B2 | Chapter 29 - Gains

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AN: Slighly chonkier chapter than usual. Took longer than usual to write. Enjoy.

B2 | Chapter 29 - Gains

Rufus POV

He knew this was how it would end, didn't he? Always did, somewhere in the cracks between training sessions and sleepless nights, buried under the weight of everything. All those plans, all those hours poured into the shape of something final, something absolute, and it still wasn't enough. He had spent decades preparing for the moment where he could finally stand above it all, hand on victory's throat, not blinking, not second-guessing.

And now he was looking at a noble brat whose face didn't flinch as he unraveled all of it, piece by piece. That was the worst part. The boy didn't even look smug, arrogant, or any emotion really. He was just blank. Like Rufus's fury didn't matter. Like HE didn't matter.

Infuriating.

Regardless, he couldn't stop now, could he? Nope. He couldn't, especially after everything. He could still do this. He had to. Even if only to die standing. Even if only to scream one last time into the silence.

Was he bitter? No, that wasn't the word. That was too soft, too polite, too damn forgiving. This wasn't bitterness, this was corrosion. Rage etched into the corners of his bones, into the cartilage of every mistake. He had torn everything apart—himself most of all. He had climbed over the corpses of friends and enemies alike. And now, after drinking the poison and calling it strength, after feeding on the ring until it turned his insides raw, he had to face this.

A boy who wouldn't die.

He looked at Theodore and all he could think was: why you?

It should've been someone else. Someone tested. Someone who had bled. Someone who knew what it meant. But no. It had to be a noble brat. A boy who didn't deserve it. A freak accident. That's all he was. Luck in skin. That was Theodore.

And Rufus hated him for it.

He hated that this boy had sidestepped everything. Hated that he didn't have to BECOME a monster to win. He just... was. That wasn't fair. None of this was fair. Rufus had broken himself down, layer by layer, and rebuilt until there was no humanity left to pity. He had paid in every currency—blood, soul, memory. And still it wasn't enough.

So he'd make it enough.

He would kill this boy. Even if he had to burn the last shreds of his life to do it. Even if the ring tore what remained of him into ash.

The ax in his hands felt final. He would swing it, and all this nonsense would be over.

He raised it, breathing out through his teeth like someone trying not to scream. And then—of course—his mind betrayed him.

Marvin. I'm sorry, I've failed you.

His brother was the real monster. Stronger than Rufus ever was. Stronger than Rufus ever wanted to be. If Rufus was a blade honed by failure, Marvin was a guillotine shaped by conviction. White Fang's pride. The apex of obsession. Everyone always thought Rufus was the dangerous one. They were wrong. They hadn't seen Marvin lose his temper.

He would come. Not out of love, but because that's who he was. Because Rufus was his problem to bury. He pitied Theodore, in a way. If Marvin set his sights on the boy, there would be no story left to tell. No resistance to mount. No final stand. Only judgment.

Rufus moved.

Everything narrowed. His arms, his legs, the ring's poison-fueled strength screaming through his veins. It was perfect, just for a heartbeat.

And then—of course—Theodore ruined it.

It was like something HAPPENED inside Theodore. Something ruptured and then there was a ripple. Something went wrong. Or right. Rufus couldn't tell. The moment stretched, folded in on itself, and cracked open.

He never swung the ax.

There wasn't time. There wasn't space. There was only the white-hot line cutting through the world and into his body like an accusation made of light.

And it hurt.

Not for long, though. Not the way wounds usually hurt. This wasn't pain. This was erasure. Not an explosion. Not even a fire. Just... deletion. The attack didn't feel angry. It didn't feel like anything. It just was, and that was enough.

His mouth opened to scream, but the sound didn't get out. It died halfway through his throat, like everything else.

Even as the light ate through him, he knew.

This wasn't an accident.

It looked like it might've been. Like the kid had lost control. Like a slip of power. But no. No, no, no. The cut was too clean. Theodore chose that. Rufus could feel it.

