Chapter 55.1 - Grave visiting [Somar POV]
The makeshift cemetery looked absurd in the middle of the Dedoldia village. A collection of wooden markers that Claude had insisted on creating despite the tribe's bewilderment.
I knelt beside the graves I'd constructed for my parents. Brushing away leaves that had fallen during the night.
"After all the preparations, everything still turned to nothing," I muttered, running my fingers along the rough wood. The carving was crude compared to Claude's work, but it felt important to maintain them myself.
The irony wasn't lost on me. Here I was, surrounded by one of the most vibrant communities I'd ever encountered, tending to graves for people who'd died worlds away from this place.
Claude's decision to create this memorial in the heart of a living village still struck me as morbid.
He's trying to honor what was lost while building a new future. Even if his methods are unconventional.
"Master! Master, where are you hiding?"
The familiar chorus of voices made me wince. The Dedoldia smiths had been hunting Claude since dawn.
Their obsession reaching levels that bordered on religious fervor. I'd tried explaining that he wasn't with me, but they refused to believe that anyone associated with their "savior" wouldn't know his exact whereabouts.
"I swear on my ancestors, I'll give you my wife if you just come back and teach us advanced metallurgy!" one of them shouted from somewhere near the village center.
What the hell did Claude do to these people? I wondered, not for the first time.
The transformation in the blacksmiths was remarkable. But their devotion had crossed into territory that made me genuinely uncomfortable.
"Pardon their... enthusiasm," came a familiar voice behind me.
I turned to find Gyes approaching, his expression caught between amusement and embarrassment. The beast-man warrior had been one of Claude's primary contacts in the village, and I got the impression he felt somewhat responsible for the smiths' current behavior.
"It's fine," I lied, getting to my feet and dusting off my knees. "Though I have to ask, what exactly did Claude do to inspire this level of fanaticism? It's honestly a little disturbing."
Gyes laughed awkwardly, one hand scratching at his cheek in a gesture I'd learned indicated discomfort among the Dedoldia.
"Well, he essentially saved their entire profession from extinction. Perhaps I should explain..."
As we walked toward a quieter section of the village, Gyes began to tell me the story I'd only heard fragments of during my time here. The Dedoldia smiths hadn't always been the confident, skilled craftsmen they were now.
In fact, just months ago, they'd been considered the lowest caste in the village, social outcasts whose traditional skills had become irrelevant in a tree-dwelling community.
"You have to understand," Gyes explained, his voice taking on the rhythmic cadence of a storyteller, "metallurgy and forest living don't naturally coexist. How do you forge steel when you can't build traditional forges without burning down your home? How do you mine ore when your entire civilization exists in the canopy?"
The smiths had found themselves trapped between their inherited calling and the practical realities of Dedoldia life.
Generation after generation had watched their skills atrophy, their social standing diminish, until they existed as little more than charity cases within their own community.
"They lived in the shadow-spaces," Gyes continued, his expression growing somber. "The parts of the village where the canopy blocks most of the sunlight. Married to women who were themselves outcasts, the disabled, the mentally impaired, those deemed 'undesirable' by village standards. It was... not a life anyone would choose."
I found myself thinking of my own struggles with belonging. The way Claude had found me half-dead and purposeless in Buena Village.
The parallel wasn't exact, but the core desperation felt familiar.
"Then Claude arrived," Gyes said, and his voice took on the reverent tone that seemed universal when the villagers spoke of my friend. "He took one look at their situation and declared it unacceptable. Not their status, not their marriage arrangements, their waste of potential."
What followed was apparently three months of what could only be described as rehabilitation through controlled torment.
Claude had used his enchantment abilities to create impossible forges that wouldn't damage the trees, established mining operations that seemed to defy conventional logic, and subjected the smiths to training regimens that made his treatment of us children look gentle by comparison.
"He worked them twenty-four hours a day for the first month," Gyes recounted. "No breaks, no excuses, no acceptance of failure. They hated him with every fiber of their being. Some tried to quit, others attempted to sabotage the equipment. Claude's response was to increase the workload."
That sounds like Claude, I thought. He's never been one to accept defeat gracefully.
Especially when he thinks he knows what's best for someone.
But gradually, the transformation occurred. The smiths began to realize they were actually improving.
That the skills they'd thought lost forever were returning stronger than before. More importantly, their work was being recognized.
And valued by the rest of the village for the first time in their lives.
"Within three months, they were producing metalwork that rivaled anything from the human cities," Gyes said with obvious pride. "Tools, weapons, decorative pieces, suddenly the Dedoldia had access to craftsmanship that had been impossible for generations. The smiths went from outcasts to essential members of the community overnight."
The transformation had been so dramatic that the smiths now viewed Claude as approaching a divine figure.
He'd given them not just skills, but purpose, dignity, and a place in their society they'd never thought possible.
