Chương 162: CDM 3, Chapter 38: Sweat Equity

In the absence of decent leads on a wild hunt, we opted to take Sunday off. None of us had taken a real day off in quite some time, so even if we felt the pressure to keep Dungeon Diva content rolling, resting was wise. I strongly disagreed that hanging drywall counted as rest, but Nathan had handled everything about the guild house so far. He coordinated all of the contractors, he ran the HVAC, and he paid for most of it.

I still contributed monthly as if I were paying rent, but he was resistant to my paying anything more than I did at our old place. Giving him a hard time about working on our day off would be a dick move. But holy shit was he right about drywall. I hated it almost immediately.

"A few points of strength really help," Nathan mused as we shuttled sheets to the second floor, prioritizing getting the apartments finished before anything else.

"This kid I played soccer with, his dad ran a drywalling business. I helped him for exactly one day." I laughed.

"Bro, it was wild. I struggled with one fucking sheet of this shit, like I couldn't believe how it could be so heavy and so awkward at the same time. Then my friend's dad walks by me, grabs three fucking sheets like it was no big deal, and walks into the job." Nathan was also right that points in strength helped. That didn't make the sheets less awkward, but weight wasn't an issue, and my endurance definitely wouldn't be an issue either. I was, however, immediately bored.

That got a little bit better when the drill came out, and we started to actually hang the sheets, but not by much.

"I've been thinking a lot about being an imposter," Nathan said when we were on the seventh sheet.

"Remember how mad Giago was when he met us? He was wrong about Megan, obviously, but man, if he thought that about the rest of us… Well, he was right about me."

"None of us were military going into this. We all had to figure this out on our own."

"I don't think that changes anything for me, though," he replied, speaking in the pauses between drilling screws.

"You and Megan have all the dungeon-crawling experience, and Rainy is Rainy. She has RAID training on top of that." I didn't reply right away. This felt too delicate to handle carelessly.

"Is this you deciding you don't want to do this, or do you want to do this but are worried you can't?" I asked.

"I think those are two different conversations."

"Oh, bro, I know you'd back me if I wanted out because I wanted out, you know? I just don't think it's fair for all your lives to be in my hands."

"Permadeath me whenever you're sick of talking about this. Am I wrong that this comes down to speed? You seemed perfectly comfortable with the slow and steady Diva method."

"I mean, more comfortable, not 'perfectly' comfortable. I still haven't seen shit compared to the rest of you, but yeah. I was managing the stress better before McDouglas harped on us about how long we took." We hung five more sheets as I mulled over the challenge. Nathan's fear was reasonable, and it came from a place of kindness. He knew he lacked experience, and he knew that the squad actually on the hunt would pay for any mistakes he might make.

And he'd have to watch that play out from the van where he couldn't do anything about it.

"Don't argue with me yet," I said as Nathan measured a cut, "but would you feel more comfortable if you gained the experience?"

"When you make it sound super simple like that, yes. I would."

"I think your knowledge gap breaks down into two skills. The first is piloting the drone at speed, and the second is reading a situation just as quickly." He paused with a screw in his mouth to think.

"Alright, Big Dorion. I can agree with that."

"The piloting skills are really just practice, right? You've seen those high-speed drone race videos. You're probably the one who found them first and sent them to me, actually. Couldn't you do something like that to sharpen your skills?"

"You're right. I could."

"Hornby and Giago might have more ideas for the second thing, but mine is to start playing airsoft or paintball." Nathan set a few screws before replying, "Lost me there."

"It's not SWAT training or anything, but those sports build on all the same principles. When you enter a room, you have to know where to look. You have to be sure you don't miss something. And all of that has to happen quickly. Kimmy is doing the same shit. She just doesn't have a gun." We went four more sheets before he finally talked again.

"I want to say you're wrong, but you're not. I could probably find a few video games that do the same shit."

"But…?"

"I haven't thought of anything other than, 'but I'm scared to fuck up.'""Can I make one more suggestion?"

"Proceed."

"Rainy might want to learn all the same stuff," I suggested.

"She's a little bored with the RAID drone job, and two Kimmys would have made the mall goblins so much easier. The Divas would take a financial hit if we got a second drone, but Uncle Sam loves to buy military shit. If we made the case for Rainy to run a secondary scouting drone, I bet we could get it approved." Three more sheets. If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

"Alright, bro. I'll think about it." We heard footsteps coming up the stairs. Megan popped her head into the apartment and looked all around at the work we had done. She had a dire guinea pig under her arm.

"Lil' Dorion was lonely," she said. Nathan frowned.

"I know, but the drywall dust is hard on his eyes and lungs."

"We could get him a mask and some safety glasses, probably."

"That would work." I laughed. When they both looked at me with confused expressions, I said, "You two weirdos are a good match."

"Three," Megan corrected.

"I'm weird, but I can never keep up with the Lil' Dorion roleplay." Megan scoffed.