As he crumpled—no, not even crumpled, just stopped being—he understood in the quietest corner of himself that he had always been outclassed. From the first moment. Not because of training. Not because of skill. Not even because of that monstrous mana pool Theodore kept throwing around like nothing.

No.

It was because Theodore had stopped holding back and that made him unstoppable.

Rufus's final thought wasn't poetic. It wasn't even regret.

It was a simple, cruel fact.

This kid... is a monster.

***

Theodore POV

Your race, [Human], has leveled up – Lvl 15 > Lvl 17!

Your class, [Rune Mage], has leveled up – Lvl 0 > Lvl 1!

[Mana Control] has leveled up! – Lvl 2 > Lvl 5!

[Mana Reinforcement] has leveled up! – Lvl 5 > Lvl 6!

[Elemental Mastery] has leveled up! – Lvl 3 > Lvl 5!

[Mana Shield] has leveled up! - Lvl 16 > Lvl 18!

Congratulations! You have learned a new spell: [Thermal Release]!

[Elemental Mastery] has leveled up! – Lvl 5 > Lvl 6!

Theodore stared at the notifications floating in his vision and couldn't help but grin. Two race levels in one fight. His first class level. Multiple skill jumps, including that massive three-level spike in [Mana Control]. Not to mention the new spell. Dangerous battles really were the way to get levels quickly, weren't they?

He dismissed the notifications with a mental flick and took in the aftermath of what he was already thinking of as [Thermal Release] even before the system registered a spell.

The devastation was pretty impressive, he had to admit. A huge crater dominated the cave where Rufus had been standing, the stone melted and reformed into twisted, glass-like shapes that caught what little light filtered down here from the lightstones in the walls. The distant wall looked like someone had taken a giant's torch to it, with an even bigger hole burned clean through the rock.

Rufus was nowhere in sight.

Did he get burned into nothing? Theodore thought with a shudder. That wasn't exactly what he'd been going for. Well, killing the man had been the goal, obviously, but complete disintegration seemed a bit excessive. He'd have to be more careful with [Thermal Release] in the future. The last thing he needed was to accidentally vaporize some innocent bystander because he'd miscalculated the output.

On another note, he wondered if he could do something similar with kinetic energy. The principle seemed sound enough. Absorb, store, concentrate, then release in a directed burst. He'd been thinking about mixing thermal and kinetic energy anyway, maybe creating some kind of hybrid attack that combined the piercing power of concentrated force with the raw destructive potential of thermal energy. Or maybe he could absorb both types of energy simultaneously and redistribute them in different patterns.

The applications were endless if he could figure out the mechanics.

He was still mulling over the possibilities when footsteps sounded and Roland appeared, picking his way carefully around the worst of the debris with that caution that marked him as someone who'd seen plenty of magical aftermath in his time.

"That was quite something," Roland said.

Theodore looked back at Roland and grinned.

"It was quite effective."

"Effective how?"

"Levels, obviously." Theodore gestured vaguely at the crater. "Two race levels, first—Rank 2?—class level, bunch of skill improvements. New spell, too. [Thermal Release]. Pretty sure that's what did all this. Pretty neat, if I say so myself."

"Let's just get out of here." Roland rolled his eyes.

Theodore shrugged and fell into step beside him. Fair enough. Roland had never been particularly interested in the technical details of Theodore's magical experiments, and Theodore couldn't really blame him for wanting to leave the cave.

As they made their way toward the cave entrance, Theodore noticed that everyone aside from Roland was keeping their distance from him. The surviving members of what had been Rufus's little band were clustered together and they were all looking at him with expressions that ranged from wariness to outright fear.

A few of them actually stepped back when he got too close.

He could understand their reaction, he supposed. After all, to them he'd just transformed into some kind of slime monster and then proceeded to kill their former leader with what amounted to a miniature sun. The fact that Rufus had abandoned them and been trying to murder Theodore probably didn't factor into their emotional calculus. People tended to focus on the immediate and visceral rather than the logical when it came to displays of power.

