2/22/0
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[Stats][Magic][Inventory][Skills][Help]
Name: Legendary Raid Boss, Thessari
Race: Aracni
Guild: The High Order
Rank: Magister
Level: 50
Class: Brood Caster 20, Silk Matriarch 20, Brood Sovereign 10
Strength: 195
Body: 335
Agility: 80
Dexterity: 85
Intelligence: 305
Willpower: 215
Charisma: 85
Stat points: 0
]
[
[Stats][Magic][Inventory][Skills][Help]
Mana: 152500/152500
Spells:
Silk Lance: 60 Mana
Binding Web: 120 Mana
Woven Bulwark: 200 Mana
Brood Mending: 150 Mana
Thread Circuit: 100 Mana
Websense: 40 Mana
Venom Thread: 90 Mana
]
The next morning, things were moving smoothly.
We started bringing everything over from our old workplaces, clearing enough webbing to get our equipment through without dragging half the tower behind us. The occupied parts stayed as they were. I wasn't about to start our arrangement with Thessari by tearing down her children's beds.
Once we opened up the halls, we could finally see how massive the place was.
Fifteen floors.
The entire middle section was sleeping quarters, but even with that, there was more space than we knew what to do with. We could have proper workshops now. Storage rooms. Somewhere to put things that didn't need to be crammed into an inventory every night.
The loom got its own space, and people were already arguing about what to make first.
I wanted to join them, bnfortunately, every time I tried to follow the conversation, I started thinking about my date.
By the time I was leaning against the outer wall near the capital's main gate, I'd checked the time enough to make myself annoyed.
She wasn't late.
I was early.
Knowing that did not help though.
Sheral had insisted I spare no effort getting dressed. Her and her sisters had spent a good chunk of the morning making me try on outfits, then discussing me like I wasn't standing there.
"This one," I'd said eventually.
"You said that about the last one."
"Yah. I liked that one too."
"You liked being done."
She wasn't wrong.
In the end, they'd settled on clothes I could actually move in. Getting dressed with one arm was enough of a pain without adding whatever complicated shit they'd been trying to fasten around me.
Now I kept smoothing the same bit of my sleeve.
It took a while before I spotted her, but she was unmistakable.
A massive eagle came down beyond the road, its wings stirring up enough dust to make a few people turn there faces away. Mei leaned close against its back until it settled, then carefully slid off.
She thanked it, resting a hand against its neck.
The bird lowered its head toward her before opening its wings again.
"What a ride!" I said as she walked over.
"I know, I know. He's such a kind bird."
The eagle lifted away behind her, and I watched it for a second before she reached up and kissed my cheek.
That got my attention back pretty fucking quickly.
"I feel like it's been forever, Mei."
"Not that long…"
She smiled and hugged me.
I put my arm around her, feeling the soft fur against my cheek.
I wasn't usually one for long hugs, but it was different with a girl you loved.
Or, it was for the first little while.
Then we kept standing there.
People were walking past. One of them glanced over, and suddenly I was very aware of where my hand was, how I was standing, and whether I was supposed to be doing something else.
"S-should we go in? I got a reservation at this coffee place."
I shifted back a little.
"Oh! Sorry. Umm, yah!"
She let go, then looked toward the gate.
"Why do you need a reservation for a coffee shop?"
"Limited supply. He gets the beans from the Epic difficulty of a dungeon, so he pays a group to bring them back once a day."
"Ohh my… That must cost a lot. Why spend all that?"
"Well, it's supposed to be really good coffee, so… I dunno. I wanted to try it with you."
She looked at me for a moment.
"Oh. Thank you!"
Then she took my arm, holding it close against herself as we started walking.
I liked it.
I also immediately wondered how I was supposed to walk normally with someone attached to me.
She stayed close as we passed through the gate, looking up at the buildings and slowing whenever something caught her attention. A cart rattled past us, making her ears turn toward it before her head followed.
I'd gotten used to most of this.
For her, it was the first time being in a human city in months.
