Chapter 48: The Memory Left Behind
Nobody spoke for a while.
Arthur needed a second to process what he just experienced. Then Arthur blinked as a notification appeared.
[Experience Successfully Inherited]
[Level Up!]
[Level Up!]
[Level Up!]
[Goblin Commander]
[Level 1 → Level 4]
Arthur blinks. "...You leveled up?"
Vedas slowly nods. "I... can feel more of my magic now."
"This thing can do that!?"
"You didn’t feel it because Vedas didn’t experience it," Mithra said as she rubbed her head.
"The magic inside of it also flows into Vedas. But the issue is that they require the crystals to take a bit to recover, so constant viewing of the same one isn’t possible." Athena said.
"Oh." Arthur held his chin. "Is this how first years in this department grow then?"
"Yes. But that’s beside the point; let’s go to the private rooms so we can talk about what we just saw."
Athena started walking without waiting to see if anyone followed.
They followed.
...
The private room was not what Arthur had been picturing when he heard the word "research."
Crystal walls that caught the floating lights from the main Archive and held them at a warmer temperature. Bookshelves along two sides, their contents drifting at a gentle tilt as though the books were slowly reading themselves.
Soft chairs arranged around a low table.
On the table, a tray of fresh pastries and beside them a set of glasses filled with fruit juice.
Arthur picked up a pastry before he had fully sat down. "This place keeps getting better," he said before taking another bite. "I understand why researchers never leave."
Vedas took one pastry, looked at it, and took a bite. "...You’re right."
Arthur grinned at this while Mithra threw one into her mouth before feeding another to Melo. Athena sighed but still gave one to Athy, who trembled in joy.
They settled into the chairs.
"What did everyone feel?" Arthur asked.
Athena was quiet for a moment. She looked at her notebook, which she had opened but not written in since the memory began. "I have read expedition records," she said. "Documented witness accounts. First-person narratives preserved in text form." She paused. "That was not the same."
Everyone looked at her.
"There were several moments where I genuinely could not determine where her emotions ended, and my own response to them began." She said it with the particular precision of someone reporting something unusual about themselves that they were still processing. "It felt like being her."
Arthur stared at her. "You too?"
Athena looked up.
"I thought I was imagining it," Arthur said. "There were moments when I couldn’t separate what she was feeling from what I was feeling. They were the same thing."
The room was quiet for a moment.
"So were mine," Mithra said.
Athy flew from Athena’s shoulder to the table. She landed beside the tray, looked at the surface beside it, and then began writing on a clean sheet of paper that Athena had placed there, holding the pen with one talon with the focused attention of someone whose handwriting was still developing.
Melo watched this for a moment. Then she raised one tail, curled it into a shape that was clearly practiced, and wrote beside what Athy had written.
Arthur blinked. "You two can write?"
"Most beasts become more capable as they evolve," Mithra said, watching the two of them with a smile that had warmth in it.
Athena looked at what had been written and turned the paper so Arthur could see it. Two words, in different styles, one careful and one considerably larger than necessary.
Athy had written: Brave.
Melo had written, underneath, in letters that required a fair amount of table space: Warm.
Arthur looked at the paper for a moment and smiled. "That’s a better description than mine."
Melo wrote again: You agree?
"Yeah," he said. "She was."
Vedas hadn’t spoken yet.
"Vedas?" Arthur said.
The Goblin Commander had been looking at the space between two chairs without appearing to be looking at anything specific. He considered for a moment.
"I heard something," he said. "During the memory. The Commander mentioned a name for the place." He looked at Arthur. "The Ruins of Evolution."
The room fell silent.
Arthur stood up before he had fully processed the impulse. "So that’s where they lived."
Mithra was already thinking. "And whatever that thing was in the memory..."
Athena said quietly. "It may still be there."
The connection to the sky above the convoy arrived in everyone at the same moment.
"You still want to go," Athena said. It was not a question.
