As soon as Oliver's words sounded, both Lysa and Velor looked like were about to turn tail and run away. Oliver chuckled and said:
"Hey, don't run away now. I won't tell uncle I found you but you must promise to sit down and have a talk with me after I finish my report."
"Yes, please don't tell father about this." Said Lysa at which Velor nodded as well.
"We'll talk about that later. Let's get in."
After saying that, Oliver turned around and started walking past the queue towards the city gate. I was curious about the whole situation, but this didn't seem the right place or moment so I just followed quietly after him with the others.
As we reached the front of the queue, Oliver just showed a badge to the guard and he let us pass without asking any question. Once we got past the guard at the gate, Oliver turned towards me and said:
"I'm going to report the situation to the quartermaster. Lysa and Velor are coming with me since I'm sure they'll run away as soon as I take my eyes off them. Tell me which inn you're staying at and I'll come meet you later after I'm done here."
I agreed and told Oliver where me and Anise were staying before walking away. Lysa and Velor had a face filled with unwillingness, but they didn't say a single word in protest.
On the way back Anise asked: "What do you think their relationship is?"
I thought for a moment before saying: "They should be cousins judging from their conversation, but I don't know for sure."
"That's impossible. The Aranna family was almost completely wiped out with only two siblings left alive." Replied Anise immediately.
"Hmm, I forgot about that. I don't know then. We can only ask them about it when we meet up later."
"I just hope they are not in trouble. They looked quite miserable back there."
I nodded and we kept chatting on the way to our inn. Once we got there, we entered the room and, since we had some time to burn until Oliver came by, we decided to focus on our lessons.
It took a couple of good hours until a knocking sound came from the door to our room. I got up from the bed and went to open the door. Oliver together with Lysa and Velor were waiting right outside. Oliver looked fine but the two siblings were sitting behind him with anxious expressions.
Oliver immediately said to me as I opened the door:
"I'm sorry it took so long. I had a talk with Lysa and Velor that took a bit longer than expected. I know it's kind of late, but are you still willing to grab a drink?"
I agreed and turned around, about to tell Anise to get ready but Oliver stopped me by saying: "How about only the two of us go? I have some things I must talk privately to you about."
I was curious what he wanted to say so I just agreed. Lysa, who was quiet the entire time, lifted her head and said:
"Ethan, can we wait here for you guys to come back?"
"Sure. Make yourself at home." I replied as I stepped to the side and let them enter the room. Once I explained the situation to Anise, I headed together with Oliver towards the nearest tavern.
Once we found an open tavern, we both sat down at a table in the corner, ordered some ale and I went straight to the point.
"So, why did you want to speak with me alone?"
"It's about Lysa and Velor. Their situation is a bit..special."
My interest was piqued so I asked: "What do you mean by special?"
Oliver looked at me seriously in silence for a while before sighing while asking: "Do you know anything about my family?"
I nodded and said: "Yes. Anise told me about it. I'm sorry about what happened to you and your family."
Oliver sighed before replying: "It's fine. After such a long time I already came to terms with it. What I was getting at is that my family was really close with Lysa and Velor's. Once that tragedy happened, they took me and my sister in and and took care of us like we were their own children."
"I knew Lysa and Velor since they were born and they are good kids, but this time they really made a mess.." Oliver sighed and took a small break before continuing: "Their family is quite rich and they both enjoyed the best trainers in both magic and sword fighting since very young. A couple of months ago, once their level increased quite a lot, they requested to join the war as well. Their father, of coursem strongly disagreed to the idea and they we denied no matter how much they insisted.
"Seeing that they couldn't get permission, they both sneaked out of their home one night and ran away. Their parents of course were worried and started looking everywhere for them, even posted a few quests with the adventurer guild, but it was like they completely disappeared and no one was able to find them. With no other choice, their father asked me to come to the war front and keep an eye out for them since they were sure to come here eventually."
"So, are you going to tell their father that you found them?"
Oliver shook his head and said: "I thought about doing it, but I can also understand where they were coming from. They kept begging me to let them stay and I agreed with some conditions. We'll only stay if they let me keep an eye on them and as soon as the situation of the war changes, for better or worse, I'll take them both to the capital with me."
"I see. What I don't understand is how no one was able to find them. Since they are both registered to the adventurer's guild how come the guild didn't report back."
"They are both wearing a magic mask. It changes their face but it can't change their eyes and hair. I managed to recognize them straight away because I knew them since they were babies and we grew up together. So, what do you say, do you mind if I join your party as well?"
"Huh?" I was caught by surprise, not expecting Oliver to suddenly ask to join our party.
