We talked about my time training with Greta and the others. I told them about my regimen, the quest i had completed, about mornings that started early and evenings that ended with me being sore but fulfilled, and about the small moments that still managed to stand out despite that. I talked about Meka more than anyone else, about how she approached things and how seriously she took her training once she understood what was being asked of her. My father listened without interrupting, leaning back in his chair with his arms folded, nodding every so often. My mother kept her hands busy with nothing in particular, straightening items that did not need straightening, but she never once lost track of what I was saying.

  Every so often, a shout echoed through the wall. Randall’s voice carried, sharp and frustrated, striking the stone and coming back dulled but no less irritated. Sometimes it was a single outburst. Other times it turned into a string of complaints before cutting off abruptly. Each time it happened, my father and I shared a glance, and my mother followed a heartbeat later. We chuckled quietly, the sound brief and contained. It happened often enough that it became part of the rhythm of the day rather than an interruption.

  Eventually, my mother tilted her head and asked why someone was screaming inside the wall.

  My father and I looked at each other.

  “He didn’t do his paperwork,” my father said.

  “For years,” I added.

  She blinked, then laughed, the sound short and incredulous. “Well,” she said, “people should be more diligent.” She reached out and patted me on the head as she spoke. “Like my Zolo.”

  She paused, as if remembering something, then told me to wait a moment.

  She crossed the mess hall to the only other table, lifted the cloth that covered it, and reached underneath. When she came back, she was carrying a box held carefully against her chest. She set it in front of me and adjusted it until it sat square.

  “I made you something,” she said. “I hope you like it.”

  I opened the box.

  Inside was an outfit folded neatly. The fabric caught the light as I lifted it free, the subtle shimmer of fine cloth shifting with every movement of my hands. The silks were layered and patterned, the colors deep and warm, worked with geometric designs that repeated with careful symmetry. The cut was traditional, long and flowing, meant to drape rather than cling, with wide sleeves and panels that fell in clean lines. The stitching was clean and confident, each seam placed with intention. It felt solid despite how light it was, like something meant to last.

  “It’s beautiful,” I said.

  She smiled at that, watching my face rather than the cloth.

  It took only a moment to see the problem.

  The outfit was far too large for me. The sleeves extended well past my hands, and the length would have brushed the floor if I had tried to put it on.

  “It’s not for now,” she said, before I could ask. “It’s for when you graduate. When you become a full adventurer.”

  She reached out and tugged lightly at one of the sleeves. “I made it larger on purpose,” she continued. “So that if you grow big and strong like your father, it will still fit.”

  My father shifted at that, straightening a little, his expression unmistakably pleased.

  “And if you don’t,” she added, just as easily, “it will be simple to take in.”

  “Thank you,” I said. I meant more than that, but the rest caught in my throat. I knew even then that I would wear it on the day I finished my training, and as often as I could manage after. It held my mother’s love in it and my father’s pride, and that was reason enough.

  She nodded, satisfied.

  I folded it back the way she had packed it, smoothing the fabric as I went, and set it aside where it would stay clean and out of the way.

  We talked some more after that, easy conversation that drifted where it wanted. The food arrived partway through, carried in steadily until the table was full. When my father informed the chef that I was cored, the man paused, nodded once, and then returned again and again with more dishes until I was completely stuffed.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  There were so many delicacies that I lost track of what I tried first. I eventually asked why they were doing all of this, whether it was for him or for me.

  My father explained that he was being promoted to captain. He said it plainly, as if it were just another detail. When he was asked how he wanted to celebrate, he had turned down the idea of a party and asked instead for a single day with his wife and son. Raptan had agreed, with the condition that he would still get to play a game with me. The budget that would have gone toward the party had been spent here instead.

  He looked at the table as he finished and asked if I thought it had been money well spent.

  I nodded.

  Dessert arrived then, carried out with a little more care than the rest. It was ice cream, but arranged deliberately. Three scoops sat in a long dish, topped with cherries, whipped cream, and a scattering of crushed nuts. Along the sides lay a fruit split neatly down the middle, its shape unmistakable.

  A banana.

  I felt a flash of simple glee at the sight of it. I had never cared much for sweets in my last life, but this one was different. If there was a dish that incorporated bananas, I was willing to make an exception.

  I devoured my dessert.