Still, the concept of Body Familiars shouldn't be completely foreign to these people, should it?

Theodore was fairly certain they knew about Body Familiars, even if they were rare. Though, they weren't THAT rare. There were only a handful of Constellations offering Body Familiars, and a lot of people had them as their Constellations.

And it wasn't like he'd gone around eating people or anything equally monstrous.

He'd just... temporarily become semi-liquid to avoid having his head chopped off. Which seemed like a perfectly reasonable response to attempted decapitation.

Even if they continued to think of him as some kind of monster, though, it wasn't like Theodore particularly cared. These people were fundamentally irrelevant to him. They'd thrown their lot in with a leader that didn't care about them and now they were having second thoughts because their protector was dead and they were face-to-face with someone who could kill them without breaking a sweat.

Their fear was probably healthy, all things considered.

"You're making them nervous," Roland observed quietly as they walked.

"Good," Theodore replied. "Nervous people don't usually try to stab you in the back." He glanced over at the clustered group and caught one of them—a big guy with nervous eyes—quickly looking away. Grigor, was it? "Though I suppose they might try to run away and cause problems later. Should we be worried about that?"

"Doubt it," Roland said. "Where are they going to go? Rufus was their meal ticket. They're regular guild members. Most of them will probably scatter to the four winds and try to disappear into whatever holes they crawled out of originally."

That made sense. Still, it might be worth keeping an eye on them for a while, just in case any of them decided that revenge was more important than self-preservation. Even if Theodore had been the one to save them and Rufus had left them to die, after all, humans were rarely logical, so Theodore wouldn't put it beyond them to do whatever they saw fit.

They were almost to the entrance when one of the group, Alira, the [Mage]. worked up the courage to approach them and Grigor followed with a light curse under his breath. She stayed well out of arm's reach, but her voice was clear enough.

"What... what are you?" she asked, directing the question at Theodore.

Theodore considered the question for a moment. What was he, exactly? Officially, he was a human, now a [Rune Mage], but that didn't really capture the full picture, did it? The shape-changing thing was new, for one.

"Someone you don't want to cross," he joked finally, which seemed to spook her for a moment before she saw his expression and pouted.

"I'm Alira, by the way, a [Mage]," she said, though he was pretty sure she'd introduced herself before, but he could be wrong. She extended a hand with a smile that was just a touch too warm for the circumstances. "And you are absolutely fascinating."

Theodore blinked, caught off guard by both the introduction and the way she was looking at him.

"I'm... Theodore."

"Theodore," she repeated. "Tell me, how exactly did you manage that thermal manipulation? Because what I saw shouldn't be possible with standard elemental magic! The energy concentration alone should have killed you, but instead you somehow channeled it into a directed release that—" She caught herself, laughing. "Sorry, I get excited about magical theory. It's a weakness of mine."

Grigor let out a nervous laugh from behind Alira. "She's been like this since you melted half the cave. Won't shut up about—"

"Grigor," Alira said without turning around, "hush. The adults are talking." She stepped closer to Theodore. "So? The thermal release. How did you do it?"

Theodore found himself staring at her, momentarily lost for words. She was standing close enough that he could see the genuine fascination in her eyes, mixed with something that might have been admiration. Or interest of an entirely different sort. He wasn't entirely sure which was more unsettling.

"I..." he started, then stopped. How did he explain something he barely understood himself?

"Wait," Alira said suddenly, holding up a hand. "Stop! Don't answer! I'll figure it out." Her eyes lit up with the kind of madness Theodore usually associated with Aunt Karmicheal. "This is so much better as a puzzle."

She began pacing in a small circle, gesturing animatedly as she spoke. "Okay, so standard thermal magic works by manipulating existing heat sources or generating small amounts of thermal energy through mana conversion. But what you did was orders of magnitude beyond that. The crater alone suggests you released enough concentrated thermal energy to melt stone, which means either you have mana reserves that dwarf most, or..." She paused, tapping her lip with one finger. "Or you found a way to store and amplify thermal energy rather than generating it from scratch."

