The day before the next Survey, Alex slumped onto her bed in the barracks, and sighed.
It had been a good couple of days of training. She’d managed to bring her Skills up quickly; even Battle Maneuvers had gained a level. Now all she had to do was make it through another Survey the next day, and things would be fine.
Alessa was grousing a little in the next bed; the now-two-time-Porter had been unhappy to be assigned to look after the remaining E ranks. Alex had tried to encourage her, but the words had rung a little hollow. She’d been assigned to another sweeper team, though this time it was Laura and another Surveyor named Martin who was going along with her and Ed. Apparently she’d been a bit too much for poor Tom. Despite herself, she chuckled a bit at the thought.
Her phone chimed, and she flipped it on to check the message. It was a text from Zach, a fact that had her sitting up a bit more in bed. She’d told him about the suits in the hallway a while ago, and he’d only told her he would need a little more time to figure things out.
Red Blade recruits arriving in a little over a week. Going to refill the E ranks. Estimate a new crunch three weeks after that. Be ready.
Alex read the text over again and groaned. The last thing she wanted was to go through another miserable experience like that, but Zach was probably right. Hopefully she could at least get her Skills ready for the onslaught.
“Bad news from home?” Clara plopped down on the bed beside her, her posture relaxed. “Not anything I should worry about, right?”
Alex shook her head. “No. Just a heads up from Zach.” She hesitated, wondering if she should be concealing the source of her ‘hunches’ anymore. It wasn’t like anyone from Golden Swallow would have to try hard to figure it out. “He says we probably are going to have a bunch of new recruits sometime next week. And another crunch, probably three weeks later.”
The news sent a wave of groans through the room, and Alex grimaced. She shook her head. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to bring the mood down.”
Clara laughed softly. “Oh stop. I’m the one who asked.” Then she paused, and when she spoke again, her voice carried a particularly leading tone. “How is Zach, anyway? It’s been a while since I’ve heard from him.”
She glanced at the Acolyte—like Alessa, she’d chosen to keep the same Role for a second time—and raised an eyebrow. “He’s fine. I… talked with him the other day about things. He’d doing the best he can to help.”
“Have you mentioned anyone else to him?” Clara kicked her legs idly. “After all, you’ve met a lot of new people here. You know, like Mary, Bob, Patricia…”
She paused. “Ed.”
Alex felt a twist of something entirely too close to guilt. “No. I haven’t.”
Clara glanced at her and then looked away again. “I didn’t think so.” Then she sighed. “I don’t know, Alex. If your feelings have changed, you might need to let him know. I think he’s a good enough guy that he’d help us anyway, but—”
Twisting around on the bed, Alex backed herself up against the wall. “My feelings haven’t changed. I like Zach, and he likes me. It’s just…”
“You might like Ed too?” Clara’s voice didn’t carry any judgment, and Alex abruptly felt miserable. She patted Alex on the hand. “Hey, I’m not saying your feelings are wrong, but you owe it to both of them to be honest.”
Audrey spoke up from where she’d clearly been eavesdropping. “I don’t know, Clara. It’s not like she’s dating either of them, right? She can keep her options open.”
Alex thought of eating risotto with Zach the other night. Then she thought of the thrill she felt sparring with Ed in the gym. She grimaced and covered her face with a pillow. Why couldn’t she just go fight some Grue?
Clara’s voice turned a little harsher. “I think they’d probably want to be more than ‘options’ Audrey.”
“What for? For all we know, Zach’s been seeing plenty of girls on the outside. The guy’s cute enough, he doesn’t have to limit himself to battle-hardened Valkyries. Besides, I think Ed’s cuter.”
The thought of Zach seeing someone else brought a flash of discomfort that Alex hadn’t expected. Was that jealousy? What right did she have to be jealous, anyway? They hadn’t agreed to anything, and he had to have other people interested in him. Maybe even somebody that didn’t drag him into possibly dangerous investigations all the time.
