The Extra's Rise-Chapter 520: Mothers (5)

The sound of the front door opening carried through the penthouse like a signal flare, followed by my father’s distinctive footsteps—measured, confident, carrying the weight of someone who had built something substantial from nothing. I was in the kitchen helping my mother prepare dinner when I heard Aria’s delighted shriek from the living room.

"Dad’s home!"

I set down the knife I’d been using to slice vegetables and made my way to the entrance hall, arriving just as my father dropped his travel bags and swept Aria into one of his legendary bear hugs. Douglas Nightingale wasn’t a particularly large man—average height, lean build, the kind of person who could disappear into a crowd if he wanted to. But when he hugged you, it felt like being wrapped in absolute safety.

"There’s my favorite daughter," he said, spinning her around despite her protests that she was too old for such treatment.

"I’m your only daughter," Aria giggled, clinging to his shoulders.

"Which makes you the favorite by default," he replied with the sort of logic that had probably served him well in business negotiations.

When he finally set her down and turned to see me standing there, his expression shifted into something softer, more complex. Relief, joy, and something that might have been barely contained emotion flickered across his features.

"Arthur," he said simply, but the single word carried the weight of weeks of worry.

"Hello, Dad."

He crossed the distance between us in three quick strides and pulled me into an embrace that was somehow both gentle and desperate. For a moment, I felt like a child again—safe, protected, unconditionally loved.

"Don’t ever do that to us again," he murmured against my shoulder. "Your mother and I aged ten years while you were gone."

"I’m sorry," I said, meaning it. "I should have thought about what it would do to you."

He pulled back to study my face, his hands still resting on my shoulders. "You look different. Older. More..." He paused, searching for the right word. "Settled. Like you’ve found something you were looking for."

I considered that assessment. He wasn’t wrong. The months in the East had changed me in ways I was still discovering. "Maybe I have."

"Good." He smiled then, the expression transforming his tired features. "That’s what growing up is supposed to do, I suppose. Though next time, maybe find yourself a little closer to home?"

"Deal," I laughed, and the sound felt lighter than it had in months.

My mother appeared in the doorway, wiping her hands on a kitchen towel, her face radiant with the kind of happiness that only came from having her entire family under one roof. "Dinner will be ready in an hour," she announced. "Douglas, go wash up. Arthur, finish helping me with the vegetables. Aria, set the table."

"Yes, ma’am," we all replied in unison, the automatic response of a family well-trained in Alice Nightingale’s domestic efficiency.

The next few hours passed in the kind of peaceful domesticity I’d almost forgotten existed. My father regaled us with stories from his business trip—a series of meetings with potential guild partnerships that had apparently gone better than expected. The Bronze-rank guild Minerva was expanding, taking on more complex contracts, building a reputation that extended beyond the capital.

After dinner, we migrated to the living room, where the evening settled into the comfortable rhythms of family life. My father claimed his favorite chair and immediately began sorting through accumulated mail. My mother curled up on the sofa with a book, though I noticed she spent more time watching us than reading.

Aria, meanwhile, had produced a complex-looking puzzle from somewhere and was attempting to solve it while simultaneously trying to convince me to help.

"It’s supposed to be impossible," she said, holding up a crystalline structure that seemed to shift and change as the light hit it. "The Academy gave it to us as a logic exercise."

"And you brought it home because...?" I asked, settling beside her on the carpet.

"Because impossible things are only impossible until someone figures them out," she replied with the sort of confidence that ran in our family like a genetic trait.

I examined the puzzle more closely. It was elegantly designed, each facet catching and refracting light in patterns that seemed almost deliberate. "Have you tried approaching it as a mana-based lock rather than a purely mechanical one?"

"Mana-based?" Aria’s eyes lit up with interest. "I didn’t even think about that possibility."

"Here, let me show you." I placed my hand near the crystal structure, not quite touching, and let a small tendril of mana extend from my fingers. The reaction was immediate—several of the crystal faces began to glow with soft internal light.

"Oh!" Aria breathed. "It’s not a puzzle at all, is it? It’s a diagnostic tool."

