The Weight of Legacy

Examining one’s actions with the luxury of retrospect at hand might have figured among the bitterest of pills. Kristian lounged over the cliffside, feet dangling over the edge as his hooks sank deeper into the grooves he had carved for this very purpose.

Long had it been since he ventured beyond the territories under his control—‘his’ in Zayden’s name, of course. That he had undertaken this journey with nothing but his vambraces did little to assuage the lingering concerns in the back of his mind. Kristian did not consider himself a fool—his superiority only went so far, and while he may have at times felt like a tree in a field of small bushes, in truth he was far from invincible to the wider world.

It was a matter he had ignored for long enough—in the middle of nowhere, there should have been no threats to one such as he, for the Champion Saint had vanquished them all back when he lived. Yet between the {Lightning} Champion having come so close to defeating Kristian, and the lack of results in his search for his eldest, a gnawing sense of inefficacy clawed at Kristian.

He was not enough. Whatever was involved in his daughter’s disappearance—and in the sudden arrival of his granddaughter—was something beyond his control. It had to be something strong and presumably structured enough that he could not force it to show itself through brute force. Whether this threat was an individual, an entity, a force, Kristian was not qualified to make a guess.

But a threat it was.

Over the past year, Kristian had been… absent. Bernadette would not let him hear the last of it anytime soon. Oh, he had spent the requisite amount of time on the estate, and with her, to ensure everybody’s needs were being met. Even those of the nearly useless, exceedingly numbered personnel his wife insisted on maintaining.

At least she had her passion project to keep herself entertained, absurd as it might have been. She had gone as far as to ask if he wanted to get involved, but Kristian had little time to waste on a notion as asinine as teaching a three-year-old girl how to read—that Bernadette was playing along to the toddler’s whims was offense enough. He could hardly believe it.

At that age, she would not remember any academic subjects. That was around the age at which children should learn how to walk, talk, live. Normal subjects for toddlers that were not conversational language and… literature?

The mere memory of it had Kristian scrambling to comprehend his wife’s thought process. How she thought she was even achieving anything was beyond him, but he respected her right to do whatever she wanted, no matter how questionable its worth might be. She still insists the child truly is this far ahead of the curve. Unbelievable.

And in defense of Kristian—or perhaps Bernadette—he had made some suggestions of his own, only for her to shoot them down without a second thought. As much as he disapproved of this entire endeavor, Kristian would not deny he might have been ever so slightly bitter on the matter. No, if his wife would listen and let him take matters into his own hands, at least something productive could be achieved.

If his granddaughter was truly as gifted as Bernadette seemed to believe she was, why waste time teaching a little girl how to read when there were far more promising endeavors? He could teach Beryl’s child something befitting of her station as any respectable house’s daughter.

Like how to make their enemies quiver in fear.

That suggestion had, unfortunately, ended all of Bernadette’s attempts to have him involved in this. On the other hand, it did give Kristian even more time to pursue his own desires, nevermind that he truly had not been intentionally trying to get her off his case.

As Zayden would have said—you win some, you lose some. Kristian shrugged to himself and flinched. Not wearing his proper gear while outdoors felt akin to nakedness, his shoulders so unimpeded by the gesture that he almost lost balance. It was for this, and many other contingencies, that he had secured himself to the spot.

Reaching Level 140 had taken time—and even then, Kristian had not expected it to happen this quickly. No doubt, his current status as ‘unspokenly unwanted’ from his own home had left him with more time in his hands than he would have normally had access to.

Summoning a small bottle the color of darkened leaves, Kristian fidgeted with it. In truth, this was unlike him, but he had procured the advancement elixir from that strange young woman who assisted Anselm in his workshop—she had fulfilled the request without asking a single question.

Still, the knowledge of her origins had him doubting her intentions, no matter the context or assurances he may have received as to whether she was trustworthy, and he would squander no trust on the sort of peoples who went as far as to claim the privacy of their names deserved to be system-enforced. It was pretentious at best and dangerous at worst—if they did no wrong, why could their names not be known?

Had this girl not worked so closely with his son, Kristian would not so much as considered going to her for this matter. Even then, he had quizzed his wife on the matter as well—this girl was known to her as well, from their childhood in Beuzaheim—and only with Bernadette’s tacit approval of the seafarer’s word did Kristian choose to take this shot.

The nature of cores could be quite the cruel mistress to those fate deemed unworthy of being born with Affinities—he had grown with the expectation that he would never surpass the peak of the Mortal Esse, if he reached it at all. His time with Zayden and the rest of the party had afforded him the privilege of this hollow core, but it was a dead end still.

Core Integration could be brute-forced by the forging of a Class, even a Rootless one, but he would go no further.

Yet Kristian had wasted all this time, not having processed that truth and what it empowered him to choose. It would be a lie to deny the specificity of his Skills—most of them evolved into combat Skills after he reached adulthood, and in no small part due to his involvement with Zayden—yet he had frankly made no effort to improve them after his unwilling retirement.

Most were impractical to train, but interrogating suspects in his search for Beryl had afforded him the opportunity to grow as he had not in years. It would be fruitless to ponder what could have been, had Kristian made the effort to raise these Skills sooner, but he was vulnerable to such regrets regardless.

Glancing at his status, Kristian braced himself for the irrevocability of the step he planned to take today.