Audrey and Clara continued to bicker about the situation, and Alex felt herself slipping into a pit of misery over the whole situation. Then Joanna spoke up. “I think that right now, we’ve got a Survey tomorrow. Maybe we can save the gossip until we get through it?”
Alessa laughed. “Sounds like someone’s mad they are late to the D rank party.”
The Adept glared at her. “Just you wait. Audrey and I are going to make it there tomorrow, and then we’ll have some brand new sparring opportunities.”
“Don’t forget me!” Audrey smiled and flexed. “I’ve been waiting to show you who is the better beatstick, Porter. Never forget the power of the club!”
Alessa snorted, and the topic of the bickering changed. Clara, however, remained sitting on her bed. She glanced at Alex again. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to push, but…”
“Don’t worry about it.” Alex chuckled, still feeling a bit sick over the guilt. “I’m… not good at these things. Maybe I’m a bit too good at compartmentalizing things, or maybe I just didn’t want to think about it at all. I needed someone to say something.”
“Still…” Clara looked at her again, this time with a stubborn expression. “You went after a bunch of Killers last Survey. You remember your promise, don’t you?”
Alex held up both hands. “Hey, that was just about that one Killer! And I had a whole team of Surveyors with me.”
The Acolyte picked up a pillow and tossed it at her. Alex graciously blocked it rather than chucking it back at her. “You know what I mean. You’re not allowed to get killed out there. Promise me.”
“Fine, fine, I promise.” Alex smiled and settled back into her bed. Clara rolled her eyes and stood up to head over to her own bunk. Her smile faded as she thought about Zach and Ed again, and she fell asleep still arguing with herself, still unsure which side of her had won.
[Mission Report]
[Successful Return! +20 Experience]
[Main Quest Completed! +100 Experience]
[Secondary Culling Quest Completed! +80 Experience]
[Secondary Culling Quest Completed! +80 Experience]
[All Quests Completed! Glorious Victory! +80 Experience]
Alex regarded the messages with mixed feelings. On the one hand, yet another full clear was a wonderful chance to get that much closer to her next level. On the other, the last Survey had been almost too… easy, in a way. Between her now-high grade combat Skills, and Meditation providing almost constant relief from fatigue, tearing through patrols had become a breeze. Even the armies of Grue at the Camps hadn’t really provided her much of a challenge.
Normally, she would have been more than happy to let that slide—except that the Grue weren’t really the problem she was worried about. No matter how high her Skills currently were, she was certain that Wells would continue to outmatch her easily. If she stayed as she was, she was never going to be able to deal with him without help.
Help wasn’t exactly something she was going to have a lot of, either. If the government was involved in his smuggling operation, then Regulation was going to be that much less likely to intervene, if they had even been willing to confront Red Blade Securities over it in the first place. Red Blade Securities wasn’t likely to be any help either; as long as the chief was making them money, then they weren’t likely to interfere with Wells either.
Which meant her options for support were either to call in her mother—potentially blowing a cover her parents had been working on for literal years—or put her friends at risk by asking them to help her fight a C rank. One that hadn’t broken a sweat knocking all of them around the sparring ring the past few weeks. It wasn’t the best option by a long shot.
If she wanted to avoid that, then she needed to make a change. No matter how much it hurt.
[Battle Maneuvers increased from 26 to 30!]
[Meditation increased from 24 to 25!]
[Deflect increased from 14 to 25!]
[Combined Arms–Axe/Shield increased from 15 to 25!]
[Running increased from 10 to 11!]
She examined the list of her Skills and frowned. Her original plan had been to Chain Meditation and Deflect, giving her a kind of defensive Skill that would rebuild her stamina as she fought. It wasn’t a bad plan, but it didn’t exactly fit the needs of her situation. Alex thought about it for a moment, settling on a new course of action, one that would hopefully wipe the smirk off of Wells’ face soon enough.
[Battle Maneuvers has reached level 30! Skill is at Max Level and can no longer increase.]
[Reset Battle Maneuvers to gain a Title?]
