Chapter 71: Return to Ashwick
The guild bus idled at the capital’s eastern gate, its engine humming with the low vibration of mana-powered machinery. Dawn was breaking over the city walls, painting the sky in pale gold and grey colours. The air was cool and clean, a far cry from what waited at the end of this journey.
Old Marren was already in the driver’s seat when the party boarded. His leathery face was as unreadable as ever, his hands resting on the wheel with easy familiarity. He took one look at the party as they filed past and grunted at the sight: Nathan at the front, Elise behind him, Dillon adjusting his katana, Garrett hoisting his gear bag.
"Headed back to the volcano, eh?"
It was the most words he’d spoken in weeks. The party paused.
"Didn’t like seeing you lot limp out of there last time," Marren continued, his gruff voice carrying the faintest undertone of warmth. "Left a bad taste. Glad you’re going back to wash it out."
Nathan nodded, still with a surprised look. "So are we."
Marren grunted again and faced forward. The doors closed. The bus rumbled eastward, and the capital began to recede behind them.
The familiar transition began: paved roads giving way to dirt paths, bustling towns thinning into sparse villages, farmland surrendering to wild grassland and rocky outcroppings.
Nathan watched through the window, his hand resting on his summon mark. Mirko’s presence pulsed steadily beneath his palm, warm and reassuring. The memory of that cold silence on Floor 9 was still there, buried but never forgotten. But she was here now. Stronger than before. They all were.
Kuro was a black shape on the seat beside him, her small bunny form curled into a perfect loaf. Her dark eyes were half-closed, but Nathan knew she was cataloging everything—the road, the terrain, the subtle shifts in temperature. She always was.
The party was quiet, but it wasn’t the shell-shocked silence of their first return. That had been grief and exhaustion and the cold weight of failure. This was different. This was the calm of Climbers who knew exactly what they were walking into and had chosen to walk into it anyway.
"Hey." Garrett’s voice broke the quiet. He was holding up his phone. "You’re going to want to see this."
Nathan leaned over. The headline was stark: Stone Heir Injured in Failed High Class Tower Attempt.
The article was brief. Derek Stone, along with Reid, Tyler, and two other Climbers, had attempted a High Class Tower outside the capital. The climb had gone badly. Summons shattered. Injuries sustained. Derek had been hospitalized—the phrase "lucky to be alive" appeared twice.
Nathan stared at the screen. "Damn, just like us. Is he going to be okay?"
"Says here he’s stable. But his party’s finished. Two of them are retiring from climbing entirely." Garrett scrolled further. "Tyler’s one of them. Reid’s considering it."
Dillon leaned over from the seat behind. "That’s sad. I mean, he was arrogant and tried to humiliate us. But shattered summons. Hospitalized. That’s not how anyone wants to go out."
Nathan didn’t answer right away. His mind drifted to Derek standing at the Colosseum gates, wearing that trademark smug confidence. Then to the same Derek beside the Stone family transport, his eyes empty and lifeless. Finally, to Derek in Goldcrest’s training program, probably being driven far beyond what he had been prepared to endure.
"His father’s going to be furious," Nathan said quietly.
"His father’s probably the reason he pushed so hard," Elise said. Her voice was cool, but there was no gloating. Just observation. "Victor Stone doesn’t tolerate failure. Derek’s been trying to prove himself since he lost to us, and it finally caught up with him."
"I feel sorry for him, you guys too?" Dillon asked.
Elise considered the question. "I feel sorry that his family pushed him into a climb he wasn’t ready for, in some ways he and I have our similarities. But, i don’t feel sorry that he faced consequences for his choices. Those are different things."
Nathan nodded slowly. "If we had pushed to the final floor of the Tower of Ash back then, that could have been us. Shattered summons. Hospitalized. Retired." He looked at his summon mark. "The difference is we had a guild that supported us instead of pushing us harder."
"We also had you," Garrett said quietly. "You were the one who forced us to train when we felt shattered and confused. The one who made us rest when we pushed ourselves too far. The one who sent us back to Mid Class Towers, no matter how much we complained, because you knew we weren’t ready."
He slipped his phone into his pocket, meeting Nathan’s eyes with a small, unwavering smile.
"Derek has Goldcrest. We have Celestial Peak." He paused. "More importantly, we have each other. We never had to carry everything alone... because you never let us."
The bus rumbled on. The Tower of Ash grew closer on the horizon.
They passed the village that had been destroyed by the Tower Collapse—the one with the mass grave and the wooden marker. It had been rebuilt somewhat since their last journey. New structures had risen from the ashes. The well had been repaired. Children were playing near a newly constructed schoolhouse.
But the grave marker was still there. The carved names. The dates. The memory.
Garrett stared at it as they passed, his hand moving to his summon mark. "We’re going to clear it," he said quietly. "The Tower of Ash. So this doesn’t happen again in Ashwick. So Marta doesn’t wake up one morning to find her village buried in ash and monsters."
Nathan nodded. "That’s the plan."
The bus continued. The landscape grew more rugged—rocky outcroppings, sparse trees, the distant plumes of volcanic smoke visible on the horizon. The Tower of Ash loomed closer, its black spire wreathed in ash and embers, its crimson mana veins pulsing with that same steady rhythm.
Nathan watched it grow larger with every passing second, and for the first time since their extraction, he felt something other than fear.
He felt resolve.
