Chapter 125 – Rowan

I appear to have accidentally intercepted a parental reunion.

In my defense, parental reunions should generally approach at velocities below those associated with assassination attempts.

Avelyn’s father is already sprinting toward us again.

More slowly this time.

“Dad!”

Avelyn runs toward him.

He catches her in both arms and lifts her completely off the ground.

Avelyn squeaks.

Her tail begins moving fast enough to invalidate any potential complaints.

…

Interesting.

Apparently some parents do that.

I take the opportunity to study Avelyn’s father properly.

His hair is short and red, although several shades darker than Avelyn’s far more vibrant coloration. He wears loose navy shorts and a fitted shirt of the same color, both decorated with a handful of dangling chains.

His build is surprisingly athletic.

Not Marek levels of absurdity, naturally, but lean and heavily toned, with enough muscle across his arms and shoulders to put him somewhere close to Rin.

A deep red tail swishes enthusiastically behind him.

My attention settles elsewhere.

His legs remain slightly tensed.

One ear stays angled toward me even while his expression softens into something almost embarrassingly indulgent as he holds Avelyn with one arm and uses the other hand to scratch gently behind her ear.

Caution.

Not outright wariness, but he certainly noticed that I was standing close to his daughter.

And he definitely noticed that I cleanly avoided his initial charge despite being thirty levels beneath him.

Hm.

The flying hug appears to have been somewhat misleading. He is not careless.

How intriguing.

I believe I may already be developing a favorable impression.

After several seconds, he finally sets Avelyn back on the ground.

Then immediately begins looking her over from head to toe.

“You’re alright? No missing limbs? Internal organs?"

Avelyn rolls her eyes.

"Dad, you can obviously see that I am perfectly fine."

He smiles brightly.

"Just checking."

One ear remains pointed toward me.

“So. Epic class, huh? And an Aspect Alignment.” His tail gives another pleased swish. “You’ve been busy.”

Avelyn beams.

“Yup! A lot happened this week!”

She snaps her fingers.

Golden light washes over both of them, removing the dirt and grass stains caused by his earlier disagreement with the landscape.

“I have so many stories to tell!” Then her eyes narrow slightly. “Although... how did you know I was coming home right now?”

His tail swishes.

“Oh, that’s simple.” He smiles. “I’ve been standing here every day for the past week.”

…

How very strange.

He is a noble. Surely someone in his position has dozens of things demanding his attention.

And yet he spent days waiting outside a gate for his daughter.

Avelyn stares at him for a few seconds before sighing.

It would appear that even our exceptionally patient healer possesses limits when confronted with sufficient quantities of paternal nonsense.

I have learned something new.

He exchanges a brief nod with the others before his attention finally settles fully on me.

Both ears turn in my direction.

I straighten slightly.

Then I give him a deep curtsy as my social mask slips instinctively into place, warmer and more polished than my usual expression.

First impressions are important.

“Lyn. A pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

He gives a short nod.

“Rowan. Likewise.”

His tone is considerably more casual than I expected.

Still guarded, but open.

Hm.

Likely not inexperience.

Someone capable of watching me while simultaneously fussing over his daughter is far too practiced for that.

Perhaps he simply does not care for the usual noble theatrics.

Or perhaps Beastkin nobility operates differently than the variety I remember from Earth.

Either way…

Convenient.

I soften my own expression slightly.

Maintaining unnecessary pretense with someone this observant would likely accomplish the opposite of its intended purpose.

Rowan opens his mouth.

He does not get the opportunity to use it.

Avelyn bounds over, grabs my sleeve, and points excitedly through the gate.

“Lyn, look! You can see the bakery I told you about from here!”

…

I peer through a gap in the steadily moving line.

There.

A stone-and-wood building sits just beyond the gate, complete with the hanging sign Avelyn described in what I had previously considered an unreasonable amount of detail.

The sign depicts a smiling pastry giving a thumbs-up.

Magnificent.

My tail gives a dignified swish.

I make a mental note to visit tomorrow morning.

For both practical and professional reasons.

Namely, I need to determine how a bakery operating in a predominantly Beastkin city manages proper pastry without butter or other lactose-based products.

Highly suspicious.

Beside us, Rowan slowly closes his mouth. Then he looks toward the rest of the party.

Rin catches the look.

“It’s exactly what you think it is.”

...?

I glance between them.

Rowan pinches the bridge of his nose.

How curious.

Whatever silent communication just occurred appears to have involved me.

He lets the matter go for now.

“So.” His attention moves across the group. “What’s the story here? How did all of you end up together?”