"Clever girl." I ruffled her hair, which earned me an indignant swat. "It’s designed to read and respond to different types of mana signatures. Each configuration probably reveals different information about the user’s magical development."

She snatched the device back with the possessive enthusiasm of someone who had just discovered a new favorite toy. "This is so much cooler than I thought. Wait until I show my classmates."

"Just don’t let them know I helped," I said. "You’ll get more credit if they think you figured it out yourself."

"Good point." She grinned at me with the sort of conspiratorial expression that suggested she was already planning to leverage this knowledge for maximum social advantage. "You’re actually pretty useful sometimes, for an older brother."

"Sometimes?" I feigned offense. "I’ll have you know I’m consistently useful. Remember when you couldn’t figure out that transformation equation for Advanced Theoretical Magics?"

"That was different," she protested. "That was actually impossible."

"No, that was you being lazy and not wanting to do the foundational work."

"I was not lazy!" Aria’s voice rose in indignation. "I was efficiently allocating my study time!"

"Is that what we’re calling procrastination now?"

She launched herself at me with the sort of sibling warfare that had been perfected over years of practice. I deflected her attack easily, which only made her more determined to land at least one solid hit.

"Children," our mother said mildly, not looking up from her book, though I could see her smile.

"He started it," Aria declared, still trying to get past my defenses.

"I merely pointed out a fact," I replied with the sort of dignity that was completely undermined by having to dodge her attempts to mess up my hair.

"Your fact was rude."

"Truth often is."

"Arrogant jerk."

"Lazy procrastinator."

"That’s enough, both of you," our father said, but his tone was warm with amusement rather than actual disapproval. "Arthur, stop antagonizing your sister. Aria, stop trying to murder your brother. We just got him back."

We separated with the grudging compliance of siblings who knew they were being watched by authority figures. Aria flopped back onto the carpet with dramatic flair, while I straightened my shirt with as much dignity as I could muster.

"I missed this," I said quietly, the admission slipping out before I could stop it.

My mother’s smile brightened, and my father nodded with understanding. "We missed you too," he said simply.

Later that evening, after my parents had retired and Aria had finally been convinced to tackle her actual homework, I found myself alone on the penthouse balcony. The city spread out below me in a tapestry of lights and shadows, beautiful in the way that only distance could make urban sprawl appear.

But I wasn’t really seeing the view. Instead, I was turning my attention inward, examining the magical development that had been quietly progressing throughout my time in the Eastern territories.

I was at peak Integration-rank now. The sensation was unmistakable—a sense of completion, of having reached the absolute limit of what this particular tier of power could contain. My mana reserves felt compressed, dense, straining against boundaries that had once seemed impossibly distant.

And beyond those boundaries, I could sense it. The Wall.

Everyone knew about the Wall. It was the legendary barrier that separated Integration-rank from Ascendant-rank, the obstacle that turned promising warriors into legends or broken dreams. Most people spent decades trying to overcome it. Many never managed it at all.

I reached out with my consciousness, testing the edges of that barrier with the sort of careful attention a craftsman might give to examining a particularly challenging material. The Wall felt... substantial. Dense. Like trying to push through solid granite with bare hands.

But not insurmountable.

I frowned, probing deeper, searching for the complexity that had stymied so many powerful individuals. Where was the legendary impossibility? The crushing pressure that was supposed to break lesser minds? The mystical challenge that required years of preparation and perfect conditions to overcome?

All I could sense was resistance. Significant resistance, certainly, but nothing that felt fundamentally different from other obstacles I’d encountered. It was like coming up against a particularly thick door—challenging, requiring proper technique and sustained effort, but not mystical or transcendent.

Just... work.

Seven months. Maybe eight if I wanted to be cautious about it.

The realization was almost disappointing.

I supposed I should have felt more impressed. More humbled by the magnitude of the challenge. Instead, I found myself mentally organizing a training schedule, calculating resource requirements, and considering whether I wanted to make the breakthrough here in the capital or somewhere more private.

The Wall was just another obstacle. A significant one, certainly, but ultimately just another step on the path to greater power.