NOVEL NEXT 70 - The Whiny Loser Might Have a Spine After All
"I saw my mother's ghost. When I was down in the Dungeon… she spoke to me. She offered me… she wanted to be with us again."
Three adults looked at him with concern and horror. His father, the Lord Reginald Granavale. His aunt and uncle, the Lord and Lady Jane and Anthony Blackstone.
"I had to cut down a ghost with her face," he said.
He didn't know what he wanted them to say, or if he wanted them to say anything at all.
His voice was outright quavering. His eyes felt moist. He took a deep breath. Why had he brought up his mother, anyways?
The room was silent except for the sound of Beatrice slurping soup into her mouth.
Beatrice finally noticed everyone was concerned, so she stopped eating and pushed her bowl away too. "Sorry to hear that," she said.
The adults glanced at her reproachfully.
"I am! It sounds terrible. I can't imagine what I'd do if I had to stab you, mother," she said, to the Lady Jane.
Archmund was grateful for the emotional deflection, to avoid the need to confront everything that had just happened. Yeah, this was great. He could kick this issue down the road. The nobility was emotionally restrained. He'd probably have a big breakdown sometime in a decade or so and completely lose his composure, but right now he could externalize this loss as something that he didn't remember that wasn't really his. Yeah.
But that wasn't the important part. That wasn't the real reason he'd brought it up. Beatrice's sarcasm had brought him a certain clarity.
The ghosts of their dead loved ones were why she couldn't just go willy-nilly into the Dungeon with him.
"You'd probably piss yourself and run away crying when she fought back. I saw you fight."
"Oh, you take that back, you arse—"
"What, do you think you can make me?"
"Archmund," his father said. "Crying at the dinner table is one thing, but fighting?"
Ah. Yes. He supposed this was rather embarrassing. To lose control of his emotions so quickly in short order — very awkward.
"That's my point," Archmund said. He coughed the phlegm out of his throat. "You seem… well, you cry when you lose," he said.
His aunt and uncle both let out a sigh they'd been holding for years.
"What would you do if you saw… someone… down there?"
He'd omitted details from what he'd told his family. He'd said his mother wanted to be together with them again — a natural assumption for the hell-fleeing dead. But he hadn't told them how she'd offered to grant him power, to raise him to the level of a king, so that all the world could be his, a Gem-clad conqueror.
Would Beatrice take that offer?
"No offense," Beatrice said, and it genuinely sounded like she meant it, "but both of my parents are… here."
"And if you saw my mother?"
"You already saw her, and you're back up here. Aunt Sophia… isn't."
The statement hung over the dinner table like a suspended sword.
The older nobles would know what it meant to see the dead in a Dungeon, and to walk away.
"As we were saying, Archie," said his uncle, the Lord Anthony Blackstone, awkwardly succeeding at changing the subject, "You fight very well for someone so young."
Thank the goddess. A change of topic.
He could attribute his unnatural vigor in the martial arts to his use of Gemstone Gear, not his memories of a past life. In both cases he was using the abilities of a dead man, but when he channeled the Skills of Gemgear, there was no continuity of self: It didn't feel like he was running on borrowed time — memories and experiences that his peers would soon develop for themselves. He felt rather more comfortable being praised for abilities he had because of his use of Gemgear than for intuition or abilities he had from being reborn.
"It's from his spoils of war," his father said proudly. "A Gemstone Sword, a Gemstone Rapier, and now a Gemstone Bow."
His father's pride was genuine, but Archmund couldn't help but notice a concerned glance between the Lord and Lady Blackstone. Everyone knew that Gemgear was for the noveau riche, the elevated nobility, those who weren't suited or able to handle true magic. Not for the last remaining son of a blue-blooded family. But of course they couldn't say those things outright.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
"I'm surprised you can handle all of those," said his aunt, the Lady Jane Blackstone. "So many outlets for power at your age?"
"I can't," he said bluntly. "But I'm working on it."
Beatrice's parents gave his father a series of meaningful glances.
"Do you ever miss how you once were?" his father asked. Now it was his turn to change the topic. "Before the Crylaxan Plague? You were such fast friends back then."
Truthfully, he didn't remember it at all. He was actually kind of bad at remembering people when he didn't care all that much about them. He supposed no matter how close they had been, that had simply ceased at some point. Probably due to the plague.
He could go blunt, or he could go diplomatic, or he could do neither and just bask in the awkward silence.
He did the last one.
"It would be simply marvelous," said the Lord Blackstone, "if our Betty could fight at that level."
And there it was.
Even though there was thankfully no possibility of betrothal, it seemed he'd be stuck dealing with Beatrice for the rest of his life anyways.
No, even worse than that. Because you could break a betrothal, one way or another, but the ties of blood? Even if you got disowned, you still wouldn't be able to shake those.
