I Was Reborn as a Daddy in Another World

The Wall - Part 1

The days following Katya's duel with her brother were quiet, comparatively. After they peeled Ralt off the wall, the group of siblings and cousins left without a fuss, and there had yet to be any blowback from the failed takeover of the Patrician's guild. Val took advantage of the period of temporary peace to spend a few days getting his hands dirty with the work crews refurbishing the newly acquired guild hall.

Katya found him in one of the dormitory rooms on the second floor, applying a coat of thick, white stucco to the freshly sanded walls. Warm afternoon sun spilled in through the wide, open windows that looked down on the training area, and dust floated in the air, tossed by the soft, temperate breeze.

She watched as he pulled up his roughspun linen shirt and used it to wipe the sweat from his brow, stepping back to admire his work. There was a kind of satisfaction and contentedness on his face that she was unused to seeing, and she considered slipping away and leaving him to his work until he glanced over, apparently already aware of her presence.

"Looks good," Katya offered, standing in the doorway.

Val turned and smiled at her. A small spatter of white had somehow ended up in his beard, and his hair and face were heavy with dust, into which small rivulets of sweat had cut clean lines running from his forehead down onto his cheeks.

"Thanks, Kat," he said, "Think I'll be done with this room today."

"You really enjoy this work, huh?" she asked.

Val's head tilted to the side, and the edge of his mouth twitched up in a thoughtful half smile.

"I'm good at it," he said, simply, "And that counts for a lot."

Katya nodded.

"What's up?" he asked her, turning back to his handiwork.

"Oh, no," she replied, "Nothing, just wanted to see what you had planned for dinner."

Val walked over to the wall and ran a fingernail along the edge of a panel, scraping off a small fringe of excess stucco before wiping it on the brown leather tool belt strapped around his hips.

"Not a damn thing," he said, "And the magecrafter is booked up for weeks, so the meat locker is still basically just a closet."

He turned back to Katya.

"You wanna go out?" he asked, "There's a place nearby I've been meaning to check out, a couple of the guys on the crew were saying it's the best, cheapest feed in the whole district."

"I hope the emphasis is on cheapest," she quipped.

Val and Katya had just managed to stay ahead of the avalanche of invoices with near-daily sojourns into the labyrinth, but the low level loot they were bringing back was not going to keep the wolves from their door for long.

"That's what they tell me," Val assured her.

"Done," Katya responded, "I'll meet you at the entrance in an hour?"

Val nodded, and Katya turned, heading toward the stairs that would take her to the third floor. She'd only made it a few steps when she heard Val call out behind her.

"Kat, wait!"

She stopped and turned just as he came out of the dormitory.

"I almost forgot," he said, "I've got to show you something."

—

Minutes later, Katya followed Val down a long, rickety staircase into a cellar on the northernmost edge of the building.

"Careful," Val murmured over his shoulder, "They haven't replaced all the steps yet, and some of them are completely rotted out."

Katya made a noise of assent, and continued to lightly tiptoe down behind him.