DD 304 Ch 19 (Patreon)

Wanting some alone time, I used a portal to head over to the Haylon library to read my next lesson. Unfortunately, with the dwarves coming down the pipe as well as everything else, I was finding my Star City location too easy for people to find, and thus couldn't study there. In the Haylon library, there was a nice quiet corner where I hoped no one would bother me, but my presence had not gone unnoticed.

Even walking in, I was turning heads. Many of my underclassmen stopped to stare, wide-eyed, and so I snuck back into the stacks, finding an empty, quiet corner and settling in to read.

I had just started getting into the materials when I heard somebody step up behind me. A moment of dread that someone had followed to make a scene filled me.

"Fuck, now my spot is ruined." A familiar voice stated.

I turned to find Helen, her emerald eyes full of baleful fire as she stared at me. "What do you need?" I scowled.

Rather than answer, she just lifted a book in the air. "I just want you to know that you stole my spot," she said, pointing at the table I'd just started using.

I scowled, instantly wanting to pick a fight. At this point, there was just a permanent tension between the two of us. It felt like a fight was inevitable the second I found myself in the same room as her. “Not my fault.”

"Yeah, well, I didn't expect you to be here," she said, gesturing at her table. "If I'd known I'd have to fend off the fantastic Ken Negato, perhaps I'd have come with a sign so I could label it," she said, rolling her eyes.

"Well, I'm just here to read too. So if you promise not to be too much of a hassle, I'll share the table with you." I told her.

"How magnanimous of you," she said sarcastically.

"I like to think I'm pretty nice when I'm not dealing with you," I said bluntly. At this point I wasn’t going to get any work done. "Sit down. I don't have time or energy to deal with your shit today, Helen. It’s just a seat or am I that big of an obstacle?"

"Yeah, well, same." She plopped down with an arrogance that said ‘I’m doing this to prove you can’t get the better of me’. "This reading Crimson wanted us to do is horrible." She changed the subject, pulling her red curls back over her shoulder.

"Have you started?" I asked.

"Yeah.  I suppose Crimson rarely does things without a reason. The question is why we're reading about battlefield tactics. Also, I seriously thought ‘The Art of War’ was just a meme." She huffed and cracked the book open, a bookmark showing she had actually started it.

"I mean, you knew it was a real book, right?” I lifted a brow.

"Does it matter if it's real or not? The end result is still that I'm reading something more philosophical than practical." She huffed and focused on the open book as a way of ignoring me.

"Well, it's going to be important soon," I told her.

The paladin squinted. "You know why she's making us read this. Of course you do. She probably tells you everything after she’s-- she’s d-done with you." Helen struggled with the last part.

"She tells me a fair bit. We are, after all, together." I stated, expecting a sneer or for Helen to wrinkle her nose.

Instead, she just deadpanned at me, as if asking if I needed to say that out loud.

"Well, in case you didn't know," I said stupidly, trying to justify it after her expression.

"Don't worry, we're all well aware. Maybe give me a hint as to why we're doing this? Maybe then it'll make a little more sense for those of us who aren't sleeping with the teacher." She grumbled.

I choked on her bluntness. "There's going to be a conflict between a bunch of Threadspawn-infected dwarves and the rest of humanity," I said, deciding telling her would be fine enough.

"Really?" she asked, looking up from the book.

"Yes, really. Candice was negotiating with the UG yesterday, getting some sort of Provision Seventeen payment." I told her, hoping I had gotten that information right.

"Section forty-two B," she nodded to herself, smirking when she saw my face. "Do you seriously not know what that is? It's basic adventuring knowledge. The UG has utilized it a number of times over the years when they call on high level adventurers, they get to request payment," She said the last a little smugly. "And there's a big difference between a UG call to action with the article active versus inactive.”

“My grandparents have been retired, whereas I'm sure your mother has had to be more concerned with this particular rule than me." I told her.

"Fair," Helen said, and went back to her book, before looking up again with another question. "We're not full adventurers."

"No, but you're going to be asked to sign a document so that you're considered one for emergency needs. It's been pointed out to me, on numerous occasions, that the class and the Silverfangs are now quite the power amongst humanity." I explained.

