Florian’s mom looked at him expectantly. She wanted to know what he had been doing with Alexandru, and Hugo knew from experience that she had a hair trigger on her anger today. He thought furiously, what kind of lie could he tell that wouldn’t cause him problems down the line?

“Don’t worry about that, it was nothing important. Alexandru isn’t a friend. He is a gambler, I was just reminding him of his debt.”

“But you said,” she started.

Hugo waved his hand dismissively, “It’s shorthand for how much he owes. I know it’s weird, that’s just how he put it.”

She hesitated but eventually said, “Alright. Thank you for indulging my curiosity.”

After Ana-Maria walked away, Hugo said to himself, “She was awfully polite.”

The riese mom nodded and said, “I believe she knows who we really are. Her husband is unusually astute, even for a light mage. He must have seen through our disguise.”

Hugo nodded as if he knew what she was talking about. Yet one more mystery that he would have to unravel. His best guess is that his riese parents were rich and didn’t want anyone to know that their daughter had to go to shimmer mountain to get soulmarked.

Laying back on the cot, Hugo tried to go to sleep. It was just a little too short and he found the whole thing vaguely uncomfortable. Still, he had just run through the night and it was enough to make him very tired. He fell asleep within minutes.

Morning came way too soon and they packed up and headed the rest of the way down the mountain. Hugo took the time to regain the mana dart skill. It was just a matter of mana manipulation, and at this point, Hugo was getting pretty good at that.

It was possible that the ritual was helping him become better at magic. Another possibility was that he was just getting better with practice. He had started over with a new body four times by now. Varied practice might just be the thing he needed to become a master with mana.

Skill Gained!

Through special actions you have unlocked the skill Mana Dart.

There was a swarm of prismatic rabbits attacking the group right now, so Hugo ducked to the side and shot one of them. He made sure that his parents couldn’t see him. His dad used magic, so he would know that a freshly soulmarked using mana darts would be out of the ordinary.

Still, he thought it was worth the risk. Shooting monsters combined with the survival effect should net him enough points to rank up to three. It would be more, but his mana regeneration was abysmal. It felt like it was even worse than the last time he was on the mountain. He knew that couldn’t be true since his regeneration stat was good, but it just felt so slow. The more he restarted this year, the more he hated the first few months. With shimmer mountain sucking up all of the ambient mana, everyone's mana regeneration was slow this time of year.

Still, there were advantages to doing the same thing over and over again. He knew exactly when the surrass was going to arrive. When the colossal worm attacked the mountain guides, Hugo just happened to be nearby when it was killed. A check of his stat screen showed that he had gained enough to rank up to three, and he was halfway to rank four.

It was time to board the train right after that, but there was a hiccup. He needed to warn the southern train about the airship train jackers, but his parents were going the wrong way. Apparently his destination was on the northern train. He had time to run and tell the leader of the guides, but his mother had already chastised him once for helping the humans.

For the first time since he woke up in this body, he dug into his pack. He was hoping to find a solution in there somewhere. There were changes of clothing, several pairs of underwear, makeup and hair care and other hygiene products. Hugo wasn’t looking forward to learning how to use those. Eventually he did find what he was looking for, a charcoal pen and a pad of paper..

He scribbled out a note and tore out the page. When his parents weren’t watching, he slipped the note into the hands of a mountain guide. Hopefully they would read it before the train left.

The train north was much the same as the one going south. It glided on a cushion of air, speeding north to the city of Mthatha. Hugo could see the passengers visibly relax as they went further north. They were safe now. The train was traveling too fast for any monsters to bother them. Soon enough, the fields around the city came into view. They were empty now, but within a few weeks they would get planted and the growing season would begin.

Moments later, the train started to slow down. The walls of Mthatha came into view. Hugo frowned. Were they going to go this slow for the last few miles? It was going to take forever at this rate. The train continued to slow down, and stopped a few miles outside the city.

Hugo looked around. Was this normal? Were they changing trains or something? The other passengers seemed as mystified as he was.

He turned to the riese father and said, “What’s going on?”

He got up and put his hand on Hugo’s shoulder. He said, “I don’t know. Stay here with your mother.”

His father’s voice sounded calm, but Hugo could see his hand on his sword as he walked to the front of the train car. A few other passengers got up to see what was going on. Hugo wanted to follow them, but his mother kept her hand on his shoulder.

Instead, he looked out the window and tried to figure out what was going on. He had looked into it last go around and there were no reports of an attack on the northern train. A check of the skies didn’t show any airships either.

