Casual Heroing, Chapters 128 + 129

HERE WE GO! TWO CHAPTERS TO THE END OF VOLUME 2!

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Chapter 128 – Pictures

“Yes?” I ask from behind the door.

“Lucillus,” I hear the familiar voice.

I open and find the gruff [Guard] looking at me. “The Adventurers came back from the raid. Antoninus ran to meet his mother. If you want to go out, we’ll have to swing by their place first. Or I can send a message and tell him to come back as soon as possible.”

“Nah, we can just walk to his place and then go out,” I nod.

“Adventurers?” Truffles perks his ears up. “All of them?”

“Yes,” Lucillus sighs, “they are parading around the city. Security is at an all-time high.”

“Joey, I need to go. My parents will probably be looking for me.”

Truffles doesn’t even wait for me to say anything and simply walks out the door, squeezing past Lucillus.

“Huh,” I muse, “that’s okay. If they are still parading around, do you want to wait and have something to eat? I still have more pasta.”

Lucillus shakes his head, but his stomach betrays him, suddenly grumbling.

“Come on in,” I laugh. “It’s fine. Clodia’s paying for you, and I’m sure she wouldn’t want you to go hungry because of me.”

…

“This is really good,” Lucillus says as he dives into a portion of Pasta alla Norma that I fixed up for him.

“It is, isn’t it? I like simple recipes. I gave this one my own spin, though. It’s not exactly like the original.”

“Does it matter?” Lucillus asks curiously.

“Heh, it depends. Some cultures are more attached to their traditions than others. The specific culture this dish comes from is veryattached to their culinary traditions, even though some of their dishes are actually pretty recent.”

“Anyway,” Lucillus says between bites of rigatoni, “you wanted to go out the gates to shoot magic? Can I ask which spell?”

“Oh, right, I didn’t tell you and Antoninus. [Lightbolt].”

Lucillus’s hand stops midair, with the fork halfway through the pasta.

“What?”

“[Lightbolt]? Do you know the spell?”

“I know you took the [Light Mage] class for some reason. But why would you need to practice the spell outside the walls? I’ve seen mages practicing Tier 2 spells inside their houses. I’m pretty sure Lucinda is working on a Tier 3 spell. That’s what they said back at the Watch at least—well, it’s what Antoninus said.”

“Huh, she is? Cool, cool, cool,” I suddenly feel a tie in my throat as Lucillus brings up my first Elven redhead crush. “Well, do you see that?” I point at the hole in my wall. “I did that with a [Light] spell. I’m notgoing to risk Agostina putting a hole through me if I damage this flat further. Plus, I don’t know what the spell is going to do if I practice at the Pratus. What if it just keeps going and hits someone at the market? I don’t fancy myself in prison—I don’t think I’d do well.”

“Also, come on; it’s going to be fun! It’s a little excursion! And if you have a shield or some stuff, I can try and hit the shield while you hold it to see how strong the spell is against people. I was planning on shooting trees but shooting people holding a shield sounds hella fun. Boys will be boys, am I right?”

“What?” Lucillus looks confused, but the pasta clearly distracts him enough not to ask what I meant exactly.

“Dude, you know what? We really should bring a shield. Do you think we can, like, put the shield between tree branches, and I shoot it to see how high it flies—NO! WAIT! Take a smaller shield and throw it up in the air and shout ‘PULL!’ when it’s up, and I have to try and shoot it down. OH MY GOD! Why haven’t we done that with [Light] already? Jesus, that’s going to be super fun. Do you want to learn how to cast [Light] too? I can teach you, and we can have shooting competitions!”

“No. I don’t want any useless classes.”

“Ouch,” I scrunch my nose. “My man, I can assure you that [Light Mage] is pretty great. Can you do this?”

[Light Shaping]

I make a few penis-sized [Lights] hover around Lucillus as he eats.

“Do you like men, Joey?” Lucillus deadpans. “What’s this obsession with phalluses?”

“I mean, I wish. Sadly, I play against the women’s team. If I could switch, trust me, I would. They always look like they are having a blast on the other team.”

“But!” I interrupt Lucillus even before he can say anything, “[Lightbolt]! Do you have a shield? If not, where can we buy one? Doesn’t have to be cheap. In fact, we should probably go for a metal one. Enchanted too. That would be ideal. I don’t want to break it right away.”

“You are not going to break a steel shield with a [Lightbolt], Joey,” Lucillus sighs.

