Part Eighty-Eight

Alicia and I ended up in my room, as per usual. I’d come here to re-equip myself before getting in a little practice before bed, and Alicia had followed me for some reason. My guess was that she wanted to talk about what just happened, but couldn’t find the words to ask, and so just ended up fidgeting around.

Haaah, I know I should just deal with her, but I really don’t want totally about it. Maybe she’ll go away if I ignore her long enough. Now, where’s my coat? I need to check how damaged it is-. Um, what? Hold on, wasn’t this sleeve mangled just a few hours ago? How? Uh, I’m not sure how to accept this.

For whatever reason, my coat was in perfect condition despite the fact that it had been torn up just hours before. There wasn’t even a trace of any holes or tears in the leather.

“So Michael? I was just wonderin-. Uh, is that your coat?”

“Yep.”

“And it’s repaired?”

“Yep.”

“How!?”

“……Magic?”

“Magic? Is that your answer to everything? I mean, it might be true, but it just seems so normal!”

“Really? Magic, normal? Alicia, you’ve been reading too many novels.”

“That’s you!”

She was right though. Just writing this off as magic seemed too easy, but what other choice did we have? It would be months before we learned that all System-made equipment above a certain threshold of quality possessed an auto-repair feature. Any minor damage an item received would be repaired within a few hours, let alone normal wear-and-tear. That was actually what had kept my swords from needing maintenance.

“Well whatever. It’s not like it matters all that much. I’m just happy that I can still use my coat.”

“Geez, you sure switch track quickly. Not even Insight says anything?”

“Nope, not that I’ve seen. And I don’t want to look.”

“Fine, be that way. First you won’t tell me what’s bothering you, next thing I know, you’ll have run off to Uzbekistan or something.”

“What the hell? Where’s this coming from?”

“You know where.”

“Haaah, fine. If it keeps you from being a pain in the ass, then I’ll tell you. But! I’m only saying this one time. It pisses me off just thinking about it.”

Alicia put her bow away, and properly got ready for story time. Meanwhile I had to think of the words I wanted to use to describe this, as misspeaking could cause her to misunderstand.

“Alright. So as you might remember me telling you, while my parents made sure I had any essentials I needed, any luxuries were up to me to get, though they did pay for my cell phone, at least until I graduated. Now, like any self-respecting teenager who wants to do stuff, I went looking for a part-time job.”

“There was this little bookshop in my hometown, owned by a guy a few years older than Braddock. He dealt mainly in rare older books. Stuff like first editions of obscure books, misprints, things that most people wouldn’t be interested in. But he also dealt in retail, buying and selling second-hand books, and other collector goods as well.”

“I shopped there whenever I had money for new books, so I knew the guy pretty well, and he was happy to give me a job. Most people in town knew who I was, and knew that my family had money, so I think he thought this was my parent trying to teach me the value of a dollar. For a while, I just did the heavy lifting he could no longer do. It was honestly a pretty good job. He’d loan me books he knew I was looking for, so I saved money not having to buy them myself.”

“This lasted up until I graduated. Honestly, I didn’t have any real plans. College never really appealed to me, and I didn’t favor any vocations. It’s not a new problem by any means, but it sure was a heavy one for me at the time. But at the same time, I didn’t just want to work to live like so many do. But that’s when the old guy gave me an offer.”

“He basically proposed that I’d take over his business. He’d teach me everything I’d need to know, pass along his contacts, and head into retirement. Honestly, I don’t understand why he went to all that trouble, even all this time later. He, he was incredible.”

“Was? So he…”

“Yeah, he died. I went into work one day, and he was just laying in a pool of his own blood. He’d been up on a ladder, stocking books, and fell. Knocked himself out and cracked his head open at the same time.”

It was almost comical how easily he died. How easily any of us could die. Alright, enough with that. After all, I probably wouldn’t have met Alicia if that hadn’t happened.

“That was about two years ago. And was what caused one of the most infuriating experiences of my life.”

“It turned out that the guy had a son, one who was a complete scumbag. I won’t get into the exact specifics, but Elrich (ah, that’s the guy who owned the bookstore) had tried to leave me his store in his will, but due to some bureaucratic bullshit, it got held up. Mostly because his son wanted to sell the land the store was on, and used every method at his disposal to make sure I didn’t get it. Like I said, complete scumbag. I may not be a shining example of filial piety, but even I know not to try tearing down my father's legacy.”

“The whole thing was just a complete clusterfuck, and basically ruined any chances I had of taking over the store. That bastard somehow managed to win the court case by claiming his father wasn’t of sound mind when he wrote the will, though I did get to keep the leftover stock. I know he forged those medical documents, but I couldn’t prove it. Honestly, he’s one of the few people I hope was eaten by monsters. Fucking asshole deserved it.”

