Chapter 630 - The Treaty of Kazehara I

One of the nice things with [The World Around Me] and Sara is I caught any mischief she was up to before it got out of hand. There was always an element of judgment going on. If I cracked down on absolutely everything, that was a miserable way to live for a kid. If I ignored genuine harm, Sara risked hurting herself. If a rule being broken was too big, too important, I had to step in.

This must be how Arachne felt, magnified by a thousand times. This type of awareness was difficult enough with one person. Across an entire city? My admiration of her only grew.

The downside was nothing sweet could be planned. I caught every surprise in the planning stage, before the first scissors came out, before any fabric was selected. Before Iona was recruited into her little scheme.

Sara realized she needed me out of the way, just… well, I wasn’t exactly one to talk, but I didn’t think she’d get offered [Scheming] when she unlocked next year.

“Love, you’re banished to your [Manor] for the next four hours.” Iona said with a wink. She had a pile of books with a mango balanced on the top.

“This is a shameless bribe.” I complained. “It’s all my stuff in the first place!” It didn’t stop me from taking said shameless bribe though. 

Iona winked and blew a kiss at me as I walked through [Portcullis]. It made my heart flutter, and I turned around, balancing the stack of books with the mango on top of it, continued to walk backwards, and blew a kiss back. Sara was peeking out from behind a door frame, and as the gates to the [Manor] started to rumble closed, the seam in space snapping back together, she started talking.

“Elaine’s gone! Alright, I’ve got my design right here-”

The gate finally snapped shut.

Definitely not getting [Scheming]. She was such a cute kid, I was super proud of her.

I settled in to read, keeping my focus tight. I was going to eat my mango after the first book, it was the perfect time for it. I was not going to snap all the books open and read sixteen different stories all at once. These would last me the time I was here… even though I’d read them before. A little bit of effort in [Astral Archives] - mostly rubbing out their place in the ledger - let me ‘forget’ the stories, enjoying them all like it was the first time I’d read them.

I loved that trick. Figuring it out had been the highlight of… that week, honestly. Sara had been invited to spend the night at one of her friend’s houses the next week, and the beaming look of pure joy on her face had made my month.

I finished the ninth chapter and started the tenth, my mango nothing more than a beautiful memory and a lingering sweet aftertaste, when I realized I hadn’t flipped the hourglass.

Dangit! Good thing I remembered now, and not in a few hours. [Manor] was an isolated pocket dimension, there was no way for Iona to knock on the door or Auri to fly in through a window. Maybe if we went with the plan to live out of the place, I’d need to take a [Timekeeping] skill or something. Otherwise, I’d get distracted, and someone would be stuck outside or inside, with no way to message me.

Hmmm. Maybe if we lived in here, I could eventually upgrade [Manor] or just flat out get a [Doorbell] skill. If it was possible - the System was really stingy when it came to anything like long-range communication. Not because the System disliked it, but because there was a distance component to skills. Was I ‘close’ to the exit of [Portcullis], or was I in a completely different dimension? My healing not crossing dimensions suggested I was well and truly cut off. At the same time, it provided protection.

I shelved the thoughts, [Teleported] the hourglass over with a lazy flick of my hand, and went back to reading.

Four… ish… hours later, I creaked open [Portcullis], and let [The World Around Me] peek into our home. Great, they were ready! I finished opening and stepped out loudly.

“I’m back!” I yelled. The bright smile Sara had on her face made me grin just as much, and the little missile tore through the house, Iona right behind her.

“Elaine Elaine Elaine! Look! I’ve got a dress just like you!” 

I gasped and put my hands over my mouth.

“You’re so cute!” I told the little elf, which was the pure truth. 

Iona and her had carefully sewn together a full set of robes in black, looking just like the uniform for the School of Sorcery and Spellcraft. The very same uniform I wore day to day, and even in the correct color!

She ran into my arms, and I picked her up, spinning her around a bit. I had to be very careful spinning around. I could spin at several times the speed of sound if I put my mind to it, and it was very easy to just ‘go faster’. Spinning in slow motion to keep the precious bundle I was holding entirely unharmed, but fast enough to be fun? Hard. My dress flared in the same way hers did, and I shot an impressed look to Iona in the middle of a spin. That was all her deft hand and skill. I was a capable seamstress - it had been mandatory, after the cataclysm, if I wanted to keep wearing clothes without holes - but Iona was good at it.

Sara giggled as we spun.

“I am!” She shouted, then got serious, nevermind that we were still spinning. “Does this mean I can go to the flying School where you learned medicine now?”

Errr… talk about awkward questions. The School had gotten a little obliterated during the last Immortal War.

