Chapter 35: New Function
The smell of breakfast pulled Mithra awake. For a moment, she stared at the unfamiliar ceiling. Then yesterday returned all at once. She recalled images of Melo, Arthur, the exam, and the house.
Then she heard Arthur’s voice from downstairs.
"No," Maria said.
"It could technically be my third," Arthur said. "That depends on whether the one I had at four in the morning counts."
"What were you doing awake at four?"
"Hungry."
"Arthur."
"The first one at four could arguably be yesterday’s snack. Which would make this my second."
"You are doing mathematics on toast."
"I’m doing mathematics on fairness."
"Eat your breakfast."
Mithra laughed into the ceiling before she got up.
Maria was at the stove when Mithra came downstairs, moving through the small kitchen with the efficiency of someone who had been cooking in it for years. Arthur was leaning against the counter, eating something that was not on his plate.
Vedas sat at the table with the disciplined posture of someone who had decided to demonstrate what breakfast was supposed to look like. Melo was asleep on Vedas’ shoulder, arranged in the exact position she had occupied all of yesterday.
Arthur pointed at Mithra. "Good morning."
"Good morning," Maria said warmly.
"Good morning." Mithra looked at the food. "This smells incredible."
Maria made a satisfied sound. Arthur put another piece of toast in his mouth.
"We’re going out today," Arthur said.
"We just woke up," Mithra said.
"Right," Arthur said. "So we’ll be ready soon."
"That’s not what I meant."
"I know. But I doubt you want to stay here all day."
Mithra looked at Maria. "Does he always move this fast?" Mithra asked.
Maria considered this. "He was walking before he was supposed to be able to."
Arthur swallowed. "That’s not related."
"It absolutely is," Maria said.
Mithra sat down beside Vedas. Vedas pushed a plate toward her with the quiet generosity of someone who had been waiting for someone else to appear before eating.
"Thank you," she said.
"...the food is good," Vedas said, which was as close as he came to enthusiasm about non-combat subjects.
...
Half an hour later they were walking through Greenleaf with no particular destination, which Arthur had not announced because for him the lack of destination was not a detail worth mentioning.
"Where are we going?" Mithra asked.
"Greenleaf," Arthur said.
"I meant specifically."
"No."
Mithra looked at Vedas. Vedas looked at Mithra with the expression of someone who had spent enough time with Arthur to understand that this was simply how walks operated.
The streets were busy with the ordinary mid-morning traffic of a working town. Merchants arranging their stalls, children moving between errands, workers crossing between buildings with the purposeful walk of people who had a destination and were moving toward it.
Life happening without needing an audience.
"It’s a nice town," Mithra said.
"Yeah," Arthur agreed.
"Did you grow up here entirely?"
"Born here," Arthur said. "Haven’t left except for work."
Mithra looked at him. "What kind of work?"
Arthur waved a hand. "Helping people with things."
Before Mithra could follow up on this, a loaf of bread flew through the air from a stall on their left. Arthur caught it without turning his head.
"Morning," he said.
"Your mother said you’d be wandering around town today." The baker was already leaning over his counter. "Since I didn’t see you yesterday."
"I was busy."
"You could have stopped by before you went home!"
"That’s true, but you know Mom dislikes me filling myself up before I eat dinner."
The baker laughed and then seemed to notice for the first time that Arthur had people with him. His gaze moved to Mithra, and then to Vedas.
"So that’s the partner, then."
Vedas blinked.
"You already heard?" Mithra asked.
"Of course, the town has already heard about Arthur’s exploits with his goblin partner." The baker chuckled. "You must be the friend."
"Mithra," she said.
"Good to meet you." He looked at Vedas again with the open curiosity of someone who had very few filters between his thoughts and his face. "You’re bigger than I imagined."
"I get that," Vedas said.
"Good size," the baker said approvingly.
"No," Arthur said. "I already know where you’re going with this."
"He looks like he can carry things."
"He carries a spear."
"Boxes are easier than spears."
"He doesn’t carry boxes."
"He could learn."
"He’s not going to learn."
"You’re limiting his potential," the baker said.
"His potential is very specific."
"Box-carrying feeds families."
"He helps with that differently."
"How?"
Arthur looked at Vedas.
Vedas said, with complete sincerity. "I fight monsters."
The baker considered this for a moment.
"Useful," he said. "But think about the boxes. A man with options is a man with opportunity."
"Goodbye," Arthur said.