“I mean, again, I can try,” I smile like the Cheshire cat. “In the end, boys will be boys.”

…

“Who are Truffles’s parents?!”

“He said the two Named Adventurers?” I shrug. “Can’t remember the titles.”

We walk toward Antoninus’s house after a little rest and some more chatting at my apartment. Two hours went by, and Lucillus finally told me that they should probably be done by now.

“Are you telling me that Truffles is the Singing Blade and the Thespian Vanguard’s son?!”

“Those names sound super cool,” I nod as we walk to Antoninus’s house.

“How is he homeless?!” Lucillus looks beside himself.

“He says he doesn’t want his parents’ money to practice Alchemy and that he should be making his own money. That’s why he’s homeless.”

“That’s… crazy,” Lucillus doesn’t know else to say. “Why would he do that?”

“He knows what he wants to do very well. You don’t really see him complaining much, in fact.”

“He could be living like a [King]…”

“Many [Kings] are probably miserable,” I remark. “Many. You want to be, like, the King’s right hand. You still have a huge influence, but if things go down and the common folks pull out the guillotine, it’s the King’s head rolling. Oh, right, the guillotine is—”

“I know what that is,” Lucillus scoffs. “The Elves invented it, Joey.”

Oh, ok.

“We are close, by the way,” Lucillus says. It’s prophetic since I see Antoninus wave at us, followed by a young woman by his side.

“Wait, is that his mother?” I look at the big woman with a similar constitution to the brute [Guard].

“What? No. That’s his sister.”

“That makes more sense,” I nod as we approach them.

“Yo,” I say to Antoninus and then turn to his sister with a smile and an extended hand. “I’m Joey Luciani, enchanted.” I give her a little bow when she shakes my hand.

“Hi, I’m Livilla,” Antoninus’s sister says, “I’ve heard about you.”

“All good things, I hope,” I say with a strained smile.

“Maybe,” she smiles back, but then she turns to Antoninus with a quizzical face before turning to us again. “Mom said she was going to go home ahead of us. She said she needed to rest because she was rotten tired from the trip. Apparently, she got hit with some [Curse], and she’s still feeling the toll. A few high-level [Healers] should come around in the next few days to check on her. Anyway, Antoninus, if you want to go, just go.”

“Joey, do you mind if we stop by my house first? I think my mom would be interested in knowing you.”

“Sure,” I wink at the man, “moms love me.”

“What is that even supposed to mean?” Lucillus shakes his head.

“Oh, you sweet summer child,” I say with a melodramatic voice. “Don’t you worry; let’s just get going.”

And so, we finally walk the last stretch before reaching Antoninus’s house. Apparently, both siblings still live with their mother. How very Italian of them, I must say.

For the better part of the road leading up to the house, I’ve been thinking about magic. The thing about getting a shield was absolutely genius. I can’t wait just to get out and pew-pew-pew some trees and a shield. Maybe some rocks, too, if my aim is good enough.

We arrive in front of the door, and Antoninus takes out some keys from his pocket. Medieval-style keys, no weird magnetic card, mind you. They look like those keys they would use for jail or something like that.

He puts the key in the hole and turns it. However, what awaits us on the other side is most definitely not what we were expecting.

A middle-aged woman, bigger than Antoninus, lies in a pool of blood.

“MOM!” Antoninus shouts and runs up to the woman.

“Shit,” I swear, going in right after him.

…

“It’s fine, it’s fine. Stop fussing, you damn kid,” Antoninus’s mother swats away her son’s hands as he keeps checking for wounds on her head. “I vomited some blood—big fucking deal. It’s a [Curse]. I expect to shit blood, vomit blood, and piss some, too, maybe. What did you expect? I took a good health potion now, I’m good. My stomach is much better.”

“Do you want to eat something?” Livilla, Antoninus’s sister, asks.

At that, Claudia, which is apparently her name, looks hesitant.

“Later, perhaps. I’ve had enough food on the way home. Do you have any milk at home? I’d go for some fresh milk.”

Lucillus and I eye each other. This feels like one of those things that, as someone that’s not part of the family, you shouldn’t be assisting. However, Claudia, as soon as she regained consciousness, insisted we stay.

She was very curious about me.

Still is.

“You are the Human who goes around the Pratus messing with the homeless, huh?” She says, straightening up.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Well, one good-looking friend my son’s made,” she laughs heartily.

