Chapter 163 - She minds very much (Patreon)

 “Every second matters,” the princess ended her five-minute lecture about why John should have called her immediately. ‘All that just because I started with the phrase, ‘about half an hour ago,’’ he thought. “Didn’t this lecture cost you more time than it was worth?” John asked. “Don’t be ridiculous,” Lydia stated, the constant scratching of several pens in the background, “I can do my finances while telling you exactly why you are wrong. My productivity has not been hindered in the slightest.” 

The rustling of papers, the soft sound of a piano, both of these replaced her voice for a moment as she fell silent. Then she spoke up again and these noises were pushed into the background. “Any other news?” “My girlfriend is coming,” John told her. “The girl that was with you in the hospital? Light pink hair?” Lydia asked to affirm. “The same, although her hair is back to a bright pink,” John mused, “You are going to let her fight too?” “Princess,” Lydia said, her voice iron. “What?” “going to let her fight too, princess,” she explained her correction, “I know that you are from a different continent but I demand a baseline of respect, Newman.” 

‘Ah, right,’ John thought, he had heard that before. He complied; he was still deep in her debt. “I ask for forgiveness, princess.” “That is better,” her voice softened up to a stern tone. “Probably, yes. We will speak about this in person. Do you have a date for when she arrives?” “Two days from now,” John told her. “Which time?” “No idea yet,” he admitted. “Send me a text for the when and where, once you do,” the princess instructed then, with nothing else she wanted, she hung up.

John put down the phone and sighed. “Girl is seriously weird,” he said and sat down on the table, across from Mono, and started complaining. “On one hand she can be very understanding, on the other she takes everything so seriously you think she might be discussing the possibility of nuclear warfare.” “Maybe you are not taking anything seriously enough, John,” Mono voiced her opinion as her white eyes raced over the page. She was almost through that book now. “Detective stories are predictable,” she said. “Only if they are well done,” Herman chimed in as he came back from the kitchen. 

He sat down next to Mono and awkwardly scratched the back of his head when he felt everyone’s attention now resting on him. “Why would they be well done if I can predict the outcome,” Mono asked, “that makes it boring.” “Pardon me, but if that is your opinion you might not be the target audience,” Herman meekly said, “detective stories are there either for the reader to feel smart, because he figured out the riddle ahead of time or to make him realize the mistakes in his train of thought as the detective lays down the truth. It is a big riddle and when the author gives you enough information to figure everything out yourself he is doing a good job. Of course, there is a fine line to walk between putting too much or too little hints in there.” 

“I like detective stories, but not the ones that make it easy,” Mono said after pondering about what Herman had said, “I want those that also throw in misinformation that can throw you off the right track.” “Also, very tricky,” Herman passionately said, “Make somebody out to look completely innocent and you either get an annoyed reader - who feels betrayed by the sudden shift - or a very obvious bad guy. Throw in too little misinformation and you just succeeded in making it so everybody is thinking about that character, as the spotlight was on him at least once. Balance is key.” 

“You thought about that a lot,” John threw in there and in response Herman actually turned a little red, “Yeah, sorry, I just really like detective stories,” he mumbled. “Nothing to be sorry about,” John said, “I know how it is to be passionate about useless stuff, I am a gamer…wait, no, I am THE GAMER!” 

Herman laughed, Mono sighed. There was another laughter in his head. ‘I check on what you are doing and you are making bad jokes,’ Salamander said, ‘felt your power coming back, we looked through the notes ourselves. Wanted too…’ ‘I FEEL THAT IS MEAN!’ Sylph interjected, ‘We now cost percental mana, that is mean, I think Gaia is mean. Also, you are mean John!’ ‘

Why me?’ he asked. ‘I want another gummy bear! I have forgotten what they taste like!’ Sylph exclaimed, ‘I demand gummy bear! Bear gummy! Gum-gum Bear! Gumo-Gumo n-.‘ There was blubbering noise. John could imagine what just had happened, Gnome had taken Sylph and stuffed her into Undine’s body.

‘E-ehem,’ Gnome stuttered while clearing her throat, a feat only she could possibly accomplish, ‘we wanted to know what we will do now?’ ‘What do you mean?’ John asked. ‘What we do now you dimwit!’ Salamander shouted at him, ‘Are we going to grind more? Are you just sitting on your ass? We have stuff to do! I have been bored for over two months and I want to burn something that is not Sylph!’ 

Undine sent a feeling of pure boredom as well, Sylph added ecstatic hyper-activity to that and Gnome a cautious wish to get out and do something. Salamander just kept cursing. ‘Fucking idiot, this wouldn’t happen if Nathalia was around, granny would make stuff interesting,’ she said.

That reminded him: he had not seen the dragoness ever since they had departed in the barrier. Which was weird, he had expected her to show up the following week. Was she bored of him or did his lack of Instant Dungeons made her unable to find him? She had not bothered Rave either, which he would have expected as Aclysia was with her. Nathalia had just vanished for the moment. However, John did not doubt for a second that she would be back when he least expected it. He just enjoyed the relaxation for the moment.

