Liam and Amarie’s eyes met across the dining room, her small, resigned and happy smile brightening the room and making him smile in turn.
Sigmund, too, turned at the sound of his daughter’s voice, beaming brighter than the sun as he jumped off his chair, wobbling a moment on his prosthetic leg, before running over and hugging her.
“Amarie, dear! What took you so long?”
The [Knight Commander] hugged him back, closing her eyes as she savored the sensation of her father’s warm scales through her civilian clothes.
When, after a while, the moment ended, she extricated from him, who had meanwhile somehow managed to wrap his legs around his daughter’s rather imposing body compared to him.
“The [King] made a speech, as he does every year, and it wouldn’t be good for the commander of his [Knights] not to be there, together with all his officials.”
Sigmund huffed somewhat like a child: “Huff, that man and his speeches. What do they even matter! He’ll be gone in a few decades at most.”
Amarie chuckled and shook her head: “Careful not to let anyone particularly sycophantic overhear you, dad, or you could find yourself with a blade in your gut.”
“They’ll have to break through the safety enchantments first!”
They both looked each other in the eyes.
And then they broke into laughter, hugging again.
“I had missed you, dad.”
“Me too, little Amarillis.”
She slapped him gently on the shoulder, making him wince: “How many times do I have to tell you I hate that nickname?” she asked with a thunderous frown, which immediately broke upon seeing her father’s raised, scaly, eyebrow, turning into chuckling.
“Alright, alright, call me what you want you scaly bastard.”
Sigmund hmpfed and shook his head in fake outrage: “Youth these days! In my day I’d -”
“Please dad no,” she begged him, closing his jaws with a gentle hand, chuckling at his exaggerated outrage.
Then they hugged for a third time, and stayed like that for a while.
Throughout all that Gaius and Liam stared at the duo, feeling markedly out of place, slightly uncomfortable and guilty for observing something that was clearly a private moment.
“Are they always like this?” whispered the dwarf.
“I… think so. I never really saw them being this close though.”
Which was true. Whenever Amarie visited in the rare leaves from the army and the wars they’d spend as much time as possible together, nearly glued to each other, but he’d never really seen such displays of affection. Was it because she would be leaving in a short while and they didn’t want to hurt each other? That was the only explanation that made sense to him.
Finally, after a good minute of this, Amarie patted her dad on the shoulder and they separated, going back at the table. When they sat down Liam waved at her and she smiled warmly, waving back.
“Liam already knows her, but let me introduce her again: this is my daughter, Amarie, and she’s the [Knight Commander] in our glorious king’s army. You still are, right? No Class evolutions or anything?”
She shook her head: “I gained two Levels in this last month, but I didn’t get any new Skills, and I’m still very far from Level 40.”
Sigmund waved her off: “You’re still young dear, got a whole life ahead of you to gain those Levels. You’re already much higher Level than I was at your age and will probably soon surpass me.”
“Surpass you? You? You’ve got to be kidding dad.”
“Yes dear, surpass. Your rate of growth has slowed, but it’s still better than mine. It’s been two years since I last gained a Level in my main Class.”
She looked thoughtful for a moment, then shrugged: “Comparing Levels is useless. Sooner or later I’ll find something to help me Level up more.”
Sigmund shook his head: “That’s the wrongest attitude you can have dear. One must hunt down the challenges they need to Level. A [Crafter] must create more and more complex things, a [Mage] must learn to cast stronger Spells, a [Fighter] must fight greater enemies. And, in your case, a [Knight] must win battles with more impossible odds each time.”
He sighed, looking despondent for a moment, before smiling again, although this time there was no merriment in his expression: “That’s why most fighting Classes have such explosive growth in the beginning. When you’re at the bottom finding people stronger than you is easy, but the more you grow the more difficult it gets, and the higher the stakes become.
“You’re not nearly near the top Amarie, not by a long shot, but you’ve reached the point where the stakes are getting pretty high. If you want to Level, you’ll have to do things that will put your life at risk more than normal. That is, if you want to Level up fast and probably breach your Capstone. While if you keep doing things as you are now, well, you’ll certainly keep Leveling, but you’ll probably stop when you reach Level 39. Capstones are notoriously more difficult to breach than any other Level because they require something… more.”
The table went silent after that, everyone thinking about what Sigmund had just said.
Then Gaius spoke: “So that’s who she learned that from.”
“You mean Bevia? Hah, that chick got sick of hearing me explain this back in the day. But it is an important lesson to learn.”
At that Liam finally spoke again: “Does that mean the things you’ve been experimenting with aren’t… dangerous? Or important enough?”
The lizardman made a so-so gesture: “More or less… probably. I think. I’m not sure. The only people who try to understand the ways the System thinks are patented [Madmen] and [Philosophers].