I’ll be honest with you; I’m a bit embarrassed. Claudia is probably the biggest, tallest, most muscular woman I’ve ever seen. Clodia’s yoked, sure. Claudia? Claudia looks like she could wrestle a bull the same way a dad wrestles their five-year-old son.

“Thank you very much. You don’t look half bad yourself,” I say with a confident smile. “I hope the raid was good. I have heard stuff about it by now.”

It wasn’t really true, but sometimes a gentleman has to wear a good cap, if you know what I mean.

“The raid was nasty. For the rotten roots of the World’s Tree, I have never seen anything like it in almost thirty years of adventuring. Those [Necromancers]… do you guys know who Mauser is?”

I shake my head and turn to look at the others.

Only Lucillus nods.

“Mauser was the dark [Hero] in the Vanedeni history,” he explains.

“Yes. Mauser was a [Necromancer]… well, the[Necromancer]. He was slaughtering the Ahali, and he would have won the conflict over on Kome—which, by the way, is another rotten fruit that should be discussed later. Weird things are happening around the world right now.”

Claudia makes a small pause to cough loudly, the cough turning into a fit lasting almost half a minute. After she finally drinks some milk, she resumes talking.

“Mauser was about to win the war on behalf of the Vanedeni, but when they found out, he was actively killing his own people and making them into Undead monstrosities, a civil war ensued. Half of the Vanedeni sided with him; the rest sided with their Royal Family. The Ahali had to do nothing while the Vanedeni simply self-destructed. Entire bloodlines were wiped out during the conflict. Becoming a [Necromancer] has been banned on Kome for good four hundred years now. The problem is that some disgusting followers of his managed to escape the continent and formed new pockets of [Necromancers] worshipping him.”

Claudia coughs again and raises a hand in Antoninus’s face before he can fuss around her again.

“Apparently, they had been hiding in the North, and several of them were above level 40. The [Necromancer] leading them was in the high 50s. What was really scary about Mauser’s followers was that facing [Necromancers] usually meant wading through hordes of low-leveled Undead. For a Named Adventurer or even a Gold-rank, it’s easy making short work of a [Necromancer] who does that. These ones, though, were focused on creating single Undeads that could rival a Gold-rank in strength. We lost a whole lot of good people up North. Even though the crown will pay us chests full of gold and artifacts, I’m not sure it was worth it. Those bastards launched curses that empoweredtheir Undead and weakened us at the same time. The strongest of them launched [Curses] that are still affecting many of us. I can’t wait to see a damn [Healer] to get rid of this.”

As Claudia finishes speaking, I notice that something is off.

She’s pale, obviously. It shouldn’t bug me since it’s pretty common for someone who’s sick, right?

But then, she puts a hand behind her back and starts groaning.

“Fucking [Necromancers], my back has been killing me since the stupid [Curse] affected me.”

That triggers something in me.

Her back?

She vomited blood and has trouble breathing. And now her back hurts?

I feel a lump in my throat.

No, it can’t be, right?

It wouldn’t make sense.

It’s probably just a general malaise affecting her.

I haven’t heard about anyone here having this kind of thing so far.

But the symptoms…

There’s something different about my brain today.

I don’t know what it is that it’s doing, but I feel… more intuitive than usual. And it’s telling me something.

Turn on the [Advanced Mana Sense].

It’s a hunch.

Just a hunch.

Why should I, right?

Shouldn’t we just hurry and practice some magic to blow up trees and shields?

Wouldn’t that be better than worrying needlessly?

But I can’t shake the hunch.

And so, I turn on [Advanced Mana Sense].

The world turns into the energy world I’m so used to by now.

People in the vision that [Advanced Mana Sense] gives you are clumps of Mana that are more or less bright, depending on their class. [Mages] can be like lighthouses in the dark, like the ones I met when I was visiting [Captain] Drusillus. [Soldiers] and [Guards] are generally very dull silhouettes, though.

And I suppose that’s what Antoninus’s mother is, some kind of a [Warrior].

But I stop breathing when I see several stains of Mana around her body.

They are like shiny diamonds in her body, brighter at the center and greyer around the edges.

I’ve seen this before…

On any other day, my brain wouldn’t have been able to conjure such images, but today it seems to work well enough to bring up all the CT scans, the X-rays, and the PET scans that my mother had hidden from me and that I had found after in her apartment after she died—they had been under my nose all along. It had been crazy for me not to notice.

