Chapter 82: Farewell
Tyler lay in his bed, a soft blanket pulled up around him, shielding him from the chill night air that crept in steadily through the damaged kitchen wall and the broken doorframe, carrying with it the faint smell of the street outside.
He had fallen asleep several hours earlier and was now in a deep slumber, his breathing slow and untroubled.
"Hey," a voice said, but it reached him muffled and distant, like sound traveling through water. "Hey," the voice said once more, slightly closer this time.
Tyler blinked his eyes open. His vision was blurry at first, the edges of everything soft and undefined, but he could recognize the voice.
Then his eyes were wide, and his small feet were standing on the rough carpet at his uncle's house, the fibers scratching against the bare soles of his feet, the familiar pattern of it, the familiar smell of the room pressing in around him from every direction.
"Hey!" his uncle said once more, his voice carrying a violence that settled across Tyler's shoulders like a weight.
"What are you doing? I said go get me towels, now!" His uncle pointed toward the other room, the gesture sharp and final. Tyler could hear sobs. He was still frozen where he stood, his small body locked in place as if something in his chest had reached down through his legs and rooted him there.
It was almost as if he was terrified stiff, as if he hadn't processed what had just happened, the horrific image in front of him pressing itself against his eyes in a way that made his heart stutter and lurch.
His aunt's back was against the wall where she had slid down to sit on the floor. Both her hands had lost all their fingers entirely. Blood was spurting from them in dark, rhythmic pulses that spread across the floor around her, and she was crying in a way that had long since gone past words, past breath, past anything that sounded human.
"What happened?" his uncle said, the violence gone from his voice all at once, replaced by something cracked open with panic, and he crouched down beside her trying to help his wife, who was shaking and uncontrollably crying.
His uncle turned his back to Tyler.
"Hey!"
Tyler blinked once more, only to find James standing next to him with his hand firm on his shoulder. "Are you alright?" James said in the dark room, his voice low and careful. Tyler could still see the concern sitting plainly in James's expression even in the near-darkness. Tyler hadn't noticed it, but his breathing was calming down. It had been ragged.
"I'm fine," he breathed from under his blanket. The red Tearra dagger had instinctively materialized in his grasp beneath the blanket, the grip cold and solid against his palm. He made it disappear back into his inventory without James noticing.
He slowly pushed himself to sit up.
"You came back." He looked out toward the window. It was still dark outside, the sky holding no hint of morning yet, and through the yard he could make out the large shape of a Wagon sitting in the darkness. "So early?"
"Yeah," James said. "The ceremony had ended hours ago. We just decided to sleep there, but now we have to start packing. We have to leave by sunrise."
"Really?" Tyler said.
"Yeah, we have to start now. Wanna help?"
"Yeah, sure," Tyler said, pulling the blanket off of him and swinging his legs over to the side of the bed.
James disappeared off to the bedroom, and Tyler could hear the muffled sound of Lisa's voice through the wall as the two of them spoke. Tyler stepped outside to look at the wagon. It was large, with a single black horse standing at the front of it, its breath coming out in faint wisps in the cold pre-dawn air.
He looked at it for a moment, turning over the size of it against everything that would need to go inside. *Huh. Are they planning to load everything in there? It's big, but I don't think everything will fit.* He turned and went back inside.
Lisa came out from the bedroom shortly after, quickening her steps as she moved toward the kitchen. "Oh, hey, Tyler."
"Hey."
She started opening the drawers, pulling out plates and stacking them on the counter in a steady, practiced rhythm. "Let me help," Tyler said.
"Oh, you don't need to worry about that. You can help James take out the furniture."
"Oh, all right." He watched her work for a moment. "How was the festival?"
"It was great." She ducked under the counter and came back up with another stack of plates, setting them carefully on top of the others. "It's a bit of a shame you missed it. We did bring you something, though."
"What is it?" Tyler said, surprised.
"We brought you some food. James had it. I don't know where he placed it." She straightened up and raised her voice. "James!"
"Yeah?" James responded.
"Where did you put the bowl? The one we brought for Tyler?"
"I have everything here," James called back.
"You should give it to him."
"No, you're in the middle of packing, aren't you? You seem to be in a hurry. I want to help."