It was like Iona read my mind. Which wasn’t a surprise - we’d known each other extremely well after a decade together, let alone a full century. Telepathy didn’t exist from the System, but it practically existed from experience. 

“We’ll see! You’re a little young right now.” 

There were a thousand ways to talk right in front of Sara about things we didn’t want her to know. We could talk rapidly, sounding vaguely like chipmunks. We could pitch our voices higher or lower than what she could hear. 

Or we could make it a little educational, and just swap languages. We always picked Creation - good motivation for her to learn it, and she could listen in once she’d mastered the Vampire’s Tongue. A little reward.

“It’s unlikely the School’s rebuilt, but it’s probably moving in that direction. I wouldn’t say no to checking it out. They could always use some professors, and it feels like a noble goal for us to work towards.”

I stopped spinning and put the little witch down. Sara pouted, but also couldn’t walk straight. I had a few thousand thoughts around the School. Mentally, I had it down as ‘Destroyed’, but Iona was right. It was probably ‘Rebuilding’, and that could change everything.

“Let’s discuss this more later. It’s an idea, and I’m not against it, but it requires a TON of discussion.” I said.

I - honestly, we - were starting to look to the future and wonder ‘what next?’ In many ways, we had everything. Safe friends and family. A lovely home, a living. But Iona and I were both driven, and there was only so much peace and quiet with no long-term goals to work towards before we got restless. The School was a solid idea. I wanted to personally teach Sara medicine, but if I could teach Sara and other intelligent, driven children medicine at the same time, all while helping rebuild the institute that helped teach me? Why not!

Then again, there were a thousand other factors. Iona was still acting as the public check on the Rangers, and people were just getting used to the idea. In this case, the perception of the check was more important than the reality - Artemis was practically crawling inside the Rangers to make sure they were behaving these days. 

I spun the thoughts off into its own process, furiously taking notes for my conversation with Iona later.

“Can we do some medicine now? Please please please?” Sara begged with extra-huge eyes. Little rascal… it was all too effective on me.

I never thought I’d see the day where a kid wanted to study anatomy instead of running outside and playing, but the circumstances of her joining us still haunted me. Iona and I had spent many long nights discussing it, and we’d settled on both the cheesiest, easiest, and hardest ways of handling it.

Love.

We weren’t going to smother Sara in love, nor were we going to force any sort of reciprocation. But we would let her know she was loved, in our every little interaction, and pray - very literally - to the goddesses that it’d be enough. It seemed to be working well enough, but there was no way of telling what would happen in the future.

I quickly debated if I needed to use Sara’s desire to learn medicine to get her to learn anything else - teaching as an incentive, basically - but no, she tore into everything with a powerful conviction, determined to learn it all. She was well caught up, and I could simply indulge her.

“Alright. Review time! What does the liver do, and where is it?”

“It depends on the species!” Sara instantly answered the second question first, getting an amused quirk of my lips for it. I’d drilled her on that answer relentlessly, and I think I could start specifying every time I asked. “In the broadest of terms, it cleans, uh, detoxifies, blood, and fixes it all up.”

Good enough answer for entry-level anatomy. Sara was seven, knowing what the liver was and being able to describe it in broad terms was plenty advanced as far as I was concerned. 

“Excellent! Next question. What does the liver connect to?”

Iona coughed.

“I’ve got a couple coming over soon. I’ll leave the two of you to it, but if you need to leave, can you use the backdoor?”

I nodded.

“Sure!”

Sara was pouting, and seized the gap to answer the question.

I quizzed Sara for a bit before moving onto the next lesson, then read an almost Elaine-exclusive book. Aesop’s Fables. Pallos had its own collection, and most of the lessons were nearly the same. Instead of The Dog and the Bone, it was The Mouse’s Cheese. Same idea, same moral, but different execution. The Town Mouse and City Mouse didn’t exist at all, but The Dragon’s Gold was an anti-theft lesson that didn’t show up at all in Earth’s version.

I deliberately pulled in [The World Around Me] to not eavesdrop on Iona’s conversation. It wasn’t anything particularly private, but at the same time, it was nominally private, and if Iona started to get a reputation for private consultations being less than private?

Orthus was a small town. The gossip could literally last more than a century, ruin her reputation, and prevent her from helping anyone. It wasn’t like the meeting was serious. She was acting a little like a [Priestess], talking through what marriage and communication was like for a new about-to-be-married couple. It was one of a dozen different ‘heart of the community’ style things Iona always did that made her so beautiful.

Goddess, I loved that woman.

“We’re done for now.” I declared after one last explanation. “Let’s go harvesting.”