"So when they heard Rudeus and I discussing... marriage arrangements," Gyes continued with obvious discomfort, "they decided to offer their own wives to Claude as an incentive to stay. In their minds, it was the highest honor they could bestow."
Of course Claude rejected that, I thought. He's got his own complicated relationship with romantic attachment, and I can't imagine him accepting what amounts to human trafficking, even if it's well-intentioned.
"He beat them up for the suggestion," Gyes confirmed, "but they kept offering. Right up until the day he left the village. They couldn't understand why someone who'd given them so much would refuse to accept anything in return."
The story painted a picture of Claude that was both inspiring and troubling. His ability to transform lives was undeniable, but his methods often bordered on cruel.
He'd essentially broken these people down completely before building them back up according to his own vision of what they should become.
He does the same thing to everyone. To me, to the other children from Buena Village, probably to himself most of all.
"It's a complicated situation," I said finally. "I can understand their gratitude. But this level of obsession isn't healthy for anyone involved."
Gyes nodded emphatically. "Exactly. They've transferred all their self-worth onto Claude's approval. It's... concerning. But I'm not sure how to address it without undermining the genuine good he accomplished."
As we walked, I found myself thinking about the nature of transformation and the responsibility that came with changing someone's life so dramatically.
Claude had given these people skills, purpose, and dignity, but he'd also made them dependent on his validation in ways that might prove problematic long-term.
He carries so much weight, I thought. All these people looking to him for salvation, for guidance, for meaning.
The sound of hammering echoed from the smith district as we passed, accompanied by enthusiastic voices discussing advanced metallurgical techniques. Whatever Claude's methods, the results were undeniable, a dying craft had been reborn, and an entire caste of people had been lifted from desperation to prosperity.
But the cost of that transformation was still being paid in ways that probably wouldn't become clear until Claude returned to deal with the consequences of his own success.
"Anyway," Gyes said, seeming eager to change the subject, "shall we discuss the matter you came to see me about?"
I nodded, pushing aside my complicated feelings about Claude's impact on the village. There was business to attend to.
But as we headed toward Gyes's dwelling, I couldn't shake the feeling that the Dedoldia smiths' obsession was just one example of a larger pattern, people whose lives had been so dramatically changed by Claude's intervention that they could no longer imagine existing without his continued presence.
What happens to them when he's gone? I wondered.
What happens to any of us?
The question followed me as we entered the building, along with the distant sound of smiths still calling for their absent master.
[Claude POV]
The evening meditation was different than usual.
I sat in my quarters, reviewing what I had learned. Not just the physical techniques, those were important but incomplete.
Water God practitioners spent their lives learning to be patient, to receive, to redirect. They became experts at defense, at survival, at waiting for the perfect moment to act.
Sword God practitioners spent their lives learning to be aggressive, to attack, to overwhelm. They became experts at offense, at dominance, at creating the perfect moment through force.
Cloud Style practitioners, if there would ever be others, would learn differently. To be both and neither, to exist in the space between patience and aggression, to shift seamlessly from one to the other without the shift being visible.
It was, as Reida had said, pretentious. An ambitious philosophy from someone who had barely begun to understand combat.
But it was also true. I had felt it in that moment of breakthrough.
The sensation of existing between states, not defending, not attacking, but both simultaneously.
The presences were quiet, letting me process.
Or might collapse under its own ambition.
Only time would tell.
Something direct and combat-minded moved first—grudging, evaluative. A hundred things still wrong. Not bad.
Something more methodical followed, cataloguing the result, already identifying variables for the next phase.
And from something older: simple acknowledgment. Not surprise. Just the weight of recognizing when new work is actually new.
I left the dojo as evening settled over the training grounds.
Months of work, countless failures, injuries that still ached when the weather changed.
And at the end, Cloud Style. Something that existed between Water God and Sword God.
Something that belonged to no one else.
Not mastered, not perfected. But foundational.
Organization building awaited. Arbalest was growing, the politics of Saint Port needed management, the network required expansion.
The style would be tested many times, against opponents who wouldn't care that it was new, against situations that demanded more than prototype techniques.
But it was mine. Created through failure and persistence and the collision of inherited instincts.
Cloud Style. Appropriately nebulous.
The sun set behind me. Ahead, the road stretched toward whatever challenges waited.
That night, I dreamed of clouds.
They drifted across an endless sky, soft and white and constantly changing. Some gathered into storms, others dissipated into nothing. Some became rain that nourished the earth below, others became lightning that struck without warning.
All of them changed. All of them became what the moment required.
In the dream, I stood on a mountain peak above the clouds, watching them flow past like water, watching them strike like swords.
When I woke, the dream lingered. A reminder of what I was trying to become.
The style was crude, unrefined, full of holes that experienced fighters would exploit.
But it was mine. And I would make it better.
◆ ◇ ◆ ◇ ◆ AUTHOR'S NOTE ◆ ◇ ◆ ◇ ◆
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