Afterword - Book 1 - Chapter 9 (Patreon)

Chapter 9: Aquiliea Antics II

(original chapter title: N/A)

I wanted to show more sides of Ranthia with this chapter. The bit of chaos came first (are you surprised?), but then I realized that Aquiliea offered an opportunity to allow readers from BtDEM to indulge in a spot of nostalgia.

Kids being kids!

Except the almost the instant I got Ranthia into a park I realized the obvious problem. There was no way in heck she was going to interact with other children willingly and neither of us (as in me or Ranthia) wanted to actually write her having a major incident. Wounding children needlessly just isn't a fun time for either of us. But what else was nostalgic? Wind weasels. I'd planned to have Ranthia encounter the pests, but having a group of kids introduce her to the pests and the poor, abused bounty system worked great.

It also gave Ranthia an early display of competence and, by total fluke, this chapter also addressed one of the most common criticisms/concerns readers have had since I started publishing. (And I swear, the section predated the launch!) Several people wondered why Ranthia didn't start with a Metal class to use it as artillery [Mage] until she classed up into Mirror.

Except that's not how the System works. What you do with a class matters. It matters a lot. Ranthia's not on the easiest path, but she's doing her best to shape her classes into EXACTLY what she needs them to become. Will she succeed? ...Well, as of the time this is posted you all already know, since no one is in the Afterwords only tier, haha. But I'll let the question stand for future subscribers! ...Who will probably also be far enough along to know.

...I'm going to end this before I end up in a shame corner, 'kay?