It hurt, but it had to be done. The struggle to bring it back up to maximum would have to start again the next day. She accepted.
[Title Destined Champion upgraded to Title Fated Hero (Increases Skill grade of Dodging, Anticipate, Battle Maneuvers, and Inspect by five.)]
Not too bad of a result; it made Battle Maneuvers that much more dangerous. Hopefully the next upgrade went to Queen of War, but she couldn’t exactly force that to happen.
[Deflect has reached level 25! Skill is at Max Level and can no longer increase.]
[Reset Deflect to gain a Title?]
She denied the option. She had new plans for the Skill, after all.
[Meditation has reached level 25! Skill is at Max Level and can no longer increase.]
[Reset Meditation to gain a Title?]
This time she accepted; it would be a pain to regain her levels for the Skill, but she had a feeling it would be worth it.
[Title Inner Thought upgraded to Title Internal Calm (Increases Skill grade of Meditation, Focus, Recovery, Arcane, and Sense by two.)]
[Combined Arms–Axe/Shield has reached level 25! Skill is at Max Level and can no longer increase.]
[Reset Combined Arms–Axe/Shield to gain a Title?]
Again, she denied it. Her new plans needed it at max level as well.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
[Skill Chain available. Do you wish to combine Combined Arms–Axe/Shield and Deflect?]
[Warning: Chained Skills lose all previous levels]
Steeling herself for exactly how difficult training would be for the next three days, she accepted. Power rushed through her as the max level Skills merged, flowering into something new.
[Skill Chain unlocked! Skills Combined Arms–Axe/Shield and Deflect removed. Skill Combat Balance gained! Skill Chain bonus gained! Title Lethality upgraded to Title Aggression (Increases Skill grade of Melee, Weapon Mastery, Combined Arms, and Combat Balance Skills by five.) Title Innate Guard upgraded to Title Innate Guardian (Increases Skill grade of Deflect, Dodging, Blocking, Resist, Zeal, and Combat Balance by two.)]
[Skill Choice available. Please select an additional Skill.]
She let out a long breath. While Combat Balance might not be as strong an upgrade from Combined Arms as she might have liked—it had gained the bonuses of being a higher tier Skill, but lost the benefits of Queen of War—it was a definite improvement over Deflect, and unlike her other high tier Skill, it would still gain levels quickly. A few more Surveys, and it might be a rival for Battle Maneuvers in terms of her offensive capability.
The extra space for a Skill was a nice benefit as well. Smiling to herself, she chose Recovery. She wanted her Marathoning Skill back, and perhaps something more beyond that.
Satisfied, she closed her eyes and prepared to return to her home. The light took her home as she grinned to herself and planned for the future…
The next three days were as close to abject misery as Alex could get, outside of crunch. It took only the first few hours to tell her that resetting nearly all of her Skills to zero might have been…overly ambitious.
Her first clue was when her morning run became something close to abject misery. Without Meditation to recover her stamina, those ten-minute intervals along the walls made her legs tremble from fatigue. The only upside was that Sam joined her for part of it, and even he was asking if she was feeling well by the end.
Sparring was just as unpleasant, unfortunately. The initial levels of Combat Balance and Battle Maneuvers came relatively quickly, but it was just as obvious that she wasn’t the same level of prowess that she had boasted about before the Survey. Wells barely spared her a glance as he swatted her aside that afternoon, and she spent most of the tactical seminar desperately meditating to try to soothe away her pains.
Despite that, it wasn’t all terrible. Seeing her struggle appeared to make the rest of the Surveyors relax a little more around her. The smirks from Ed and the others were a little grating, but at least there weren’t quite as many people walking on eggshells.
She also got to see Joanna, Audrey, and Raul join the D ranks in the gym, which was nice. Rumor had it that both Brian and Tim were getting closer to D rank as well, which would be a welcome change, too. They all gave her people to train against that weren’t quite as painful to fight, but they all still beat her rather handily. Alex couldn’t help but hear her father telling her that humility was healthy as they traded jokes after each spar.
