The Weight of Legacy

Chapter 140 - Borrowed Time

Those simple words had been all it had taken to send his father and former friend into a quiet frenzy, and Anselm could not be gladder for it. This was the exact kind of delay—and most importantly, —he just so needed.When his young half-sister had spoken, Anselm had been only a few steps behind Kristian and Bernadette, still feeling more than a bit responsible for trying to keep them from ruining the event. That was now out of his hands—a blend of helplessness and acceptance came with that realization.

He couldn’t exactly go and tell them not to question Alaric, not after he and Theo had failed to immediately rebuff Adelheid for her comment. This would be their problem to deal with, because Anselm was about to leave.

If he was lucky, he would manage to come and go before anyone even noticed his absence, and his attendance to Thekla’s wedding would go unquestioned still, should anyone detect a disturbance where he was going. If they had yet to calm down by the time he returned, well… He would entertain the thought only if it truly came to that.

Slipping through the inner halls of their home with none of the staff there felt eerie in a way only matched by dreams. For all it lacked the surreal nature of that imaginary version, it was somehow just as lifeless—a place, without its people, looking and feeling absolutely wrong to the senses he could hardly admit he’d developed.

For all the sluggishness of seasickness had never truly left him, a few levels and months of forcing himself to simply had been all it took for Anselm to find a degree of his mobility not only returned but changed. He crossed half the estate much, much faster than seemed reasonable, each motion carrying with it a fluidity he would never take advantage of in front of witnesses.

Especially not when he thought he had a fairly close idea as to where it came from.

Name: Anselm Rīsan

Kind: Seablooded[*]

Inherent Aptitude: ??? | Inherent Flaw: ???

Age: 368 months

Final Stage of the Mortal Esse| Level 145

Lifetime Skill levels: 1200 (A)

Anselm still clung to the childish notion that he need not worry about this if he did everything he could to avoid thinking about it too often.

Between what was not—yet felt like—a blink and the next, he reached the top of the staircase. It was frustratingly narrow, enough for the mere sight of it to leave him feeling suppressed even before taking the first step. It wasn’t as if he had a large frame, either—Devils, even Beryl probably had broader shoulders than him, yet he could barely ignore the discomfort of the walls pressing against him as he descended.

How did Kristian come here, if at all? Perhaps he simply never visited his youngest son, despite his claims of —it would certainly track, for the man. While he wouldn’t call his father a liar when it came to something like this, not explicitly so, Kristian’s views on what was and was not worth his time were as complex as they were callous.

Feylights dimmed and brightened in his wake—had his heart still been capable of beating at a normal rate, Anselm didn’t doubt it would have been hammering away at his eardrums. The unease in his chest grew heavier even then—he knew enough to understand this wasn’t truly a physical reaction.

How long he had waited for this chance did not matter in the moment. He still dreaded the answers as much as he craved them.

It happened in an instant, a strange tension moving up and down every inch of his body the moment he moved away from the last step. Had he not stiffened in place, he would have fully collapsed on the spot. His mind went blank for the swiftest of moments—that momentary faltering would likely have gone unnoticed, were he not so utterly aware of recalling having leaned against the wall. The burning sensation Anselm had grown to associate with his Blessing spread through his veins, getting a gasp out of him as his once-still heart began to pound.

His thoughts were scrambled—all he had done was , yet his body was reacting as though the mere act had killed him. it?

With no time to waste, Anselm rushed forward, only sparing his surroundings a brief glance before deciding that , he was still alone, save for the tiny presence behind sheer curtains. There was a clinical sense to the chambers, even if the setting would have been more fitting for a cellar—certainly not for a young child’s room.

Each step felt heavier than the last, something about the place exerting pressure on his very body. A second later, it hit him—this room felt . There was an unnatural to it that made all previous discomfort seem irrelevant, enough that Anselm wondered if he’d been wrong to ignore just how nervous he had felt about coming here.

He was not familiar with the matter, not on the slightest, but it was the only explanation he could come up with. In his strange state of being, Anselm only remained ‘alive’ thanks to whatever the Blessing had done to him, and that all… struggled, right now. He could feel it, for all he couldn’t grasp the how of it all.

Hurrying was no longer a matter of going unnoticed—if he could still be hurt, this place might actually manage that if he lingered for too long. He had to act.

