Chapter 72 - Acceptance (Patreon)

Keira laid herself down on the roof of a Human tannery, basking in the midday sun. Esternard City was large and empty enough that she had her pick of rooftops away from any prying eyes looking for odd sights with which to fuel the latest gossip. Resting on a roof wasn’t a common hobby among the Villagers, but maybe if they’d been more open to the idea, the relaxation it afforded would have served to dislodge the sticks shoved deep into the crevasse of their backsides.

I suppose they wouldn’t gossip even if they did see me, she mused. If anything, they would imitate me in an ill-fated endeavor to curry favor.

She laughed under her breath. It’s so easy to imagine their sycophantic tone of voice. ‘Lady Blightkiller! You were right! Enjoying the quiet tranquility of a rooftop is so much more delightful than I would have expected! Your preferences are so wise and unexpectedly enjoyable! Have I mentioned that you’re looking especially strong and beautiful on this fine day?’

Keira still possessed little love for the Villagers, but watching them stumble across their words in an effort to avoid drawing her ire was beginning to make for fine entertainment. Like little squirrels chasing after someone tossing breadcrumbs for them to fight over. Amusing, if she acknowledged it for the farce that it was.

To her surprise, she found herself looking forward to their next bout of unsubtle groveling. In its own way, it was a type of revenge for her to inflict upon them, and all without having to draw her greatsword. She could accept that – as long as none of them attempted to ply their charms on her in a more romantic fashion. Thankfully, that prospect was unlikely.

After what had happened years ago, they knew better.

Keira let out a luxurious sigh and closed her eyes. Sunlight washed over her face, warming her soul with its gentle caress. Up high, there was no stress, no responsibility, no darkness. Just herself, her sword, and serenity.

Her mind quieted, and she embraced peace.

She wasn’t upset when her thoughts inevitably turned to recent events. Several hours had elapsed without incident, and that was more than enough time for her to attain a measure of satisfaction. Anything more than that would be laziness; the world had kept moving on without her, and if she didn’t get up now, it would pass her by entirely. There were people she cared about who required her support.

And before she could go help them, she needed to address her own doubts.

I wonder, Keira thought, confronting an insistent notion that had been harassing her for days. Did I enjoy the Dungeon Crawl too much?

It felt wrong to have such fond memories of a struggle for survival where so many had nearly died. She’d feared for the Rangers’ lives, of course, and she wished her friends hadn’t been subjected to that level of danger. But she’d also be lying if she claimed the combat wasn’t absolutely exhilarating. There were so many moments where she’d been standing on the edge of a cliff, so many moments where one false step would have seen her plummeting to her death.

And she’d prevailed. Every enemy that had crossed paths with her met a grisly end by the steel of her blade. Those moments of triumph were almost as sweet as the thrill of combat itself. Almost.

Keira envisioned herself in those very same battles, but hating every second of them. She would be cautious, unhappy, and unmotivated. People perform at their best when they love what they do. If she didn’t savor the excitement of battle, then would she have been able to fight to her full capacity? Would she have survived the battles that her present self had overcome by a hair’s breadth?

Perhaps she was indulging in self-justification, but the more she thought about it, the more she determined that the answer was No.

A distant memory sprung forth. Riardin, speaking to her on the day of The Village’s invasion. It was one of the last things he’d ever said to her.

“Go forth and do thy will, Keira the Savage Warrior. Just know that if you go to Lothren’s embrace too early, you’ll never catch up to my number of enemies slain in my lifetime.”

Keira patted her greatsword and gave a tooth-filled grin at the sky. “The gap grows smaller yet again. I hope you’re observing my progress from Lothren’s Hallowed Halls, Riardin. Considering that you’re the one who bequeathed this challenge upon me, it would be unfair if you missed the moment where I shatter your record to pieces.”

The sky didn’t answer, but that was fine. She knew what he would have said.

--

Zamira wiped an errant bead of sweat off her brow and took a swig of water. She’d been at her Swordmaster training for the greater part of a day, and the prolonged exercise had left her parched. A part of her felt mildly guilty about using up water when the Deserters had gone on reduced rations, but she would be more useful to them if she didn’t allow her blade’s edge to dull. Her Swordsmanship Skill had yet to reach the Level of her Dual-Wielding Skill, and that was just one of many reasons why she felt incomplete. There was a height she needed to reach before she could call herself a proper Swordmaster.

