NOVEL NEXT 5 - You Deserve This
"… In other news, A and S-Rank delvers from the Coyote Guild report no changes in the ongoing portal break deep within Carlsbad Caverns. The Coyote and Iron Falcon Guilds continue their watch over the entrance to the compromised cave network, and seismographic equipment reports no new attempts to break out."
The woman's voice was agony; loud enough to beat against my shattered eardrums and impossible to tune out. Since my system had awakened a year ago, I'd tried to keep on top of the news, but right now, it was torture to even listen. I couldn't open my eyes, either; every time I did, all I saw was soft white and, behind it, a light so bright it forced them shut again.
And worse, my aura was gone. I recognized that. Mana burn. It happened every time I cast Stormbreak, and eventually, it'd heal. But in the meantime, the buzzing sound that wasn't a sound and the empty feeling in my gut were a constant reminder that I was just as powerless as I'd been before my system awakened. Before…back before Dad had died.
It took me an eternity to figure out what had happened.
I'd lived. Somehow, I'd lived through Stormbreak again.
Which meant we'd won.
For a moment, the battle trance reared its head again, and I tried to smile. It probably looked like shit; even lifting my lip to show teeth hurt. But I tried. We'd won. We'd cleared what was probably a low C-Rank dungeon. And I was in a hospital. Again.
Then the cost hit me. Jeff? Dead. Angie? Dead. Sophia and Carlos? Unknown. And Erik, who I'd known for only a second? I didn't know if he'd survived, either, but I wasn't sure how much I cared. He'd been up to something next to the Misbegotten Ogre, and he'd said something about needing the core. He was probably building the same way I was trying to—five merged skills and two floating regulars, the slowest but simplest route to S-Rank.
He'd needed the core, too. Had he gotten it? Stolen it from Jeff and his team? And if he had, what did that mean for my chances of merging this first skill?
And losing that many delvers in a single portal…
People died in portals. It happened. But usually, it was one or two—if that. It was possible that I was the only survivor; the Governing Council would have no choice but to dig into what had happened. And when they did, they'd see my rank-up and know…they'd know that I'd used an 'Extremely Hazardous' skill. If no one else had survived, it'd be my word against that evidence, and they might choose to use me as a fall guy.
Or they might not. It had been a C-Rank boss. No one could have expected that. The GC clearly hadn't. And there wasn't anything I could do about it now except try to distract myself from what had happened.
I pulled up my stats, the only thing I could do from the hospital bed I was trapped in.
User: Kade Noelstra
E-Rank
Stamina: 130/130, Mana: 0/200 (Stamina +10)
Skills:
1. Stormbreak (E-01 to E-04, Unique)
2. Mana Sense (E-09 to E-10)
3. Skill Control (E-09)
4. Arjun's Script (E-05 to E-07)
5. Tonya's Binding (E-07 to E-08)
6. Dodge (E-06 to E-07)
7. Light Blade Mastery (E-04-E-06)
I'd grown.
Some of my skills were getting dangerously close to D-Rank. Growth tapered out as skills reached the peak of a delver's current rank, so I had some time, but not much. Dodge and Light Blade Mastery were both menaces; if either of them hit D-Rank before I merged them, it could slow down the whole build as I tried to catch all the other skills I wanted to merge up to it. I couldn't use Mana Sense anymore—at all—for fear of triggering a forced rank-up.
The reporter wouldn't stop talking. Her voice drilled into my brain, and I couldn't concentrate on my skills, my build, how dangerous this kind of growth might be for my future, or what I'd done in the portal.
The S-Ranks had been checking out Carlsbad again? That was all the way across the desert, in what had been New Mexico, but it was also a gun barrel facing straight at Phoenix if the portal break there got worse. If the guilds were investigating rather than just patrolling, that meant they knew something no one else did. No one wasted S-Ranks on a routine check-up.
I tried to prop myself up a little so I could hear better.
A second later, the TV turned off, and a familiar voice said, "Kade, you're awake?"
It was Jeff.