Anselm brought the revealed harvestable forth from his inventory and moved closer to the sleeping child.

Acclimation Detector

Use on a target to determine the number of Acclimations they possess compared to the local average, as well as the value of any visible and quantifiable ones.

Benedikt did not so much as acknowledge his presence, nor did he react to the item as it turned to dust above him. The boy looked far too frail.

Though his experience dealing with afflictions was limited—while part of alchemy was healing, the whole point of it was being able to prevent anything from truly becoming a problem—Anselm need not have any further medical knowledge to tell his littlest brother was ill. There was a pallor to him, and he lacked that chubbiness that was to be expected of an infant. The cheeks of a child so young should never have looked so , with dark spots matting his skin in seemingly random places.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

He could have sworn he felt his heart flutter at the sight, despite how unlikely that was.

Local average Acclimations: 15 Target Acclimations: 23 below averageVisible Acclimations:Quantifiable Acclimations: Acclimation Total: -1727Control Total: 13

Anselm gaped at the feedback the harvestable provided, all thoughts of urgency forgotten. Even the revelation that locals—as in, —apparently averaged 15 presumably hidden Acclimations felt like nothing but a curious fact.

He blinked, and the results remained unchanged.

He would have to visit the family library after so many years, if only to seek one of their tomes on mathematics—this made no sense to him. Could the harvestable somehow be in the wrong?

Again, his heartbeat stuttered—something told him it had not been an emotional reaction this time. No, time was running out. Anselm felt , and the warmth intensified further, fighting to keep him going in what he now understood was an environment that actively suppressed .

Had he not found himself struggling to make his way back to the staircase, and had he not been so utterly at a loss over his brother’s condition, he might have spared a thought to the matter of just their estate even had such a room within it—a place that could trouble even what he understood to be the power of a god.

Groaning in relief, Anselm all but plopped down upon the steps. Being so close to the room still remained unpleasant, but he could feel the warmth subsiding, his heartbeat slowing to its usual crawl.

Could a room such as this one somehow be beneficial to Benedikt? The boy looked unwell—yet the idea of limiting children’s exposure to mana wasn’t foreign to him. Anselm still remembered how their outings had always been limited growing up, as only increasing with time. Supposedly, children needed time to adapt, that much was clear—this was anything . Why utterly cut off a child from mana?

Wave take him, Benedikt’s Acclimation values were somehow in the negative despite him also having no Acclimations. Was this all impacting him somehow? Their father could be a bigger fool than Anselm at times, but this still could not be something he’d do without purpose.

To his chagrin, this would require further investigation.

Anselm grimaced, trying not to let his thoughts return to the image of Benedikt’s form—his littlest brother looked closer to death’s door than did.

In the end, he had managed to get himself the answers his niece had asked for, in a sense—if only he had a single clue as to what any of this meant.

“I shan’t deny I have always fantasized about what kicking the parents of a bride or groom out would feel like,” Lambrecht noted, nursing a drink no one had given him. “At the very least, it would make me feel powerful.”

“I beg of you—do not,” Abelard rubbed his temples, something he had been doing for quite the while now. “They will calm down eventually.”

“You know, I expected most of my entertainment to come from Otto,” Thekla noted from where she sat. Despite this being her wedding ceremony that was once again being delayed, she seemed far too pleased about yet another bout of drama going down. “Little baby Alaric’s all grown up now.”

“For the last time, that’s not what’s going on here!”

Seeing Alaric finally yell at his father had Malwine raising her eyebrows—she didn’t think of her uncle as a doormat, but he young. She hadn’t really expected him to snap back at Kristian and Bernie, when the most she’d ever seen him do was let out a snide comment or two during meals.

Thekla cradled her own head, smiling fondly as if she were looking at a beautiful scene. “And he’s starting to stand up for himself!”

“You people need help,” Lambrecht told Abelard.

The groom-to-be just shook his head. “…Are you certain you cannot simply… the ceremony?”

The would-be officiant and Thekla answered him almost simultaneously, exchanging a silent glance after they both spoke.

“And put an end to ?”

“Absolutely not!”

Abelard groaned.

