Chương 88: Chapter 28 - I Am Atomic

A bath was a surprisingly complicated affair. For one, there was no running water in the taps. Also, the apartment they were in didn't have a bathtub in the first place, only a shower. Which didn't work because, again, no water. Thankfully, all of those problems had been solved while he was running around the continent. He was away for a good chunk of the evening and the whole night, and then slept through half a day.

The girls didn't sit idle during that time, though he wondered why they decided to stay in this random apartment in the first place.

"Okay, so, these two jugs are saltwater," Mary pointed at the five-gallon bottles.

"Icky to wash with, but we couldn't find a well, and the ocean is right there, so… Yeah. You pour how much you need in the bucket and then put it in this circle." She demonstrated, placing the bucket in the middle of the arcane fucking circle.

"Pour mana in that squiggly glyph, the one that looks like a bunny, yeah, and it should power it up." He felt a faint hum of power.

"The salt will float up and condense, just scoop it out with the spoon." She proceeded to do so, removing the thin layer of salt and putting it in the plastic bag nearby. Plastic bag. The arcane ritual in front of him involved using a spoon to move salt into a plastic bag, one scoop at a time. Couldn't they levitate it? Disappear it?

"A-and… Ta-da!" Mary spread her arms like a stage magician, spoon in her hand, a nervous smile on her face.

"Fresh water!" Lily clapped her hands in small applause. El'el looked at her in confusion, and then repeated after her. Dennis looked at the bucket of water. Then at Mary. Her smile strained. He put his hand into the bucket. The water was cold, and there was an itchy feeling on his skin.

"I would advise against that," El'el said.

"Not to presume, but I take it that you wish for the salts in your body to remain inside. To simplify the design, I did not add any filtering glyphs." He removed the hand.

"R-right. Dontputanythinglivinginthere– Anyway!" Mary was stuttering.

"That little squiggle disables the circle, the second circle makes the water warm, that's what you want for washing, the third circle boils the water, don't boil it in plastic, we have a pot for that, I think that's it, thanks, have a nice day!" Mary finished her speech in one breath and bolted, practically running away into another room. Dennis followed her with his gaze until she disappeared behind the door, slightly confused.

"I'll talk to her," Lily said, standing up.

"Don't run away," she said sternly, before following Mary.

"Please," she added more quietly as she closed the door behind her. Dennis was left alone in the room, with El'el as his only company.

"Am I missing some context?" he asked quietly as he moved the bucket to the 'warm water' circle and tried to turn it on.

"I mean, I know I'm not good with this stuff, but I'm pretty sure something was happening here. Something social, I think. A social thing. That I didn't get." El'el looked at him with obliviousness in her eyes. Right. She wasn't much better with this stuff. He felt a sense of camaraderie, in finding another social deadweight who had no idea what was happening.

"Mary wished to be the one to demonstrate our water refinement process as a means to deepen her social connection with you, and as resistance training, as she is the one most affected by the pressure of your Soul," she said matter-of-factly.

"I assume she reached the threshold of what she could withstand, in part because you failed to maintain dialogue and appear non-threatening, thus exemplifying the pressure you exclude instead of lessening it or providing alternative traits for her to focus on." His sense of camaraderie died an ugly death.

"Ohmygod, I messed up and now he hates me!" He heard a particularly loud wail from another room. Lily was saying something in reply, too quiet for him to hear.

"Right," he muttered.

"I see." He did not see.

"Why, though?" he asked the elf as he finally figured out how to put mana in the damn circle. The drain was surprisingly small, just a point every few seconds or so. With his mana pool, he could maintain it for… maybe a minute. Not bad at all.

"I do not understand the question. Clarification would be appreciated, if possible."

"Why is she here in the first place? Why is she trying to… get to know me better, or something? Come to think of it, why are you here? I think I get Lily, she kind of projects that feeling that she needs me for some reason, but you two? Are you just tagging along, or what? Would've made more sense for you to leave with everyone. There's a whole-ass city there that's supposedly much safer. But instead of doing that, when I ran off, you just… what, decided to stay here and wait for me to come back?

Could've at least found a better place to stay. And you didn't know that I'd come back in the first place, I didn't know that. So… I don't get it." El'el hummed quietly, resting a finger against her chin in thought.

"I can provide some of the answers," she said after some time.

"Not all of them, but only what I know, and, to tell the truth, some of my reasoning confuses even myself." Dennis raised an eyebrow inquisitively. It was an advanced communication tactic. The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"I do not know about Mary," she finally said.

"To speculate, she appears to be seeking magical tutelage, and general knowledge, for herself and as an envoy of her kind. I do not mind it, as she teaches me your customs in turn. Befriending you, in that regard, is beneficial for her since I, in turn, require your help and company, and she seeks to lessen potential conflict, and… She appears to me as a kind of person who would try befriending you anyway, regardless of costs and benefits, so my theorising may be moot.

It seems likely that she is just nice to everyone." The water was heating up, and he started to notice steam coming off. Damn, the mana-to-heat efficiency in that circle was good.

"You need something from me?" he asked, wondering if he'd have enough mana to heat up the whole bucket. Seemed likely.

"I– Yes," she replied nervously.