That was... actually pretty close to correct.

"But storage would require a containment matrix," Alira continued, warming to her theme, "and I didn't see any runic work indicating that. So it has to be something else. Something more direct." She snapped her fingers. "Absorption! You were absorbing thermal energy from your surroundings, weren't you? That's why the air felt cold right before the blast. You were pulling heat out of everything around you and concentrating it."

She was practically bouncing on her toes now, clearly pleased with her deduction. "But that still doesn't explain the concentration. Unless... oh, that's clever. You used your own body as the containment vessel, didn't you? Crazy! That's crazy! Risky as hell, but if you could somehow compress the absorbed energy internally and then release it in a controlled burst..." She trailed off, staring at him with something approaching awe. "That's not standard magic at all! That's something completely new!"

Theodore realized his mouth was hanging open slightly and closed it with a snap. She'd essentially reverse-engineered his entire technique from a single observation, and she wasn't even entirely wrong about the theoretical framework.

"Am I close?" Alira asked, and there was definitely something more than academic interest in her tone now.

Behind her, Grigor let out another nervous laugh. "Alira, maybe we should, uh, maybe we should give the man some space? He looks like he's seen a ghost."

Theodore wasn't entirely sure that wasn't accurate. And he wasn't sure he wanted interest like this one from her either. Or anyone, for that matter, there was a lot to do and no time for anything else. So he took a deliberate step back, creating more distance between them, and let his expression settle into something politely neutral.

"You're observant, but I think Grigor's right," Theodore said, glancing meaningfully toward Roland, who had been standing quietly nearby with the patient expression of someone waiting for a conversation to end. "We should be moving along."

Alira's face fell slightly. To her credit, she recovered quickly, though Theodore noticed the way her smile became more forced.

"Of course," she said, taking her own step back. "I didn't mean to keep you. It's just... well, it's not often you see magic like that. I got carried away."

"It happens."

Roland chose that moment to clear his throat meaningfully. "Theodore."

Right. Time to go. Theodore nodded to Alira and Grigor, keeping the gesture brief and impersonal. He turned and set off, Roland falling into step beside him. Behind them, he could hear Grigor saying something to Alira in a low voice, though he couldn't make out the words. Probably for the best. Theodore had enough complications in his life without adding whatever that had been to the mix.

"Smooth," Roland commented quietly once they were out of earshot.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Theodore replied dryly.

"Sure you don't." Roland's tone was carefully neutral, but Theodore caught the hint of amusement underneath. "She seemed nice enough."

"She seemed like a distraction I don't need."

"Fair point." Roland was quiet for a moment, then added, "Though you might want to work on your rejection technique. That was about as subtle as your thermal blast back there."

Theodore winced. Had it been that obvious? He'd thought he'd handled it reasonably well, all things considered. But then again, he'd never been particularly good at navigating social situations.

"She'll get over it," he said finally.

"Probably," Roland agreed. "But you might not want to burn that bridge completely. She figured out your technique pretty quickly. That kind of magical insight could be useful someday."

Theodore considered that as they walked. Roland wasn't wrong. Alira's analytical abilities were impressive, and having someone who could understand the theoretical framework behind his more unusual techniques might prove valuable. But it would also mean explaining things he wasn't ready to discuss, and dealing with complications he definitely didn't have time for.

No. Better to keep things simple. Finally, they walked past the slime farms and neared the exit. Theodore caught fragments of whispered conversation as they passed.

"—killed Rufus like it was nothing—"

"—turned into some kind of slime—"

"—should we tell someone?"

"—tell who? Who's going to believe this?"

Theodore almost smiled at that last comment. They were probably right. If he hadn't experienced it himself, he'd have a hard time believing that someone could absorb enough thermal energy to create what amounted to a localized inferno and then direct it with such precision. The whole slime transformation thing was just the cherry on top of an already unbelievable story.

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