-Callia-

  To be honest, I’m not sure what to do here, and I think Callen is just running off the vague notion of etiquette given from fantasy novels, but I’m following his lead. Reginald starts the conversation by introducing each of us, though the information he presented was a bit out of date. Mainly he recognized Callen as the promising prospect that inspired the earthkin grand master’s participation in our town exhibition. Then for me the introduction was based more on his personal experience in the competition fighting me.

  With that introduction, the Viscount started chatting with his children about simple matters like how their day went. Occasionally questions would be directed at us, like why we were travelling or what we thought of the city. I let Callen handle that while I got distracted by the unusual feeling of the soft fabric stretched tightly against my skin. I tug a bit at the long skirt and shift in place before looking back up. I see everyone at the table looking at me expectantly and realize I completely missed whatever had just been said. Silently I berate myself, wondering what use was a skill like instinctive listen if it didn’t draw my attention when I was being talked to.

  “I’m sorry, Lord Nox; my sister and I are unfamiliar with formal attire. I think she might’ve missed the question. Callia, Lord Nox wanted to hear about your experiences training. He expressed how he was shocked when he heard about Reginald losing the competition.” I smiled awkwardly. Then I began explaining how when we were little, I started playing with bows and knives, but when Grandpa found out, he started training us. At first I was sparse on the details, but as more questions came in, I gradually got more and more elaborate. With the clear interest being shown, my more awkward nature fell away, and soon I started adding details that weren’t necessarily relevant to my training, like the prank war. Mentioning the elaborate traps I had Nixie set for Callen made Reginald go pale, while his little sister beamed like I was opening a whole new world of possibility.

  As I was speaking, my attention snapped to the distance. It took a moment, but I saw a large man standing outside the gate with his arms full of various documents. I went quiet as I strained to hear a guard trying to scare off the man while he insisted that he needed to speak with Lord Nox. The man even declared himself leader of the Dark Street gang, which, instead of adding legitimacy, seemed to make the guard even more determined to remove him. Despite clearly ignoring the weaker guard, the guard didn’t call support, trying to leverage his authority to get rid of the man.

  “Callia?” Callen’s voice snapped my attention back to the table. The girl was watching me confused, but Lord Nox was also looking off towards the gate with a furrowed expression. Reginald seemed curious but lacked the ability to notice such a small commotion in the distance.

  “Lord Nox, this might be impudent, but there’s a man at the gate carrying documents of some kind insisting he needs to speak with you. He’s claiming to be the leader of some gang, but the guard isn’t calling backup, only insisting the man leave immediately.” Lord Nox just looked over to me with what seemed to be a newfound appreciation.

  “It seems I have an unexpected meeting to attend. Reginald, I entrust you to treat our guests well in my absence.” With that he left us swiftly, closing the distance towards the gate. I split my attention between Callen and Reginald getting to know each other and the event at the gate. It seemed I wasn’t being discreet enough, as the little sister quietly signaled me with creatively folded napkins. I’m not sure how I could understand creatively folded napkins as a request for information, but somehow I clearly understood what she was trying to convey. Scooting a bit to the side of the table so I could clearly signal to her while not showing it overtly, I started interpretively gesturing to convey what was going on.

  I saw Lord Nox arrive, and the man seemed both elated and terrified. The guard seemed to take his silent approach as a rebuke for not clearing the man fast enough, and the man seemed to get even more desperate to deliver his documents. The guard drew his sword, intending to attack, and then collapsed to the ground. My eyes widened a bit as I failed to notice what Viscount Nox did to knock out the guard, and my hands stopped. A sharp huff from the girl got me back to action, signaling quickly as I caught up.

  The man seemed scared by the show of force, but the viscount opened the gate, letting him in. More soldiers rushed to the gate, with a pair dragging the unconscious guard around the back of the mansion. I lost track as the viscount led the man into the manor and stopped signalling. Looking back towards Callen and Reginald, I see them both looking at me and the little sister. I may have stopped paying attention to them while indulging the girl and watching the gate. Just as I’m about to speak up, Reginald waves his hand permissively.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  “It’s fine; Jasmine has a tendency to be nosy at times. Whatever the circumstances Father is busy with, I’m sure he won’t be angry since he can’t seem to get upset with his little girl. Just try not to feed her curiosity too much; she's a handful even in normal circumstances.” Before he even finishes, Jasmine is already trying to kick his shins under the table. All of us can tell, but for some reason nobody says a word about it.