"The UG is going to pay us, but then give us full adventurer status for emergency needs? You control the UG anyway. Why do they need to do that?" She asked.

I shrugged. "Formalities. If it got really bad, to the point the UG needed to take emergency measures, I'd probably call on the Silverfangs anyway. I guess now they just feel better having it more baked in and formalized. We're here to read, right?" I said, taking out my own book and beginning without waiting for her answer.

Helen stared at me across the table for a moment, before sticking her nose back into her own book.

Conversation done, the two of us were silent at the table, save for the occasional rustle of a page. After a while, I pulled out a bag of chips, popping it open, and she scowled. I figured it was at least polite to offer her some.

"I'm not going to be able to concentrate with your munching loudly," she said, like it was my fault.

"All right, then. What's the reading about?" I asked, peeling the bag completely open flat, so she didn't have to reach in, and neither did I. Talking the reading over would be a good way to internalize much of it.

The chapter we had been assigned was about a war from about fifteen years back. Although war seemed like the wrong term. It was more a scattering of battles adventurers had gotten involved in during a conflict in the Middle East. The UG eventually stepped in once it was determined that enough rules had been broken. And multiple countries had advocated for that support, concerned that the military use of adventurers was going to spread. It was one of the few adventurer-centric conflicts to have occurred on Earth, but it also gave decent insight into how some abilities could be used for other purposes. Crimson had also tied this to a reading on the Art of War for us to assess how they went about it all.

Helen munched on a few chips before she decided to answer the question. "I think it's a shitty use of all of our powers, not to mention the ethics of these adventurers that basically became mercenaries. Now we’re all looking at how to kill people?"

"Somehow, I doubt Crimson's particularly concerned about the ethics of all of it," I said, only to earn another scowl.

"Oh, she cares. Otherwise… do you have any idea how much money people probably offered her to go kill someone, or worse?" Helen pointed out.

I wasn't entirely sure what ‘worse’ meant, but ignored it for the moment.

"The Negato clan has its own ethics. You should have learned those as part of your initiation to the Silverfangs." I told her.

"Yeah, yeah." Helen waved a hand. "Fine. Let's focus on how to use our abilities to kill people."

"Well, there's obviously quite a bit covered on how they used abilities to deprive resources." I offered. The small war had been savage as both sides escalated, hiring more and more adventurers that it strayed from direct conflicts to trying to choke off each side.

She shuddered. "Using an ability that creates a small, localized sandstorm to ruin reservoirs was particularly heinous."

I shuddered in agreement. That part of the reading had been quite unfortunate and hard to read without having my stomach turn over. The collateral had been horrific, nearly a hundred thousand died of thirst.

"Otherwise," she said, "a lot of it still harkens back to standardized war doctrine, at least according to the book. Mostly this reads as why it's a really bad idea to let adventurers engage in conflicts. I don't know how much it particularly pertains to us, who are about to start one."

"I would actually agree," I said, feeling almost uncomfortable agreeing with Helen. "It's very much a lesson in what not to do. Though I would say it highlights the danger of drawn out conflict."

"Yeah. ‘Don't be an asshole.’ It's not that hard," she agreed with a laugh. "But most people are going to find it harder than either of us would believe. In any social system, there's someone with too much of something, and someone else willing to pay for it. Sadly it’s often propensity for violence."

"Well, here, we're in a position of power to do what we want with our abilities." I said, pulling another book out of my CID. This one was apparently the highlights of The Art of War.

"'Knowing one's enemy means you've already won half the battle,'" Helen quoted, and I rolled my eyes.

"That's the only thing most people can quote from this." I told her. "I was surprised it describes the ultimate victory as one won without fighting," I said, trying to continue the conversation as I picked at my chips.

"Somehow, I feel like people who try to read The Art of War really just want to start a fight, and probably plug their ears and sing along when it gets to actually fighting," Helen said. "Really, the biggest advice is deception and adaptability." She tapped the table. "Now that I know what all this is for, my first thought against the dwarves would be to go kill their queen."

She checked with me, and I nodded, encouraging her to continue.

