Pov Anna

  Every so often, I simply couldn’t resist looking toward my husband. Fortunately, I no longer had to pay attention to how my hands worked while preparing food, as I had done this so many times before. Carl was currently playing with our grandkids—well, technically great-grandkids, but we long ago decided there was no need to make those kinds of distinctions.

  He was once again a rank higher than me, but our clan has a fix for that problem. While he will always outlive me, I’ve come to accept that. I will also eventually reach diamond as well—or at least, that’s what the council is certain of.

  They believe they can provide the tools to achieve it thanks to Ziiipe and her ability to make skills perfectly suited for every individual, and, of course, our combat specialists will help us non-combatants reach our breakthroughs.

  Not everyone could be here, but even during our quarterly birthdays, not everyone could come, as there were simply so many of us. I didn’t like the idea of not having more children, but even my children were begging me to take a long break. And I do understand their arguments—44 children is a lot. And, of course, the number of grandchildren I have... well, I just enjoy thinking about it every time it comes up.

  Still, I would argue that if you have the resources, time, and strength, you should never stop having children. I’m kind of alone in that thinking, but I feel some of my children think the same, though not to the same extent as me.

  We actually have so many birthdays that we needed a system, so everyone came up with the quarterly birthday system. Every three months, we had a weekend where we celebrated all the birthdays that happened a month prior, a month after, and during that one month. Of course, their own families had their birthdays on the right days, but our entire family couldn’t come to every single one—it was just not feasible.

  There were two exceptions to this rule. Even then, some couldn’t make it, but well, there was a war going on, and it was expected. One was when someone reached gold rank. It was a huge celebration and usually happened around the age of 16 to 18.

  The second exception was at the age of six. This birthday was important because we would be giving the child version of the quest necklace when our young turned six. Technically, you could do it when they turned 5th, that was the youngest, but we felt that another year of being just a child was important.

  I looked towards my husband again. He was still playing with the grandkids, even though I saw a few adults waiting so they could speak to him about some, I suspect, important topics. His job hasn’t allowed him as much time with his children and grandchildren as he wants, but he always makes time for them, which I appreciate. I was distracted once again when I saw Tristan coming towards me.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  It brought a small smile to my face when I saw that he actually seemed happy. When the siege began, well, his world crumbled. There were so many other scholars like him in this dungeon. Everyone knew that the secrets hidden here weren’t real, but they were excellent practice for archaeologists and many other disciplines. Yet when the announcement of the siege was given out, almost everyone left.

  Tristan was one of the few who remained, and with their organizations and contacts disappearing almost overnight, Tristan had felt lost for a long time. He had been quite sad ever since, so it was nice to see him happy again. I wondered if he had finally found a girl.

  “It’s nice to see you, Tristan. I didn’t expect you to make it.”

  “Yeah, I needed to get out of those empty halls. But I have some exciting news too. We finally found what we could do with all those empty buildings we still have. By the way, I still wanted to thank you for lending me the capital so we could keep all the buildings and land the archaeologist organization used to own.”

  I practically had to force him to take the coin. But every hub station and way station had taxes nowadays, and I didn’t want to see all his work destroyed.

  “Don’t keep me in suspense—what did you guys figure out?” I asked, hoping that they would actually have a viable solution. If they didn’t, Tristan knew that I would not keep it to myself and would tell him how it was.

  He seemed a bit nervous, but finally, he answered. “We plan to turn all of them and our entire organization into a schooling system for the young.” He looked at me, quite proud of his idea but also nervous about my opinion on it. Honestly, I didn’t know what to think.

  “Well, that sounds exciting, but what do you mean exactly when you say a schooling system for the young?”

  “Well, most teach their own children, and while that's good, every parent has knowledge holes that would be passed on to their children. For clans like ours, it wouldn’t be such a problem, as we kind of have our own schooling system, but the rest of the dungeon certainly doesn’t. We also don't want it to be like in the outer world. We have the quest necklaces as well, and we are hoping we can incorporate those into the schooling system too.”

  “I think it’s important for children to get a more traditional education but also to learn how this dungeon works and how to improve themselves. We currently have an excellent opportunity, as no one is trying to stop the general improvement of the populace—in fact, quite the opposite. Think of how much we can help our children and the future generations. When we have such an encompassing schooling system that constantly learns how to do things the best way.”

  Well, his speech just worked on me. “Whenever you're trying to convince someone, use that speech—it’s really effective.”

  I didn’t know exactly how our clan would benefit from it, at least at the start, but I could see a future where even our clan members would leave to visit such hallowed establishments.

  “I am certain that I can convince at least our clan to support this effort. And if you would take orphans into this schooling system of yours, I am quite certain that Carl will get you more funding than you would know what to do with. He will rope in the other clans and possibly even other organizations like the big three.”

  He looked quite contemplative at Carl. "That was actually my intention, trying to do it so every single child could attend. We would need a lot of funding, but it should be possible. Yet, I also think that I’m a bit selfish for wanting this.”

  “I know that it would help so many, but in the end, it would still help me rebuild a proper academic community, which would also allow me to once again go and find ruins and have people actually be interested in not just the treasure found but the history as well."

  "Everyone's allowed to be selfish. The key to it is that your selfishness helps others as well, and in that department, I think you are doing just fine with that idea of yours. Speaking of children, I still don’t see any of yours running around. Why is that?" I said it with a teasing smirk, and I loved the eye roll I got back from him.

  It was nice that he didn't leave immediately to talk to Carl but instead asked about my life and what’s going on. I bet I sounded like a broken record to him, always talking about my children, but I never saw annoyance or any other emotion except happiness from him whenever I spoke about my children. It was a nice day, and I was so glad that we could have so many of these.