"Does it always get this busy?" she asked.
"More or less. Worse around the auction house."
She glanced down a side street where people had gathered around a food stall.
"Everybody's so loud."
"Yah. You should meet Jake."
That got a little laugh out of her.
The coffee house had been a closed door until recently. Once the layer unlocked access to government, whole sections of the city opened up, including places I'd walked past dozens of times without thinking about them.
Apparently, whoever controlled the panel in the town hall could change quite a bit about how the city ran.
I'd barely had time to look into it.
Right now, I was more concerned with getting Mei through the door without somehow making that awkward too.
"Well, here it is."
Inside, the tables were spaced far enough apart that we didn't have to squeeze between anyone. There were only a few customers, most sitting near the tall windows along the front.
I pulled her chair out.
She gave me a small smile before sitting, and I took the seat across from her.
For a while, we didn't talk.
She looked around, taking in the shelves of cups, the little dishes set out behind the counter, and the people passing outside.
Then her nose wrinkled.
"Is something wrong?"
She almost jumped.
"Nothing!"
"Is it the smell?"
"Umm… maybe a little."
"Ohh. Sorry."
"No, it's just… I think there's a sewer nearby."
"Yah, there's a main underneath us. Under most of the city, actually. It's a dungeon too. Lost my arm getting into that one."
Her eyes dropped toward my empty sleeve.
"…Oh."
Fuck.
Why did I say it like that?
"It was a teleportation thing," I added. "Long story. I'm okay now."
She looked back up.
"Does it still hurt?"
"Sometimes. Mostly it just gets in the way."
I shifted my shoulder a little, then realized that probably wasn't helping.
Thankfully, our waiter came over before I could explain anything worse.
One set down our cups while another poured the coffee from a narrow-necked pot.
The smell reached me before the cup was full.
Soft, sweet, and much richer than anything I'd had on Earth. There was something almost floral underneath it, though I had no idea if that was the beans or some magical dungeon bullshit.
Mei leaned forward and took a deep breath.
Her ears twitched.
"It's so nice."
She picked up her cup carefully, blew across the surface, and took a sip.
Then she smiled.
All the money in the world would have been worth it.
"Yah," I said after trying mine. "That's really good."
She looked so cute when she was happy.
We ordered a berry scone and a few little sandwiches. I checked that hers didn't have meat in them before the waiter left, which she noticed.
"You remembered."
"Of course."
I was probably a little too pleased with myself for remembering one thing she'd told me.
Still, she smiled again.
For a while, we drank coffee and picked at the food. She told me about the eagle, how she'd met him on one of their hunts, and how he'd apparently decided she was worth helping after she spent an entire afternoon getting something out of his wing.
"What was stuck in it?"
"A spear."
"Oh."
"He was very patient."
"I'd hope so!"
She laughed into her cup.
It was nice.
Even when we weren't talking, I felt close to her. She'd reach across the table to touch my hand, or catch me looking at her and smile before going back to her food.
I wanted to keep getting those little smiles.
I also kept trying to think of what I was supposed to say next.
"Sooo… after this…"
"Oh, yah…"
She looked down toward her lap.
"I was thinking we could take a stroll down the beach."
Her eyes came back up.
"Yah! That sounds fun."
She looked a little more surprised than I expected.
"Unless there's something else you wanted to do?"
"No, no. The beach sounds nice."
"Okay."
I took another sip, mostly because I didn't know what else to do with the pause.
When we finished, I paid and started getting out of my chair.
"Ready?"
"Sounds good."
Outside, I reached for her hand.
She glanced down, then slipped hers into mine.
Her palm was soft, with little pads beneath her fingers and fur brushing against my knuckles. I kept noticing it as we walked.
"Your fur is soft," I said.
She looked at me.
Then away.
"Thank you…"
Her hand tightened around mine.
I smiled to myself.
As we passed beyond the city boundary, I gathered mana around us and slowly lifted us off the road.
A quick yelp came from her mouth.