Then his gaze reaches Sera.

One ear angles sideways.

“And what happened to the porter who left with you?”

Avelyn’s tail stops.

Ah. Right.

Tali.

The red-and-gold appendage slowly curls around Avelyn’s leg.

I step closer until my shoulder touches her.

She looks at me and manages a small smile. Sad, but appreciative.

Marek steps forward.

“Little Miss saved us in the dungeon.” His expression tightens. “Tali... didn’t make it.”

Rowan changes.

The indulgent father disappears so completely that, for a moment, it is difficult to reconcile the man standing before us with the one who excavated several dozen meters of grass in pursuit of a hug.

His posture straightens. His tail goes still. Even his expression loses its easy warmth.

Well now. My opinion of him may be rising again.

“Explain.”

One word.

Marek hesitates.

“There was a mana surge. Monster levels started climbing while we were inside.”

Rowan’s eyes narrow.

“And you retreated immediately.”

It is not phrased as a question.

Marek’s gaze drops slightly.

“No.”

Silence.

“We kept going for a while before making the call. By then, things had already gotten worse.” His jaw tightens. “We were ambushed. Tali died, and we got pushed deeper into the dungeon.”

He pauses.

“If Lyn hadn’t found us, there’s a good chance the rest of us wouldn’t have made it either.”

He used my name.

Interesting.

Even Marek appears uncomfortable beneath Rowan’s attention.

Not frightened, precisely, but there is a considerable difference between being difficult to intimidate and being immune to the disappointed stare of someone whose daughter you nearly got killed.

Rowan’s eyes remain on him.

“Why?”

Marek does not pretend to misunderstand.

“...I wanted Avelyn’s first expedition to be a success.”

Rowan’s ears flatten slightly.

“So when conditions changed enough to make the expedition unsafe, you continued because turning back would have felt like a failure.”

Marek says nothing.

That is answer enough.

“And in doing so, you risked everyone under your command.” A short pause. “Including my daughter.”

Marek nods once.

“Yes.”

Rowan takes a slow breath through his nose.

“That is not what a good leader does.”

“No.”

Avelyn shifts beside me.

“Dad, Marek—”

I touch her arm.

“Avelyn.”

She looks at me.

“He is correct.”

Her ears lower slightly.

I continue more gently.

“If I had arrived even a second later, you would not be standing here.”

Her lips press together.

She clearly dislikes the statement, but unfortunately, reality is under no obligation to be pleasant.

Rowan sends me a brief, appreciative glance.

This is something Marek needs to hear.

Avelyn offering forgiveness would help nobody here. Not herself, not the party, and certainly not Marek.

From what I have gathered, they continued well beyond the point where the dungeon’s rising levels should have triggered an immediate retreat. The dungeon began at level fifty-five. The retreat order did not come until that number had risen to sixty.

Marek knew mana surges could cause stampedes. He knew the danger was escalating.

And still, he allowed his desire to make Avelyn’s first expedition a success to influence his judgment.

It was unquestionably a mistake.

One he clearly feels terrible for. But guilt and learning are not necessarily the same thing.

Rowan steps closer.

“Tell me something, Marek.”

The Bearkin meets his gaze.

“You’re taking my daughter to Ironvale.” Another step. “Specifically to a city with a Tier Three regional dungeon experiencing a plague problem severe enough that experienced Tier Three parties have repeatedly failed to clear its depths.”

His voice never rises.

It does not need to.

“You will be making decisions there that determine whether the people following you come home.”

He stops directly in front of Marek.

The difference in size is almost comical. The difference in presence is considerably less so.

Rowan looks straight up into his eyes.

“So I’m not asking whether you regret what happened.” A beat of silence. “I’m asking whether you learned from it.”

Marek’s posture stiffens.

Rowan holds his gaze.

“Can I still trust you with my daughter?”

Marek straightens reflexively.

“I will never make a decision like that again.”

Rowan’s eyes narrow just a fraction further.

“See to it that you don’t. A leader does not gamble with the lives of the people who trust them.”

Marek nods firmly.

“I understand.”

Rowan studies him for another second. Then he steps back and claps his hands once.

Just like that, the pressure vanishes.

His ears rise.

His tail resumes swishing.

The frost disappears from his expression so completely that I briefly wonder whether I imagined the previous two minutes.

“Well!”

…

Impressive.

“I would love to hear what all of you have been doing for the past week.” His gaze moves toward Avelyn, then to me. “You two in particular.”

Avelyn beams.

I tilt my head.

