Chapter 263: Dine and Dash

“That’s impossible,” Brighid shook her head. “You were still Iron tier when we saw you last. Sure, that was a little while ago, but not that long!”

“It’s been a year,” Savraba spoke softly. “Nearly exactly a year since we parted and you all were level 43.”

“Gaining 47 levels and evolving in a year? No.” Brighid shook her head, looking between the Wanderers. Even as she protested the possibility, Brighid didn’t actually disbelieve them. Instead, she sighed and looked at Astrid. “How could you possibly have gained so many levels so quickly?”

“Delving a lot,” Astrid shrugged, laughing. “More than that, we went into the Dungeon proper and found a place where there were thousands and thousands of mid to high Steel tier monsters. The lower-level ones were pretty easy for us, while the higher-level ones were a little bit more of a challenge, but we gained hundreds of thousands of experience each of us every day. Since we were fighting monsters above our level, the experience built up real fast. In just a couple of months, we blazed through the entirety of Steel tier. If we hadn’t deliberately slowed down for almost two months, we would’ve been done long before when we were.”

“If you moved that fast, your Class quality would have—” as soon as she started to say it, Brighid shook her head, looking at Astrid. “You said you were going above your watershed. I know we briefly talked about maybe trying to fight some Steel tiers when you were high Irons. Did you end up doing that?”

Astrid nodded, smiling through the twang of bitterness that spiked when she remembered the leviathan Boss they had been unable to kill. “Almost killed a Steel tier Boss, but we weren’t able to finish it off.”

“If you were pushing up watersheds and even tiers, then you weren’t going to suffer any notable losses in Class quality, even moving that fast,” Brighid continued, glancing at Benedict and Skandr. “Maybe except for you two.”

“We all got about the same quality of Classes as we hoped for in Steel,” Astrid smiled.

“Which means you were gaining 79 points per level in Steel? Duchess above… That means that you could continue to fight beyond your watersheds, and if you did that in Iron, I’m sure you did that when you were ‘slowing down’ in Steel. And Muti said something about a hydra…”

As her mother drifted off, Astrid could only smile and shrug. Before Brighid could continue her rapid-fire interrogation, Ahna raised her voice. “What do you mean you’re level 91?”

“I’d say it’s pretty straightforward,” Astrid answered. “We were lucky in finding a place that gave us experience very quickly, decided to stick around there, and turns out, we gained levels stupidly quickly.”

Ahna blinked a few times, shaking her head. Then, she shrugged, smiled at Astrid, and said, “Congratulations, Astrid. You’re making really fast progress.”

Her smile was genuine as she said it, but Astrid could tell that, despite how she had felt about Ahna’s Class and decisions, her friend had no regrets. Instead, Ahna stroked Michael’s cheek as her other hand rested on her round belly. Given that Astrid hadn’t heard anything about Ahna’s parents, evidently, her old friend had been able to escape their grasp as well, even without physically leaving her hometown.

“And you’re looking happier than I think I’ve ever seen you,” Astrid replied.

“I am,” Ahna replied simply.

The conversation shifted away from the Wanderers’ levels after that, each of the Wanderers getting gently interrogated by Ahna or Astrid’s parents, and the meal went quickly. Jan stayed quiet, his eyes attentive, but seeming unsure about what he should do or say. Finally, when it was time to finish up, something occurred to Ahna as she turned to Astrid, reached out, and slapped the taller woman in the shoulder.

“What?” Astrid demanded, laughing a little.

“Your mother said you were getting 79 attributes per level in Steel. What?”

Astrid smiled, laughing as she realized what was her friend’s hang-up.

“Yes, I got an extraordinary rarity Class at Iron and Steel.”

“And Mithril too,” Benedict laughed. “You’re not being humble, no reason to hold anything back.”

Astrid rolled her eyes, but didn’t disagree. In response, Jan leaned forward, staring more at Felix than at Astrid herself.

“Will you teach me? I’m not that close to Steel tier, but if you help me now, I might get better Skills at my next watershed, and to be taught by someone who’s reached heights like you as fast as you have will be great for me.”