He heard some shouting and yelling up front, but he couldn’t see what was going on. They were in the third train car and whatever was going on was at the front of the train, out of his field of vision. The yelling got louder and louder. Hugo thought he could hear some swears in there, but he wasn’t sure.

The train rocked gently. He assumed this meant that the front of the train had just been hit. There must be a fight or something going on up there. Hugo couldn’t stand being back here. It wasn’t just that he wasn’t involved, he didn’t even know what was going on.

Then the shouting cut out.

Hugo craned his head to see better. A grubby human was running by. Just as he was about to pass their train car, he saw his father appear. The tall riese lunged forward, his sword shooting out a blade of pure energy. The human was bisected, his top and bottom half separating in a spray of blood.

Wincing back at the unexpected gore, Hugo shuddered slightly. His father checked his sword for blood. Finding none, he sheathed it and reboarded the train. Their train car was silent as the man slowly walked back to his seat. Hugo looked at him with new eyes. His father was scary.

With a slight groan of pain he sat down on the chair opposite his daughter and wife. Hugo’s mother said, “Was that really necessary?”

“I didn’t have a choice. There were riese among the bandits. They swore by The Mother,” he said and looked down.

She opened and closed her mouth a few times, “I suppose I might have done the same thing.” After a moment she continued, “Is there still a charge in the sword?”

“A little. Maybe one or two strikes,” his father said regretfully.

“It will be expensive to have it recharged. I was just getting over the financial pain of having it filled in the first place. This trip is becoming more and more costly by the moment. I only hope that it was worth it,” she said and turned to look at her daughter.

Hugo shrunk back from the scrutiny, but didn’t say anything. There was so much going on here that he couldn’t unpack. He knew that the riese worshiped a goddess that they called The Mother. Evidently, one of the bandits had sworn an oath on their goddess, and that meant that his father was compelled to kill them? The comment about the expense of getting the sword recharged led credence to the idea that his riese parents were rich. And that they didn’t like spending money on their daughter.

The next two train rides were thankfully uneventful. It was dark by the time they arrived in Ettel. Hugo wished that he could see more of the city. The upper city was supposed to be beautiful. Walking through the city streets was an exercise in frustration. There were human style homes on ground level, and everyone walked along the streets lit up by mana lamps. Every so often, an enormous tree trunk stretched into the sky. Each one was at least eight feet wide, some were as wide as twenty.

Hugo desperately wanted to see what was going on above his head. He had heard so much about their forest cities. But the lamps were pointed downward and the canopy above his head was an impenetrable darkness.

The three of them walked quietly along the streets until they got to the outer wall. Hugo looked around. Maybe his guess about them being rich was wrong. He was pretty sure that living near the wall was for poor people, regardless of what culture you were from.

They got to a particularly large tree near the edge of the wall. Hugo’s father stepped up the roots surrounding the trees, and then he kept going up. There were a set of vines wrapped around the tree, one wide enough to walk on, and one thin one for a handhold. Together, they made a ramp that allowed the three of them to walk up the tree.

Four stories later, and they kept walking up. They were higher than the wall at this point. The tree branched out then and Hugo could dimly see rope bridges leading every which way. This was the upper city. A collection of businesses and homes in the trees with walkways suspended high in the air.

A guard stood at the intersection and nodded to his parents as they walked by. Hugo trembled slightly. He didn’t like being this high up. His fear of heights was muted though, the darkness allowing him to pretend that he wasn’t that high up. They kept going, away from safety. Hugo looked at walls below them with a bit of panic.

They took a bridge heading out, and walked over the walls protecting the city. Hugo had to force himself to follow them. They were essentially in the wilds now.

Carefully, he walked across the bridges towards their unknown destination. Luckily for Hugo, the bridges were sturdy and didn’t move as he walked across. They walked far from the city walls, roughly five city blocks. Each enormous tree had a guard standing at the junction between the bridges. There was a dim light at each junction, just enough to see by.

Eventually, they reached their destination. It was a large tree with three lights needed to illuminate the width of its trunk. As they got closer, Hugo could see a half dozen guards barring their way.

Hugo could see his father put his hand on his sword. Both parents drew to a stop, still on the suspended bridge. Two people walked down vines, into the dim pools of light. An enormously tall man, and a thin and tall young woman that stood by his side and clung to his arm.

The man said, “We have been waiting for you.”