The second day was still rough, but her Skills still improved steadily to the point where she wasn’t struggling as hard just to survive. All the same, she could see Wells looking at her with something close to contempt as she went through the sparring that day. His obvious amusement when he fought her and once again batted her aside spurred her to commit to an additional run along the walls that night, once the unending seminar had finished.
By the end of the third day, she wasn’t at all surprised when Wells assigned her to a Survey with some of the few remaining E rankers in the compound. The smirk he gave her at the same time made her clench her teeth, but she ignored it and forced herself to focus on her goals. He might have been smug now, but she would see the day when his self-satisfied expression turned to surprise.
After all, it wouldn’t even be the first time for her.
“Oh, how the mighty have fallen.” Tim put a hand to his chest, like he was posing for some kind of play. “The noble Valkyrie, sent to wallow in misery with her lessers. How tragic…”
“Shove it.” She nudged the Porter with one shoulder, and he grinned at her. Brian was still rolling his eyes, while the two Surveyors from Red Blade—a sour-faced Page named John and a sad-looking Adept named Penny—just looked on with vaguely baffled looks. Alex hoped they would come around during the Survey, but time would tell.
“How close are you jokers to D rank, anyway?” Alex watched as Brian and Tim exchanged a look, and then shrugged.
“We could probably reach it today, with a full clear.” Brian said it in a tone that told her he didn’t exactly expect that to happen at all. “Failing that, either this time or next, we’ll be in the gym with the rest of you.”
She looked at the other two. “What about you? One or two more?”
Penny shook her head. “Probably three. Sorry.” John nodded as well, and Alex grunted. Obviously, not everyone had been benefitting from the Red Blade philosophy of ‘strongest gets the experience,’ but it was discouraging to see how badly it had affected these folks. She’d just have to do what she could with them.
“Well, at the very least we should get your Skills ready for it. Have any of you picked what you’re planning on keeping for D rank?”
[D Rank Surveyor Alex, Gatekeeper]
[Ascension Level: 5]
[Role: Porter (Role Skills: None]
[Role Level: 0]
[Experience: 1880/2100]
[Attributes: Strength -> 5, Speed -> 10, Life -> 0, Devotion -> 0, Control -> 0]
[Current Skills: Combat Balance(19), Meditation(21), Running(16), Recovery(10)]
[Permanent Skills: Battle Maneuvers(15)]
[Current Titles: Queen of War (Increases Skill grade of Melee, Combined Arms, Weapon Mastery, and Battle Maneuvers by four.),
Aggression (Increases Skill grade of Melee, Weapon Mastery, Combined Arms, and Combat Balance Skills by five.),
Fated Hero (Increases Skill grade of Dodging, Anticipate, Battle Maneuvers, and Inspect by five),
Relentless (Increases Skill grade of Recovery, Running, and Marathoning by three.)
Tireless (Increases Skill grade of Recovery Skills by three.)
Innate Guardian (Increases Skill grade of Deflect, Dodging, Blocking, Resist, Zeal, and Combat Balance by two.)
Internal Calm (Increases Skill grade of Meditation, Focus, Recovery, Arcane, and Sense by two.)]
Obviously, she would have preferred that her Skills have been higher, but at the same time she was relatively certain that she was going to be able to get some of them up to maximum. Those that she didn’t, she could probably have them reach it by the end of the next Survey—unless Wells found some convenient excuse to deny her the chance to be on the mission.
[Please select your intent]
[Exploration]
[Vengeance]
[Patrol]
[War]
[Salvage]
With a heavy heart, she selected Patrol. At the very least, she’d reach her first level of Porter with this one, unless something surprised her.
[Your intent is to Patrol]
[Quest Issued! Clear at least eight Grue patrols.]
[Hidden Quest Issued!]
[Hidden Quest Issued!]
She grimaced and stepped forward into the light…
[Battle Maneuvers advances to 22!]
[Recovery advances to 14!]
[Main Quest Completed!]
