Arthur placed his right hand on Steven’s shoulder, before smiling at him with full sincerity and happiness in his eyes. The lad had seemingly finally broken out of his mournful stupor after a few more weeks on Hergalexy and judging by the intense gleam in his eye, there was hope for him having a pleasant future after all.

“Mr Goodman, I am just glad that I could pay you back after all you’ve done for me.” The boy said, his eyes averting from looking straight ahead – clearly quite embarrassed at being looked at so pridefully.

Arthur simply smiled, and said, “You need not worry about paying me off, child, for one is not indebted to those who help them of their own accord.”

Steven shook his head, and said, “I do not think so, Mr Goodman. You saved my life back in the forest; I do not know how I will ever repay you for that. So, babysitting your grandkid for a day is the least I could do.”

Arthur could not help but want to tell the kid that he was serious about not holding anything over his head, but decided against it as he could see how serious the lad was about what it was that he was saying.

It had been 2 weeks since his grandson had been liberated from the curse that had once been inflicted on him by the strange woman who called herself the Witch of Leof. Arthur had decided quite quickly after his grandson was well again that he needed to find somewhere for him and his grandson to stay that was truly their own – at least for now. It had been during this process of looking for a residence that it began to dawn on Arthur just how much money he had accumulated back on Earth.

No matter how he thought about it, it seemed that he was vastly richer than the overwhelming majority of the Imperium’s massive population. This was partly because although system coins were a legal currency in the Imperium, the vast majority of the population would likely never be able to defeat a boss monster so as to acquire any substantial number of them.

There was of course some amount of injection of system coins into the wider economy by the more elite and powerful members of it, but the trickle-down effect was almost non-existent, and so possessing a large quantity of system coins was a bit like possessing a large quantity of gold bars. In other words, Arthur possessing over two million system coins was a considerable fortune, and so he had found it amazingly easy to find a place that he could rent that would be big enough for him and his grandson and Steven.

It felt strange to be rich; to know that whatever he wanted, Arthur could quite easily purchase and acquire for himself. He had served rich men for decades, but he had only ever skimmed off the top of their luxurious lifestyle. He did not resent his masters for not paying him more, the market set wages as it did for a reason, but now that he had significant money of his own, he could not help but wonder what his life would have been like if he’d aimed for riches from the start.

He quickly dismissed such thoughts as silly and finally let go of Steven’s shoulder.

“Well, thank you for your help regardless child,” Arthur said, before glancing towards the front door of his accommodation whilst pulling up the map to the Butler’s Guild’s official building.

“When precisely do you think you’ll be back Mr Goodman?” Steven asked hurriedly as Arthur was about to leave.

“I am not sure. Maximus only told me that the guild will likely process me in good time, which is not exactly informative.” Arthur replied, still slightly shaken by just how casual the Marshall had been a few days ago when they had spoken.

The man had spoken as though the conversation post the man being informed of the assassination attempt had never happened, that he had not explicitly threatened to wipe out hundreds of millions of people if Arthur stepped out of line and told anyone about what he had heard from the man’s assistant. Such a disconcerting swing in temperament made Arthur wonder just how anyone, let alone the man's wife, ever maintained a solid relationship with him.

Steven nodded with a frown on his face but said somewhat cheerily, “I guess I’ll just wait patiently for your return, Mr Goodman.”

Arthur shot the boy a smile, before waving goodbye and stepping out the door. The walk to the butler’s guild was not a long one as he had specifically chosen the location of his apartment based on how short of a distance away from the guild it was. Arthur’s accommodation was less than a 30-minute walk away, but Arthur somehow suspected that he would spend almost double that waiting in the general line to get into the building. The occupation of Butler was apparently a very desirable one for those who wished to climb the social ladder and so many millions of people applied to join the guild on a daily basis, even if they weren’t even close to being a qualified butler as just the opportunity to be trained to become one was enough of an incentive. Arthur could thus only hope that today would be a quiet day and he would enter the building quite quickly.

However, as was typical with his luck, it seemed millions, if not billions, of people from across the multiverse had decided that today was the day that they too had to sign up to become a formally recognised butler or butler in training. Arthur had quickly found a place at the back of the almost continent-spanning line, and prepared himself mentally for the decade-long wait that was no doubt ahead of him – bureaucracies were not famous for their efficiency after all.

No one took much notice of him as he stood in line waiting, he had by now learned how to control his aura to a sufficient extent and he kept his mouth shut – using a number of tricks to keep his mind distracted. However, a brief lapse in his concentration, caused by the sudden appearance of a massive system prompt in his vision, released his aura and suddenly the world around him froze and the people began to quake with fear.