"Sorry, Dor. I was counting Lil' D, not you."

"Of course. How did I miss that?" Even after a long shower, I still felt drywall powder on my skin, my fingers especially. Sitting down with a beer, knowing I didn't have to get up, felt like sinking into a hot spring. I let the slothfulness envelope me fully, and I was so committed to being a lazy piece of shit that I already had my second beer with me. No need to make a second trip. Nathan had his laptop out to queue up the latest episode of The Wilds: Race Alaska. I heard a few clicks but then quiet.

This happened sometimes. Nathan would be on his way to setting up a streamcast, and then one of his tabs would distract him, sucking him into a Reddit thread or news article. The duration of that distraction varied, with the record being 2 hours and 5 minutes before he remembered that he was about to turn something on. I really wanted to watch something and not look at my phone, so I capped my wait at 5 minutes.

"You good?" I asked.

"Oh, sorry, dude. Yeah, I was thinking about how to tell you about this story, and I might have read something else and lost track."

"What was the story?"

"Your parents are in New Canaan, right?" My chest seized.

"What happened?"

"More hobgoblin raids, but New Canaan wasn't hit."

"Jesus. Why would you say it that way?" Nathan paused.

"Okay, yeah, that wasn't great. That's on me."

"How bad?" I asked.

"Over 20 dead so far. So much for South America being reclaimed."

"The standard was getting the continent to a point where 'wild monster incidents in populated areas were uncommon.'""Feels common to me," Nathan said.

"Agreed."

"Anything you want to get off your chest?"

"No, that's okay." Nathan clicked play. Louis' team jumped into the first C gate they could. He explained that his party could sprint through a gate of that level so they could stack up points quickly while keeping an eye out for A gates. Valcuree's team, meanwhile, targeted a B gate that was a good bit farther ahead from Louis' C gate. On their way, they passed through what was left of Volgodonsk, a USSR city that had been built at the mouth of the Don River.

The route took Valcuree through row after row of Soviet-style apartment buildings. Some still stood, but most had open faces where bombs blew away walls, and several of the buildings were now big piles of rubble. The majority of that destruction was from when the gates opened and bombing the shit out of them seemed like the best idea. Hobgoblins crawled out of the ruins with bows and spears on both sides of the party.

The reality show timing–encountering a well-staged group of wild monsters for the first episode–was suspiciously perfect. The best theory Nathan and I came up with was that the showrunners scouted monster nests ahead of time and guided Valcuree's party there. The reactions from the crawlers themselves were convincingly genuine, so maybe they were encouraged to travel that direction but weren't explicitly told what to expect.

Nobody in Valcuree's party was under level 20, so two dozen hobs were not a true threat, but the level of organization displayed by the monsters clearly surprised the crawlers. Valcuree had been on two other seasons of The Wilds and fought wild monsters, but those were mostly beast-like creatures. The hobs had more patience, more savvy, and better coordination than a pack of dire wolves would ever have. It occurred to me then how scary intelligence could be.

And then the episode was over, ending on a cliffhanger so viewers had to return for the next episode to see how the fight ended. We turned on a random stream while we scrolled on our phones. I don't know how long we had been doing that when Nathan sent me a text. It was a link for a drone racing hobbyist group that met weekly in Carnegie. Then he sent me another link for an airsoft course.

"I probably shouldn't practice with Kimmy, huh?" he mused.

"I would be very sad if we wrecked that drone." It cost so much money.

"Yeah, I figured. I'm trying to find something close to it in basic specs that's cheaper. I don't want to get crazy badass at flying the practice drone only to biff it hard in front of McDouglas."

"Right. I suppose they would handle differently. Is that going to be difficult?"

"Unknown. I also need to pick out some airsoft shit, but bro, some of these guys are hardcore about this. They dress like their elite soldiers, and it looks really damn convincing. Like, I don't think an orange tip on the end of your perfectly replicated M16 is enough, bro, not when you're wearing camo, body armor, and a mask."

"Does this mean you've made a decision?"

"In progress."

"That's fair."

"You were right about Rainy, though," Nathan added.

"She is psyched about drone racing. Airsoft, not so much."

"I'm not surprised she isn't interested in airsoft. She seems like the kind of person who wants to be competitive but never has a good place to do it."

"She's not going to find competition with drone racing. I'm going to smoke her."

"Don't let her know that." Nathan laughed.

"Bro, I started shit-talking her immediately. As soon as she said she was interested, I had to bring out the game face."

"When did this start?"

"Six minutes ago."

"What if you lose at both trash-talking and drone racing?" I asked.

"Then we switch to a competition where I know I can win."

"Like what?"

"Ha!" Nathan answered, smiling.

"That is also unknown. I'll find something." My phone buzzed.

"We got a goblin hunt in Punxsutawney," I said.

"They attacked some kids, apparently." Nathan checked the time on his phone.

"We should be sober by then. We only had two."