As much as she’d taken to her new Class with aplomb, she was still an amateur, and her months of experience as a Swordmaster sometimes clashed with her years of experience as a Ranger. Every now and then, unwanted instincts would surface in the heat of battle. She would briefly wonder why there was one sword in her hand instead of two, or consider retreating in order to attack her enemy with a bowshot from a safe distance. Small instances of hesitation that were very much expected.

And thoroughly unacceptable. Those moments hadn’t yet resulted in a grievous error, but in combat, fractions of a second were equivalent to an eternity. They were the difference between victory and defeat. If she didn’t correct her habits now, she would regret her indolence later when a monster’s fangs tore out her neck while she was trying to perform a Dual-Wielding maneuver with a longsword. With that in mind, training was imperative to sharpen her expertise.

More importantly, it sharpened her composure.

I may have gotten...overeager, she conceded. And not for the first time. The idea of making Elatra a better place through her strength of arms and an unyielding will had been intoxicating. It still was. Passion, she’d learned, was a double-edged sword. A blush crept into her cheeks when she remembered the speech she’d given the Deserters when they were voting on whether to undertake the Dungeon Crawl. Every word had been spoken from the heart, valiant and grandiose like a hero of legend. Zamira hadn’t the faintest idea of how she’d mustered the courage to say phrases such as “let’s take back our world!” and “I’ll go alone if I must!” without combusting out of sheer embarrassment. That kind of grandstanding was supposed to be left to the political types, but she’d willingly thrown herself into the center of the crowd’s attention, and for some incomprehensible reason, they had listened.

She still couldn’t believe it worked. And that it may have worked too well.

Zamira winced as she recalled the gaze Rob had sent her while he was under the influence of Melancholy Resistance. It was a gaze that still burned. When she’d explained how Mercy’s Whisper functioned and stated that she hoped her speech had inspired him, his expression had been one of total contempt, and she couldn’t deny that there was an inkling of truth buried deep in those bottomless eyes. The reappearance of the Blight coinciding with a Dungeon was too great a connection to ignore, and the Crawl would likely have taken place even without her words emboldening the Deserters, but without her speech, they might have been more cautious instead of charging straight into danger like a rampaging Volshak.

Zamira had no way of knowing one way or another. All she could do was ensure that next time, she would do better. Be better. And there would most certainly be a next time, because as embarrassing as her speech had been, she believed every word. The nearly-calamitous Dungeon Crawl and Melancholy Resistance’s disdainful scorn had been deeply unsettling, but they were far from the worst that she’d expected to endure after deciding to walk this path. In most endings to this tale she was writing, her last breaths would be spent on the cold, pitiless ground, her lifeblood running dry as the dying embers of her dream faded into the ether. If she left any mark on this world, it would likely be as a cautionary tale to other would-be trailblazers; Zamira, the one who overstepped her boundaries and foolishly defied the way of the world.

She was in the middle of performing a complicated Swordmaster maneuver when those suppressed doubts came surging back. They threatened to trip her, physically and mentally both. A more sensible person would have sheathed her sword and walked away from it all.

Zamira executed the maneuver flawlessly, sweeping aside her hesitation with a swing of her blade.

As she would, again and again, as many times as it took to realize her vision of how the world should be.

--

Vul’to sat at the table of an empty Human household and examined his findings. A four-foot shield lay in the center of the table, having been requisitioned from an abandoned armory. Unlike the hastily-shorn strip of bark that he’d used in the Dungeon Crawl, this armament was forged of solid, hardy metal. It wasn’t ornate or meant to function as a showpiece – rather, it was unadorned and crafted for the purpose of deflecting blows, and only for that purpose. An Elven blacksmith would likely have added at least one or two frills to mark the shield as their own work, but Vul’to preferred its design the way it was now. The simplicity appealed to him in a way he hadn’t expected.

A shield didn’t need to be aesthetically pleasing. It didn’t need to be special. It just needed to perform its duty. As long as it did, lives would be saved.

Vul’to thought back to his stint as a Vanguard, which in actuality had not yet ended. The clamor of breaking the Dungeon Core and transporting the Rangers back to Esternard City had been, to put it mildly, distracting. The sun set and the sun rose, and despite Rob’s Class Alteration Skill having come off cooldown, the notion of changing his Class back to a Ranger was far from their thoughts. Simply put, it had simply slipped the Party’s mind.

