Path of the Slayer B3 65. Nomads & Surprises

“It’s me, Arden,” I said warmly.

“What? Really! You’re alive!”

Fritz, the manic receptionist manager, blitzed me. Or he tried to while moving incredibly slow. I stood still for a long time and received the bubbly elf’s hug.

“My goodness! You’ve grown! And you have some, um, scary friends there! We thought the worst. But it seems like you’ve lucked out.” He winked at me before saying in a low voice: “You’re one of them, aren’t you? A, uh, Pathwalker?”

I nodded before looking past the crowd of adventurers gaping at us. “Toregrit?”

“In his usual spot! Do you want me to get him? We can set you up in a room upstairs. Whatever you want is yours, sir,” Fritz offered.

“No, please. That’s unnecessary. Despite everything … it’s honestly good to just be here,” I said, shocking myself.

It shouldn’t feel this good, should it? I couldn’t have moved on that fast. Yet, I have. The past troubles were too small to hang over my head these days.

I found Toregrit where I always found him – in the crafter workshop. The old dwarf looked up as my party peeked into the room. Our gazes met for a while, then with a satisfied glint in his eyes, he nodded at me.

“Good job, Arden,” he grunted, coming over to squeeze me on the arm.

I nodded jerkily at that. “Thanks, Toregrit. Are you well?”

“I am. Better even.” He smiled at me, face wrinkling further. “I’m proud of you.”

“I’m proud of myself, too,” I shot back quicker than I intended.

With nothing else to say, I awkwardly ushered my party away so Toregrit could continue looking over the gawking adventurers in the workshop.

We swept through the hallways with ease. Everybody jumped out of our way. They couldn’t help it.

Other than me, my party was like titans striding across a city. Their presence disturbed this lesser plane of existence heavily. I didn’t mind as long as nobody got hurt. Not because of negative karma. I just didn’t feel the need to bully mortals overly much.

It was beneath me.

I stopped in front of the guild leader’s door, the secretary gawking. Before I knocked, the door swung open. Seraphina Frostmere looked me in the eye with her icy own. She was alive. She was well. She was Rank 4. And she was the leader of our guild.

I smiled at her. A genuine and warm smile. “Hey, Sera.”

She inhaled a shuddery breath. “I did what you told me. I gave it my all. With all of my heart. And improved myself.”

I gave her a hug. She melted into it, like it was all she wanted in the world. Then I gave her something she’d been waiting to hear for a while. “I’m proud of you. Keep up the hard work. I just wanted to check in. Can’t stay long.”

She shivered in my hold until I released her. A subtle sway passed through her before she straightened and blinked her eyes rapidly to clear the daze. “Well, um, did you see her?”

“Not yet.”

“You should go see her!”

“I will.”

“She, uh, made me a sister. In truth. Do you feel it?”

I would’ve been gobsmacked if I wasn’t so good at regulating my emotions. There was a tiny, almost ephemeral connection to the ancestral roots inside of Seraphina. She was a sister. She was one of us.

She didn’t look it. She looked like the perfect imperial noble woman. But she was a nomad nonetheless.

My smile broadened. “It’s hearty and strong. You’re a nomad, Sera.”

Her sapphire and cold eyes brimmed with tears. The smile on her face was the most joyous I’d seen from her, a smile that could thaw glacial ice of a thousand years. I gave her some time to recompose herself again. Then, when she looked past me and saw my party, I introduced them.

“Arden … you really don’t stop, do you? They all seem so, uh, otherworldly and powerful.” She bowed in their direction. “Forgive me if I can’t find the words to describe you all properly.”

“Ex-girlfriend?” Thumper asked.

I groaned.

Seraphina chuckled. “Yes, unfortunately.”

“I’m going to strangle him,” Merlin muttered. “When we leave this place. And it’s just us. I’m going to strangle him for you. How can he do that to you?”

“Please don’t. It was my fault. I wasn’t strong enough for him.” She looked down demurely.

“Still gonna strangle him,” Merlin muttered.

“It’s okay.” Grimmy dawdled up. If she noticed Seraphina tensing, she didn’t seem to care. “Master Arden is courting the most powerful princess across the whole Realm Verse. If he fails, she might eat him alive! Then I’ll challenge the princess to the death! And if I fail, I’ll follow Master Arden to our doom. With Doomie, too!”

Doomie nodded, her shady dreadlocks flailing.

Seraphina looked like she was searching for the right and proper words in a very improper situation. I laughed.

She was changing for the better, but the parts I liked about her hadn’t changed just yet. I really hoped the best for her with whoever she was courting next – I might kill the bastard if they hurt her.

After chatting for an hour, Seraphina made me promise to visit whenever possible. Then she let me go, and I was making my way out with my party when a targeted Suppression splashed against me in the reception hall.

“YOU DARE?!” Grimmy’s voice blared like a wrathful goddess. Her Domain spiraled violently with the edge of death pressed upon every neck in the reception hall except for Fritz.

A bunch of bronzes and silvers I recognized prostrated themselves. The one who sweated the most was the culprit who threw the targeted Suppression at me. They were pissing and crapping themselves as the air turned sharper over them specifically.

