~~~Lee~~~

"Ten years!?" Lee blurted, unable to help himself after seeing the notification. Hadn't Zylar said the contract duration would be doubled if he let one of them leave? Had Zylar bailed on his buddy? Had he skipped town and left the other guy on the hook for ten fucking years!?

"What's ten years?" Amy asked.

"I'm about to find out. Let's go ask our newest... recruit?" Lee checked his status.

Status

Name: Lee Cascade

Race: [Mana Soulforge](E-grade Human)

Titles: [F-grade Source] [First Time?] [Swarm Chaser] [Minor Lord](351)

Contracts: [Nicholas Alberton] [Zynthar]

Traits: [Adaptable](55%) [Source Nexus] [Soulforged Mana] [Ley Line Attuned] [Runic Resonance] [Rune Harmonics] [Source Burned] [Ruthless Soul]

Class: Runic (Legendary) - Level 81 (Advanced)

Class Skills: Artistic Rune Creation (Epic) - Level 83 (Advanced) | Rune Soul Storage (Epic) - Level 49 (Intermediate) | Soul Infusion (Epic) - Level 30 (Intermediate) | Language of the Rune (Unique) - Level [N/A]

Attributes:

Strength: 180(+292%)306

Vitality: 190(+292%)302

Dexterity: 175(+292%)298

Wisdom: 281(+1577%)3454

Intelligence: 300(+1577%)3438

Willpower: 292(+1577%)3387

Twin-Soul: 102(+380%)460

Non-Class Skills(4/6):

Liquid Mana Beam (Rare) - Level 15 (Novice) | Liquid Mana Inferno (Rare) - Level 1 (Novice) | Mana Mind (Epic) - Level 75 (Intermediate) | Create Plate (Rare) - Level 35 (Intermediate) | Soul Awareness (Epic) - Level 49 (Intermediate) | Temporal Shift (Legendary) - Level 20 (Basic)

Buffs: [Three] [Soul Link]

Debuffs: [Deadly Soul Wound(Rune Seal)(Shielded)]

Sure enough, he had a new contract. With Zynthar, just Zynthar. Did they not have last names? Regardless, the details were all there. The guy worked for him. For ten years. Or until Lee ended the contract. Only it wasn’t so much ending as... finishing?

There were a few restrictions on Lee. He couldn’t kill the guy. That was pretty much it.

Three opened the door for him, and Lee got his first visual on the monster who'd nearly killed his friends and family.

His first thought was that it was a good thing they'd taken Zylar's gear, because this guy's was wrecked. Three had not gone easy on him, and what remained of his armor had holes melted through it. Not to mention his sword was now a lump of metal in the dirt outside.

Directly on the heels of that observation came his all too recent memories of the battle. Then the rage. This monster had come so close...

"Legendary. Source. But only E-grade. Fascinating. Understand why you wouldn't release me. Appreciate allowing me to live. Will be worth it. Will protect you. Though unsure how much you need protection..."

Lee swallowed down his desire to hurt this creature as he listened to its voice and soul. It was curious and excited, but not upset. Despite fighting for its life against him and nearly dying in here, the creature seemed to hold no grudge.

It wasn't so easy for Lee to move on. So he shut the door without replying and left it in there. There were plenty of other issues he could handle in the meantime. Bradley and Mar, for instance.

Saira sat with her daughter, holding the girl close, while Bradley lay, still asleep, in her lap.

"Mar, where's Meathead? Why didn't you use the boost during the fight?"

She blinked up at him in surprise, then looked at the floor and said in a whisper, "He... refused to fight and resisted the power swap."

"He what!?" Lee growled. He hadn't thought it would have any choice in the matter, and going by Saira's reaction, she hadn't known either.

"He's too strong. Too much stronger than me. Even his soul is stronger... I can't always make him obey."

"Call him," Lee said as calmly as he could. "Bring him here. Now."

Mar's eyes went distant as she presumably communicated with her beast, and Lee met Saira's gaze while that happened. From her expression, never mind her soul, Lee knew she was on the same page as him.

Meathead was going to learn a very important lesson today. Or Meathead was going to die.