And now, the same thing is before my eyes again.

All those images superimpose in my head with what I’m currently seeing.

It’s a perfect match.

This is no [Curse].

Antoninus’s mother has cancer.

Chapter 129 – Despair

“Joey, where are you going?” Lucillus asks as I stumble toward the door.

“I need to go, I’m sorry, I must go.”

I open the door, and as soon as the afternoon sun hits me, I start walking swiftly away from the house.

This can’t be happening. No. I must have seen it wrong.

“Joey!” Lucillus is running after me, and as I see both of them over my shoulder, I start running too.

This cannot be it.

It cannot be cancer.

But the images are burned into my mind as if they were in 4k, with crystal clear clarity. The shapes of the Mana stains that were all over Claudia’s body left me with no doubts.

A very powerful [Necromancer] specialized in curses and manipulation of flesh? Magical cancer?

It doesn’t take my somewhat-enhanced mind today to figure out that there is no way any normal [Healer] can deal with that. Cancer is already the worst thing possible that can happen to someone.

Magical cancer?

I weave through the crowd, running away from Lucillus and Antoninus, who have started chasing me at full speed. I bump into a few people, sending a guy carrying a case of fruit rolling to the ground and shouting something at me.

But my ears are ringing.

I can’t hear anything other than my heart beating right into my brain.

I never wished for my brain to be sluggish, but I am wishing now that it wasn’t working so damn well today.

Why?

Because if you are a [Necromancer] worth your salt, and you know about cancer, even if your opponent can cure most of the magical cancer, you would have engineered it in such a way that even the smallest cell would still be liable to have a relapse.

Remission would be impossible unless you completely eradicated the diseases with even more powerful magic.

A [Necromancer] in his 50s.

That’s a level.

No.

No!

NO!

THIS CAN’T BE HAPPENING!

It’s a primal terror that’s gripping me as I keep running. I bump into a cart now, hurting my shoulder, but I keep going. There’s something about me today. I am just dodging most of the people with the kind of agility that I haven’t experienced since I was a kid.

I’ve always had a supernatural spatial awareness, but it remained only in baking after my brain was half-melted during my teenage years.

I don’t know why some of it seems to have come back today.

DAMMIT!

WHY? WHY TODAY?!

A flurry of thoughts goes through my head as my brain forcefully makes me go through the scenes of my mother being sick.

I see her on the stairs with a short breath, with the cancer already in her lungs, lying to me and telling me she’d just been eating one too many cannoli.

I see her smile as she tells me that everything is ok.

I remember her face, the still-beautiful face she had even in her old age. She used to make all sorts of jokes about her Sicilian heritage and how it made her age like wine.

She loved me so much.

And I… I failed her.

…

After banging on my door for several minutes and me shouting at them to leave me alone, I’m finally alone in my apartment.

I collapse onto the floor, back pressed against the door, feeling the sweat drenching my clothes. I can't breathe; I can't think straight. My chest tightens, and I'm gasping for air, but it feels like I'm still suffocating.

My heart is beating wildly, hammering as if it wanted out of my body. Almost as if it was about to shatter my ribs.

No, not now. Not a panic attack. Please, not now.

I try to force myself to take slow, deep breaths, but it's like I'm drowning. My hands are trembling, and I can't make them stop. I close my eyes, trying to regain control, but the memories keep coming like a tidal wave crashing over me.

My mother's frail body lying in the hospital bed. Her once-vibrant eyes were now dull and lifeless. The sound of her shallow breaths, every inhale and exhale, a struggle. I wasn't there for her when she needed me most. I failed her.

I have to open my eyes again because my head is spinning, and I suddenly feel like vomiting.

I take deep breaths through my mouth, wheezing.

Antoninus's mother… I can't let this happen again.

I can't watch someone else go down like that.

And she doesn’t know. She thinks a [Healer] will fix that.

I stand up shakily, feeling drained and emotionally shattered.

I drag myself to the table.

The Omnium Compendium is resting there.

“I know you are there,” my voice shakes, and the sweat on my skin feels like acid, trying to melt me into the ground. “I know there’s someone, something in there! Come out!”

I stare at the book, waiting for a response, a little nudge, a vibration. I would welcome even the terrible jolt of electricity.

“COME OUT! I KNOW YOU ARE THERE! I NEED HELP! PLEASE!”

Nothing.

The book doesn’t move an inch.

“PLEASE! PLEASE!”

