Back at Freehold, our return caused a bit of a surprise celebration around the Guild. We ended up taking over the inn’s dining hall and having a party, and local tamers came and went, buying pieces of salted dracosaur meat from the hunters who were willing to sell in order to feed them to their beasts and help push them towards evolution.

I dropped off a small fortune in scales to the village armorsmith and also left him my draconewt scale armor to take a look at. I felt a bit silly for having so recently commissioned the larger set of draconewt scale armor, which I had barely used before turning around and getting improved scales, but that was just how it went sometimes. I had learned that lesson from video games. There was always a better upgrade around the corner, but one had to take what they could get as it came.

Our local armorer would be well-rewarded for making the set for me, and if the quality did not quite match up what I could get in Roko, well, I could just commission another set in Roko. I had an abundance of secret spare scales in my inventory.

My butchery skill had let me dismantle the remaining corpse and while some of the meat was spoiled, a large amount was still marked as safe, plus I had all sorts of other trophies like claws, teeth, bones, and more. I left the undesirable spoiled meat and offal behind at the death site after growing tired of fighting beasts, and they went at it while I had slipped back away towards camp.

The battle with the dracosaur, my subsequent fight with the small horde, and the journey in general had been more than sufficient for my own growth, as well. With the skill points from the additional levels and some extra from my consumption of skillfruit, I opted to spend 100 SP and double-advance Two-Handed. I could use my new sword with a single arm thanks to Strength, but I felt like I could get a boost by advancing the skill that dealt in my wielding melee weapons with both hands. Maybe I’ll buy or make an even bigger sword, next. I looked over my increased stats with a quick nod. Progress was progress.

Pilus Horgson (Lv 44)

HP: 334/334

MP: 483/483

Status: Absorption (major), Protection (major)

EXP: 358/4400

Skills: 3-Point Magic(++), 4-Point Magic(++), 5-Point Magic(++), 6-Point Magic(++), 8-Point Magic(++) Acrobatics(++), Brewing(++), Butchery(+), Cooking(+), Detect(++), Enchanting(+), Foraging(+), Horticulture(+), Inkmaking(+), Inventory(++), Knotting(+), Leatherworking(+), Literacy(+), Needlework(+), Negotiation(+), One-Armed(++), Ranged(++), Smithing(+), Stealth(+), Strength(+), Taming(++), Tanning(+), Two-Armed(++), Unarmed(+), Woodworking(+)

Familiars: High Treehopper (Lv 10), Shuggopotamus (Lv 9), Tarand (Lv 10)

Unfortunately, my shug’s experience gain had slowed down after gluttonously consuming part of the dracosaur. Perhaps if I let him eat a lot more, he would push to the cap, but the meat had more value helping other beasts rapidly advance. I was reasonably certain that I could evolve most rank D beasts to rank C, quickly, with a moderate amount of this meat, and there were other rank C beasts I would want to push ahead as far as I could with it. I would have to train the shug the old fashioned way and diversify his diet to help him reach his peak, but I was in no rush.

With that, another season was coming to a close. We harvested that year’s skillfruit as well as bringing in the other crops, and I made the trip into Gurt to do some trade and pick up an order of grain. Forn came with me as a driver, so I could introduce him to my contacts. Picking up the village and farm grain order no longer required my direct involvement; I could have Forn take over as part of his role in the Guild. He spent more than enough time in a wagon seat as it was, commuting back and forth between the farm and the village.

After he and his family arrived in the village, they had stayed in the inn for a while, trying to get settled. The village had quite a lot of new faces, though, and building new houses was not quite keeping up with demand. With nowhere else to go, and the inn burning away their cash reserves, I eventually invited their family to stay at the farm.

I had already put together accommodations for apprentices and hired farm hands, a small stone dormitory near the core of the farm operation. It was no hassle to slap together a new family-sized cottage for the family of five and tap into the same resources.

Then, of course, Rena had insisted that I build her a cottage too. She still lived with her parents, but spent as much time on the farm as she did in the village, and wanted a space separate from the apprentices, with more room for her beast companions.

Since she practically ran the farm for me when I was away on my own business, I agreed. I had learned a few things from building the small collection of buildings, the various barns and workspaces and dormitories, so I decided it might be a good time for me to put together a new place for myself, and I could give my old space to Rena. I liked having a community, but I also liked my privacy, so I started building something new slightly further away from the core of the property, and I used my new knowledge and resources to spruce it up some more.

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We had a large collection of beasts now, so recruiting some animal aid to do the digging was simple. I had them dig out a full basement for this building, which I could use as a lab for my more secret projects, and with my woodworking skills I incorporated some softer wooden frames and trim to the building beyond the core of stone.

