The gentle air that came with the rising morning was tinged with the smell of pine and leaves. There was no pine of any kind within the Giant's Garden, yet it always carried pine. Aiden had spent enough time here in his past life to remember it. Always the smell of pine and leaves. Sometimes there was also the smell of leather.

But leather was a bad sign in this forest. It was a sign that the monster had, for some reason, ventured beyond their territories. In the Giant's Garden, the smell of leather was your sign to leave.

Seated with his back against a tree, Aiden turned his head eastward, in the distance that way was Dentis, a small town on the far outskirts of Nel Quan.

He wondered what Zen would be doing now. It was morning but dawn hadn't broken yet. If he knew Zen, and he liked to think that he did, the boy would still be swaddled in some blanket, sleeping away the darkness. In Zen's infinite pretense of wisdom, he always liked to say that the eyes were open to see the light, if there was no light, for what reason should the eyes be open?

Aiden remembered Olstead's snort of derision when Zen had first said those words.

"So, what happens in a dark room during a fight?" the [Beast Tamer] had grumbled in derision. "Do I just lie down and sleep?"

Zen had shrugged. "I see no reason why not."

"If you perish, you perish," Aiden had muttered to himself then.

It was a long time ago. A time when their team had newly been put together. They had all just been getting to know each other, knocking heads when they disagreed on personal opinions. It had taken them a while to actually learn to like each other.

For all the shadowy rumors and tales and truths about the Order, its members were ultimately just normal people. Normal people who knew how to kill a man or monster in many different ways.

Aiden sighed at his reverie. Would Zen still be the same man he had met in the Order? With all the stories Zen told and all the pieces of information he had shared, Aiden liked to think that he would still be. If anything, the boy was supposed to be more jovial and less serious, more ignoring—not ignorant—of the dark side of human nature.

In the past, Zen had never said what had changed him, only that he had experienced the evil that men do.

Aiden found himself inclined to believe that whatever had happened to Zen must have happened in Dentis. It only made sense.

Brows furrowing at the calculations, Aiden remembered something. Somewhere around this time, within the month or the next, Nel Quan would go to war with a village far to the south. Mba-chukwu.

The Steel-Boned Tribe, Aiden thought, remembering them.

They were a vicious group, daunting in their own way. A small kingdom, they rarely numbered as much as any of the kingdoms they ever faced, but their penchant for violence and war was unmatched. Rumors claimed that when you went to battle with them, it was wise to assume that every man or woman they placed on the battlefield was equivalent to ten of yours.

Aiden couldn't remember much about the war, only that Mba-chukwu had won it. They had gained their victory, and then, to the surprise of everyone who knew of the war, they had simply left the kingdom of Nel Quan and returned home. They had neither pillaged nor plundered.

The entire ordeal had only served to grant them the moniker of the war-hungry barbarians. They became the kingdom that would go to war unprovoked, simply for the sake of war.

War comes, Aiden thought, still staring to the east, watching as the day began to crack with its first light. Perhaps Dentis suffered for it.

It was unlikely, however. Dentis was too far from the entire kingdom as a whole to be considered in a war against Nel Quan.

Ted turned in his sleep, groaning. They had no sleeping bags—a conscious decision made by Aiden—so they slept on the ground, soft or hard as it was. Ted adjusted again, moved like a man trying to reposition his pillow.

His eyes opened groggily, and he looked down at his hands only to find no pillow. He scowled at the ground, moved his head, and looked at Aiden.

There was still sleep in his eyes. But just as he had recognized the absence of a pillow, he recognized Aiden.

"Morning?" Aiden greeted, posing the word as a question.

Ted shot him a baleful look. "No pillow."

"I'm aware," Aiden replied.

Ted groaned and turned his face away.

Ted's lack of a response to the initial greeting said that he wasn't ready to begin the day. Now, Aiden had to let him know that it was time to begin the day.

"Morning," he repeated.

