[Book 1 Completed] Industrial Mage: Modernizing a Magical World [Kingdom Building LitRPG]
B2 | Chapter 11 – A Conversation

Velka POV

"You sure this is it?" Velka asked as Rufus squatted by the fallen shaft. With her elbows on her knees and her chin resting on a gloved fist, she sat squatted behind him, her eyes fixed on what he was doing.

"I don't guess," Rufus said. "The mana residue's thick. Faint, but it spikes here. I caved this shaft for a reason."

Velka cocked her head. "Is it time?"

Rufus hesitated. He looked over the edge of the tunnel. Then he grinned.

"Yeah. Once I clear this, we need to form a raid team. We're going in."

Velka narrowed her eyes.

"But the Slime King isn't Rank 3 yet, is it?"

"No."

Dusting her legs, she stood up and stretched a bit. "Then our mission's failed?"

Rufus smiled again.

"Velka," he said, "tell me something. Why do you think monsters of the same Rank are usually stronger than their human counterparts?"

She blinked.

"I dunno. My job's to kill and die for you. Not think."

That actually stopped him as his mouth parted slightly before he cleared his throat.

Velka's mouth twisted into the smallest grin.

Half-laughing through his nose, Rufus turned his head away. "Right. Okay. Let me put it like this... Pretend Class and Race Ranks are one continuous spectrum. Ranks 1 through 4 and beyond that. Does that sound reasonable?

She shrugged. "If you say so."

"Good." Rufus leaned forward once again and pulled at a long stone crack until it came loose. Before he striked the cave with his ax, he had to make sure he had the proper angle. He didn't want a collapse by accident.

"Now, take a human. Say they reach Rank 3 in their Race evolution. But their Class Rank might still be stuck at Rank 1. Or vice versa."

"So they're unbalanced."

"Exactly. That creates weaknesses. Latent potential that isn't active yet. And within each Rank? There are twenty-five levels of progression. The gap between a Level 1 Rank 2 and a Level 20 Rank 2? It might as well be night and day."

"Right."

"But monsters… You see, they don't evolve in fractions. When one hits Rank 3, it doesn't do it halfway. Its entire being aligns to that tier. Sure, there's a time it needs to acclimate to all that power, but there's no lopsidedness."

Velka nodded slowly.

"The system makes sure of it. They don't think. They don't hesitate. Every fiber of them wants one thing."

"Evolution," she said.

Rufus grinned. "See? You do think."

She snorted.

"That single instinct, that urge, it's what drives them. It's an instinct deeply engrained in their psyche. Even when they're mindless beasts, they're tuned for the climb. And that's what makes them dangerous."

"So that's what we're banking on," Velka said

"Yes."

"To let it eat."

"Yes."

"To grow stronger."

Rufus smiled. "Until it's not just a Rank 2 anymore."

Velka blinked, realization blooming fully.

"You're planning to feed it."

"Yep, we'll bring it food on a silver platter."

"Sacrifice the raiders," she said.

"Some." He met her gaze.

She stared at him for a long second. "It might reach Rank 4 by the time we're done."

"Could."

"And you're okay with that?"

"I'm counting on it."

Velka turned to face the shaft. "That's insane."

"I know."

"Brilliant, though."

"I know."

She pursed her lips and sat back on the heels of her feet. "And what happens when the evolved King gets loose?"

Rufus shrugged. "Then my brother deals with it. I can't actually kill a Rank 3 can I? I'm not that strong unlike you."

"That's not a plan."

"It is if we control the slime's attack."

"You're assuming a lot."

"I'm betting on us."

Velka shook her head. "You're not just betting on us, you're betting on a slime."

Rufus smiled and leaned closer. "Why fight to evolve when something else can do it for us?"

"This was your plan all along."

"Since we found the slime, yes."

"And you didn't tell anyone because?"

"They would've stopped me."

"Or tried."

"Or died early."

Velka's expression sobered.

"And you trust me with it now?"

"I always trusted you," Rufus said.

She looked away, pretending not to hear that. "I'll start prepping the team. You'll have twenty max."

"Make sure none of them know each other or don't get attached easily."

"Because they won't all make it?"

"Because some of them will. And that's worse."

She did not respond.

He turned back to the rubble and pulled his ax. He raised his ax high, inhaled deeply, collected his mana, and then swung the ax down. The caverns trembled as earth magic echoed through the hole.

Despite the billowing dust, he struck again.

With a sigh, Velka moved away from him and into the tunnel, her voice following.

"You're still the bastard I'd die for."

"I know." He said without looking back.

There was a rumble as the stone slid loose.

The shaft breathed and the Slime King stirred.

***

Theodore POV

Useless, Theodore sighed, wiped a smear of slime, and flicked it aside, barely slowing his stride as he stalked back through the mine corridor. After three hours of chasing slimes, Theodore's boots, which he had neglected to dry after the last battle, now squelched slightly with every step. To be honest, the last one wasn't even a fight. There were only Rank 1s and they were simple, sluggish, and stupid slimes. In the bottom mine, he had routed almost all of the dozen sub-chambers he had spotted, enclosing any viable specimens in clay pods for transportation.

