18 - Yanna Redhorn (Patreon)

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"Silvia, Ryan? Sorry, I didn't expect you guys to get here so quickly," the minotaur said with an surprised smile on her face, "I'll take a quick shower and get dried off, and then I'll be right out."

"Wait, you know these guys?" the troll asked with a slight frown, and the minotaur looked up at him with a confused expression.

"Laram, that's my sister, I literally showed you a picture of her before. Did he say something to you guys?" Yanna asked with a concerned expression. Clearly, this wasn't the first time that Laram acted as he did.

"No, no, all good, he was just saying hello," Silvia looked up at the minotaur with a smile, but Laram couldn't even react to what the young woman had said.

"That wasn't a joke? I mean, she's an... elf, you know?"

"She's adopted, dumbass," with a sigh that made her septum piercing rattle slightly, Yanna looked back at Ryan and Silvia, "I'll be right back! Just ten minutes!"

And with that, the young minotaur rushed through the gym to the locker rooms. Nervously, Laram scratched his cheek, "Sorry, I didn't know you were here for Yanna..."

"Don't worry about it, man," Ryan replied, slowly turning around, "We'll just wait for her outside."

The troll watched the two visitors leave, making their way outside.

After a few moments of silence between the two, Ryan looked over at Silvia, "What?"

"I didn't say anything."

"Yeah, exactly. That's pretty unusual," Ryan replied, and Silvia raised her brow.

"I just think you don't have to play into how other people act all the time. If you just try to calm them down a bit, you wouldn't end up in so many fights."

"Come on, what was I supposed to do? He was clearly out for a fight. I'm not gonna act like a wuss in front of someone like that."

"Ryan, that was Laram Oggberg, he was just scouted for the Awakened League."

"Yes, I know that. Which also means that I know it never would have led to anything physical. But if he's comes to us and acts like a dick, I won't just let him do what he wants. Being an Awakened doesn't mean you can push everyone else around," Ryan sat down on the bench near the entrance, crossing his legs with a click of his tongue.

Silvia sat down as well, smiling lightly, "You know, it's kind of a shame you don't want to get into heroics."

"...I just don't think it'd be good for me," Ryan pointed out, "It's the most dangerous field an Awakened can get into, and I'm not... I don't know, I just don't think I would be good at it. Not to mention, I would just be putting Maximus in danger with that, and I don't want that."

"And what, Dungeon Diving is better? Safer?" Silvia asked, staring daggers into Ryan's shoulder.

"...I mean, statistically, yeah. If I prepare a bit better next time, don't take the same kinds of risks, and have some other people join me, I think it's really not that bad. I'd also still be helping people without having to deal with literal psychopathic maniacs every day. Have you seen what kind of criminals are running around in this city?" Ryan let out a loud scoff, "And I know these kinds of things don't happen often, but there's a guy that shrank down a whole bus of people and kept them on his necklace for a week. Like what the fuck am I supposed to do against that shit?"

Silvia looked up, slouching down on the bench, "You could also do something else entirely. Frankly, even if you might not be able to join something like the Awakened League or something where you need to be super strong, if you open up some other stats and train them up a bit, you could basically pick whatever regular job you want. Any company would go crazy to say they have an Awakened on staff."

Ryan scoffed as he shook his head, immediately denying that option, "And what, become a mascot? Nah, if I'm going into a non-Awakened field, I won't let myself be used for publicity. I really don't want that kind of attention."

"You're already pretty famous around uni, though."

"Does it look like I'm enjoying that? It's uncomfortable. You saw it earlier, Richie already acted like he knew everything he needed to know about me, and that was the first time I even spoke to the guy. And everyone keeps acting that way. If I were to get into some shit like heroics that would get even worse."

Silvia let out a deep, disappointed sigh, "Damn... I would have loved to design your outfit."

"You already made me one..."

"That was just some boring utility gear, I'm talking about a real recognisable thing. Something that looks just super cool, like you'd see in a game or a comic or something."

Ryan sighed loudly, looking at his friend. She really just loved making things, whether she was good in that specific field or not. But the thing was that she dove so deeply into any topic she was interested in that she ended up becoming an expert in it within a few weeks. Granted, that was only related to things that made her creative veins pop up, but still.

She's the one that convinced Ryan to get more into model customisation rather than just building the ones straight out of the box, and even though she never did it before either, within a few days she basically knew more about model building than Ryan. Similarly, she was working on some things with Modak, repairing and customising old tech together, like that cassette-player that Silvia always carried with her, attached to her hip, painted in fashionable colours that always seemed to match her outfits. She always did that kind of thing, and when she had her mind set to it, she would try to get it done, no matter what. Though it could get exhausting sometimes, that was probably one of the things that Ryan respected and loved most about her.

