Chapter 149: Chapter 137: Discomfort

Since I suddenly found myself with no plans for the day, I went to visit Adele, who confirmed that yes, she was responsible, but did at least promise not to tell anyone. Not that the promise helped much; Cluma would likely spread it on her own.

Really, I didn't mind Cluma's attempt at punishment; it was funny, and I regretted nothing. That didn't mean I wanted everyone to know about it, though. And, beyond that, Cluma had gone and caused complications, and I was rather lost as to what was going on. Tomorrow, I was going to need to drag her into a quiet corner of the dungeon to explain herself.

Alas, the following morning, I turned up at their house to find Clana and Camus in their living room, with no sign of Cluma. She wasn't in range of [Mana Sight] either. Had she gone out? Possible, I suppose, but given the way the two parents were staring at me, I was concerned it was more a case of being sent out. Was I about to get into trouble for the whole maid event? Hopefully not; while Camus was looking serious, Clana was wearing the scariest smirk I'd ever seen on her. I strongly suspected something awful was about to happen to someone, and I was the only target in the room...

"Good morning?" I tried fearfully.

Clana snorted. "Don't be so worried," she said. "We sent Cluma out on an errand. She'll be back soon; we just needed to talk to you alone for a few minutes."

"But first, let me apologise," said Camus. "Once again, I'm deliberately ignoring my daughter's wishes in order to protect her."

"We are," interrupted Clana, indicating that this time he had her full approval.

That got my brain spinning at a hundred miles an hour. He wasn't going to ban her from delving again. He'd given her a bow for her birthday. If that wasn't acceptance, what was? Were they going to ban us from leaving Dawnhold in search of deeper dungeons? But if that was the case, why were they having this conversation with me instead of Cluma? Were they going to try to convince me not to leave and take Cluma with me? But if it was any of that, why was Clana going along with it? Did she agree? And why was she finding it so amusing?

"Let me put this bluntly, since you've proven yourself unable to take hints," continued Camus. "Cluma has fallen for you. Hard."

...Huh?

Clana laughed again. "No need to look so stupefied. There's nothing wrong with that. People fall in love all the time."

"I'm more worried about the way he hadn't noticed on his own," muttered Camus, cradling his head in one hand. "How can this possibly come as such a surprise to you? She hasn't been hiding it anywhere near as well as she thought she had."

What? Cluma? When? Why?

"Cluma doesn't want you to know," Clana continued. "Apparently, you've expressed to her that your mismatch between your physical and mental ages has left you closed to any idea of a relationship, but that things may change at some unspecified point in the future. She wants to wait until you're ready."

Yes, I had told her that. But where were they going with this?

"We don't want her to spend the next decade of her life waiting for something that may never happen. I'm sure you can imagine what torture that would be," said Camus, answering my unasked question.

Were they going to ask me to decide here and now? I couldn't! Cluma was, in Earth years, not even sixteen. Admittedly, I'd been treating her as an equal for a long time already, and the thought of being more than friends with Cluma wasn't quite as bad as another random girl of the same age, but it was still not possible right now.

"Ih..." I tried, deciding I should at least say something in this conversation, but biting my tongue on the very first word.

Even Camus smiled at that, while Clana was enjoying herself far too much.

"Please don't panic," she laughed. "We're not going to force you to respond to her. You don't need to say anything at all. All we wanted is for you to know. We trust that's enough for you to not leave her in uncertainty forever."

Camus was right. She'd given me more than enough clues, not least over the past two days, but I'd been utterly blind. And that wasn't the only thing they were right about; I couldn't imagine how painful it would be for her if I continued as we were forever. Friend-zoned, but with a hint that maybe, at some unknown point in the future, things may change. Just enough to give her a grain of hope. Leaving her like that would be evil. How long would she last, pretending to be happy being just friends while avoiding other relationships, waiting for me?

Saying that, I hope I would have noticed at some point. I don't have any experience with this sort of thing, even including my time on Earth, but I'm not a complete idiot...

