84. This Was Nice

The message was choppy, going in bits and pieces. Reina thought it was written by someone delirious. Maybe on the brink of death or poisoned.

𝘐𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘦𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘛𝘪𝘵𝘭𝘦, 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘮𝘦𝘢𝘯𝘴 𝘐, 𝘑𝘪𝘢 𝘓𝘶𝘺𝘶𝘦, 𝘏𝘪𝘨𝘩 𝘗𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘛𝘦𝘮𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘞𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥 𝘛𝘳𝘦𝘦, 𝘢𝘮 𝘥𝘦𝘢𝘥. 𝘔𝘺 𝘛𝘪𝘵𝘭𝘦 𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘱𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘺𝘰𝘶. 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘔𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘔𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘳 𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘴𝘢𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘛𝘦𝘮𝘱𝘭𝘦'𝘴…

"The rest I couldn't make out," said Reina helplessly. "From there it goes into incoherent rambling," she continued. She then produced the only other sensible fragment:

𝘐𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘱𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘚𝘢𝘨𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘞𝘩𝘪𝘵𝘦 𝘈𝘴𝘩𝘦𝘴 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘢𝘮𝘣𝘶𝘴𝘩𝘦𝘥 𝘮𝘦 𝘰𝘯 𝘗𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘦𝘵 𝘛𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘎𝘰𝘳𝘨𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘮𝘶𝘳𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘮𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘤𝘰𝘭𝘥 𝘣𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘥! 𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘮𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘪𝘯𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘌𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘈𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳—𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘢𝘭𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘺 𝘴𝘶𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘈𝘻𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘍𝘭𝘢𝘮𝘦 𝘍𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯. 𝘈𝘷𝘦𝘯𝘨𝘦 𝘮𝘦!

"It ends there."

Zane wasn't sure what to make of it.

That… came out of nowhere.

"You're worried," said Zane. He could feel it.

"I don't know," muttered Reina. She sighed and shook her head. "I'm just... it's a lot. It probably won't amount to anything. I know. I just…"

Reina never even stuttered usually. It said something that she was at a loss for words.

Zane stroked her head. "You worry too much." It was true. He could almost see all the overthinking going on under her little frown.

"You're right. It's probably nothing. And if it's something, you have me," he said simply. "I'll be here for you. Always. I promise."

And he felt the blossom of warmth coming from her. He felt her relax a little. He wondered if using Sage Mind like this was cheating. Then again, he'd never been the best with feelings—his own or other people's. At least this way he could understand easier. It felt like making up for a lack, more than anything.

The message was pretty cryptic, and neither of them knew what to do with it. All this stuff about murdering and vengeance and priestesses... it was so distant it felt pretty much meaningless.

So Zane reassured her again and felt a little more tension go out of her. They set it aside.

He started asking her about other stuff to take her mind off it. He asked her about how the week had been going since she felt all knotted up with stress. As she went through her troubles—negotiating trade routes with Elias, dealing with the increasingly belligerent Harbormasters, tamping down on intra-faction territorial squabbling, he felt her starting to unwind. So he just kept nodding and asking her questions, trying to be genuinely curious—trying to be there for her.

At some point, she paused, pursed her lips. "I don't want to bore you."

"You never bore me," said Zane, and that was honest too. He could listen to her forever. She smiled, closed her eyes, made a happy little noise, and nuzzled deeper into his chest.

He started giving her a massage, gentle as he could, and she sighed. "How are you so good at this?" she murmured.

Of course, he was cheating—he could feel all her stresses. "Just relax," he said softly to her.

And slowly, she did. Slowly all her stress melted away until she was just a warm bubble of contentment. "You know," she said sleepily. "I've… never had this before."

He blinked at her.

"Just… this." She nodded to him.

"…Me?"

She gave him a little smile. "I mean—" And she started talking about how she grew up. Her father was never there, and her mother was a preschool teacher during the day and worked shifts as a line cook in a hotel kitchen during the night until her hip gave out. Then it was just Reina, having to work a second job all through middle and high school to take care of her mother—having to help raise her little cousins and put herself through college all the while. Her whole life she'd felt she had to live for the people counting on her. She'd never felt like she could breathe. Until now. Until she was with him. She said she felt a little guilty about it sometimes.

Zane frowned. He wasn't sure how to say this, so he said it the only way he knew how. He just said what he meant. "You're the most caring person I know," he said. "And…" he paused. He wasn't sure how to say this either—ah, fuck it. "I… love that. But sometimes… it can be too much. Maybe if you give too much of yourself away, there's nothing left." And he gave her a little kiss on the forehead. "Please don't do that. I really like you here."

It sounded pretty clunky once it came out of his mouth. There was a reason he didn't spend his time confessing his feelings usually. But he thought, eh. They were true. He wasn't about to be embarrassed about it.