“You’re only a few levels away from your next watershed, right?” Felix verified. He didn’t really wait for any response before he nodded. “While we’re here, all of us want to get more practice in, and teaching people is just as good, if not better, than practicing. Feel free to find me whenever, and I’ll be happy to help you out.”

Jan smiled broadly as he received the answer he was hoping for, then glancing around the table as he seemingly began to feel a little awkward.

“How close are you to finishing your evolutionary quests?” Brighid asked, looking at Skandr and Benedict. Skandr shrugged helplessly, without answering, though Benedict didn’t hesitate to speak.

“I hope that, with a bit of effort, I can get finished up in about a week, maybe two. If I go as a supporter on a couple different excursions, I’ll get there faster.”

Even though he’d already given a sort of wordless response, everybody looked at Skandr to get a more specific answer. He sighed as he put down his spoon.

“If I can have a couple weeks largely uninterrupted to focus on them, I think I should be able to get everything figured out. That said, I’m going to need to conduct some pretty extensive experiments, and I can’t guarantee that I’ll get to the necessary conclusions so quickly. That’s part of the whole ‘experimentation’ thing.”

“So we might be splitting up a little bit,” Astrid said, some of her good nature and amusement draining away at the thought.

“Don’t make any firm plans just yet,” Brighid cautioned. “I know that the Duchess is planning on returning here sometime soon. Since you’re wanting to join in under her banner, you’ll be doing whatever she tells you to.”

“So long as it isn’t stupid,” Astrid granted.

“Are you really going to start off your first interaction with her on a negative note?” Brighid asked, her tone and face incredulous.

Astrid pursed her lips, but couldn’t help but recognize how stupid of a statement that had been. She took a deep breath and nodded. “My interactions with noble-Classed people have been, at best, a mixed bag. The best nobles I’ve come in contact with have simply left me alone, and the thought of sticking around just to be bossed around by somebody gave me a pretty bad knee-jerk reaction.”

“Surprise, surprise, Astrid,” Brighid got closer, “being in the army means that people boss you around all day long. Even the people who are the commanders don’t have freedom to do whatever occurs to them. There are checks and balances and, if you’re going to join the Duchess in taking back the country, you can’t forget that you’re just one of her soldiers, even if by attributes you’re going to be one of her strongest subordinates.”

Astrid scowled, but didn’t disagree. Then, realizing how petulant she was being, regardless of her good reason to distrust people whose Classes allowed them to control people, she took another calming breath and nodded.

“You’re right,” she said. “We just need to figure out what the plan is and incorporate ourselves. Apparently, there are a couple people that know us already in her leadership?”

“Yes, of course. There’s Greely, and, more than that, you know your mother,” Brighid laughed. “We didn’t say anything because we were surprised about what you said, but I’ve been spending a lot of time in the Dungeon and have made some significant progress myself.”

“You’re finally Mithril?” Astrid asked, her eyes widening. As her mother chuckled and nodded, Astrid’s smile grew wider. “Congratulations!”

“It feels like your congratulations are more insulting than anything else,” Brighid laughed as she shook her head. “I am over twice your age, and it doesn’t take a genius to do the math and figure out that you have much higher attributes than I do.”

“Something that we are already seeing is how much we’ll need to slow down,” Astrid shrugged. “None of us were offered even a single Mithril tier Skill, which is pretty disappointing.”

“You’re not saying you only got Bronze tier Skills, just that you didn’t get Mithril ones,” her father said. He smirked as he asked, “You still got Steel tier Skills?”

“Yeah,” Astrid said.

“The rest of us mortals can’t compare to the expectations that this one has for herself,” Brighid laughed. “In case you forgot, the vast majority of people aren’t offered Skills at their tier. At least, not for the ones right when they evolve. I’ve been in Steel tier for 29 years. Even so, I was offered two Mithril tier Skills. There’s a lot more than just capability that go into it, but don’t forget how hard that is.”

Astrid paused at that reminder and nodded. Instead of continuing to talk about that, she enjoyed the conversations that arose from the people sitting around the table. She couldn’t help but find herself getting lost in her thoughts once again. There were so many times that she had thought about what it would be like to come back to her home, and she simply wasn’t what she once had been. But, despite having already thought that dozens of times over the past days, she couldn’t get past it. It was as frustrating as most anything else going on in her life that she couldn’t stop thinking about how different she was from everybody else, but she squared her shoulders, tried once again to accept that, and focused on the people around her.