"Not seeing the vision!" the baker called after them.
"Never going to see it!" Arthur called back.
Mithra glanced back as they walked away. The baker had returned to his work with the satisfied expression of someone who had made an excellent point and had been temporarily misunderstood.
"He didn’t ask anything about the exam," she said.
"He doesn’t care about the exam," Arthur said.
"His view on it would just be that you had a busy day?"
"He’d want to know if I ate properly during it," Arthur said. "That’s what he’d actually care about."
They moved on after Arthur took another bread for everyone. Mithra glanced back at the baker, who had already returned to his work. "He didn’t ask anything about the exam," she said.
"He doesn’t care about the exam," Arthur said.
"He should."
Arthur shrugged. "He cares about bread and whether his customers are enjoying themselves now."
"I see."
And soon, they approached the Blacksmith building. But he announced himself before they reached the building.
"ARTHUR."
Arthur stopped walking before glancing to see a large man. He pointed at Arthur with a finger that communicated quite a lot. "You still owe me."
Arthur sighed. "I knew this day would come."
"You promised to help move boxes."
"I had a plan."
"Three months ago."
"The plan is ongoing."
The blacksmith nearly threw a hammer. But then blinked when he saw Vedas covering his mouth. He looked Vedas up and down with the assessing look of someone performing a load-bearing calculation. "Can he lift things?"
"No," Arthur said.
"He looks like he can lift things."
"He lifts spears."
"Boxes are easier than spears."
"He lifts spears."
"Then he’s overqualified."
"That’s not how qualifications work."
"That’s exactly how qualifications work."
Vedas said nothing.
Then something happened that Mithra noticed immediately. The blacksmith had made a sound, something gruff and short, about the boxes and Arthur’s reliability.
"Come help with the boxes this week," he said, and this time it was more invitation than demand. "Both of you. I’ll feed you."
"Deal," Arthur said immediately.
Mithra suspected the boxes were going to be moved.
...
The old woman appeared from between two market stalls with the speed of something that had been waiting.
She glanced at Arthur before then looking at Mithra with a raised brow. "Pretty," she said.
Mithra blinked. "Thank you."
Then the old woman turned to Vedas.
She studied him for longer. Vedas held the attention with the stillness of something that had faced a Golden Dragon and found this situation comparably intense. Then she reached into her coat, produced a wrapped piece of candy, and held it out.
Vedas looked at the candy and then at the old woman.
"...for me?" he said.
"Obviously," she said, and turned and walked away.
Vedas looked at Arthur.
"She likes you," Arthur said.
...
The children arrived all at once, which was the only way children arrived when they had identified something worth arriving at.
"THE COMMANDER!"
They came from three different directions at the same time, which was impressive logistics for people whose average age appeared to be nine.
Vedas tensed in the specific way he tensed before something he was not sure how to categorize as a threat. He had fought a dragon. He had managed an Ancient Hobgoblin Chief. He had held an entire goblin settlement’s worth of hope on his shoulders for an afternoon.
He was completely unprepared for eight children and their questions.
"Your armor is so cool."
"Can you fight monsters with just your spear?"
"How strong are you?"
"Are you taller than my father?"
"Can I touch the shield?"
"Go ahead."
One little girl reached out carefully, and Vedas lowered the shield. She touched it with one finger. "...Cool."
Vedas smiled. "...I think so too."
Melo woke up and immediately found herself surrounded too. The little fox looked horrified. One child carefully patted her head.
Another gasped. "She’s fluffy!"
Melo accepted her fate.
Arthur stood to the side and watched.
Vedas, after the first stunned moment, began answering. One question, then another. His voice was deliberate with the children the way it was deliberate with the goblin hunters: not performing patience, actually being patient.
One of them asked. "Are you really a Commander?"
And Vedas said. "I’m trying to be."
Another child asked if he had ever been scared, and he said yes, honestly. A child asked what he was scared of, and he thought about it and said loud, sudden crowds.
Several of the children looked around at themselves.
"Sorry," one said.
"It’s fine," Vedas said. "You’re smaller than what I usually face."
The child looked delighted by this.
Mithra watched his face. The expression came slowly, the way things came slowly with Vedas, but it came: a smile, small and real, in the direction of a child who was explaining at length and with significant hand gestures why his favorite monster was a Fire Salamander.
"I didn’t expect that," she said quietly to Arthur.
"What?"
She gestured toward Vedas.
