Orphan [LitRPG Adventure] - Book One Complete!

Lily arrived fashionably late, and as luminous as ever despite the scowl etched across her face. She walked with the stride of someone accustomed to making an entrance, the click-clack of long heels announcing her before she reached the open door of Alarion's office.

"At last," she began, voice dripping with sarcasm, "the Martyr in the West deigns to admit me into his sanctum. I half expected I would not see you again until-"

The quip died on her tongue the instant her gaze settled on him. Her stern look shattered, wit and venom alike falling away in the face of concern.

"Sweet Mother," she gasped, hand flying to her mouth. "Alarion… what happened to you?!"

"Training," he stated, matter-of-factly, as if that was all that needed to be said about his blotchy complexion and black eye. When her expression disagreed, he sat up straighter behind his desk and clarified. "Passive skill training. Defensive skills."

"Nngh…" Lily's shiver of disgust said more than her words could have managed. She was decidedly squeamish for a Vitrian. Then again, he was still hard to look at, even if the remaining wounds were little more than superficial. "Did it work?"

"Eventually," Kali said from behind her.

The poor girl nearly jumped out of her skin at the unexpected voice. She'd been too focused on her prepared speech—and Alarion's injuries—to notice Bergman and Kali seated at a side table in front of a heaping pile of folders. It was her own fault, but that didn't stop her from fixing the sergeant with her renewed glare all the same.

"So that is where you have been for nearly a month?" she asked over her shoulder, a bit of her vitriol returning. "If I had known I would have nothing to do, I would have waited in Ashad-Vitri until you called on me."

"I am sorry. I did not mean to leave you idle," Alarion apologized. "It took longer than expected, and I did not think I would make for good company."

His guilt was sincere, but not limited to her. In truth, he had neglected Nessa far worse. While he made time for her where he could, it never felt like enough, and she had no interest in watching him be beaten bloody.

Lily could write correspondence, plan her next moves, and at least speak to others if the loneliness became too much. He was all Nessa had. That and a seemingly endless series of biographies, textbooks, and trashy romance serials, courtesy of Bergman.

Alarion didn't even want to know why he had so many of those.

"Have you ever?" Lily asked, a touch of that old coy humor in her voice. "It is fine. Ivor was pleasant enough company. And he tells me we are here for selection?"

Ivor? Kali mouthed when Lily's back was turned. Alarion did his best not to laugh.

It still hurt to laugh.

"H-he has been p-putting it off," Bergman said.

"I have n-" Alarion grunted and let the topic drop rather than lie. He absolutely had been avoiding it. He would have avoided it for another month, or longer, if he could have. "It does not matter. We are doing it now. It seemed proper to bring you in."

"Well then, I am pleased to be of service." Lily smiled and took a seat across from Alarion, doing her best not to look at his face as the other men joined her, each with their own stack of files.

The sheer size of the task had been what kept him from approaching it. The 238th was to be an all-volunteer unit, and apart from a few mandatory selections, it was up to him to fill the roster. In total, that left him with just shy of two hundred spaces to fill with six times as many volunteers. ZEKE had spoken at length about the idea of 'analysis paralysis' regarding skills and classes, but the concept is just as applicable here.

Alarion had no idea where to start. But there was a solution to that problem that would make him look magnanimous rather than incompetent.

"Where do you think we should start?" It wasn't exactly leading from the front, but a good leader knew when to delegate. When no one jumped at the opportunity, his eyes settled on Bergman. "Bergman?"

"W-well, we have eleven hundred and sixty-two applicants," the young man said hesitantly. "That is d-down from the initial three t-thousand."

"You already rejected that many?" Lily asked in surprise.

Bergman shook his head. "N-no. Only about a hundred. The rest w-withdrew."

"After your mother's reporting became public," Alarion clarified.

"Ah." Lily winced. "Probably for the best. You hardly need fairweather allies."

Alarion scoffed, but found he couldn't disagree with the logic. "Better now than later. The last thing we need is a pile of resignations."

Kali tapped the top of his pile to draw attention to it as he spoke. "These fifty are our top suggestions. Reliable soldiers with commendable records and strong Aptitude."

"And t-these are the mandatory f-files," Bergman said, offering them to Lily. "There are t-twelve of them. Excluding whoever they assign as an o-officer. Is there anyone we should be w-worried about?"