"There was a reason I wished to approach you in the first place, though I was hesitant to do so since I did not know if you were safe to… well, interact with. Lily assured me that it was okay to ask, so… Would you be willing to be my companion?" She said the last part quickly, like ripping off a band-aid. Dennis stopped feeding mana into the circle, his mind blank.

"Say what now?" he said, dumbfounded.

"Listen, lady, you're pretty and all, but I really don't care about–""I am a Heretic," she said with her eyes shut, like even uttering the sentence was some kind of grand and shameful reveal.

"Okay?" he said hesitantly.

"Is that, like, a selling point?"

"My stay in my prison lessened me greatly, and my escape even more so, making the cost of sufficient obfuscation wizardry too great to bear without sacrifices that I'm not ready for," she kept talking quickly, like a desperate salesman ready to do anything to close that deal.

"You, however, possess a shroud of impressive might, at least Moderate if not Major, making evasion from all but the greatest divinations child's play. I wish to accompany you in order to share that protection. It would greatly reduce the risk of me being found by Hunters, which is a preferable outcome, as I do not wish to be slain." Dennis repeated her speech in his mind to be sure that he got it right. El'el used a lot of words to say simple things. She interpreted his silence differently.

"You are also a Heretic, yes?" she continued, trying to sell him a bridge.

"I assume there is some… honor among Heretics? Pacts of non-aggression and even help? As one Heretic to another, surely you feel compelled to… reach out with a helping hand, seeing that we share a common goal of… ehm… defying the Law and spreading death and misery across the vastness of worlds? I assume cooperation is essential for such a… grand… task. Surely, even with your might, you may find my expertise helpful." In his silence, the girl was definitely going places.

"This is–" he tried to say.

"Is it payment you require? You will find that I am ready to part with much. While not a royal, I am still minor nobility, and thus possess the funds that to most common folk would appear substantial. Though seeing that I am now 'kill on sight' in most civilized worlds, possibly disowned, and we have little to no means of travel, they might be… problematic… to acquire…" Dennis was seeing a trainwreck in slow motion, and he didn't even have his buff.

At least El'el realized that she was talking herself into a corner, and changed tracks.

"But fear not! It is not just the funds that my measure is worth! I am also a Representative of good standing! Was…" Her speech was getting quieter and more subdued. Did he imagine it, or was she trying not to cry? With every word she said she seemed more and more depressed. Her shoulders hunched, and it was like the light dimmed in the room. Honestly, it was such a sad sight.

"I can teach you wizardry? I know wizardry," she said quietly, like it was her last glimmer of hope, looking at him with sad beaten-puppy eyes. God dammit, he could already imagine Lily accusing him.

'Why did you make the elf-lady cry, Dennis?' she would say. He didn't even do anything, this time! It wasn't his fault! People just did that sometimes around him, through no fault of his own! At least it wasn't a little kid this time. Actually, he had no idea how old El'el was. Could be twenty, could be two thousand. Who could tell it with the elves? Completely misinterpreting his silence again, El'el was getting teary-eyed.

Oh for fucks sake, wasn't she supposed to be better with understanding social stuff or something? She was so confident when she explained what happened with Mary. It was the same thing! He just forgot to answer, being lost in his thoughts again. Ah, right. He was supposed to do that in a conversation.

"Please don't cry," he said.

"People always blame me for that."

"I was not going to!" she replied with dignity, totally ready to cry.

"So, just to make sure, this is not a weird alien marriage proposal?"

"What? No!" She thrust her hands forward in panic, as if trying to physically stop the idea from existing. Then her expression got a bit more thoughtful.

"U-unless?"

"Nope!" It was his turn to wave his hands erratically, trying to beat the thought out of her head with the sheer erraticness of his movements. Who could tell it with the elves and their alien marriage customs? You might just say the most innocent thing, and the next thing you knew they were eating your firstborn.

"Nope, nope, nope! No way in hell! I'm not letting you eat my firstborn, or my soul!"

"What?! I am not going to eat your firstborn! Or that thing!" Good news, El'el didn't look like she was going to cry anymore. Now she was just offended.

"Secondborn?"

"Anyborn! I am not that kind of a Heretic! I do not consider myself a Heretic at all!" She paused mid speech.

"N-not that I a-am opposed to H-heresy at all. We are, unquestionably, ehm, allies in our c-common dastardly goals." She was even worse at lying than Lily. The current, weird-Lily, not the I-am-a-god-of-acting-Lily. Dennis narrowed his eyes. El'el averted her gaze, looking sheepish.

"Did you just say 'dastardly'?"

"I did not." Uhuh. Sure. He was starting to see the misconception. She thought he was a villain. Him.

"I got the title for killing the High Authority guy," Dennis said.

"He was a dick." He thought about it for a moment.

"I think."

"Oh." He saw tension leaving her shoulders.

"That is… much better than I feared. In light of this revelation, I would like to confess to a lie. I do not actually like Heretics or share their goals." Dennis released a heavy sigh. Okay. Maybe he should feel some camaraderie. Her flavor of social fuckupedness was a bit different from his, but no less present.

"So, did I get this right? You're just asking to hang out nearby so your ass will be protected from magical inquisition? Because I have an anti-scrying skill?"

"From Hunters," she nodded.

"Yes, essentially, though the danger is more substantial than just to my–""Sure," he shrugged.

"Pardon?"

"Of course I'll protect you from stuff," he said.

"That's, like, my whole thing."

"Oh."