Ted grumbled and placed his hands over his ears. "Sod off."

Shaking his head, Aiden got up from the ground. He stretched, bent at the back with arms stretched high over his head. He let out a pleasant moan as his muscles freed themselves. Then he bent one way before turning to bend the other way.

Valdan was propped up against a tree on one side of the place. Aiden wondered if the knight would wake up rejuvenated as people do from sleep, considering he had passed out not fallen asleep.

The thought reminded Aidne of the night before. That last skill Valdan had pulled at the last moment had almost taken his eardrum with it. It had been so loud that Aiden had stayed up all night in case his nostrils tasted the ominous scent of leather.

Leaving Valdan to his unconsciousness or sleep—he wasn't so sure—Aiden moved over to Fjord and tapped his foot with his own.

Fjord groaned, turning to his side.

Aiden kicked his foot again. "Wake up, kid."

Fjord turned once more, eyes fluttering open to look at Aiden. Aiden knew for a fact that the boy had woken up at some point in the night. He'd even been awake for at least a handful of minutes.

"Time to get up," Aiden told him, meeting his gaze as the light of the first dawn slowly broke the sky.

Fjord met his gaze, took it away to look pointedly at the others who were still sleeping, then brought it back to him. Aiden saw the imploration in them. Fjord was like a child asking for five more minutes of sleep.

"Ted's my older brother so I have no control over what he does," Aiden said simply in explanation. "Valdan's a grown ass man, who actually needs his rest right now. You are young and weak and in need of training his class. You can either get up on your own or I can get you up my own way."

Fjord's eyes moved through different emotions as Aiden spoke. When Aiden was done, Fjord turned onto his stomach, then struggled through the process of pushing himself up to his feet.

"I'm up," he mumbled, slouching.

Aiden rolled his eyes. "Sure you are."

"I am," Fjord insisted.

Aiden nodded. Turning away from the boy, he started walking toward a tree, far enough from where the others were sleeping that conversations wouldn't spill over to them but close enough that he could still keep an eye on the place and its general surroundings.

He stopped after passing the first tree and looked back. Fjord stood groggily in place.

Aiden cocked his head quizzically. "Are you sleeping on your feet?"

Fjord perked up very quickly, his body stiffening as if he'd just been caught in a crime.

"No?" he replied.

Shaking his head, Aiden beckoned to him, gesturing for him to walk with him. Fjord muttered something too low for Aiden to pick out, even with his heightened perception before trailing after him.

Their walk was very short, no more than a few minutes. Two at the most. It was slow, sluggish by all accounts as Aiden tried to maintain Fjord's groggy pace.

It was good to force someone awake when you had the mind to train them, it trained their mind as well as you trained their body. But Aiden was willing to let Fjord come awake slowly. He needed the boy's mind active but not necessarily alert for what he was about to teach him.

"What did you gain from climbing the tree?" Aiden asked when they got to the tree of his choice. It was a simple tree, practically indistinguishable from the others that surrounded them.

Fjord rubbed his eyes with his hands. "Increase in strength stat," he answered.

"How many points?"

"Three."

"For how long?"

"Two days."

Aiden paused, stunned. "Just for climbing a tree?"

"Just for climbing a tree?" Fjord shot him an incredulous look. "I could've died."

"Ah, I see." Aiden pinched his bottom lip between thumb and forefinger, paused, then removed it. "It gauged its reward based on the achievement, likelihood of achievement, and how much risk you think exists in reaching for the achievement."

Fjord nodded, looking at him as if he had just told him that if you look up in the afternoon, you'll see the sun.

Aiden ignored the look. "What was the consequence?"

"Thirty percent increase in impact damage taken."

That was…

Unsure of how exactly to put it, Aiden said, "Just so we're clear. The consequence of not accomplishing the impossible task of reaching the top was an increase in impact damage taken?"

Fjord nodded.

