Chương 45: Chapter 44: Household Before the Storm

While Ren was busy training, the rest of the house changed around him in smaller ways. Ways he wasn't sure he liked. There had always been work. Elna could fill a day without trying: clothes to mend, meals to prepare, things to wash and sort, neighbors stopping by, some household problem or another waiting for hands the moment the previous one was finished. In every loop prior, Ren had found comfort in that rhythm. Now he kept noticing where it broke.

Elna would fold half a shirt, hear footsteps outside, and turn toward the window with the cloth still hanging from her hands. Squeezed until her knuckles turned white. Once, she crossed the room for thread, noticed the water pot beside the hearth, carried it over instead, then stood there staring at it until her expression tightened. Ren watched from the floor with the wand resting across his lap. He had seen Elna distracted before.

Tessa could accomplish that in under a minute on a good day, and a busy household supplied plenty of other opportunities. But this was different. The pauses lasted too long, and her attention kept drifting toward the road, the windows, the spaces beyond the walls where nothing had happened yet. Ren lowered his eyes to the wand. He had wanted his parents to believe him so badly.

For days before telling them, he had worried about rejection, disbelief, fear, or some terrible moment where Elna looked down at him and saw something other than her son. None of that had happened. They had listened. They had accepted him. They had started preparing with him instead of leaving Ren to drag the village toward safety through hints, children, and desperate little schemes. He had gotten what he wanted. Now his mother suffered the stress of knowing exactly what Ren had been trying to save her from.

That evening she salted the supper twice. Bren took his first bite and paused. Elna noticed immediately.

"What?" His father chewed with admirable commitment.

"It has character." Elna narrowed her eyes. Bren took another bite, apparently deciding there was no honorable retreat.

"A great deal of character." Tessa tried hers, made a face, and reached for the water. Elna closed her eyes.

"Oh." A laugh escaped her as she rubbed at her forehead. Bren smiled, Tessa drank, and for a few seconds the mistake became exactly the sort of harmless family disaster it should have been. Then something crashed nearby, and they could hear muted chastising from outside. But by the time Elna looked away from the window her smile was already gone. Ren stopped playing with his wand. He could remember another Elna at another table, before she knew anything was wrong.

He could remember her moving through the house without listening for danger in every set of footsteps. He could remember the terrible days too, when there had been goblins and smoke outside and fear in her voice and nowhere left to send Tessa or him that was truly safe. Now all of those memories belonged to Ren, while Elna had only his word for them. Yet somehow she was carrying part of them anyway.

Ren looked down at his wand, briefly and uselessly wishing that there had been a way to warn them without giving them the fear along with it. There hadn't been. Keeping everything to himself had already failed. He had tried steering people from the edges, hoping they would notice the right things, hoping Tessa understood enough, hoping adults acted before the village ran out of time. This was objectively the better outcome. Bren trained, Elna helped, explained, and planned.

They asked questions Ren could answer instead of forcing him to work around them. He would still choose this if there came the next time. That did not make it pleasant to watch. Over those few days, Ren caught more of those little changes. Elna checked the shutters twice before bed one night. She stopped sewing in the middle of a stitch when Bren came home later than usual.

When Tessa ran outside without warning, Elna called after her with enough sharpness to make his sister skid to a stop before she had even reached the yard. And sometimes Elna picked Ren up for no reason at all. She would be passing him on the way to another task, bend down, lift him against her chest, and simply continue with one arm around him. Ren never objected. He had spent months resenting how easily everyone could carry him wherever they pleased.

Now, when Elna's hand settled across his back and stayed there a little tighter than it used to, he tucked himself against her, and let her keep him. Once, while she stood near the window watching Bren cross the yard, Ren curled one small arm around her neck. Elna looked down. Her expression softened, but only slightly. Then she kissed the side of his head and held him closer. The danger had become real to her because Ren had made it real. All he could do now was make sure the ending did not become real too.