Knowing that he wouldn't be able to stop her anyway, Ryan seceded, "Fine. Just don't give me body-tight spandex. Make it fit my vibe."

Excitedly, Silvia clapped her hands together, as though she really only needed to get the go-ahead, "The pact has been sealed, you shall not be allowed to change your mind now."

"...Godsdammit... But I'll be paying for whatever you make from now on. You convinced me last time, but now that I got the reward money from the DMB, there's no way I'm letting you work for free."

"I really don't need the money, you know?"

"It's about the principle."

Ryan and Silvia sat there for a little while longer, chatting away for a while. At some point, Ryan had wanted to get out Maximus, but he seemed to be in the middle of something. He was seated on the edge of his bed, his hands clasped together in front of his face, clearly thinking about something. Ryan would ask him about it later, but right now he figured it was better to leave him be.

And then, before long, Yanna stepped out through the gym's main entrance, her fur still slightly wet but starting to get frizzy, "Thanks for waiting."

Silvia jumped up from the bench and gave Yanna a hug, "No worries, it wasn't that long."

While Silvia was still hugging her sister, Ryan noticed Yanna glancing around, as if looking for something. Or someone. With a slight grin on his face, Ryan looked over at her, "Modak went home already."

"Hm?" as if startled, Yanna looked back at Ryan, nervously stuttering out a response, "Oh, no I- I wasn't- I just thought since Silvia said you three were together earlier that he would... be here too..."

Silvia finally let go of her sister and took a step back, the same grin on her face as on Ryan's, "If you want to see him so bad, we can go by his work in a bit."

Yanna stood there somewhat hesitantly, as though she was considering the offer for a few moments, but finally shook her head, "No, it's better if we don't. I doubt he'd like being bothered at work..."

"Fiiine," Silvia replied disappointedly, and Yanna quickly looked over at Ryan, hoping to change the topic.

"Silvia said you want some advice about stats? What exactly do you want to know?" she asked curiously.

"So, the only physical stat I have is Dexterity. I'd love to get Strength, Agility, and maybe even Resistance? But I heard that one's pretty hard to train even if it's one of your base stats..." Ryan explained, and Silvia nodded with a shiver.

"Yeah... I don't have Resistance personally, but Laram's been pushing me to train for it... There's a few methods, but the most common one is to just get beat by others repeatedly."

"...Huh. Yeah, let's not... What about Strength and Agility? Oh, and Stamina would be great too, actually, now that I think about it. I'd love any physical stat beside just Dexterity, to be honest..." Ryan tried to hide his disappointment, though he probably wasn't very good at it. Again, he ended up really liking his class, but in his mind, he always imagined himself getting super-strength or -speed if he ever awakened. But now, that probably wouldn't really happen.

Yanna looked down at the watch on her wrist, which she seemed to have used to track her workout earlier, "You know what, should we go back to our place and talk there? My coach actually gave me a bunch of booklets about common industry-standard training methods for stats. You can look up a lot of it online, but you never know what's true and what's bullshit some self-proclaimed expert came up with on the spot."

Ryan turned toward Silvia, who also quickly nodded her head a few times to show that she would be happy to have him.

"Alright, sure. That sounds pretty amazing, actually. I'll be happy to get anything I can. Though in the first place, training physical stats is just so much more straightforward anyway..." Ryan sighed, as the three started walking toward the nearby parking lot together, "Like, how the hell am I supposed to train my Sociability?"

"I'm glad I don't have to deal with that kind of thing," Yanna pointed out in relief, before actually thinking about Ryan's mostly rhetoric question, "But, I guess you could act more like Silvia?"

Ryan scoffed, shaking his head, "Yeah, sorry, but that's not going to happen. I have like five friends. Two of them are here, and one of them is my uncle. Not that I can't make friends, I just don't really care to. I'm happy with how things are. But Silvia is friends with like half the fucking uni at this point, I was shocked she had to introduce herself to the guys at the robotics club."

Silvia just shrugged in response, "I don't hang around the science building that much. I think I've seen Richie around before, I just never spoke to him."

Trying to catch up to the conversation a bit more, Yanna curiously looked at the two of them, "You were at the robotics club?"

"Ah, yeah, do you remember Power Duels? They made their own robots for that, and Modak arranged it so I can join in with Maximus."

"Maximus?"

