“ … You three will be joining to help guide them.”

We had 48 hours to deal with whatever we wanted to and just overall take time to recuperate. So naturally the first thing I did was find a bed to sleep in and proceeded to sleep away the next twelve hours.

I woke up the next day feeling mostly refreshed and decided to just take the rest of the day to wind down before I geared back up to go back into the field. I started off by heading to the baths and spending a decent amount of time there, relaxing in the warm water and letting it destress my body and mind.

Despite how nice the baths were, I couldn’t help but wish for a nice shower. There was something about the pressure of the water coming from the showerhead that was so relaxing and comforting. I had always loved taking long showers back on Earth, just soaking up the water and letting its pressure wash away all my worries.

Alas, it was not to be. Either they hadn’t come up with a concept of a shower, or they didn’t see the need for one when baths worked just as well.

So I made do with what I had. Which was more than good enough, it certainly beat bathing in the river, that’s for sure.

After spending a couple of hours letting the warmth of the water seep into my pores, I got out and toweled myself dry, and dressed myself for the day. I didn’t really have any plans other than a nebulous idea to “relax” unfortunately. So I was going to need to figure out something to do.

I was standing off to the side of one of the pathways, thinking through what I wanted to do when I heard a voice call my name.

“Alex?”

Glancing up I saw Lea walking towards me. I gave her a friendly smile as she approached, “Hey, Lea.”

“You just get done with the baths?” She asked, motioning with her head to my still-damp hair.

I nodded, “Yeah, trying to relax for the day before getting prepped tomorrow.”

She chuckled softly, “Yeah, me as well. Both the baths and the relaxing.”

It took every ounce of self-discipline I had to not fall into the same mind trap most guys have when women casually announce stuff like that. It feels almost like a reflex to picture them naked. I must’ve had a strange look on my face cause she gave me one in return.

“You alright? You look like you’re struggling with something.”

“Yeah… Yeah, I’ll be fine. Just thinking,” I deflected.

She made a small dismissive gesture, “Well, want to join me? We can find something to do to relax together, maybe? I’d offered the same to Jazzosaur, but you know how he is.”

I did indeed. Pompous, self-righteous, arrogant. I couldn’t judge him too hard though given that I was two of those three things.

Although I felt justified in my behavior.

“Sure, I wasn’t coming up with anything on my own, maybe you’ll have some good ideas for me.”

She gave me a bright smile, “Wonderful. I do have an idea after all.”

***

She leads me into the depths of the capital, through the winding streets. And in the distance we saw it, rising up in the middle of the rebuilt district that The Harbinger had destroyed. The main one, anyway.

It was a massive monument dedicated to Queen Ashendra’s triumph over The Harbinger. The statue was massive, probably about 100 feet tall, and heavily enchanted with magic that made it almost feel like it was alive and moving.

Queen Ashendra was depicted flying over the creature, her famed sword held in her hand with her free hand raised in the air. Behind her coming into existence was a massive lance of ice that she was preparing to throw at her opponent.

Beneath her, The Harbinger sat, roaring in defiance of the mere human that would stand in its way, ill-prepared for the Queen’s attack.

I shouldn’t be surprised that they managed to so quickly rebuild the city. Only a year and everything was fixed most of the way back to where it was, along with this massive statue dedicated to the beloved Queen.

From what I had seen of her that day, she deserved it. It seemed… almost strange to see someone in her position so willingly throw her life on the line for her subjects. It’s the kind of thing you’d only ever see or hear about in movies and books. The hero or heroine bravely and selflessly sacrifices their life for the greater good.

Except she didn’t die. She won and pushed back the opponent. But she had been prepared to die, there was no way she hadn’t been. But it had added to her infamy, her next ascension would be insane if she managed to make it there. The class options she would get…

“Impressive, isn’t it?” Lea asked from my side, breaking the silence between the two of us.

“Yeah, it is.”

“I actually wasn’t in the capital at the time, my family was on vacation towards the southern ends of the country. We own a villa out there that we go down to every once in a while. It just so happened that we chose to leave the week before the incident.”

I nodded slowly, “You’re lucky then. It was… devastating.”

She turned to look at me, “You were there?”

I glanced at her out of the corner of my eye, not quite meeting her gaze.

“Yeah…” I didn’t elaborate, and she didn’t press me on it, clearly seeing that I wasn’t fully prepared to talk about it at the moment.