“Still, yes, I think that my love for safety procedures and doing relatively safe experiments has stumped… ha,” he wiggled around his prosthetic leg, “my growth. Which is fine by me, my life is worth more than any Level I could gain.”
He looked at Amarie, then up at the ceiling, and then smiled the saddest smile Liam had ever seen him do: “Although I do have some plans for when my life will come near its end. I never wanted to go out the slow way. So, when the time comes, I’ll go outside this city,” he shivered as those words left his mouth and Liam was certain that, had he had any hackles to speak of, they would’ve raised, “and do the unsafest tests I’ve ever planned to, safety measures be damned to Airm and back. It will be a ‘succeed and Level, or die’ situation.”
Amarie immediately opened her mouth to protest, but was shushed by the lizardman this time, who put a finger on her lips: “No protests Amarie. These are the wishes of a will-be-dying man. I know you don’t like the idea, and I know you find it hurtful, but that’s what I wish to do. I’ve strived all my life to recover as much lost knowledge as I possibly could or to outright create something new, and I’ll keep doing it until the very end.”
And with that silence fell on the room like a heavy, wet, too clingy blanket. Because what could you say to that? Liam would’ve liked to call what had just been told to him suicide, but Sigmund had many Levels: there was a good chance that, if he ever did something that crazy, he’d… how did people call it? Ah, right, Counter Level.
Still, it was… a very grim way to go.
“Anyways,” continued Sigmund, clapping his hands to break the silence abruptly, “In all of this I forgot to ask you, Gaius: why are you here?”
The dwarf looked at the lizardman strangely, before he registered the question and coughed into his fist, his beard hiding his blush: “Ah, yes, that, I came for two reasons. The first was to speak with your apprentice here, which I already did; the second is a bit more personal: under Bevia’s suggestion, and with her blessing, I’d like to stay here and work with you as a researcher.”
Sigmund nodded and motioned for him to continue.
“You see, I am, at heart, a [Crafter], and while miss Bevia taught me all she knew on that front, all that she had learned from you, she’s changed her focus from crafting artifacts to crafting and researching new Spells.”
“Look how the mighty have fallen,” said Sigmund with a chuckle, putting a hand to his heart.
The dwarf smiled: “Yes, well, she’s better at that actually. She still hasn’t stopped making magical items, even some artifact grade ones, but she finds spellwork to be more challenging now.”
Sigmund’s smile only grew upon hearing this and he pointed at Gaius, looking at his daughter as he said: “See? This is what I meant when I talked about looking for challenges.”
Amarie sighed: “I can’t exactly change my job dad.”
“Never said that. Truth be told, I don’t know what you should do to look for more challenges, I was just making an example. I’d like to be more helpful, but… I just don’t know how. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry dad.”
Sigmund nodded and turned back to Gaius, his expression thoughtful. He squinted, trying to see… something, Liam couldn’t tell.
“Alright Gaius, you’re in, mainly because I know Bevia wouldn’t give her blessings out so willy nilly.”
Gaius raised a bushy eyebrow and looked right at the lizardman, completely unconvinced: “You saw I wasn’t lying thanks to that ring on your hand right?”
He shook his head: “Actually, I contacted Bevia while I was down there ‘looking for stuff’. She confirmed what you said.”
“Message Scroll?”
“Message Scroll,” he confirmed.
And all the while Liam and Amarie kept looking from one person to the other, finding the conversation mildly entertaining.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
“You got somewhere to stay?” asked Sigmund.
“I’ve rented a home down the street from an old lady who wanted the money to ‘leave this blasted continent’. Apparently her bones can’t take any more falls.”
“Ah, granny Winnow. Poor old lady, so the accident prevention rings I gave her aren’t enough anymore? I’ll miss her cookies.”
“On that front, she said that she was grateful that you gave them to her free of charge. She also said that she wouldn’t insult you by giving it back.”
Sigmund chuckled: “That old canny woman, I really will miss her. I’ve lost count of how many hours she spent rummaging around my shop trying to find interesting trinkets. Do you remember her Amarie?”
The girl nodded and smiled: “I distinctly remember her telling me that I’d sooner burn down half the continent before I managed to cook anything other than charcoal.”
Father and daughter exploded into laughter and suddenly the atmosphere became all the lighter.
“You’ll have to go invite her here for a goodbye meal. It’s the least I can do.”
“You just want to try to extort the recipe for her cookies,” she countered.
“That is the second reason. Imagine just what I could do with that kind of power! I could conquer the world with the power of crispy chocolate cookies.”
And from there the conversation developed in a series of stories told and anecdotes told by everyone at the table, all while Liam just sat and listened, for he felt that all of his experiences could never compare to their lifetimes. After all, he’d not been anyone special back on Earth. Truly, he’d been your typical, average, guy.