At first thought, the risk-to-reward ratio didn't really make sense. Aiden could understand the reward for reaching the top. Three points to strength was quite an increase in a fight against your peers. But impact damage didn't seem like much of a punishment.

But that was until you actually looked at the bigger picture.

If Fjord was actually subconsciously in charge of his skills—which everyone was—then he subconsciously dictated the risks and rewards and couldn't give or take more than he could. Aiden doubted any consequence could be instant death, because he doubted Fjord could just choose to die, and die.

However, Fjord was well aware of the consequences he could not give himself and the fact that it did not simply eliminate them. Death was also a possible consequence for failure. If he had somehow slipped at a tall height, he would've died. His skill had doubled down on it to ensure that if the height wasn't tall enough, there was the extra thirty percent designed to kill him.

It was a worrying skill. Luck controlled and made manifest… in a manner.

"I take it that you try not to do anything too dangerous?" Aiden asked.

Fjord nodded. "The most dangerous things I've done happen when I just find myself in dangerous situations. Then I activate my skill." He shrugged. "If I survive, I might as well get something out of it."

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"What of the consequence for failure?"

"Doesn't matter, situations that dangerous usually mean that I'll be dead either way."

That made sense.

Leaning against the tree they stood at, Aiden's mind went to work, thinking on different possibilities. "And are you aware of the rewards beforehand?"

He had seen the way Fjord's eyes had widened when he'd used the skill to climb the tree yesterday.

"I get it in numbers."

"Percentages?" Aiden asked.

Fjord shook his head. "Just odds. Not entirely sure how it works. What I do know is that the higher the number next to something, the higher the reward. The lower the number, the lower the reward."

"And that's the risk?"

"No." Fjord shook his head, paused, then frowned. "Have you never gambled before?"

Aiden shrugged. "I've played cards and poker and things like that."

"Ever bet on a fight?"

Aiden had bet on tons of fights in the Order. "Not really."

"I thought you nobles liked to do that kind of thing."

"I'm more of a bastard than an actual noble, Fjord." Aiden gestured at him to hurry along with the explanation. "Just cut to the chase."

"Alright. Most times, for simple things, I get simple odds. The more unlikely one thing is, the higher the odds, the more likely it is, the lower the odds."

"I get that."

"Reaching the top of the tree yesterday had very, very high odds. Like really high." Fjord's gaze grew slightly distant as he remembered how high the odds had been. "Failing and climbing down on my own had really low odds. Less than one."

"I take it that odds less than one are bad," Aiden observed.

"Very," Fjord confirmed. "I don't always get consequences for simple things, just useless rewards like smell 0.00001% percent better. But once it drops below one, I start getting consequences."

"So climbing down was less than one."

Fjord shook his head. "Climbing down still gave me a reward if I reached a certain height. I would've gotten a temporary increase in my [Resilience] skill by 2.5%. It would've lasted for two days. Useless things like that."

That surprised Aiden. There weren't that many people that had the resilience skill. As for Fjord's misconception on the usefulness of the skill, he said nothing.

"Then there was a third option," he said. "Wasn't there?"

Fjord nodded. "If I fell off the tree, then the impact damage would apply."

That was harsh.

"Sometimes I get surprise options after the skill is activated," Fjord added. "Falling off was a surprise option that was less than one odd."

"Why wasn't there a surprise option for if I saved you?" Aiden asked.

Fjord shrugged. "I guess I was lucky?"

Aiden didn't think so. His skill, as luck-based as it tried to seem, didn't feel like something that saved him on principles as simple as luck.

His eyes narrowed and he looked at Fjord. "Did you think I would've saved you?"

"Did I…" Fjord fell silent before he could complete the sentence. He grew thoughtful, then frowned. "Honestly, it never crossed my mind. If it had, I don't think you would've saved me. No offence, sir, you're kind, but you don't really come off as that kind."

Aiden understood. His students in the Order had also been of that opinion. But that aside, he had learnt something new. If the possibility did not cross Fjord's mind, the possibility did not appear as an option.

