I was floored. I had been wondering where Rowan had been for some time, ever since I realized I had not seen her again after we first spoke. I had been hoping, quietly and perhaps foolishly, that nothing had gone wrong. I hoped that Genkai would not fall in this life. From what I understood of her so far, she was trying to be a good person this time around, making deliberate choices instead of being swept along by habit or fear, and I wanted to see her succeed.

  The knowledge of the assault shattered that hope in an instant. It made me question how safe this place truly was and how much trust I should place in its walls, its rules, and its promises. I had believed this guildhall was a place where danger stopped at the door. Now I was no longer certain where that line actually existed.

  I looked at Greta and asked, “Can you explain to me what you meant by punching down?”

  She studied me for a moment, not with suspicion, but with the careful assessment of someone deciding how much truth to give. “You understand how ranks work, right?”

  “You explained it well enough in class that I should,” I said. I meant it. The system was rigid, but it was not complicated.

  “I did, and I do,” she replied. “It is generally considered unacceptable to attack someone of a lower rank than you. Defending yourself against someone weaker is acceptable. Attacking down is not. There are exceptions, but this was not one of them.”

  She paused before continuing, as if making sure the distinction settled properly.

  “We have our suspicions about who organized the attack,” Greta said.

  I did too, if I was being honest with myself. The day I met Rowan, she had been arguing heatedly with a former party member. The confrontation had been sharp and public enough that it stuck in my memory. Myrda had stepped in and forced him to leave, sending him to a different guildhall rather than allowing him to stay here.

  I had completely forgotten his name. At the time, the fact that Rowan was another reincarnator had mattered far more to me than a dispute between two iron-ranked adventurers. I had assumed it was handled, finished, and no longer relevant.

  It clearly had not been.

  The threat he had made lingered in my memory now, sharper than before. It had not sounded like empty anger in hindsight. It had sounded like a promise.

  He had said he would make sure she regretted it, and it seemed that, in his own twisted way, he had been right.

  Myrda was regretting her actions, though not for the reasons I thought he would have wanted. If my understanding was even close to accurate, I believed Myrda would kill him the next time she saw him. I also understood, dimly, that my grasp of the full situation was flawed. For all I knew, that too might be considered punching down, depending on how strictly the rules were applied.

  One thing I did understand now was the payment Rowan had received for that quest. The guild had paid her in cores. Now that I understood how much a tin core was worth, and that it was roughly equivalent to the value of an iron core, the scale of that payment finally made sense to me.

  Rowan had made a great deal of Freds from that single quest, more than most iron-ranked adventurers ever saw at once.

  Yes, the reward had been substantial. But it may have cost her more than she was willing to part with in this moment.

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  I looked at Greta and said, “I will be getting the day off tomorrow if everyone is going to be getting their cores, is that correct?”

  “Yes,” she replied. “That is correct.”

  “If Rowan wakes up tonight, or tomorrow, or even the day after,” I said, “I was hoping it would be okay for me to go see her. If not, I completely understand. I am not looking to ask questions. I am just hoping that someone who is trying to do better in this life and want to support them in that journey in what ways that I can.”

  My voice caught despite my attempt to keep it steady. What struck me in that moment was how deeply emotional I had become in this lifetime. I had felt powerful emotions in my past life, yes, but they had never carried this kind of weight. Here, they felt colossal, pressing down on me in a way that was impossible to ignore.

  I was not sure whether that was because of this body, or because of what the god of magic had taken from me. He had stripped away so much, leaving behind what he seemed to think was pointless. He struck me as arrogant enough to believe that kindness and love were irrelevant because they were not direct sources of power.

  Even in my last life, I had known that love mattered. If this was what remained to me now, I was grateful. He had taken the weight of my rage and my hatred, the parts of me that fed violent power, and left me with joy and sadness instead. Those emotions weighed heavily on my fractured soul, but I believed they had made me a better person.

  I had always thought of myself as a good person, but I could see now that the depths of my rage in this life were far less consuming than they had been in my last. That absence helped keep me grounded. It shaped the kind of vengeance I felt growing inside me, not vengeance for myself, but for the people I would grow to care about, the people I already cared about, and the ones who I would never know.

  I would seek vengeance for every good person in this world, for all the things the god of magic thought were trivial.

  I did not know how much of this change came from the body I now inhabited. It was well understood that even when the soul remained the same, the body still influenced personality. That was simply a fact of reincarnation. Still, the weight of my emotions was far greater than I had ever expected based on my understanding of reincarnation in my past life.

  Greta knelt down next to me and pulled me into an embrace I had not been expecting. The moment she did, whatever composure I had left collapsed.

  My whimpers turned into sobs, and those sobs became something deeper, wracking tears that shook my entire body. I did not fully understand what was happening to me. I only knew that I was breaking.

  Maybe it was the weight of everything I had been thinking about. Maybe it was the weight of hearing about Rowan’s assault. Maybe it was the understanding that this world was so cruel to so many good people. Whatever the cause, it felt like a dam I had been holding back finally gave way.

  Maybe this was because of what had been taken from me.

  I did not know how to separate what was truly me from what belonged to this body. Things about me had changed in ways I could not clearly identify. My emotions felt heavier, closer to the surface, harder to control. I did not know where my old self ended and this new self began.

  Who was I, really?

  My identity had been stolen by the very being I had placed my faith in. My existence had nearly been erased by that same being. So much had been taken from me, and for the first time in this life, I cried openly for the loss of my past one.

  “He took everything,” I said aloud, my voice breaking. “He took everything, and I don’t know what to do.”

  Greta did not pull away. She stroked my head gently, steady and present, and looked at me with quiet concern.

  “I’m not sure who you’re talking about,” she said softly, “but whenever you wish, you can tell me. I’m here for you. You can trust me.”

  I looked up at her through blurred vision. “Thank you for being so good,” I said.

  I hugged her tightly, then slowly pulled back, wiping my face with the back of my hand. “I need some time,” I said. “I think it might help if I start the crafting I had planned.”

  She nodded. “That’s fine,” she said. “But please try to get some rest as well. I know what I’ve told you tonight is difficult, and I’m sorry that whatever happened to you in your last life is being stirred up by this.”

  She hesitated, then added, “I’m here for you. And maybe you and Myrda could help each other. She’s already in the crafting room. She couldn’t sleep either.”

  She patted my head gently. I nodded and turned away, heading toward the crafting hall instead of my bunk.

  After a few steps, I stopped and turned back. “Could you bring my chest,” I asked, “and all the equipment the others have accumulated? I’d like to work on it while I’m there.”

  Greta nodded. “Yes, I can do that for you,” she said. “I’ll bring it along. You can head on ahead.”

  I nodded once more and made my way toward the crafting hall.