"Zane…" sniffled Reina. He didn't need to reach out to her to know what she was feeling right about now.

Then she started kissing him.

****

After a bit, he could tell where this was headed. He thought now was a good time to bring out that Skill.

𝕄𝕖𝕡𝕙𝕚𝕤𝕥𝕠'𝕤 ℙ𝕝𝕖𝕒𝕤𝕦𝕣𝕖 𝕊𝕦𝕥𝕣𝕒 (𝔹)

𝔸 𝔻𝕦𝕒𝕝 ℂ𝕦𝕝𝕥𝕚𝕧𝕒𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟 𝕊𝕦𝕥𝕣𝕒 𝕞𝕒𝕕𝕖 𝕓𝕪 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝔻𝕖𝕞𝕠𝕟 𝕄𝕖𝕡𝕙𝕚𝕤𝕥𝕠 𝕗𝕠𝕣 𝕙𝕚𝕤 𝕝𝕠𝕧𝕖𝕣 𝕕𝕦𝕣𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕥𝕙𝕖𝕚𝕣 𝕙𝕠𝕟𝕖𝕪𝕞𝕠𝕠𝕟. 𝔹𝕪 𝕙𝕒𝕣𝕟𝕖𝕤𝕤𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕡𝕠𝕨𝕖𝕣𝕤 𝕠𝕗 𝕡𝕝𝕖𝕒𝕤𝕦𝕣𝕖, 𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕤 𝕊𝕜𝕚𝕝𝕝 𝕘𝕣𝕒𝕟𝕥𝕤 𝕘𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕥 𝕖𝕤𝕤𝕖𝕟𝕔𝕖 𝕥𝕠 𝕔𝕠𝕦𝕡𝕝𝕖𝕤 𝕥𝕙𝕣𝕠𝕦𝕘𝕙 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕒𝕔𝕥 𝕠𝕗 𝕝𝕠𝕧𝕖-𝕞𝕒𝕜𝕚𝕟𝕘. 𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝕞𝕠𝕣𝕖 𝕚𝕟𝕥𝕖𝕟𝕤𝕖 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕤𝕖𝕟𝕤𝕒𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟𝕤, 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕘𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕥𝕖𝕣 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕖𝕤𝕤𝕖𝕟𝕔𝕖 𝕖𝕒𝕣𝕟𝕚𝕟𝕘𝕤.

Reina was pretty enthusiastic about trying it out. It was pretty easy getting started too. They got the theory down quickly, then started experimenting.

Long story short—his new empathy Skill was proving incredibly useful in far more ways than he'd expected.

This was definitely cheating; getting instant feedback was very helpful. And since the goal was to try to get it as intense as possible…

He was just thankful there was noise-proofing on the walls.

Reina gained 8 Levels that night.

***

She woke around noon, still pretty out of it. Zane saved some of that morning's breakfast for her and brought it for her in bed on a platter.

After she got some food in her, he got his first demonstration of her new powers. She waved her hand a couple of times and fixed up the broken bed... the cracked walls...the cracked ceiling... he winced. They'd gone a little overboard.

Afterward, they just sat there chatting pleasantly. They were keen to get at it again, but sadly Reina had a Faction to run. So it'd have to wait a few hours.

He knew he'd be getting itchy again soon. Soon he'd want to get out there. For today, though…

This was really nice.

***

Reina also gave him some 'dividends'—which were a bunch of treasures she'd bought with Guild money, set aside just for him. Since he was the most valuable member of the Guild, she said he should reap the best rewards too. Or so she said.

It was sound logic. But he sensed she just wanted to shower him with affection. She had this habit of trying to use logic to justify things like this, but Zane could tell.

In any case.

There were a few C-grade Law Fruit—for some reason, Fruits seemed to be the standard measure for Law treasures. He was too burned out to use those. But he did drink the many C-Grade Vials of Elixir.

𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝 𝕦𝕡!

𝔼𝕤𝕤𝕖𝕟𝕔𝕖 𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝 𝟡𝟘 -> 𝟡𝟙

***

Later that day, he got a message. It was from Avery, from some Safe Zone in Wyoming. She said she was having a blast. She was on her way back to the West Coast—she said she'd made all kinds of new friends along the way. She said they'd probably meet up soon, maybe near San Francisco. She also said she learned a bunch of new tricks and challenged him to a duel. "Get ready to get the shit beaten out of you! ᕙ(⇀‸↼‶)ᕗ"

That was actually how she closed her message.

How did she even get emojis into the… nevermind.