"And what happens if the odds are in the negative?" he asked.

Fjord paled suddenly. "I've never had that. I hope I never have that. I think it might just be instant death or something. I don't know. Someone in my crew once said it might mean that I won't be the only one suffering the consequences."

That… kind of made sense.

"One more," Aiden said. "What's the highest number an odd has given you?"

"Thirty-eight," Fjord said easily.

"Alright," Aiden said, knowing exactly what task to give the boy now. "I'll teach you the difference between levels and mastery, then I'll send you on your task."

"I know the difference between levels and mastery," Fjord said politely.

Aiden raised an amused brow. Everyone always thought they knew the difference when they were new to gaining skills. Those who had their skills long enough eventually figured it out. It was the same way with the child recruits from the Order. They heard a lot and thought a lot and ended up thinking they knew the simple things.

He folded his arms over his chest. "What's the difference?"

"Your level is how powerful you are and your mastery is how powerful the skill is," Fjord answered slowly, like a child who suspects that there's a trick to a question. "Your level affects things like your stats and your life and your all-round power, but mastery affects your skill.

"So if a level nineteen [Bite] with a mastery of ten clashed with a level seventeen [Bite] with a mastery of fifteen, all other things being equal, who'll win?"

"There's a [Bite] skill?" Fjord asked, puzzled. "Just for biting?"

"There's a skill for almost everything. I'm waiting for my answer. Level nineteen and level seventeen."

"Level seventeen," Fjord said easily. "If we are working strictly with the bite skill and they are not using their stats and any other thing to influence it."

Aiden nodded, turned and summoned the only blink dagger he had in his arsenal. Facing the tree, he held up the dagger for Fjord to see.

"Let's say this is the [bite] skill," he said.

Fjord nodded.

"This is the skill at level nineteen." He drew a deep long line along the length of the tree. "And this is the level seventeen." He drew another line. This one was shorter than the first by an inch or two. "Do I still have you?"

Fjord nodded.

"Now, the average person can only really use up to eighty percent of their abilities at best. Key word being 'average.' You can always be better than what you believe is your best."

"Okay…" Fjord let the words trail off, letting Aiden know that he should continue.

"Now this is the eighty percent for both levels." Aiden marked a spot on both lines. The longer line's mark was higher than the shorter line's mark, but not as high as the line itself. "There we go."

He bent his head, looking at it, and nodded. It was an apt drawing of lines, if he said so himself.

"In the simplest summary, what I can do at a mastery of one hundred, pushes me beyond the average person threshold. It means that I can pull out everything I am capable of. Ergo, I will beat someone that is a level higher than me if they are at, let's say, sixty percent. Does that make sense?"

Fjord nodded but looked like he didn't really get it.

"Level dictates the overall strength of your skill," Aiden said. "Mastery dictates how good you are with it, how much of it you can draw out, how versatile you can be with it. Mastery means that you can decide if your bite is going to be so strong the person dies or weak enough to leave a mark."

Fjord snapped his finger in understanding, eyes brightening. "I get it now."

"Good."

"Wait." Fjord paused. "Why didn't you just explain it like that?"

Aiden opened his mouth. Nothing came out, so he closed it. He tried again. "Because I thought that was the best way to explain it."

"Oh." Fjord shrugged. "It made sense… in a way."

Aiden shook his head. He was too old to be taking pity compliments. He dismissed the blink dagger, returning it to the storage space in his ring with a thought. He rubbed his forehead with his free hand and shook his head.

"Anyway," he said. "I just thought of something. You said you get surprise options sometimes, right?"

Fjord nodded.

"And how often do you get the surprise options?"

"Depends on what's happening." Fjord tapped his lips in thought. The sleep was gone from his eyes. "If any new thing happens, there's an update. I think that's the simplest way to put it."

Aiden nodded. "Alright, then. What do you know about where we are going?"

"Trackback or Dentis?"

