat.”

The girl almost seemed taken aback by Rowan’s admission. She pulled back.

Trying to find conversation, Rowan tried a different beat. “I’m surprised that you took a support class. I thought that most nobles were supposed to take combat classes.”

“The world doesn’t revolve around combat classes, you know? I bet you that I could take you on in a fight.”

“You could,” Rowan said. “I’m level 1, remember?”

“Right, sorry,” Olivia said. Rowan’s words took the wind out of her ire. “I promise that my class matches up to the combat classes out there. It’s like I have a mage class, except in the form of potions. I’ll be able to do things that they can’t even imagine. I just need time and an opportunity…”

Here, Olivia looked at Rowan meaningfully. The only trouble was, he had no idea what she was trying to imply.

“What kind of opportunity?”

Olivia glanced back at the table, where one of the jars was beginning to shake as it being heated.

“As a hero, you need other people around you to help,” Olivia said. “No one hero is an island. I wanted to ask —”

Before she could finish her thought, the liquid in the jar somehow started whistling loudly. She snapped to the heat source, one that somehow resembled a portable stove with its controls, and turned the heat down.

“If it’s not a good time, we can do this later,” Rowan said as he took a step back. This really didn’t seem like the right place to talk about anything.

And then the world turned into pure chaos.

The room didn’t exactly explode, but it was close enough for all intents and purposes. The first thing that happened was the door disappearing. One moment, it was a heavy maple barrier that blocked access to the rest of the castle. The next moment, it was gone.

“Olivia!” Kayden bellowed. “I heard that. What did I tell you about your secret experiments! I can’t rebuild half our home every time you set it on fire! Would it kill you to do your experiments with someone else looking on?”

Then, the baron noticed Rowan, which brought a second round of questions before the first could be answered.

“What are you doing here? What are you doing with my daughter?”

Rowan had always known that Kayden was stronger than he looked. Now, he realized just how strong. Every instinct within Rowan was shouting for him to curl up in a ball and hide from the baron’s wrath.

“I was just about to leave.” Rowan paused, trying to figure out how to explain what had just happened. “Your daughter noticed that I was suffering from mana exhaustion and she offered me a potion to help with that. That was all.”

Kayden tried to control his emotions, failed, and then whirled on Olivia. “You asked to join his party, didn’t you? How many times do I have to tell you that the frontier is nowhere for an alchemist to be? I don’t care what you say, it’s a no.”

Olivia froze, her eyes going wide as she tried to figure out an answer.

“Wait, hold on,” Rowan said. “Join my party? What are you talking about?”

Kayden turned towards Rowan in slow motion. Like he needed every second to figure out what to do next.

“She, my daughter, Olivia, what exactly did she say to you?” the baron asked.

“We talked about potions and her class,” Rowan said. “What’s all this about a party? I don’t have a party. Do you want to join my party?”

“No!”

“Yes!”

Kayden and Olivia both yelled at once and the father-daughter duo turned to glare at each other with near-identical expressions. Rowan almost found it funny. Almost. Unfortunately, it was now apparent that he’d found himself in the middle of a family spat.

“Olivia, you’re an alchemist. You aren’t meant to traipse around the wilderness or fight your way through dungeons! You are supposed to stay at home, and do all your experiments. It’s why I’ve turned a blind eye to all this,” Kayden said, the momentum of his initial fury fading slightly.

Olivia pounced on that weakness. “And you know that I need to adventure. I’m already slowing down on my leveling. And even if I somehow get enough experience to get to forty before I die of old age, how am I supposed to get a rare class with just crafting experience?”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get there. Crafters hire people to help them level all the time. There’s nothing shameful about it,” Kayden said.

“I’m not going to be some pampered lording crafter!” Olivia shouted, successfully reviving the previously waning argument.

“Stop that shouting immediately!” Kayden yelled back. “You should know better by now!”

Things quickly devolved from there. Rowan was more than a little scared when Olivia decided to grab a potion and chuck it at the baron. Kayden swatted the potion away with a mini fireball. All of a sudden, the knowledge that Olivia had previously made exploding potions was at the front of Rowan’s mind.

