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Still, despite all the care he’d taken to ensure he’d be safe, it still hurt like hell.

As he lay there, he glanced inward at his Status.

Seriously? No Self-Destruction unlock? All of this wasn’t enough ‘life-threatening harm’ caused to myself?

It hadn’t been the main purpose, but a part of him had hoped this stunt would bring the extra benefit of unlocking the Self-Destruction Skill, which would be extremely useful to him. But apparently not. Just how much would be necessary to unlock it? Was it even possible?

So it was there he was stuck, crushed underneath the support beam, waiting for someone to come find him.

When Turin’s face popped into his vision, desperately shouting his name, it didn’t take much acting skill to look relieved. Turin reached down and helped pull the log off of Zeth’s body, gasping when he saw the injuries and burns covering him. “Good gods, man, what happened?”

“I ran into town when I saw the fire,” Zeth said with a weak cough. “Tried to help people out of the burning buildings. But when I was in this one, the fire got to it too fast, and it collapsed onto me. I think I extinguished most of the fire fast enough to save myself, but I couldn’t pull the log off.”

Tears welled into Turin’s eyes. “What were you thinking, man? Your family just got you back. You can’t—”

“I know,” Zeth interrupted in a soft voice. “I’m sorry. I just—when I was in the cave, I guess I realized just being alive isn’t enough. I have—I have to do something. I have to make something of myself, not sit around and survive until I keel over.”

That, too, didn’t take any acting skill to say. Zeth believed that more than anything else. It was just that his something wasn’t as broad as being a hero who saved people from a fire. He had a specific list of people who he needed to do something about.

“C’mon, let’s get you home,” Turin said, helping Zeth up and draping his arm around his shoulders. “I have some medical equipment with me, I can get you fixed up over there.”

“I can’t believe you did such a thing,” Zeth’s mother said, pacing around the living room of the house as Turin wrapped a bandage around Zeth’s arm.

“Bruising as expected,” Turin muttered to himself as he worked. “All along where you got pinned by that beam. Some pretty heavy burns, too, but nothing deadly. More deep cuts than I’d have thought from getting crushed. Did you get stabbed by a nail or something?”

Zeth nodded to Turin, and his mother whirled around to glare at him.

“Do you even understand how worried we were when you disappeared? You can’t just run off like that without telling anyone! We just got you back and then you—” her voice broke, and she continued in a whisper. “Did you even think about how that made Sophie feel? How that made me feel?”

As she sighed and looked away again, pacing back and forth across the room, Turin muttered, “You did a good thing. But probably tell them next time.”

She looked up to the ceiling as she walked. “Good gods, I mean, running off to go try to be some hero in town. Didn’t you stop to think at least once that there are some things you just can’t do? There are some things a normal person just can’t achieve? I’ve tried to beat it into your head over and over for your whole life, Zeth. I’m ordinary. My mother and father were ordinary. Their mothers and fathers were ordinary. What made you think you were different? But you don’t listen, do you? So let me tell you one more time: you are an ordinary, typical person. You have to be content with an ordinary, typical life. Ordinary people don’t shout insults at authority figures. Ordinary people don’t belong in prestigious colleges. And ordinary people don’t haphazardly run into burning buildings and expect to survive. I’ve told this to you, I’ve told this to Sophie—I don’t know what else I can do to help you understand our place in the world.”

“Sophie’s not ordinary,” Zeth rasped, pain and exhaustion turning his voice into a shallow whisper.

Not having heard him, she looked over again, worry evident in her eyes as she gazed at his injuries. “Ugh, look at your arm. You could have died

, Zeth. And how will you be able to continue working like that? Did you even think? You not only put yourself in danger, but now the farm is in danger, too.”

Turin spoke up. “...To be fair, Miss Valerian, there was a monster over here, too. He’d have been in danger no matter where he went.”

“Oh, don’t you butt in on this. If he’d stayed, he would’ve seen that there was someone powerful here to protect us. We were safe. And ordinary people like us need to leave feats like that to the heroes. You can’t just suddenly decide that’s who you’re going to be when it’s not a role you were made for.” She sighed. “We’re already running low on funds. And the meat from the pig you just slaughtered will go bad if we don’t get it cut in time for sale.”

“He needs time to heal,” Turin said. “It’ll be a week at minimum before I’d ever recommend he puts his body to work. Probably longer.”

“I can do it,” Zeth said. “I’ll keep working. Don’t worry about it.”