After that, I’d gone into a sort of malaise, and had lost any and all motivation to do things. That period of my life was actually rather embarrassing to look back on, but it was partly what had led to me being in Cavisburgh when the System first appeared. Without that, I most likely wouldn’t have met Alicia or Cameron.

Okay, I’d kind of gone off topic by ranting near the end, but I think I got my point across. People who just took whatever they wanted sickened me, and betrayal was even worse.

“Sorry about that Alicia. I forgot how worked up that whole situation can make me, though I guess none of it even matters now. Apocalypse and all.”

“Yeesh, leave it to you to find a silver lining about the apocalypse. So that’s why you reacted so angrily back there?”

“Pretty much. Even ignoring their intent to kidnap Kalia, just leaving them alone in the Dungeon is almost a death sentence. The three, no I guess it’s still four? Is Jansen still a part of this? I never did ask them.”

“Huh. I haven’t actually seen him since we fought the Orc General. I heard that he’s been spending a lot of time in the morgue.”

“Oh, that’s…not great. Alright, I’m officially worried about the guy. You don’t think he’ll come and try to kill me, do you?”

“…”

“A-Alicia? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I’m just trying to memorize what you look like.”

“Youuuuu!”

I would never be able to explain why I did what I did next. Not even to myself. Maybe I was just relieved that we’d moved away from the heavy topic, but that wasn’t an excuse to jump on her.

The two of us fell over, with me on top. I obviously hadn’t intended on doing this, it was just an overreaction due to Alicia’s badly natured teasing, but she probably didn’t know that. Or she did, and had just froze up, much like myself.

Our faces were an inch apart, and neither of us were wearing armor, so certain sensations were easily transmitted through our relatively thin clothes. I hadn’t a clue what to do in this situation, something that was straight out of a rom-com. A certain part of me felt slightly sick when I realized that.

Alright Michael, just ease back, and everything will end here. There’s no need to panic and accidentally touch somewhere that could cause problems down the road for me. Just ease ba-.

*BANG!*

“MICHAEL! WHAT THE HELL WERE YOu thinking by…leaving the…infirmary…...”

Yep, that checks out. Of course the airhead would show up at this exact moment. Why wouldn’t she!?

Thankfully, Kalia’s sudden appearance snapped us out of the rom-com haze, and allowed us to separate without any further issue. Then the two of us set about bringing Kalia back to reality.

Oh boy, she’s lost it. If this was an anime, her eyes would be doing that swirly thing they do when people panic. Haah, I feel like this is going to cause me many problems in the future.

***

The next few minutes were awkward to say the least. Kalia was acting like she’d caught us doing something inappropriate, which was causing Alicia to become more and more aggravated. It got even worse after Kalia said something about how I must’ve been okay if I was doing something like that.

I swear, these two are going to give me an ulcer by the time we’re done with the Dungeon.

Thankfully, I just so happened to have the perfect topic to bring an end to this idiocy. Kalia was already aware of the Gate of Rebirth, so telling her about my conversation with the Archmage wouldn’t hurt me at all, especially since I wanted her help fighting the Sub-Boss.

“The Archmage had the other disk? That’s…. not that shocking actually. The Archmage is probably the strongest NPC in the fort, so anything he holds onto would be well protected.”

“Despite being so impressive, we never see much of him. I think the only offensive spell he’s cast was against those rolling Golems on the second night. I almost feel like his Archmage Title is crying from disuse.”

“Aha, um, maybe? I actually think he may be preserving his magic for the Dungeon Boss. Someone of his skill would have a few Ritual Catalysts stowed away for a rainy day.”

“Oh-ho? Color me intrigued. What would one of his spells look like?”

The sight of spears of flame flying all over the fort was still engraved into my mind. If that was something he used off-handedly, then imagine the destructiveness of what he was saving.

“But yeah, all we need now is some token from the commander tomorrow, and we’ll be able to open the Gate of Rebirth. Though there’s still no clues on what’s waiting for us down there.”

“If it’s smart enough to try and steal this Artifact powering the Gate, then it’s probably a Demi-Human, isn’t it? Couldn’t it be an advanced Minotaur, or maybe a Mivian? The later seems more likely given the fact that it tried to steal a magical Artifact of some sort.”

“But wouldn’t the Archmage be able to deal with a Mivian? I can’t imagine any monster in the Dungeon being more proficient in magic then the Archmage, not unless it’s really strong.”

In the end, this was all just speculation. None of us actually knew enough about Dungeons to come to a viable conclusion.