And despite all of that, the two of them never once stopped in their argument.

Rowan slipped his way to the now-missing door and was about to escape when he found his path of exit blocked by an equally imposing member of the Sutton household.

“What is going on here?” Although Olivia and Kayden were still engaged in a full-force shouting match, Lady Sutton’s whisper somehow cut through both of their arguments.

Both nobles stopped in their tracks and looked at Camilla. She looked like a force of nature. Her hair was floating and tiny bolts of electricity were zipping from different strands. Rowan took a step back and tried to find the most inconspicuous corner to fade into.

The father and his daughter duo broke into a flurry of excuses but they were fighting a lost cause.

“No. Enough,” Lady Sutton said. “The two of you are behaving like children. You,” she pointed at her daughter, “go to your room. And you,” she pointed at her husband, “explain to me what happened, though I have a decent clue already.”

Olivia slipped by her mother without argument, disappearing beyond the door while Rowan found himself suddenly envious of her.

“Hero Rowan is here as well,” Kayden said.

Lady Sutton turned her gaze. “Knowing my husband and daughter, I doubt any of this was your fault, Hero Rowan. I apologize for anything that they may have done.” She stepped out of the way and Rowan quickly found his way back to his room.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

The moment Rowan saw his bed, the day’s events suddenly caught up to him. Whatever Olivia’s potion had done for his mana exhaustion, apparently it came with a side effect. Rowan was asleep before his head even hit his pillow.

—

The house turned into a battleground in the next few days. Neither the baron nor his daughter were willing to back down and they carried out their arguments in secret, away from Lady Sutton’s wrath.

Rowan’s training didn’t really suffer from the ongoing drama. Not exactly, at least. Rowan himself was the one who suffered. Kayden became even more of a taskmaster, pushing him ever onwards. Rowan was forced to work through his drills, use up all of his mana, and then exercise again when his eyes could barely stay open.

On the bright side, the ordeal provided Rowan with a very comprehensive look into how his mana regeneration worked. Each point in wisdom represented three points of mana regeneration over the course of an hour. So, at ten wisdom, he stood at a respectable regeneration of thirty mana per hour, or one mana point every two minutes. That wasn’t too bad. Rowan didn’t have to sleep or rest to regenerate his mana.

On the other hand, the regeneration was also a curse. Each point in intelligence meant three extra points in Rowan’s total mana pool. At a fifty mana capacity, he would regenerate his entire pool in less than two hours. Which also meant that the mana and card training cycle would start back up every two hours.

Eventually, the temporary war between father and daughter came to an end. Lady Sutton summoned the two of them, along with Rowan, to the baron’s study.

“This childish spat of yours needs to end,” Lady Sutton said.

“Camilla, I think you know my position,” Kayden said. The baron looked around the room and found that his other chairs had been removed from the study. The only two left were occupied by either Lady Sutton or Rowan. “Could we do this sitting down?”

“No,” Camilla said. She gestured at Rowan who was in the process of giving up his seat. “Stay. They deserve to stay standing for how immature they’ve been. Did you two really think that I wouldn’t hear your arguments?”

It was Olivia’s turn to try to convince her mother. “I’m not the problem here, father’s clearly —”

“You are. You've burnt down more sets of equipment than I can be bothered to count, you’re impulsive, and you don’t care about your own safety as long as you get to satisfy your curiosity. If you’re like this at home, I can’t imagine what you’d do if you went off to adventure,” Camilla said.

“See? Olivia should stay home,” Kayden added. “Here, we can protect you and —”

“Don’t think you’re blameless in this either.” This time, the pale green eyes of Lady Sutton pinned down her husband. “How long are you planning to baby her, Kayden? We both know the reason she’s like this is because you refuse to let her learn her lesson. How many times are you planning to replace everything she destroys?”

When both Olivia and Kayden seemed sufficiently shamed, Camilla turned her attention to Rowan. “I’m sorry to bring you into our family drama, Rowan. But the two of them have been a bit too caught up in their own arguments that they forgot to ask your opinion. I’d like to ask you this: Do you want my daughter in your party?”