I got the building fully dried in before winter, and moved my stuff out of the former cottage, letting Rena take over the space. She formally moved out from her parents’ place, freeing up space at Soren’s for the younger children, though Soren still had mixed feelings about it. Living on one’s own while unwed was a bit unusual, apparently, but I insisted that this was no different from an apprentice or employee living at their employers, just with more legroom. She still spent half her time in the village at the Guild branch, she had just flipped the commute.

Soren’s wife, at least, was relieved to have less beasts to trip over at home. Though, the ‘barg Soren had bought as a puppy had stayed with their family rather than move out with Rena, and the family had acquired a pannid as well over the years. Rena had rubbed off on them, after all.

I spent my winter decorating my house, building hardwood furniture and mounting shelves and hooks to display my various treasures. I hung some furs on the walls and laid others as carpets, adding some warmth to the space. I practiced engraving and enchanting in my lab, further studying how to build more complex magical circuits and self-powered artifacts. I picked a few beasts to live in the house with me, and a steady diet of dracosaur meat brought them and others on the farm to their peak for evolution.

The winter was quiet and peaceful. Travel to and from Freehold had slowed for the season, and the village was fairly quiet, so I spent much more time at home and less time at the Guild, which Rena was more than capable of managing without me. She was also training a new receptionist for the branch, so that she could split her time with the farm, which Forn’s wife Lussel had taken to as well.

So it was that I got used to a pace of life that allowed us to get a bit lazy, and it took me longer than usual before I noticed how much time Treepo was spending sleeping.

I did not realize that something was wrong until I noticed his health had been reduced. He had not taken damage, and it was not the case that he had lost some HP, as I kept him full with regular healing as well as cures and a slew of buffs.

Rather, his maximum HP had gone down by a couple of points. His maximum health point value was shrinking, when I had only ever seen one’s HP go up from leveling and growth.

As I watched, I saw his total HP drop by another point.

There was no healing that could help, and nothing that I could cure. This was the raw limit of the progression of time.

“Oh, Treepo, no,” I murmured, my throat catching on the words. My long-time companion lifted his head, and I reached down to wipe the rheum from his eyes. I sat down on the bed next to him, patting his graying fur.

Bit by bit, the high treehopper’s maximum HP bled away, and I thought back to our time together. I remembered finding him as a baby after being attacked by his mother, and accidentally taming him when I fed him food from my inventory. I remembered deciding to keep him safe, and inadvertently bonding with him and naming him, and committing to keeping him with me. I remembered his growth, as he gained in size and strength, and leveling up to help me learn about some of the secrets of my new world.

He had even fathered some children in Mirut Jungle, and I sincerely hoped his progeny lived on. In time, he reached his maximum strength as an unevolved treehopper, and once I had learned how, he evolved into his current form, and helped me clear my first dungeon.

Treepo had been with me when I left home, when I was faced with all the potential and problems of the larger world. He was with me when I reached Roko, and when we went to the capital, and when we ended up north of the mountains and immersed ourselves in the Velgein conflict. He was a guiding light for me afterward, and it was through my time with him that I gained the direction I took my life in as an adult in this world, building an entire institution around the bonds that he had shown me were possible.

I had never lost my tamer bond with him through all these years. I had released many bonds with beasts as life had required of me, and had seen the change that came over the beasts which had only been with me thanks to taming. Yet, I had learned in the time since that some connections transcended the tamer bond. Rena had shown me time and time again that she could live alongside her beasts with or without bonds, and that they had a relationship even without because she raised them from young. There were plenty of beasts on my farm that were varying levels of tame, in the mundane way, from being raised alongside humans. My direfox Rika was one such beast, but it was something that I had worked on from the very start. Treepo had never been untamed. Part of me had always worried he would hate me if I let it happen. It was part of the reason he came everywhere with me.

“I have to know,” I sniffled as I watched his maximum HP fall to less than half of what it had been at his peak. I reached out with my magical senses to feel the connection between the two of us, a thread between our souls that had been there for his whole life and most of my own. I grabbed a hold of the thread, and it snapped. For the first time since we had met, he fell off my familiar list.

I watched his eyes and expression carefully, blinking away the welling water in my eyes.

“Treepo?” I asked softly.

The aged, graying treehopper groaned a bit as he got to his feet. He took a few steps forward, and climbed into my lap, curling back up and putting his head down, his breathing labored. Hot tears fell from my cheeks onto his fur, and I pet him while whispering to him, telling him that it would be all right. His maximum HP fell into the single digits.

“I love you, Treepo,” I said, stifling a sob. “Thank you for everything.”

Treepo chittered quietly, then took a shuddering breath, trembling as he lifted his head to look at me. He exhaled slowly, settling back down, and his eyes closed as he stilled, his HP fell to a forever unchanging zero.