Alex straightened up from the burning ruins of the eighth patrol and grinned. Brian and the others grinned back at her, though they were panting and nearly exhausted. None of them were wounded, though, and it didn’t seem like any of them were disappointed with their experience so far, either.
The Survey went more or less exactly as she had expected. Patrols seemed to melt when she hit them, which was gratifying after so many frustrating sparring sessions. The fact that her Skills continued to improve with each fight was gratifying as well.
Her teammates had done an admirable job keeping up with her too. Brian and Tim both formed a miniature shieldwall that had no trouble throwing the Grue back, and when she’d assigned them to take on the Brute for two of the patrols, they had thrown themselves into it with gusto. John had peppered the Grue with arrows from his shortbow, while Penny had unleased waves of fire and ice from the backline. They had a little more trouble fighting the Brutes and Knights, but Alex had made sure to wound the larger enemies to give them a shot.
She hadn’t had any trouble completing her own Quests either. Her teammates hadn’t complained about her taking the occasional batch of Archers or Knights, not when they were given the chance to do the same with their own Quest targets. All in all, things had gone well so far.
Then Tim grinned at her. “So, when do we start causing trouble? This feels like it’s going way too easily.”
Brian gave his friend a glare. “Oh, come on. We almost made it back without you jinxing us. We haven’t even had Liliana bothering us.”
John frowned. “Liliana?”
Tim waved aside the question. “An old boss. Don’t worry about it. The captain can take care of her.” Alex frowned and opened her mouth to protest, but the Porter continued on. “And hey, I’ll have you know I meant causing trouble for other people, not us. Since when has it not turned out in our favor? Especially with Alex around?”
“Hey, it wasn’t that—”
Brian didn’t seem to hear her. “Look, just because she’s had us do crazier stuff than this, and survived it, and just because we got way better Skills and levels doing it, doesn’t mean we should do it here! I mean, maybe we could get to D rank a little sooner, and maybe she’d help us out if we Chained a few extra abilities or something, but we can’t just rely on her to keep doing that stuff.”
Alex cleared her throat. “You know, I can’t—"
The Porter didn’t seem to be listening either. He spread his arms wide. “All I’m saying is if we hit just a few more patrols before we head back, maybe we could finish an extra Hidden Quest each. Our Skills would get that much better too. Sure, we might get yelled at a little bit, but it isn’t like Wells likes us anyway, right? And Alex wouldn’t be afraid of that kind of thing, anyway.”
The Red Blade Surveyors were looking back and forth between Tim and Brian like they couldn’t quite figure out what was going on. Alex, on the other hand, had a deep suspicion about it. She glared at them, but there was no real heat in it. “Are you two chuckleheads finished with the act?”
They looked back at her with near-identical grins. Tim was the first to respond. “Why Alex, I have no idea what you mean.”
“I don’t either. I mean, I’m the one who pointed out how worried you would be if Wells disa—”
“Shut it.” She looked up into the cloud-filled sky in a futile effort to guess how long they’d been in the other world. Her intuition told her they were actually a little bit ahead of schedule; the team had fought well, and the Grue hadn’t been shy about showing up. If they moved fast enough… “We’ll need to keep moving. No rests and no hesitating. Each of you has three or four Knights left to kill?”
Tim and Brian held up three fingers each. Penny hesitated and held up four. John looked around at all of them, a bitter look on his face, and held up four as well. Alex nodded. “That means we need three patrols. Brian, Tim, take a Knight out of each of them, and then keep the Soldiers busy. I’ll hit the Brutes and the Archers. John, Penny, we’ll try to wound the last four Knights when we can, but it’s going to be your job to take them down.”
The Red Blade Surveyors were looking at her with wide eyes, but they nodded. Brian and Tim were grinning like loons, but she ignored them as she turned to gather what she could. They had a long way to run.