“So you have other food from this unknown, high-tier Baker?” Ahna asked, looking meaningfully at Astrid.

“Well, yes, but actually no,” Astrid answered. The way that Ahna glared at her made Astrid laugh as she raised both hands and explained further, “There’s a couple things wrong with that statement. Number one, he’s not a Baker, he’s not a cook at all, actually. I think that Michel just decided to pick up cooking at some point, though he does have at least one Skill related to cooking. Second, we have more food, but most of it can’t be eaten by you.”

“Do you think a pregnant woman can’t eat?” Ahna demanded, raising an eyebrow. “I’ll show you real quick how wrong that is.”

“No, not that. It’s that a lot of this food was prepared as recovery food for us,” Astrid waved her hands, laughing. “It’s extremely mana-dense, so it would, at the very least, make you feel sick. Might end up even poisoning you or hurting the baby. I’d never let you hurt yourself, so that’s why I can’t share a lot of it with you. Because he knew we were going into a warzone, Michel also prepared some food that we can give to anybody without worrying, but that stuff was simpler.”

Ahna blew out a long sigh, her blonde bangs puffing up in front of her head from the exhale. Then, she took a hunk of bread from Astrid’s plate, her glare daring Astrid to say or do anything about it. Astrid simply continued laughing as she met Ahna’s gaze and watched her friend tear into the bread.

“I don’t know how much of this difference in flavor is because of materials versus Skills,” Ahna grumbled as she ate. Michael, who was sitting in her lap, reached an insistent hand out to his mother as she ate, and she absentmindedly pinched a bite of the bread into his mouth as she continued to ponder. He grumbled, and Astrid reached her hands out to him. She was excited when he slowly accepted the offering. She bounced him in her lap, feeding him pinches of literally anything he asked for, as his mother continued, thinking about the bread.

“The crust is perfect and the inside’s texture is just right. Then, the cheese prepared with it is so smooth and subtle without becoming forgettable. Did he make the cheese? But I’m a Baker. So, the bread. How long would he prove it for?”

“So far as I—” Astrid stopped speaking as Muti stood and summoned her equipment. She stood protectively over Ahna, staring off to the east. Astrid started to ask what she was doing, but stopped herself as a sudden magical presence slammed into her. It was overwhelming, but subtle. She turned and placed Michael into Brighid’s hands. This was a presence that demanded obedience, or at least fear, as it approached, and she stood as she mentally summoned her equipment. The rest of her party followed suit as they looked at each other.

“Mother, take Jan, and the rest of the family. Do you feel what’s approaching?”

“Stand down,” Brighid said, standing and raising her hands in a calming gesture. “This is just the Duchess approaching. She has a couple people who are always with her, and they’ve decided that they’d rather announce their presence and scare people off with an overwhelming show of force that also serves as scouting than to potentially miss something because they’re trying to be subtle.”

“This is the feeling of their surveillance?” Astrid demanded.

“Yes,” Brighid nodded. “For most people, it’s not very noteworthy, just a faint sense of somebody being nearby. Instead of scaring anyone, it means that there’s somebody powerful and on our side around, so nobody has any complaints.”

“I hate it,” Muti said without any further discussion. Astrid couldn’t bring herself to disagree, but she did force herself to dismiss her equipment as she settled back into her chair.

“It’ll be time for me to take you to the Duchess before long,” Brighid cautioned. “She’ll hear about you and will want to meet you. It’s probably better to be ready for that sooner rather than later. After all, I’m sure that Greely will tell her about you and, from there, who knows exactly what’s going to happen?”

“What do you mean?” Astrid felt her stomach twist in anxiety as she asked it. “Are we in danger now?”

“No, not that. It’s just that, even though real battles only happen maybe once or twice a week, you, as a squad of five Mithril people, are a strategic resource. There’s always going to be something for you to do, whether it’s training people, helping lower leveled people through Dungeon branches, getting higher levels yourself, or serving as a force to deter others. If you’re here to help the war effort, you’re going to be busy.”

“You were just waiting around here,” Astrid replied, cocking an eyebrow. “Doesn’t seem like you were being treated that way.”