The nurses, mercifully, realized I was awake quickly, sparing me from having to confront Jeff about what had happened to his team. It took them forever to check my hearing, then my brain functions. I had to name the head of the Governing Council—Anders. Roger Anders. An S-Rank who'd gotten hurt and retired from portal-delving, but not from keeping the delvers organized. Then they unwrapped my eyes, and I realized that the lights were off and the shades were drawn.
I'd fried my retinas badly enough that even that small bit of light was all but blinding.
"It'll come back over the next couple of days," the nurse in charge said. "You delvers heal quickly. In fact, your teammate is almost ready to be discharged—as long as he doesn't push his arm too hard for another three days. Isn't that right, Mr. Carlson?"
Jeff said something unintelligible.
"I said, isn't that right, Mr. Carlson?"
"Yes, ma'am." Jeff didn't sound enthusiastic. If anything, he sounded pissed. "Are you almost done? I need to talk to Kade."
I hoped they'd say no. That they'd stick around and run all sorts of tests, stick me with needles, or start surgery without anesthesia. Anything.
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"Yes. Mr. Noelstra's wounds look like they're healing nicely, and he'll likely be released only a day or two after you. In the meantime, I'd ask that you refrain from too much conversation. He has a busy evening ahead of him, with the guest who's been checking in on him every day."
"Every day?" I croaked. "How long have we…has she been alright?"
"Four days," the nurse replied. "She's downstairs right now, in the therapy wing."
Four days. I'd been out for four days. That was… better than last time. Last time, it had been a week. I relaxed a little. Not much—Jeff had something to say, and Jessie was going to be a handful. First, she'd be sobby. Then she'd be happy. And then, after she got over that, she'd be pissed. But I did relax, just a little.
"Please don't hesitate to use the buzzer if either of you needs anything. Dinner is in three hours. Mr. Noelstra, your sister will be here in just under two. Miss Gerald has been extremely punctual." The nurses—all three of them—bustled around for another thirty seconds or so, picking up tools and gadgets and whatever else was lying around in the hospital room. Then, the door clicked shut, and they were gone.
"Kade, we need to talk."
I rolled onto my side, pulling on the IV in my arm a bit as I did. And, squinting against the dim light, I got my first look at Jeff.
Bruises across the left side of his head and shoulder. All the hair on that side missing—shaved off and stubbly, in contrast with the brown fade on the right side of his head. Arm in a sling. He'd been through the meat grinder up front. But all in all, he didn't look as bad as I expected.
Of course, I'd expected him to be dead.
He shrugged with his good shoulder. His voice sounded dead. "The portal spat us out when the boss died and the timer ran out. That GC lady probably had a heart attack; one second, she was chilling outside a beaten D-Rank portal, probably playing on her tablet. The next, a bunch of dead and dying delvers dropped in her lap. But she got medical there, stopped the worst of the bleeding, and a couple of C-Rank healers stabilized us."
"So…" I trailed off. The question I wanted to ask, I couldn't. Not in a way that wouldn't hurt—either Jeff or me.
"Who made it?" Jeff winced. "You and me. Sophia. She's fine. Mostly. She wants out—she's an absolute mess in the head right now…you'll see. But she's not hurt, at least. Erik got out, too. He was gone by the time I could move around, though, so I didn't talk to him much. I'm going to track him down when I start rebuilding, though."
"Carlos? Angie?"
Jeff shook his head slowly and looked down.
"What happened?" I asked.
But Jeff didn't say anything. Not for a long time. He just sat there, on his bed, eyes closed. That was fine; I knew what had happened. Angie's death wasn't my fault. Not really; the boss had killed her with some fire spell before I'd used Stormbreak. But Carlos…he'd been alive when my skill went off. I'd heard him scream.
I'd killed him.
Without Carlos and Angie, Jeff's team was done—and it didn't sound like Sophia would be clearing portals any time soon, either. In one disastrous clear, he'd effectively lost his whole team. Worse, Carlos and Angie had been his friends for a while. Not for a decade like us; they'd both gone to a different school. But more recently? They'd been close as teammates, but closer as friends.
The quiet got awkward. Then Jeff cleared his throat. I braced myself for what had to be coming.
"That skill. What was it?" he asked.