Mar's gaze refocused, and Lee quickly controlled his expression; he didn't want to accidentally warn Meathead. "I think he's coming."

"Good. Thanks." Lee turned away before his anger showed through again... He had help in that something new had just wandered into his domain.

Harold was back with his team, but now they had a new addition. A wolfman. That was the only description that really fit the... person? Or werewolf. Obviously, this had to be the guy Lawrence had mentioned. Unless there were more werewolves in the fort?

Because that was what it looked like. He walked upright, knees backwards like a dog, and hunched over with long arms tipped with wicked claws that nearly reached the ground. His head looked entirely like a wolf's... Could he still talk?

"Harold, who's this?"

Harold opened his mouth, and the werewolf growled. "Lucian."

"That's not your name, Steve."

"It is now," the werewolf, aka Lucian, growled, and this time Lee spotted the telltale signs of the Tongues spell around his mouth and ears. He growled again, and words sounded through the spell, "Steve is a terrible name for a werewolf!"

"And Lucian is better!?" Harold exclaimed in what sounded like an ongoing argument.

"Dunno if Lucian is good or not," Lee said. "But I agree it's better than Steve."

"See!?" Lucian said, straightening and throwing his arms up in triumph. The action of standing up like that sent him towering over the others, and his arms slammed into the ceiling of the garage. He immediately crouched back down, sheepish. "Oops..."

Lee smiled and hid his chuckle at the incongruous sight of a sheepish werewolf. "You look pretty badass. Though I don't think I saw you during the battle..."

It wasn't an argument, but more of a question. Since it was entirely possible the guy had been somewhere else in the fort. It was a big place after all, and Lee could only see the area around Three.

Lucian ducked his head again. "Yeah, that was my bad. We didn't get attacked last night, so I thought..."

"I told you the odds were almost one hundred percent we'd get hit today!"

"Lay off him," a girl said, reaching up to pat Lucian on the shoulder. "You've been wrong before."

Harold sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I'm not wrong. I give you odds. There is no right or wrong in odds!"

"So you got trapped outside?" Lee asked, attempting to get the conversation back on track.

"Yeah. I was on my way back. Honest. Just thought I could get in a quick hunt..."

"It's probably good you weren't here," Harold said. "Odds are you would have tried to fight, and you would have died for sure."

"Dude..."

"Get over yourself. It's not an insult. We all would have died fighting those monsters." He shook his head. "It's the one thing I can't figure out..."

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

"What is?" Lee asked.

"The math on what we have to fight in the invasions. It just doesn't add up. Something went wrong somewhere, and now we keep getting hit by monsters way stronger than they should be."

"Assuming the system actually works that way," said the enchanter. Lee really needed to learn all their names...

"Everything points to there being order. It can't just be..."

"Holyshitwhatisthat!?" the girl screamed out a whole sentence in what sounded like one long word.

It was just Meathead surfacing outside the garage. "Stay over here, guys," Lee said. "This won't take long."

Then he moved closer to the massive beast. "Come inside, Meathead. We need to talk."

Of course, the beast immediately tried to retreat, either because of the beast lord in Lee's eyes or because it knew something was up. Either way, it didn't get far.

Saira was waiting for him as well, and she came prepared. Vines erupted from every direction, ensaring and tangling up the beast before he could vanish into the earth. Lee even saw a root stretching from her tree, one thicker around than his thigh, and it looped over the beast's throat in a vise-grip.

"Get him inside, Saira," Lee said, and she obliged, dragging the resisting creature headfirst down the ramp. Lee turned away and walked deeper into the garage, ignoring the rising cries of alarm going up around them. Three, bring him to me. I don't care if it hurts.

Rebar erupted from the floor, ceiling, and even the pillars. The steel beams stabbed into the leathery hide by the dozens, drawing blood and dragging the lizard inexorably deeper into Lee's domain. Well, Three's domain, but then, it was pretty much the same thing.

"What are you doing!?" Mar cried out behind him as her beast roared in pain and shock. Despite the outburst, Lee could feel only a little pain in the lizard and even less coming from Mar, so he let Saira deal with her and didn't let up.