“I’m one of the head guards in this part of the country. I’m protecting a massive training camp that’s based out of this town, a noble loyal to the Duchess, and, if it so happens that everything goes wrong, I’m fast enough to get to the Duchess and tell her what happened,” Brighid said, shaking her head. “I’m available to meet with you, but that doesn’t mean I’m not busy. I’m also training tons of people. With my Class, I’m a trainer for Mages as well as for physical fighters of most types. There are dozens of different things that I can be doing for her around here.”

Astrid nodded slowly, then, with her anxiety even more, she asked a question that she had been too afraid to ask until now. “What do you think of the Duchess?”

“You want to know if we’ve been forced into contracts,” Brighid answered immediately. “No.”

“I would never willingly subject myself to slavery once again,” Savraba spoke, his voice as level as ever, but carrying a determination that Astrid sometimes forgot he carried. “So far as I can tell, we have not been requested nor coerced into entering into a contract with her. Instead of her leadership being based off of contracts, it is instead through loyalty that she and her followers gain strengths.”

When Astrid looked to her mother to confirm this, Brighid nodded. “Though she hasn’t shared her Class or entire Skill list with anybody, she has shown that her primary Skill isn’t a contract one but a devotion one. Something about the more that she sacrifices for her people and the more they do for her, the more of a virtuous cycle there is, pushing them all to be stronger.”

Now that she was confronting the reality that she was about to speak with, or at least be near the Duchess, Astrid didn’t feel nearly so confident that the woman wouldn’t be immensely dangerous to her and her party’s continued freedom. Even so, she’d made the decisions that led them to where they were now, and now that she was here, she couldn’t take anything back. Instead, she just nodded and smiled at Ahna and Jan.

“Thank you for dinner,” she said with a smile. “And, more than that, thank you for introducing Michael to me.”

“Well, he needs to know his Aunt Astrid,” Ahna smiled as she pulled up his hand and waved at her. Once his mother started it, Michael’s face lit up and he started waving with both hands. He babbled in a way that, according to Ahna, meant “I’ll see you later,” but didn’t sound anything like that to her. Fortunately, he shifted to “bye bye” after that, and that wasn’t hard at all. 

The Wanderers all walked out of the room, giving their goodbyes to Ahna and Jan as they left. Michael was flagging, his energy dying as he waved goodbye and his head sagged to Ahna’s shoulder. She grunted under his weight and passed him off to Jan, who happily adjusted the child over his shoulder, where Michael’s head sagged and rested on his father’s neck. 

“It’s bedtime, so we’re off. We’ll be seeing you, I’m sure,” Astrid said as she stepped into the night air. She still wore her gambeson, though she’d put on a pair of pants instead of wearing the long garment as a sort of short dress over her shorts. Just as soon as she stretched, enjoying the night breeze, Muti twitched beside her. Astrid spun on her heel, her equipment appearing on her again as she stared in the direction of a dark corner about. 

“You’ve come a long way, pup.”

An insidious shadow seemed to crawl up Astrid’s neck, and she didn’t hesitate to activate Heroic Aura. The thread tried to twist her head, to do something, so she didn’t hesitate. As soon as she’d evolved, Astrid had done extensive experimentation with Meteoric Descent, and she’d learned that, if she didn’t want the twenty-meter area of effect to be as powerful, she could choose to only rise up a half meter. The practice to adjust the Skill was a pain, but she was grateful to have learned what she could do. 

She slammed forward towards the shadow, her Power and Fortitude spiking as her hammer slammed into the unknown foe. They raised a blade towards her, trying to parry the attack, but grunted in pained surprise as her blow seemed to carry more power than they expected. The blade was blasted back, and the shadowy figure cursed under her breath as she flew towards the wall behind her.

Instead of the tendril that’d tried to control her, a burst of thick black magic exploded into existence to cushion Astrid’s blow, dissipating every part of her Skill, and then, the lurking person laughed, walking forward and dismissing her own helmet. A familiar face looked back at Astrid, and Miriam Assassin, of the Golden Fist, stood in front of her.

“You’ve gotten damn strong, and fast. Now, come with me. The Duchess wants to see you.”