I ball my hands into fists and hammer the cover.

But as I do, it feels like I’m hitting a normal book, and the soft, leathery cover just makes my hand bounce back.

“YOU STUPID BOOK! PLEASE! I NEED HELP! YOU DISGUSTING THING! COME OUT! COME THE FUCK OUT!”

No electricity.

Nothing.

Not even the usual spite.

“WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME?!” I bawl. “WHY?! PLEASE! PLEASE! I’LL DO YOUR STUPID CANTRIPS! I’LL DO ANYTHING! I NEED SOME FUCKING MAGIC FOR THAT CURSE! PLEASE! I KNOW YOU HAVE SOMETHING! PLEASE!”

Suddenly, the book levitates in front of me.

I take a few deep breaths, trying to calm down.

Ok, ok. The book has something. It must have something. A stupid fucking Dragon owned it. It really must have something, right? It wouldn’t make sense for it not to!

But when I open the pages, I see a single line staring at me.

‘Magister Mulligan decreed that his disciples have to master all the Cantrips before learning any other spell.’

And that’s it.

It just hovers in front of me.

“I know you are there,” my voice is half-begging, half-sobbing, “I know you are. There must be someone in there. There must be. Please. I beg you…”

I know there must be someone in there. My brain is telling me that I’ve been obviously ignoring all the symptoms. The magical sleep that I’ve been getting? Come on; it must have been the book. But the book would just tell me. It didn’t have anything to hide so far.

And if there was a secret, there must have been someone holding that secret.

“Please,” I say as I grab a chair in order not to fall to the ground. “I need help. I can’t do this. I don’t know anything about magic. Whoever created this must be a tremendously powerful [Archmage]. Please, just help me. I can’t have this happen. Not again. Please…”

My blood pressure must have run to the ground, though, because my eyes closed, and I fainted.

…

I wake up with a start.

I am on a couch. Not in my apartment.

I am…

“Huh?” I see Agostina sitting on a chair in front of me.

She doesn’t say anything; she just hands me a cup of tea that smells very sweet.

“Drink it all, fast. It has some Alchemical concoction they give [Soldiers].”

“What? I—” I sit up on the couch, but she pushes the tea in my hands, spilling a little on me. It’s barely warm, not scalding hot.

“Joey Luciani, drink it all before I strangle you.”

Dazed, I do.

As soon as the liquid enters my body, I feel all my muscles relax, and the panic that was still grasping every fiber of my body relents its gnawing maw.

“Agostina, what is—” She slaps the top of my head before falling back into her chair, sighing tiredly.

“You damn children. What in the rot of the World’s Tree did you do? I heard your shouts, and I came running. You were on the ground, passed out. I asked one of my tenants to bring you to my apartment. What is happening? Speak.”

“Oh, I—I, er, it’s not—”

“Joey Luciani,” she says sternly. “I haven’t always lived among [Farmers]. Not all of my skills are meant to grow food. Some of them are meant to kill. I’ve fought alongside Adventurers and seen some die because of not talking. Talk, Human.”

I take a huge breath and finish the rest of the tea in one big gulp.

“The adventurers that are coming back from the raid—well, not all of them, whoever got hit with the [Curse] from the strongest [Necromancer]… I know that spell—I know what it does. It’s… bad. It’s really bad. It’s what killed my mother.”

Agostina glances down at one of her rings as I see it flash green slightly before she covers it with her other hand.

“I’m sorry about your mother,” she says, resting in her chair. “You saw that spell and panicked? Is that why you were screaming? I couldn’t hear your precise words for some reason, but… it sounded bad.”

“It’s… listen; I’m not totally sure about it. My mother… it’s complicated. It’s bad. If it’s the same disease, it’s really bad. It triggered some really bad memories.”

Agostina stands up and gestures for me to do the same.

“Let’s put some food in you. You need energy. Whatever you will do.”

“Er, thanks,” I say, scratching my head.

…

We are sitting at the same table I dined at with Agostina’s sister and her niece.

“How’s your niece?” I ask, trying to strike up a conversation with the old landlady since she has just been staring at me silently.

“She is trying to complete the Cantrips,” Agostina sighs. “She’s having trouble with coordinating the [Lights]’ movements. That kid…”

“Well, Cantrips are pretty hard,” I say. And it’s not really a lie since I think that if you were moving [Light] with your Mana instead of vectors, it would, indeed, be pretty hard.

