I woke after something like twelve hours of sleep, and was greeted by the first day of the rest of my life. Ostensibly, at least. The looming threat had come and passed. The fable had ended, the evil and powerful Samurai vanquished, technically at the hands a foe beneath contempt, but in truth slain by his own hubris. There should’ve been some sort of fanfare, or great big ‘THE END’ banner from the system that let me know it was all over.

Maybe it wouldn’t have changed anything, but it would’ve made me feel better.

I woke after something like twelve hours of sleep, and was greeted by a morning like any other and a complete lack of resolution. I’d hoped that maybe, like a bad status effect, that listless, sickly feeling would vanish with a full night’s rest, but alas.

Breakfast was an austere affair. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised to find the cupboards bare, but I was. I almost suspected I'd been the last to restock them. Toast with a scraping of jam was the best I could scrounge up. As usual, my father wanted nothing to do with the morning until the early risers had thoroughly broken it in, so I ate alone. I preferred it like that anyway.

And yet, I couldn’t help but feel a distinct sense of disquiet.

It wasn’t often that I found myself without anything to think about in the immediate sense. Normally, it wasn’t about much more than ‘are we short on anything? What do I need to prep? When should I go shopping?’, at least, it was before—

I stopped myself, breath suddenly deafening in the silence. Yet again, my thoughts went straight back to the guildhouse, the guildmaster or what had happened. It continued to resurface and I hated it. Every time I let it affect me, it was like letting him win in some small way.

It’s only been a day, reassured my more rational side, a bloody lot of help when I already knew I wasn’t being rational.

It wasn’t even as if it was like that. The bastard hadn’t been trying to score points. His insults were cold, deliberate and ultimately ineffective. He hadn’t cared a single whit of what I thought on a personal level.

In my head, the two most hated people in my life bled into each other.

It’d been two years since Rufus had vanished, but the memory was still frustratingly vivid. Blonde with a snaggle toothed grin and a laugh that could crack stone. A shrill cackle that’d lodged itself in my mind after years of being shoved over, stolen from and otherwise tormented whenever I was unsuspecting. A little less than two years my senior, yet it was hard to think of him as anything but a brat. He’d been loud and obnoxious, even before he’d decided to bedevil me in particular, with his penchant for so called ‘pranks’.

“Just let it roll off you,” my father had advised.

I’m not sure it helped, nor if my efforts upheld the spirit of his words, but I’d grown to enjoy watching him fume out of the corner of my eye, when his efforts were completely thwarted and I failed to even acknowledge the attempt.

Maybe it was wrong to tar an ignorant child with the same brush as an actual monster...but there had always been a distance to the Guildmaster. Even when face to face. There just wasn't the same deliberate antagonism to him. It wasn't personal.

And yet...No, even then, it wasn’t justified, even as the feelings remained.

However long I spent, slumped over the table, feeling bad about myself, I wasn’t sure. Thankfully, when my father finally graced the room with his presence, he assumed I was just tired.

“So, what’re the orders for today?” I asked, grasping for something busy myself with. My father gave me a half-incredulous look before answering.

“Nah, not opening today. With the Guildmaster dead,” he said, voice tinged with glee, “I’m going to break the news, get a town meeting of some kind organised. I know a couple of people who’d always wanted to make changes...And I guess, while I’m out, I’ll take care of the shopping today.”

I waved goodbye to him without lifting my head. He was practically skipping as he went.

Don’t look so happy about it, came a sneering, traitorous little thought that I quashed with extreme prejudice.

Once my father was gone, I didn’t remain there for much longer. Five minutes at most, before I decided on what my primary task for the day would be. There were three people I knew wouldn’t be pleased to hear the news of my escape secondhand.

I sighed, and set the quest.

*NEW* Quest: Use Your Words

Objective Updated: Go to The Spot

The Spot didn’t really deserve capitalisation. It wasn’t a place of any note. It was barely a ‘place’ at all. Just an otherwise forgotten alley between two old, abandoned houses. There was little, if anything, special about it and whatever had made it the congregation point for the town's youth was buried with most of a generation. It was still used, because we’d always used it.

As I stepped outside, I couldn’t help but flex my newly acquired Technique.

Sneak [Technique] [Class] [Stealth] [Non-Combat]

Cost: 10 Stamina / 5 Stamina per Hour Effect: You enter Basic Stealth. Effect broken by Action or Disruption.

No running, no talking, nothing that required any sort of quick or exaggerated movement. By the standards of those I’d read about, it could barely be counted as one, but it was a Technique. I was no longer an unlevelled Civilian; Civilians only got passive Skills. I was a Knave. Level one. The first of many, perhaps? Maybe. Maybe not. I still...Logically speaking, I still expected to follow my father’s footsteps as a chemist, but there was the potential for something else.

I wasn’t just boring old Leo Proust anymore.

Knowing that, truly internalising, it felt...for lack of a more precise way to describe it, 'good'.

It made me feel a hell of a lot better than the rest of my ‘kit’.