"No, dear, it's fine. You can eat first. Have you eaten anything? You look a little hungry."
"Um... not really."
Tyler heard the bedroom door open and saw James come through carrying a small bowl held carefully with both hands. He set it down on the living room table. "Here it is."
Tyler's eyebrows shot up. The bowl was stacked with a tremendous amount of meat, what looked like some type of yellow-colored rice, and two apples resting to the side, with a silver spoon tucked in alongside it all. "You should eat," James said.
"Wow, thanks, but shouldn't we pack first? I can put this away for later."
"The mushrooms," Lisa said from the kitchen, and both James and Tyler turned to look at her. She was crouched in front of the open drawers, frowning into them. "There weren't this few when I left them here."
"Well, yeah, it's because you let Tyler take a few. Remember?"
"Yeah, right," Lisa said, rolling her eyes. "I totally forgot about that."
"I didn't take too many of them, right?" Tyler asked.
"You didn't. It's fine," Lisa said, and went back to pulling the remaining buckets from the drawers.
Tyler watched as she lifted them and started piling them in a corner of the kitchen, then turned back to James. "I can definitely leave this for later. I should help now."
"All right," James said, nodding, and headed toward the bedroom. Tyler followed him in. He had only seen the room once before, and stepping through the doorway again carried a faint awkwardness with it, like stepping into a space that didn't quite belong to him.
The room was dim and still, and there on the bed, buried under the blankets with her small face barely visible, was Heather, asleep. Tyler's chest gave a faint, involuntary lurch.
He remembered the conversation on the rooftop, James's voice dropping when he talked about her, the weight he carried when he said it was exactly as he feared.
With a reflex pulled straight from curiosity, the system panel materialized above her without him meaning for it to.
[Heather: Level 62]
Tyler's head drew back slightly. *She leveled up twice?* He turned that over. *She was definitely level 60 yesterday. I understood what James said, but she's leveling up this fast, at this point I'd say it's a little too fast even for a hero.*
"Help me with that one first," James said, pointing to a drawer near the bed and pulling Tyler back to the room. "Take out everything that's inside. And don't load it in the wagon yet, just put it near it. I'll be the one to arrange everything inside."
"Okay," Tyler said.
He crossed to the drawer and started pulling it open, removing its contents one by one and setting them beside the bed, papers he didn't read, some necklaces, different folded pieces of clothing and then he gripped the empty drawer itself, lifted it without effort, and tilted it carefully to fit it through the doorframe on his way out.
His own strength didn't surprise him anymore. It used to. He thought briefly of his old world, of the afternoon he and Michael had struggled together to shift a heavy single couch across a room, both of them red-faced and out of breath by the end of it.
He was holding a full wooden drawer right now and it felt like carrying nothing at all.
He set it down near the wagon and went back inside. He and James started going back and forth between the house and the wagon, and Lisa had joined them too, moving in and out with the buckets and plates stacked against her arms, setting them near the wagon in careful rows. At some point James climbed up onto the wagon itself and started arranging everything that had been brought out, finding ways to make things fit that Tyler wouldn't have thought of.
Tyler was given the task of bringing things out. He went back into the bedroom and found there was nothing left to take.
The room had emptied out around the bed where Heather still slept, and without the furniture crowding it the space felt larger than it had before, and older, the walls carrying the particular stillness of a room that had been lived in for a long time and was now almost done being that.
A faint curiosity drifted through Tyler's thoughts as he stood in the doorway looking at her. *Huh. I wonder what her mana looks like. Would it be the same as a C-rank's mana pool, or would she have more than James? It would make sense if she does, given how high her level already is.*
He blinked. The mana sight activated.
And he stepped backward, his breath catching hard in his chest.
Lisa appeared at the doorway beside him. "Oh, don't worry about the bed," she said, looking into the room. "We'll take it last. If she wakes up now she won't go back to sleep."
Tyler blinked again and the mana sight cut off. "Yeah, you're right," he said. The breath he hadn't realized he was holding left him slowly as he turned and walked to his old room.