Lily took up her small stack while Alarion began digging into the much larger pile that Kali had forced upon him. Most were only a few pages long, featuring a photograph and a Status report, followed by their deployment history, citations, and disciplinary history. Few had anything in that last category, but Alarion knew from experience that a lack of disciplinary action did not necessarily make for a good soldier.

"I have little to say, sadly," Lily said as she finished skimming through the files. "The only one I know by anything other than gossip is Kara Villess. She was a year ahead of me in secta. Nice, a bit plain and mousy. If she weren't an only child, I think she would have ended up an Ordinate. Her family is not well regarded within the House of Disaster, so it is no surprise that she would want to tether her hopes to the 238th. If she were prettier, I think she might try to seduce you, but-"

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"What can you tell us about the gossip?" Alarion asked, cutting the latter comment off at the head.

"Well, the Tenri brothers are from the House of Sorrow, meaning you shouldn't trust them. Rumor has it that the younger twin slept with Emmaline Feln before she was formally elevated, but looking at his nose in this photo, I do not really buy it, especially given her reputation for…" Lily had the good grace to blush as all three men fixed her with the same incredulous stare. "Ah, relevant gossip?"

"If you please."

"The House of Emptiness is all-in on Ashad. They had been hoping to be named the next governor, so it makes sense that three of the candidates came from their House, though I don't recognize any of the names. They might want to see you fail to hurt Williams, but since they have invested so much in the province, I think it is more likely that they would want to see it stabilize. I would lean toward trusting them. As much as you can trust any Vitrian, that is."

"O-other than you," Bergman said.

"Oh, Ivor." Lily's disappointment was palpable as she spared him a pitying look, then turned back to the files as a thought occurred. She flipped through the first page of each, then handed Alarion three of the folders. "Bury these three as far away from your inner circle as you can. If possible, assign someone to watch them."

Alarion cocked an eyebrow and quickly scanned the documents for what had set her off. Two men, one woman, all from different houses. They were all on the higher end of rank II, but none had especially high Aptitude or attributes. Only one thing stood out. "Because they are old?"

"Because they work for the Watch," she corrected. "Middle-aged Vitrians who had the status to force their way into your unit would have made officer years ago."

"A quarter of them are spies?" Kali frowned.

"Oh, no. All of them are spies," Lily answered. "Their Houses will have spent heavily to get them this posting, and they will expect a return on that investment, in whatever form suits their ambition. All except that last one, I suppose."

Alarion flipped open the cover of the last file to find a photo of Dimov staring up at him. The boy was even younger than when Alarion had last seen him, his cheeks still round with the baby fat of a lad who hadn't hit a proper growth spurt. He was younger than Alarion had been when Elena found him, his blue eyes wide and innocent above a crooked grin.

Sometimes it was easy to forget that the provinces weren't the only ones the Vitrians abused.

"Williams made a personal request that he volunteer, or so I am told," Lily continued. "The optics of the four of you together again were too good to pass up."

Alarion frowned, fingertips idly brushing the scar on his chest left by Dimov's emergency treatment. Of course, they leaned on the kid to come back. No good deed went unpunished.

"If he wants out, we give him an out," Alarion said, earning an approving nod from both Bergman and Kali. "We owe him that much at least."

"Williams will not like that," Lily pointed out.

"I do not really care."

"Fair enough," she shrugged, recognizing a losing battle when she saw one. "I will work on finding a palatable way to break the news, if it comes to it."

"Thank you." Alarion felt his stomach drop as he looked at the second pile. Even that was merely a fraction of the work ahead of him. "Any standouts among the Ashadi recruits?"

"S-several," Bergman said. He plucked three folders from the top of the pile and handed them over. "The first is Specialist P-Prodigy."

Alarion opened the folder and was greeted with a remarkably handsome young man with platinum blonde hair and piercing green eyes. Or perhaps handsome was not the right word. Pretty would have been a better fit, for the man wore his hair long, loose locks framing sharp cheekbones and ghostly pale skin. He was an androgynous figure with an ethereal beauty that Alarion found almost unsettling.

"Now that is a man who could seduce Emmaline Feln," Lily giggled.

"R-really?" Bergman scowled.

"Jealousy looks bad on you, Ivor," Lily teased. "But I assume you did not pick him for his looks?"