The God-Queen brushed over us with a light warning.

I cared little for the warning, but I did care about troubling Seraphina. I didn’t want that.

My hand found Grimmy’s shoulder, and with a meaningful squeeze, my touch calmed her down. She gave the fallen and soiled group of mortals one last detestable glance before turning away with a harrumph. Doomie added a rude gesture Merlin had taught her, sticking up both of her middle fingers.

We left the guild behind.

Our journey took us ambling through the streets of Steel Blitz City under the evening.

I waved at old faces even though they couldn’t recognize me right away. I looked up at the buildings I used to climb and run across with a blunted hook at the end of a dummy prosthetic. Then I ended up at a clinic that was new and decently funded for being in the middle of the slums.

“Well, well, well, look who drags himself back to me.”

Her voice was like honey and tea on a hot day. Her presence was like a small and welcoming fire. Her energy was beyond anything I’d expected.

I saw through her mortal flesh and recognized the real power she held – her ancestral roots were the largest and most developed I’d ever seen. I gawked at her, completely ignoring that she was Rank 2 now. That mattered little, and we both knew it.

“Were you always that strong?” I asked.

The others were giving me confused looks. They couldn’t feel it. They had no idea how big of a nomad this woman was.

She smiled like the end of the night had come. She looked at me in a way that saw me for myself. She saw my flaws. She saw my sins. She saw my fears. And she embraced them with open arms.

“I’m strong enough,” she answered.

I walked up the clinic steps and hugged her. She couldn’t physically sweep me off my feet anymore. But the power of her spirit was everywhere, all around us.

It extended into the sky and across multiple blocks of the city like an expansive network of roots. The nomad in me, the one who had recently grown more aware, took it all in like I was seeing visions of my grandest future.

“How could I have been so blind?” I asked into her curly hair.

“You were lost. But now you’ve been found. It is our way, sometimes,” she said. “That and you needed more time to mature.”

I shook my head. “You can go anywhere. You can do anything. Why stay instead of wandering and expanding further?”

This sort of power was immensely useful for navigating, for drawing on fate, for having fortuitous encounters, and simply being blessed by the spirits of our ancestors. She could make herself a Pathwalker whenever she wanted.

Britta smiled up at me knowingly. “Because I needed to help someone like you. And there are others I need to help while I’m like this. Don’t worry about me.”

She knocked her fist against the spot over my heart. “Worry more about yourself. I hear through the grapevine you’re going up against a real man-eater. The ancestors worry about you. You’re our sword. Our brilliant warrior. Our hero. And they can’t help but fear losing you to someone like that.”

The whiplash from Britta openly talking about Melody had me hesitating. Warrior Nomad Mentality wouldn’t work here. My party shifted in surprise at my reactions.

“Who the heck are you?” Merlin asked. “We’d never seen any girl rock our guy like this?”

“Is she the ultimate ex-girlfriend?” Thumper asked. “The queen of ex-girlfriends?”

“Hm. Can I convince you to be an emergency girlfriend in case the Dragon Princess doesn’t work out?” Grimmy requested.

That snapped me back to form. I pointed at Grimmy. “No. Stop being bad. Bad knight, bad.”

Grimmy gasped, ears lowering. Doomie dashed in and wrapped up the half-gob with her arms and wings. The avatar looked at me like I was a villain.

Britta laughed. “I’m for real when I say this, Arden, but I’m happy with what you’ve become. You look so bright and full of life now. Even if the others are scared for you, I’m not. With that said, I know there’s more for you to do, and you can’t stay long. We’ll chat some more later, just be sure to read this before you get to your big shindig.”

She grabbed a thick journal from the banister and slipped it into my metal prosthetic hand. “It’s got as many stories, songs, and dreams I can pack into it. It’ll help fill up on what you’ve been missing while you were so busy trying to be an imperial.”

An immense realization struck me like a flying mountain. “Please don’t tell me … I was stuck at 99% … because I was trying to be something I wasn’t meant to be. Please don’t tell me the last 1% was me being a true nomad.”

Britta shrugged. “Maybe. But you found another way. Now go on. We’ll have plenty to talk about later. This won’t be the last time we see each other. And if you ever do bring around a princess, I’ll love to meet her with you.”

She gave me a kiss on the cheek that stung and felt sweet. Then she turned around, her backside swaying as she sauntered into the clinic. I waited on the steps, the journal grasped gingerly in my hands.

“So even Arden the Nomad can get out-played,” Thumper murmured.

“I’m going to remember this for the rest of my life,” Merlin said.

“She’s definitely near the top of the list. If not as a wife, she should be considered a wise lover for the master,” Grimmy hissed, eyes narrowed, ears horizontal. “If not that, then maybe I’ll court her myself. We mustn’t let that one escape.”

Both Thumper and Merlin gawked down at the scheming half-gob.

Doomie walked up close and patted me on the shoulder. I looked away from the clinic doors and met the avatar’s eyes.

She gave me the middle finger. Then she switched it to a lazy thumbs up. Maybe she was biased toward the Dragon Princess.