  “On another note, I expressed an interest in witnessing your growth. So many things happening in your corner of the kingdom. I’m most eager to see just how formidable you are now.” He paused briefly as the new topic seemed to stop Jasmine's not-so-secret assault. She looked towards me with the kind of expectation of a fan silently screaming for their idol to agree. “As a rule there is no fighting in the manor, but in the outer district we have multiple arenas that alternate between entertainment and drilling grounds for the city guard. I’m not sure how much you’ve improved or what level you are. Could you give me an estimate so I can find someone worthy to challenge you?”

  I look over to Callen as we silently debate. Reginald seems reasonable enough, and Jasmine’s spoiled attitude didn’t suggest some secret two-faced persona. I personally really wanted to test my new Unblockable Arrow skill, but that kind of skill was also the kind of secret card that shouldn’t be publicly revealed. Callen conveyed that exposing my close combat skills would probably be ok. I needed practice for my new Blade Aura skill as well. Looking back towards Reginald, I contemplated what kind of opponent would be a fair fight.

  “It really depends on what kind of opponent I’m facing, but I’m confident against anyone up to around level 100.” Reginald spits out his tea, spraying it at me from across the table. I stared at him with an expression screaming “really?” as he started to cough and choke out apologies. While he was stammering, I held up my Common Knight badge as backing for my comment. Shakily he reached out and examined the badge carefully.

  “It’s real. . . “ He muttered to himself while staring at me like I was some kind of alien. “You're already a knight? It's been barely a year! Everyone says it takes at least a decade of dedicated hunting to get enough experience to reach the right stats!” I thought over the comment a bit. Dedicated hunting by the common standard is making a trip across hostile regions once a month. Judging from the experience Callen and I got for each leg of our journey, roughly a couple thousand, varying on how active the monsters were. Therefore, rounding it up to 2k every month makes 24k a year, and in ten years that's 240k. I’ve only gotten around 40k from my hunts (Callen liked taking notes in case it helped him understand the system later), but we had nearly 500k experience total, including skill experience. Therefore, if we cut that in half since we had nearly double the skills of a normal knight, it dropped us right in the appropriate range for a knight. I blinked a bit as I realized I had completely dived into a math tangent while Reginald seemed to be having an existential crisis.

  “Well, the math adds up.” I just nodded while pleased with myself, but my comment offered Reginald no comfort as he stared at me like I was some kind of psycho. Jasmine, meanwhile, stared at me like I was a legendary hero. I just scratched the side of my head and looked over to Callen, who seemed to be deep in thought trying to correlate normal standards to ours.

  Lilia’s Organization

  Lilia sat on her throne in the highest building in the inner-city district. She reflected on how quickly everything had changed. At first she wanted to learn how to limit the influence of her traits, but the next thing she knew, thugs, gangsters, and murderers started flocking to her, pledging allegiance. Every once in a while one of them tried to hurt her, but she was more than capable of keeping them in check. However, rumors spread, and now she had more people under her command than she knew what to do with. She tried getting them to work, but it seemed they interpreted whatever she said as a call to violence.

  She tried bringing in more moderate groups to take control of the more radical groups, but the moderates would just radicalize, spiralling the whole situation further. Lilia found the only way to limit the influence and damage of her followers was to keep them focused on serving her, which, while nice at first, really put pressure on her. The shadow was delighted at the predicament Lilia had found herself in and kept whispering new things for her to try. Lilia often resisted but would end up slipping on small matters, and being surrounded nonstop by the most degenerate and dangerous criminals in the city was not a good example to live by.

  Luckily nobody who joined could effectively challenge her yet, and she made sure to direct packs of weaker subordinates to rip apart those that challenged her. "It was a necessary survival measure," she whispered to herself while watching the man who pledged himself to her get ripped in half by a pack of drugged-up psychos. Weakness meant an opening to exploit, and after nearly a dozen attempts on her life in this first week, she had hardened herself against mercy.

  A subordinate approached her throne, handing a note to her personal aide, who then shared the information with her. The underworld spies identified Callen and Callia being brought into the lord’s mansion. She arranged for her agents to get to work. Her body craved his blood, and she would dispose of every scumbag in her service if it meant she would get it. In a small corner of her heart a voice cried out, but the laughter of the shadow drowned it out.

  so fools repeat their folly.