He was still a little too burned out to get back on Law stuff. He decided to take a few days off so his soul could recover. His next stop was the B-ranked dungeon, Titansteel Tree, in Northern California. It'd started to leak, wreaking havoc all around it—the local Factions had banded together to offer a pretty ridiculous sum of essence stones to anyone who could clear it. It would pretty much just be teams of World Rankers giving it a shot. And given the rewards, he suspected he'd be seeing quite a lot of them.

They didn't even need that to tempt Zane. Supposedly, B- and A- rank dungeons were a huge step up from C- and D- just like C- and D- were different levels from E- and F-.

He wanted to be fresh comprehension-wise whenever he got to treasure areas were in there. All the B-rank treasures he'd gotten so far had been huge for him. Now he was going somewhere stuffed to the brim with them.

He hadn't heard much about B-rank dungeons other than that they were extremely dangerous, even for World Rankers. They could only be taken on by World Ranker teams. And he knew they were structured differently too, with new mechanics, the same way C-ranks were totally different from E-ranks.

Some didn't even have 'Bosses' like he was used to. Just one 'Final Boss.' Instead, every single Monster there was like a normal dungeon Boss. Some were even stronger.

Zane was eager to find out.

***

He didn't spend his days strolling camp. He wouldn't call himself shy, but his ideal day was not having to talk to anyone. Except Reina. He'd had enough talking these past few days.

Still, though, he managed to pick up on a few things. He met Annie, the little girl he'd saved all those months ago—the very first person he'd met after the change. She was overjoyed to see him—she wanted to show him all her new moves. She was still a little girl and still feisty, but now she was also a Level 30 Barbarian mowing over grown adults. She was a little monster. When she said she wanted to be just like him, he hadn't thought she'd actually go through with it.

He saw a familiar face behind a little tea shop as he strolled back to the town square from the open-air tables where buffet breakfast was usually laid out. Behind the counter was Cale, beaming at him. Zane had honestly forgotten he existed for like a month there. They had a brief chat—Cale had totally stepped down from leadership, and now he was happy running his little shop because… that was possible now in the Luminous Faction. In the apocalypse. Weird to think about.

There wasn't a 'Coffee Shop Maker' class or anything; the System had no non-Combat Classes for some reason. But Cale had picked up a few brewing-related Skills. He said picking up non-combat Skills was much harder than combat Skills—the System didn't seem to like them.

Zane let himself take it easy for a few more days. He checked out some nearby Safe Zones. Watched the Rangers and the Priests drilling Skills in the lush open plains that had once been the Keeper's desolate Lair. He took a stroll through the Emerald Forest, now the 'Moon Fruit Orchard,' where anyone could walk up and pluck a juicy Moon Fruit off the bough, nurtured on supernaturally fertile soils, terraformed by the Beacon.

It was summer. Around noontime, you could see children running around the main square, splashing through the essence fountain. The sounds of their joy drifted over to him.

Sometimes he just looked out at all this. And just... soaked it in.

This was nice.

***

He ended up staying four days.

By the end of it, Reina was in the low Level 70s. He'd gotten two Levels out of it himself.

It was remarkable—he would never have thought the Skill would be so effective. He'd also never leveled a Skill so fast; he'd gotten the Pleasure Sutra up to Level 3 already.

To be fair, they did spend a significant portion of their days, and most of their nights, drilling. The Skill, that was. By the end of it, Reina's Architect of Restoration was at 'Mortal B+ Grade'—which he assumed just meant B+ Grade. It was the strongest healing Skill he'd ever seen.

***

By the end of it, his Stats—abbreviated to the most significant ones—looked like:

ℤ𝕒𝕟𝕖 𝕎𝕒𝕝𝕜𝕖𝕣

𝔼𝕤𝕤𝕖𝕟𝕔𝕖 𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝 𝟡𝟛

𝕊𝕚𝕘𝕟𝕒𝕥𝕦𝕣𝕖 𝕋𝕚𝕥𝕝𝕖: 𝕊𝕒𝕧𝕒𝕘𝕖 𝕊𝕒𝕘𝕖

𝕃𝕒𝕨𝕤:

𝕄𝕒𝕛𝕠𝕣 𝕃𝕒𝕨 𝕠𝕗 𝕊𝕔𝕠𝕣𝕔𝕙𝕖𝕕 𝕎𝕣𝕒𝕥𝕙 (𝔼𝕝𝕖𝕞𝕖𝕟𝕥𝕒𝕝 𝕃𝕒𝕨 𝕠𝕗 𝔽𝕚𝕣𝕖)

𝕄𝕒𝕛𝕠𝕣 𝕃𝕒𝕨 𝕠𝕗 𝔼𝕥𝕙𝕖𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕝 𝔽𝕝𝕒𝕞𝕖 (𝔼𝕝𝕖𝕞𝕖𝕟𝕥𝕒𝕝 𝕃𝕒𝕨 𝕠𝕗 𝔽𝕚𝕣𝕖)