Women from nearby households began stopping by more often as the days passed. Some came with practical questions about food, children, or what they should keep ready if the village sounded an alarm. Others arrived with sewing requests, or some small complaint about a roof, a husband, a stubborn child, or the harvest troubles, then stayed at the table longer than the problem required. Ren usually trained nearby while Elna talked with them. He listened without trying to turn every conversation into something useful.

That had become easier lately. … Not that there was much to extract out of conversations about baking recipes. There was only so much talk of goblins anyone could stand before the subject began swallowing everything else, and Ren had already done enough of that to his family. When the women drifted into gossip about a neighbor's fence, whose daughter had outgrown another dress, or which trader had tried charging too much for lamp oil, Elna sounded more like herself. Ren liked hearing that.

It made him feel less guilty. The bad would pass, and his family would return to normal after. Across the household, Bren had taken the opposite approach. His father returned from training sore almost every day. Ren started noticing the bruises before Bren even sat down, dark marks along his forearms, shoulders, and ribs where practice weapons had found him. There seemed to be more of them now. But they were also smaller. Ren watched that change with growing satisfaction.

Whatever Hadrik and Tovin were doing to him, Bren was learning how not to take the full force of every mistake, and not repeat it too many times. One evening Bren came back carrying a practice spear and, after supper, took it into the yard. Tessa followed immediately. Ren went with Elna and ended up sitting on a folded blanket near the wall while Bren stepped into the open space. He adjusted his grip, planted his feet, and began moving.

The first thrust came straight ahead, followed by a withdrawal and a shift of his stance. Bren turned with the spear rather than dragging it after himself, reset, then drove the point forward again from another angle. Ren watched closely, trying to discern anything he could learn himself. It looked good! … But that meant almost nothing.

His knowledge of spear fighting came mostly from a previous life full of books, games, films, and people on screens confidently explaining how everyone else had been holding medieval weapons wrong. Bren could have been improving dramatically or developing a very elegant way to get stabbed and Ren would have no idea. Though he still saw the difference with how his father carried himself now. Tessa clapped before Bren had even finished.

"Again!" A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. Bren laughed and did. Ren lifted both hands when his father looked over afterward.

"Good!" Bren's face brightened enough that Ren immediately felt pleased with himself. Elna, sitting beside Ren, looked over the bruises visible beneath Bren's rolled sleeves.

"Very impressive," she said, and this time there was no teasing in it.

"You're moving much better." Bren smiled, still breathing a little harder from the exercise.

"Hadrik says I'm getting there."

"I can see that." Her attention lingered on his arms.

"I can also see where he's been helping you get there." Bren glanced down at the marks, and scratched his chin, embarrassed.

"They're smaller now."

"They are, and I'm glad." Elna stood and brushed the grass from her skirt.

"Finish what you're doing, then wash up and come inside. I've got medicine from Mara to put on them."

"I'm fine."

"I know you are." She leaned down to pick Ren up from the blanket.

"You can be fine with salve on your bruises." Bren had no answer to that. Tessa immediately called for him to do the turn again, and Bren returned to his stance with a smile. At least his sister was having fun. His parents also no longer lowered every conversation into simple words around him. Once they had accepted how much Ren understood, they simply talked, and he followed as much as he could. Sometimes he asked about Bren's training.

Other times a word Elna used sent the conversation sideways into village work, tools, trade, or some old habit Ren had never thought to question before. One question about a repair Bren mentioned turned into an explanation of why certain woods were saved for handles and others for furniture. A complaint from Elna about payment led into how much of village trade never involved coins at all, despite the shops and everything. Ren kept listening, and engaging as much as he could.

He had spent so much of his time thinking about what everyone could contribute to the coming fight that he had missed how much there was to learn about life when nobody was discussing survival. [Skill Level Increased: Language Lv. 15 -> Lv. 16] [Skill Level Increased: Expression Lv. 12 -> Lv. 13] Those conversations stayed with him, in more ways than one. Tessa changed the least. Or perhaps his older sister simply hid it best? Ren doubted that.