But truthfully told, it hadn’t slipped Vul’to’s. He could have asked Rob to switch his Class at any moment, and his excuses for why he hadn’t were weak at best. They’d had plenty of time to decompress by now, and Rob would have been more than happy to spare several minutes for a friend on a subject as vital as choosing the correct Class. Vul’to knew why he’d prolonged the request for so long, but it hadn’t been until he went rummaging through half-destroyed armories in search of a shield that he was able to accept the decision that his subconscious had already made.

To be fair to himself, he would admit that he hadn’t been a bad Ranger. He also hadn’t been a particularly good one. It was the Class he had striven for, and he’d carried out his role adequately enough. Compared to the other members of Riardin’s Rangers, however? He was falling behind. Adequacy would only hold them back.

And a third, thoroughly mediocre Ranger wouldn’t have been able to accomplish what he did in the final confrontation against the Organic Devourer. The vines, un-Taunted and striking at flesh instead of Skill-reinforced bark, would have overwhelmed Riardin’s Rangers in short order. The Party might still have won, but it would have been a much closer call, and they’d already come uncomfortably close to losing people as it was. The lingering phantom pains from his arms and legs being crushed to a pulp could attest to that.

It was pain Vul’to bore with pride. Proof that he’d shielded his friends from harm.

Clarity fell over him. His reason for fighting was simple: he fought to protect those who were dear to his heart. Tarric had traded his life away and left Vul’to with the task of ensuring that a similar tragedy never happened again. He would not needlessly sacrifice himself to save others – that would devalue the second chance Tarric had given him – but that merely meant he would have to protect himself and everyone else. His duty would accept no less.

Vul’to picked up the shield and strapped it to his arm.

Its weight felt right.

--

“You have got to be kidding me,” Rob muttered. He was sitting on the front steps of a randomly chosen house in Esternard City, which was fortunate, as he would have needed to find a place to sit down after what he just discovered. His mouth hung open as he stared at the floating translucent screen in front of his eyes. Diplomacy said nothing, as it was too busy cackling in the background of his head. The Skill sent over an image of it eating a bag of popcorn, which – objectively speaking – was pretty funny, but appreciating humor was the last thing on Rob’s mind right now. Parsing the newfound lines of text that had appeared in his Class List came first.

Just a short while ago, he had activated Class Alteration. More on impulse than anything else, really. He couldn’t switch his Sub-Class out of Crystal Bearer, because he would, well, die. Painfully. And unless he’d unlocked something incredible – like a Class as rare and powerful as Archmage – he was content to stick with Berserker as his main Class. Minmaxing aside, it just plain suited his tendencies too closely to give up on. Rob would argue until he was blue in the face that each and every one of his reckless strategies had been necessary in-the-moment, but the fact remained that he got the crap beaten out of him on a regular basis. What was he supposed to do, not run through fire to grab a shiny Treasure? That was crazy talk. He needed the ability to survive the nonsense situations he found himself in, and more than any other Combat Class he knew of, Berserker could take a licking and keep on ticking. Well, Vanguard was another option, and it offered great Party utility to boot, but...

Rob placed a hand over his chest. There was a furnace deep in his core; warm, bright, and fierce. Ever burning, always ready. When he’d first selected Berserker, the furnace had been unlit and cold, but the first Class Skill he’d gained had ignited a small fire, and every Class Level afterwards had served as further kindling to strengthen the flame. When he was in combat, when he got injured, and when he injured something back, the furnace would roar, giving him the power to harness his injuries as power and kill anything that stood in his way. What other Class would have allowed him to blow up the Organic Devourer from the inside and Lifesteal through the explosion? Vanguard was defensively strong, but it was about mitigating risk, not embracing it. Much like fire itself, Berserker was dangerous and useful in equal measure, searing to the touch but devastating when used against your foes.

Plus, he liked Firebombs and literally learned a Skill called Pyromania. At this point, why break up the theme?

With that said, he had 15 stat points burning a hole in his pocket from killing the Organic Devourer, and it wouldn’t be wise to allocate them until he double-checked all his options. There wasn’t a pressing need to spend stats on the spot to avoid an imminent catastrophe, so why not do his due diligence and check the Class offerings first? He’d skim the list, find that nothing had changed, and stick with Berserker. That was the plan, and while plans rarely survived contact with the enemy, that shouldn’t have mattered, because there wasn’t supposed to be an enemy in the first place.

Then he saw it. The Class whose existence he’d been fantasizing about for months. An overwhelmingly powerful Class with the potential to shake apart the very foundation Elatra was built upon.

