PreCursive

  Well.

  That was…a bit suboptimal. If I couldn’t go out to fight, then how was I going to keep growing…?

  Is what I would say, if I wasn’t me. I had my Aetherial Melding, after all. With it, I received the full stack of Profession experience just from using it. It was one of its benefits, after all. I think the only reason I hadn’t shut myself into a workroom and crafted myself into an early grave was because I…just kind of didn’t want to? Sure, it would be safer.

  But it would also be a little boring.

  Vereden had changed me. I was well aware of that.

  So, I needed time to fully recover from one too many knocks on the head. Eh, I’ll live. My growth would slow since even with the way I received the full measure of crafting experience it still wasn’t much. But I would still grow, and with the extended lifespan given to me by my Status, I wasn’t too upset by potentially losing out on six months to possibly even a year of dedicated hunting growth.

  It's not like I was on a time limit or something.

  I shrugged at Renauld and regretted it a moment ter when it caused a spike of pain to shoot down my back. I kept it off my face, though. “Alright, message received. No fighting.”

  Renauld stood up and eyed me weirdly for a moment. “I gotta say, I was expecting more whining about it,” He said, ignoring my faint ‘hey’ in protest. “You have a bit of a tendency to run around, Nate.”

  I picked up the mug of water Aveline had left on my bedside table and took a sip before answering. “Well, it’s not like I’m pnning another major expedition like this anytime soon. Besides, we have the same pns for the rest of the year anyway.”

  The Gnoll nodded at my words. “Yeah, that’s true. I bet it’s almost time for the Academy to-”

  His words were cut off as the fp to our tent opened, letting Aveline slip back inside. Following close behind her were three familiar faces.

  Azarus, Liora, and Bel.

  Curiously, I didn’t see Kazuma or Venix anywhere.

  I put it out of my mind and instead greeted my friends with as wide of a smile as I could, as Aveline hurried back over to me. The little girl hopped up onto the bed and sat where Renauld had been only moments ago, and reached out to grab my hand. That helped take the edge off, I could say. My smile softened as Liora and Azarus approached as well.

  “Nate,” Azarus said with a relieved sigh. I noticed that a tension in his broad shoulders eased at the sight of me awake. “How’re ya doin’? Everythin’…alright?”

  I exchanged a brief gnce with Renauld, only for the Gnoll to shake his head at me. Ah, I see.

  Good old-fashioned doctor-patient confidentiality.

  I didn’t want to put a damper on the reunion, so I nodded. “Ah…more or less. We can talk about it ter. How about you guys? I see you weren’t as banged up as I was in the bst.”

  The near nuclear bst, as I recalled. A small one, admittedly.

  But still.

  Fuck me, I hadn’t expected that. At the time, I’d just been worried that the mountain would come down. I hadn’t realized that there was so much power stored in the ancient Netherim ‘Aether Collider’ that it would outright vaporize it into a mushroom cloud.

  I could only hope that radiation wasn’t a factor here. I don’t think so, though. If it were, I don’t believe any of us would be alive right now for a reunion.

  I snapped out of my woolgathering when Liora shook her head at me in mild, relieved amusement. “We are all fine, Nathan. Before you ask,” She held up a hand to stop me. “Several hours after you and the others were…apparently abducted into a curse, Grandmaster Shacklock descended from the heavens to the barge. He was quite irate at the time, you see, as his opponent had abruptly dissipated into a cloud of corrupted Aether. Not even true Miasma, to signify a death. The skies cleared almost immediately with the disappearance of the Wyrm, and Bel and I,” She nodded at the pirate woman, who had oddly stayed back to watch the conversation silently. “Were quite armed at the time, as the innd sea began to drain rapidly. However, the Grandmaster was grateful enough to spirit the two us away from the situation on his flying sword. Shortly thereafter, the mountain itself began to shake armingly, almost as if it were a volcano.”

  Bel finally made a noise, snorting from her arms-crossed position near the far wall of the tent. “Turned out, it sure as hell wasn’t.”