I didn't want to answer, but I didn't have a choice. Jeff deserved to know. "It's my Unique. It's called Stormbreak, and it does…well, that. It's got an Extremely Hazardous flag in the Governing Council's system, and I get the same lecture every portal: 'Don't use that skill unless it's absolutely necessary.' This is only the second time I've used it since the day I awakened, and I hope it's the last. I'm sorry."
"Sorry for what?" Jeff asked. "For saving our lives?"
"For killing your friend."
"I'm going to miss Carlos. He was a good man." I could hear the pain in Jeff's voice as it broke. "But Kade, if you hadn't used Stormbreak, we'd all have been dead in there. That skill was enough to get four of us out. Erik, Sophia, and I owe you our lives. We owe that skill our lives. I'd keep it if I were you—it's a great back-pocket emergency button, and you're throwing that away if you merge it."
Now it was my turn not to say anything. I turned what Jeff had said over in my head. Had I saved lives? Maybe. But I'd killed Carlos. And I'd killed people the other times I'd used Stormbreak, too. Finally, I shook my head. "I need to merge it. It's powerful, but I can't control it. Without control, power is worthless. Worse, it's dangerous." Dad had told me that enough times that it was drilled into my head.
Jeff nodded slowly. Then he pushed himself off his bed and grabbed something. "I talked with Sophia. She didn't say much, but we both agreed you should take this." Then he dropped something into my lap. I reached down—slowly, because fast movements spun my head—and picked it up.
The boss core. Not the D-Rank one, though. The other one.
It wasn't C. In fact, it wasn't like any of the cores I'd seen pictures of.
It looked like a hyper-stylized pitchfork head made from metal that wasn't from Earth, with a slight greenish luster to it, like gold if it was the wrong color. A single pyramid-shaped prong, curved inward slightly and facing down. Three more—two smaller, and one long one in the center—on top. And in between, held in a crystal sphere, was a spark of purple. The portal boss's energy. The thing that let it live.
I'd seen E-Rank boss cores before. Even a single D-Rank, the first time I'd tried to get one. But I'd never held a core before. It was warm. Not unpleasantly hot, but warm enough to notice. That could have just been Phoenix—everything was warm here, at best—but the hospital room was almost chilly from the air conditioning.
A single E-Rank core's energy could keep the lights on in the hospital for a week, and the metal could be crafted into an E-Rank weapon, like my sword, or armor. It'd sell for a couple thousand dollars at auction, and there were always buyers.
And this one wasn't E-Rank. I had no idea what it was.
It would probably still work, though. Almost certainly—I just needed something D-Rank or higher. My path to my first merged skill had just been cleared. I'd be able to keep Jessie safe, fed, and happy. To get her the treatments she needed to be happy, not just alive. Maybe even move into a house, or at least a two-bed apartment, so she wouldn't have to share a single studio with me.
I'd been working toward this for a long, long time, and all the risks—the terrible build, the D-Rank dungeon, everything—had just paid off. But there was just one problem.
"I can't take this."
Jeff stared at me. "Yes, you can."
"No, I really can't." I tried to push myself up, but my body didn't want to balance.
"If you don't want it, come over here and give it back," Jeff said. He waited, then, when I couldn't get out of bed, nodded smugly. "That's what I thought. Look, Kade, none of us would have walked out of there if it wasn't for you. You want that skill merged so it'll be safe to use, and Sophia and I both owe you what you need to make that happen."
"But what about…"
"Angie and Carlos?" Jeff asked. I nodded, and he continued. "Sophia and I sold the C-Rank core to the GC. We're giving everything we got from it to their families. It'll be enough for funerals and to keep them on their feet for a while. We took care of them already. You deserve this, Kale. And you need it. Take it."
The core rested in my hand. I stared at the purple spark trapped in the crystal sphere.
Then I put it under my pillow and closed my eyes. The portal had been a giant disaster, but I'd gotten what I needed. I'd never feel that helpless ever again—ever.
I was on my path to growing stronger.
The door to our room burst open almost exactly two hours after the nurses left.
I tried to react. To dodge. Parry. Anything. But my attacker was too fast, and she hit me too hard.