Rowan focuses fully on me.

“You dodged me.”

“Yes.”

“That was fast.”

“That was an exceptionally reckless maneuver. You were moving far too quickly to stop safely.”

“And yet I stopped.”

I glance toward the trench behind him.

“Eventually.”

He follows my gaze.

The trench remains exactly where he left it, providing compelling physical evidence against his argument.

“Details.”

I believe I may like this man.

He looks back at me.

“You were ready to fight me.”

“Yes.”

“Thirty levels beneath me, and you were still considering it.”

“Correct.”

One corner of his mouth rises.

“Think you could win?”

“Yes.”

His smile widens.

“Good answer.”

Naturally.

I had suspected he would see reason.

Avelyn looks between us.

“Why do I feel like I should be worried that you two are getting along?”

“Unclear,” I answer.

“Very unclear,” Rowan agrees.

Her ears droop.

Excellent.

Rowan turns toward the gate.

“Whelp! I assume we have quite a lot to talk about.” He takes several steps before glancing back over his shoulder. “Let’s head to the estate. Elowen is going to lose her mind when she sees you.”

Avelyn’s tail accelerates immediately.

Her mother, presumably.

Rowan gestures toward the considerable line waiting to enter Bramblegate.

“Fortunately, we can skip this.” He winks. “Noble privilege.”

Convenient.

Perhaps nobility does possess redeeming qualities.

We fall into step behind him.

The guards at the gate barely give Rowan a second glance before waving us through, proving that either his presence carries substantial authority or they have simply watched him spend the last week standing outside their workplace waiting for his daughter and no longer possess the energy to question his decisions.

Both seem plausible.

As we pass beneath the gate, I turn my attention toward the fortifications.

The wall is thick. Extremely thick.

Twenty meters at minimum.

My Gravity Sense picks out vertical structures buried throughout the stone, their density significantly higher than everything surrounding them.

Metal reinforcement. Likely enormous support pillars.

Hm.

Durable.

Very durable.

Taking this city by conventional siege would be deeply irritating.

A reassuring quality in architecture.

Then we emerge from beneath the wall, and Bramblegate finally reveals itself in all its glory.

…

Mostly.

There is a building in the way.

Several of them, actually.

My grand introduction to the largest settlement I have seen since arriving in this world consists primarily of the front wall of a tailor, half of a restaurant sign, and a Catkin who is having far too much fun hanging from a second-story window.

Tragic.

I had expected more dramatic framing. Reality continues to suffer from inadequate cinematography.

Beside me, Marek remains quieter than usual.

Not devastated. Just contemplative.

Zeke notices. He reaches up and pats Marek on the shoulder.

Rin joins him from the other side.

Or attempts to.

Both men have to stretch their arms noticeably upward to accomplish the gesture. The resulting display resembles two children attempting to console a particularly depressed refrigerator.

Marek glances between them, then chuckles.

“Thanks.”

Success, apparently.

Avelyn, meanwhile, transforms the moment we properly enter the city.

Her ears seem incapable of deciding where to point.

Her tail swishes continuously behind her.

“Oh! Lyn, that’s the well I told you about!”

I follow her finger.

Ah.

The well.

I recognize it.

Primarily because Avelyn somehow managed to attach an entire childhood story to what is, upon inspection, an objectively normal hole containing water.

“And that’s the clothing store! I used to go there all the time!”

Also familiar.

Avelyn waves enthusiastically toward a passing Foxkin woman.

The woman freezes. Then her eyes widen.

“Avelyn?!”

“Hi!”

She waves even harder.

The woman begins moving toward us before apparently noticing Rowan, the five armed adventurers surrounding Avelyn, or perhaps me.

Her steps slow. She seems to reconsider whatever conversation she had intended to initiate.

Avelyn continues onward without noticing.

Every few dozen meters, someone recognizes her.

She waves.

They wave back.

Her tail becomes progressively more enthusiastic.

…Adorable.

We continue walking.

And walking.

Then walking somewhat more.

I remain patient. For a while.

…

Hm.

The estate appears to be experiencing difficulty getting closer. Everyone else is behaving as though this is entirely ordinary.

I look down the street ahead of us. Then behind. Then ahead again.

…Right.

When I was informed that Bramblegate was a town, I had apparently made the critical mistake of assuming the word possessed a remotely sensible definition.

This is not a town.

This is a city wearing fraudulent identification.

A very large city.

Potentially larger than Manhattan. By a substantial margin.

Suspicious.

Perhaps this world's settlement classifications were designed by the same individual responsible for dungeon size ratings.

