Afterword - Book 2 - Chapter 20 (Patreon)

Chapter 20: The Face of Vengeance I

(Original Chapter Title: <ERROR>)

Okay, so.

You might be wondering at the structure in the above, assuming you don't just skim past it.

This section is completely new prose. I never had a original chapter named '<ERROR>', this is my System-ish tongue-in-cheek way of saying this (and several following) chapters wholly replaced something cut.

Something that badly needed to be cut.

I've precious little more to say about what was cut, but Ranthia and I both strongly prefer what replaced it. Let's just leave it at Ranthia wasn't distracted from her revenge in the OG draft. So, please, allow us to move on. I hesitated to even admit that there was a prior sequence of events, but I do strive to be honest in my afterwords.

I write a living world, which means events aren't inexplicably frozen in time until Ranthia happens by to perceive them. One thing that I'll seriously criticize BtDEM for is that there was lip service paid to how deadly life in Remus was, but everyone seemed to be more-or-less safe without Elaine around. Plagues, monsters, and accidents were common, yet tragedies were largely conveyed only through Elaine's PoV and not through the world she explored. This is a criticism that others might not share, of course. I've had my share of detractors for letting death happen "off screen" instead of having Ranthia involved in it.

But I don't write a powerful savior, I write a woman doing her best to survive in a world far more hostile than our own. Life brings about losses all the time, even in our world. I've mentioned this before, and it's something I feel strongly about.

And so, Ranthia finds out her mother died. She takes it well. </sarcasm>

After promising vengeance to a tree (just... process that phrase for a bit), Ranthia's plans are derailed by ornithocheirus—the flying beasts that nearly ended Ranthia's life during her time with Ranger Team 6. Grim-faced, Ranthia volunteers to face another nightmare from her past.

The flip side of writing a living world though, sometimes problems get resolved before the MC can reach them. A-Ranked Adventurer teams are far from helpless; some of them can bring levels of prowess that rival Ranger teams. Here, their Skills were far more applicable to the crisis than either Ranger team's was.

But Ranthia has a new objective, one that means more to her than what she was too late to help with. A potential survivor that's echoing her own story? It's a life that Ranthia just might be able to save.

Don't focus on the fact that she hasn't talked someone down from a suicidal path since she was 8.