"Well, once I told them that if they want me to keep their location a secret from their father they have to let me stay with them, they told me I should speak to you since you all agreed to form a party."
"I see." Since I was actually in need of a warrior to finish the party quest, I immediately agreed. "Welcome to the party, Oliver."
As soon as my words ended, a new message appeared in my vision:
[Party function unlocked.]
Together with the message, A series of names followed by their levels, experience bars, mana points and a series of coordinates appeared on the right side of my vision.
'Damn, this really looks like a game interface now.' I exclaimed in my mind.
[You can hide the interface and request for it to become visible again if you need to. I will alert you in case there is anything that requires your attention. Also reading a simplified status of your party members is possible.]
'Please hide it, this is making me feel a little dizzy.'
As my words ended, the entire thing disappeared and Ai said again:
[Some of your party members have reached the required experience to level up. Do you wish to level them up now?]
'No. We'll do that after I find a way to explain the new function to them.'
[Acknowledged]
"Great. Now that we settled that, there is something else I wanted to ask of you." Said Oliver, his expression getting serious.
"What is it?"
"Well, I imagine you guys saw the huge fire storm that appeared on the battlefield. Since we don't know exactly how the demons are going to react to that, we received orders to dispatch all the available people for a full scale assault on the remaining army. Since I can't really ignore a direct order, I wondered if you guys were willing to help out. There should already be quests posted in the adventurer's guild for that so you won't do it for free either."
My expression became a bit awkward as I said: "About that. Didn't Lysa and Velor tell you?"
"Tell me what?"
"Well, I was the one responsible for that."
"You what?" asked Oliver, his eyes as big as saucers.
"The fire storm. It was my spell that did that."
He took a moment to calm down before asking: "Why would you even do that?"
I started explaining our reasoning when we came with the plan causing Oliver to go silent and start pondering. After a while, he said: "I understand that you wanted to end this war faster and save as many lives as possible, but did you stop to think what would happen if the demons retaliate? We have no one that can go against the high level demons."
"We figured they would have already retaliated when the spatial attack destroyed all of their teleporters and they probably had a reason they couldn't. Since that is the case, we figured we might as well take the chance to hit them as hard as possible and maybe even push them back completely from the southern continent. Isn't that the same thing the army is doing right now?"
"But it was still too risky. Thankfully they didn't actually retaliate or the circumstances would have been horribleā¦"
He was right, but I knew that the demons were probably still scared of Senna and wouldn't dare send someone to attack the human army.
"It worked out in the end so that's all that matters." I replied before asking: "What is the army's plan to push them back?"
"They plan on using mainly adventurers to wipe out the bulk of the remaining army while sending high level wizards to guard the sea and stop any reinforcements that might come by ship."
"All right. We'll join them as well."
"That's great. If that huge fire storm was your doing, we could speed up the process a lot. I have an idea, but I don't know if you'll agree."
"What is it?"
"I could speak to the quartermaster and let him know I formed a party with a high level wizard adventurer. I can probably persuade him to issue a special quest for us to go deeper in the enemy territory and attack from there, the same way you guys did before. I won't tell him you were responsible for the fire storm attack since that would only serve to bring more troubles, so I wanted to ask if you are able to use other large scale spells other than that."
"It's a great idea and using other spells won't be a problem at all."
"Great, I'll go and tell him right after we're done here. I'll come to your room later and tell you how it goes."
I agreed and we finished our drinks before he went to speak to the quartermaster and I returned to the inn. Once I entered the room, I saw Anise and Lysa happily talking on the bed while Velor was sitting on a chair to the side, sharpening his sword with a whetstone.
Seeing me walk in, the girls stood up and Lysa asked anxiously: "How did it go?"
"It went good. I agreed to him joining our party so that he can keep an eye on you guys."
Lysa let out a sigh of relief before saying: "Thank you and I'm sorry for all the trouble."
"No problem. I've also agreed to our party joining the effort to push back the demon army out of our continent. Oliver is now speaking with the quartermaster so he could issue a special quest for us." After telling them the news, I turned towards Anise and said with an apologetic look: "I'm sorry I didn't discuss this with you beforehand."
"It's all right. I'll follow you no matter what you want to do."
I smiled and relayed all I spoke about with Oliver to the others. Once that was done, I started my lessons with Anise again and Lysa listened patiently from the side as well. Velor on the other hand was not interested and went downstairs to have a drink.
When Oliver finally returned, it was already morning of the next day. He succeeded in convincing the quartermaster in issuing a quest just for us. As we were standing across the table inside the room, Oliver took out a notice and placed it on the table for all of us to see.