Rowan had a new appreciation for the phrase, “caught between a rock and a hard place.” With all three pairs of eyes stuck on him, he wanted nothing more than to just disappear. He could see that Kayden’s eyes were glinting dangerously and Olivia’s fingers were twitching towards her belt where a string of different vials hung. So either being trained to death or getting pelted with exploding potions. Lovely choices.

Taking a deep breath, Rowan did the only responsible thing he could think of. “Olivia. Question. Why should I accept you as a member of my party?”

While Lady Sutton looked amused and Kayden appeared stuck between offended and hopeful, Olivia was more than ready to take things in stride.

“Easy,” Olivia said. “You simply can’t find a better or more dedicated alchemist in the entire kingdom. I might not make the best potions or the most potions, but I can make potions, tonics, and salves for all types of different situations.”

“But why would I want that?”

Olivia paused, as if she never considered such a question before. A second later, her expression cleared up as a system window popped up in front of Rowan. “Take a look at this.”

Pursuit of Brilliance

Grade: Epic

Description: The effectiveness of every unique alchemical item you produce will be doubled, and the effectiveness of items crafted from your original recipes is boosted by fifty percent.

“I’m an [Experimental Alchemist],” Olivia said while Rowan read the description on the card. “The class pairs perfectly with my heart card. It allows me to craft anywhere and improves the odds of discovering new recipes.”

“Wait hold on. Olivia, what recipes do you know?” Kayden asked before Rowan could think of his next question.

“Several different healing potions, one type of mana potion, and an assortment of different potions,” Olivia said proudly.

“Could you walk us through what the other potions are?” Kayden asked with the same contemplative smile that Rowan had learned to dread.

Olivia realized the trap she had walked into. Her eyes darted between her father and Rowan before she hung her head down in defeat. “I might have created certain explosive compounds that can be used in combat.”

“And these explosive compounds, how did you find them?” Kayden asked.

“Father!” Olivia yelled before glancing at her mother and toning down her voice a notch. “My class is great for discovering new recipes. But it assigns a permanent percentage chance for all my potions to mutate. Most of the time, it’s a positive mutation, like higher potency or longer-lasting. But sometimes, the mutations destabilize the potion, and then…” She motioned with her hands to indicate a boom.

“So it means that you have a solid chance of blowing up everyone around you, even when making a well-established potion and following the most stable formula,” Kayden said.

“And what about your Stable Creations card?” Camilla asked.

Olivia’s face froze before she broke into a giant grin. “Right, exploding potions aren’t a problem anymore unless I want to make them. The Stable Creations card stops the mutations. The only downside is that I never get to make anything new, and that’s what gives me the most experience.”

“Would you prefer to have non-exploding potions, Rowan?” Camilla asked.

Rowan nodded his head furiously. He couldn’t imagine what he’d do if he was one day drinking a potion and then it exploded in his face.

“Then that settles it,” Camilla said. “You’ll be getting the experience from the monsters anyways.”

Throughout the whole exchange, Rowan kept an eye on Kayden, noting that the baron’s expression went from angry to proud to quiet resignation.

“Olivia, is this really what you want?” Kayden asked.

“Yes.” The admission was quiet but firm.

“Very well,” Kayden said and took a deep breath. Rowan saw that the baron was remarkably well composed. “I suppose, Rowan, this isn’t such a bad thing. Olivia will cover your healing needs. She might not be a dedicated healing class, but you wouldn’t have been able to get one of those anyways.”

“Wait, why?” Rowan asked.

“All priests and healers of the divine inclination serve the Goddess of Light, Sarina,” Kayden said. “I don’t need to tell you that they won’t welcome you among them, let alone serve as one of your party members.”

“She has a hand in all [Healer] classes? Sarina?” Rowan asked as he looked at the other two in the room for confirmation.

“Not all,” Kayden said. “But [Healer] classes without affiliation to Sarina are extremely rare, almost unheard of in humans, regardless of which kingdom you’re in.”