*What the hell.* He moved on autopilot, his mind still back in that doorway. *But why? It doesn't make any sense.*
He shook his head and let it go for now, crossing to the drawer beside the bed, empty, as it had always been and lifted it without stopping to think about it. He carried it out and went back for the next thing, and then the next, working his way through the living room furniture until he started on his own bed, lifting it and carrying it outside in one go.
As he passed her, Lisa paused and looked at him. His expression had shifted without him noticing, something serious sitting in it, something close to confusion, pulling at the line between his brows. She stopped walking. "What's wrong?"
"Huh? Uh, nothing," Tyler said, and managed a small smile. He kept moving and set the bed down near the wagon, and looked up to find that James had already packed a remarkable amount onto it, fitting things together in a way that shouldn't have worked but did. "There's a lot up there. Isn't it going to fall?"
"Don't worry. We'll tie it down with rope. And this isn't the only wagon, George is coming to help."
"George? You mean that driver?"
"Yeah," James nodded as he continued to move the drawer to the nearest corner of the wagon. "He's the one who lent us this. He's helping us move the whole thing. We paid him well," James groaned slightly.
"Must be expensive," Tyler muttered.
"It's affordable," James said. He straightened up and looked down from the wagon. "Is there anything left?"
"Yeah, I'll get it," Tyler said, and headed back into the house.
He met Lisa on the way, who was taking the bowl off the table and carrying it to the kitchen counter. Tyler almost froze when he saw her turn and look at him, the dim light of the early morning catching the concern that had already settled into her expression before he had said a word. She frowned. "Tyler, something is clearly bothering you. What's wrong?"
"It's nothing," he said, avoiding her gaze.
"It's just that I've been causing you guys a lot of trouble since I got here. I mean, I got myself hurt again and even got the house destroyed."
"So that's why you had that look on your face," she said. She stepped closer, close enough that he could smell the faint warmth of whatever they had cooked at the festival still clinging to her clothes. "Listen, it wasn't your fault. Someone came in here and attacked you, didn't they? I was actually surprised that you survived that." Her voice dropped slightly. "Well, it actually did make sense with everything James told me."
"He told you everything?" Tyler said, surprised.
"Yes. He told me that you're a hunter now. A D-rank even. I was a bit surprised, but I wasn't really angry, confused would be the word. Aren't you working at Hector's shop?"
"I was," Tyler said, rubbing the side of his neck. "But I really wanted to be a hunter."
Lisa paused, the word sitting between them for a moment. She exhaled slowly, studying him with an expression that was quiet and unreadable, and then a small smile touched the corner of her lips. "You know, you and James, you're not all that different," she said, and moved past him toward the door. "Just don't carry more than you should. That's another thing you both have in common. It's not right. You take care of yourself."
"All right," Tyler muttered, watching her step outside. He stood there for a moment and turned his gaze to the bowl on the kitchen counter, the food inside it still sitting untouched. *So he told her everything, huh? I didn't expect that.*
He took the table and carried it outside, where he found James in the yard unwrapping a thick rope that had been coiled into a loop, talking quietly with Lisa. Tyler set the table down and looked at James. *Should I tell him?*
The question had been sitting in the back of his mind since the bedroom, the image of what he had seen when his mana sight activated on Heather pressing forward every time he let his thoughts drift.
But each time he reached for the words, he thought of James's face on the rooftop and put them back. It would only be another burden. He kept his mouth shut.
"Ahem." He cleared his throat. "Almost everything is out. Only the kitchen counter and the bed are left."
The clip-clop of hooves reached him before the wagon did, the sound slow and steady in the quiet of the pre-dawn street, and then a second wagon rolled into view. "Good morning," George called out as he pulled up, his voice carrying at a volume that felt slightly too large for the hour.
"Morning," James replied. "I was starting to think you wouldn't make it."
"No, I just had to make sure the horses were fed," George said, jumping down from the wagon. He looked up at Tyler. "Oh, hey."
"Hi," Tyler waved.
"So are you guys done?"
"Not really. Almost, though. Just a few things left inside."
"Not a lot, right? I mean, we've got to make space for you guys."
"No, just one thing," Lisa replied.
"One?" Tyler muttered.
"Yeah," James said, throwing the rope across the wagon over a dresser. "The kitchen counter isn't ours, whoever rents the house keeps it. Only the bed is left." He turned his head to Lisa. "You should probably go get Heather. George will help with the bed. Tyler will help me tie this."