𝕄𝕒𝕛𝕠𝕣 𝕃𝕒𝕨 𝕠𝕗 𝕌𝕟𝕕𝕪𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕄𝕚𝕘𝕙𝕥 (𝔼𝕝𝕖𝕞𝕖𝕟𝕥𝕒𝕝 𝕃𝕒𝕨 𝕠𝕗 𝕊𝕥𝕖𝕖𝕝)

𝕄𝕒𝕛𝕠𝕣 𝕃𝕒𝕨 𝕠𝕗 ℙ𝕦𝕣𝕖 𝔽𝕠𝕣𝕘𝕚𝕟𝕘 (𝔼𝕝𝕖𝕞𝕖𝕟𝕥𝕒𝕝 𝕃𝕒𝕨 𝕠𝕗 𝕊𝕥𝕖𝕖𝕝)

𝕄𝕒𝕛𝕠𝕣 𝕃𝕒𝕨 𝕠𝕗 𝔻𝕚𝕤𝕔𝕙𝕒𝕣𝕘𝕖 (𝔼𝕝𝕖𝕞𝕖𝕟𝕥𝕒𝕝 𝕃𝕒𝕨 𝕠𝕗 𝔼𝕝𝕖𝕔𝕥𝕣𝕚𝕔𝕚𝕥𝕪)

𝕄𝕒𝕛𝕠𝕣 𝕃𝕒𝕨 𝕠𝕗 𝔸𝕓𝕤𝕠𝕝𝕦𝕥𝕖 𝕊𝕙𝕒𝕣𝕡𝕟𝕖𝕤𝕤

𝕊𝕥𝕒𝕥𝕤:

𝕍𝕚𝕥𝕒𝕝𝕚𝕥𝕪: 𝟡𝟠.𝟠𝟛

ℝ𝕖𝕘𝕖𝕟𝕖𝕣𝕒𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟: 𝟜𝟡.𝟡

𝕊𝕥𝕣𝕖𝕟𝕘𝕥𝕙: 𝟙𝟙𝟠.𝟡𝟟

𝔻𝕖𝕩𝕥𝕖𝕣𝕚𝕥𝕪: 𝟞𝟛.𝟘

𝕊𝕡𝕖𝕖𝕕: 𝟝𝟡.𝟠

𝕂𝕖𝕪 𝕊𝕜𝕚𝕝𝕝𝕤:

𝕀𝕟𝕗𝕖𝕣𝕟𝕠 ℂ𝕪𝕔𝕝𝕠𝕟𝕖 𝕀𝕍

ℝ𝕚𝕤𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕊𝕥𝕠𝕣𝕞 𝕊𝕝𝕒𝕤𝕙 𝕀𝕀

𝔽𝕚𝕖𝕣𝕪 ℝ𝕖𝕟𝕖𝕨𝕒𝕝 𝕀𝕀

𝕄𝕒𝕟 𝕠𝕗 𝕊𝕥𝕖𝕖𝕝 𝕀

𝕍𝕠𝕝𝕥 𝔹𝕝𝕚𝕥𝕫 𝕀

Rising Storm Slash's Level seemed to have some carry-over from Rising Sun Slash.

He did wonder at his essence Leveling rate sometimes. It was pretty fast, but—even despite his rough starting place—he felt he Leveled slower than most. It was a feeling he'd gotten for a while now.

When he brought it up with Reina, she said her Leveling rate slowed too once she got she got her Signature Title, which let her do a Class Change to an Epic Class called 'Sylvan Priestess.' She said it was probably how essence was distributed. Since Epic classes gave more stats and essence went into stats, it took more essence to Level.

In Zane's case, he had both a huge essence pool and huge stat gains per Level, relatively. So for him it seemed to take even longer.

On the bright side, it meant nothing the same Level as him could touch him, pretty much. Even Monsters higher-Leveled than him had serious trouble nowadays.

***

Even with his 'slow' Leveling, he still found himself sitting at World Rank 19 when he checked the Beacon. Nice.

Then he checked higher up the list and frowned.

It seemed there'd been a shuffle-up these last few days.

Irina Volkova (S)

D'Angelo Hall (S)

Emeka Eze (S)

Jason Walker (S)

Jian Shi Ming (S)

Yui Urabe (S)

Cristina Dos Santos (S)

Mike Masters (S)

Jason was 4… Zane expected nothing less. But what surprised him was #8. Mike Masters—the leader of the Tomb Kings—was now #8.

And Dulce Ramos—the Cartel boss who'd previously been World Rank #9—was gone.