By the time he made his way back to the surface, twenty slimes floated along behind him in reinforced containment spheres he'd made with air and water. They floated inside bubbles like partially melted fruit. The slimes were categorized and added to the expanding grid of pens back at the farm chambers. As Theodore passed, still splattered with slime despite his efforts to wash it off, a few workers wrinkled their noses.

He got a thumbs up from one of them, though, but he ignored it and started putting the slimes in there place. With gentle, moist plaps, the slimes fell into the enclosure one by one.

Then they began to bob aimlessly.

For a moment, Theodore observed them.

…They were kinda cute.

***

"Still no luck?"

When he entered the camp, Roland was already there to greet him. With a stick in hand, he sat idly as a fire burnt in front of him. He carefully rotated the marshmallow on the stick over the flames. He took the marshmallow back and put it in his mouth, eating happily as the fire crackled. He was already skewering another marshmallow.

Theodore took a while to respond. He just leaned forward, sat across from him, and exhaled deeply.

"I haven't reached the threshold yet."

"Find anything good?"

"A dozen Rank 1s. Not a single Rank 2. Barely anything worth a kill. The caverns are getting thin." Theodore said.

"You're killing too fast," Roland said.

"I'm not killing enough," Theodore insisted. "There is no challenge, and they are weak. The mana threshold I require to surpass level twenty-four is not being met. It is a state of stagnation. I believe we're done here once I push for the Slime King. There's nothing I can do but settle with something mediocre later if I can't level up before or in the Slime King's chamber."

Roland stared at Theodore for a few seconds in silence then picked up a new stick and handed it to Theodore along with a marshmallow.

Theodore accepted it wordlessly, poked a marshmallow onto the end, and held it over the flames. There was a comfortable stillness between them, broken only by the pop and crackle of the fire. Theodore removed and ate the marshmallow as soon as its edges were golden and it was starting to burn.

He picked up another marshmallow, placed it on the stick, and held it up to the fire.

"Remember when you used to stick fire beetles on hot rocks and pretend they were exploding siege units?"

After blinking, Theodore reluctantly snorted. He recalled. At least the Theo side of him did.

"Yeah… And you told me they were laying eggs and the 'hatchlings' were going to come after me in my sleep."

Roland grinned, which was a rare sight so it shocked Theodore for a second.

"And you ran straight into the commander's quarters. Screaming. Woke the entire garrison. I got latrine duty for a month because of course I did." Roland said.

The tension in his shoulders finally subsided as Theodore laughed.

"And I got banned from touching rocks for a season. Rocks."

"Well, you are a royal." Roland said with mock offense and shrugged. "I still think you got the better end of that punishment."

"You know," Roland said, putting another marshmallow onto his own stick, "you've changed since that bar fight more than six months ago."

Theodore did not answer.

"I've been mulling it over in my head for a while now. Just chewing on it. At first I thought maybe it was the beating. Or the aftermath. You were always a little reckless, but something in you... it broke or twisted or bent the wrong way and stayed bent."

Theodore observed the flames.

"You talk differently now. You think differently than you used to. You're smarter. You used to mumble and ramble when you got excited about a plan, now you just… cut straight to the bone. Like you already ran the math ten times before I even open my mouth."

A pop in the fire.

"And you don't lose your temper anymore. Not really. That used to be your whole thing. Snapping over a bad draw in cards, throwing a chair because someone looked at you wrong. Now, you just look at people. Quiet. Cold. It scares the hell out of me sometimes."

Silence.

"But it's not just that. It's like something snapped into place. Or maybe snapped out. People change when the System awakens in them. I've seen it. They get sharper. Hungrier for evolution. Like the world gets louder and quieter at the same time. You start seeing levels instead of people. Power instead of problems. It gets in your blood."

Theodore remained silent. He just listened, watched the marshmallow burn too much, drew the stick back, and swapped out the burned marshmallow with a fresh one.

"But you… it hit you harder than anyone I've ever known. Like you weren't adapting to it—you were built for it. Like it was just waiting for you to show up. And when it did, it carved out something old and stuffed something else inside. I thought maybe you were cursed. Or possessed. Or that you hit your head and scrambled something loose. But then I'd see it again. Just for a second. The old you. The way you smirk when you're about to cheat in sparring. The way your hands twitch before a fight. It's there. It's still you."

Theodore blinked slowly.

"And I don't know what that means. I don't know if something took over the old Theodore or crawled up from inside or if the real you's been hiding this whole time. I thought maybe you were a doppelgänger. I even stuck a silver pin under your bedroll one night. I'm not superstitious but I still did it. Nothing happened."

Then he moved into something that shocked Theodore a bit:

"And the thing is… I don't think I care much anymore…"

Theodore looked at Roland at last.

"I decided. Doesn't matter if you're the same guy I grew up with or not. Doesn't matter if you're something else in there. The you that's sitting across from me right now, eating marshmallows, chasing power like it's the only thing keeping you upright—that's the one I'm here for."

He breathed out.

"My job isn't to figure you out. It's to guard your back. Whatever version of you this is. The old one was an asshole anyway."

The silence that followed was heavy and long and there was a lot that went through Theodore's head.

Ultimately, he simply hummed and waited for his marshmallow to turn golden before slowly eating it.

"Thanks."

He didn't say anything else. Actually, that was all he could say.

The fire continued to crackle.

That night, Theodore slept peacefully.

***

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