"So… are we just not going to talk about it?" Lucinda asks from the kitchen while ignoring the constant background noise of education cartoons playing on three different screens.
Lucinda did not get back from her work trip until the day after my portal assignment with Ms. Gwyn and the others. Earlier she came home exhausted and just went to sleep. When she woke up to start cooking dinner, though, she tried to start a conversation about work and bringing back a surprise for me.
It was around the time she brought up the fact I would have to wait until after dinner for my surprise that she noticed the immature goblin on the couch and the large TV screen divided between different shows and alphabet videos. She had originally commented on an elephant in the room and I replied it was just a small one. After that, neither of us really said anything.
Now, though, as dinner was nearing completion it was time to cover some topics. Sighing tiredly, I check the goblin sitting between two jawless and toothless skulls to make sure its restraints and drink hat were on properly. Then, I get up and walk into the kitchen across the islet where she was preparing food to serve.
Wondering where I should start, I decide to go in all the way and say, "So our team leader did their own scouting and found that the hobs were pregnant and wanted to preserve them for catch contribution. When it was down to just them and a handful of goblins after I killed the boss, I said we should just take them all and the leader made me take one home as a joke because there were so many left over."
"How long will we be having it for?" She asks coolly.
"There were some the Bureau couldn't take yet so once the others re-home theirs or the Bureau takes them, they'll take this one," I reply thoroughly but swiftly. This was not entirely a lie, even tough this one was 'gifted' to me I could re-home it myself for money. "A week at most, I was told."
"Ah, that's not too bad," she says distractedly while garnishing two plates of steaks and mashed potatoes. "One little problem that is, though, is this thing I couldn't help but notice. Those are two trollkin skulls, you said you killed the boss which means you probably directed engaged the troll. Put aside the danger factor, for now. Now, why do you have two trollkin- mountain hob- skulls and a FOREST goblin but no troll skull?"
She DID used to be an investigate and report field agent from before the Bureau but I was still stiffened with a frigid shock at her astute Lucinda was. In seconds she had picked apart my story and the visual discrepancies in the room. I should not have even bothered.
Without really waiting for a reply, she says, "Johnathan messaged me a little while ago asking for some advice about you." If I thought I was frozen before, every inch of skin was now raised like goose flesh and all the fine hairs on my body were standing on end as if electrically charged. Johnathan was the name of my tech and lab guy, the guy SHE used to date during my first year in the academy.
Briefly flicking her gaze toward me in the corner of her eye, Lucinda nods once slowly to herself and says, "I see… you'll probably be surprised to hear what he actually said, too. He said you told him to surprise him with what he makes from the skull, sternum, and hide of a mid-D ogre that you brought him. I said he needs proper armor most of all, but when I'm done with him he'll need a wheelchair! So what boss did you kill, the troll or the ogre? Did you run up and punch them both in the face and believe everything would just magically work out? As it turns out, im still receiving toxicology reports from the labs about that troll and its kin, they had some kind of disease that could potentially mutate into something contagious to people in our world. How did it feel to punch THAT troll in the face?!"
All I could do was hang my head in shame and struggle not to crack a smile about the wheelchair remark. I knew I screwed up big time by taking the extra mission behind her back and thus could only wait quietly to finish her rant. Of course, as soon as I opened my mouth to respond she went off once again.
"Who the hell do you think you are? You're an F- the bottom of the barrel- in E grade dungeons and just because you're still alive you think you're invincible? Do you think that because people like you that you're good at it? That just because you have a few friends in different places you can get away with pissing your life away? Maybe even that as long as you live and profit enough from it, it'll be okay and maybe I'll even LET you start pissing your life away more often? Who cares how much money you can make per dungeon if you're dead?!"
"I didn't fight the troll," I mumble a little stiffly, feeling like complete shit but also feeling just a little pissed off about it.
"Excuse me?" Lucinda asks with a deathly quiet voice that makes me reconsider ever opening my mouth again.
Of course I still opened my mouth and said, a little more calmly and clearly, "I did not fight the troll, I fought one trollkin and a handful of goblins in close quarters. Everything else was ranged combat besides what the swordsman and healer killed on the front lines. As for the ogre and their brood, I only directly fought the ogre and a handful of goblins. The rest was also some form of ranged combat."