Arthur immediately wrestled back control of his aura, but the damage was done. Millions of eyes were now on him, whilst his eyes were staring at the system prompt right before his very eyes with shock.

Your Perk: [III] Special Automatic Cultivation (Lvl:5) is no longer dormant!

Arthur could not believe he had almost forgotten about his most troublesome of perks, but it seemed that the perk hadn’t forgotten about him. His mind began to feel much slower as the perk seemingly took back the mental space that it had ceded after going dormant, making Arthur feel slightly sluggish. Yet, at the same time, he felt an unparalleled amount of Qi flooding into his body – it was as though he were the epicentre of a whirlpool of Qi.

Arthur’s surprise at suddenly feeling his body overflow with Qi made him almost not realise that there was a tall handsome man tapping him on the shoulder. Arthur turned his head to look at the person tapping his shoulder, and he almost leapt back in surprise. Though the man wore one of the most refined-looking suits that Arthur had ever seen, the man’s skin was alike in appearance to that of a putrefied corpse and his eyes were as pale as bone.

“Good sir.” The zombie-looking man said in the common Imperial tongue, his pronunciation beyond perfect, “I have been sent here to bring you inside personally.”

Arthur had so many thoughts zipping through his mind, but he collected himself pretty quickly and replied in the correct way, “Ah, thank you, good sir.”

The zombie man’s literally lifeless expression did not change as he guided a slightly bewildered Arthur around the line of millions of people queuing to get into the building, and into a side entrance – effectively cutting Arthur’s waiting time down by hundreds of hours. The soon-to-be ex-former butler tried to convince himself that this sudden premium treatment was because they had just recognised his innate talent for the job or something like that, but deep down he knew it was because he had accidentally revealed his power and accomplishments to the world.

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The zombie man began asking questions as soon as they were inside some kind of grand hotel forum-looking room.

“Good sir, I am obligated to ask what your business regarding the butler’s guild this day is?”

Arthur coughed into his hands and began speaking whilst doing his best to suppress his heavy Earthling accent, “I have come to join the guild to which all those in our profession naturally belong.”

This response elicited an odd physiological response from the corpse-looking man, his eyes almost seeming to vanish from his skull along with his ears. However, in a split second, they were back, and Arthur heard bones crack and flesh tear as the zombie butler’s lips formed a smile and he said, “I see. We have a membership trial perfectly suitable for someone like yourself then, good colleague.”

Arthur nodded in understanding, having been informed many times of the kind of trials that the diverse types of guilds asked their members to undergo before they were accepted as full members.

“May I ask what my trial is, good colleague?” Arthur asked, slightly nervous.

“Oh, it is nothing much. I assure you. The difficulty of our trials corresponds to the level of competency we suspect you are capable of. So, your trial is as follows: orchestrate the butler’s guild’s formal ball in 2 weeks and do not screw up.”

Upon being given this daunting task, Arthur began suspecting that his burst of power may have finally done him in – a frown formed on his face.

The zombie man chuckled before saying, “Do not be so daunted by the task, and instead focus on the rewards you will receive should you be successful. Not only will you become a member of this here guild, good colleague, but you should also have no problem finding a charge among the crowd of attendees should everything go spectacularly.”

Arthur nodded in agreement, changing his facial expression instantly, but inside he still felt as though 2 weeks’ notice would not be enough for him to organise any reasonably sized event to a sufficient standard.

“May I ask the calibre of the people who will be in attendance?”

The zombie butler smirked and said, “Only a couple thousand of the most elite men and women within the entire Imperium. One of the most important benefactors of this here guild, the new Saint of Quasor, shall be in attendance, so as I said, do not screw it up, good colleague.”

Arthur was astounded once again by the depth of responsibility that was being piled onto his shoulders, and he only had one thing on his mind.

“Why?”

The well-dressed undead looked him up and down and said candidly, “Good colleague, to be fully transparent with you, the upper echelon of this here guild is interested in you and who you are known to associate with. A man of your social and personal calibre must be held to the highest possible standard if they wish to be given the greatest possible rewards and the trial you have been given reflects that reality of this multi-verse.”

Arthur gulped as he started to understand just how interconnected this new elite social circle that he was entering was.

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Steven and Lucas sat opposite each other in the living room of the apartment that they had only just moved into a week or so ago. They had not spoken to each other that much since being introduced to one another, with a ‘hello’ and ‘goodnight’ being about the only words exchanged between them on a regular occasion. The age and maturity gap between them was quite considerable and it seemed obvious to Steven that this was not even the main root of the problem, which was actually that it seemed that Lucas just wasn’t that social to begin with. And, after everything he had gone through, neither was Steven.