How did I get THERAPIST?! Diplomacy, stop laughing!

A minute later, it finally did. <It’s so worth being a Skill stuck inside someone’s head right now,> Diplomacy snickered. <If you could see how your emotions look, you’d be laughing too.>

I wasn’t asking a rhetorical question, Rob thought, sighing internally. I can’t have been the first person on Elatra to be on the giving and receiving end of a fair number of pep talks. Why me, and why now?

<Your experiences on Earth probably fulfilled some sort of requirement. The word ‘therapist’ doesn’t even exist on Elatra, so your inherent knowledge of the profession is already a point in your favor. Can you think of anything else specific to Earth that may have been a factor?>

Rob paused. I...took a first year Psych course?

<Whatever that is, it was probably sufficient.>

You’re telling me that just because I memorized the definition of ‘operant conditioning’ long enough to fill in a bubble on a Scantron sheet, the system decreed me to be as knowledgeable as someone with years of learning and a degree? Rob shook his head in disgust. Something about that leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

<Why are you so bent out of shape?> Diplomacy asked, in a quizzical tone. <It’s a Utility Class. You won’t be selecting it over Berserker either way. Its appearance on your Class List is little more than a novelty.>

Rob rubbed his temples. Thing is, I’m not always fighting. There’s downtime. Assuming that Therapist isn’t some knockoff mind control crap – which I wouldn’t put past the system – I know a lot of people that it could help. Like, a LOT of people.

Diplomacy considered his plight for a few moments. <I would still recommend that you don’t ever switch off of Berserker. And what’s more, I have reasons.>

Reasons?

<Two, in fact.>

You don’t say. Rob nodded. Well, what are you waiting for? Lay it on me. Convince me with your diplomatic ways.

<Reason #1 is that Class Alteration can only be used once a day,> Diplomacy said, in a matter-of-fact tone. <If a sudden crisis arises at the wrong time, you’ll be fighting as a very stat-boosted Therapist until the cooldown resets. Even if you have the option to change back into a Berserker right away, doing so takes crucial seconds which won’t be afforded to you in an ambush scenario. Advance warning is a luxury that isn’t to be relied upon.>

The Skill rolled its metaphysical eyes. <Simply put, this world keeps trying to kill you. I wouldn’t be surprised if a cartoon anvil fell from the heavens and crushed you at any moment.>

Rob peered up at the empty sky. A second later, he stepped under the awning of a house. Point taken. Second reason?

<I’m Level 13,> Diplomacy said, as smug as Keira was when she got to lift something no one else could. <Do you have any idea of how grossly overleveled that is? I’d like to see a piddling Utility Class do a better job than me.>

No, Rob replied, quickly moving to clarify when Diplomacy started glowing with indignant shock. As in, no, I don’t know how overleveled you are. I believe you, but Elatrans don’t tend to go around announcing their stats and Levels, so I need some context. What Level of Diplomacy would you guess that, I don’t know, Elder Alessia has?

<Prickly as she may sometimes be, Elder Alessia has proven to be charismatic when the situation calls for it,> Diplomacy began. <She rose to the station of leader as if it was natural, and no one contested the position. Just yesterday we saw her convince dozens of people that their impending starvation wasn’t anything to be worried about. She possesses centuries of experience in dealing with unruly masses.>

It grinned. <Level 9. I’d estimate her Diplomacy at about that rank.>

Rob’s eyes widened. “Oh.”

“Oh?” Another voice said.

Inventory’s blue motes sparkled around his hand. Rob barely managed to stop his sword swing a quarter of the way before it reached the intended target, who turned out to be an Elven woman standing several feet away from him. She gaped at him with bulging, terrified eyes that flickered between the sword in his hand and whatever frantic expression must have been on his face.

I blame you for putting me on edge with the anvil thing, Rob thought to Diplomacy, before switching gears. “Sorry about that,” he said, putting as much sincerity into his voice as he could. “I was thinking about...the Dungeon Crawl. Yeah. Really nasty stuff and all that.”

The Elven woman nodded, muscles relaxing as she realized her head was still attached to her body. “Of course, Lord Blightkiller. I never intended to startle you.” She gave him a small smile. “Please allow me a second chance at introducing myself. My name is Verana, and it’s nice to meet you.”

“Hey, that’s my line.”

“What?”