Arthur walked to the window that looked out over a quiet interior section of the Archive. "The Commander stood in front of that thing alone," he said. "She didn’t have Command Authority, and she didn’t have anyone with her, and she stood there so everyone else could get clear." He looked out for another moment. "We have all of those things." He turned around. "And besides, there are still stories waiting there. I’d like to find them."
"Where does this confidence keep coming from?" Athena said, with the tone of someone who was not quite complaining.
Arthur laughed. "Because I believe in you."
He said it simply, yet it left all of them stunned.
"All of you helped me discover the Goblin Kingdom. You were all there when Vedas evolved. There is genuinely no version of exploring somewhere like the Ruins of Evolution that I would want to attempt without everyone in this room." He looked around at them as though this was simple. "So I’m confident. I don’t really see the problem."
And then he looked genuinely puzzled by what happened next.
Mithra looked somewhere else.
Athena found her notebook very interesting.
Athy covered her face with one wing.
Melo rolled her eyes with the expression of something that was absolutely not pleased by this, and anyone who thought otherwise was incorrect.
Vedas quietly smiled.
"What?" Arthur said. "...Did I say something strange?"
Nobody answered.
Vedas stood and walked to the center of the room, and as he moved, he shifted his weight in a way that was familiar.
He planted the spear with the same stance. The same angle of the foot, the same set of the shoulders, the same positioning that the Commander had held when she turned away from the fleeing tribe and faced what was above them.
Arthur’s eyes widened. "That’s the same way the Commander moved!"
"Was it?" Vedas said, looking at the spear in his hand. "I didn’t realize."
"You didn’t even think about it then." He muttered in surprise.
Athena had opened her notebook. "When you experience a memory at that depth, the instincts you were watching become instincts you’ve had. The body absorbs what it witnesses as though it witnessed it personally."
Mithra nodded. "You and the Commander share the same evolution line. The memory would resonate differently for you than for any of us."
"I also understand something now," Vedas said, returning his weight to the neutral position. "About Command Authority. About what it means to use it." He paused. "And I think its range has grown."
"How much?" Arthur asked.
Vedas looked at the room.
Arthur looked at the room. "The whole room?"
"I believe so."
[Evolution Paths]
[Command Authority Updated]
Skill Expansion
Connected Settlements
Arthur blinks. "...Connected?"
The screen expands.
...
[Cronwall Tribe]
Current Members:
60
Current Threat:
Stable
Leader:
Vedas
Goblin Elder:
Gruk
Settlement Condition:
Iron Reinforced
Distance:
Unknown
Command Authority:
Connected]
...
Arthur stared.
For several long seconds he couldn’t say anything.
The village.
Gruk.
Suri.
Everyone.
A slow smile spread across his face. "...They’re okay."
"Did you say something?" Vedas asked.
"Just thinking about the tribe. Can’t wait to see them again."
Vedas nodded with a look of nostalgia.
Athena wrote for a long moment without speaking. "The memory gave you a Goblin Commander’s understanding of leadership. Command Authority isn’t a shout — it’s the product of something your partner’s line has understood for a very long time. You’ve inherited more of that understanding than you had before."
"That’s more interesting than learning spear techniques," Mithra observed.
Athena did not argue with this.
"Let’s go; I want to check the records of the crystal," Athena said as she stood up.
Everyone nodded but then paused.
As they watched, Vedas quietly began gathering everyone’s empty glasses.
"...Since when do you clean up?" Arthur asked with a tilt of his head.
Vedas blinked before looking down. "...I don’t know."
Melo tilted her head before tapping Vedas’ face. Athy’s eyes narrowed as she leaned in to stare at Vedas a bit more.
Athena immediately writes something.
Mithra smiles.
Arthur tilts his head. "...What? Did you figure out something, Athena?"
Athena quietly says. "The Commander always cleaned up after everyone."
Silence.
Vedas slowly looks at his hands. "I didn’t realize."
Arthur smiled. "I don’t think she’d mind."
Vedas looked down at the glasses in his hands. "...Neither do I."
"Still, we’ll have to make sure you don’t start sounding like her."
Vedas looked at him. "...Would that be bad?"
"Nah, but I like you better," Arthur laughed.