...I never would have noticed, would I? No wonder her parents are staging an intervention. But why? "We aren't even the same species," I said aloud.

Clana gave another snort. "So? Why should anyone let that sort of thing get in the way? Two doors down are a very happy human female couple, who love each other as much as any other family."

Well, of course it's a given that this world would have no homophobia, but... "Then what happened between you and my dad?"

For the first time in the conversation, Clana looked distant. "I couldn't give him what he really wanted," she answered. I already knew what it was that he wanted: children. "Didn't stop us that summer though; he picked up three points of endurance in those two weeks," she added, her grin returning with a vengeance. Thanks for that... Far too much information.

"Two years," I answered, after some considered thought.

"Pardon?" asked Clana.

I'd told myself that I would never get into any serious relationships. The weirdness factor aside, there was also the way everyone else was brainwashed. I'd forever be second-guessing myself. Did they really love me, or was it just the way their personality had been twisted by the Law? But the fact was that I liked Cluma. A lot. If it was with her...

There was no-one else I'd watched as much with [Soul Perception] as her. I'd seen the Law react when I'd asked her to hurt me, and that was something I'd never once seen before in all the time she lived with us, or ever since. I'd known her since the day she was born, and we'd grown up together, never apart aside from the time she spent in the Emerald Nest. I didn't think her personality was changed by the Law, she was just naturally... that.

We may be biologically incompatible, but if that didn't bother her, then it didn't bother me either. There were certainly no humans I was close to, as she'd pointed out in the past. Which was another point. If I tried to imagine anyone else attempting what Cluma had pulled yesterday, there was no way I'd have gone along with it. Yet, when Cluma tried it, I'd gone with the flow with barely a second thought. Even when she'd pushed things too far, I'd let her. And I'd enjoyed it.

Camus was right once more; I was denser than lead.

But none of that changed the fact that imagining a more physical relationship with her right now was impossible. Two more years here would be a normal age for starting a serious relationship on this world, and leave us both over eighteen in Earth years, comfortably into adult territory, even by my old standards. If I wasn't happy with it by then, I never would be.

"I'll be able to give a definite answer within two years," I said.

Camus frowned, presumably because that wasn't an answer he wanted. It could still, after all, leave her hanging for another two years, but before he could respond, the door burst open. Cluma stood there, frozen, on the verge of tears.

What had she overheard?

If she hadn't heard anything, perhaps denying that her parents had told me anything would be the best option, but given her state, I couldn't believe that was the case. In that case, in time honoured Cluma tradition, the solution was obviously a hug.

I leapt over with [Far Step] before anyone could speak and embraced her tightly. I whispered, "I'm sorry for being such a blind idiot," into her ear before giving her a quick peck on the forehead.

Her expression flipped from panic to confusion to bliss and back to a different sort of panic as her eyes bounced between me and her parents as if they were in some sort of race. Her face got redder and redder, until, still without anyone else speaking a word, she fainted. Apparently, I'm having a day off from the dungeon today too, then.

"What part of waiting two years involves kissing her?" muttered Camus.

"It was only on the forehead!" I exclaimed.

"You have a lot to learn about young maidens in love," giggled Clana, who was still enjoying this situation far too much. Was she reliving her previous fling with my dad through the pair of us? "She's probably going to want to yell at us for a bit when she wakes up. Why don't you come back in half an hour?"

In the absence of any sofas in their house, I handed the unconscious Cluma off to Clana to carry to her bedroom. "One more question before I go, but now that we've outgrown the Dawnhold dungeon, what're your thoughts on what we should do next?" I asked Camus, carefully phrasing it as a request for his opinion.

He pinched the bridge of his nose, looking pained. "Obviously, having been separated from my daughter for years already, I want her to remain here. You can still make a living from the Dawnhold dungeon. Or could, if you were even in it for the money in the first place."

He'd only been back here for half a season. Would Cluma even want to go at all? She finally had her dad back after so long without him. Was I really going to separate them again so soon? I could never ask her to pick between me and her parents, and me choosing to remain here for her sake would not make her happy. I really needed a way to travel and still get her back here to visit.