She still ran through the house, argued about the treasury, complained when Elna refused to let her wander too far, and regularly decided Ren's training needed her personal intervention. One afternoon, Ren was attempting to guide mana through the second layer of the ball when Tessa appeared beside him with two cushions tucked beneath one arm. Ren looked at the cushions, then at her.

"You have been sitting too long."

"Mana."

"I know." She dropped the cushions onto the floor and began arranging them anyway.

"You still need more Balance training."

"Who said–?"

"I say so! So it must be true!" Ren doubted that, but he was overpowered here, and a small distraction that would make his sister happy wasn't too bad. He finished the attempt before surrendering himself to whatever Tessa had planned. She had him stepping from one cushion to the next while carrying the wooden horse, then objected when he tried to use the edge of the table for support.

"No hands." Ren glared at her.

"You are cheating." He reluctantly let go. For the next several minutes, goblins ceased to exist. Knights ceased to exist. The village ceased to exist. There was only Tessa insisting that his left foot belonged on the smaller cushion while Ren tried not to fall over with a wooden horse clutched against his chest. And admittedly, it worked. [Skill Level Increased: Flexibility Lv. 3 -> Lv. 4] Whatever fear had found its way into his sister after the Talk had not managed to take over everything else.

Tessa could still be furious that Elna would not let her wander beyond the village, still obsess over sweets, still turn his training into increasingly unreasonable games and forget for long stretches that anything waited in the woods at all. It made him a little happy. And Ren wanted her to keep forgetting whenever she could. He followed her across the cushions until she declared the course too easy and wandered away to improve it. The days kept moving with her, and so did the results.

[Skill Level Increased: Flexibility Lv. 4 -> Lv. 5] [Skill Level Increased: Mana Sense Lv. 10 -> Lv. 11] Every morning Ren woke knowing another one had gone. Every afternoon the road remained ordinary, and every evening Bren came home without news from the city. As the end of the second week drew closer, Ren began listening for horses without meaning to. Not that he heard the messenger leaving, but checking still made him feel a little bit better. The messenger had needed nearly a week simply to reach the city.

There would be delays there too, then the return journey. Ren knew that. He had known it when they made the plan. It did little to stop the road from feeling emptier with each passing day, but at least the forest remained quiet with it. Ren was working with the patterned ball on the fifth day after visiting Little Yara when Tessa suddenly abandoned the slate beside him and hurried toward the window.

"Mara!" Ren's mana slipped out of the pattern. He looked up in time to see Mara crossing toward the house with a large basket braced against one hip. Elna had seen her too. She set aside what she was doing and reached the door before Mara knocked, and the usual pleasantries followed. Ren pushed himself upright. Mara did not usually arrive carrying enough supplies to fill both arms, and the moment she stepped inside, the smell of dried herbs and medicine spread through the room.

"Yara sent these." Ren was already moving closer. Tessa reached the basket first.

"Did she send candy?" Mara looked down at her.

"She sent medicine." Tessa peered into the basket anyway while Mara set it on the table.

"This is your part of it," Mara said, giving Elna a little bit of every batch from the basket.

"Yara has been preparing for the village, and I already delivered the first basket to the church. I'm taking the rest where it needs to go." Elna began going through the portion Mara had brought them while Mara explained what each packet and bottle was for. Ren listened from beside the table, following the unfamiliar names where he could, until his Mana Sense caught something that had nothing to do with medicine. His attention shifted deeper into the basket. There!

Mara waited until Elna had set the last bottle aside, then reached beneath the remaining cloth and carefully drew out two wrapped objects. Mana sat tightly inside both wrapped charms, dense enough that Ren picked them out immediately. His whole attention snapped onto them. She had actually made them! Little Yara had taken his ridiculous idea seriously, worked out how to make it function, and sent the results back while somehow finding time to prepare medicine for the village as well. His master was amazing.

