I
The commission Tal eventually selected — after several minutes of pointed, deliberate scanning that made clear she was choosing the least demanding option available purely to minimize her own risk — involved clearing a nest of horned rabbits breeding out of control at the edge of a place called the Weeping Forest.
Rank F.
The lowest tier the guild offered.
“Don’t get comfortable,” Tal said, handing him a rolled parchment with the commission details.
“F-rank doesn’t mean safe.
It means nobody important cares if it goes wrong.”
“Noted,” Nivlac said.
II
The broad-shouldered man, introduced with brief, economical politeness as they finalized preparations, was apparently in the habit of doing his own equipment checks rather than trusting the guild’s standard-issue gear without inspection.
He ran a whetstone along the edge of his greatsword with slow, unhurried strokes, testing the balance with small experimental swings that took up considerably more space than Nivlac expected from someone with such a quiet presence.
When Nivlac asked, mostly out of curiosity, whether guild-issued weapons were generally unreliable, the man simply shrugged and said, “Trust the weapon that’s kept you alive so far.
Borrow trust for anything new” — a philosophy Nivlac recognized as having far broader applications than simple swordsmanship.
Rowan, meanwhile, was counting his arrows twice — once by feel, running his fingers along the fletching, and once by sight, laying them out in neat rows across a cloth before packing them back into his quiver with the fussy precision of someone who had learned, at some personal cost, exactly how bad it felt to run out mid-fight. Read the latest chapters at novelping . com.
III
Nivlac found himself with comparatively little to prepare.
His entire kit consisted of the plain staff the system had issued him at spawn — unremarkable wood, no gemstone, nothing that suggested it belonged to anyone particularly important — and whatever confidence he could manufacture on short notice.
He spent the waiting time doing what came naturally: watching.
He noted that Tal checked her bowstring tension obsessively, adjusting it fractionally several times even though it had clearly been correct the first time — a nervous habit rather than a functional necessity.
He noted that Rowan deferred to the broad-shouldered man on questions of route and timing, but not on anything involving actual combat judgment, suggesting a division of authority they had worked out through practical experience rather than formal hierarchy.
He noted, too, that none of them had asked him a single question about his own preparation, which told him plainly how little confidence they had that he’d be doing anything worth preparing for.
It didn’t sting — it merely confirmed what he’d already assumed — but he filed the observation away regardless, one more small brick in the slowly accumulating wall of context he was building about this new life.
IV
“You’re quiet,” Rowan observed, glancing over as he double-checked his quiver strap.
“Watching,” Nivlac said simply.
“Figuring out how you three move before I have to move with you.”
Rowan seemed to consider this a reasonable answer, though something in his expression suggested he hadn’t expected a Light Support to think in those terms at all. Visit novelping.com for the full chapter.
“Most people just…
show up and hope for the best,” he said.
“Especially the ones who don’t have much to bring to a fight anyway.”
“Hoping for the best has never once worked as a strategy in my experience,” Nivlac said.
“Knowing what’s actually happening around you usually does.”
V
The broad-shouldered man glanced up from his sword at that, something unreadable crossing his face before he returned his attention to the blade.
He didn’t comment, but Nivlac noted the reaction anyway, filing it away alongside everything else — one more small data point in the slow, patient process of understanding exactly what kind of people he’d be walking into danger with.
Tal finished her final, unnecessary bowstring adjustment and slung her quiver over one shoulder.
“Let me move,” she said without preamble, already heading for the door.
“Weeping Forest is a half-day’s walk.
I’d like to actually get there before dark, assuming that’s not too much to ask.”
Nivlac fell into step behind the group, staff in hand, watching the easy, practiced rhythm of three people who had learned to move as a unit long before he’d arrived to complicate it.
Whatever came next, he suspected, would tell him more about his place in this world than anything the Temple of Fate had managed to convey.