“Healing adjacent classes are common among elves,” Camilla said. “You won’t find many unless you travel all the way north.”

“So my potions are more effective than normal. I have some elven blood in me,” Olivia said proudly before realizing the look her father and mother were giving her.

Rowan, on the other hand, ignored all of the social cues and bulldozed ahead. “Quick question, do elves have green hair?”

“Not all elves have green hair. They have more hair colors than can be counted. I inherited my ancestor’s hair color,” Olivia answered.

Rowan glanced at both Kayden and Camilla.

“There was elven blood in my ancestors,” Camilla answered Rowan’s unspoken question. “It happened a long time ago, when the relationship between races was better.”

“Okay,” Rowan said, ready to get out of the tangent he had brought on. “It sounds like an alchemist is my best option. Is everyone okay with it?”

Olivia furiously nodded her head. Camilla poked her husband, who grumbled but also gave his blessing on the new party member.

“Alright then, Olivia, welcome to the party,” Rowan said. As his voice fell, he realized that there was some new piece of world trivia he had missed. He almost jumped when a new system window appeared before his eyes.

Olivia Sutton is suggesting the following contract:

Rowan Clairfont and Olivia Sutton will enter a party together. As part of a party, Olivia Sutton will become your ally. This doesn’t stop Olivia from dealing damage to you, accidental or intentional but for skills or blessings that work better with allies, Olivia will count as one.

Accept?

“Do you see the system contract?” Olivia asked.

Rowan nodded. “Yes, but what’s a system contract?”

“Huh? You didn’t sign one before?” Olivia sounded genuinely surprised, but she didn’t wait for Rowan’s answer before launching into her explanation. “It’s when you ask the system itself to enforce the terms you agreed on. The consequences of breaking a system contract are quite severe.”

Rowan hit yes.

A contract between Rowan Clairfont and Olivia Sutton has been established. The contract can be modified or dissolved if all parties involved agree to the changes.

It was surprisingly easy to form a party, Rowan found, and quite useful too. As soon as he’d sent them an ‘invite’ using the system and Olivia accepted, an odd feeling bloomed in his chest. If Rowan was forced to look for Olivia in a pinch, he had a vague feeling what direction he should head in.

You have formed a party!

Current party members:

* Rowan Clarifont (Leader)

* Olivia Sutton

All of a sudden, Rowan was assaulted by Olivia in the best and worst way possible. She tackled him with a hug and before he could react, the two of them toppled over the poor chair Rowan had been sitting in. For a moment, all Rowan could think of was how Olivia smelled like all kinds of different ingredients mixed into a strange scent.

“You won’t regret it,” Olivia whispered in a voice so soft that even Rowan could barely hear her. “I’m gunning for the [Combat Alchemist] class when I upgrade to a Rare class.”

Rowan had no clue what to make of that. But there was one thing for sure. As Rowan disentangled himself from the mess, he glanced up to see Kayden staring at him. There was no smile or grin on the man’s face. Instead, Rowan could see anger rising on the baron’s face.

“Rowan, I just realized that we’re late for your training session,” Kayden said. Rowan was almost entirely sure that the training session had been made up on the spot. “I think we should get going.”

Is it too late to change my mind and apologize? As the baron’s hand slammed down on his shoulder, Rowan came to the conclusion that it was.

“Take Olivia, dear. She’s now a part of the party, some combat training would be good,” Camilla said.

—

It was a good thing that Olivia had come with Rowan.

As soon as Rowan stepped foot in the training field, Kayden tossed him a spear.

“Let’s do some live sparring today,” Kayden said with his signature smile. Right before Rowan’s eyes, the baron transformed himself into a wrathful god. He exuded a pressure that made it hard to breathe. And the pressure only intensified when Kayden pulled out a wooden sword. “We’ve been a bit too lax on the training recently. I think it’s time we —”

A purple sphere flew at the baron and he sidestepped out of the way while also countering with his sword. As the sword met the offending object, the sphere exploded in a deep-violet cloud.