A little mr nobody who’d never amount to much more than a family man working as an employee for your typical big company. Not a bad life, all in all, but not a special one too. Here though? He could become so much more. The possibilities were endless.
And he realized that only then, while listening to a lizardman telling about some particularly spectacular failures in his experiments, a dwarf recounting how airmish his training under Bevia had been and a woman he’d fallen for head over heels talking about the funniest things her unit of [Knights] had done. He hadn’t understood just how many possibilities he had even after he’d started working on his gun, even after speaking with a literal god. Because his mind was still back on Earth, still with ideas from back there, ideas on how little he counted, ideas on how he would become just a small gear in a great machine that wouldn’t even hiccup if he suddenly disappeared.
He mattered here!
He could become someone!
So he smiled, and, for the first time in what he understood had been years, felt truly free.
----------------------------------------
It was later, in the night, that the thing he had expected least of all happened.
Gaius had left for the night to go to his room in that old woman’s house: apparently she would be leaving in three days (for good fortune), but she’d still given him the guest room. Sigmund had gone off to bed himself. Apparently the lizardman snored very loudly, but the soundproofing of the walls was top notch.
He, too, was about to put on his pendant and fall asleep, when someone knocked on his door.
“Come in,” he said.
The door opened without a creak and in walked Amarie, her face schooled into a serious expression as she stepped inside dramatically… and promptly stubbed her toe into the leg of his table.
Huh, strange. I don’t remember it being there this morning.
Amarie promptly started cursing as she lost her balance and began falling face first towards Liam. He stared at her transfixed as he saw her move in slow motion, his body reacting before his mind could, moving on an instinct that had been born on that battlefield, and dodging out of her way, leaving an empty stretch of bed for her to land on.
Idiot idiot idiot! he shouted at himself, I should’ve let her fall on me.
That could’ve been romantic.
Instead Amarie fell face first in his sheets and groaned: “I hate Rodar.”
And since Liam was a dumbass, he said: “Could’ve been worse. You could’ve fallen onto the floor.”
She turned her head and glared at him, before slowly standing up to sit by his side on the bed.
“Liam, I wanted to ask you something.”
Uh oh, worried Liam, wondering if he’d done something wrong.
“Yes?”
Amarie sat there in silence for a while, looking at the wall in front of her, biting her lip for a single moment before she could catch herself, and then, finally, sighing.
“Well, two somethings, really.”
“...Alright? I’m all ears,” he had no idea what to think right now. She seemed far more serious than usual, and far more worried than he’d ever seen her.
They stayed like that, in complete silence, as Amarie opened her mouth only to close it again and again, the questions on her lips, right on the tip of her tongue, but her courage leaving her every single time. All the while Liam felt like his heart wanted to jump out of his chest, into his throat and out his mouth, ready to go on a great adventure out in the wide open world and probably get squashed by a passing horse.
He looked at her.
She turned and saw him looking, a slight blush creeping to her cheeks, as she went back to looking at a particularly interesting spot on the wall.
Silence reigned over the room for a while more.
Then they both snapped.
“Amarie, I wanted to ask you if you’d like to go out with me.”
“Liam, would you be interested in dating me?”
They both blurted out at the same time, so fast they barely understood each other. Barely, but enough.
They looked at each other and both blushed like little virgins but gods dammit they’d finally done it! Do you have any idea how frustrating it is to watch a couple run in circles around each other for an entire fucking book and a half?
And maybe I should stop breaking the fourth wall: reality can take only so many hits before it collapses in on itself.
*Distant sound of crashing items*
Liam and Amarie looked each other in the eyes, a tempest of emotions swirling in them: uncertainty, desire, affection, fear, doubt and, finally, acceptance.
Then they lined into each other and kissed.
And the world was a better place for it.
----------------------------------------
“What was the other thing you wanted to ask?”
That was Liam, who was currently sitting on his bed, an arm around Amarie’s waist, her head propped on his shoulder.
No, they hadn’t done anything other than kiss: it didn’t feel right in the moment. A decision I’m prone to agree with. But they knew, now, that they’d fallen in love with each other, and that was what mattered, what would always matter.
So they sat, huddled together, feeling the warmth of their bodies and wondering, a bit, how, and why, they’d fallen for each other. They hadn’t spent that much time together, and she was away for months on end because of the wars, and yet… here they were. Smiling and cuddling, feeling ten years younger.
At that question Amarie became nervous again, shifting slightly in her comfortable position that was turning Liam’s arm slightly insensitive, before she answered: “Do you remember the contracts the First Dealmaker gave you a few months ago?”