  “Indeed,” Liora said with a small, wry smile. Still, I couldn’t help but notice the brief, sharp look that the Gnoll woman shot my erstwhile lover. Bel winced for some reason, as Liora continued. “Sir Kazuma suffered a brief break in his sword arm, but that was the extent of anyone’s injuries. Among our party, at the very least.”

  Azarus sighed and scratched the back of his head. “Yeah…the heat and light from that explosion just about burned the eyeballs outta the sockets o’ some of the Order men. A few more were crushed by fallin’ stone. If it hadn’t been fer yer warnin’…”

  I nodded quietly in acknowledgment of his unspoken thanks. I was…aware of some curious looks being thrown my way, possibly about how I’d known to warn people away from looking at the explosion. After all, I sincerely doubted anything that intense had ever been seen on the surface of Vereden.

  Maybe I was wrong, but I don’t think even the ‘gods’ had been capable of small, localized nuclear bsts.

  Hopefully.

  The point was, though, that I was deliberately ignoring them. I had absolutely no desire to even hint at the possibility of nuclear weaponry to the people of Vereden. I was interested in possibly reverse-engineering some old conveniences and technologies from back on Earth with Enchanting, sure.

  (Especially now that I was essentially being told by my Healer to stay away from the monsters.)

  But I was never going to talk about nukes.

  Some things should stay on Earth.

  Liora must have recognized my reticence as a brief, awkward silence descended on the group because she picked up the conversation. “Anyway,” She said loudly. Well, loudly for her. “The Order welcomed us into their encampment in the aftermath, and we’ve been waiting here for you to recover ever since.”

  To my surprise, I saw Renauld suddenly smirk over at Azarus. “Well, that and ugh at Azarus.”

  I quirked an eyebrow first at him, and then at my dwarven friend. I was unsurprised to see that he was glowering at the Gnoll, but under my curious stare, he suddenly looked embarrassed. “What’s going on?”

  Bel finally approached the group to lean one arm on the shoulder of Azarus and smirk in amusement at him. “Well…” She drawled. “Turns out that becomin’ the high and mighty ‘Envoy’ comes with a few responsibilities.”

  Azarus shrugged her arm off irritably but refused to meet my eyes as he spoke next. “It’s nothin’. Just, Sena and Shurenga have been teachin’ me some things, now that the ol’ gasbag reaffirmed the pact. May not have been me that saved Sena, but it was enough fer him. Thanks…I guess.”

  I’m not sure that thank you was particurly sincere, but I wasn’t willing to start mocking Azarus until I knew what I was supposed to be doing it about first. I figured I would find out ter. Instead, I asked about the two others just mentioned. “So, they stuck around afterward?”

  I was a bit startled when my answer came not from my companions, but from the fp of the tent parting once more to let someone in. I hadn’t felt anyone coming from my blood sense that my Core was now monitoring again, but when I saw who it was, my surprise faded.

  Spirits didn’t have blood, after all.

  The miniaturized form of Shurenga that I had glimpsed back at Mt. Umetsuji strolled into the tent as if she owned it. For some reason, at the sight of her, Azarus’s shoulders fell in resignation, causing the daughter of the sun to eye him with open amusement. After one smug moment, the cat’s amber eyes fell on me with an assessing gaze. “Finally up, are you? Good, good. Thank you for saving my foolish daughter from her erstwhile adventure, Nathaniel. Rest assured, I have…corrected her in response to her reckless behavior. Four centuries old, and my eldest still acts like a cub sometimes.” Shurenga outright tsked with her feline lips, shaking her head from side to side as she did so.

  I didn’t even know cats could make a sound like that.

  “Ah…” I floundered for a moment before I was startled when Aveline hopped off the bed and scurried over to Shurenga with a wide smile on her face. When she reached the dog-sized saber-tooth, she outright threw her young arms around Shurenga’s furry neck. The mischievousness faded from those amber orbs to be repced with the patience of a mother. She rubbed her whiskers against the cheek of the child, causing Aveline to giggle from the sensation.

