Chapter 43: 43. Hello There

Livia was trying to get back to normal and kept busy working in the guild hall, figuring out how her new Skills worked, when the voice next spoke.

[Hmpf, hello there Livia, we did not have the opportunity to finish our talk last night.]

Then another horrible realization quickly dawned.

"You're somehow here to stay, aren't you?"

[I still need to tell you about the other abilities of your matured Mark, for example I notice you have been working on upgrading your bookkeeping Skill, why don't I just.]

[Skill upgrade: Basic Bookkeeping -> Advanced Bookkeeping.] The notification made Livia's jaw drop, but there was a note of sadness in her eyes as well.

"I had been working on that for months, you can just upgrade it?"

[Well, not without the groundwork. But I can push it through once you're reasonably close and have given the upgrade an actual direction.]

Okay, so at least there is that. I just won't ever know if I could have made it the whole way on my own. Lovely. Upgrading a Skill was rarely done, and there were different theories regarding the usefulness of it, likely due to the variety of [Systems] in use among those taking part in the discussion. Some claimed it took the slot of a Skill you would have gotten later on when upgrading your Class, while others said that upgrading a Skill only increased the likelihood of being granted additional new Skills by the [System]. Of course it was difficult to get anywhere productive when the various [Systems] were entire species' greatest secrets.

"Does that mean you're going away again after?" She asked with a note of hope. Mr. Beard didn't even deign to respond.

"I have plans of my own you know, it could well be that I have something left to do with a Skill before I mean to upgrade it, so don't do anything like that without asking again." It wasn't that Livia wasn't grateful. She just knew this was not something she had earned.

[I see, I was expecting some gratitude, but I understand what you are saying.] When Livia went to continue working the voice spoke up again. [That actually brings me to my final point, the direction of your Class.]

"What about it, I have plans, I'm just working them out still. I'm only level 3." The voice took another characteristic pause. [I realize that, it's just I notice how you have been neglecting to discuss anything that would force you to think about home. I don't know how you expect to create something innovative here by forgetting the things that make your people who you are, that make you needed here.]

Livia's instinctive response was snapping back, that she did not mean to forget anything but that she just had so much to figure out about her new world that it naturally took a back seat. But upon closer inspection she found that wasn't really true. What she should be doing was trying to marry her world and this one, in a way. Find ways to combine the two and make something new in the process. Instead she had been shying away from even using words from home, even names. They were still calling the mosswolf Mossy for crying out loud, but every time Livia wanted to think of a name her mind went straight to popular culture and from there to earth and she immediately shied back and found a task that needed doing.

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[I know it's hard, and that what we did was not fair, but you still need to make the best of it, now that you're here.]

She knew that, she had told herself that, lying awake at night.

It was just hard.

---

Oscar had had quite the couple of months. First Kalle got himself into trouble and had to be saved by yours truly going to get the others, then the ant warriors arrived and Harold got another reminder how much further he still had to go, while Oscar looked on not even having gotten to take the first step yet. There's levels to feeling frustrated, that's all I'm saying.

And then Liam was now giving him a stern talking to, disguised as a sympathetic pep-talk, about something Oscar knew he did not do. He didn't even find Livia very attractive.

"And so all I'm saying is that if you feel the urge to do something strange, maybe at night when the house is feeling lonely, just take care of business yourself the way I'm sure your brother has accidentally shown you at some point. Don't bother others unless you've been previously invited, even a look can be quite troublesome at the wrong time." Oscar was giving the old man a queer look of disbelief, but it clearly wasn't biting.

"And if you need any advice I'm free to talk to, don't worry about it," He clapped the young man's shoulders and then walked off decisively, considering it a job well done.

Oscar glared. He was thinking of going to check on what Kalle was doing, but one did not bother the [Esperlock] unduly.

I could go check on what Livia is up to first. Yeah, let's do that.

---

Harold was just returning from a visit to Brunner when he came across his younger brother and decided to ambush the kid. It failed, despite Harold's increasing quickness. Oscar was doing everything possible to keep up, after all, and being ambushed had been part of his life since childhood, albeit by the somewhat clumsy Harold.

When Oscar told him the plan he was all aboard, that was how the two found themselves at Livia's office right when there was a commotion in the square. Apparently it was Brunner's turn to raise his alarm. The message was short.

Hostile traders.

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