“I said, it’s nice to meet you too,” Rob replied. “So what can I do for you?” Verana was about his age in appearance, having the generically beautiful face of an Elf who looked to be in their late teens or very early twenties, so she didn’t seem old enough to be one of the Deserters’ usual messengers. Those poor bastards needed plenty of stamina and patience to find him when he wanted alone time.

Contrary to his expectations, instead of handing him a letter or slipping him a bribe, Verana’s smile deepened. “There’s naught you need do for me,” she said. “I was merely passing by, saw you, and decided to make my acquaintance.”

Rob frowned. He glanced to the side and – as expected – saw not much of anything. “You were passing by an empty section of the City?” He asked. “The whole reason I came here because there’s fuck-all to do in this part of town. Unless inspecting collapsed rubble is your idea of a good time?”

He turned back towards Verana and did a double-take. She was much closer now, only one and a half feet away, having moved so silently she might as well have teleported. Had she already forgotten what happened the last time she startled him? By the look of amusement in her eyes, she either had, or just didn’t care.

Is she an assassin? He thought, before coming to his senses. No, if she was, she wouldn’t have revealed herself. Has to have a high Level in Stealth, though. A spy?

<Rob, you just weren’t paying attention.> Diplomacy sighed.

Oh. Look, in my defense-

“I pray to Lothren that I’m not dredging up foul memories,” Verana said, as she moved even closer. “But if the travails of the Dungeon Crawl are plaguing your thoughts, then please, allow me to assist you in any way that I can.” A hint of awe entered her tone. “You’ve done so much for us, Lord Blightkiller. You bear our burdens when no one else could.”

Rob resisted the urge to back away. Close proximity to a hot girl wasn’t something he usually had a problem with, but this was just so sudden. Diplomacy wasn’t kidding when it said that an advance warning was a luxury, he thought, before saying the first words that popped out of his mouth.

“I’m not that great,” he said, barely avoiding making it a stuttered mumble. “What you’ve heard is, uh, exaggerated.”

Verana stepped closer. She was practically touching him now. “Oh, don’t be so modest,” she said, in a voice that was somehow both teasing and appreciative. “I’ve heard the tales from Lenora. If even half of them are true, then we owe you a great deal, Lord Blightkiller.”

And now she was touching him, one hand gently placed on his bicep. “You’re handsome, strong, and brave, and we Elves are fortunate to have met you. It’s simply natural that I would wish to offer my gratitude.”

...

You have deactivated the Skill: Seduction!

“No gratitude necessary,” Rob said, through a smile made of glass. “Just doing my job and stuff.”

Later on, he would ask himself why he hadn’t already moved away. After significant introspection, he would conclude that hormones were to blame, fiendish devils that they were. At the present moment, however, he found himself rooted to the spot, Verana’s gentle touch holding him in place as effectively as the Organic Devourer’s vines.

“Don’t be shy,” she said, stepping closer once more. As there wasn’t much closer for her to actually get, this resulted in her pressing her chest up against his arm. “If there’s any way I can show my appreciation, Lord Blightkiller – any way at all – you need only say the word.”

Defcon 5 went off in Rob’s mind. Turning off the Skill didn’t do shit! Okay, okay, calm down, me. Maybe this is uh, a misunderstanding?

<Dude.>

Don’t ‘dude’ me! That’s Earth slang, it’s weird when someone else uses it!

Verana mumbled something under her breath that Rob was barely able to pick up on, and probably wasn’t supposed to. “Hardheaded as stone,” she muttered, in a whisper just slightly audible to Rob’s Heightened Senses. “Less subtlety, then.”

Her face brightened like the sun. “The gossip mongers claim you’re Level 38,” she said, fluttering her eyelashes. “That’s an impressively big Level. Is there anything else big of yours that you’d like to show me?”

It’s not a misunderstanding.

<Go for it.>

I’m sorry, WHAT?

<You heard me,> Diplomacy drawled, sounding entirely unconcerned. <Go for it. Sleep with her. Plow her into oblivion. According to you, a relationship with you and Keira would never work, so what have you got to lose? This is your chance to prove your worries weren’t the exaggerated construct of a self-destructive mentality.>

Rob’s train of thought was so jumbled that it had jumped off the tracks and started flying to space. Is this some twisted kind of reverse psychology?