Her free hand grabbed my shirt.
"Warn me first… please."
"Yah. Sorry."
I paused a few feet above the ground.
"You okay?"
She looked down, then back at me.
"Yah. Just surprised."
Looking at her slightly spooked face, I leaned in and kissed her.
She went still for a moment before kissing me back.
By the time I started taking us higher, both of us were blushing.
The flight over was nice.
Hills rolled beneath us, broken up by patches of forest and the occasional road. Mei held close, her head turning as she watched everything pass below.
I loved flying.
There was so much room up here. I could pick a direction and go, pass over things that would have taken hours to walk around, see whole regions laid out underneath me.
Very few people got to do this.
And right now, I got to share it with her.
We passed over a few groups fighting mobs. From above, I could see the shape of each fight, who was holding the front, who was hanging back, where something was about to get around them.
It was a powerful feeling.
"…Should we help the people down there?"
"Huh?"
She pointed.
One group was fighting near the trees. A man with a shield was keeping a pair of beasts away from the others while somebody behind him tried to get a spell together.
One of their party members was sitting against a trunk.
Probably injured.
"Nah, they're fine."
The man caught another hit on his shield and stumbled, but stayed up.
They weren't struggling that much.
"…Okay."
Mei held onto me a little tighter.
I looked at her.
"What? Do you want me to?"
"No… it's whatever."
I looked down again.
The caster finally got the spell off. It hit one of the beasts hard enough to make it turn, which immediately gave the other one more room to push forward.
They'd probably win.
It would just suck for a while.
"…I'll do it, okay?"
"You don't have to if—"
"It's fine."
I brought us down at the edge of the clearing, set Mei on her feet, and turned toward the fight.
A few chains were enough.
One caught the beast pressing their tank and pulled it sideways. The next fastened its companion to a tree, giving their caster enough time to finish what he'd started.
I added a handful of Magic Missiles where they'd do the most good.
Within a minute, it was over.
Then came the talking.
Were we okay? Did they need healing? Where were they heading? Was I the guy who ran The High Order?
Yes.
No, we weren't out recruiting.
Yah, I was sure their mage was good.
It was a reminder to cut down our global chat advertisements.
The injured man thanked me twice, once while his party helped him stand and again when he got close enough to shake my hand.
I shook it.
Said it was fine again.
Mei stayed beside me, listening while they explained how the fight had gone wrong.
I could feel the momentum of the date slipping away with every extra minute.
Eventually, we got far enough from them that I could lift us back into the air.
Mei immediately hugged me.
"Thank you so much, Tero."
She kissed my cheek, smiling.
I tried to smile back.
It took effort this time.
We were heading toward the beach again. The city was behind us, the fight was over, and nothing was stopping us from having a good time.
But my social battery had fucking run out.
Mei was talking about the injured man. How relieved his friends had looked, how awful it would have been if they'd left him there.
I knew she was right.
I'd seen the relief myself.
I just didn't want to talk about it anymore.
"Mhm," I said.
She kept going.
Her fur brushed my cheek as she leaned closer, and I shifted slightly before I could stop myself.
She noticed.
"Am I holding too tight?"
"No. You're fine."
"Oh. Okay."
She loosened her grip anyway.
That made me feel worse.
I love her, right?
She was cute. Nice. So very soft.
I'd spent days wanting to see her, thinking about holding her, wondering what we'd do once I finally got out of that fucking dungeon.
Now she was here.
She liked me. She was happy to be with me.
And I wanted to get away just so nobody would talk to me for a while.
"Tero?"
"Yah?"
"Nothing. Just… the water's pretty."
I looked ahead.
The shore was coming into view, sunlight spreading across the waves.
"Yah. It is."
She settled against me again, quieter this time.
Sadly I could only feel a little relieved from the silence.
There had to be something I could do about this. Something I could fix, or practice, or allocate points toward until being happy stopped feeling like work halfway through.
Do I need to fucking lobotomize myself to let myself be happy?