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"But neither of you are," he continued with a sigh. "You both want to grow, and that's not something you can do here. Since both of you are chasing the titles granted for clearing dungeons solo, you want a twenty floor dungeon next. There's one on serpent isle to the north-east, which isn't populated beyond the delver encampment. There's another in the southern part of the demon's territory, and one off the northern coast. Maybe there's more that have been discovered since my career change. You'll have to check with the delvers guild for details, but it's a safe bet that the northern one will be completely underwater."

Helpful advice, despite him not wanting us to leave. Serpent Isle or a mystery dungeon in demon territory, then. Xander had mentioned Serpent Isle a long time ago, and fitting in with the name, it was entirely snakes. I didn't have a snake phobia, but twenty floors of them did sound rather extreme. Whether I picked it depended on the contents of the demon dungeon, or if there were any others around.

But... Again, I couldn't leave and drag Cluma with me without a method of getting back here. I wasn't going to be responsible for splitting their family a second time.

With a sigh, I left the house and randomly wandered the streets of Dawnhold, lost deep in thought. Any of the mentioned dungeons would be out of [Weft Walk] commuting range. I'd been considering [Item Box]. [Distortion] wouldn't work, because the skill description explicitly called out a five centimetre per level limit on the distance between entrance and exit portal, and it didn't admit anything living anyway, but [Item Box] had no such restrictions written into the skill description. Could I use a detached lump of flesh as the anchor point?

I ejected a steel ingot from my [Item Box], using my biological teleport beacon back in the village. To my surprise, I found that it worked.

It was a hope, but a faint one. I would be very surprised if I was able to store Cluma using [Item Box], even if the description didn't explicitly state that anything living wouldn't work. But I didn't need to wait for Cluma to wake up to try it. There was a lack of sacrificial guinea pigs in the middle of Dawnhold, but I didn't need outside aid to get hold of a chunk of living flesh. I simply pulled off my own finger.

To my amazement, invoking [Item Box] worked without a problem. I could barely feel my finger, nor could I move it, which was a surprise given that distance had no effect at all, but it definitely still existed and was still healthy. I pulled it out and stored it again a few times, and it seemed to work with no ill-effects. Done experimenting, I reattached it, again with no issues. I repeated with a hand, and then my full arm, both of which worked equally well. Then again, nothing I'd stored had ever come out damaged, from potions and enchanted items to delicate servings of food. Was there air inside? A vacuum would have broken some of the stuff I kept in there, but food certainly stayed fresher inside than outside.

Given the weakened link to the outside, I didn't want to risk storing my head. Could I store an eye? While I could use first stage [Detach] on one, I couldn't remove it from my head. Given the [Item Box] behaviour that let me store worn items but not wear them, if I stored an eye straight from its socket, I probably wouldn't be able to reinsert it. I could do an ear, but all the functional bits were on the inside of my head, so that wouldn't achieve anything.

Oh, I could do my nose! I plucked that off, stored it, and tried to breathe with my mouth closed. I couldn't, but neither was all the existing air being ripped out of my lungs. So, not a vacuum, but no air either? Perhaps the space was sized and shaped perfectly to the stored object? It wasn't a vacuum, but there was simply no space around my nose. That would explain why I couldn't move my arm at all when I stored it.

So it seemed safe, at least for short bursts. Luckily, storing someone and releasing them at a detached body-part would only leave them inside the [Item Box] for less than a second. If I had to wait for [Redistribute], I wouldn't want to risk it. That was an option, then, even if it was quite a strange one.

What other options did I have? I could complete my current class and take the [Spatial High Mage] that I'd previously rejected, and trust that my bracelet of transport would apply to its teleport spell. I could pay a real space mage to wear my bracelet and teleport us both, but that wouldn't be cheaper than the portals. Could I negotiate free portal passage? To get unrestricted use, they'd probably want me to supply the level fifty monster cores, and there was no way I could harvest them yet.