“Help her if you can, Human,” she says, looking away from me. “I’ve tried giving her pointers, but… I don’t understand how my niece thinks. Teaching has never been my main strength.”

Huh?

Who’s this Agostina?

First, she rescued me from one of the worst panic attacks of my entire life, and now she’s all worried about her niece? Has she been abducted and replaced by aliens?

“I will try to help her,” I say sincerely. “Tell her to pay me a visit.”

Agostina nods, turning to look at the massive sword on her wall.

“The Vanedeni leave their young children to fend off for themselves in the military or face monsters before they turn fourteen. They throw their own offspring on the battlefield as young as twelve in some cases.”

“That’s a bit extreme,” I wince. “Are you thinking about throwing Domitilla into a Dungeon or something?”

Agostina laughs at that so much that it almost scares me.

“Oh, Human, you are something. Rotten roots, my niece would die within the first five minutes. No, no. She has not the spine for Adventuring… I hope she’ll be able to learn some simple Green Magic. She’s no Vanedeni, and I’m not either.”

“I wish I were one of those guys,” I suddenly find myself saying. “I would probably be able to help the Adventurers with their problems if I was.”

Agostina slowly turns to look at me.

“What did you just say?”

Still a bit dazed from the tea, I shrug.

“I wish I was a [Hero] of some kind, you know? Maybe that way, I would know some super magic that could just heal people from [Curses] and stuff like that. But… I’m not.”

Agostina scoffs at that.

“You want to hear a story, Human? A story about someone who wasn’ta [Hero] but killed one?”

Before I can say anything, she just starts narrating.

“I heard the Adventurers fought Mauser’s followers. Do you know who Mauser is?”

I get a spike of anxiety at hearing the name since I associate it with magical cancer now.

“I just heard some stuff about him. He was a super powerful [Necromancer] involved in a civil war, right?”

“Do you know who killed him?” Agostina asks.

“No?”

“Mauser divided the Vanedeni like no one had ever done before. For the first time in their entire history, they were on the losing side of a conflict, and it lasted centuries. When Mauser came along and gained the [Hero] class, everyone was elated. He received the highest honors in the Vanedeni society from their Royal Family. He even got the [Princess]’s hand offered to him. And they agreed on marriage right after they won the war.”

Agostina pauses for a second.

“[Princess] Valarith was the second greatest [Mage] at that time. Everyone was thoroughly convinced that she would become a [Hero] in due time too. She was sixteen when Mauser was already in his early thirties. The world was shaking, the [Historians] say. Not only was there a chance for the Vanedeni to have two [Heroes] alive at once since the Great Hydrean War, but this time, their union would generate offspring from the two strongest Vanedeni ever. Their children would have been the most blessed creatures—not even a Dragon would have rivaled the talents inherited from the two.”

“But?” I ask.

“But they found out Mauser was using the same high-level troops he commanded on the battlefield to empower his Undead. And he certainly didn’t wait for them to die of natural causes. We don’t have many records of it, but at the Nine Towers Academy, I heard from a very coveted Secret course that he was slowly killing people as he weaved his Necromantic magic into them. He created a type of Undead never seen before. He created Named-Adventurers-ranked Undead by the dozen. And they were tearing through the Ahali like a sword through thin saplings.

“But the Vanedeni, who were true to their roots, were disgusted by those practices. [Princess] Valarith herself broke the marriage vow and rallied troops to stop him. The conflict raged on for five years. The Ahali famously retired to their cities and barricaded themselves away from the Vanedeni, deathly afraid that they would get swept into this civil war. In the end, [Princess] Valarith sacrificed herself to kill Mauser. In one blow, the two greatest talents of the Vanedeni died and left only ruins behind. The Ahali started a massive counteroffensive that relegated them to the south of the continent, broken beyond belief.”

“It’s all very interesting,” I say, “but what’s the point here?”

“You wish you were a [Hero], Joey Luciani? [Princess] Valarith is called the lost [Hero]. She never actually got the class. They think it was because she was fighting other Vanedeni or whatever crap the [Historians] say. She was barely a child by our standards. And she killed the strongest [Necromancer] we have records of. She did not wait for the class; she did not wait to grow stronger. She just dived in. And she died for her people.”
Silence lingers between us after those words.

Agostina breaks it with a sigh.

“I tried telling this story to my niece, hoping it would spur her to take magic more seriously. She did not understand.”

She looks straight into my eyes.

“But do you?”

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