<I don’t know. Is it?>

He looked down at Verana’s doe eyes and red-tinged cheeks, feeling like a rat caught in a trap. She was, honestly speaking, extremely hot. All the Elves were, but being constantly surrounded by hot people hadn’t given him a Resistance to rampant hormones. It just meant there was a lot more eye candy and a lot more awkward moments. The full force of her hotness was slamming into him, more effective than an exploding crate of Firebombs.

Not that it mattered. He’d already made his decision a while back. It had just taken his brain a bit to catch up after being ambushed by a wily hunter.

“Verana...” He began, feeling a pang of guilt at the way she perked up. “What’s my name?”

She froze. A moment later, her eyes glazed over with the telltale sign of someone using Identify.

The next thirty horrible seconds consisted of an awkward rejection that he tried to make as light as possible. Based on the shame and embarrassment on Verana’s face as she ran away, he failed in that regard.

“Figures,” Rob said, sighing. “She wanted to fuck the title, not the person. I wasn’t expecting groupies to be a thing.”

<That isn’t why you turned her down.>

“Yeah, I know,” Rob said. If someone saw him talking to the air, that was their fault for peeping. “If I was back in college, Jason would be calling me a dumbass right about now for blowing a golden opportunity with a 10/10 babe.”

He sat back down on the front steps. “But that would have been before I met Keira.”

Rob leaned back against the wall of the house, purposefully thunking his head. “Out of curiosity, what would you have done if I took Verana up on her offer?”

<Endlessly sing annoying pop songs until you came to your senses.> Diplomacy shuddered. <Lothren preserve, there’s one tiny corner of your mind that always has one playing. I don’t know how I stay sane.>

Rob couldn’t help but laugh. “Glad you’ve got my back.”

<Naturally. So, are you willing to admit that you wish to pursue a relationship with Keira?>

“Yeah. I am, and I do.” An easy smile spread across his face. “She’s pretty amazing, and amazingly pretty. I’d be an idiot if I let this chance slip by. There’s going to be problems – the issues I mentioned in our last conversation won’t magically go away – but we’ll work through them. One step at a time.”

<I’m happy for you,> Diplomacy said, in a warm tone. <But I also have to ask *when* you’ll be expressing your feelings to Keira.>

“When I have any decent amount of time to compose myself,” Rob said. “Look, you live up there, you can see how much of a mess it is. I’m barely holding it together as it is. The stress of starting a new relationship isn’t something I can handle right now. That might just be the last Jenga piece pulled out from under me before the whole thing collapses.”

He sighed. “But I also know Elatra’s track record. There might never be a decent amount of time to compose myself. So if it comes to that, fuck it, I’ll just ask her out anyway and hope I don’t have a nervous breakdown. Give me, I don’t know, a month? Two at the most. If the Deserters haven’t achieved a semblance of normalcy by then, I’ll profess my love from the highest rooftop even if the world is collapsing around us.”

<I’ll hold you to that.>

They shared a minute of contented acceptance.

“I need a cold shower,” Rob commented. “And showers don’t exist.” He rubbed his chin. “Do you think Malika would ask too many questions if I told her to blast me with a water spell?”

<I think she’d do it before you finished the sentence.>

--

Author's Note:

After...a lot...of behind the scenes preparation, Book 1 of An Outcast In Another World is finally out on Kindle, Kindle Unlimited, and Paperback! If you're interested in getting it on that platform, click here to go to its page. No pressure at all if you don't want to/can't support it - just the fact that you're reading the story means the world to me.

If you have the time or the inclination, though, please consider adding it to your library for free if you already have Kindle Unlimited, or giving it a review on Amazon, which you can do even without buying it. Books on Amazon live and die by the algorithm, and early sales + positive reviews have a big, big effect on your book's visibility. I'm not exaggerating when I say that each and every individual 'sale' and review helps a lot. If you already have Kindle Unlimited, you can add the book to your library for free, and that'll count as a 'sale' in the algorithm's eyes as well. Reviews can help a lot too - just make sure to mention somewhere in the review that you read the story on Spacebattles first. Success on Amazon could very well lead to me being able to be a full-time writer (lifelong dream oh shit oh god), so any and all support is extremely appreciated.

Man. What do I even say at this point? I still can't believe how well this story has done, and that it's managed to resonate with so many people. Wouldn't have been able to come this far without you guys' support, and I mean that in many ways. The enthusiasm and feedback is what keeps me going, and I feel very lucky that I can actually look forward to the post-chapter comments instead of dreading them. Chapter 69 (nice) releases on Monday as normal - I'll see you all then!