Afterword - Book 1 - Chapter 29 (Patreon)

Chapter 29: A Brief Bit of Immortality

(Original Chapter Title: Adventurer III)

And finally we come to the splashy part of Adventurer III from the OG draft, now given its own chapter and fleshed out a bit further!

Ranthia takes on a conspiracy as a fresh A-Ranked Adventurer! Remus is terrible for many reasons, but one of the worst is how critical slavery is to its basic societal functions. This means there's an insatiable need for slaves, which means a LOT of men and women are getting seized under less-than-legal pretenses to meet the demands. There is no such thing as 'moral' slavery, and I refuse to pretend there was. Illegality follows closely in hand, even when slavery itself is—against all reason and sense—legal. So yes, Ranthia gleefully carves through the slavers.

One criticism that one of my beta readers had was that Ranthia should have expected to get drugged. It's easy to forget sometimes, but the System is a thing in Pallos. Ranthia is FAR more resilient than a baseline human was we know them; her vitality enables her to shrug off many potential narcotics. And Remus' [Alchemists] canonly suck. This means that Ranthia hasn't got the same awareness of potent drugs as our media has made us as readers. It's expensive, it's rare, and it's likely not often seen outside of horrific wealthy hands. Also, there's no TV, so concerns of largely-fictional drugs with superlative effects (for expediency to fit the time slot) aren't a thing.

I really figured Ranthia would catch some flak in this chapter for openly murdering the thug that bent over backwards trying to please and assist her. Yet, to date, it either got shrugged off or cheered; though I suspect some RR readers might complain. It's a cold moment, and we hadn't seen many of those out of Ranthia before this point. Not that he didn't deserve it, but cold moments can be divisive.

As for the captured people that Ranthia forgot... way back when I first wrote this chapter, Ranthia and I both completely forgot to free them. I considered revising the chapter when we realized it when she was giving her report to the Guildmaster... but no, Ranthia forgot. She's imperfect, and it seemed like a solid character moment to keep.

Ranthia receives a choker! ...Personally, I despise that choker. I have it mentioned in EVERY one of my note documents, yet I still constantly forget about it. It doesn't hold much mana, no, but I sometimes have to edit mentions of it in where appropriate. Just... just assume Ranthia keeps it on normally, please.

Ranthia getting a song about her was new to the revision—I think. But it makes sense, she solved a case that Rangers missed. Unfortunately for her, a less skilled [Bard] wrote the song and it was doomed to fade out as soon as people got over the novelty of an Adventurer sticking it to Remus' power structures. And/or the power structures gently reminded the [Bards] who allows them to exist, bring your own dystopia.

Also, the Guildmaster is being weird. Oh well, it's probably nothing.