"Were you actually smart enough to know not to touch the troll?" Lucinda asks in a clearly condescending manner.
"Of course I was, but even then I still asked to solo it but an old fashioned archer had already beat me to it," I reply a little shamelessly. Then, emboldened by the wide-eyed glare I was receiving, I go on to say, "In fact, in the goblin portal with Ms. Gwyn's team, I did not even tell anyone. Once the goblins started grouping together around the boss, I called the boss out."
"You..." Lucinda says tightly, actually starting to let some of her anger out before quickly calming herself and changing track. "I also… back when… Malcolm," she says at last, oddly stumbling to find a starting point. "Malcolm, I really like you and I care about you. I've known you for years and have always wanted to take care of you. Like you, I lost my parents when I was younger and like you I don't really have anybody else. You're like a little brother to me, and I don't want to lose you but I just can't seem to understand why somebody who has been through what you have wants to risk what we both have. I just want you to stay alive, no matter how low the dungeon grade might be, but how can I trust you to do that when you go behind my back and do things like this?
"I… can't say anything to try and change that except that… I'm sorry," I finish weakly, trying to proudly lead up to it only to wither under her cold gaze. I did not seeing this usually bright and pretty lady upset and angry like this.
"I'm glad you understand how screwed you are, now take you plate and go sit down," she says while picking up one almost fancy looking dish and all but shoving it at my chest.
Accepting the plate with a wordless nod, I just shuffle over to the table like a defeated two-hundred-pound child and sit down to start eating. A few moments later, Lucinda joined me at the table with a glass and bottle of wine. It looked like that was just the kind of night I made for her and I once again felt bad.
After a few bites and sips, Lucinda asks, "Is there anything you need me to do? I'll be stuck with it on the few occasions that you're not here."
"Just pick it up by the restraints and drop it on the floor the first time or two you feed it without me around," I reply quickly but quietly. "Its MP is still E rank even though its at the bottom but that's still more than either of us. you'll have to show it some level of dominance, but it spends most of its time on the couch or ottoman when im not in the basement."
"The ottoman goes with him, but I never see him on the couch again," Lucinda says briefly. "Isn't that a little cruel, though? It looks like it just left the three-month tot phase."
"It could still kill you the moment you let your guard down unless we decide to keep it, break it, and train it," I reply quickly. "Only F grade goblins can be given to civilians and that's under surgical circumstances, this guy is E and not many people even like goblins. If we kept him, he'd be going in dungeons with me."
"What would YOU do with the base model comparison of every tier?" Lucinda asks dryly despite giving me a brief curious glance. "That guy can't even fight an immature hob from F rank, yet."
"Mostly, exposure experiments, but he'd also be a useful mule," I reply in something of an argument. "In the first dungeon with Ms. Gwyn's team that was misread as E instead of D, I needed to borrow two loadouts of ammo from a comrade to reach and then face the final boss. My two load code, at the time, was insufficient because of the sheer number of slimes that ate up my ammo. Now that I had two revolvers and a combination rifle, such issues wont occur again in E, but he could still carry a spare load of ammo for just in case and then he could carry my slime cores or… troll parts."
I received another withering glare from Lucinda, but half of her glass of wine was already gone so most of the storm had already blown over. "Alright, so it's a porter instead of an assistant," she clarifies while maintaining that glare without blinking. Did I need to pour her another glass myself?
"I mean... there's not much besides smaller slimes that it can fight, alone, even in E," I explain a little slowly at first, feeling as though I ere being interrogated. "For at least another month, I would have to babysit it. Since they heal faster than we do, making it carry stuff and teaching it to work out would help it grow. On top of that, while we have it… I can use him for exposure experiments."
"He's only E," Lucinda tries to remind me.
"I was not even F until an upper E wolf…" I say while pointedly trailing off. "It might not have as much MP as the trollkin skulls, the thorn shrub, or the spider slime's face plate but it still has more MP than I do. Which also sustains itself or rises instead of falls like a dead piece. I don't even know if the shrub is going to survive."
"What… shrub?" Lucinda asks while drinking half of what remained in her glass in one gulp.
"Let me get you another bottle," I say while quickly jumping to my feet.
*