I had three different Katana techniques at Grade F, each a ‘reward’ for two days of torture at minimum. I hated them. I swear it was only half by association. The Katana was a wretched weapon. When I held the Draw Stance, I could feel the mana churning, like insects beneath my skin. If I never touched the bloody weapon again, it’d be too soon.

Without alerting a single soul, I followed the dirt road through the town’s centre towards The Spot. There really wasn’t a good reason for us to still use it. It wasn’t like back when we were really young, and there was that novelty of going to a place where our parents weren’t readily on hand.

It was strange, to go without being seen. To walk past the Arcana without a cheerful greeting from Mr Adamite, or to go past Mrs Eleanor’s fruit stand without a suspicious glare from the notorious child hater.

As I approached it, the sounds of an argument could be heard coming from the alley. It hadn’t been my intention to surprise everyone with my presence, but curiosity piqued, I decided to eavesdrop.

The scene before me raised many, many questions.

Though he’d always had the quickest temper of maybe anyone I’d known, Jack never had the bulk or height to be intimidating, hypocritical as that might’ve been with my proto-crafter’s physique. Watching him get up in Mona’s face would’ve looked wrong on a good day, in her usual jeans and t-shirt. Though she was the youngest, she was by far the tallest of us and was built like the future smithy she was. Today, she’d found herself a set of cheap leather armour to wear. Strapped across her back sat a lump of metal roughly hammered into the shape of a sword. It was bizarre to see her just stand by and allow him to berate her with only a close-mouthed scowl.

“—why now, huh? Why’s it you think we’ll start finding monsters out there now? You don’t, do you? You’re just looking for a fucking excuse to show off your Knight shit—”

“Jack, come on, dude—” Charlie, ever the peacemaker, of course tried to calm him down, but Jack seemed unusually belligerent today.

“Come on, what, Charlie, what, you going to tell me it’ll be fine?”

“...We’ll think of something, okay?”

Jack rolled eyes, positively overflowing with antipathy.

‘You’ll think of something’. What? You’re going to sneak in at the dead of night and we’ll all go on the run? And get hunted down in a week?” Jack asked with a sneer, "You aren’t rescuing him. Even with an army you wouldn’t be rescuing him. You won’t be rescuing me in a month. You won’t be rescuing yourself. I’ve god damn had it with pretending like this is all gonna turn out fine. The bastard’s too fucking strong. We're—”

He wasn’t meant to say that.

Even if it was something ‘everyone knew’, you weren’t supposed to say it. That had always been the unspoken agreement. You weren’t meant to put it in those kinds of terms. You weren’t meant to call it what it was.

You weren’t meant to give up.

Of course, I couldn’t let this go on. Even allowing as much as I had was a mistake. I should’ve already stepped in.

Damn my hesitance.

With a single, steadying breath, I dissembled.

Emotionally drained, lucky to be alive Leo Proust was ushered away behind the curtain. In his place was dry-witted, ever-composed Leo Proust, who folded his arms, slouched against the wall and allowed his stealth to drop with a single, well-timed question.

“I’m sorry, who won’t you be rescuing, exactly?”

As one, my three friends turned to look at the figure that’d suddenly appeared in their midst. Silence reigned for maybe twenty seconds, as they each tried in their own way to figure out what trickery this was.

“Well, don’t all welcome me back at once.”

“L-Leo?!” Jack stammered, “The hell are you doing here? The monster will have your h-shit, he’ll have our heads—”

“Shut your pie hole, will—? Thank you. Kamei is no longer of concern,” I said, false bravado cut with a hint of genuine, petty spite as I used the man’s first name, “He’s no longer of concern...to anyone.”

I waited expectantly. The blank stares continued.

“...He’s dead,” I stated, “Properly dead. ‘Not coming back’ dead. The sort of dead you get where your body is unanchored from the physical plane and tossed into the Aether Ocean. Because that is, very specifically, what happened to him.”

Charlie and Mona balked in shock. Jack, on the other hand, was burning too hot to be stopped by such a ridiculous claim.

“...The fuck? Are you fucking mad? Y—”

“Jack..." Mona interrupted him, "He’s—I don’t think he’s lying.”

The look Jack gave Mona was worth a thousand words and each of them a synonym for disbelief.

“...Jack, didn’t you just see him step out of fucking thin air?” Mona clarified for the boys, voice still just as baffled as they were, “Leo’s a Knave now.”

Charlie’s expression might've remained a static picture of shock and confusion, but Jack’s face proudly shouted his thoughts to the world.

What’s that got to do w—

Wait, to get the Knave class you have to—

He killed an adventurer.

And the only adventurer in the town was...

As was his nature, Jack then gave voice to the question I knew was on all their minds.

“How the fuck—”

Again, I cut him off with a single placating hand. He flinched in a manner I'd never seen from him before.

“Well, I can surmise we were all deciding on whether to head over to the old killing fields, so how about I cast the deciding vote and I can tell you about it on the way.”