  “Shurry!” Aveline ughed, pyfully pushing Shurenga away before fixing the near Spirit with suddenly hopeful eyes. “Did you manage to fix it?!”

  To Aveline’s apparent disappointment, Shurenga shook her shaggy head from side to side. “No, child. Unfortunately, I could not. Whatever method of construction resulted in your glee, I am unable to understand it. Deepest apologies.”

  I…had no idea what they were talking about, particurly in regards to whatever the hell a 'glee' was. But still…

  The sight of Aveline and Shurenga was heartwarming enough that I felt a measure of tension ease from my shoulders. I had been worried that after everything Aveline had been through, and all she had lost, the little girl would be incapable of even the smallest happiness. How she’d greeted me on my awakening had slightly worried me. She had sounded almost desperately attached to me, despite the short amount of time we’d spent together. Not that I was opposed to Aveline caring for me, no. It just wasn’t exactly healthy behavior to beg someone not to leave.

  But I’d always heard about how children were surprisingly resilient in the face of trauma, as long as they had support. I’d just have to pce some faith in the kid. Well, that and ask for some help from Honoka the next time I saw her.

  The ornery old woman was the only person I knew who had been a parent, once upon a time. I’m…not sure I counted Grey, especially in circumstances like this.

  However, there was something that was strangely bothering me about the sight of them together, as well. While Aveline seemingly got over her disappointment quickly to chat excitedly with a patient Shurenga, I furrowed my brow in thought. Some was wrong about the scene, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was. It’s not like I disapproved of Shurenga or something. The ancient cat was a mother dozens and dozens of times over and had raised children since before I was a twinkle in my medieval ancestors' eye.

  There was nothing wrong with this at all. She was just talking and responding to-

  My lips parted in realization, as both my Core ring and I came to the same conclusion.

  Shurenga was understanding Aveline. In fact, I suddenly recalled how Renauld and Aveline had been able to understand each other earlier.

  I tried not to tense, cmping down on my physical responses harshly with Acting as I did so. Luckily, I don’t think even Liora noticed my sudden focus, as everyone else in the tent was watching the almost idyllic scene between animal and child with varying degrees of amusement.

  I had to test this first, before I jumped to any conclusions. I turned to face Renauld standing off to the side of my bed, and spoke.

  Only this time, I turned off Language Adaptation entirely before I did so.

  “Renauld, you stink,” I said bluntly in English, over the still understandable chatter of Aveline in the same nguage. “You don’t take enough baths, and because of that, you smell like wet dog a lot of the time.”

  The second the st sylble left my lips, I switched the foundational Racial Talent back on. Just in time to watch as Renauld turned to me with a completely baffled look on his furry face. “What? What the hell was that? Did you turn off Language Adaptation or something? It sounded like that weird voice we heard in the bunker.”

  I muttered something to him about it being turned off accidentally, to which I received a suspicious look from the Gnoll.

  Well, test one completed. English hadn’t been suddenly added to the list of nguages that Language Adaptation covered.

  Now for Shurenga.

  I switched off the Racial once more, and spoke towards the cat, cutting off the babble from Aveline and drawing strange looks from my companions. “Shurenga, do you understand what’s happening?”

  As before, I immediately switched the Talent back on to understand her. In the meanwhile, Shurenga stared at me with knowing, almost approving eyes. “No fool indeed,” I heard her mutter under her breath softly, before she shook her head. “I did not understand your words, Nathaniel. Was that perhaps the mother tongue of your distant people?”

  I drew in a deep sigh and then let it out slowly. As I did so, I switched my gaze over to Aveline. The little girl looked puzzled by what was going on, but thankfully not frightened. “Yes,” I said softly. “Yes, it was.”

  But you hadn’t understood it, even though Aveline had been talking to you in the same nguage.

  And…Aveline didn’t have a Status. Nor did she have Language Adaptation, in order to make herself understandable to the people of Vereden.

  That is…

  Presumably.

  Just what kind of access to the System did the Netherim have?