Even with Marek moving at roughly half his normal pace, it takes nearly ten full minutes to reach the Redleaf estate.

Ten minutes.

At superhuman walking speeds.

In that time, I learn several important things about Bramblegate.

The first is that Avelyn knows an unreasonable percentage of its population. The second is that an unreasonable percentage of its population knows Avelyn. The third is that describing this place as a town constitutes an act of cartographic fraud.

In terms of practical information, however, I manage to learn quite a bit.

Bramblegate appears to have been designed with a surprising amount of forethought.

The commercial districts cluster around the entrances most commonly used by travelers, allowing merchants and visitors to conduct business without needing to cross half the city.

Warehouses and other industrial buildings are concentrated around the remaining four gates, while the residential districts occupy the more protected interior.

Responsible design philosophy.

More communal locations—the Adventurers’ Guild, bathhouses, restaurants, and similar establishments—are spread throughout the residential areas rather than being confined to the commercial districts.

The train station, meanwhile, appears to have acquired an entire district of its own.

I discovered this during the brief period in which I crested a rooftop and launched myself high enough to obtain a proper view of the city.

My attention was immediately captured by what I can only describe as the fantasy equivalent of a modest sized airport seemingly occupying a substantial portion of northern Bramblegate.

Except with a train.

Just one.

A very large one.

Fascinating.

Avelyn had to tug me back down before I became distracted enough to investigate immediately.

Probably wise.

There will be time.

During the rest of the journey, I also discover why seemingly every structure in Bramblegate was constructed according to the architectural philosophy of If we can make it bigger, why wouldn't we?

We pass an active development zone.

A group of Tier One and Tier Two Wood mages occupy a large workspace on one side, manifesting beams, wall sections, supports, and other structural components seemingly from nothing.

Moving between sectioned off areas, Stone mages lay foundations and build load-bearing pieces with similar efficiency.

Between the two groups, another team collects the completed wooden sections and assembles them into buildings at frankly ridiculous speeds.

I watch an entire exterior wall go from nonexistent to installed in less time than it would take an Earth construction crew to collectively decide where to eat lunch.

…Right.

Material cost is considerably less relevant when the construction workers can manufacture the materials themselves.

Labor becomes rather different as well when superhuman individuals are capable of carrying structural beams without machinery.

Of course the buildings are enormous.

If adding another floor requires substantially less effort than it should, humanity—or Beastkinity, in this case—will inevitably look at the laws of reasonable architecture and ask why they are being so restrictive.

This changes things.

Excessive exploration will now be necessary.

Fortunately, I possess a highly knowledgeable local guide who has already demonstrated the ability to speak about individual landmarks for fourteen consecutive minutes.

My gaze drifts toward Avelyn.

She is currently pointing out another restaurant to Sera.

Excellent.

Resources have been secured.

Eventually, Rowan turns away from the main road and leads us toward a gated property.

“We’re here.”

Ah.

The Redleaf estate.

He opens the gate without hesitation.

Beyond it lies a large garden.

Flowers fill carefully maintained beds along either side of the path, broken up by shrubs, several small trees, and winding patches of decorative greenery. Nothing appears excessively manicured, either. The entire place has been maintained enough to look intentional without giving the impression that a gardener will materialize from the bushes and execute anyone who disturbs a leaf.

Pleasant.

Beyond the garden stands the estate itself.

I slow slightly.

Hm.

That is…

Surprisingly reasonable.

It is large, naturally.

A few stories, broad windows, plenty of rooms judging by the exterior dimensions, and enough land surrounding it that nobody could reasonably mistake the Redleafs for anything other than wealthy.

But after seeing the rest of Bramblegate, I had been expecting something closer to a minor palace.

Perhaps several towers. An unnecessary number of wings. Possibly a fountain large enough to possess its own ecosystem.

Instead, the building is merely a very nice mansion.

Remarkably restrained.

I approve.

We follow Rowan along the path until the front entrance rises before us.

Avelyn’s pace has subtly increased.

Her tail is swishing again.

Beyond that door is where she grew up.

Her room.

Her family.

All of the places she spent hours describing to me last night.

And, somewhere inside…

Her mother.

Elowen.

…

Something faint twists in my stomach.

I blink.

Hm.

Nervousness?

How strange.

I am about to meet one woman.

I have fought dragons.

This should not even register on the scale of threatening experiences.

My tail gives an excited swish anyway.

…

Traitor.

Rowan reaches for the door.

I straighten slightly.

For entirely unrelated reasons.