"Trackback."

"I know it's dangerous. Very."

"And do you think you can survive on your own when we get there?" Aiden asked. "The truth, Fjord. I have never held the truth against anyone before."

Fjord bowed his head as if ashamed. "No, I don't think I can."

"That makes sense. Acceptance of your weakness is the first step to success." Aiden pointed in what seemed like a random part of the forest. "Have you heard of the furry extant?"

Fjord nodded. As a once-upon-a-time poacher, it was no surprise. "I do. Small, furry creature. They just scurry around. Really hard to catch."

Aiden nodded. "Those. There are at least twenty of them in that direction. I need you to bring me the head of one of them."

"When?"

"Anytime," Aiden said with an unbothered shrug. "If you get it now, you bring it now. Think of it as a test. A beginning test to show that you have what it takes to follow us. You saw what I did to your old crew right?"

Fjord swallowed visibly. "I did."

"The kinds of people we will find there are capable of doing that to me. So you need to be strong."

"Those things are hard to catch, though."

"But not impossible. Catch one, take its head off, and bring it to me."

"What happens if I can't catch one?"

Aiden noted how Fjord was not bothered by the idea of taking its head off. Killing it, it seemed, would not be difficult for him.

"If you can't catch one," he answered, "then I will not be able to take you with us in good faith. Taking you would risk your life more than I can protect it. So you have two options: you can wander off and find a way for yourself, or you can come back, and we'll arrange for how we can both go our separate ways. I'll give you some money and get you some directions that could help."

"But I can still run errands for you, right?"

Aiden shook his head. "Where we are going after Trackback is far. I don't see myself returning anytime soon. So it will be the end of our business arrangement if you are unable to achieve this. Now go."

Aiden made a shooing gesture with both hands, motioning in the direction he'd pointed. "Try to succeed. I actually do enjoy your company. It would be a shame to lose you."

Fjord turned and began leaving. His shoulders drooped. He looked crestfallen.

"Use your skill before you go," Aiden added. "I am hoping you find success. If you do, then this has to count as part of training your skills.

…

The furry extant was a new poacher's worst nightmare. In fact, poaching crews liked to set their new recruits on them. The catch, from what Fjord knew, was always the same. Capture one, and you get treated reasonably; fail and you get treated like a child until you actually earned the right to be treated differently.

Fjord had not caught his first furry extant, but he'd gone ahead to catch different ones over the course of his poaching days. He would not say that catching them had become an easy task, but it had at least stopped being an impossible one.

So when Lord Lacheart had asked him to catch a furry extant in a direction that had at least twenty, he'd known that it would take him a long time. But one extant in a group of twenty to be caught in a day was a fair request.

Wasn't it?

Fjord's breathing had gotten under control in the last three minutes of his walk back. His shirt was soaked in sweat, and he couldn't remember the last time he'd sweated so much since becoming a poacher.

He swallowed saliva, wetting his dry throat as he walked. The forest sand and dust stained his clothes from all the diving he had done just to catch one of the little creatures.

I thought killing it would be the problem, he thought to himself.

But killing the extant hadn't been the problem.

Once more, for the umpteenth time since his journey back to camp, he checked his interface.

[Present the head of one Furry Extant to Lord Lacheart by sunset]

[Odds calculated]

[Head 8.28 vs No head 3.42]

When Fjord had activated the skills at Lord Lacheart's request, the odds were [3.2] and [6] respectively. Difficult as it had been, he had been slightly confused. With those odds, it meant that it actually wasn't going to be so difficult of a task. He questioned if Lord Lacheart had simply been trying to get rid of him before remembering something else.

The young lord had asked him if the odds updated. It meant that he had expected things to change as the task got more difficult. And they had, until what his interface was showing him had become the updated odds.

Crestfallen, Fjord looked up at the sky. The sun had since set. The moon smiled down at him in its crescent form and the stars stood watch to witness what would happen next.