"You'd have to charge an extra fee for that," George said.
"Come on, it's just one piece of furniture."
"Don't worry, James," Tyler said, waving him off. "I'll get it."
"All right then, George, help me tie this."
Tyler went back inside and found Lisa already holding a sleepy Heather against her shoulder, the child's head lolling with the heavy, boneless weight of someone not quite awake, her small fingers curled loosely behind her mother's shoulders. They were just at the doorway, about to step out.
Then Tyler's breath hitched.
He tapped Lisa on the waist without thinking. She jolted. "What?"
"It's happening again," Tyler whispered.
Heather's little hands, resting against her mother's back, were glowing, a slow, deep red that pulsed in a steady rhythm, each beat of it throwing a faint warmth against the walls of the dim room, like the hands of something far older than a three year old. Lisa stepped back from the doorway immediately and retreated into the bedroom. Tyler followed. "No, not right now," she said softly, rocking Heather slowly and rhythmically in her arms, her voice low and careful.
The red pulsed steadily in the room around them, painting the walls in slow, breathing light.
"Why is she doing that?" Tyler said.
Her mother didn't answer for a moment, her eyes staying on her daughter's face. "I don't know. It just happens. It must be some kind of passive skill she can't control."
Tyler watched Heather closely, the steady glow of her hands painting faint shadows across Lisa's back with every pulse. "She must have gotten it from you, right?"
"I don't have a skill like that. Fireball doesn't raise your body temperature."
She turned her gaze to Tyler. "How did you know?"
"James told me," he answered.
Lisa looked around the room, the concern tightening in her expression. "I wish I could grab her mittens and put them on, but they must be in the wagon."
Tyler remembered. He had packed those gloves himself, small and knitted, tucked into the sack of clothing he had loaded into the first wagon earlier that morning.
Outside, James had nearly finished with the rope when he stopped and stared at the doorway. *What's taking them so long?* His thoughts scattered as Lisa came out of the house with Heather, and Tyler followed behind with the bed, carrying it out and setting it down near the new wagon.
"James, where did you pack the sack of clothing?" Lisa said, the concern sitting plainly on her face. "I need Heather's mittens."
James read her expression without needing more than a second. He climbed back up into the wagon and worked his hands between the packed furniture, pulling the sack free and drawing the small knitted gloves out from inside it.
"Wow," George said, watching him. "You really take good care of your daughter. What's her name again? Heather, right?"
"Yeah," James said. "I wanted you to say hello, but she's asleep right now."
"Ah, it's fine. She'll probably wake up during the trip."
"Oh, speaking of the trip," Tyler said, "where are you guys heading?"
The question landed and the air changed. No one answered. He looked between them and found their expressions had shifted, each face going still and closed in the same moment, a quiet that felt deliberate rather than accidental. *Why are they all silent all of a sudden?*
Feeling the awkwardness of it pressing against him, he turned without another word and went back inside to take the blankets of the bed had just carried.
*Did I say something wrong?*
He turned and went back into the bedroom, gathering the blankets from the ground and folding them loosely over his arm before carrying them outside. The morning had settled into a pale, flat gray, the sky holding no color yet, the sun still buried somewhere beneath the horizon. People were already moving along the road in front of the house, filtering past in loose groups, their voices low and unhurried, coming back from the festival with the last of the night still sitting in their eyes.
James and George had finished tying by the time he came out. They were lifting the bed into the second wagon now, turning it onto its side to make the space work, and Tyler stood and watched them without saying anything.
By the time everything was settled, Heather had stirred awake against her mother's shoulder, her eyes half-open and glazed with the thick confusion of a child pulled too early from sleep, her small fingers curling and uncurling slowly against Lisa's back.
Lisa climbed into the wagon first and lifted Heather in after her, and Tyler watched it happen in silence, standing slightly apart from all of it, as though he were observing something he hadn't been invited to.
Then it settled over him all at once,.fully, the way things only hit when you've been holding them at a distance for too long.
James was leaving. The one person who had reached out a hand to him in this world, who had stood beside him when there was no reason to, was about to get into that wagon and disappear down that road, and Tyler was going to be standing here when he did.
