B3 Chapter 283: Re:Depths, Finale

Telling someone you had a hand in the end of the world was never easy.

Kaius watched Kenva process his involvement in the changing of phases. She moved from stiff and frozen, to her jaw flapping silently, to running her hands through her still-damp auburn hair.

Finally, after what felt like millenia, she spoke.

“I do not blame you for your secrecy—it is a heavy burden that has been foisted upon your shoulders. Many would falter and stall, where the three of you have pushed on and continued. For that, you have my respect.”

He didn’t quite understand the sentiment, the simple fact that she was not angry or accusative was enough for him. Besides, what else would he do? Sit around and do nothing? Pushing himself forwards to the next stage, feeling his sweat and blood run free as he clashed against the strong, the sweet taste of the first breath of victory—it was what he lived for.

Even if the world didn’t need its own Guardians, he doubted he and Porkchop would have done anything different.

Porkchop grunted beside him. “It is better to know and prepare than to wander the dark like a lost pup—unable to fight back against what lurks in the gloom.”

He nodded in agreement. Well said.

While their hand in the integration progressing had burdened him at first, the responsibility and opportunity it brought now filled him with determination.

It was a distant goal, saving the world—one even Ekum the Pale had said would take decades to accomplish at the minimum. For now, the climb, and the desperate accrual of strength was his main goal.

Something that a deep delve would do much to help him with.

Kaius hoped that his team would agree with his burgeoning thoughts. That they should stay in the depths until they had reached the peak of what was possible in the first tier. In his mind, the cap of level two-hundred could be a significant boon. It would give them time to shore up their skills, and pursue a wider range of Honours without fear that they would level beyond the bounds of what was allowed.

Besides, with Honours, and his and Porkchop’s natural stat growth, such a level should be more than enough to protect them from all but the most dangerous men in human settled lands. Even if he suspected that third tiers—and maybe even beyond—were more common than he believed, he doubted that the Frontier was a hotbed for them.

Perhaps the Dukedoms, and almost certainly the high-mana societies like the conclaves and deepholds, but not this penniless stretch of dirt.

As she finished processing the largest of his surprises, Kenva seemingly remembered that the phase change and a meeting with a god was not the only oddity.

“Wait—you said you got your class early, at the same time as the phase shift?”

Kaius nodded.

Kenva looked flummoxed. “But that wasn’t even a year ago, how old are you? And just how good was that class?”

Porkchop cackled—a low rumbling that sounded like rocks being ground together in his chest. It drew a smile from Kaius.

“I turn twenty in just over a month, and Porkchop and I earned a Heroic for our efforts.”

“Goat’s piss!” she spluttered. “You shouldn’t even have your class yet, and you’ve already bested second tiers?”

Ianmus gave a wry smile as he looked up from the artifacts he was sorting through. “Well, he did say he had a Heroic, and frankly, between that, the Honours, and the racial trait they got from their bond skill, their stats are firmly in the territory of unbelievable.”

The ranger’s eyes met his own, and he could see the respect held within them solidify further. She gave him a slow nod. He returned it.

“And what of after?” she asked. “What brought you to the attention of our dark hearted jailors?”

Pausing, Kaius focused on stirring the food in the pan—readying the seared meat in his storage ring—as he worked through the sudden surge in his heart rate as he thought back to the dark days that shadowed his escape from the Depths.

“We landed in the Sea, thankfully in a place I knew relatively well. Despite our isolation, we were not entirely alone—we were known to the villages that surrounded our home, and visited them occasionally for supplies. Threefields I knew best of all, having grown up there before I was old enough to handle living in the wild. It was close, and I thought it the best place to recover, and pick up Father’s trail.”

Old grief strengthened, sapping at his strength and thickening his blood like treacle. Slowly, with halting words, he recounted his return to his friends—the only others he held dear in the world. Their excitement and disbelief at his survival, and how they rested and recuperated.

He told her how his father had died. That he had passed on surrounded by old friends, while his soul disintegrated in agony—a final gift from their pursuers, when he was forced to use the strength of his shattered class to fight off the bandits and bounty hunter. How Father’s blade had been taken, and his birthright had been denied to him, again.

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“Like I said before, they had links to the Onyx Temple—though whether Old Yon knows who the man with the scar was, I do not know. At the very least, if our most recent captors did know of a Kaius Unterstern, they did not connect it with my reappearance.”

His team members had the grace and sensibility not to draw attention to the fact that he moved past the heavy topic quickly.

He pivoted to brighter moments of that time—his days spent catching up with Illendra, Huron, Yanmi and the others, and his insistence that they prepare for the coming changes.

Proud of the fact he had managed to convince them that it was in the best interest of the communities on the edge of the Arboreal Sea to band together, he spoke of it at length. Their need to form a new settlement, and how his changing beliefs had led to him and Porkchop sharing with them a seed of a new Dynasty—one he hoped would share its skills equally and openly with members of the community.

Looking up through his brows, he watched Kenva closely—curious to see her response. Maintaining hold over legacies was one of the world’s oldest taboos, and even the Hiwiann were not except. They might have been more open about possessing them, but that was only because they were secured by their oaths, not because they were shared freely.