At those words, the anger and frustration left his mom’s expression, if only somewhat. She let out a breath, looking at him, and her face seemed to age five more years before his eyes. In an instant, she rushed forward and threw her arms around him. “Oh, Zeth, honey, what did you do to yourself? I was so worried. If you had—”

“I know, mom,” Zeth said, wrapping the arm Turin wasn’t working on around her. “I’m sorry. But I have to do some things. And sometimes I’ll get hurt doing them. I might even die. But if I don’t do them, I won’t be able to live with myself.”

“Can’t you just live a safe, quiet life? Help out on the farm? Get old, marry a nice woman, give me some grandkids?”

Zeth thought for a moment. He really, truly considered it. Today, he faced the first few consequences of the life he’d picked out for himself. Blood Magus wasn’t a normal Class. It didn’t involve shooting some fireballs from a safe distance, or swinging a sword from behind a shield. It didn’t involve receiving gratitude from those you helped, or getting an ego boost from seeing all your friends gawking at your power. And it certainly didn’t involve clean, noble fights that ended in total uninjured victory.

But it sure as hell involved getting shit done.

He’d just killed a monster someone twice his Level wouldn’t normally even dream of killing. And no matter how many consequences Zeth faced for utilizing that power, he wasn’t about to give it up because someone thought he’d be happy living a life that was picked out for him before he was even old enough to say ‘no thanks.’

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“No thanks,” Zeth said. “Really, thanks, but I don’t think that’s the life for me.”

Turin finished applying the bandage as Zeth stood. “Don’t take that off for a few days, and come see me daily for a checkup while it heals. Don’t exert yourself physically, or at least try not to. Stay off your feet in general. And make sure you don’t stretch your body too much, either—the skin might tear. Oh, and if the flesh starts getting red around the edges of those wounds, that’s likely a sign of—”

“Just let him go to sleep,” his mother said, shooing Turin away. “Ugh, I need rest, too. Too much has been going on lately.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Zeth said to Turin with a nod, getting to his feet and turning to walk off to his room. “Thanks for taking care of me.”

“It’s no problem, man. Good practice for me, really. See you.” With a wave, Turin walked out of the house.

Once the door shut behind him, Zeth’s mom turned and looked at him with her hands on her hips. “So that’s it? I give you perfectly good advice, and you ignore me?”

“Listen,” he replied, “I’m not ignoring you. I’ll help around the farm, and I’ll do what I can to repay you for letting me live here for the time being. But it’s not going to be the purpose of my entire life. And I won’t lie to you about that.”

“Oh, because making the point of your life dying in a house fire is so much better. You really think you know better than me, making choices like that?”

“I’m not saying I know better. I’m saying that sometimes, there’s not a choice you can make at all. There are some things you just have to do.”

She shook her head. “We can talk about this later. I’m…exhausted.”

Zeth nodded. “Me too. And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry for making you worry.”

With that, he turned and walked off to his room.

Before he could walk inside, though, he heard a small voice from the room next to his. “Zeth?”

“Sophie?” he asked, placing his ear up against the crack of her door. “Are you still awake?”

“Are you alive?”

“Yeah,” he said with a chuckle. “Still kicking around.”

She opened the door and immediately attacked him with a hug. He stumbled back as she held him tightly, looking up at him with just her eyes. “Is mom mad at you?”

He put an arm around her and rubbed her head. “You heard us talking?”

“A little bit.”

“It’s just some grown-up stuff.”

“What kind of grown-up stuff?”

“Tell you what. You play a game of Scrim with me, and if you win, I’ll tell you.”

She snapped her whole head up to look at him, eyes like bright beams of light. “Okay! I’ll set it up!”

Sophie did, of course, win their game of Scrim, as she typically did these days. It happened about a year ago, when she finally got good enough to start beating him every time. He loved watching it happen, the way she’d always hold the right cards back in her hand, never letting him really know what was coming next, perfectly preserving her resources as she systematically dismantled every single attack he sent at her. It was like watching an artist paint a masterpiece. Nothing but pride surged through his heart.

“Okay,” he said, setting down his hand of useless cards as she killed off the last of his units. “You win.”

“Yay! Can we play again? Best two out of three?”

Zeth chuckled. “You know, normally the loser is the one to suggest that to try and get a second chance.”

“So you do want to play again?”

“We can play again tomorrow,” he said with a smile. “But I can talk for a bit before you should probably go to sleep.”

“Okay,” she said, gathering the cards up off the floor and shuffling them back up into the deck. “Was mom mad at you because you left the house while the monster attacked? She sounded worried.”

