Summer was entirely behind us and fall was in full swing. Nights were seeing frosts, and anything left unharvested in the fields was probably lost. Fortunately, my family’s fields were all harvested, which I had learned from a letter I had recently received. I pulled it out of the drawer to give it another read.
Dearest Tovar,
This is cantor Umbor writing to you on behalf of your family, here with me now. Hildan and Berrel want to thank you for the money you sent over. It went a long way towards filling the larder for winter and getting help in the fields, which have just finished being harvested, with the remainder set aside for hiring help in the spring.
Torra, Tomas, and Tomellia are all doing very well. Torra and Tomas would like me to ask you how your magic is coming and if you can cast “that tilling spell which Magus Somnial cast in spring” yet, and if not, to “please learn it before the end of winter”. Tomellia is only gurgling, which Torra insists is agreement with them that you should till the fields with magic come spring, but I will leave that to your own interpretation.
The whole village misses you and hopes you will be able to visit sometime soon (magical tilling or not) but we understand that your studies take priority and wish you the best with them. We are all so proud of you and glad that you found your Guardians-given path, and cannot wait to see where it takes you.
Guardians’ protection to you,
Umbor, Hildan, Berrel, Torra, Tomas, and Tomellia.
I set the letter aside with a smile on my face. I had already penned a response, spending a bit of my own pocket money to have it delivered to Redding.
Winter break was long enough that I could make the trip to Redding, but I had decided not to. Corresponding by letters hadn’t occurred to me since my family was illiterate, but so long as I could send and receive messages by way of Umbor, I planned to keep in touch with them that way moving forward.
On the topic of correspondence, I also received a message from Rikton by way of Felton. The baron of Obdorn was pleased to inform me that the dungeon campaign was progressing smoothly, and that a large part of that was thanks to the numerals and math I had introduced to Felton, which Rikton had learned in turn. I had shown him a bit more while I was healing up from my injury, before we left Obdorn, and he was already deploying what he learned to better manage the barony’s finances and budgets.
Unsurprisingly, a dungeon campaign involved quite a lot of budgeting. With an emergency to focus on like this, a lot of expenses tended to come up and payments or receipts had a bad habit of getting lost in the shuffle. Administration was an overhead as well, and Guardians forbid someone untrustworthy was left in charge of the books. Rikton had learned from his own father to plan to over-budget by double the expected cost in order to ensure that the finances didn’t run out along the way, but being able to track and sum expenses so efficiently and clearly meant that Obdorn was actually on budget for the campaign.
If they succeeded in purging the dungeon of the Nightmare Ants and conquering the Nightmare Ant queen on schedule at this rate of spend, they would end up saving a huge amount of raab. Rikton promised me to return this favor once things were settled. I wouldn’t say no to getting a bit more cash sent to my family to help them in the coming years.
I put aside my thoughts about family, friends, and finances, tugged the blanket tighter around me, and returned my attention to the [Control Water] grimoire. I had a good chunk of it memorized, but my progress had been slow while I was still mastering [Create Fire]. Between class and self-study, I already added that to my repertoire, and using what I had learned with my other creation spells, I managed to advance the skill to the second level.
All my magic training this term and my increased rate of studying advanced my Will to 13 and Mind to 12, and as my left side strengthened from training with Byron, I gained a stat in Body as well, bringing it up to 13. My conditioning had caught up, so fatigue wasn’t an issue anymore, but I was still dialing in my finesse. I felt like I was close, though, and with just a bit more effort would be as good as I was before the loss of my right hand.
* * *
It was winter break. Felton and Felris had made the trip back to Obdorn. They had extended me an invite, but I declined, telling Felton I expected him to keep up his exercises without me. I hadn’t taught him anything about the sword yet, since I was still a student myself—especially starting over with my left—but suggested he finally let his father give him some training, knowing it would make Rikton happy.
It would have been nice to see Rikton, Trisellia, and Fellius again, but it seemed like it would be a bit awkward after what happened in the summer. I saw Felton every day, and we had long since moved past that when it came to our relationship, but he also wasn’t the one responsible for my safety and hadn’t been in substantial danger himself.
Things with Felris were also a bit awkward. Right after the incident, she was constantly trying to help me out and be there for me, but over the summer term I noticed her start to become more withdrawn. When the fall term started, the third years also started stressing out about making the cut from junior classes to senior classes. After first year, where people with no talent for magic at all tended to drop out, the largest culling was the transition from junior to senior.
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As far as I could tell, Felris was a good student and on track without issue, but combined with what had happened in the dungeon she was pushing herself extra hard in her studies. I had barely seen her at all recently, and it actually felt like she was avoiding me, but I didn’t want to read into it in case she was just focused on studying. Still, on top of everything else, I felt a bit uncomfortable with the idea of spending days in a carriage traveling together, which sealed my decision to stay home.
Instead, I planned on getting a rigorous and comprehensive training regimen from Byron. I felt so close to catching up with my previous skill level with [Swordsmanship] and with time off from school, I planned to put some of that extra availability into drilling myself back into matching form.
My boots crunched the snow beneath my feet and my sword cut through the crisp air as I moved through one of my forms.
“You’ve come impressively far with your non-dominant hand,” Byron said, watching me work through my usual routine. I practiced with a brisk pace to keep my body warm, and my breath created small clouds of fog.