"Right, sorry," Ryan replied, looking into the knight spirit's domain. The Knight didn't seem to be as deep in thought as he was earlier, and seemed to be paying attention to what Ryan was doing. Noticing that he was about to be called out of the domain, Maximus just gave a quick nod, showing that he was ready. A moment later, he appeared on Ryan's hand.

Seeing Yanna, and understanding she was a friend, Maximus slightly bowed forward as a greeting, and so Ryan "This is Maximus the Knight Spirit."

Yanna leaned forward to take a closer look, "Wow! You're saying it's a Knight? I didn't know spirits like that even exist."

"Apparently they really don't," Silvia pointed out, "Modak said he was looking around the library and he checked out some catalogues of known spirit concepts, and there was nothing related to Knights or anything."

"Interesting... I know this girl that works for the Magic Tower that I could ask about it, if anyone would know it's them, right?"

Surprised, Silvia looked up at her sister, "How'd you meet someone from the Magic Tower?"

"She awakened around the same time I did, so we met at this event for newly awakened people," Yanna explained, looking over at Ryan, "You'll probably get an invitation to one of those in the mail too."

"And a newly awakened girl got a job at the Magic Tower?" Ryan raised a brow. That didn't sound necessarily promising and just another case of nepotism, but if she awakened into a class that was deemed useful by the Magic Tower, she would probably still be able to help Ryan out somehow, "I mean, if you could ask her, that would be great, thank you so much."

"Yeah of course, no worries!" Yanna smiled with a slight huff as she unlocked her car.

The group pulled into the garage of the townhouse, and the sisters' eyes landed on the car parked at the leftmost spot as Silvia turned to Yanna, "Wait, was Dad supposed to come back today?"

"I don't think so. I thought he was supposed to come back on the weekend."

Yanna parked the car as Silvia stepped out. Ryan got out from the backseat as well, following behind his friends to make his way up the stairs into the spaces above. Hearing that Silvia and Yanna's father was home actually made him pretty nervous; he had met their mother before, and she was already quite intimidating. At least Ryan knew where the sisters got their energy from. But even so, imagining what their father was like made him nervous.

As they stepped into the living room, Ryan spotted the man in question. Seated on a large armchair was a large figure that stood up the moment he saw his daughters enter. He opened his arms wide, revealing a large, round belly pressing up against a suit's button-up shirt. Grey hair was sprinkled all over the areas of fur that were openly visible.

"Welcome back!" Silvia said with a broad smile on her face, hugging her father. As he rubbed his hand over her back, nearly covering it completely with his palm, that massive man, even larger than Yanna, replied.

"I'm glad to be home, honey," a calm, smooth voice replied, as he let go of Silvia and gave a hug to Yanna as well. Ryan was a bit relieved by how approachable he seemed.

When the man released Yanna, Ryan stepped forward, holding out his hand, "Nice to meet you, Mister Redhorn. I'm Ryan, a friend of Silvia and Yanna from uni."

With a smile on his face, the man clasped Ryan's hand. He expected him to practically crush his hand, especially considering how much larger the minotaur's hand was than Ryan's, but it was just as gentle as his overall appearance, "It's a pleasure to finally meet you, Ryan, I've heard a lot about you. And please, just call me Dimos."

Yanna soon started walking toward the stairs, turning around with a hoof on the first step, "We're just grabbing some stuff for Ryan. You know, the booklets I was given about stat training."

Dimos raised his brows, quickly turning back to the human in front of him, "Oh, right! Silvia told me that you awakened, congratulations!"

Ryan laughed nervously. Being congratulated for it always felt a bit awkward, but he appreciated it nonetheless, "Thanks. But yeah, it's a magic class, and I'd like to open up some physical stats that I can train."

"Of course, that is very reasonable. You should try to cover all your bases, especially if you plan on becoming a Dungeoneer," Dimos agreed, "Do you already have plans for your first dungeon trip?"

"Actually, I already went last Friday," Ryan explained, seeing Yanna's expression from the stairway. He guessed that it would be better not to mention that he got pretty hurt.

"I see! I'm glad to see you in good health, then," with a laugh, Dimos patted Ryan's shoulder. Luckily, it was his healthy one.

"Yeah, but it was a bit rougher than I had hoped, so before I go to the next one I'll train myself up a bit."

"Very smart. Well, I will not hold you up then," Dimos smiled, slowly turning around to take a seat on his armchair again. He sat back down onto his armchair, watching as his daughters and their friend made their way upstairs. But Dimos himself was just nervously picking at his fur, sinking into his seat.

He looked at the note in his hand, and read through it again and again.

"I wish I didn't have to tell her about this..." Dimos sighed quietly, looking up at the stairs.

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