“Olivia, this is sparring, not a playground for you to test explosive, poisonous, or acidic concoctions,” Kayden warned.

“We’re a party now. Me and Rowan,” Olivia retorted. “If you wanted to do live sparring, then we should fight together as a party. That’s the only way we learn.”

For the first time since Rowan had met Kayden, the baron didn’t have a response. Instead, he grunted and charged towards Rowan.

Set, thrust, shuffle.

Rowan could almost picture his movements in his mind as Kayden drew closer. He pushed his spear forward right between the gap of a stride during Kayden’s charge and shuffled to a new position when the baron had to slow down his momentum.

Olivia followed that up with a flurry of different offensive potions. Rowan watched as different glass vials and flasks flew through the air and burst into different colors when Kayden parried each of them. Quite frankly, if his new world had anything at all like a Geneva Convention, Rowan was absolutely sure that he wouldn’t want to be anywhere near Olivia.

“I’m out,” Olivia suddenly said. The vials stopped flying.

“What?” Rowan asked.

“I don’t have any more potions. Watch out!”

The last part of Olivia’s warning was in response to the baron’s sudden charge. He closed the gap between him and Rowan in the matter of a few steps and before Rowan could respond, a sword swing knocked the spear out of his hands.

As Kayden pulled his sword back to take his victory, Rowan’s salvation came in the form of the trusty Sutton butler.

“Lord Sutton, I beg your pardon. Lady Sutton has news, it’s about the frontier,” Garrett called out. Kayden might have still finished the swing if not for the urgency in the butler’s voice.

“Show me,” Kayden grunted as he threw his sword to the weapons rack. “You two, follow along.”

Rowan followed as the baron passed through the castle, arriving at a room he’d never seen before. The space itself was large, but there were dozens of different tables with maps strewn across them. People were bustling through, looking harried as they carried messages from Lady Sutton who stood in the middle and gave out commands.

“What’s going on?” Kayden called out.

“It seems like the demons are unusually active today,” Camilla said, pausing in her commands. “Now that you’re here dear, it’s time for you to take control.”

“What does this mean?” Rowan fell back to the side of the room and whispered to Olivia.

“It means that the frontier forces failed to do their job,” Olivia responded. She pointed at a map near them to the southern part of the kingdom. The demon territory was marked in black, stretching like an ink blot across a large swath of land and bordered by a variety of different kingdoms, big and small. “There’s probably been a breach. They usually send messengers ahead of the horde to warn us. But there’s only a few days before the demons hit our towns.”

“What’s our plan?” Rowan wasn’t going to turn tail and run. Kayden, for all of his flaws, was a good man. Rowan was going to stay and help in any way he could.

“Dad’s going to meet the main demon force,” Olivia said. “But the problem with a breach is that the demons scatter. There’ll be small groups of them and they might attack any of the villages or towns.”

“So what do we do?” Rowan asked.

Olivia responded with action. She pointed at one of the villages at the eastern end of the baron’s lands. “Dad, Rowan and I are going to protect Felton’s Mill.”

“Absolutely not, you and —” Kayden stopped what he was doing and trained his gaze on Olivia.

“Dear, Olivia already made her decision to adventure,” Camilla said. She gently laid a hand on the side Kayden’s arm. “Felton’s Mill is far from the frontier. Whatever trouble gets there is going to be fairly minor. It’s a good first adventure.”

Rowan was sure that “good first adventure” was a euphemism for safe and out of danger.

“Sure fine,” Kayden said. “You two, take twenty soldiers with you.”

The baron turned back to the people in the room and started shouting commands. It was inspiring. The man would listen to a problem, digest it for a second, and then send out a command that seemed to be the perfect solution. Rowan would watch as different people came in the room with panic written over their faces and left the room with a look of confidence. It was remarkable.

He could have watched the baron work for hours but Olivia pulled him out of the room.

“I’ll pick the soldiers,” Olivia said. “Go get dressed in riding clothes and light boiled leathers. Meet me at the front gate.”

As he went to get dressed, Rowan found that a part of him was genuinely excited.

The hero was marching to war.