By now, Malwine was pretty sure they were beyond caring she was around, so she allowed herself to giggle in earnest. With everything that happened in this household, the mere idea that Kristian would be so hung up over Alaric having anyone over was absurd.

“Did he react like that when he found out you two were together?” she asked her aunt and future uncle—hopefully, the question wouldn’t come off as weird, given her age.

“Were I not in the 700s, I fear your grandfather might have tried to kill me on the spot.”

Lambrecht’s eyes widened. “Lange, you are speaking to a child.”

“And?”

“,” the officiant whispered. “Say he might have hurt you or the like—there is no need to bring up death within sight of the young.”

She hadn’t expected the officiant, of all people, to suddenly get touchy about that— Hell, Thekla had been joking about potentially offing her in-laws mere minutes ago!

Before Abelard and Lambrecht could continue their debate, Malwine chose to interject. “I read books, you know. I’m aware people die. Sometimes they are killed. The whole deal.”

She tried to nod sagely, though her lips kept trying to turn up at the edges.

Malwine suspected she might have fucked up when even Thekla stared at her. “Hey, Malwine?”

“Yes?”

“If you try to think about yourself, do any floating messages show up?” her aunt ventured. “And if so, are they a deep green? Not unlike the trees?”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you see the system?” Thekla pressed.

Lambrecht leaned closer to the groom. “How old is your little niece?”

With a pout, Malwine made a point out of answering that one herself, arms crossed. “I’m eight, thank you very much! Not .”

“Old enough,” the man she would henceforth be thinking of as rubbed his chin. “Has this truly never come up before?”

“…No,” Thekla admitted. “Bernadette has always insisted on us being more hands-off about it. My sister, the one you saw earlier, has always been an oddity, but I know for a fact that it all predated her reaching the Mortal Esse.”

It didn’t take her too long to understand her mistake—Devils, Veit had explained it to her. The step between the Early Esse and the Mortal Esse, for the average kid, was reaching that point where you understood you could die. Having that realization that life was something final, something that could end, and that it wasn’t all fun and games, was meant to be monumental.

Internally, Malwine winced. She didn’t regret forcing her way to this rank, not when it came with extra Skill slots. She knew all too well the Debuff slowing her core growth would become more of a problem as time went on, but that was still future-Malwine’s problem to deal with.

“So you’re at the Mortal Esse,” Thekla addressed her, not intoning it like a question.

Malwine went with the first deflection that came to mind, trying to play the part of a confused child. “Isn’t everyone?”

“…No.”

Malwine had to stop herself from going down that train of thought. Ignoring lectures on topics she thought she already understood wasn’t a great idea, even if she already understand them. For all she knew, there could be details she’d previously missed or information her previous sources lacked.

“A blank two-digit, heh,” Lambrecht said, chuckling. “It had been a long time since I last saw one of those actually stop me.”

“You had truly not noticed?” Abelard asked the man.

“I do not make a habit of using [Identify] on every child I come across, no.”

Glad for the bickering to have returned to its natural state, Malwine almost sighed… except Thekla was still staring at her. “Auntie?”

“We have been so neglectful,” she said softly. “You might not realize it, but it’s an achievement. Reaching the Mortal Esse should be celebrated—”

“No, no, no!” Malwine tried to press her hands over her aunt’s mouth. “I saw what Bernie did to Matilda! That terror of a party! And the lessons! No way! I refuse!”

Thekla’s initial shocked soon appeared to be overcome by something else—her eyes narrowed. “”

“What?”

“Malwine,” her aunt’s serious expression cracked slightly. “You were aware you had reached the Mortal Esse.”

“…Maybe.”

“Did you, perhaps, avoid mentioning it so Bernie would not take charge of your education?”

“Hey, it worked for Adelheid,” was all Malwine could think of, even if that was a wild misrepresentation of how Adelheid had handled it—she doubted Thekla was aware of the ins and outs of how the teleporting toddler worked.

Thekla just laughed, running a hand through her hair—the elaborate braid she’d once rocked was fraying around the edges by now, and the actual wedding had yet to even happen.

Malwine eyed the officiant pleadingly—he wasn’t even looking in her direction.

That was truly all she could do—eventful as the day had been, it was far from over, and even her hopes for the wedding to were nothing but wishful thinking.

This was taking .