“Yeah,” he said. “She was worried about me. And I got hurt, so she’s upset about that, too.”

She looked at the bandage covering his arm. “Are you gonna die?”

“No, Sophie, I’ll live,” Zeth replied with a laugh. “I can always use some Skill Points to push up my Endurance if it gets worse.”

“Should I use my Skill Points to increase my Stats?” She asked.

“Nah, save them for Skills. You’ll need Skills to get a Class, and Stats don’t matter for that. And once you get one, it’ll give you more than enough Stats. How many Points do you have right now, anyway?”

“Eighteen.”

“Ten from Human, and four from Prayer and Meditation each, eh?”

She nodded.

“That’s good. If you wanna get a magic-focused Class, you’ll need a good amount. Those are all higher in Rarity, I think. You probably won’t see any lower than C.”

She was silent for a moment, looking down as she collected the last of the cards. Eventually, she spoke. “Why did you leave? Were you scared?”

He sighed. “No, nothing like that. Well, I was afraid. That monster was pretty scary. But, uh, when I saw the fire, I realized there was more to life than my own safety, you know? Not that I actually managed to get any people out of the buildings; I think everyone had already gotten out by the time I got there. But when I arrived, one of the buildings collapsed on me.”

She looked back up, frowning. “Why’s mom mad at you for that? Isn’t it nice to help people?”

“I guess she thought I was taking an unnecessary risk, y’know? We just disagreed on what was the right thing to do. That’s okay, sometimes.”

“Well, I think it’s good to save people from a fire.”

“That’s probably a good thing to believe. You’re gonna do a lot of good when you grow up, I bet. A lot of people will end up knowing the great name of Sophie Valerian.”

“Only if I learn how to do magic. So be sure to get me a really good teacher!”

“I’ll do my best,” he said with a chuckle, then stood up from the floor, wincing from the pain shooting through the seared parts of his body. “Alright, kiddo, it’s really late. Time for you to go to sleep.”

“Are you going to sleep, too?”

“In a minute. I’ve just got to do some things before I head off to bed.”

“Like what?”

He waved a hand. “Nothing much. Just working on something.”

“Okay. Um, goodnight.”

“Night, Sophie.”

As he’d said, Zeth did not go to sleep right away. He still had more to do before he could rest.

Once he was sure everyone in the house was asleep, he snuck outside and went around to his room’s window, where he’d left the clothes soaked in fleshtaker blood. Some of the liquid had dried out, but the shirts were far from useless. With a smile, Zeth grabbed them and took off to the storage shed where he’d made his makeshift workshop.

Out in the silent night, he first went out to the animal pen and grabbed a rope, then used it to lead the next pig ready for slaughter back to the shed. After tying it up to a nearby fencepost, he entered the building. He was relatively confident that these rags of blood would be a powerful enough sacrifice considering the beast he’d taken them from, but just in case he needed a little more juice after they ran out, having another source of blood nearby would be useful.

After walking past the curtain that separated the butchering portion from the ritual magic portion, he set the bloodstained rags on a table and took a deep breath.

He’d done it. A monster had come—a real, actual monster. Something he’d have no hope of defeating without a Class. And he’d destroyed it like it was no big deal.

As if in response, a throbbing pain rippled through the holes in his shoulder.

Okay, it was partially a big deal.

He took another deep breath, smile settling on his face. He killed it. Holy shit, he fucking killed that thing! The fleshtaker, the fearsome, unkillable foe, no match for his badass fire magic!

A chuckle escaped his mouth. Give him an hour of prep time to draw up a circle, and he could kill a fleshtaker, he could kill whatever thing in the Sixth Realm ate fleshtakers, he could kill fucking anything!

He slammed his fist into an open palm, bolt of pain shooting across his whole arm. But even that wasn’t enough to wipe the smile off his face. That was his first taste of real, true power. The power to see something, decide he wanted it dead, and then a bit later, it was.

And he was not about to let himself go very long without experiencing that feeling again.

Let’s go for one of my real targets next time. I need to figure out who that Blood Mage was so I can kill them, I should probably stab the fuck out of Garon sometime, and then there were those bandits who killed dad. They’re all gonna be gone sooner or later. Just gotta figure out who’s going six feet under first.

He looked over at the bloody rags on the table.

Maybe the Skills I unlock from my next Level up can inform me on which to choose.

Sleep could wait. It was time to start working on that Empowerment Ritual.