Arthur watched him for a moment. "He’s good with people who don’t expect anything from him yet," he said.
Mithra looked at Arthur and smiled.
....
They left the area and walked for a bit before Vedas paused. He looked over Greenleaf one more time.
The bakery.
The market.
The children still waving at him from the street below.
"...Arthur." Arthur looked over. "...Thank you."
Arthur blinked.
"For what?"
Vedas searched for the words. "I felt like I wouldn’t have found a home before... The closest to it was the Goblin tribe."
His eyes moved back toward the town. "But today, they not only smiled at me but welcomed me with open arms."
Arthur listened quietly.
Vedas lowered his head slightly. "...Thank you for bringing me here." He smiled. "And being my partner."
Arthur smiled back. For a brief moment, neither of them spoke. The breeze carried the smell of fresh bread across the hill.
Arthur glanced toward Greenleaf. "...You’ll always have a place here."
Vedas looked over the town again. "...I’m happy." The words came out softly.
Arthur smiled. "...Me too."
A familiar notification appeared before Arthur.
[Synchronization Increased.]
[45%]
Arthur blinked. "...Huh."
Another screen appeared immediately afterward.
[Evolution Path Vision Updated.]
[New Function Unlocked.]
[Titles]
Arthur tilted his head. "...Titles?"
Another notification appeared before he could think about it.
[Previously Earned Titles Detected.]
[Titles Registered.]
Current Titles: 4
[Vedas Light - You became a Goblin hope]
[Dragon’s Witness - You saw the defeat of a Golden Dragon by Goblin hands]
[Settlement Founder - Witness Naming of a Tribe]
[King Maker - Accepted the Task of Making a King]
And then his main screen was shown.
[Arthur Cronwall]
[Title: King Maker
[Rank: Bronze Tamer]
[Overall Strength - Low Bronze]
[Talent: Evolution Path Vision.]
[Beasts:]
[Goblin Commander]
[Level 1]
[Skills:]
[Hurling
War Shout
Armor Piercing
Command Authority
Magic Burst]
[Synchronization: 45%]
Arthur quietly read through the list. "...Neat."
He wondered what title his mother had. Mithra probably had a good one. Leon almost certainly had dozens. Arthur nodded to himself. He’d ask them after he earned a few more. It would be more interesting that way.
Without another thought, Arthur closed the notifications.
"Hey, why are you guys lagging behind?" Mithra shouted from ahead.
"Haha, we’re coming!"
...
They found a bench on a hill above the main street eventually, when the morning had moved toward midday, and the town had settled into its working rhythm.
The view was the whole of Greenleaf below, the streets and the rooftops and the morning smoke from the bakery and the sound of someone’s hammer in the distance.
Mithra looked at it and thought about the walk that had brought them here. The bread that flew without announcement. The blacksmith who moved between accusation and invitation in the space of three minutes. The old woman who concluded and moved on. The children who arrived like the weather.
"Why does everyone know you?" she said.
Arthur looked at her. "Small town."
"That’s not a full answer."
He thought about it for a moment. "I help people," he said.
"With what?"
"Whatever needs doing." Arthur shrugged. "If someone asks... I usually say yes."
"That’s the whole reason?"
"Yes."
Vedas, who had sat down beside them and was looking at the candy wrapper with calm attention, said. "There usually isn’t more to it."
Mithra looked at both of them.
"I believe you," she said, and found that she genuinely did.
They sat quietly for a while. Then Mithra remembered something that had been sitting at the edge of her thoughts since this morning.
"You were the only eighteen-year-old from Greenleaf at the examination," she said.
Arthur blinked. "I suppose I was."
"Just one," she said. "One person representing the whole town."
Arthur looked down at the streets below. A worker was crossing between two buildings. Someone’s child was running an errand. The baker’s stall had a small line forming.
All of these people had waved this morning.
Not at a student who had passed an exam. Not at someone who had done something impressive yesterday. At Arthur, who owed the blacksmith several hours of labor and still hadn’t fixed the roof and was apparently consistently intending to bring the old woman’s groceries.
Arthur wasn’t special because he defeated Leon.
He wasn’t special because he evolved Vedas.
Those things happened afterward.
Long before any of that...
Greenleaf had already chosen him.
Mithra smiled. "They love you."
Arthur thought about this. "I suppose. They’ve always been nice to me." He smiled. "So I tried to be nice back."
Vedas looked at both of them, and then at the town below, and then he ate the candy.
It appeared to be good.
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