I was fairly sure long-range communications devices existed, but unless they also supported long distance hugs, they'd be no substitute for real visits. Besides, I had no idea where to get such a thing.

By the time I returned to Cluma's house, [Mana Sight] informing me that my new future maybe-girlfriend was awake and pummelling Clana's chest, [Item Box] was still the best idea I'd come up with.

I knocked politely on the door, to give Cluma a chance to tone down the violence, but she froze up briefly and then fled back to her bedroom. This was going to be tough...

"Things didn't go well?" I asked.

"Only because someone went and kissed her," complained Camus.

"It was only on the forehead!" I repeated, hoping that if I said it enough, it would become a valid defence. "I was trying to be comforting."

"In front of my parents!" yelled Cluma from her bedroom. Apparently, she was listening. Was she going through some sort of hormonal teenage phase? Or was it really that embarrassing? It wasn't as if anyone had ever kissed me in front of my parents, but surely it wasn't that bad.

"I'm sorry," I said to her door. "I wasn't trying to embarrass you. Just reassure you."

Clana was still finding the situation entertaining. I wondered what, exactly, she'd gone through with my dad back in the day? The thought of dad dressed in my maid outfit, black lacy underwear included, brushing Clana's tail while she purred away, flashed through my head uninvited, leaving me in dire need of brain-bleach. Dammit, where's Erryn and her memory wiping powers when I need her?

"Stop being silly, Cluma," called Clana. "You can't hide in there for the next two years."

"Yes I can!" she shouted. But Clana mentioned two years? That was a diplomatic way of informing me that they'd told Cluma my answer, then. Or at least that she'd overheard that part.

Clana and Camus left for work, leaving the two of us alone to sort out the mess. The next two years were going to be awkward as heck. I was almost tempted to re-suspend my delving activities. Almost. I knew that wouldn't make either of us happy. We'd just need to cope.

"Well, if you're not going to leave, I'll just have to come in and join you," I called, opening the door. She was sat on her bed, clutching the sheet like a shield.

"I'm sorry," I repeated.

"Me too," she answered. "I got overexcited and took things too far, and now I've made things weird."

"Hey, you know me; I thrive on weird."

Cluma gave a sad little smile. "Two years, huh? Fine, friends for two years, and then... we'll see."

She shook her head, as if trying to throw off whatever she was thinking. "So, now what? Did you want to go back to the dungeon?"

"Before that, can I try an experiment?"

"What sort of experiment?" she asked suspiciously. "If it's going to itch anything like your recharge trick, then no."

"And to think you called Vyre's party wimps. No, I want to try to store you in my [Item Box]."

Cluma said nothing, but her emotionless stare conveyed her opinion far more clearly than words could have.

"I can't teleport you with [Redistribute], but I can put things in my [Item Box] in one place, and let them out elsewhere. It would let me teleport you. I did try it on bits of myself first."

"Wait, so I could have come to the Sapphire Peaks with you all this time?!"

"I only just thought of the idea! I only confirmed I could take things out of [Item Box] at the location of my detached body parts twenty minutes ago. If it works, you won't be able to move or breathe, and it'll probably be dark, but it doesn't hurt, and I'll let you out immediately."

Cluma stared unhappily before giving in. "Why did you have to take that stupid class? If you had a normal spatial mage class, your bracelet would have worked. But fine. Give it a go."

I touched Cluma and invoked [Item Box]. It didn't work. There was no feedback, but there never was for failures. I didn't think Cluma was too large to fit, so what was the difference between Cluma and myself?

"Well, are you going to try?" she asked.

I gave it one more attempt, this time watching with [Mana Sight], and saw my mana collide with hers and dissipate. Was that what caused it to fail?

"I already did, but you seem to be blocking it. Can you try emptying your mana pool?"

She complied, producing dozens of orbs of darkness, robbing the room of all light. Thank goodness I still had [Mana Sight] on...

I gave it another go, watching my mana collide with the small amount remaining in Cluma. Mine overwhelmed hers, flooding through her body, and, with a muted crack, she vanished.

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