"He has an Aptitude of 189. The second highest in Ashad, after…" Kali finished his sentence with a gesture toward Alarion.

"He has only been Awakened for less than a year, and he has a UCL of 176." It wasn't lost on Alarion that the UCL was higher than his own, despite a considerable head start. "He uses a spear and elemental magic?"

"Ice magic m-mostly." Bergman's cheeks were still rosy from Lily's earlier comments, but he kept focused on the task. "H-he has been involved in seven subjugations, with a c-clean record. They gave him the name Prodigy b-because-"

"I understand where the name came from, Bergman."

"His aptitude makes him one of the only people who can keep up with you in terms of growth, so he is an obvious pick, even beyond the strength he brings," Kali added, doing his best not to smile at poor, embarrassed Bergman. "And it helps to have someone to measure yourself against. Keeps you honest."

Alarion could practically feel the critique of his own wasted years dripping from each word, but rather than address it, he opened the following folder. "Archer?"

"What does this one do, Bergman?" Kali grinned.

"He tells you to go-"

"Boys," Lily sighed like a mother dealing with her unruly toddlers. "What makes him special?"

"R-reputation, mostly," Bergman replied. "He has a large number of decorations, including the Vitrian Provincial Arc."

That got Alarion's attention.

"Do we know what for?" Alarion asked.

"Page s-six."

Alarion flipped through the file, a file that was notably much larger than most of the others. It made sense. Archer was in his late thirties, a veritable dinosaur compared to most of the Auxilia veterans, and his record reflected that age. He'd served with the old Royal Guard, back when Ashad had belonged to the Ashadi, and had volunteered for the Auxilia only a year after the annexation.

Since then, he'd served with distinction, including most recently on the southern front, where he'd led a series of hit-and-run attacks on the revenant flanks to buy time for local evacuations, the action that had earned him the Auxilia's highest honor.

Alarion had actually been given the same medal in a quiet hospital ceremony back when they'd thought he might die. He hadn't placed much stock in it at the time, but he knew it wasn't something they gave lightly.

"He is a bit old for the unit you are building." Lily winced as she glanced at Kali. "No offense intended, sergeant. It is just that most of the applicants-"

"It's fine," the sergeant grunted, though not convincingly. "Old or not, I can not be expected to wrangle a bunch of children by myself."

"Point taken," She conceded.

"Witch?" Alarion inquired.

"His last point."

"No, Witch." He enunciated, as if that helped. When that failed, he held up the third file, labeled Specialist Annie 'Witch' Ermine.

"Oh!" This time, it was Lily's turn to blush, her lips scrunched up in annoyance at her mistake. "That hat cannot be regulation."

The girl in the photo was only a year younger than Alarion, according to her file, but the wide-brimmed black hat that sat askew atop her head made her look positively childlike. The redhead's features were sharp and petite, her lips pulled together in a tight sneer, as though she were judging everyone who read her file.

"She looks Vitrian," Alarion noted, tapping one finger below the ice blue eyes glaring back at him.

"She is A-Ashadi born," said Bergman. "B-but it wouldn't be unheard of for her father to be from Vitria."

"If they are, she should see about getting tested. Depending on her lineage, someone in her House might be willing to adopt her," Lily said. "Though, why Witch, I assume it is not just the hat?"

"Looks like she is an 'item mage'," Alarion repeated her class name as though the words were foreign to him. After a bit more reading, he added, "She uses a lot of enchanted gear, with sympathetic components linked to all her spells."

"L-like pre-System magic?" When all he got was blank stares in response, Bergman sighed. "D-do none of you read your h-history?"

"I spent several years as a slave and an orphan," Alarion reminded him.

"Y-you cannot pull that card every time." Bergman crossed his arms in annoyance. "But f-fine. Pre-System magic is what it s-sounds like, how magic used to work before the System. We have some b-books on it in my home library, old rituals and cantrips. It was all sympathetic in nature, with a cost for everything."

"Mana? Or…?

"Components. Herbs, roots, crystals, animal bones. None of it works anymore without an Awakening, but I guess she emulates those old practices through the System."

"Huh," Lily said. "I suppose that makes sense. Seems rather round about. Why include her?"

All eyes turned to Bergman for an answer, and he withered under their stare for several seconds before saying, "I am really curious how it works?"