“Thanks,” I grunted, twisting to deliver a low swing against my imaginary foe. It wasn’t just my swordplay which had improved. I had put a lot of work into using my left hand for all the things I normally did with my right, and it was starting to feel almost normal.
After forms, I exchanged my blade for a practice sword and we began to spar. Byron started slow, as he usually did, then picked up the pace and intensity as he sussed out my comfort level and identified where my skill would start to break down.
A blow came whizzing towards my head, and I reacted on instinct with a parry, opening up an opportunity to counterattack. I struck, and Byron only just deflected my blade, raising an eyebrow as he stepped aside and continued the assault.
His arm blurred as he struck out at me from my right-hand side. In many of our spars, attacks like this were where my ingrained habits betrayed me, but this time I half-spun and swept my blade under his, knocking it up and creating an opening.
I felt something click into place as I jabbed forward.
Byron dodged easily, because he was much, much better than me, but he didn’t counterattack. He must have noticed the expression on my face or the change in my body.
While I caught my breath, I pulled up my System to see what just happened.
“Huh,” I said. “I gained a new skill. It’s called [Ambidexterity].”
“Congratulations,” Byron said with a knowing smile.
“Did you know I would get this?”
“As I said before, you aren’t the first swordsman to lose his dominant hand.”
I swung my blade a few times, and it was hard to tell since I had already trained so hard to gain an equal level of proficiency with my non-dominant sword hand, but it felt a bit more natural now. As I did a quick form, it no longer felt like what I had spent half a year building on, but rather that all of my effort since I was a child was being realized once again. I was eager to try out other things with my left, which I hadn’t spent as much time practicing, and see how it felt.
“There’s no skill level,” I said as I looked at the description again.
Byron nodded. “Not every skill can grow,” he explained. “Some people call these passive skills, as they can’t be further trained and improved upon. You either have them, or you don’t. If you can gain one, it can positively affect you or your other skills, but you can’t really use the skill directly.”
My [Metasurvival] skill was like that, not that I could talk about that with Byron. Though, presumably, it was derived from a similar, more mundane skill. “Is there another passive skill called [Survival]?”
Byron’s eyes narrowed. “Where did you hear the name of that skill?”
“Um… from a classmate of mine,” I lied.
“Hmm. That’s not a skill that should be spoke about in polite company. But yes, that’s another passive, though it’s more unusual.”
“How so?”
Byron sighed, then stepped closer and lowered his voice. “[Survival] is granted by the Guardians when someone receives what should be a fatal blow, yet they manage to pull through. Ostensibly, the skill helps the user to survive future mortal injuries, but as you can imagine, testing that is foolish, as is attempting to acquire the skill intentionally. Some adventurers see it as a badge of honor or a safety net and seek it out, but most simply die. Additionally, those who gain the skill unintentionally often become overconfident as a result and also wind up perishing. Do not seek out that skill, Tovar.”
I nodded. It sounded like it could be the progenitor skill of [Metasurvival], and I didn’t really need a skill that would help me survive the worst case scenario in this life when I would be reborn into the next. I wondered if the soul I had gained the system of had the skill originally.
Before I could ask any more questions about other passive skills, Byron cleared his throat and stepped back. “[Ambidexterity] is a good skill, though, and I am glad the Guardians bestowed it onto you. It will allow you to progress your [Swordsmanship] more easily. Able-bodied people who gain the skill have an advantage in acquiring [Dual Wielding], though more often than not they start by training [Dual Wielding] and acquire [Ambidexterity] in the process.”
Damn, that sounds cool. Kind of mean for Byron to tell me that when I only have one hand. Maybe it’ll help in my next life though.
Byron and I spoke a bit more about the skill before he excused himself to see to his work, and I went to wash up and focus up on my magical studies. I was glad that even after taking such a serious injury I was still making progress with my Body and physical skills, which gave me options, but my priority was still the supernatural forces that my first world had lacked.
What I quickly discovered, though, was that [Ambidexterity] would take some getting used to. My instinct had initially been to use my dominant hand for most tasks, and I had intentionally retrained that to use my non-dominant hand when it was my only hand. Now, my instinct was that I could use either hand for any task, and I found myself reaching with my right stump to do things without thought, like I had when I first lost the hand, because my instinct was that either hand would do. I kept needing to correct myself and only use my left, which I had spent two seasons already retraining myself to do.
It was a bit irritating, though it was worth the ease with which I could now do most tasks with my left hand. My handwriting had improved dramatically in half a year of training with my left, but now it was indistinguishable from my old handwriting. Other tasks that had challenged my dexterity were now trivial to perform. The only place I still struggled was with two handed tasks, for obvious reasons.
That night, while I was deeply focused in my studies, I absently reached for my cup of water to take a sip while I read. I was scratching my ear while I reached for the cup when I felt the shift in my mana circuit.
I paused, confused at what had caused the surge in my mana flow, and brought the hand that I was scratching my ear with away from my head to glance at it. I looked over at my bedside table, where I had left my prosthetic after I took it off.
Then I looked down at my right stump, which I had used to reach for the cup. The cup which I had picked up, and was now held aloft in the empty space in front of my severed hand.