John looked at the clock. It was already past 8 PM, so doing anything else today was not worth it. ‘I will relax today, look at our new stuff tomorrow and then we met up with Rave the day after that. Then Lydia will likely want to meet up and I have a lot of questions for her…and she probably have a lot of orders for us.’ ‘Boring,’ Salamander complained but the elementals retreated from his surface thoughts, happy to at least know where this was going. 

Truly, John did not feel like grinding. He had enough of that for a long time. He even could have used the Flask of Grinding to cheat out experience even while he was patching, it had not disabled the item gaining stacks. Doing so however would have meant entering Instant Dungeons and he was truly sick of those. ‘Never again will I perma-grind,’ he swore to himself. 

“The elementals?” Herman asked when John came back to reality. “Yeah…my facial expression?” John asked to find out how the apothecary found out. “You usually don’t start making random grimaces,” Herman confirmed and made overplayed expressions that made John giggle. 

Eventually they ate half of the lasagne, put the rest away for tomorrow and John then went up the stairs for the night. He extended his hand to the doorknob. Then he stopped. Mono’s light step sounded behind him. “Same game as every day?” she asked, “It is just an item.” John let out a dry laugh. “What is so funny?” Mono wanted to know. “I said the same thing to your sister on two occasions,” John admitted before pushing open the door.

The rooms at the second story were all the same. There were three of them, same wooden floor as below, same blue wallpaper, same furniture style. The reason John didn’t spend a lot of his time in his room, aside from the comfortable couch, laid on the table next to the bed.

It was a spine like piece of metal, spikey rips extending to the sides and a longer smooth part curving downwards, slightly smaller than an adults head. The thing that had been stuck in Thana’s brain. John, as almost every day, picked it up and turned it in his hands. At first, he had looked at it with sadness or anger, sometimes both, nowadays he just looked at it as a memento for worse times. 

John refused to give this thing away, he had no idea what other hands would do with, he wasn’t even sure what it was capable off. He couldn’t store it in his inventory, the metallic piece simply didn’t pass the dimensional barrier. It was like he was trying to push through cement with another block of cement. Neither could he use Observe on it, whenever he tried too he just got a headache.

‘Maybe now that it is patched it will work?’ John thought and was rewarded with an exploding pain behind his eyes. “Urgh,” he groaned and breathed in sharply, counted to ten. The moment he arrived six the pain was suddenly gone. The same tended to happen when he used Craft or Enchant. The only other idea he had was to have Mono eat it but he had decided that that was a bad idea. If it gave him a headache for just looking at it wrong, what would it do to an Artificial Spirit that tried to eat it? John didn’t dare to imagine the worst-case scenario. 

He looked at the underside of the sturdy middle-piece. His eyes fell on the same words as always. “Mengele-Project01: Subject-El-Blood-Abysswalker” he muttered to himself. Most of this was self-explanatory or easily theorized. Josef Mengele, Project Number One: Subject is a Bloodmage and Abysswalker. John did not know what El stood for however. He didn’t even know if that was an l or an uppercase i. 

Same as everyday he put the thing down eventually and sighed. Thana had been dead for a longer time than he had known or prepared to fight her for even. Yet still John felt that this incident would haunt him for a while. ‘Hard times make hard men, isn’t that what they say?’ John wondered. He would lie if he said he felt less experienced after the whole incident. It had taken the part of his naivety with which he had just waltzed into the Bloodfallen Headquarters with. The part that had told him he was strong enough to fix everything if he just sat his mind to it. Reality disagreed however. It had left him knowing the brink of death as well, although he doubted that he learnt anything valuable from that particular experience, aside from not wanting to repeat it.

Whatever the case may have been, John didn’t regret what he did, only how naïve he had been about it. If he could have redone it, he would have had looked deeper into Thana first, not trust that the plan just worked. Ironically it was a German Generals saying that now came into his mind. ‘Plans never survive contact with the enemy.’

He ended his brooding over the matter for the evening. It was over and done with. Hanging unto the past would not help him in any way. Yet he would probably find himself staring at that piece of metal again, wondering what he could have done better. To himself it was a mental sport at this point. 

He threw himself into the bed. “So, Mono, anything interesting today?” He asked. “Same as every day,” She said, which essentially meant no, and extended a hand. John gave her his phone and put his clothes into his inventory. Another part of their routine. Mono, like Aclysia, did not sleep but unlike Aclysia she did not take pleasure in doing chores. She browsed the net when he was sleeping instead. 

She had the decency to hide the glowing phone screen by pushing her head and the phone under her black poncho. After pulling her legs close as well John was left with a black and white folded girl on his floor, that honestly looked ridiculous, but also a bit cute. 

To that thought John closed his eyes and celebrated the end of the last weeks of monotony.

The next day?