And terrifyingly efficient! Mara placed the two charms carefully on the table beside the medicine.

"Yara also sent word that she is too busy for visitors at the moment. Ren is to continue with the training she already gave him." Ren nodded. That was fair. More than fair, really. He had already handed his master enough extra work to fill several days, and apparently she had accepted the challenge instead of bonking him a second time and throwing him out permanently. He would have to apologize later. After the goblins. And perhaps after confirming the grenades worked as intended.

Mara rested one hand beside the charms.

"These are only for an emergency. I already delivered most of them to Hadrik, but Yara instructed me to give them to you too." Elna looked down at them.

"What do they do?" Mara glanced toward Ren, and he immediately became suspicious.

"Ren should know how to activate them. Yara said he only needs to push mana into the charm. Once it activates, he is to hand it straight to either you or Bren, and whoever takes it throws it straight at the goblin problem, before it becomes your problem." Bren came closer.

"How much time before the… problem happens?"

"Five seconds from activation." Ren stared at the charms with renewed respect. Five seconds! Little Yara had actually built in a fuse. That was considerably better than his original concept of activate, throw, hope. Bren picked up one charm carefully and turned it without disturbing the wrapping.

"And what do they do?"

"Light and noise, from what Yara told me," Mara said.

"Enough to blind and disorient if it works properly. Do not hold it after activation. Do not throw it near villagers. And do not let children touch it." Hearing that, Tessa slowly moved her hand away from the table as Mara stared pointedly.

"Especially you."

"I was not touching."

"You were preparing to."

"Nuh uh! I was just looking closely!"

"With your fingers." Tessa lowered both hands. Elna took the charm from Bren and turned it carefully in her hands.

"And Ren can activate it?"

"That is what Yara said." Elna looked down at him. Ren nodded. Her expression tightened for a moment, and Ren knew exactly where her thoughts had gone. If he needed to activate one, then things had already reached the house, the church, or escalated wrongly. Bren or Elna would have to take it from him, throw it, and trust that five seconds was enough. Ren did not like that part either. Still, five seconds and a magical flash bomb were considerably better than what they had possessed in the previous loops.

Which was nothing. He moved closer to the table and studied the charm through Mana Sense while Mara explained how Yara wanted them stored. His Master had done it. The village now had medicine, warning charms, traps in preparation, and at least two emergency weapons for his family, and many more for the village defenses, that had not existed before Ren opened his mouth and started proposing increasingly irresponsible applications of magic. Not bad for one outing. Definitely worth the bonk!

His master had taken his ridiculous old-world idea, translated it into something possible with local magic, and built working versions while also preparing medicine for the village. Ren felt another stab of guilt. He had given her more work when she was already preparing for a potential mass-casualty event. He would have to apologize after the crisis. … Assuming she did not bonk him first! Elna put the charms away somewhere Tessa could not reach, and life in the house resumed around them. At least, it tried to.

The second week was ending, and there was still no sign of the knights. Ren found himself checking the road more often as the days passed. Whenever he had a clear view beyond the house, his eyes lingered there a little longer than they needed to, searching for riders that never appeared. The timing still worked. He knew that. The messenger had needed nearly a week to reach the city, and whatever happened there would take time too. Even after someone agreed to come, they still had to make the return journey.

Even stirred, the goblins didn't arrive too fast either. There should still be time. That thought had been much easier to believe several days ago. There were no goblins either, which should have been reassuring. Instead, the lack of movement from either direction left Ren waiting between two possibilities he could do nothing about. Bren kept training. Elna kept herself busy. Tessa remained Tessa. The village had more warning, more preparation, and more help than it had ever possessed in the previous loops.

Ren had changed so much already. He just needed the knights to arrive before the goblins did.