While he would have dragged the entire thing inside, it was just too damn big. So he settled for half. The front half.

Lee stopped walking and waited until the vine-wrapped and rebar-impaled nose of the beast was at his heels. Then he turned to meet the equal parts hostile and fearful reptilian eyes. "You!"

His hands shook, and he clenched them into fists to stop the trembling. "You..." He couldn’t help but scream in its face, "You fucking traitor!"

"Mar brought you into this family. She made you more than just another beast to be hunted and killed... all she asked for in return was to borrow your strength. And you... you abandoned her when she needed you most!"

Lee stalked around its long snout to get closer to a single reptilian eye. "You left your family... MY FAMILY! To fucking die! Because you didn't feel like it!"

He glared into an eye bigger than his head from a couple feet away, finger pointing. "You... I..." Lee couldn't seem to find the words. He was so angry! "I know you fear the beast lord in my eyes. But you're wrong. You should fear me more! I'm not so merciful as he is! I'm not as forgiving as he is! I will burn you down, alive and screaming!"

Lee almost went so far as to force a rune of heat onto the beast's skull, but he held himself back. Instead, he thought back to when he'd been inside his soul with Stanley and the skeleton, and with Caffeine...

He assumed that little pug was what Meathead had seen before, but couldn't be sure. He also wasn't sure how to get back there... Caff, I don't know if you can hear me. Or if you can see this beast through my eyes. But if you can, then tell him to fucking...

Lee took a calming breath as he thought about the Caffeine he knew.

Seeing the little pug fighting beside Stanley against zombies and skeletons... seeing that little shadow inside his soul as it mauled the skeleton intruder. None of those visions were the Caffeine he knew.

Caffeine was a teddy bear. He loved and wanted to be friends with everyone he met. Human or animal.

But despite all that violence. Despite the anger he'd seen in Caffeine. Lee knew he was still the sweet, loving little teddy bear he'd always been.

He'd seen it in Caffeine on that day. Felt it. Caffeine didn't want to fight. He didn't want enemies. He only wanted friends. A single glance at Caffeine's status was all the proof he needed of that.

So he knew where that anger had come from. It came from someone trying to take away what he cared about. What he loved. His family. Show him, Caff. Show him what it means to be the beast lord. Show him what it means to be a family.

Lee stood there, staring unblinkingly into the vertical pupil before him. The lizard was already afraid. But he wanted more than that. He didn't want soldiers or slaves. He wanted people—or not people in this case—to fucking care!

They had something here. Something worth fighting for. "I want you to be a part of this family, Meathead. I don't want to be angry at you. I want to be angry at whoever or whatever tries to hurt you. I want to be on your side."

He blew out a breath and the rage went with it. Meathead wasn't getting any of this. He was just a dumb beast. A terrified, dumb lizard. "Get out of here, Meathead. Get out before I decide you're worth more as a core."

The lizard didn't move for long seconds, then took one hesitant step backward. Then another. Step by step, he crept slowly up the ramp, never taking his eyes from Lee.

"He didn't understand a word I said, did he?" Lee asked, not looking at the girl behind him.

"No," Mar said. "He didn't."

Lee closed his eyes, partly out of embarrassment but also in resignation.

"But I told him what you said," Mar whispered. "He just kept begging for mercy... Was scaring him like that really necessary?"

"Yes. It was." Lee turned to look at her. "You were this..." The words caught in his throat as he stared her face. Her too-young face. "It was so close, Mar. You were... if Jeremy hadn't..."

Saira came up behind her and pulled Mar into her arms. Tightly. Crushing. With tears in her eyes. "I almost lost you!"

Mar touched her throat, confusion rising beside horror in her soul. "It wasn't that bad... was it?"

She... she really didn't know? She'd been frozen in time when her life hung in the balance... it probably happened in an eyeblink from her perspective.

Lee nodded silently, and Saira only hugged tighter.

Mar looked over her mother's shoulder toward where Bradley was shambling closer. He too nodded in answer to the unspoken question while taking her hand in his. "I'm sorry... I tried..."

"It's not your fault," Lee said. "None of you. That bastard was a D-grade." He wasn't sure how much the couple had missed following their defeats... but they were going to find out one way or another. Might as well break the news.