How could he have ever forgotten them? The idea of what those many pages meant sent shivers down his spine every time he thought about them. He’d even tried to get rid of them by throwing them out of the city into a river, but by the time he’d come back to Sigmund’s shop he’d found them in pristine condition right on his desk, a simple note on top of the bound pages: ‘A Deal is a Deal. You may not get rid of them. Love, Mina!’
He’d also tried to burn them, but the contracts hadn’t even crisped up in the flames of the kitchen’s cooking fire.
“Yes, I remember them,” he answered, turning his head to look Amarie in the eyes, “Why?”
She didn’t answer immediately, instead going back to staring at the same spot in the wall from before. Liam was pretty certain the paint was beginning to peel away.
Then: “I’d like to sign that contract, Liam.”
And that, ladies and gentlemen, was when a ghost decided to hit Liam’s thoughts with a sledgehammer and send them careening off into the distance, leaving behind only emptiness, which took the form of the boy’s face going slightly slack.
Amarie giggled at that.
“A - Are you… Amarie wha - Why?”
The woman, the girl… Liam actually realized he’d never asked her age. A good move on his side, it showed he had some good self preservation instincts, but it still left him that great, nagging, question. He’d ask her father tomorrow. Oh gods, he was already hearing the jabbing and the insinuations, followed by jokes, soon after probably followed by the father act of ‘What you do to her I’ll do to you twice as much’ or something along those lines.
Anyways, for all his attempts to not think about the thing Amarie wanted to do, she snapped him out of his reverie by speaking: “I… I fear I’m going to die soon, Liam. Nobody’s talking about it, but the war is getting tougher. Nations are banding together against ours and every battle we fight feels more and more like something we win by, and I know this makes no sense on Rodar, sheer luck. The enemies make small mistakes and we manage to use them, or we’re in a strategically better position, and still we’re barely winning. Losses are mounting, Liam and I…”
She stopped, her eyes downcast now, and she hugged him with an arm of her own.
“I fear I’m going to die, Liam. I fear that at some point I’ll be the one to make a mistake and then it’ll all be over. But I don’t want it to be.”
She sighed: “I know it’s cowardly, but… I want a second chance. A possibility to start anew if worst comes to worst.”
What could you say to that?
Apparently, the right thing: “It’s not cowardly to fear death. I’ve been fearing it ever since I was on that battlefield, and I don’t fight a war on a weekly basis.”
That got a chuckle out of her: “Thank you.”
They stayed in silence some more. A companionable silence filled with worry and thoughts, but also gratefulness and… love? They both weren’t certain of that last one. Was it love or infatuation? How could they be certain? Or were they already?
So many questions. Stupid questions, one might say, and that one would be wrong, or never felt true love. True love is a constant question, and the answer to it is always ‘yes’. The problem, unlike with many things in life, is getting to know the question, or questions, and having the courage to give that answer: yes.
In this case, though, the question was simple: will you let me bind myself, body and soul, to you for the rest of your life?
And for the third time that evening, Liam did the right thing. A very auspicious thing, that: three times. Three. A small, magical, number that shouldn’t have meant anything in this world. A number which meaning had been brought here from outside, changed by the voyage into something else entirely. Still, it remembered its original purpose.
“If you want, then… let’s do it. Let’s sign that contract.”
From underneath the bed, Liam took out a small bundle of papers, still in their wrapping paper and bound in red string. He slowly, hesitantly, even reverentially, opened the package and took out a single page.
The words looked like they were written in perfect english to him, but Amarie could still read them, which led Liam to think that there were some Skill shenanigans involved.
And he wouldn’t have been wrong, for the First Dealmaker had a very simple Skill from the days before she’d become one with a devil: [All-Language Contracts].
They read over the simple terms of the contract together one last time, read about what would happen to Amarie’s soul, which would be stored inside Liam’s body until an ‘acceptable receptacle was provided’. They read over the consequences for not providing such a service, which were the complete annihilation of Liam’s soul.
And finally, they read the most important word at the bottom: ‘Signed’.
Two neat lines had been traced underneath it.
“[Summon Pen],” whispered Liam, and a long, probably duck’s, pen appeared from thin air in his hand, a small amount of ink on the tip. The ink was new: originally, the pen had been just that, but apparently Skills upgraded themselves in small ways after enough Levels were gained, so now he had ink as well.
Slowly, his hand shaking slightly, Liam signed his name on the first line, leaving a small blot of ink at the end.
Then he passed both items to Amarie, who, without any hesitation, signed her own name at the bottom.
…
Nothing changed.
Outwardly, that is.
But had someone been there, someone with true [Mana Sight], someone like Isse with her ability to see the threads that connected people, then she would’ve seen that the simple red thread of destiny between Liam and Amarie had thickened and wrapped around both of them, binding them together in a bond that nothing could’ve broken ever again.
When enough time had passed the two youths kissed, laid on the bed, and cuddled together until they fell asleep.