Vedas’ eyes widened before he smiled. He nodded, and everyone left the private room, following behind Athena.
...
The unease arrived as Athena began searching for records.
She checked three different catalog systems inside the private room and found nothing. No cracked crystal.
No Commander’s evolution memory.
No record of a damaged or otherwise notable crystal in the section of the Archive they had been in.
She went to find a staff member at the entrance to the research corridor and asked.
The staff member’s eyes widened in an almost right way. He checked his own records. He found an entry that had been added that morning by a professor who was listed as responsible for catalog maintenance.
"A mislabeled crystal," the staff member said. "The professor must have placed it incorrectly."
Arthur blinked.
"...That’s all?"
The staff member nodded.
"Yes."
Arthur looked toward Athena.
"...Is that normal?"
Athena adjusted her glasses.
"...No."
Arthur looked back.
"So..."
"...the Evolution Archive loses important crystals?"
"No!"
The staff member immediately straightened.
"This was simply an unfortunate mistake."
Arthur nodded slowly.
"...Oh."
He thought for a second.
"So mistakes happen often?"
The staff member froze.
"...No."
Arthur looked confused.
"Then..."
"...how did this happen?"
Silence.
The staff member opened his mouth before closing it and opening it again. "...The professor..."
Arthur nodded.
"Forgot?"
"No!"
"...Misplaced it?"
"NO!"
"...Lost it?"
"ABSOLUTELY NOT!"
Arthur scratched his cheek. "...I’m trying to understand."
The staff member’s eye twitched. "THE EVOLUTION DEPARTMENT IS PERFECTLY COMPETENT!"
Arthur blinked. "...I wasn’t questioning that."
"YOU IMPLIED IT!"
Arthur slowly looked toward Mithra. "...Did I?"
Mithra immediately turned away.
Her shoulders were shaking.
Athena quietly lowered her notebook. "...Yes."
Arthur looked genuinely surprised. "...Really?"
The staff member grabbed the cracked crystal. "I WILL PERSONALLY RESOLVE THIS!"
Then stormed away.
Arthur watched him disappear. "...He seems very dedicated."
Yet even as he said this, he felt like something was off. The explanation had come too quickly. Like someone already knew what answer to give.
Nobody said anything immediately.
"Joke aside... That felt off," Mithra said.
"Yes," Athena said.
Arthur scratched his cheek. "Nothing we can do about it right now."
"Except," Mithra said, in the tone of someone who already knew where this was going, "visit the Ruins."
Arthur brightened. "Exactly," he said.
Mithra smiled at no one in particular.
...
"I’m joining this department," Arthur said, looking at the shelves as they prepared to leave. "The Evolution Archive. This is where I belong."
Athena adjusted her glasses. "I expected that."
"You could have warned me sooner."
"You would have made the same decision regardless."
Arthur considered arguing with this and found he couldn’t.
"Besides, I already completed the paperwork."
Arthur blinks. "...When?"
"I predicted this approximately forty-three minutes ago."
Mithra laughs.
Arthur sighs. "...I’m starting to think you plan my life."
They moved toward the doors.
Vedas stopped.
It was not the stop of someone who had forgotten something or had a question. It was the stop of someone who had felt something and was deciding whether to say it.
He turned to look back at the endless interior of the Archive, at the thousands of crystals drifting on their slow paths between the shelves, each one containing something that had been real and was now preserved.
"There are others," he said.
Arthur paused. "What?"
"In here. She isn’t alone." Vedas was looking at the Archive the way he looked at things he couldn’t fully explain but trusted. "There are others like her. Other memories like that one."
Athena turned slowly. "What do you mean?"
"I don’t know exactly," Vedas said. "I just feel it."
The room was quiet for a moment. Arthur looked across the endless sea of crystals. A grin slowly spread across his face.
"Then I suppose we’ll be back tomorrow."
Arthur and Vedas closed the door.
Behind the closing doors...
The thousands of Evolution Crystals continued drifting through the endless Archive.
Quietly.
Patiently.
Waiting for someone else to remember them.
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