I don't want to start afresh, Fjord thought sadly, hands empty, not a furry extant in sight.

He had failed and failed terribly. He had seen a few of the creatures but wasn't sure he could count up to ten that had been in the same place at the same time. The fact that the skill [Unsure Odds] had still not ended meant that he had to meet with Lord Lacheart.

Maybe I can convince him to let me stay.

Of all the people who had ever given his class and skill any attention, Lord Lacheart was the only one who had actually taken his time to learn what his skills did. Losing this opportunity would cost him any more chances he had in life of becoming a somebody.

[Present the head of one Furry Extant to Lord Lacheart by sunset]

[Odds calculated]

[Head 8.28 vs No head 3.42 vs Retain membership without head 9.9]

Fjord wasn't even surprised by the odds of the new option. Lord Lacheart was a strange boy—an odd boy. He could be very flexible with Ted but rigid with everyone else. Even Sir Valdan often had a difficult time dissuading him from certain decisions.

But the one thing that was unchanging about him was that when he made a decision, changing his mind was like changing the color of the sands on a seashore with your mind.

Fjord's legs carried him into the camp where he found only Lord Lacheart. The boy looked as if he had been waiting for him for a long time.

He was dressed in his green coat that he rarely, if not never, took off and sat with his face bowed to the ground. A sword rested casually on his lap.

For some reason, it brought memories of the corpses of Fjord's crew to mind. Aiden Lacheart had dismembered a few of them in his fight. It had been a massacre.

"Lord Lacheart," Fjord said, announcing himself as he approached. He looked about, finding no one else.

The young lord didn't raise his head. "You didn't get what I asked for, did you?" he said, voice quiet, solemn.

Fjord shook his head. "Things were a bit hectic, and I was hoping I could just go back out."

"Perhaps." The young lord didn't seem to care for his own words. After a short moment, he sighed and pushed himself to his feet like a tired man. "This is just unfair."

"Unfair?" Fjord was confused.

Was he about to get a different task? A fairer one? For some reason he doubted it.

"Only those that are strong enough can go there," Aiden said, finally turning to face him. He held his sword, still in its scabbard in one hand, the blackened hand. "There's no negotiating that."

"I understand," Fjord said. A bad feeling crawled up his neck.

"No, you don't." Aiden ran his free hand through his hair. "If you can't follow us, you'll still know where we are. And the king of Bandiv is still looking for us."

Fjord paled.

"I can't take you because you'll die." Aiden Lacheart frowned. "And I can't leave you because you could lead them to us."

Fjord shook his head vehemently. "I won't. I swear."

"It matters not." Aiden raised his sheathed sword with both hands and drew the weapon free from the scabbard. Its steel blade glistened as if catching the light of the moon and stars. "What has to be done, has to be done. And someone has to do it."

Fjord took a tired and terrified step back. His life and mana stats were still at one hundred percent, but his stamina stats were on the low side of things, very low. He didn't even have the strength to run, to save himself.

"This is not about you," Aiden said, holding the sword to his side. "You have done nothing wrong."

"Lord Lacheart, please."

Aiden shook his head. "It was my mistake. My fault."

"L—"

Fjord's interface interrupted him, and he paused when it popped up.

Hovering in the air in front of him as Aiden Lacheart watched him were recalculated odds. They let him know that nothing was going to change now. His eyes settled on the new option and its odds and he activated his only other class skill, [Gambler's Heart].

In front of him, the third option was gone, replaced by a new one with a new odd. The new option stared at him with its odds.

[Survive Lord Lacheart 59.2]

The higher the number, the lower the chances of success.

[You have used Class skill Gambler's Heart]

Fjord felt his blood run. His vision sharpened and his energy grew. His eyes darted left and his legs moved right. He tracked Aiden once more as he feinted left then moved right.

Fear took him by the spine and squeezed.

Aiden Lacheart was standing right in front of him, empty eyes looking down at him.

"I'm sorry, Fjord."

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