"He's also on our side now. For the next ten years."

There was indeed some confusion following that statement, so Lee brought them up to speed and over to meet the one who almost killed them. He did so only at their insistence that they get to meet the creature. He wasn't a sadist...

The alien was sitting cross-legged in some kind of meditation when they opened the door. At least that was Lee's guess based on how its mana was moving through its body. In fact, he was pretty sure it was speeding up its regeneration.

It wasn't fully healed yet—not even close—but its remaining wounds were all superficial, as if it had prioritized the more life-threatening injuries first. Lee supposed that made sense, though his own regeneration was always too fast to test something like that.

"Greetings," it said, immediately after the door opened. Then it opened those huge black eyes. "Stone Magus, you were strong, bold. Impressive earth control. But rely too much on rock armor. Should have used weapon to block."

"Assassin," it said, head shifting almost imperceptibly to look at Mar. "Excellent strike. Nearly had me. Though you should have been prepared for counter. All offense can work. But risky."

The bastard was giving them pointers. "They don't need your..."

Mar suddenly blurted, "How did you detect me?"

"No sight. No sound. Saw earth compress. Felt air move. Also felt killing intent. Too much anger. Must control that to be a good assassin."

"I'm not an assassin," Mar said, then muttered, "Why do they always look at the damn ground?" She was taking the meeting well, better than Lee had expected.

Bradley also didn't seem very bothered.

"It just doesn't look like the thing that... I fought," Bradley said after Lee asked.

"I was winning," Mar said. "Then it cheated."

"Very impressive. Fought D-grade at E-grade. Nearly won. Impossible for many. Should be proud. Also didn't win. Should be more cautious. Reckless to attack higher grades. Though understandable in this case." It looked at Lee. "Good family. Strong. Will go far if they survive."

Lee tensed up. How did it know? "What do you mean, family?"

It pointed. "Gap under door. Better hearing at D-grade. Heard everything."

"You've been listening this whole time?"

"Yes. Heard deal with Zylar. Agreed with it. Heard instruction to large... reptile? Zhint don't have family. Have pair. Better than family. But understand the concept."

Lee rolled his eyes. You think your pair is good; wait until you find out about twin-souls. Out loud, he said, "Saira, do you want to heal him?"

"No. No, I do not." She said, eyes on Mar.

"Fair enough. Come on, Z. It's time to get your marching orders. I'm going to call you Z, by the way."

Yeah, it was rude, but he was still a little salty with the alien. Not that it seemed to matter to it.

Zynthar stood up, not at all upset, and followed Lee out of the elevator room. "Choice of personal address is yours. Though appreciate being informed ahead of time. Will avoid miscommunication at critical moments. How shall I address you?"

"Lee is fine."

"Understood, Lee. Instructions? Bodyguard? Less effective alone, but still best option here."

Amy stuck out her tongue at the alien.

That was refreshingly simple, Lee thought, with only a mildly irritated glance toward Trak in his workshop. As for the rest of it... "I have a bodyguard."

Amy stuck out her tongue again, smirking this time.

"First off, you know your contract is for ten years, right? Zylar said it was for one year." Lee felt some reactions as the surrounding people heard that. Mostly disbelief.

"One zhint year. Earth is young. Not yet D-grade. Smaller world. Contract is correct."

"That's... we'll come back to that." Smaller world. Which implied there were bigger ones. How much bigger? Ten times? And what did D-grade have to do with it?

"Your job," Lee said, refocusing. "Is to guard every single resident of this fort. Especially during invasions."

"Challenging. Like it. Will force me to improve. Best way. But what of inner conflict? You are monsters. Fight among yourselves. Who will I protect?"

"Disable them if it comes to that," Lee said. Only detecting a smidge of... racism? Specisim? Monsterism? Whatever it was called. It was nothing like the attitude the prince had given off, but there was just a touch of I'm better than you lurking inside Z.

Which brought them right to the next topic he wanted to discuss. "You're a civilized race, right?"

"Correct."

"Good. Then your next job is going to be telling us literally everything you know about everything."