We stayed in Valorheim three more days.
Day one: Signed the research designation with Princess Elara's office. Sera received the official documentation with an expression of academic satisfaction that was the most emotion I'd seen on her face since the Flame-Wind Fusion result. I watched her carry the folder back to the inn like it was a piece of equipment she was responsible for and thought that she was going to be fine in whatever came next, because she would document it until she understood it, and she almost always understood things.
Day two: Durnok's first steel testing session. He'd sent materials ahead by courier — twelve blanks, three grades of steel, each blank marked and numbered. I worked through them in a back room of the Valorheim smiths' hall while he watched with the focused attention of a man checking whether an interesting theory was real. It was real. The results were systematic and reproducible and Durnok sat with the data afterward for twenty minutes without speaking, which I was learning was his version of Sera opening her notebook.
"Crucible grade responds best," he said, finally.
"Base quality determines ceiling," I said. "Better input, better output."
"If I send you specific alloy compositions—"
"I can test them. Sera will document the pass rates."
He wrote something in his own small notebook, which made me feel better about my life choices in a way I couldn't entirely explain. "I have a client in the Dwarven Confederacy who has been asking about improved steel grades for two years. Dwarven work is the best in the continent but even they have ceilings." He looked up. "If your skill scales the way the data suggests, those ceilings become theoretical."
That's a long way out, I thought. But it's a direction. "Send the compositions. We'll test when I'm back in Millhaven."
Day three: Soobin found me in the morning, knowing I was leaving.
We walked a section of the market district, which was the most anonymous we could get in a city where he was recognizable. He was getting more recognizable — the S-rank Holy Sword Manifestation had been publicly demonstrated once in a training assessment and the guild grapevine had done the rest. People looked at him. He was learning to walk in a way that didn't invite it, which was its own kind of competence.
"You met Elara," he said.
"You knew about the meeting."
"I knew she'd been watching the Millhaven branch. I didn't know it was about you until yesterday." He glanced at me. "She's not like her father."
"I gathered."
"She's — she does things carefully. Slowly. She was planning this meeting for weeks."
Months, I thought. Eight months, at least from when the survey came back. "I know."
"Do you trust her?"
I thought about it honestly. Trust is the wrong word, I decided. I trust that she's smart. I trust that her interests and mine overlap on the question of the skill's development. I trust that she's playing a longer game than I am and that I don't know what she's playing toward yet. "I trust the arrangement," I said. "The research designation protects the skill data for now. That's enough."
He nodded. He was quiet for a market block.
"I'm going north in six months," he said. "Maybe sooner if the Demon King's generals push the pass."
Six months. "Are you ready?"
"I will be." He said it the way he'd always said things he was uncertain about but intended to make true. "The Holy Sword partial manifestation is stable now. Mirae is — Mirae is going to be the most dangerous person going north. I think she knows it."
"She knew it in the throne room," I said. "She's known since the beginning."
"I think you're right." He stopped walking. We were at the east gate, which was where we'd come in, which meant we'd walked a full circuit without planning to. "I'm going to keep coming to Millhaven when I can."
"I know."
"And I'm going to say something I should have said in the first two weeks, which is that I was wrong. Not just quiet — wrong. What happened in the throne room was wrong and I knew it was wrong and I didn't do anything about it and that's a different thing than just not knowing what to say." He looked at me directly. "I should have said that three visits ago. I'm saying it now."
There it is, I thought. Three months and three visits to get here. That's how long it took to work up to the thing he actually needed to say. I know him. I know this cost something.
I looked at him for a long moment.
"I know," I said. "I know you know." I started walking toward the gate. "Come to Millhaven in two weeks. I'll make you something with the new food supplies Durnok's wife recommended. She has opinions about dried goods."
He followed me. "You're not going to — that's it? I just—"
"I heard you," I said. "It's noted. We're moving forward. Come in two weeks."
"You're the most annoying person I've ever—"
"You've said that. It's baseline. Keep up."
He made a noise that was ninety percent exasperation and ten percent something that had been waiting to release for three months. I kept walking.
Not resolved, I thought. Still not resolved. But moved. That's what moving forward looks like — not a clean end, just a step and then another step, and eventually you've walked far enough that the starting point is behind you instead of in front of you.
We left Valorheim at midday. The same cart road, the same four hours, the same driver who had a new installment of son-in-law complaints that I nodded through while thinking about six months and a Demon King and a princess who planned things eight months in advance and a dwarf who wanted crucible alloy test results.
Rena sat next to me, which she sometimes did and sometimes didn't based on a logic I hadn't decoded. She watched the road.
"Good trip," she said, halfway back.
"Complicated."
"Good complicated or bad complicated?"
Both, I thought. Mostly good. The research designation protects the skill. The C-rank assessment was clean. Durnok is going to be useful. Elara is ahead of me but not opposed to me. Hyunwoo said the thing he needed to say and I didn't make it harder than it needed to be. Soobin said the real thing and it was real. "Mostly good," I said.
"The princess."
"She's careful."
"You're going to have to decide how much you trust her eventually."
"Eventually," I agreed.
"Not yet."
"Not yet."
Rena was quiet for a kilometer. Then: "The party."
"What about us?"
"We're C-rank now." She said it looking at the road, the way she said things that mattered without wanting them to be an event. "We started this with two people and a dungeon clearing contract. We're C-rank with five members and a research designation and a regional assessor on a sixty-day clock and a dwarf supplier and a princess who's been watching for eight months." She paused. "I want you to know that I see what you've built. In case you don't."
I know I'm getting sentimental, I thought. I know that. I'm choosing to get sentimental because Rena Ashveil just said something generous and unprompted and I'm not going to pretend I'm too cool to register it.
"Thank you," I said.
"Don't thank me. It's an observation."
"I'm thanking you for the observation."
She made a sound that was the closest she got to an acknowledgment and went back to watching the road. Torvin was asleep in the back with his shield on his chest like a stuffed toy. Yua was reading something. Sera had her notebook out.
C-rank, I thought. The party is C-rank and I'm still F and Rena just said something kind and I have a dwarf waiting for alloy test results and a princess who planned for me eight months before I arrived and six months before Soobin goes north to fight a Demon King.
I opened my status screen.
Level: 8 HP: 260 / 260 MP: 200 / 200 INT: 22 (E) SKILL: Minor Enhancement Lv.5 RANK: F LUK: 3 (F)
Still F, I thought.
Still fine.
I closed it and watched the road go by, and didn't think about the fifty gold coins, and thought about them anyway, and thought: not much longer on that particular joke.
Not much longer at all.
End of Chapters 13–20
F-Rank Pioneer — "Minor skill. Maximum chaos. Zero regrets."Pale Coin Party — C-Rank Registered — Millhaven Guild