Something in his chest pulled wide and tight at the same time.
He watched James speak to George, the two of them exchanging a few last words, and George climbed up onto the bench and took the reins. The horses shifted their weight and began to move, pulling the first wagon slowly out of the yard and into the street, where they stopped and waited.
"What are you waiting for? Let's go," George called.
"I'll be right behind you," James replied.
"Tyler, goodbye," Lisa said from the wagon, lifting her hand in a wave. And then Heather, still drowsy, still blinking the sleep from her eyes, turned and looked at Tyler. She watched her mother for a half second, and then she lifted her own small hand slowly, fingers barely spread, and waved at him, shy and uncertain and completely genuine.
Tyler felt the corners of his mouth pull before he could stop them, and he raised his hand and waved back.
"All right, come here," James said, and turned toward the house. Tyler followed him inside.
The room was empty now. Their footsteps sounded different in it.
James turned and looked at Tyler. "You're probably wondering why we didn't tell you where we were going." He paused. "The truth is, we don't want anyone to know. We want to start somewhere new.
Completely new, without any risk. And we're going far. It'll probably take days to get there."
"Days?" Tyler said.
"Yeah," James said.
Tyler looked down. The disappointment was quiet but it was there, settling into his chest alongside everything else. A small silence stretched between them in the empty room, and then Tyler chuckled softly, shaking his head.
"I still can't believe you're leaving."
"Yeah." James exhaled. "It's still strange for me too. You know, normally, we'd go from village to village and it was always easy to leave, I never had any deep connection to those places. But this time, it's different."
Tyler looked up at him. James had a small smile on his face, warm, but carrying something underneath it that wasn't quite pain and wasn't quite peace, sitting somewhere in between the two.
"You know, I believe I've told you this before, kid," James said, "but I've never met anyone like you in my life. And I don't believe I ever will." He paused, and when he spoke again his voice was quieter, like something he had been carrying for a while and was only now setting down. "I never thought I'd admit this, but being with you has been, well, life-changing. In a way."
Tyler felt the heat rise before he could do anything about it, pressing up behind his eyes, and he smiled despite it. "It was life-changing for me too. Ever since you helped me when I first got here, I've been grateful ever since." He paused, searching for the right words and finding only the true ones. "To be honest, compared to my past life, you're one of the few people who ever showed me real kindness. Who actually gave me hope."
The memories moved through him without warning, his uncle's house, the carpet beneath his small feet, the years of a childhood spent on the outside of warmth looking in. The few friends who had passed through and gone. Mike, who had given him something real but left him feeling like a burden even so. And then this man, standing in an empty room in another world entirely, who had pulled him out of the cold without being asked to.
Who had trained him, fought beside him, saved his life. Who had let him save his in return. Tyler looked at him and felt something in his chest that he had no clean word for, something that sat in the place where a thing that was never given to you leaves an absence and then, for the first time in as long as he could remember, didn't feel like an absence anymore.
James stepped forward and pulled him into a hug.
Tyler's eyebrows rose. His arms stayed at his sides for half a second and then he brought them up and held on.
James's arms were solid and certain around him, the kind of embrace that didn't ask for anything, the deep rumble of his voice warm against Tyler's shoulder as he said, "All right, kid. Take care of yourself." He stepped back and looked at him one last time, then turned and walked slowly out of the house.
Tyler stood in the empty room for a moment. Then he followed.
He watched James climb up onto the wagon bench and settle himself, taking the reins in his hands. James looked back at him. "You know, wherever I end up, I believe I'll still hear how you're doing. Your name will spread far and wide." A quiet certainty sat behind the words. "After all, I believe you're destined for greatness."
Tyler laughed, quiet and genuine. "Thanks. Take care of yourself too."
"And look out for Lisa and Heather for me," he called out as the horse moved forward, carrying the wagon out through the yard and into the street.
"I will."
"Bye," Tyler said, raising his hand.
James raised his in return, and then clicked the horse into a faster pace. Tyler stood in the yard and watched him go, watched the wagon move down the road and grow smaller, the shape of the older man diminishing steadily against the horizon until the golden light of the rising sun spread itself across the road and swallowed him whole.