“They… also built a monument to the deceased. Would you like to go and visit it?”

I wanted to reflexively answer, but I didn’t have one ready. I genuinely didn’t know if I wanted to or not. The right thing to do would be to go and visit, right? Pay my respects to the fallen and the people I was too weak to help.

Except I didn’t really know anyone that had died. One person had died practically in my arms because I ran out of mana, but I hadn’t really known her. I didn’t even remember if I had gotten her name.

Did that make me a bad person?

Maybe not “Bad,” but perhaps callous? Was this a change that had happened in my personality since I’d arrived here, or had this always just been who I am?

I wasn’t sure.

I shook my head, “Not really. My life is depressing enough without remembering that day,” I looked up at the equal parts daunting and impressive statue, “This is enough for me.”

She nodded silently and turned to look back at the statue with me.

Her hand slowly found its way to my shoulder and gave me a comforting pat before we turned away. I couldn’t help but feel smaller than I had before.

***

The following morning I woke up feeling… something. I wasn’t sure what my mood was today, but at the very least I felt like I had recovered.

I didn’t feel exhausted, maybe a little apprehension about going back. But there was only so much I could do about that, duty calls and all that.

We were leaving in roughly 18 hours. So early tomorrow morning. Looking outside the window of the dorm room I had been assigned for the duration of my stay back in HQ I noticed that I had slept in for the first time since… since Earth.

Well, slept in and not necessarily needed it. I’d slept in a few times here in Kelthas, but that usually followed horrific and traumatic events in my life. So I had earned those rests at the time.

Hell, who was I kidding, I had earned this one too.

Getting up, stretching, and yawning, I got dressed for the day. Which thankfully took minimal effort.

I went ahead and went through the effort of armoring up as well, I’d noticed pretty much everyone, including Lea and Jazz, walked around with their armor on. I wasn’t sure if there was some cultural reason behind that, or if it was just a profession thing. But I figured it’d be, if not me trying to fit in, then a show of solidarity.

So I went ahead and had my armor grow over my body, covering me from neck to toe. For some reason, it didn’t cover my head, which seemed a bit strange. Lea didn’t wear a helmet either, which I found even more strange. Maybe something I should ask about.

I could probably make myself a helmet if I wanted to, I just wasn’t sure how effective it would be if it wasn’t going to be considered part of my armor skill.

Although given my swords could cut through weak metals, I’m sure the helmet would probably be as good as any other mundane piece of gear.

Shaking my head I focused on preparing for the rest of the day. I made two swords and slapped them on my hips, but left them with shortened blades so they didn’t stick out and bump anything. I could always lengthen the blades as I pulled them out if I ever actually needed to use them today.

I didn’t plan on it, but you never knew.

With my attire set for the day, I stepped out of my room and started making my way out of the dorms. There was a briefing in several hours. Our team would be meeting with some of the people that would be in charge of leading the group and we’d all go over a plan of action and our goals for the… operation I guess is the word to use here.

This was being taken with a lot more seriousness than I had expected. Especially after the brief stint I had with taking out the demons in Muldren over a year ago. The adventurers there had just kinda run in and fucked shit up.

However, I guess that could have more been because they weren’t trained and disciplined to work as a team, although some of them probably were. Like Garrus, had been.

A brief pang of hurt lanced through my heart, but I did my best to ignore it and just… move on.

I couldn’t spend time thinking about them. Not now. I couldn’t…

Shaking my head I stepped out of the building. Lea had designated a spot for us to meet before the meeting. I had asked yesterday if we were going to be preparing gear like we had last time but she had shaken her head, stating that we should wait until after the briefing before doing anything like that.

That was probably a smart idea, it’d be good to know the full list of circumstances before trying to prepare. Instead, we were going to be meeting up and just… hanging out I guess? At least until the meeting started. Maybe go over a few details from our brief encounter with The Sons.

It didn’t take me long to make it to the spot near the training fields that Lea had mentioned. I was five minutes early, but I was, surprisingly, the last one there for once. Lea gave her signature friendly smile as I approached which I returned with a nod to her and a brief one to Jazz as well.

Just because I didn’t like him didn’t mean I would create drama where there wasn’t any. Just because you didn’t like someone didn’t mean you couldn’t work with them. Although this was more because it was the kind of situation where we had to work together so we might as well try to get along.