“I want the big basket! Me! It’s mine!” Sara called out her dibs three times as she scrambled to her feet, running to grab her scarf and the basket in question. She paused and narrowed her eyes as we stepped outside, heading to the orchard.

“Wait. You’re a big, strong, scary mage with [Teleportation]. You use it all the time. Why don’t you use it to fill your basket?” Sara asked.

Ooooh, she was literally asking for it.

“You’re right.” I waved my hand dramatically, and my basket instantly filled with fruits from our trees and vegetables from the garden. “Okay, my basket is done, your turn!”

Ah, the look of sour outrage was delicious. I smirked at the look on her face, gestured to the plants, then lay down on the grassy hill, enjoying the sun. And Sara’s outraged looks back to me. She did work hard at pulling the potatoes out, although not without questions.

“Why do I have to do this? Why can’t you wave your hand and do it all?” She asked.

Ahhh, backtalk. It was a relief to hear. We’d only heard the first complaint a month or so ago, a positive sign that Sara felt safe here. That, while she cast suspicious looks in my direction over my choices and her parent’s death, she wasn’t currently planning to murder me in my sleep and run away.

Well, run away again, but honestly, the first time had been more of an adorable learning exercise for Sara instead of anything serious. We had a dozen ways of subtly tracking her and keeping an eye on her from range, and we’d swooped in about eight minutes after she got lost and broke down in tears.

I was sure I’d get irritated with backtalk in time, but for now, it was sweet music to my ears.

“I spent decades doing the hard work, just like what you’re doing, to get the skills to wave my hand myself. If you never put your nose to the grindstone and work, you’ll never develop the skills needed to skip the work.” I tried to shrug, but it didn’t work while lying down. “The System is fair that way. Hard work, in all its forms, is rewarded. From studying books to pulling up carrots, you’ll be rewarded for it all. Slacking off has no reward.”

Sara slowly nodded like I’d handed out divine wisdom, then ferociously started yanking the carrots out of the ground, great heaps of dirt going flying under her efforts. I winced, but let it happen.

“Good hard work.” I hastily amended, then airily waved my hand at the disaster zone formerly known as my garden. “And you know the rules. Make the mess, clean the mess.”

If Sara was several years older, in the throes of teenagehood, I would’ve expected some frustrated yelling. As it was, her shoulders slumped, and she got cleaning.

I turned a blind eye to her shifting the dirt around and lightly brushing things off. It was a garden, dirt went everywhere.

The rest of the day passed quickly. We went down the mountain and made the rounds of all our neighbors, knocking on doors and brisky bartering. Nothing grand, nothing special. Fruits and vegetables for flour, favors being promised and paid, the basic barter essential to every village. Money was starting to creep in, smoothing transactions, but there was something idyllic about how Orthus was right now.

It helped that I was single-handedly preventing the need for significant medical attention. A broken wrist no longer meant a family member couldn’t contribute for weeks. Deadly infections were purged before people noticed them. Rare diseases that would’ve required the community to pool money and go on a long trip to the nearest city with a properly trained [Healer] were a thing of stories, not practical reality. I had left a number of minor, low-level things around for people to struggle against, and for new healers to gain experience with, but the truly deadly and crippling items I was handling.

It didn’t help that I was a well-known commodity in Orthus. Forget giving new [Healers] a chance, almost everyone went to me in the first place. Reminded me of when I was a kid - basically nobody was willing to give me a chance, because why take the risk when the good healers were over there?

Maybe I should charge more and heal less, give new kids a better chance at it all… but then I wasn’t doing the best I could to help people.

The ethics and balancing point was fucking hard. I suspected I’d keep bouncing around where I landed for the rest of my life.

There was no better way to get gossip. I swear Iona lived for the stuff, and I was interested in what my neighbors were up to! I could see how feuds easily formed. Things could be so boring around here that there was nothing better to do than complain about how that one bull kept getting loose, and the Themixes kept being lazy about properly repairing the fence.

Personally, I thought the bull had a skill or three to help escape, but Iona hadn’t swung by yet to confirm anything. The bull was leveling.

… damnit, the local gossip was fun.

We returned home as the sun was setting, sat down, and ate dinner, all of us arranged around the table. Good food, good conversation, another beautiful day with my loving family.

I was being a little extra sappy, sue me.

In the midst of joking around, Iona locked her eyes on something behind me and smiled. I rolled my eyes.

“That’s never going to work on me.” I smugly informed her. “[The World Around Me], remember? Can sense everything in my domain?”

Which, of course, was when Night, completely invisible to my skill, leaned down next to my ear.

“Boo!” He said.

I girlishly screamed and jumped up, turning around as I did.

“NIGHT!” I screamed, and hugged the ancient vampire.