"Without Gemgear," Archmund said.
"Ideally, yes," said her father. His brow furrowed, and now he shot glances at Archmund's father that almost seemed… angry? "I believe for those like us, blessed by birth with time, learning the hard way, the traditional way, is best."
"What am I going to learn from someone who's my age?" Beatrice said.
"No, no," said the Lady Jane Blackstone. "But if she could join in on your magical tutoring sessions, or perhaps your other education?"
Then, hurriedly, she interjected, "Reginald, we would be more than happy to help cover the tutoring fee of your superior teachers. Our tutors simply haven't been any good at elevating… achieving Archmund's level."
Beatrice shifted uncomfortably again.
"Archmund," his father said gruffly, "has been dodging many of his tutors for the past season. Which I have largely overlooked because of his industry and diligence in arranging the Harvest Festival and Tournament."
"Oh, you mustn't," the Lady Jane Blackstone said. "I know doing sums and grammar can seem awfully dull, but you simply must for high society."
A bit of him ground against that.
"I haven't been skipping my etiquette lessons," he said. "Nor my literature and grammar."
He hadn't, because soft skills and social norms and literature and grammar were things that didn't transfer from his prior life. But universals like mathematics and science?
It was more than likely that the deeper you got into the weeds, once you approached higher mathematics like abstract algebra, or fundamental physics like quantum mechanics and special relativity, that this world functioned and operated fundamentally differently than earth. The existence of magic all but guaranteed that.
But at the primary-school-private-tutor level? Arithmetic and physical mechanics were the same: a sum was a sum, and an object in motion stayed in motion. He knew all of this basic stuff by heart.
"I see you're planning on following in this wily bastard's footsteps, then," the Lord Blackstone said, gesturing at Archmund's father. "All talk and play in the Imperial City."
Though his tone was good-natured, and there was a smile on his face, his lip was ever-so-slightly curled.
Ah. Was this a fault line between them? Archmund was no master of interpreting microexpressions, but this looked an element of veiled disgust. Or perhaps disappointment?
He shrugged. "I'm just gifted when it comes to the natural sciences, that's all."
He had said the line. It was true. He was gifted in the natural sciences — gifted with the memories of a past life.
"And your… combat prowess?" the Lord Blackstone asked. Again a loaded question.
He could be blunt. "You don't want her to use Gemgear. Which is how I did it."
"Why not?" Beatrice said. "You did."
The adults looked at her.
"It's bad for your long-term development," Archmund said.
"So you've stunted yourself, that's what you're saying?" Beatrice said, mockingly. She didn't believe it, of course.
"Just for a little bit," Archmund said. "I can undo it."
His father looked at him with pride. His aunt and uncle, with dubious pity.
"Let's say you're not holding back on me. Why would you do something so stupid?" Beatrice said.
"Because I have the time to outwit it," he said. Maybe it was hubris on his part, and maybe by spreading himself so thin in this way he was holding himself back.
His father snorted.
This was the first less-than-positive sentiment he'd expressed towards Archmund all dinner. Everyone turned to stare on him.
"Son, you showed up from the Dungeon with an invisible death spell and a pile of treasure, and the Omnio said that you had been instrumental in the victory. In less than two days. Perhaps you ought to slow down. You may have the time, but it hardly seems like you're using it."
Perhaps his father was right.
This had been one of the characteristics of his past life, too. When he found something interesting, he'd pick it up, and he'd dally with it, getting mediocre at it, and stagnating at a certain level of skill, before abandoning it for a new hobby, a new project, a new trifle, just something new, new, new. So he'd get moderately good at many things, able to talk widely and give the impression of skill in very many domains, without ever truly being an expert in any.
Obviously, the nature of Gems encouraged mastery. The issue was that circumstances had pushed him to be a dabbler. And yet Raehel didn't seem to be having trouble with also being a dabbler in very many things.
In his past life, there was the concept of a "portfolio career". In the generations before his, it was natural, almost expected, for someone to spend their whole lives doing the same sort of work. But by the time he'd come of age, the promise of a full career was gone, and it was far more likely for the industrious to jump from job to job over the course of their career, mastering one set of skills (lowercase) before transferring them to similar work.
From observing Raehel, the most efficient way to master magic was probably like that: master one, then master similar ones. Sure, you'd be restricted by the magical constraints of lock-in, but a powerful mage had the time and the resources and the magical reserve to bear the discomfort of unfamiliar magic. He'd done the opposite by trying to do too much at once.
Again.
He closed his eyes. "Even knowing that you can't use Gemgear, and that you might see some unpleasant ghosts down there… you'd still want to go into the Dungeon?"
"I see no reason to keep her from it," said his father.
"It would be good for her, since you've shown it's possible," said his aunt.
"She must," said his uncle.
"If I have to," said Beatrice.