Which is just about the only reason I tolerated his existence.

“So what’s the plan?” I asked as I pulled up to the group.

“I really just wanted to run over a few things before the briefing later,” Lea answered as I settled into a comfortable stance, “We also haven’t had a chance to run over your observations from the base. It’d be better if we all went into this on the same page.”

I nodded, that was true. A coordinated front was very appealing to superiors. We also really hadn’t had a chance to talk about anything I’d seen. However, there was one problem with that…

“I honestly, really didn’t get to see all that much,” I replied, “The base was huge. This is apparent to both of you, but it was quite literally just a labyrinth of hallways designed to confuse invaders. And we didn’t ever really get close enough for me to see into the real portion of the base.”

Lea nodded slowly as I spoke, “Even still, it’s information like that. While it seems like nothing-” “Because it is,” Jazz interjected, “-it’s still good to share,” She finished unbothered.

That was fair. I shrugged, “The base was big enough that I couldn’t see the entirety of even just the hallways from where we started to where we ended up, it definitely wasn’t naturally made. Or even made through mundane methods, way too big for something that just sprouted up in the last decade. Magic had to be involved, if that wasn’t apparent enough. There also are more than likely a few shortcuts through the base. Secret walls, doors, and such.”

Lea nodded approvingly, “I thought the same, but it’s nice to have someone come to the same conclusion.”

“The walls were lined,” Jazz added.

Lea frowned, “Lined?”

“With metal,” He clarified.

My mind clicked, “That’s how the walls are enchanted. They’re lined with metal sheets that have the runes engraved on them and are then embedded in the stone wall, it would allow them to have much higher quality enchantments if they did it with a rare sheet of metal as opposed to stone. They’d also have stronger defenses with thick rocks and save on costs instead of trying to pay for five-foot thick metal walls.”

Lea’s eyes lit up as what I was saying started making sense, “Good find, Jazzosaur,” She said approvingly.

“This is the kind of thing it’s good for us to know, it might’ve never come out in the briefing if we hadn’t been talking about this now. This will be good.”

“Alex, what can you tell us about the leader that you fought,” Lea continued with her questions.

“Fast and strong, no visible weapons or armor, but with his abilities he is the weapon and armor. Probably has classes focused on fighting bare-handed. [Identify] turned back Human on inspection, but I’m unsure if people can fool it or not. Even less sure about someone in the fourth tier. If he’s higher… Then we wouldn’t have gotten away in the first place.”

Lea nodded warily, none of us liked the thought of facing someone higher than the fourth tier, even a fifth tier would be a large enough level gap that it’s something we wouldn’t be able to bridge.

I’d managed to kill some third tiers as a first tier, but that was mainly because of unreplicable circumstances. I had been stronger and faster than any other first-tier in existence. I also had a sword made by a bonafide goddess. A divine weapon truly will always cover the difference.

I still wish I had that sword, but she had broken it in our engagement outside Vinwood.

“Do you have an accurate count of how many people we killed?”

Hmmm… I turned on all my minds and ran [Mathematic Calculation] in conjunction with them.

“Fifty-three,” I said after a second.

She raised her eyebrow, surprised I reached the answer so quickly. I rolled my eyes, “So, from the start, we killed three coming out of the base. From there we killed another three before we got detected. From there we killed another twenty-two on our way back to the front. There were twenty-five more blocking the ladder including the boss, considering we didn’t kill the boss that left twenty-four that you two took out on your way out. I killed one more as collateral before I warped out. Fifty-three.”

Lea nodded approvingly, “Okay, that’s good information to have. How many more do you think are in there.”

I shrugged, “At this point, I’m even scared to guess, The base is massive. There could be anywhere from ten more to a thousand more. We’re just gonna have to hope that there aren't all that many or that they can’t quickly get reinforcements.”

That was a sobering thought for both of my teammates. If they managed to quickly reinforce their numbers in preparation for an attack, we were screwed.

Jazz let out a sigh, “This is turning out to be a much bigger pain than I expected. When my dad wanted me to join the NSA I was told it was a relatively easy job that would help me vent a lot of my anger. Now it’s becoming the source of a lot of it.”

Ain’t that the truth?

I let out a sigh of my own, “Well, let’s hope the NSA has some big guns to send with us then.”