“The advice here says to go after their weak points, but I'm not sure a giant dwarf with a bunch of regeneration and minions that'll throw themselves in front of her really counts as a weak point." She told me.

"I'd agree, unless you think of it as a weak point because that's also where all their reinforcements come from," I offered.

"Well, you can stop the reinforcements by keeping her busy. You don't have to fully engage right away, do you?" Helen pressed.

"Decent point," I said, probably sounding more surprised than I meant to.

"Was I not supposed to be intelligent?" Helen snapped.

"No. You just had a better point than I expected." I answered honestly.

She rolled her eyes and finished off the chips. "You know, I'm actually pretty good at school.” Sighing, she went back to reading her book.

"Never said you were a bad student," I told her, lifting up my book to join her. "You're just not usually cooperative enough to have a conversation with."

She scowled at me over the binding of her book, before letting out a snort that seemed to decide I wasn't worth the fight, and going back to what she was doing.

I shook my head. She was really impossible. The brief meeting with her mother came up in the back of my mind, and a small chuckle escaped my lips, only for her to slap the book down.

"What are you laughing at?" She snapped.

"You really shouldn't have told your mother we were a thing." I told her.

"What are you talking about?" Helen asked, though how defensive her posture was made it impossible for me to believe she didn't know.

I thought about The Art of War, and how it said to always strike at weakness, manage morale, and not give everything away. Lead with deception to gain greater understanding. "Well, your mother came to me and declared her happiness at us dating. Honestly, I was a little stunned, but I knew that if you'd lied, it was probably for a good reason. So I went ahead and rolled with it."

"Wait, you did?" Helen said, in complete disbelief.

“You're my classmate." I said, and shrugged. “Given the opportunity, I wasn't simply going to chuck you under the bus and watch it bump over your poor, lifeless body."

"Imagine that often?" she asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Sometimes, when I'm having trouble sleeping," I shot back, which only left us in an awkward stalemate as we stared at each other for a moment.

"Well, thanks, I guess," she said, sounding so thankful I nearly swooned.

"Don't mention it, really," I deadpanned. This small lie had turned into something more, but I couldn’t exactly back out now.

"Look, it's not like I wanted to lie. My mother is…" she hesitated, "...obsessed with trying to get me more romantically involved in the world." The way her nostrils flared, it was clear she wasn't the biggest fan of that concept.

"Yeah, well, I suppose I don't really get to say much to that. My love life's as complicated as they get." I joked. Fuck, I was in too deep.

"Rub it in," she scowled.

"Not really my thing," I said, and tried to go back to my book, lest I dig myself any deeper. Though it did feel like I’d grasped Helen’s weakness with this. Thanks Sun Tzu, but you didn’t exactly explain how to get out of this, after all I’m not trying to crush Helen.

"What…what did she say?" Helen was clearly not willing to let this conversation go just yet. 

“She asked a lot of questions though I was sure there were plenty she already knew the answers to what she was asking, so I had to be careful not to upset her more. I really did try my best.” There was no going back at this point.

"Nevermind. As long as she doesn't start getting me any sex toys as a result of your conversation, I think we'll be okay," Helen backed off.

I held my hands up. "Like I would even feel comfortable hypothesizing about that concerning you. Your mother, while she largely ignores tact, isn't so crude as to have that conversation with me in public."

"Fuck," Helen groaned, and covered her head. "Where was this? A cafe in France? Of course it was." She said after one look at my face. “And you didn't say anything weird?" she asked pointedly.

"I think I kept it fairly neutral." I told her.

"Well then… thank you." She struggled with the words, as if it had been physically hard to be that polite to me.

"You are very welcome," I said with my best smile, though it was clear she was barely paying attention, still caught up in whatever this meant between her and her mother.

"Well, back to work," I said, nodding toward the books.

She blinked, set her jaw like she was about to go stomping through the sewers, and focused back on the books before us.

"Thank you. And if it's not too much, I might have to ask a favor or two from you later. After all, you now have me caught up in this lie with my mother." She hid her face behind the book while she asked.

 I wanted to point out that it was more likely she owed me, but it was also pointedly clear she'd begun ignoring me, focusing back on the book in front of her. Letting it go, I focused back on my book and let her have the last word.