So, they sat in total silence – not even looking at each other. That was until Steven finally mustered together some words into a sentence and asked, “So, uh, were you close with your grandfather before the apocalypse?”

Lucas’ body jolted as if he had been electrocuted, the question clearly coming as a surprise to him. However, after a moment, he replied – his voice still a bit shaky as the boy had not fully recovered from the hex’s effects yet, “No… I barely knew him.”

Silence once again engulfed the darkening room, only to cease a few minutes later when the boy asked Steven a question in return – the awkward silence clearly proving too much for him to handle, “How did you meet Grandpa?”

Steven felt a heavy pressure press down hard on his heart as he recalled that day in the forest, but suppressed his emotions and replied, “He saved me and my sister from a group of scumbags back on Earth.”

Lucas seemed to realise the hidden tragedy of Steven’s words quite quickly as his young face turned sorrowful. The boy looked to be about to ask another question but maturely decided not to – whether out of consideration for Steven’s feelings or a desire to not go into it himself the older boy did not know.

Steven wanted to slap himself for almost inadvertently returning the silence he had tried to break but the words had just kind of slipped out of his mouth. The apocalypse had changed his relationship with his sister to such a drastic extent that he honestly felt as though his world had been obliterated when she died. So now, every memory back on Earth became tainted with her death in his mind.

However, to his surprise the younger boy eventually spoke up again, his words tragic yet said so horrifically distantly, “My brother died, as did my father and sister.”

Steven felt a slight bit of anger rise up in his chest, “How can you speak about their deaths so unpassionately?” He asked in a bit too loud of a voice, not expecting the boy’s answer.

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?” Steven asked, now more concerned than he was angry.

“Ever since I woke up, I’ve started to feel… different.” The boy seemed scared of sharing what he really felt but Steven had long ago decided that this conversation was better than silence.

So, he asked, “Different? How?”

The boy began tearing up, and words began pouring out of his mouth as though he had been holding them in for days, “No matter how hard I try now I can’t remember why I cried when my papa died and I…”

“My heart feels so… so numb”

Steven felt his sympathy for the younger boy reach new heights, but also deep down in his soul, he felt the slightest pang of jealousy creep in. He knew that the boy’s emotional distance was probably a result of the intense trauma he had gone through, and just looking at the distraught face of the boy as he cried painted a picture in fine enough detail of the kind of physical and mental suffering the boy had endured post the system arriving.

Yet, even so, the idea of being numb to loss sounded eerily idyllic to Steven. For weeks, his anger at the system and depression resulting from the loss of his sister had torn his mind apart until little remained of the boy he had used to be. It had taken a walk through the streets of Hergalexy and encountering Ol’ Roger at the Grudor bar for him to finally snap back to something approximating his former self in terms of mental stability.

Despite his conviction that he would never become like the system; being cold to all compassion and mercy, the idea of never again feeling the pain he had experienced recently was still beyond tempting to his bruised mind. In this case, his unconscious mind and body had not yet come around to his conscious convictions, but that was something he hoped to change as time moved forward. His new friends had given him a new sense of hope in this regard.

Pushing thoughts of all that stuff to the side, he walked over to the crying boy and tried to comfort him, but he had no idea how to comfort someone who had gone through what the boy had, "It's alright, I'm sure you'll get those feelings back eventually. It's only a matter of time."

Lucas sniffled in response and shook his head, wiping some tears from his eyes, "I... I don't want them back."

"I just want to feel something!"

Steven paled at those words, they sounded so desperate. He wondered whether or not Mr Goodman knew his grandson was suffering this much.

It was almost as though Lucas was reading Steven's mind as he felt a surprisingly strong hand tug at him, and the boy looked up at him with eyes still wet with tears and said, "Please don't tell Grandpa about this."

Steven was visibly unsure if he could agree to such a thing then the boy said, "Please don't tell anyone," in such a broken and despairing way that Steven couldn't help but nod and agree - hoping that it would comfort the boy even a little to know that he could trust his senior.

Steven had no idea why the boy shared his dark secret with him, but he guessed in that way they were alike. Both of them were looking for someone to talk to about their problems, and once they had started talking, they just had not stopped. Steven had experienced this part of himself when he had opened up to Mr Goodman, but despite the man's kindness and warmth towards him there still existed such a wide cavern in terms of age and experience between them that just did not exist to the same extent between him and Lucas.

A stray thought made Steven feel butterflies in his stomach as the seeds of hope began to germinate in his mind as it dwelled on this new relationship between them.