  My parents laughed as I ate, and I did not bother to slow down for their sake. Ice cream and fruit vanished until the dish was smeared and empty, and I leaned back, satisfied. Their laughter followed me to the last bite.

  When I was done, my father watched me for a moment longer than usual. Then he set his spoon aside and looked at me properly.

  “You asked me earlier why I chose to be a defender instead of an adventurer,” he said. “That answer takes some context. We have time, so listen.”

  I did.

  “I grew up in a small village,” he said. “Far from any city. We’d never seen a dungeon there. It was poor, but it was peaceful. I was a fisherman’s son. I learned to use a spear early, first for fish, then for small birds and game when the seasons were tight. It was hard work, but it fed us.”

  He paused only long enough to take a breath.

  “My father was a careful man,” he continued. “He saved everything he could. Never for himself. Always for us. On my seventeenth birthday, the year after I was considered a man, he gave me a sack of freds and told me to go to the city. To build a shop. To make a different life. He said the village was for small people like him, and that I deserved more.”

  My father shook his head slightly.

  “I told him I wanted to stay. I wanted to fish the same rivers he fished, and his father before him. My mother had already died giving birth to a sibling that didn’t live, and by then it was just the two of us. I wouldn’t leave him alone. I took the money anyway and saved it, thinking that if the day ever came when I was alone, I’d go to the city like he wanted. Until then, I stayed.”

  He leaned back in his chair.

  “Then the mine found something.”

  “There was shouting first. Then panic. A dungeon had been uncovered, and men were already dead. The Adventurer’s Guild sent a squad to assess it. None returned. They sent a stronger squad. None returned. Then a third, higher-ranked team.”

  He let that sit for a moment before continuing.

  “When that failed, the defenders were called. It was the right decision. When the dungeon broke, the adventurers fought to destroy the core, but the defenders held the line. They kept the village standing while everything else fell apart.”

  He did not soften the next part.

  “Many of them died.”

  My father’s gaze dropped to the table.

  “But not everything stayed behind that line,” he said.

  “I was sick at the time. Feverish. Weak. I could barely stay on my feet. I stayed in the village while others took up what defense they could. When the breach came, something slipped through. It tore along the edge of the village and smashed straight into our home.”

  He exhaled slowly.

  “It happened too fast to be afraid. My father was there. Too slow to run. Too stubborn to leave.”

  “I grabbed the only weapon I had. A fishing spear. I fought it in the doorway, kept it back with reach and timing and sheer refusal to let it past me. It was spider-like. Enormous. Wrong. I never learned its name.”

  His hand tightened briefly against the table.

  “I was losing.”

  “Then a defender came through what was left of the door. A goblin. Young. Too young to have seen as much death as he already had.”

  “He killed the beast and pulled us free. When it was over, he told me that because I had been fighting when he arrived, because I hadn’t run, he would make sure I received a cut of the reward.”

  “The monster was gold-ranked. The reward was more money than my father could have earned in a lifetime.

  I tried to give it back,” he said. “I told him it was too much. He made me promise to take it anyway, so that someday, when he was gone, I would see his dreams for me through.”

  My father looked back up at me.

  “I asked him why.”

  “He told me that any man who could fight like that without a core, who stood to defend those he loved against something that was nothing but evil, deserved to be rewarded.”

  I buried my father the year after,” he continued. “I did not open a shop. I didn’t want to. I wanted to defend people the way that goblin had defended us. So I found out where he was stationed, took every bit of savings I had, and I left.

  “That was nearly twenty years ago,” my father said. “I’ve followed that goblin ever since.

  “That road brought me here. He was a captain by then. Now he is my commander, and I am his captain.”

  He looked at me then, properly.

  “I think your grandfather would have been proud of the choice I made,” he said. “And I am proud of the choice you are making.”

  He didn’t look away as he said the next part.

  “There is fear in me,” he said. “Fear that I will lose you to a dungeon break one day. But I know what you do is for the good of people. Even if it brings you profit, you are doing a good thing.”

  Minor update:

  I Cast Fist has climbed to #15 on Rising Stars.

  Also, once we hit 1,000 followers or break into the Top 10 on Rising Stars, I’ll post an interlude for The Dark Side of Magic, shedding some light on what the Usurper has been up to.