Chapter 1308 (2/2)

Randidly chuckled awkwardly. “...Thanks. But I have the feeling that this won’t be as restive as my previous birthdays.”

“How old are you, if you don’t mind me asking?” Tatiana stopped spinning and tilted her head as she considered Randidly. Her amber eyes sparkled as she looked at him.

“Including time spent in Dungeons and things?” Randidly asked. After Tatiana had nodded, he shrugged. “I think twenty-seven. But it’s getting a little hard to keep track.”

“And the System makes actual ages less relevant than how old you were when the System arrived. The research from Donnyton indicates most people stop seeming to age at around 25… but the number of teenagers who survived the initial danger of the System was pretty low. We will have to wait a few more years for more data…”

Then Tatiana paused. “...Randidly, if the System hadn’t arrived, who do you think you would have done with your life?”

For almost a minute, Randidly was silent. His eyes remained fixed on the luminous light coming from the area around Tatiana’s feet. Tatiana, for her part, was content to let him think as she performed a last-minute inspection of the ballroom. She walked around the area, cooing in pleasure as the light matched her movements perfectly.

“I don’t know,” Randidly finally admitted. Then he shook his head uncomfortably. “Or rather, it might be better to say that I don’t remember who I was at that time. I was just a kid, really. I wasn’t even living on my own then. As for what I wanted… what I was good at… I really can’t seem to remember. But… despite everything, I was definitely a worse person.”

“Why?” Tatiana asked.

Randidly looked down at his hands. One flesh and the other a black metal lined with lines of white light. So much has changed. He chuckled and tightened his hands into fists. “The most important rule for living is to face your fears. Both in yourself and in the world. And the me before the System… did not have the strength to take a deep look at who he was.”

“That’s probably why you can’t remember anything about that version of yourself,” Tatiana noted. Then she walked back across the ballroom toward the platform on which Randidly was standing with the party favors. “But you need to leave soon, to prepare for your grand entrance. Everything set up with your demonstrations? Do you want to hear the security reports?”

“Everything’s ready here,” Randidly said with a nod. Then he waved his hands. “And I can sense that we are stopping everything that’s trying to infiltrate Kharon, so the details aren’t important. But are you seriously using this as a giant training exercise for the Order Duics…?”

“Yep!” Tatiana’s wide smile didn’t even have a fraction of shame in it. She stopped a meter away from the edge of Randidly’s platform, light still blooming beneath her feet. “It’s time-consuming to track down Raid Bosses strong enough to pose a challenge to the applicants so long as we aren’t in the Wildlands… besides, I’m a practical woman. If all of these groups are determined to be serious threats to our existence, I’m not above using them for my own purposes. I figured you would be proud of me.”

Snorting, Randidly turned away and took one last look at the large ballroom. Truly, everything was ready. Then he spotted Tatiana’s expectant expression and raised an eyebrow. “What is it? Did you think that I would judge you for making my birthday party a training exercise?”

“No. I just figured you would show off a bit at this point and am disappointed you haven’t yet.” Tatiana gestured to the ground. “Give me a sneak peek of what’s going to happen at the party when you finally arrive.”

Rolling his eyes, Randidly walked over to the edge of the raised platform. Then he crouched down and lowered the pointer finger of his right hand to the ground. The tip of his finger touched the cool tile.

Immediately, the light beneath Tatiana flickered and began to dim. Tatiana rubbed her chin. “Are you suppressing me, or-”

“The floor is based on relative strength,” Randidly said easily. At this point, the light beneath Tatiana had shrunk to the burning head of a match. And then an incandescent blaze began to form at the spot where Randidly touched the ground.

Randidly quickly removed his finger from the ground before the blinding area of light grew any larger than a fist. He gave Tatiana a grin. “Satisfied?”

“A little,” Tatiana walked over to the spot that Randidly touched which was slowly dimming to look like the headlights of a car. “The effect lingers?”

“If your image is strong enough, yea,” Randidly rubbed the back of his head and cracked his neck.

Tatiana walked up onto the platform next to him. “So? How will you spend your time for a while?”

“I suppose I’ll…” Randidly thought about it. “...take a bath?”