Chapter 65: One last time

The words hung over the table.

For a moment, nobody moved. Kira’s fork stopped halfway to her mouth, and Sophia’s brows pulled together as she stared at him.

"What?" Kira finally said.

"You heard me," Mark said.

"Mark, what are you talking about?" Sophia asked. "Sit down. We can talk about this."

Leon did not speak.

He kept his eyes on the wooden table, on a small scratch near the edge of his plate. He could feel Mark standing there, but he was not ready to look at him. After what happened last night, he was not yet at the point where he could talk to him.

"You can’t just say that," Kira said, pushing her chair back. "Not after one night. You were drunk, and we were all angry, and..."

"I wasn’t drunk when I decided," Mark said.

"Then at least think about it," Sophia said. "Please. We’re a party. We don’t just walk away from each other."

"Don’t do this," Kira added, and her voice cracked a little.

Mark shook his head. He took a step back from the table, and then he bowed his head to them, slowly and properly, the way he never would have done before.

"I’m sorry," he said. "For whatever I put you through. For all the trouble, all the money, all the nights you spent dragging me out of places."

He paused.

It did not sound like someone who believed he had been wrong. There was no shame in his voice, only a flat tiredness, like a man putting down something heavy.

"I just don’t want to be a burden to you anymore," he said. "So I’m walking away."

He pushed the pouch across the table with two fingers, and the coins shifted inside it with a soft clink.

"This is all I have. Take it. It’s yours."

"We don’t want your money," Sophia said.

"I don’t want to keep adventuring," he went on, as if she had not spoken. "I’m going to stay here and live out the rest of my days in peace. That’s it."

Kira stood up. "Mark, please. Just listen..."

"There’s nothing to listen to."

"There’s a place that can help you," Sophia said. "We can still fix your arm. Don’t throw that away."

He did not answer. He did not even look at them.

He was looking at Leon.

It felt like he was waiting. As if he was hoping Leon would raise his eyes, say something, anything at all. A curse, a plea, even another punch. Mark stood there for a long moment with his hands at his sides.

Leon did not say a word.

He kept his eyes on the table.

The seconds stretched. The sounds of the restaurant carried on around them, a clatter of plates, a man laughing near the fireplace, a waitress calling an order to the kitchen. None of it reached their table.

Mark saw that Leon was not going to look up.

Something flickered across his face and was gone. He nodded once, to nobody in particular, and turned around. His footsteps crossed the floor, and the door opened and closed behind him.

Then the table was quiet.

Kira sat down slowly. Sophia let out a long breath and rubbed her forehead. Neither of them knew what to say. Nobody did. They had faced undead, liches, and a sky full of bone dragons, and none of it had prepared them for this.

A long while passed.

Then Leon lifted his head.

His eyes were red around the edges, but his face was steady. He picked up his cup, took a small sip, and set it down again.

"We have a quest to complete," he said.

Nobody argued. The air at the table was thick, and none of them knew how to deal with what had just happened, so they took the thing he offered them and held on to it.

Kira breathed in deeply and straightened in her chair.

"There’s a dungeon," she said. "In the forest near a small town, a few hours from here. Almost every adventurer in Astria is headed there right now."

"Why?" Leon asked.

"Resources, mainly. And there’s a reward for whoever closes it, if they have the strength."

Sophia took over from there.

"It appeared out of nowhere, just a few days ago. A wandering adventurer stumbled on the opening in the middle of the forest and reported it to the guild. Since then, it has turned into a major thing." She leaned forward, resting her arms on the table. "The guild’s assessment ranks it as a low-grade dungeon. Even low-ranked mages can go in and survive the early floors."

Leon nodded slowly.

Dungeons were not new to him. They had been appearing in this world for as long as anyone could remember, and nobody really understood the logic behind them. They simply showed up. Wild monsters crawled the floors inside and attacked anything that came near, savage and without fear.

But each monster carried a core in its head.

The cores were valuable. They could be sold to the guilds for good money, and every adventurer who stepped into a dungeon was after them. A dungeon could make a person rich or leave them dead, and the line between the two was thin.

"So the plan," Sophia said, "is to try and take down the dungeon. Us, and a lot of other adventurers."

"And whoever manages it gets rewarded heavily," Kira added.

"We want to finish it before we leave town," Sophia said. "If we can pull it off, we’ll have a lot more money to complete our journey."

Leon listened to all of it, tapping his finger once against the table.

Then he shook his head.

"I’m not okay with it."

They looked at him.

"Doing it without Mark," he said. "I don’t care if it’s for the last time. I want him with us."

"Leon..." Sophia began.

He pushed his chair back and stood. His chair scraped across the floor, and a few heads turned at the nearby tables.

"I’m going to find him."

He walked out of the restaurant without waiting for an answer.

The morning air outside was cold and bright. Leon stood on the steps for a second, looking left and right along the street. The market stalls were setting up, and carts rattled over the stones. Then he saw him, not far down the road, walking slowly with his head down, his metal hand swinging at his side.

Leon ran.

"Mark!"

The figure stopped.

He did not turn around. His shoulders rose and fell once, and he stood there in the middle of the street while people moved past on both sides.

"What do you want?" he asked.

Leon slowed to a walk and stopped a few steps behind him. He was breathing hard, and for a moment, he did not know where to begin.

"I know things have gone downhill," he said. "I know it’s been hard. But I’m not okay with you leaving."

Mark did not answer.

"There’s still a way to fix your arm," Leon said. "It’s not over, Mark. The mage in the next city could help, and we can still make it there."

His voice shook. He held it steady.

"We didn’t save that money because we thought you were a waste. We saved it because we wanted you to be happy. That’s all it ever was."

The street was quiet around them.

Mark stood there with his back turned. A cart rolled by, and a child laughed somewhere. For a long time, it seemed as though he would not respond. His head stayed bowed, his shoulders slack.

Then he spoke.

"I don’t feel like my dreams line up with this group anymore," he said quietly.

Leon’s heart sank.

"But," Mark said, and he finally turned, "one last go at it. I’ll head into the dungeon with you."

Leon blinked. "What?"

"For old times’ sake." He shrugged his good shoulder. There was a bruise on his jaw, and his eye was still swollen, but there was something different in the way he was standing. "And because we’re still friends, regardless of all the heavy shit we’ve been through."

Leon stared at him.

He did not trust himself to say anything. His throat felt tight. So he stepped forward and held out his hand, and Mark looked down at it for a second before reaching out his own and gripping it.

They shook in the middle of the road.

Mark smiled. It was only a small one, brief and tired, but it was the first Leon had seen from him in a very long time.

"Stubborn kid," he said.

"That is what has been keeping me alive" Leon replied, "it’s also why I’ll never give up and making you back to Mark."

"Or you could accept me as the new and real mark?" Mark asked.

"Only someone that has not seen the real you would accept you as you are" Leon replied with a smile.