[Mission Report]
[Successful Return! +20 Experience]
[Main Quest Completed! +100 Experience]
[Secondary Culling Quest Completed! +80 Experience]
[Secondary Culling Quest Completed! +80 Experience]
[All Quests Completed! Glorious Victory! +80 Experience]
Another full clear, though it came at the cost of an extra forty or so minutes in the other world. In the end, her teammates had all been giving her grateful looks, which had warmed her heart. She doubted Wells would be as enthusiastic about it, however.
[Battle Maneuvers increased from 15 to 25!]
[Combat Balance increased from 19 to 25!]
[Meditation increased from 21 to 22!]
[Running increased from 16 to 17!]
[Recovery increased from 10 to 16!]
At least her Skills had increased nicely. She examined them a moment, forming a plan of how to prepare herself for the future. Then he moved forward.
[You have reached level 1 as a Porter!]
[+2 Life gained. +1 Free Attribute awarded.]
A new level! It came through in a rush of energy, but she just shook it off. The extra staying power from having points in Life would be useful, as would the extra point she immediately dumped into Strength. Not as helpful as her Skills, of course, but every bit would help.
[Combat Balance has reached level 25! Skill is at Max Level and can no longer increase.]
[Reset Combat Balance to gain a Title?]
She grimaced and agreed. Better that she make the sacrifice now, and not when it was a Permanent Skill like Battle Maneuvers.
[Title Innate Guardian upgraded to Title Instinctive Protector (Increases Skill grade of Deflect, Dodging, Blocking, Resist, Zeal, and Combat Balance by three.)]
The next notification also gave her pause.
[Skill Chain available. Do you wish to combine Running and Recovery?]
[Warning: Chained Skills lose all previous levels]
Normally, she would have denied it out of hand. Neither Skill was at maximum, and she wasn’t going to gain a Title by Chaining them.
At the same time, she already had a Title for Marathoning, and given her plans for it, she didn’t need to delay things further. She accepted it.
[Skill Chain unlocked! Skills Running and Recovery removed. Skill Marathoning gained!]
[Skill Choice available. Please select an additional Skill.]
With Wells in mind, she picked Melee–Axe. With all of her other bonuses, it would increase her combat power dramatically. Thinking it over, it might help if she held back a little during her sparring, though she was tempted to just start smashing the other D ranks once she finally got up to speed.
[Additional equipment awarded! Select new equipment.]
Mindful of the number of close calls she’d suffered recently, she chose to upgrade her armor. The brigandine grew heavier, and a set of greaves sheathed her legs. She thought back to the time when she’d been shot through the legs by a Killer, and took comfort in the fact that it wouldn’t happen again. Vambraces appeared on her forearms, giving her extra protection there as well.
Satisfied with the changes, she let out a sigh. Her morning exercise was going to be a bit rough, but it would be better in the long run. Alex grimaced at her own pun, and dismissed the last of the orange text, allowing the light to encompass her again…
She stepped back into the portal room and immediately saw Wells glaring at her. A glance at the clock on the wall told her that her team was about ten to fifteen minutes late. Alex did her best not to wince and walked over to receive her tongue-lashing. At least her team had been happy with her.
“So you’re probably going to be on E rank duty again this week, huh?”
The sympathy in Audrey’s voice was a little comforting, but Alex just sighed. “Yeah, probably.”
Joanna gave her a narrow look. “I told you Wells was a stickler for punctuality. He probably worries a lot about how people will treat their teams during crunch.”
“Probably.” Alex didn’t bother to add anything else to the comment. “He also said that my tardiness meant that I wasn’t invited to the celebration tonight, so you guys will need to put in some extra small talk for me.”
Clara and Alessa made some noises of sympathy, but Joanna just snorted and rolled her eyes. Audrey just laughed and shook her head. “Ed’s going to be disappointed. Maybe I’ll keep him company.”
Alex was fighting down a sudden burst of jealousy when Clara broke in. “Maybe that would be a good idea, anyway.”
Joanna gave the Acolyte a glare. “Don’t start that again.”
Still fighting to squash her own feelings, Alex outwardly rolled her eyes and went to change into her running shoes. If she wasn’t going to be out with the others, she might as well get her Skills started.