//War quest//
//The party formed of adventurers: Ethan Knott, Anise Cloven, Lysa, Velor and army officer Oliver Aranna is being tasked with traveling deep into the enemy territory and clearing as many soldiers as possible. Use of large scale magic is allowed for this quest.//
//A reward will be distributed to all the members according to their contribution and achievements.//
"I've already registered the quest with the guild and we can leave as soon as you guys are ready." Said Oliver after each of us took a look at the notice.
"I need to rest to recover my mana and also I need to visit the guild so I can level up since I didn't get the chance earlier." Replied Anise right after.
Since it was the perfect moment to tell them, I said: "Going to the guild won't be necessary. I think I found a way to level up someone without the need for a catalyst."
All the eyes in the room turned on me and Anise asked excited: "Really? How?"
"I used the knowledge from my old world and came up with a way that allows others to level up the same way that I do. I haven't really tried it but it should work." This was the best explanation I could come up with.
"Old world?" asked Oliver with a surprised expression.
"Yes. I'm not originally from this world, but was summoned here by Anise. It's a long story. I'll tell it to you the next time we grab a drink."
He nodded and didn't ask anything further. Anise, still excited said:
"I'm already ready to level up. Can you try in on me?"
I nodded and covered her body with my mana. Of course, that was just for show since Ai was doing all the work.
'Ai, can you set it up so she can level up immediately as soon she reaches the required amount of world energy?'
[Sure, but you'll need to set up a stat to use the free point into as well. For people of this world is not possible to hold on to the free stat point.]
Hearing Ai's words, I said to Anise: "Where should I put your free point into?"
"Huh? Free point? What is that?" asked Anise confused.
'Ai?'
[Ethan. The leveling in this world doesn't work the same way. The world energy is just split randomly across all their attributes.]
'I don't understand. What do you mean by randomly?'
[I'll show you her status so you can understand better.]
[
Name: Anise Cloven
Mana Points 85/480;
Level: 27(Can level up!)
Vitality: 31;
Strength: 29;
Dexterity : 33;
Intelligence: 48;
Resistance: 30;
]
I took a careful look at her status and noticed that the extra points appeared to have been mostly distributed into intelligence but some of them went to other stats as well.
'Ai, why are her points all over the place?'
[When you level up using a catalyst, the free point that you choose where to spend is being distributed quite random. In Anise's case, since she has a great affinity with magic, most of the points were distributed into intelligence, but sometimes they can also go into other parameters.]
'Damn, that's tough..' I thought before saying to Anise: "I meant which parameter would you like to increase. I know that you can't usually choose but it should be possible with the method I'm using."
I could swear the eyes of everyone in the room were sparking when they heard my words. Anise didn't even took a moment to think before saying: "Mana. Raise my mana please."
Nodding, I told Ai to do it. Anise seemed to have felt something as she closed her eyes for a moment before opening them with an excited expression.
"It worked. My mana increased twice!" she was so excited that she jumped and clang onto my neck while giving me a long kiss. A few second into the kiss, she realized that we were not the only ones present and let go of my neck before retreating with a red face.
Lysa didn't seem to mind the public display of affection as she immediately said: "I didn't get the chance to level up either. Can you help me as well?"
"Do you want to increase your mana as well?"
"Yes."
Nodding, I repeated the process while checking her status.
[
Name: Lysa
Mana Points 210/620;
Level: 37(Can level up!)
Vitality: 41;
Strength: 43;
Dexterity : 47;
Intelligence: 62;
Resistance: 37;
]
Once she leveled up, she also looked a bit excited as she said: "It works indeed. My mana also increased twice. Thank you."
I turned towards Velor and saw him shake his head. "I didn't do anything in the last fight so I don't have enough world energy to level up."
Nodding, I decided to check his and Oliver's statuses anyway.
[
Name: Velor
Mana Points 230/230;
Level: 21
Vitality: 25;
Strength: 34;
Dexterity : 28;
Intelligence: 23;
Resistance: 25;
]
[
Name: Oliver Aranna
Mana Points 240/240;
Level: 24
Vitality: 36;
Strength: 38;
Dexterity : 41;
Intelligence: 24;
Resistance: 26;
]
I was a bit surprised by Oliver's vitality, strength and dexterity parameters, but I couldn't really ask him about it. As we were already done, I said to the others:
"We still need to rest for a while to recover our mana. Once that is done we can head to the battlefield and start the quest."
Everyone agreed and left after we decided to meet in eight hours in front of the northern gate.